I jolt awake to incessant banging. Mum must be mad that I am late for school again, however I check my phone, it was late into the night.

I jump up and briefly stretch, cracking my sore neck and limbs from yesterday’s intense game we had. Opening my door, I hear the reverberation of the banging throughout the house, I could see my parents’ door open before my dad walks out wearing nothing but a pair of underwear, like Father like Son, I guess.

He looks at me as he asks with a hint of confusion, “What’s that racket?”

Shrugging my shoulders I reply, “No idea.”

Mum walks from behind dad, her eyebrows furrowed as she asks concernedly, “Maybe we should call the police?”

Dad shakes his head, “I’m sure it’s nothing, we’ll go have a look, go check on your sister Kane.”

My parents walk downstairs, so I head over to my sister’s room, a pink sign with glitter on it spells out Samantha. I knock on the door, saying, “Sam, can I come in?”

Unsurprisingly there is no response, she is probably fast asleep, so I just open the door to a dark room, slightly illuminated by the glow-in-the-dark stars on the roof. The light from the hallway reveals Sam’s face, her eyes quivering open, my entrance seems to have woken her up. Well, she’s fine so that’s my job done, I simply say, “Hey Sam, was just checking on you, you can go back to sleep.”

As I am about to close the door I hear a shrill scream from downstairs, Mum? I turn to Sam, urgently saying, “Stay here!”

I bolt to my room, the sounds of shouting and clatters could be heard from downstairs. Grabbing my phone from my bedside table I frantically dial emergency services. Raising the phone to my ear I hear the phone attempting to connect, “Come on, pick up!”

The phone then replies with an automated message saying services were unavailable causing me to curse in frustration. The sounds from downstairs stop, are my parents ok?

I approach the stairs and speak out in a whisper, “Mum, Dad?”

As I walk down the stairs I can see the open front door, but also begin to hear a strange squelching sound coming from the kitchen. Peering around into the kitchen I see a bloody mess of foul gore across the kitchen. Then I see it, that thing, I shiver in fear as I instinctively cup my hand over my mouth in horror. A large monstrous creature that looked to be like some corrupted deer was feeding on a corpse, my mum’s lifeless eyes wide open as her guts were feasted upon. My dad is across the room, slouched against the wall with his arms missing.

I try my absolute hardest to not make a sound as I keep my hand over my mouth, tightly gripping onto my cheeks. I slowly step backwards hearing the creaking floorboards.

Glacially walking upstairs, I finally reach the second floor, my body slimy with excessive sweat. I need to get Sam.

I slowly walk over to her room and notice that the door is busted open, a low growling can be heard from her room. I dash around the corner to see Sam on her bed with eyes wide open as she stares at a what looked to be a wolf as it slowly approached her. This creature was larger than typical wolves with exaggerated features and washed-out green fur.

Without much thought I grab the standing lamp beside me and rush the beast, smashing the lamp over the head of the corrupted wolf which elicits an angry roar causing Sam to scream in response. The creature turns around impossibly quick and swipes with its ridiculously long bladed claws. I reactively fall backwards but being too slow I receive a triple slash across my unclothed chest, a pained yelp escapes my breath.

The beast then springs at me and pins me to the floor, but I secure the lamp at the end of the wolf’s gums, putrid breath assails my nostrils, and disgusting saliva drips from the creature’s mouth as it attempts to chomp me. I try to hold it back, but its immense strength pushes me along the floor until I bump against a wardrobe. A loud snap is heard as splinters go flying stunning the wolf, the lamp is broken!

The broken lamp slips into the wolf’s throat but that does not hinder it as it rushes at me again, the lamp end pushes on my chest causing me to gasp but the broken end also digs deeper into the monster’s internals. A gurgled howl sounds from the beast as my face gets showered by blood from the wolf’s mouth. I shakily move to the side and briefly regain focus before tipping the wardrobe with all the strength I have onto the injured wolf. It lands on its head, the creature shivers and attempts to move before collapsing, becoming motionless.

I stare down at it for a moment, before snapping myself out of it, I must get Sam out of here!

Loud steps echo down the hallway, it could only be one thing, the deer monster! I look towards Sam, then towards the window and without much of a thought I elbow the window, it doesn’t break so I keep hitting it with as much strength as I can muster, ignoring the ache in my chest. Finally, a loud crack sounds out as the window shatters, the deer monster responds with an intimidating roar as the heavy steps accelerate. I rush to the wardrobe and look around for some piece of clothing, finding a shirt which I grab before chucking it on the window to hide the exposed pieces of glass. I grab Sam by the arms staring at her sobbing eyes to grab her attention before frantically explaining, “You are going to go through the window, I will dangle you over the side, you understand?”

