When I was 14, I got really depressed. As I mentioned before, I started blaming myself for my little brother’s death and thought that my entire family hated me. I was wrong, of course, but it didn’t matter. I hated myself for it. I still didn’t know Elle and Caitlyn at the time, and Jessica just started to distance herself from me. It was probably the worst time in my life. When the only people you can talk to are the ones you believe hate you the most, you don’t believe that you really have anyone to help you with anything. You become depressed and lonely and all you do is hide in your room and cry. However, the worst part is how you start to view yourself.
I believed I and my entire existence were completely pointless. My life was worth nothing in my eyes and I did not understand why it would mean anything to anyone. I got a very nihilistic view of the world and it made me isolate myself even more. At first, I feared death because I believed there was no life after it. I thought that all there is in the afterlife is just your consciousness gliding through the endless void, or even worse, you are positioned nowhere with no ability to perceive anything. The only thing you have are thoughts and just being able to think and nothing else for eternity just sent chills down my spine each time I thought of it. With time, I started to believe that I shouldn’t fear death since I believed my existence in life and after it are equally as meaningless.
At that time, I felt this emptiness… this emptiness I did not want to experience again since it was one of the worst things a person can experience. Caitlyn and Elle were the ones who managed to get me out of that miserable terrible state and I was and will always be thankful to them. I expected to never again experience that terrible almost inescapable dread and fear of meaninglessness and worthlessness that makes you shiver and curl up waiting for a slow death. But I did. I experienced it after seeing those glowing eyes in camera number 5. The dreadful look it gave the camera felt personal. It felt like it wanted to face me exclusively. I didn’t know if that was its intention, but it sure as hell almost destroyed me from the inside. If only those eyes stayed there for another few seconds, my soul would have shattered. But it didn’t stay there.
Terrence and I heard a click as we saw the eyes dart away from the screen. It disappeared. We didn’t know where the creature was headed but Matthew found a way to find out.
“Caitlyn,” Matthew said over the walkie-talkie. “Where is the monster headed towards? Over.”
“Just a second,” Caitlyn was hyperventilating. “I… I believe it’s headed… oh God… OH, GOD! IT’S COMING HERE.”
“Terrence, Taylor. Get to the car,” Matthew ordered while running. “Over.”
“Understood,” Terrence replied. “Over.”
We immediately stood up and started running towards the car. When we were halfway there, we heard Sarah’s and Caitlyn’s screams. A sound of glass shattering was followed by Caitlyn’s screams exclusively. Terrence and I started running as fast as we could.
“Ger here faster!” Caitlyn yelled over the walkie-talkie. “It… it got Sarah,” she cried and screamed.
We could hear her screaming coming both from the walkie-talkie and front in front of us. Through all of that screaming, we heard a gunshot and stopped for a second. Terrence and I looked at each other and he turned on the walkie-talkie.
“Was that you, Matthew?” Terrence asked. “Did you kill it? Over.”
“NO! IT WASN’T ME. GET TO THE FUCKING CAR!” Matthew shouted over the walkie-talkie.
Terrence didn’t even wait for my reaction. He just started sprinting and I followed him. It started raining and it suddenly got colder. As we got closer, we heard Caitlyn’s scream for one last time before it all went quiet apart from my and Terrence’s footprints. Only 10 seconds later, we arrived at the car. The rain prevented us from seeing it earlier and I don’t know if it made me feel better or worse. I turned on my flashlight. The monster’s hind legs were protruding from the front window. They were thin and covered in dark brown fur. In some parts, it looked like proper fur while in others it looked like there was barely any hair. Its true skin looked pinkish. It slowly pulled itself out of the car and revealed its entire body in its dreadful appearance.
