Neither of us moved. It was so quiet inside the truck you could've heard a feather hit a marshmallow.
On top of not uttering a single word, neither of us dared to take our eyes off it either. We both watched in a sort of horrified silence as that thing continued to eat away at what was left of the officer inside his patrol car and after what felt like an agonizing eternity, I guess it decided it had its fill and finally disengaged its jaws from the officer's corpse.
Not that there was much left of him now anyway.
My stomach gave an uncomfortable lurch as I watched it exit the car. Even on all fours it was huge, its head clearing the side view mirrors of the patrol car. Looking at it now I don't know how I could have mistaken it for a normal wolf.
There was nothing normal about it.
We continued to watch with bated breath neither of us moving an inch as it licked the excess blood off its powerful jaws. Jaws that hid teeth that could easily tear through flesh like a hot knife cut through butter.
Ava and my mother's screams echoed throughout my head like a song blaring on the radio and I clenched my eyes shut.
Please just go away. I prayed silently.
You've already had your fucking fill, so just leave!
My eyes snapped open at the sound of my dad's sharp intake of breath, and then grew in size as I watched it slowly raise up on its haunches so it now stood on two legs instead of four. Standing straight up it now easily cleared the roof of the patrol car.
My heart was thumping a rapid and harsh beat against my ribs.
Please, please, please. Just let it go away.
Without warning, it tilted its head back and let loose a sound from the back of its throat so bone chilling and haunting I had to clench both of my hands into fists to keep them from shaking.
What the hell was it doing?
I chanced a quick glance over at my dad to see that all the color had drained from his face.
What the hell was happening?
Silently, my dad reached forward as if to start the truck again but I quickly reached out and grabbed his hand. If we started the car now it would definitely hear us and while we were in a truck and all it had was its four paws, I still didn't like our odds of escaping.
I looked back and forth between him and that thing and asked in a voice barely louder than the sound of a leaf hitting the ground, "What are you doing?"
"We have to leave. Now." was all he gave by way of answer.
Obviously we had to leave, but doing so after that thing was I don't know, maybe 2,000 miles away sounded like a better plan.
"It'll hear us."
"If we don't leave right now, that'll be the least of our worries."
I still wasn't sure what was happening right now, but the tone of his voice made me release his hand and quickly sit back in my seat. He reached forward again, ready to start the engine but by then it was already too late.
I finally understood why we should've left when there was only one of those things to worry about. Fear gripped my veins in an icy hold as I watched three more suddenly emerge from the tree line. All just as big and grotesque as the first.
I now realized what that sound it made earlier had been.
It was a call.
It was communicating.
YOU ARE READING
THEM
HorrorNo one really knows what they are or where they came from. No one knows how they ended up like that- WHY they're like that. The only thing people really know is that they're vicious, blood thirsty, and always hungry. For flesh. For us. If you encoun...