She did not give a response, but it didn’t matter, she had to go down now!

I bring her to the window and say, “Hold my arm, you’re going over!”

I tightly grab her wrist, her face wincing in response as I lower her as far as possible, a loud smash can be heard causing me to glance at the rooms entrance, the deer beast was attempting to charge through but its antlers were hitting the doorframe. It charges again, and partially shatters the doorframe, only one more charge would let it get through, so I roar a command, “I am letting go Sam, brace yourself!”

I let Sam go then without looking back I dive through the window and get distance through the air before landing on my chest, a burst of pain shoots through my body as I let out a screech of pain. I forcefully refocus myself and then at the window, the wall was already breaking apart from the creatures charges.

Shakily rising as I hold my arms to my chest I look over to see Sam’s small form in the dark. I limp over and grab her hand, “Come on, it’s coming!”

I push her over the fence into our neighbour’s backyard, then weakly climb over myself, my body in disarray as I struggle greatly. I fall over the side and hurt myself even more as I hit the ground and deeply groan. I am not going to get very far in this state. We need to hide.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I look around and can see several trails of smoke in the silhouette of the night sky, whatever was happening here was occurring all around us. The sounds of car horns were going off in the distance, and there were shouts and roars coming from all directions, nowhere was safe.

I look at Sam, she seemed to notice my dark mood as tears begin to well up in her eyes again, unsure of what to say, I stick with the cliché and grab her shoulders then reassure her, “You have to be strong Sam, you cannot not cry, not now, we have to be quiet and you will be fine, I will make sure of it.”

I lose my breath speaking as I seem to be partially trying to reassure myself. The window shatters and a monstrous roar can be heard in our backyard, it must have broken through our window. I look at Sam and put my fingers to my lips to indicate silence, my speech may have worked as she slowly nods even while tears drip down her cheeks.

I lead her by the hand towards our neighbour’s backdoor, luckily the door is unlocked so we enter. As we enter, I immediately gag from an intolerable smell, complemented by a scene of absolute horror, blood is splayed along all the walls, organs can be seen dangling from furniture and even the head of our neighbour is stabbed onto a lamp. I can hear the pitter patters of small feet running around above us along with unsettling gurgling laughter.

Without hesitation I lead Sam back through the back door, noticing her breathing had become loud and erratic. I see a large hole on the other side of our backyard fence, no doubt from the deer creature. In that case the only certainty right now is that our house is clear of monsters, we are going to have to return for the moment. I drag Sam to our wall, intentionally ignoring her distress, safety was a priority, then we climbed back over the fence into our backyard and entered our house through the backdoor.

We head upstairs, first I check the wolflike creature, it was definitely dead, its head crushed beneath Sam’s wardrobe. A cool breeze flowing through the gaping hole where the window used to be. Good, we are safe for now.

We clean ourselves up in the bathroom, my chest already badly bruised and bleeding quite heavily from the gnash across my chest, probably explains my light headedness. I clean up in the shower, then poorly attend to my cuts by simply using some disinfectant and covering it with a ripped T-shirt. Fortunately, Sam’s injuries were just some light bruising.

After cleaning up we hide out in our parents’ bedroom, I slouch beside the bed, suggesting to Sam, “You should get some sleep, I will keep an eye out for tonight.”

She mumbles an okay, but her thoughts seem elsewhere, I already know what she is thinking so while attempting to hold a strong front, I say, “Mum and Dad are gone Sam, no, they are dead, they died from one of those monsters, the monsters are real!”

I am far more blunt than I intended, so I immediately apologise while trying to restrain my tears, “I’m sorry Sam, I didn’t mean to say that.”

She digs her face into her lap, so I simply sigh, I am such an idiot.

Throughout the night there is the constant sound of screaming and loud roaring out in the distance, horrors happening all around us, Sam is definitely not going to have a good sleep.

It is early morning as I hear the ruffling of the duvet, Sam must be up. I open the blinds to look out onto the street, and what I see causes my heart to drop. The roads are completely filled with swathes monsters, they all look to be corrupted versions of our normal animals, I could see a couple that look exactly like the wolf I killed.

Lowering the blinds I turn to Sam, she was sitting up and yawning, she looks a lot better, I ask, “How’re you feeling?”

She replies in a croaky voice, “Okay.”

