Have you ever been truly scared? Now, I’m not talking about some drunk driver cutting you off in traffic, causing you to slam on the brakes and damn near crash into a ditch kind of thing, but that surreal and visceral terror that makes you question what is even real anymore, sort of fear. That, ‘I’m looking into the eyes of the thing that will end my life’, kind of horror. Okay, that may be a little on the nose, but you get what I’m saying, right?
Even as I write this, my fingers are shivering like it’s twenty below in my house. It’s been a few days, but I’m still processing it, while barely having been able to sleep a damn wink since that night. When I do sleep, just about all I see is those damned eyes, cutting their reddened glow through the trees, or just one of them, peering through my window, just waiting for me.
Jill and I had met at a party a few months back, and we’d spent almost every day together since. The fact that my name is Jack, brought our mutual friends a lot of laughs, but it could get annoying at times. My buddy, Darren, has a cabin out in the woods, out near Carters Lake, and we were spending a long weekend with him and some other friends. We did a good bit of hiking over those days, to which we would return to the same jokes practically every damn time.
“So, did Jack and Jill go up the hill?” Darren would ask with a smile.
“Goddamnit, man…”
“Did you both have a buck and a quarter?” He squeaked out in between chuckles.
“Yeah, yeah. I came down with two-fifty. Haha,” Jill replied with a sigh.
Of course, Darren’s wife, Sarah, her brother, Dayne, and his husband, Blake, all cracked up, while I joined my girlfriend in her exhausted sigh. It had been funny the first, what, twenty times or so, but Christ it was getting old. Still, it had been a fun weekend to that point, even with the endless stream of the same lame punchlines at our expense.
The cabin itself was absolutely gorgeous; two floors, and five bedrooms, each with its own bathroom, a wide, wrap-around deck with a hot tub and the works. Darren came from a wealthy family, but he never shoved it in our faces or anything. I have a basic nine to five gig, and Jill was a nurse, so neither of us had the most comfortable and carefree lifestyle, but it was nice to spend some time amongst the far more financially stable. Not to mention, we were able to stay in this beautiful place rent-free, so membership does have its privileges, I suppose.
We had been out there since that Thursday, so we were only two days into our five-day stint at ‘Le Chateau du Darren’, as he liked to call it. As we approached that Saturday night, my buddy handed me one of his numerous credit cards, and asked if I’d mind making a liquor store run. He told me he wanted a bottle of Glenlivet, a few cases of Killian’s Irish red, and whatever else Jill and I may want. Who was I to refuse? He even tossed me the keys to his Hummer, which I’d been dying to take for a spin.
The cabin was nestled pretty deep in the woods, and the road that led to and away from it only barely qualified as an actual road, but the thick tires of the Hum-V handled it so much better than my little Honda. It took me a half a mile or so to get the feel for it, especially with it being at least twice the size of my tiny Civic, but before I knew it, Jill and I were hauling ass in the direction of the far better paving of the main road. The sun had already begun its descent for the night, and the liquor store was a good twenty minutes from the highway; thirty or so, counting the bumpy, graveled road through the woods, so it would likely be creeping up on ten by the time we got back.
It did feel nice to just spend a little time away from the group, and even better to be sharing the company of my lovely girlfriend. I had never met her before that party, but I was sure I didn’t have a chance with her until she approached me. Back then, she had pink hair down to the middle of her back, whereas these days she was rocking a vibrant purple, just down to her shoulders. It was the full tattoo sleeve and thick-rimmed glasses that grabbed my attention at first, as those are both features that I find absolutely striking, and she wore them so well.
I’ve always been something of a nerd myself, so after we spent a good couple of hours discussing everything from scary movies to anime, I was already on the brink of head over heels. I’m just a shaggy-haired dork from a small town on the other side of the state, so I could’ve never expected to have met someone who checked every single box I looked for in a partner. Sure, we had our share of pointless spats over our short time together, but that only made the makeup sessions so much more exciting. I almost wondered if we had those random disagreements with that factor in mind sometimes, but that may just be me.
