#ohuntr

The path Samuel is on is normally considered safe at night; the ground is fairly even and the road straight and decently wide. As he rides, Samuel’s left side is flanked by woodlands, sat some distance behind a sizable grass embankment that keeps him a good distance from the trees and on his right, exists nothing more than flat, expansive cattle land.

Visibility would normally be good too, but tonight his view of the road ahead is obscured by a thick fog which has risen up from the fields to take position all around him. It is not the thick dark forest, the black night nor the dense fog that has Samuel questioning his decision to take this path tonight, but rather it is the sight of mutilated animal carcasses that have him on edge. The first was a sheep, though admittedly it was only the clumps of wool drifting across the field that made it obvious; what was left of the creature was no more than a tangle of ripped flesh, stringy sinew and blood, blackened by the moonlight. Samuel had thought wolves responsible until he had spotted no less than three cows left in a similar manner; their guts strewn across the field to become dinner for the crows. Too much has been left for this to have been wolves and bears rarely venture this far down into the valley and so Samuel remains ignorant of the cause, though he is beginning to fear it.

Slowing his horse, wary that he cannot see what dangers might lie up ahead, Samuel turns as he hears a strange chittering sound coming from the trees. Narrowing his eyes, he tries to focus on the dark, on the distance between the trees, but sees nothing; no movement, no sharp yellowed eyes peering at him through the dark, though shortly after, his attention is directed towards a strange scraping sound. At first, he can see nothing though the fog, but as the noise becomes louder it is then he sees them - large, thick claws curling round the trunk of a tree, scraping off the bark, each at least ten inches in length. He should be kicking his horse into a gallop right now, but as his intrigue gets the better of him, instead he finds himself slipping his rifle from his saddle to point it towards the trees.

When it begins to emerge, Samuel expects it to be some kind of bear, a hybrid of some sort, large and gruesome, but nothing prepares him for what actually stumbles out of the trees. Through several pairs of raw, lidless eyes it stares at him, starkly naked, pink and hairless and Sam’s sure, even at this distance, that it is at least twice the size of any bear. Its mouth is lipless; an open sore and as it extends its horrific maw, Sam can see row upon row of blood-stained, needle-sharp teeth. Still, if he thought the mere sight of it was hideous, it is nothing compared to the noise it makes – a howl that sits somewhere between the sound of an injured pig and a lonely coyote.

The cry it makes is more than enough to cause his horse to panic and as Diego rears up, Samuel is roughly thrown from his Saddle, to land hard on the cold ground. Watching with horror as his Mustang disappears into the thick fog up ahead, Sam turns towards the creature only to discover it is beginning to edge closer. For a brief moment there is mostly silence and the sound of Samuel stumbling to his feet, scraping around in the dirt until he has hold of his rifle once again...