The Apostate Trials

Chapter 17

The truck ahead yanked a wild turn or three to the right before eventually coming to a complete stop.

Noah and Rylan's eyes hung wide; a slew of questions began to lead assaults on their minds, made them grimace. Lilly and Rosary had awoken as well, their minds repeating the same bewildering process. It was all very perplexing─but if Elliot held any regard for their questions he clearly didn't show it.

His eyes narrowed. His expression grew certain, almost as if he'd been expecting something similar of the sort, anticipating their current predicament even. For a split-second, Noah saw fear flash across the man's stern gaze. All traces of it abruptly vanished within that second, masked by his veil of extreme calm.

"Get your weapons." His voice soon rose over the deafening silence, hands quick at work. "Keep low. Stay close. Move fast."

Rylan eyed the man wearily as he hopped out the truck. "What's going─" Though his question had been answered long before he even asked it. The darkness of the evening had spit something out. Something big.

It charged at the first truck in a heightened frenzy of wild attacks, using the full brunt of its massive body to effortlessly break the windows. It roared. A bloodcurdling sound that sent chills down their spines─froze them solid with an inexplicable fear; then the beast's massive jaws bitterly dug into the shattered glass of that window. Grasped one of Elliot's men by his shoulder blade and began dragging, his screams of agony profound, begging for help.

"It's no use," Elliot took notice of Noah's motions with a disapproving eye. "It alerted its pack with that roar. More will be here soon. Very soon."

"W-What is that...thing?" Rosary added, somehow voicing that one question burrowing within everyone's minds.

Elliot could only give her a small smirk in response. "It's a bear."

"Don't play games with us," Rylan snapped. "There's no way that thing is a bear." And he was right.

As if by magic, images of bears began to coat Noah's mind. Brown Bears. Polar Bears. Pandas. All of them were of varying sizes and viciousness, sure─but none were quite as large or intimidating as what currently rested before him, savagely ripping the man's body asunder piece by piece, playfully dragging out the bloody cords to his intestines, slurping them with its alienated mouth, roaring as it did so. In a sense, its appearance strongly resembled that of a Widow, even its cries.

"I'm not playing games and this isn't the time for arguing. More will be here soon." As if verifying the validity of his claims, a series of roars trailed off in the distance. They grew closer by the second. "They can't see or smell, only going based off sound. Stay low. Keep your distance but remain close." Everyone nodded in mutual agreement, afraid of doing otherwise.

The silence that had arisen, suddenly stopping once their united movements began to draw the unwanted attention of the pack, served as some of the most frightening moments Noah had ever experienced, even with his large gap in memory. Their snouts lacked nostrils; their faces lacked eyes. All that truly remained of what Elliot considered 'bear' were the mouths they so viciously devoured from, mouths containing two rows of jagged teeth which lacked proper tongues; theirs remained distorted, split at the centers with secondary teeth in between, a truly morbid sight.

Noah froze upon coming face to face with one─his entire body quivered uncontrollably. It had single-handedly snuffed him out, analyzed him with its tongue; he dared not move, even when a tooth in-between its tongue struck blood, bitterly relishing the taste. He knew it was over. Felt drops of sweat slowly bead down his skin as he reached for his knife. Then, as quickly as it appeared, the bear began strolling in a separate direction. The direction of gunfire.