I nod as I fall into thought. There are far too many monsters out there, if their strength is anything like the wolf I fought, we would be dead in not even an hour if we left, we are going to have to wait out here for some time until they clear out. I try to stretch but my body screams in protest, also I need to recover. I inspect the wound on my chest, it did not look good at all. We are also going to need food, that means I need to check the kitchen.

My uncertain steps edge towards the kitchen, I turn into it and relive that bloody scene, the corpses are gone, possibly devoured by that monster. The kitchen is destroyed, fridge torn open, pantry collapsed in, with blood and guts all over whatever is left. The kitchen is unsalvageable.

I quickly walk out, not wanting to be there any longer. There’s food, I may have to check out other houses but with all the monsters about I most likely wouldn’t survive even if I wasn’t injured, in my current state I would be dead meat.

Glumly walking upstairs, I assess our options. We could always not eat, but then I won’t recover, we need to be in a healthy state when we leave this house. I walk past Sam’s room, monster corpse a notable addition. We could eat the monster.

Trouble is, has it been left out too long? We probably do not have a choice, we have a portable gas stove so I will be able to cook it.

I inspect the corpse to check if it was fine to eat, and from what I could tell it did not seem to have maggots or anything like that.

I check our storage in the attic for our camping gear, finding a tent, small pan, gas stove, utensils and a hunting knife.

At the corpse I try to skin off its fur, but the knife seems to be unable to pierce it. I try to stab into one part of the fur a few times and manage to stab it with much effort. It was then easier to slice along its fur. While in the process of skinning Sam walks into the room, looking at my actions in horror, she asks, “What are you doing?”

I look at her in silence for a moment before replying jokingly, “I don’t know.”

She looks at me with a quizzical look, before I it clear up, “I mean I am just trying to skin this monster so we can cook it.”

She looks at my botched skinning job in disgust, “I’m not hungry.”

I smirk but get back to work and Sam looks on with a sense of morbid curiosity. After at least an hour of attempting to skin the monster, I was done, albeit with a very botched job. Now to slice off the meat.

Once again as I try to stab the monster, it is quite difficult to pierce its muscles, but after a few attempts I’m successful. Now to cook it, I put in the gas cannister, turn it on, warm up the pan, then start frying the meat.

After frying the meat I immediately turn off the stove to preserve as much gas as possible. The meat itself looks very typical compared to animal meat, maybe it would taste different. On the pan I cut a small piece off and eat it, the flavour is intense, even after burning it quite a bit. It is difficult to describe, but one thing is for sure, it is delicious. I don’t hold back as I quickly devour the rest of the small piece, wishing for more.

I notice Sam looking at my empty pan with half glazed eyes and a little dribble at the side of her cheek, she is clearly quite hungry. It seems to be edible, I’m sure she will be fine if she eats it.

After we both have large shares, I cook as much meat as possible from the corpse of the wolf monster. It is likely most of the meat will go bad before we can finish it off, but I am unsure how much that is so it is worth preserving as much as possible. Hopefully Sam and I do not get sick from eating the monster meat, particularly after it has been left out for a few hours.

After cooking I guess the time is about 2ish, there isn’t much to do now but begin some preliminary preparations for our trip. I Plan to pack as much stuff as we can, take the car, then leave this more populated area to find somewhere safer. Ideally, I will scavenge some nearby houses to get some other goods, most importantly canned goods which will keep, and some more gas cannisters, we only have a couple at the moment.

After a few hours I begin to feel tired, clearly the lack of sleep last night is finally catching up, I let Sam know, “Sam, I am going to sleep now, I am going to need you to keep a lookout, wake me up if you hear or see anything, and do not go walking around, stay in mum’s and dad’s room.”

She gives a nervous nod, but clearly not too willing to have such a responsibility on her, unfortunately there is no other choice. With that, I doze off.

It’s nighttime as I wake up, I jump out of bed and immediately notice something different. My chest pain is mostly gone, and my limbs feel completely recovered. I check my scratch and notice that it looks far better than yesterday, seemingly already healing. I felt really good, like I was in peak physical form even with my injuries which is odd. The only explanation must be the meat.

Maybe whatever makes those monsters so strong does the same to humans. I shake my head, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, I will have to see over a few days, maybe it only aids the healing process. Now, where is Sam?

She wasn’t in our parents’ room with me, even though I told her to stay, she should be upstairs somewhere. I look into all the rooms, nothing. I check again, still nothing. I angrily blurt, “I just told her to stay!”

I run around the house checking every room, still, nothing. I curse but feel an onset of dread. “She’s gone!”