Claws in the Dark | ✔

XIV (Part II)

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She was a little girl, about seven years old, frolicking in the park with her parents. A fresh blanket of snow covered the ground, and they made angels in it. They threw snowballs at each other and spun in circles, smiling and laughing, until everything stopped.

Joyous laughter changed into that of screams of terror. Her parents ran through the park with her, weaving through the crowd of people that were running in the same direction - away from something. They couldn't make it. It was a long way out of the park. Her parents hid her in the trunk of a tree and kissed her forehead, tears incessantly running down their faces.

"We're gonna play a little game of Hide-and-Seek, sweetie," her father told her, stroking her cheek softly.

Her heart was like a roller coaster; her emotions were scrambled. She was scared; confused as can be. If they were playing Hide-and-seek, then why were her parents the ones that were hiding her? Why weren't they hiding with her?

"Mommy? Daddy? What's going on?" the little girl asked her parents. Loud growls and roars from in the distance, followed by relentless screams from people running with flailing arms, caused her parents to jerk their heads and observe the surroundings.

"We have to go now," her mother told her father. He nodded and kissed his daughter one last time, before pulling away. The girl's mother did the same, and after she parted from a short hug, she covered up the trunk with some dead bushes, enough to hide the little girl. Before running off, the woman said, "Stay quiet, my little angel. And we love you."

The girl's parents were about to run away from the tree when two Clawdens lunged at them. She saw the monsters devour her parents with no mercy. Blood flew in her direction, through the space between the bushes, as the monsters clawed into their bodies. She never forgot that day: the same black, hairy monster, the same claws, the sharp teeth.

"Kelly!" she heard a voice shout, snapping her back to reality. Gunfire startled her, and the monster that attacked her fell onto her chest, knocking out the breath she'd held.

"Come on," Dolph said, shoving the dead creature off of her while surveying the surrounding area. He pulled her up from the ground and headed towards the car again.

The rain had stopped, but the gunshots didn't. More detectives and police officers were taken down, meeting their untimely deaths.

"Get in," Dolph opened the door and she got in. He quickly ran to the driver's side and got in, driving away from the bloodshed. "What the fuck is going on? Where are those things coming from?" he muttered.

"They're back," Kelly whispered, a catatonic feeling consuming her. She stared at the dashboard in front of her, unblinking.

"What?" Dolph asked, glancing her way every now and again. He had no idea where to go, so he was just driving blindly. "What'd you just say? Again? What you mean 'again'?"

She finally blinked her drying eyes and spoke. "Thirty years ago, remember?"

The man driving shook his head, "Kelly, you're not making any sense."

"Dolph, these creatures were here before, thirty years ago. I was only a kid then, but I remember everything. The blood, the screams...the Clawdens," she whispered.

"So they have a name? Why didn't you tell us?"

"I told you, I was trying to protect everyone!" she shouted, looking at him for the first time since getting in the car. "I didn't want people to panic."

"Well, no one seemed to panic," he said sarcastically. "What the fuck were you thinking?!" His grip tightened around the steering wheel.

"Look, I'm sorry," she cried, tears filling her eyes.

"Sorry can't bring back all those people that died today," he retorted, glaring at her before looking back to the road.

"You don't think I know that?" she asked, her voice almost a screech. "I wish I'd gone about this another way. I wish I could go back to the day both my parents were killed by those beasts?" Tears threatened to spill out of her eyes as she massaged her temples.

"I'm...I'm sorry, I didn't know." Dolph felt his stomach churn, and a feeling of remorse settled in him for battering her. She already had a lot on her plate, and her parents' deaths was a part of the meal.

"Where are we going?" Kelly asked, looking out the window.

"I don't know, but we need to find somewhere to hide. We can't stay in this car, driving around all the time to avoid those creatures."

"Well, we need to go faster." She looked at the sky, a hint of indigo closing in on the town. "It's getting dark. Head to my old school - Hinkson High. It's close-by."

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◀ MARDAIS ▶