Outside the bus, Rick couldn’t help but sense the atmosphere was no less oppressive outside than within the relative safety inside. The trees loomed over them in all directions, the air had an almost unnatural stillness to it, everything felt as if it were out of proportion. Were he in a more humorous mood, he might have even joked about having been shrunk down. The idea felt no less strange than everything else that had happened thus far at least.
Still, he preferred it than being with the others. It gave him a chance to calm down and avoid getting cornered into answering uncomfortable questions. The part that scared him the most was thinking about what it meant to “set out”. It wasn’t as if they had any sense of direction let alone experience in this kind of scenario.
For now, he was leading, pushing everyone from the pit of panic as best he could. That didn’t mean he had any definite answer to things. It’d be better if someone else had the answers. But pretending to have a clue was better than doing nothing at all.
Several deep breaths. He pushed himself to calm down, shove the emotions down again. Dimly, he turned to pay closer attention to the others that were outside along with him. There were some adults and a handful of students mulling about. All remaining just near enough to the totaled transport that they could rush in if anything happened.
Rick’s eyes locked on the ones who’d been smoking. The sight of it made his fingers twitch towards his empty pocket out of an old half-forgotten habit. Rather than let the feeling sink in, he reached into his backpack and pulled out some of the candy. The chocolate was the only relief he could find there. Unfortunately it was partially melted, the simple enjoyment diminished somewhat with the mess it left on his fingers and cheek.
The young teacher turned his gaze back to the forest.
Mid-day had passed hours ago, night was falling, and the darkness between the hulking trees was spreading like a stain of black oil. It covered the floor and branches, enveloping the very air around the bus and those standing near it into a dark gloom. Only the tree tops had any direct sunlight shining on them, bright peaks of green and orange that turned into streaks of brown and inky shadows as one followed the trunk downwards to the thick roots at ground level.
It was as if a weight was falling onto Rick’s shoulders. The darker the forest became, the less he could see, and the closer a threat could come without them even seeing it approaching. The blackness only invited the imagination to run wild, what else might it hide? What threats lay within?
The minutes slipped by, and people moved in and out of the bus, mulling but never far. Rick was the only one who wouldn’t go back inside. Looking into the silence that surrounded them was occupying most of his thoughts, a reprieve. Every passing minute made the wooden behemoths appear as if fangs from a gigantic beast, the darkness into an ever expansive maw ready to swallow them whole in one bite.
The moon didn’t take too long to appear in the night sky. Its beams of light streaked through the forests to the ground, creating pools of ghostly white clarity within the darkness. The white orb hung full in the sky. Something about its presence felt oddly reassuring. There was something about it that felt familiar in what was an otherwise alien place.
A gasp caught Rick’s attention. He turned to one student who’d been standing furthest away from the bus. The sophomore had taken several steps back in quick succession right after, covering his mouth and pointing at something up above as he ran inside the bus and stood just shy of the door, staring.
The action drew everyone’s attention. Perhaps it was morbid fascination, but they moved closer in an attempt to get a better look, staring at what the young man had pointed at.
Rick saw it up above, a shadow. Alarms went off inside his mind. “To the bus,” he muttered, and all agreed on the spot to hurry back. His gaze adjusted on the foreign presence, it moved silently through the night. He inched closer to the bus entrance, but did not step inside, observing intently. The shadow was slowly moving downwards. He could not look away from the shadow as it descended, drawing circles between the trees in a haunting dance that came to a conclusion as it angled itself towards the corpses.
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The monster passed through a beam of light, and for the second time that day, Rick could not believe his eyes.
It was a woman- no, a bat? It was a bizarre mix of both. Rather than arms she had large leathery wings, and ears larger than her head, pointy and sharp. Moonlight kissed her pale skin, and darkness caressed her short black hair. The creature was as devoid of cover or clothes as the spider, but unlike the Arachnae, there was something almost delicate to her features. She landed with not even a sound, looking around, staring at the bus for several long seconds before turning and focusing on the bodies. The creature moved in a rush to reach her target.
Everyone became still, holding their breath. Would it come for them next? Would it leave?
Making a shushing motion towards the occupants of the bus, Rick glanced around, checking the sky and the forest to confirm there were no other monsters nearby. He spotted nothing, everything appearing as still and quiet as it had been before, so his focus returned to the flying monster.
They all waited with nervous silence. The creature moved towards its target and grabbed a body by the wrist. Rick thanked the darkness. It allowed him to not distinguish which one had been picked.
“Oh, God,” someone muttered from within the bus in a whisper.
The minutes trickled by into an eternity. Everyone remained still, watching as the monster moved around the bodies, stopping to glance around, grasping at another with its feet. Its wings spread wide, clearly intent on leaving with its victim of choice.
A growl escaped from within the forest.
The hairs on Rick’s neck stood on end as the bat-like monster instantly dropped the body and leapt up to take to the sky, clearly intent on escaping some horrible fate before the source of the sound could appear. The panic was apparent in how hard she was flapping with little to no hesitation and everything she had to offer.
It was too late, there had never been a chance of escape.
A blur shot out of the shadows. It emerged like a dark heat seeking rocket, that crossed the air in a beautifully precise arch. The bat spotted the threat but could not move out of the way in time. The blur intercepted the bat in midair. A cry escaped the bat-like creature as she was knocked from the sky, tumbling down and crashing onto the ground. They’d fallen right into a ray of light at the edge of the clearing, both entities tangled in what was clearly a struggle for survival. Shrieks pierced the silence; the two bodies rolled. There was a flash of green energy that appeared to surround them for a fraction of a second.
Then, the attacker raised a white claw, gleaming in the night, bringing it down with brutality.
The bat shrieked, a gurgled cry, struggling harder. The now bloodied claw rose and came back down. This time it was accompanied by a thud and a crunch.
Everything became still.
Slowly, the monster that had attacked the bat clawed at it a third time to make sure its prey was dead. Then, it slowly stood up in a slow stretch. White fur stained in blood glimmered under the moonlight.
It was only then that Rick got an unrestricted view of the new creature as she turned towards them in full.
She was a dark skinned woman with Amazonian proportions. Her hair was a pale ashen white, if not for the mud that matted it into a clump. And though for a fraction of a second she looked no more than human, it quickly became clear she was not. Rather than hands or feet, she had enormous claws. The fur covering them reached all the way to her elbows, and it would’ve been snowy had they not been bloodied with the most recent kill. A pair of triangular ears on top of her head rotated this way and that before turning straight to the bus.
Tall, strong, and powerful. Her body screamed savage force and death.
She stepped through the ray of moonlight, the curves of her body contrasted by the blood drenching her chin and claws. Her shoulders straightened, her expression focused, and she frowned with dark green eyes that pierced through the darkness. Her entire physique shook with contained violence.
With her focus upon the bus, she leaned back and inhaled sharply. Then, she let out a roar.
The sound hit Rick like a hammer, a physical impact against his chest with an invisible force that rattled him down to the bone and nearly knocked him over. If not because his hands were holding onto the bus’ frame for support, he would have surely fallen down.
It was the voice of a rolling mountain, an unstoppable force of nature. Anything in her path would be destroyed and swallowed up.
Rick knew, he knew with little doubt, nothing would protect them from her if she so chose to unleash that violence against them.