Of the Shadows

Chapter 8: Run

My hand reached Angie's. "RUN!" I screamed and yanked on her hand, pulling her from her trance. We ran. Whatever gazelle-like grace Angie had when she thought she was saving Chris was gone now. Every time she tripped I yanked her back up and urged her to keep going. Now was not the time to be in shock.
"Keep going Ange!" I yelled pulling her behind me. I could hear her panicked breath behind me. I didn't look back I just kept running. Twigs whipped at our ankles, and creeping thorny vines niped at our calves. I couldn't hear the creatures footsteps but I knew it was behind us. It moved through the trees like a breeze through the leaves. If it weren't making that God awful noise, like a thousand crying souls, I would've thought we had out ran it. We would be out of the woods soon. My breath burned in my lungs and my heart beat wildly. I could feel my pulse from my temples to my toes. I kept repeating in my mind just keep going.
The thumps of Angie's feet racing behind me drove me forward. We could make it. The forrest was starting to brighten ahead. Just a handful of trees left. We could make it.
The wailing stopped. Somehow I felt no relief. I looked back and couldn't see the creature, just a terrified Angie looking back at me.  Her hazel eyes were coated with fear as she took in sharp uneven breaths. Neither of us could keep this up for long. I told my feet to keep moving, so I did, gripping Angie's hand tight.
It started raining. It was a hot rain. The warm kind of rain you'd get in the thick of summer. Angie must have gotten a second wind. I thought as we ran. She was dragging a lot less so I conjured up some strength and bolted forward.
"We're almost there." I turned to reassure her at the same time one of the "hot rain" drops hit my tongue with the metallic twang of copper. I fell to the ground in shock, Angie's headless corpse landed on top of me. Her blood coated my mouth and dripped down my throat as I screamed.  Her body twitched on top of me as I struggled to push her off of me. I gasped for air through the thick blood in my throat. An unnatural wail escaped my lips as I worked my way out from underneath my friends body and drug myself away from her. I had managed to put a few feet between us when the monster pounced on Angie's corpse and latched its teeth around her severed neck. It slurped her insides out through the opening. Her intestines hung from its mouth before it used its tongue to shovel them down its throat. It then wrapped its tongue around the part of the spine that was exposed and tore it from Angie's body.  It crunched on the vertebrae like popcorn.
The creature had to be between 8 and 10 feet tall. It resembled the trees that surrounded it- if those trees had broken flesh instead of bark. A peice of the deer head hung from the back if the creatures skull. Its black eyes were sunken in like its cheeks. It looked as though it had starved for years. Sharp teeth jutted from its mouth. Blood seeped from its flesh.The stretched out, warped skeleton of the beast was humanoid in nature. Its spine was elongated to a sharp tail. On that tail rest Angie's head. I cried at the sight of my friend's lifeless face.
I knew I needed to get up and try to run away again. If I could just get to my car I might be able to escape.
I couldn't.
I was stuck where I was, eyes darting from Angie's head swaying on the beast's tail to the husk of what remained of her body. The monster flung her deflated corpse over its shoulder and turned its attention to me as if it had just noticed me. It reached me in three unnaturally quick wide strides. It walked on its hands and feet like a rabid dog. Its movements were twitchy. The stench that wafted over me was horrendous, like buckets of rotting meat. My breath caught in my chest as the creature leaned over me, its foul hot breath made my eyes water. I knew in that moment that I was going to die. 
Its tongue was rough like sandpaper as it licked Angie's blood off of me.  It opened my flesh as if the tongue were coated in shards if glass.
The  monster's many voices screeched in agony. Its tongue smoked like my blood was made of molten rock. The creature wiped at its tongue desperately trying to separate the liquid from its flesh. It scraped tge smoldering muscle on the ground before it fled deep into the woods, carrying my friend with it.

I sat there, trembling, blood and saliva sticky on my skin. I wasn't sure what had happened. I should be dead. Angie was dead. Just minutes ago she was holding my hand and running with me. Just minutes ago we had hope. Now she was gone. I allowed tears to run down filthy cheeks and forced myself to get up. I had to get out of there. I started walking towards Angie's yard. My flesh stung from the scratches left by the creature.
I saw a scuttling in the woods. Something else scurried past so close that I could feel it pass my ankle.  I turned to peer into the trees. Several little ones were in sight. They stared at me with those eerie glowing yellow eyes. Rage made me speak without thought.
"What the fuck do you want? I'm right here!" They just kept their eyes fixed on me. I screamed at them in frustration and stomped off to my car full of Angie's belongings.