Black, damp stumps jutted out from beneath the snow among the bare branches—the sparse woods had long served as the region’s source of firewood. But soon the underbrush thickened, forcing them to push through sideways, shielding their eyes. The path suddenly dipped, and Kazimir nearly tumbled down the slope, barely managing to grasp a protruding stump with his maimed arm. His sole hand was occupied with a trophy Sauer rifle.

"Careful there," Goran steadied him by the shoulder as if he were a careless child, "In such a hurry to meet your maker?"

The place itself seemed a filthy crater, having swallowed all sound—there was neither the rustle of branches nor the cawing of crows. The trio fell silent too, as if sensing that this land had long since belonged to the dead.

A wide clearing in the middle of the ravine was heavily churned up. Here and there, crude wooden markers protruded from the ground—makeshift gravestones set by those who had returned to their native village, only to find their loved ones no longer among the living. The underbrush had crept in even here, weaving an impenetrable canopy, as if wishing to ensnare the souls of the deceased within the barren branches, rendering them incapable of ascending to the heavens.

"Look!" Goran suddenly whispered and, setting the lantern on the ground, bent over the fattened soil, "Tracks!"

Large hoofprints, pressed deep into the earth, traced a circle around a wide, fist-sized pit that reeked of decay. The tracks themselves were as large as a decent dinner plate—no elk or deer could have such hooves.

"Zorica was right. This is no beast, but some foul creature. Look at the hooves," Kazimir whispered.

"I would not rush to conclusions," Taduesz replied, chewing on his lips.

"They lead along the burial ground," Goran pointed ahead, into the tangled depths of the intertwined branches.

"And this…" the feldsher inquired hesitantly.

"Yes. Nearly two thousand corpses," answered the cripple, almost too calmly, "Zorica is no longer young; she buried them shallow, so do try not to fall into a grave, doctor—you'll break your legs."

The feldsher swallowed nervously and chose to remain silent.

After trudging some fifty meters through the damp, sinking earth, Kazimir halted, gesturing for everyone to hush. Goran gripped his axe tighter, Tadeusz froze in place.

"Do you hear it?" Jokic mouthed the words. The question was rhetorical. The slurping in the depths of the brush, as if broken by some heavy, unwieldy form, was deafening. The wet, crunching sounds filled the frosty air, echoing in the terrified hearts of the men. There, in the thicket, something inhuman, blasphemous, busied itself, digging into the earth with sharp claws, searching for decayed remains. And when it found them, it licked up the liquefied eyeballs with a rough tongue, stripped the semi-liquid flesh with sharp fangs, cracked the bones with strong teeth, and sucked out the marrow. The veteran partisan felt something snap within his stomach at the thought, bile rising and burning as it demanded release. He did not immediately notice the trembling in his legs.

"Perhaps," Kazimir thought, "at this very moment, pale fingers are tearing out the insides of my son…"

A sudden burst of rage, sparked in an instant, eclipsed any fear of the vile creatures. Only the discipline honed through partisan raids prevented the cripple from charging headlong through the brush towards whatever now feasted on the dead.

The feldsher stood motionless as a plaster statue—pale, in an unnatural pose, holding the trembling lantern in his hand. The world he knew and had studied throughout his long life was cracking and crumbling, revealing the vast expanses of endless thick darkness beyond the limits of human perception.

Understanding the situation, Goran handed one of the spears to the feldsher—who clutched it as a drowning man would a straw, and once again froze in place. Kazimir covered the lamp with a piece of rag. Now, the light seeped through only a narrow slit in the fabric, a pale, uneven beam. Carefully parting the branches, Goran pressed a finger to his lips and directed the lantern’s beam towards the source of the sound.

Something large, white, the color of dead flesh, writhed above the disturbed grave. Slowly, it shifted its heavy limbs, feasting with evident pleasure. The crunch and slurping filled the men’s minds like thick syrup, driving away all other thoughts. The beam crawled slowly from the wide, pale hips further up to the bulging belly.

Suddenly, a twig snapped under the feldsher’s foot. Instantly, the creature’s massive side quivered. It began to shuffle, snorting, and Kazimir understood—now or never. Aiming his shotgun at where, beneath the broad, barrel-like chest adorned with numerous teats, the rotten heart should have been, he pulled both triggers.

The thunderous roar of the shot echoed through the ravine, the shotgun jerked violently upwards, and the handle struck Kazimir’s forehead—the stump was useless in softening the recoil. At the same time, a sharp, inhuman shriek pierced the night’s silence. Goran’s teeth ached, Tadeusz clamped his hands over his ears, dropping the spear, while Kazimir seemed to feel once more the saw’s teeth grinding against his radial bone. A colossal, white, fat figure came charging towards the stunned men on all fours.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

It barreled forward, heedless of anything in its path, accompanied by the crackling of underbrush and heavy thudding. The thick, bloated sides scattered the trio across the ravine: the elderly feldsher was buried under a mound of earth, Goran was slammed against a gravestone, and Kazimir was thrown high into the air, landing precisely where the unholy feast had been taking place.

The thing rampaged through the underbrush, thrashing about, trampling branches with a crunch, and flinging clumps of earth into the air. Miraculously avoiding the prone feldsher, it ran in circles, shrieking, and fled somewhere deeper into the ravine.

Kazimir, his only hand having landed straight into the collapsed chest cavity of some small corpse, began to laugh maniacally, frightened by his own madness but unable to stop.

"Did you see it too?" stammered Tadeusz, rising from the ground.

The ravine grew even darker—Goran had dropped the lamp, which had shattered. Only by some miracle had the feldsher’s lantern survived, rolling into a pit. Kazimir, however, was twitching his leg comically, struggling in vain to rise—his thigh wasn’t responding, likely dislocated.