As we pulled up to the intersection of the highway, that was probably the first time I noticed the sounds. We had the radio blaring for most of the ride, while we God awfully attempted to sing along, but I’ve always had a strange habit of turning down the volume at intersections, especially the busier ones. Don’t worry, I haven’t got some long-winded back story about some five-ton dump truck I didn’t hear because the radio was too loud or anything, it’s just something I’ve always done since I started driving.
Whatever the reason, that’s when I heard the howling, though I’m not entirely sure if that’s what I’d call it, to be honest. We’d been hearing plenty of wildlife over the previous days and nights, so I don’t know why this one jabbed a fork into my spine, but something about it, I don’t know, felt off, somehow. I didn’t know if there were any wild dogs or wolves in the area, but I’d heard anything from birds chirping, to squirrels squeaking around the cabin. There was the occasional barking, but I just assumed that to be some distant neighbor’s pet or something. If this wailing, gargled howl did come from a dog, it was from a breed I had never seen or heard of before, and it sounded to be a veritable beast of one too.
“You hear that?” Jill asked, looking as alarmed by the noise as I did.
“Freaky, right?” I replied, attempting to sound unphased, regardless of the fact it sounded as though it came from maybe yards from where we parked, waiting for a break in the traffic.
“Wounded animal, you think?”
“Maybe so. We’ll keep an eye out when we come back, yeah?”
She just nodded, before I turned onto the highway, cranking the radio back up to drown out any other potentially unnerving sounds. I still couldn’t say why that random wail got me so shaken up, in all honesty. For one reason or another, something about it seemed like it was directed at us, if that makes even the slightest bit of sense. It felt like it was threatening us, in a way, like the old haunted house movies, with ‘Get Out’ painted across the walls in thick blood, dripping down the drywall. Of course, I may well have been way overreacting. My mother always told me I was far too imaginative for my own good, so I tried to push it to the side, for the time being, while continuing on our quest for a trunk load of booze.
As predicted, it was getting close to ten by the time we arrived back at that slender opening to the graveled road, and, as much as I enjoyed driving Darren’s hummer, I was ready to kick back and relax. Jill was shifting in her seat, looking equally as tired of being on the road. I raised my hand to turn the volume down on the radio, before deciding not to follow through with my intersection ritual for once. Traffic had quietened down considerably, so getting back onto the rougher path went much smoother on the return trip, though I could swear I heard that awful wailing again, as soon as the front tires hit the gravel.
I was sure it had just been in my head, until my girlfriend gave me a sideways glance, before wrapping her fingers around my hand, resting on the center console. We didn’t verbalize our concerns this time, though our vehicular karaoke had not resumed since we hit the main road a good forty minutes before. When Jill screamed out, after we had only been back on the road to the cabin for a few minutes, I damn near slammed the Hummer into a tree.
“Jesus!” I yelled, fighting to keep control of the heavy vehicle.
“Did you see that!?’ Jill asked through heavy breaths.
“See what? What’s wrong?”
“The eyes! Did you see them!?”
“What eyes, babe?”
“They were right next to us, bright red eyes, just…”
Her words were cut short when another wailing howl echoed from seemingly right behind us.
“What the fuck is that!?” I asked, knowing full well my girlfriend had as few answers to give as I did.
We were both freaked out, while I pressed the pedal down with much more intensity than I felt comfortable with in both a vehicle I wasn’t used to, as well as a road I didn’t know too well. I suspect we were on the same page, though. Neither of us knew what the hell was out there, nor did we particularly want answers to that. I had to pull my hand free from her grasp, to focus on keeping the heavy and wide SUV from drifting too far to one side or the other, but the next howl that caused me to jump and scream out, sounded as though it was only feet from us at most.
When something slammed hard into the rear passenger side door, it took everything I had not to wrap the front bumper around the thick trees, while causing me to almost lose control of my bladder at the same time. The next wail was far more aggravated than the last, though I didn’t exactly have any basis of comparison for what qualified it to seem that way. The next assault; this time against the door I sat directly beside, forced me to lose my ability to keep the wheels pointed in the right direction, causing us to careen to the right.