It had a human-like body structure when it came to its posture. It was standing like a human, but its back was incredibly hunched over. Its legs I mentioned previously resembled that of a dog, but its arms were different. They were long and thin and ended in long-fingered hands with large talons instead of claws. They hung from the monster’s torso so long they almost fell lower than the monster’s knees. Its torso was haunting. The lower part was so thin it seemed like nothing but a spine and tightly shrunk organs could fit in it. Its chest was so boney it was hard to look at it. Its arms and back were covered in fur, somewhere thick and somewhere barely present, but it was there. Its belly and chest had no fur. It was just its thin pink skin.
The worst part was its head. It resembled a very skinny malnourished mix between a dog head and a human head. The back part of its skull resembled that of a human and the position of the ears was human-like. Instead of being completely covered in fur, it had a few long hairs poking out of its skin. It was a bit more condensed than in other places, but you could still see the pink skin through it. Instead of a nose, it had a snout and jaws of a dog. However, unlike dogs, it smiled. The mouth went from ear to ear and it made it look like the creature was smiling but had no idea that it did. Caitlyn’s and Sarah’s still warm blood dripped from its jaws. Its eyes glowed because of my flashlight and pierced me with their hatred and desire for death and blood. It was a monster like no other.
It stood there, looking at us before straightening its back and looking towards the night sky. It spread its arms and let out a sound. It was like a combination of a gurgling, growling, and whistling. It seemed like it was unable to make the sound it wanted to but still tried. After it was done, it crouched down and looked at us while still letting out the gurgling sound. The whistling and growling stopped and it seemed like it was going to jump at us, but before it could, a gunshot rang out through the air and made it stumble forward and fall off of the car. It squealed as its head hit the ground. I looked beyond the car and saw Matthew standing there with his rifle pointed to where the creature was before he shot it.
He lowered his rifle and kept looking at us. We believed it was all over, but we were so wrong. In a matter of a second, the monster jumped up, turned around, and screeched at Matthew. It jumped onto the hood of the car and Matthew shot at it once more. The bullet hit it but it didn’t seem like it did much. It jumped onto Matthew and he lifted his rifle to prevent the monster from biting him. Its jaws bit onto the rifle and got Matthew down onto the floor.
“RUN!” Matthew yelled. “GET TO THE HOUSE AND CALL THE POLICE!”
“NO!” Terrence replied. “WE CAN’T LEAVE YOU HERE.”
Terrence lifted his rifle and pointed it toward the monster. Matthew yelled at him telling him to stop and go to the house. He knew we weren’t able to do much or anything to the monster since the bullets didn’t stop it at all.
“Taylor,” Elle called after me crying and I saw her emerging from behind the car.
I took a step forward, but as soon as I did, Elle stepped into one of the bear traps and fell onto the floor face first. I stopped and lost all of my breath. I watched as Elle turned around and took a look at her leg. It was almost split in half and her bone was protruding out from it. She let out a scream but I could not hear it. I could not hear anything around me. Not rain, not the monster, not Matthew, Terrence nor Elle. I turned towards the car and after seeing the monster for one last time, I snapped out of it. I turned to Elle and started to walk towards her to help her.
“NO!” she shouted at me. “Return to the house. Call the police. I’m done.”
“Wh… What?” I asked.
“Leave me!” she said. “You need to call the police.”
“I’m not leaving you here,” I said taking a step forward.
She lifted her rifle and pointed it at me.
“Don’t think that I won’t do it. If you run, you may survive and get someone to deal with the creature,” she explained. “But if you stay to help me, you’ll die by the monster. Me shooting you would be a mercy kill.”
Tears started to fall down my cheeks. I felt Terrence grab my arm and pull me away from Elle.
“I love you, Elle,” I cried. “I’ll miss you too.”
I saw her give me one last smile before I returned and started running back with Terrence. The damage the creature did to the car made it undrivable and I just couldn’t sit down onto the blood and organs of my best friend.
“I… I can’t run,” I told Terrence as he was pulling me through the forest.
“Drop the gun!” he yelled back. “It’ll be easier!”
I took the rifle off of my shoulder and dropped it to the floor. We continued running until we heard Matthew scream. Terrence stopped and turned around and I ran into him.
