SCRATCHED

Chapter 8

2020, Edgar Woods.

It resonated deep, touching the silent trees and their dark whispering shadows. In the distance the birds flapped their wings, heading for the sky, away from the haunting branches.

Henric looked wide-eyed towards the muzzle of his gun, and the meager smoke escaping from it. The shuffling of the leaves grew louder as the forest slowly lost its light to the submissive sun.

"What did you just do?!" Henric panicked.

"I could've sworn I saw something in the bushes," Aiden said, the gun unstable in his trembling hands, his face covered with evening sweat.

"What were you thinking?! What part of 'we can't use loud weapons' didn't you understand?!"

"And what if it was a Moan?" Aiden asked.

"What if it was a Moan?!" Henric repeated the question like he couldn't believe it just came out of Aiden's mouth, "Well now because of what you just did, it will be a Moan. I told you guns don't work on them. It's easy to shoot at a giant monster the size of Andy Rider. Why do you think we teach you to aim? You have to shoot at the sensitive places: their eyes and their necks."

Their heads geared towards the sound of a cracking twig, the sound Aiden loathed the most. Sometimes he would take walks in the forest and march on them himself, but they would still frighten him. Damn twigs!

As he stared into the dense darkness, he could feel the blood in his veins getting warmer, before it would start to boil. Night was crawling closer with each passing second. He didn't want to imagine the sound coming from-

He heard it. The low hungry grunt. The one that likened that of a tiger waiting in the shadows to pounce on its prey. Another twig broke, but Aiden was certain it was a bone in his body.

He could see the sun departing, packing its luminescence in its travel bag, away from their sacred premises. The birds were long gone and with them their melodic chirping. Aiden felt it would've been relieving to hear a sound like that in this deadly silence.

Aiden saw the red eyes glowing from a distance. The creature emerged, the last ray of evening light forcing it to close its eyes before the darkness would eventually rise and it could be out of its cage of blindness. It stood still, grunting.

"I think it saw us," Aiden whispered.

"It definitely saw us," Henric whispered back.

"Then what do we do?"

With one last grunt, the creature charged towards them with full speed, the forest vibrating at its heavy feet which cracked the earth beneath them.

"Well that's obvious, isn't it? We run!"

They took off, heading back towards the house. As Aiden stretched his legs like never before, he reckoned it was a terrible idea. Going back to the house meant being trapped inside the house. And with the sun waving the sky goodbye, and an unknown number of Moans roaming the woods, that was, beyond all doubt, the worst move they could make.

He was surprised by his sudden rationality, given that he had put them all in this mess by a simple pull of a trigger. He thought back to all the horror movies he had watched, remembering a certain scene from River of Souls. It was where the wolf told the young Jack not to fear the darkness. Jack then asked the wolf what he should fear. The wolf replied, "That which you cannot fight, and you cannot outrun."

In the movie, the wolf had emerged from the darkness, just as the Moan had. And as the statement repeated itself in his head, Aiden felt his legs getting tired, his heart pumping out blood and taking in acceptance. You can't fight it, you can't outrun it.