Though there was only an overgrown field alongside the passenger door at the time, Jill and I were both yelling out as the wheels bounced across the elongated blades of grass, while almost getting lodged in the occasional dip. I still fought to guide us across the less desirable path, hopeful to escape whatever the hell it was that seemed set on tormenting us. That very battle came to a close, when one final assault to the left side of the Hummer, sent us tumbling across the grass and dirt, ultimately ending with a thickened tree trunk damn near crushing the roof down onto us.
We were both shaken, not to mention bruised and bloodied. Neither of us seemed to be badly hurt, though it was hard to get a full idea of our injuries; hanging by our seatbelts in a half-crushed Hum-V. We were trying to make as little noise as possible, while we worked to unbuckle ourselves, but I for one was certain that whatever knocked us from the road, would be unlikely to leave it at that. Everything around us had fallen almost unnervingly quiet, accentuating every single movement we made to break loose from the belts around us.
The smell of the varying types of alcohol filled the cab, almost causing me to feel a little nauseous, even if I hadn’t ingested a drop. Over the course of the heavy vehicle rolling, most of the bottles practically blew apart, as well as some of the cans. A mixture of beer, vodka and whiskey rained across us, but fortunately the majority of the glass shards didn’t make it up front.
Jill got herself free before I did, but when I finally had to use my pocket knife to slice through the belt, I almost fell on top of her, as she was now lying against the door, closest to the ground. I tried to check out her wounds to the best of my ability, but fortunately, they didn’t look too bad. She had a small gash across her left eyebrow, a few scrapes across her arms, and a nasty-looking cut across her left shoulder, where it appeared some of the glass from the shattered window of her door, or perhaps the exploding bottles may have sliced into her. I had a thumping headache, and my right wrist was throbbing, feeling as though it had inflamed a good bit, but I felt fine otherwise, aside from a certain degree of shock setting in.
I tried to peer through the windshield to see if I could catch a glimpse of our attacker, but the glass was cracked into spiderwebs and buckled outwards from the roof collapsing in on us. Jill and I were both breathing so heavily, that I felt like a panting dog myself, which only flashed me back to the haunting howls of whatever seemed set on laying us to rest. While I crawled into the back seat, in an attempt to see if I could make out anything around us, the headlights blinked, before snuffing out, leaving us in practically pitch darkness.
I worked my way back up front, extending my leg to push the windshield out. The crackling of the glass, and the stretching of the rubberized seal around it, provided another series of disturbing sounds against the otherwise silent forest. When the window finally gave way, what was left of it crashed to the ground, causing me to freeze in place, while my chest tightened. Jill wrapped her fingers around my arm, causing me to jump, from being so on edge at the time, that any unexpected sensation was enough to almost make my heart explode.
“Don’t!” Jill whispered, whimpering slightly as I reached out to pull myself through the opening I had just made.
“We have to, babe! We can’t just wait here for whatever that thing is!”
I felt her grip release, allowing my right arm to join the one that now held onto the window bracket. I was terrified, I wouldn’t even attempt to convince myself otherwise, but I knew we couldn’t just sit there and wait while hoping for the best. I felt the warped and crushed Hummer rock and tilt as I worked my way out into the field, next to the treeline we slammed into. Jill was visibly shivering as I held out my hand to help her out. She reluctantly reached out, before another of those haunting wails, howled out from a direction I couldn’t pinpoint.
“No…I can’t!” Jill said, with tears pouring down her face, pulling back away from me.
“You have to! I’m not gonna leave you here!”
“N-no…you go…get help!”
“Jill, I am not about to just fucking leave you here! We have to stick together! I’ll protect you, you just have…”
“How the fuck can you protect anyone from something like that!?” She was bordering on hysterical, belting out the words in between moans and whimpers.
To be completely honest, I couldn’t deny she had a point. How the hell could I do anything to keep her safe against something that can swat a massive SUV off the road like a fly? I didn’t want to leave her behind, but there was no time to debate our situation with some sort of beast toying with us. The whole idea of that still felt almost ridiculous to even consider, but it was the only theory that made any sort of rational sense.