"I don’t know. Looked like a woman. A big, white woman," Goran replied, checking his head with his fingers—seeing if he was bleeding.

“This is not my son,” murmured Kazimir, his hands groping over a shriveled figure. The tattered and decayed smock left no doubt—it was the corpse of a young girl, no older than ten. Her skull, shattered and caked with remnants of flesh, was slick with drool. Her face, resembling a withered apple, bore the marks of large teeth. A gaping hole had been torn in her abdomen, revealing a festering mass of rotting innards.

Kazimir felt a wave of nausea and quickly scrambled away from the corpse, careful not to put weight on his injured leg. A few meters away from the victim of the executioners, he seemed to fully grasp what he had seen and repeated, “This is not my son. He may still be alive.”

“In hope lies spiritual strength. Though here, hope has no place,” Goran said, assisting the crippled man to his feet. With a groan, Kazimir nearly toppled back to the ground, but the bearded man held him steady. Retrieving a second pole from his belt, Goran fashioned it into an improvised crutch for Kazimir to lean on.

“Why? W-what was that?” the medic asked, his teeth chattering in an uneven staccato.

“You, doctor, have studied man—what lies within and without, how to heal, how to tend,” the bearded man explained. “But you forgot to study the human soul. The soul is sick and crippled. The body is covered in sores, and the nature has become beastly. Now it roams, seeking vengeance, feeding on the rot of others' souls.”

“What are you talking about?” Kazimir furrowed his brow.

“Zorica, though not in her right mind, was correct. The human soul cannot peacefully ascend to the heavens after such things. Who that woman was, I do not know. Maybe she was cut open while still alive, her child ripped from her belly, or maybe she was violated to death. But she is no longer human.”

“No matter. I must find Srećko!” the former partisan stubbornly repeated for the umpteenth time. “Be he alive, dead, whole, or maimed.”

“I think w-we should seek help,” Tadeusz, still seated on a small mound of earth as if standing would prolong the nightmare, suggested. “The gendarmes or at least some men from Šargovac.”

“God will help,” Goran concluded with a serious tone that brooked no argument. From beneath his shirt, his shovel-like hand drew forth a massive silver cross hanging from a thick cord. “In Him we trust, by His will we live, by His hand we shall triumph.”

“So you…” the medic began, trailing off in surprise.

“Yes. A former Orthodox priest,” the bearded man confirmed, a shadow crossing his face—Ustaše had hunted priests with particular ferocity, and such an admission could cost him his life. He extended a hand to Tadeusz, yanking him up so forcefully that the slight medic nearly flew into the air. “Get up, doctor. Cast off your fear. God is with us!”

At these words, Kazimir twitched oddly, both at his stump and his neck.

“Are there any more bullets?” the medic inquired as he picked up the hot, heavy sawed-off shotgun from the ground.

“That was the last one,” the cripple replied grimly.

“It served its purpose,” Goran mused, crouching down. As he sifted through the dirt with his fingers, he raised his hand, which glistened with something black in the faint light of the lantern. “The creature is wounded.”

“Then it still bleeds,” the cripple muttered with stubborn malice as he raised the flickering lantern. “We must finish it off.”

“That way,” the bearded man indicated, pointing toward the depths of the ravine. The disturbed path gleamed with the monster’s spilled blood, stirring echoes of rage in the hearts of Kazimir and Goran, whose war-buried emotions were now resurrected, like the bloated ghoul they were pursuing.

“And what will we do when we find it?” Tadeusz clearly did not share his companions’ grim certainty.

“We’ll kill it,” the cripple cut in.

Due to Kazimir’s injury, they were forced to slow their pace. The path trodden by the cemetery woman was loose, causing their feet to sink constantly, while bones crunched and decay squelched underfoot. The dried peat bog where the ravine once lay was still unsettled, lying in wait for the travelers with its narrow jaws—like wells. An unwary step released a cloud of stench from the earth, making even the unflinching Goran barely able to suppress his nausea. The creature, judging by the tracks, frantically zigzagged in disorder, leading the travelers around in circles for hours, like a mischievous woodland sprite.

At last, the trail led to a humped rise, which upon closer inspection turned out to be a nearly sunken hunting cabin or shed, slowly being swallowed by the soft earth. The skewed doorframe resembled an empty eye socket, while the moss and mildew blackened logs barely clung together by some miracle. Even from a few steps away, the trio could smell a strong musky odor, the miasma of decaying filth, and heard heavy, restless movements within. As they approached, it felt as if they had hit an invisible wall. None of them wanted to go inside.

Kazimir no longer understood how he once rushed into suicidal attacks, fired at men, and crawled under bullets without a trace of fear. Now, he couldn’t even move. Demons danced before his eyes again, surrounding Srećko, who, small as a fledgling, reached out his arms to his father and cried for help. No, without his son, he would not leave this place.

“Give me the axe,” Kazimir rasped, leaning on the makeshift crutch. “I’ll smash the creature’s head in!”

The descent into the ravine had exhausted him, and the blow to his leg was apparently more severe than he had anticipated. His thigh had swollen, stretching the fabric of his pants nearly to the breaking point.

“If I may,” Tadeusz interjected, “This is sheer suicide. In your condition…”

“My son is in there!” the cripple cried, no longer hiding from the fiend that stirred in its den. On the contrary, he wanted the creature to emerge, to show itself so he could look into the eyes of that blasphemous being…

“I’ll go,” Goran volunteered, refusing to hand over the axe. “You wouldn't come back alive, and Srećko needs a father.”