The night swallowed the outskirts of town whole.
The only light came from the sickly orange glow of a streetlamp every half-mile, each one casting long, flickering shadows that seemed to twitch when Nolan wasn’t looking. His lacrosse bag hung heavy over one shoulder, the aluminum shaft of his stick jutting out like a haphazard weapon. He should have called for a ride. He knew that. But after the match, the crisp fall air had felt refreshing, and he’d wanted time to think, to cool off and let go. To let his mind drift into the poetic, twisting phrases he loved to scribble in his notebooks.
Now, he regretted it.
He had stopped to listen four times now, and he was certain.
Something was following him.
He tried to be rational about it. Maybe it was just the wind stirring through the dry cornstalks lining the road. Maybe it was some nocturnal animal. But deep in his gut, past all logical thought, something primal screamed: Run.
His pace quickened, his heartbeat hammering. The feeling of being watched was unbearable, a needle pricking his skin, moving with him, stalking him. He risked a glance over his shoulder.
Nothing.
He walked faster, muscles tensed, heart racing, eyes forward, not daring to look back again until he reached the next streetlight.
But . . . a noise.
Again, Nothing.
Nolan began to jog, looking over his shoulder every few seconds, almost tripping over a stone. But he couldn't hear anything over his increasingly ragged breath and gravelly footsteps.
He stopped and turned around to look in earnest.
Again. Nothing.
He shook his head, and began to walk again. Probably an opossum.
But then—a sound. A low, wet huff of breath, somewhere just beyond the veil of darkness.
Nolan swallowed, his grip tightening around his lacrosse stick. He could hear it now: something heavy moving, the scuff of footfalls—no, paws? Hooves?—on the cracked asphalt. It was gaining on him.
Then it growled.
The sound was wrong—garbled, deep, almost human but warped into something else. The kind of sound that coiled through his nerves and set every survival instinct on fire.
He bolted.
His cleats pounded against the road. He sprinted, lungs burning, the bag slamming against his back. The thing behind him moved faster.
It was galloping.
Nolan didn’t dare look. He could hear it closing in—the frantic, animalistic rhythm of its footfalls, the sharp clack of a claw or a talon striking the pavement.
Desperate, he twisted, swinging his lacrosse stick with all his strength at the shape barreling toward him.
It shattered in half on impact.
The thing laughed.
The useless fragments fell from his trembling hands, and for the briefest moment, sheer panic seized his mind. He had nothing left. No weapon. No hope.
The blood drained from his face, and he sprinted.
Nolan's breath came in ragged gasps as his legs pumped harder than they ever had before. The road ahead stretched into an abyss, swallowed by darkness, but the thought of stopping, of facing whatever was behind him, was unthinkable.
But it was gaining on him. Quickly.
His only chance was to get off the road.
Veering sharply, Nolan bolted for the field beside him, his cleats slipping on the loose gravel before he found purchase in the dry grass. If he could just make it to the trees—
Something strong wrapped around his torso.
Nolan let out a strangled cry as his momentum was wrenched out from under him. His feet kicked wildly at the air, and before he could even comprehend what was happening, he was being dragged back toward the road. The thing had him. Not with hands. Not with claws. But something firm, yet strangely smooth. A limb. A leg.
"NO!" he screamed, thrashing like a caught animal. His hands scrabbled at the leg coiled around him—muscular, impossibly strong. It squeezed, pressing his arms against his sides, and a sharp, panicked sob tore from his throat. "PLEASE! PLEASE, LET ME GO!"
And then, just inches from his face, something long and wet flicked out of the darkness.
A tongue. A grotesquely long, sinuous thing, glistening in the faint light as it undulated in front of his nose, tasting the air.
Nolan's mind shattered with horror.
He bucked wildly, his screams becoming incoherent wails. His body convulsed against the hold of his captor, desperate to get away, to break free, to—
The pressure around him released.
Nolan collapsed onto the asphalt, somehow gracefully, panting, whimpering, his limbs too weak to even attempt another escape.
The beast stood above him, it's four legs surrounding him like a cage.
It brought it's head down to meet his, growling before it hissed like a snake.
He was frozen in blind terror.
He barely registered the sound of an object being pulled from a pocket by one of the legs. The sudden glow of the screen seared his vision, and in the cruel light, the sudden, blinding glare of a phone screen, his nightmare finally took shape.
A girl. A mutant.
No—Jackie.
“Dude,” she wheezed, her face contorted in hysteric laughter. “Your face. Oh my god.”