“Ok,” I said, still feeling uneasy about this course of action, “you stay here, and I’ll go get help.”
She just nodded her head, still trembling all over.
“Get into the back, behind the seats. Stay hidden and keep as quiet as you can, ok?”
Another nod, as she worked her way into the back, not taking her eyes off me.
I didn’t like this. I didn’t like leaving her behind, but it would seem I had little choice in the matter. I looked around while fishing in my pocket for my phone. To my amazement, it was still functional, though the screen had a few new cracks.
“You got yours?” I asked.
She looked stunned for a moment, before leaning back towards the front seat, feeling around for her purse. I crawled halfway back in to help, before she finally grabbed onto the strap, just in front of where she had been sitting. She pulled out her untarnished phone, looking back at me with a strained smile.
“Anything happens, you call me, ok?”
She let out a heavy and stuttered sigh,
“No service…fucking figures,” she chuckled, but it was about as phony as a laugh could sound.
“Goddamnit,” I said, with what felt like an even more forced and falsified giggle.
“Just go…I’ll be ok here…”
“I’ll be back as soon as I can, okay? I’ll bring help, one way or another.”
She nodded again, before,
“I love you,” passed through her lips.
We still hadn’t spoken those words to one another, but I can’t deny they had been lingering in my mind for a while now. Of course, I had most certainly hoped for a far better situation to reveal these feelings, but it still made a warmth spread through me I hadn’t realized was lacking from my extremities at the time.
“I love you too,” I said, with a far more enthusiastic smile than I knew myself to be capable of.
She beamed back at me, and that alone lit a fire under me to find a way to get us both through this in one piece. We just looked at each other for a few more moments, until she shrank away behind the side of the passenger seat.
“You stay hidden, no matter what you hear. If it sounds like hellfire is raining down around you, don’t even think about coming out!”
She didn’t speak, only raised her upturned thumb from behind the seatback. Were it not for the circumstances, I would’ve found it sort of cute, but I needed reassurance on this.
“Baby, I need you to promise me…”
“…yeah…I hear you…I promise…” whispered from the back.
My heart was jackhammering as I turned to face whatever lay ahead of me, still feeling quite lost amongst the foreign surroundings. Fortunately, my eyes had grown somewhat accustomed to the darkness, with the crescent moon above, lending a hand. I still couldn’t figure out why whatever had attacked our vehicle had suddenly taken it upon itself to disappear, but I wasn’t about to let my guard down.
I gripped the hilt of my pocket knife so tightly, that I felt as though I would dig my fingernails into the flesh of my palm. I was sure it would offer little protection against something that could so easily force a heavy SUV from the road, but it was my best and only defense at the time. I crept onwards, still trying to remain as quiet as possible, which was no easy task with discarded branches, and dried-out leaves lining the ground beneath the grass, even in the open field I was crossing to seek out the road that led back to the cabin.
I had no way of knowing how far I would have to walk to get back there, but I was sure I was closer to that than the highway we left in the dust. When I was finally able to make out the graveled road, the open field led me to another section of dense forest. It was much easier to keep myself concealed behind the trees, but after a good half-mile of hiking, I walked out into another wide-open area. I had been steadily growing more confident that I may actually survive this when yet another wailing howl echoed across the darkened trees to the left of the road.
It was close; far closer than I think I even realized at the time. Though my breathing had begun to settle down over the last handful of yards, I was now on the brink of hyperventilation, frozen in place, erratically cutting my eyes across the trees. It was around that time that I came face to face with a far more visceral and heart-stopping fear than I had ever imagined possible. It took me a second to realize that the glowing, red lights, shining from between the trees, were the illumination of two eyes, peering back into mine.
I heard a gnarled growling sound that came from just below where the twin glowing eyes, softly lifted and lowered, as though whatever they belonged to was panting with heavy breath. I could feel the blood draining from my face, while the nausea of gazing into my mortality churned in my stomach. As the rough growl grew more aggravated, the eyes sunk lower, giving me the image of something preparing to pounce.