“No, no… no, no, no,” I tried pushing him. “Turn around! RUN!”
He looked into my eyes with a sad and terrified expression before turning around. He continued running and dragging me behind him. After a few seconds, we heard the whistle part of the sound the creature made earlier. Immediately after it finished, we heard 6 gunshots one after the other before hearing Elle scream. No matter what, we continued running hoping that the creature isn’t that fast. We also hoped that it forgot about us and just focused on eating the corpses. It was a very dark and selfish wish, but I needed to survive and my life was more important than their bodies.
I chuckled when we stumbled out of the forest and onto the road that led to Terrence’s house. I told myself that we were going it as we ran for that last part. When we climbed onto the front porch and Terrence was about to open the door, I heard the gurgling coming from the direction of the forest. The monster jumped onto the front porch over the railing and landed on the porch on all fours. The unintentional smile it had sent shivers down my spine and the fact that it strongly resembled a dog in some parts of its body only made it worse. It slowly took a step forward slightly raising the front part of its body. As Terrence tried to point his rifle at it, I turned around and jumped over the railing. After falling to the floor and getting my legs and hands covered in mud, I crawled to my right taking cover from the rain under the tin plate where they put their car. Since one of the cars stayed in the forest and the other was practically unusable nor did I have a key for it, I could just stay there hoping that Terrence would survive and that the creature wouldn’t find me.
I heard a gunshot from the front porch followed by a grunt coming from Terrence, then a shout. Terrence fell from the front porch breaking the railing and falling into the mud on his back. He was unconscious and I let out a yelp. He was followed by the creature which dropped from the porch onto its hind legs preparing to kill Terrence for good. Instead, it heard my yelp and its head jerked towards me. That damned smile and gurgling sound. It slowly took a step forward while I tried getting away by crawling backward. It was, of course much faster and covered double the distance I did in the same amount of time. I tried getting in between the car and the wall of the house, but I realized the creature was thin enough to follow me. However, it was worth trying. While doing so, I felt my left hand touch a canister. I took a look to see what it was and an amazing idea immediately popped to my mind.
It was a plastic gas can. I took it into my lap and since it was completely full, it was harder than I expected. Using all my strength, I threw it onto the monster. It slashed at the canister with its claws and split it into two pieces getting some of the gasoline over itself while the rest poured onto the floor. I took out the lighter that Matthew gave me, turned it on, and threw it onto the creature. As soon as the zippo collided with the monster, the part of its body covered in gasoline lit up on fire. While the zippo fell onto the floor and lit the rest of the gasoline on fire, the monster stepped around screeching and screaming. The sounds it let out along those were so haunting I had to cover my ears.
As I was watching it stumble around and realizing that it won’t fall, I took out a handgun Matthew gave to each of us. After pulling it out of the holster, I aimed it at one of the creature’s legs and took a shot. First missed but second and third hit it making it fall onto the ground and the flames overtook it completely. The sounds it was making became even worse. I watched as it rolled on the ground burning and trying to get rid of the fire. I saw its eyeballs pop and tried crawling away. In the end, it rolled onto its back and tried reaching toward the sky with one of its arms. A second later, the arm collapsed back to the ground and the monster’s head turned to the side. I took in a few deep breaths before falling unconscious due to shock and stress from the entire encounter.
Both I and Terrence survived and there’s so much more to the story even after all of this has happened, but I won’t be the one to talk about it. I’ll leave it for someone else to finish. I only wanted to mention a few things. I found out what that French woman and the guy from New Mexico were doing. Terrence and I have been going to therapy and it helped us a lot. Since we were the sole survivors of the incident, we chose to stay together no matter what. We mourn all those who have fallen victim to that monstrosity. Matthew, Sarah, Caitlyn, and Elle will forever be remembered as heroes and we will love them all no matter what.
Before I leave, I want to tell you one more thing. Stay safe… not sorry. That would be all.