It knew I would come out here. Their bodies are still warm, which means it just killed them. I have to get back inside the cottage!

His knees refused to bend, but he pushed on, stumble-running as fast as he could.

He didn’t hear the approaching footsteps until it was too late.

The beast leaped out from behind a tree, as if this were all some kind of game. Andrew pulled back, suddenly unable to figure out how to use the rifle.

Kate was right.

It was diseased.

In the full light of day, he could see how deformed, how sickly the creature truly was. The bones under its hideous face were knobbed and twisted. He thought of the movie The Thing, and how the alien tried to assimilate men and dogs, the underlying skeleton a mélange of impossible bony structures. This creature could have stepped right out of one of the frames of that movie.

There seemed to be less hair on its body than last night, though it was impossible to be sure. If it had mange, it was in the final death throes of the sickness. Open sores leaked various colors of pus.

Yet it still looked strong, bulging muscles flexing as it blocked his path to the cottage. The women were shouting something at him, but in his panic, he’d gone deaf.

Shoot it! Shoot it!

He couldn’t feel his hands. His arms registered the weight of the rifle, but it might as well have been held by someone else. Raising the barrel toward the creature was akin to trying to lift a car. He had to look down to see if his finger was on the trigger, bolts of terror racing through his body because he’d taken his eyes off the monster for even that one second.

The monster was close enough to swipe at him with one of its sharply taloned, massive hands, yet it simply stared at him, as if amused by the weakling who had the means of salvation in his hands and couldn’t do something as simple as point and pull a trigger.

It smiled, wet brown lips pulling back to reveal cracked yellow teeth, its gums black as oil, spotted with red, infected pustules.

Andrew pissed himself, resigned with the awareness that this monstrosity would be the last thing he’d ever see on this earth, its ungodly touch his final contact with a warm, living creature.

Who will take care of Kate?

In the end, that was all he really cared about.

* * *

The moment the monster erupted from the woods to stand in Andrew’s way of escape, Kate went wild with panic. Words spewed from her mouth that had no form, no true meaning, except for one – Andrew.