“This is it,” I thought, “this would be where I meet my end.”
It happened so quickly, that my mind could barely grasp what I was seeing. The rumbling and gargled sound, blended with the snapping and shattering of branches and bark, when the behemoth burst from the trees, right at me. I screamed out, feeling as though the throbbing veins in my temples were about to erupt, squirting a healthy stream of blood to each side. I brandished my small pocket knife, as though I were wielding Excalibur itself, when in reality, I had a fucking three-inch blade trained on what looked to be about ten feet of darkened fur and muscle, speeding right at me.
I felt my body soaring backward through the air after a giant hand swatted me across the chest. I knew something was broken when I made contact with the ground, but I was in so much shock, I had no way to know what had snapped, only that it hurt like a son of a bitch. I raised my dizzy head, to see the thing charging right at me on all fours. It looked like an enormous wolf, though its eyes still shone that eerie glow, illuminating the elongated, wrinkled snout, while thick drool slobbered from its gaping maw.
I had no time to get back on my feet, so I rolled forward, swinging my pitiful little blade through the air before me, just in time to make contact with something. I don’t know where on the beast I hit, but it let out an ear-piercing squeal, that almost caused me to reach across the grass I perched on. Before I had a chance to react, the thing leaped from before me, disappearing back into the trees. I looked down at my trembling hand, to see thick, dark blood dripping from the short blade, along with a chunk of black fur, wedged into the hinge of the folding mechanism.
“RUN, YOU DUMB BASTARD!” The voice in the back of my mind yelled out at me, though I still knelt in place with my mind reeling.
“FUCKING MOVE!”
I lifted myself, feeling no strength from the legs that twitched and shivered before I convinced them to start running. My chest was burning, but I had no time to investigate how strongly the blood was flowing from the gashes left in the wake of the claws that carved through my shirt and skin. Everything hurt, from my back to my legs, along with what I assumed to be a broken rib or four, as they stabbed into my insides as I forced myself forwards. As my side split, I almost allowed myself to slow down, until another anguished and angered howl bellowed out from behind me, convincing me to push through the pain that almost caused me to break.
The agony had grown almost impossible to tolerate, but I wouldn’t let up. Not only had I royally pissed this thing off, but I still had to find a way to get back to Jill, who I prayed to God was still safe. Maybe twenty or thirty feet ahead, I saw a familiar ridge, which, if memory serves, was right at the edge of my friend’s property. My painful sprint had slowed considerably, especially since I was now running uphill, hopefully towards salvation.
I reached the top of the ridge, where the ground leveled back up again, to sure enough see the lights from Le Chateau du Darren, just ahead in the distance. My lungs were practically begging for me to allow them to relax for even a second, but, when I heard that growling, panting wheeze coming from behind me, accompanied by four heavy feet beating against the surface of the ground, I had to force them to work much harder than I had up until this point.
I screamed out through my straining breath, pleading with as much effort as I could for my friends to hear me, as I forced one foot in front of the other. There are no words to truly describe either the amount of pain I was in or the true and horrifying fear I was experiencing, as I heard those weighted paws trample the earth beneath them. I just kept yelling out, and practically squealing the words, “Help me,” over and over, until I finally saw the door open ahead of me.
“Who the hell is out there!?” Darren’s voice called out.
“IT’JACK…GODDAMNIT! HELP ME!!”
“Jesus Christ!” I heard call out, as I neared the cabin, with my feral pursuer sounding closer to me by the second.
I was so close, but I just knew I would be torn to ribbons by the time I reached the open door. I could feel the foul breath and sticky saliva spritzing across the back of my neck, while the jagged bones still worked on ripping through my insides. When I heard the panting only inches from my ear, a gunshot rang out through the night, before a second caused another shrieking squeal to wait out from almost right beside me. Just before I fell onto the wooden steps of my friend’s front deck, I heard those scampering feet quietening more and more as they sped away, back in the direction I had fled from.
I stared up at my friends, who had all gathered up on the patio, feeling a sense of indescribable gratitude, before everything went black.