At the echo of a heavy thud, Mark turned around. What he found was Veronica’s face. Her eyes were wide, her lips tight, and a finger hovered over them as she trembled. Her whole body tensed as she hurried to get into the thicker portion of the leaves. She joined him right behind the branch, using it for cover.

“He fell,” she whispered under her breath.

Two words, enough to make Mark’s blood turn to ice. His gaze swept the forest floor and found the bundle of red hair. Barry was lying flat on the ground, barely moving. The older brother would have jumped out of the hiding spot and attempted to make his way down, if not because Veronica reached out to clutch his arm. Silently, she gestured towards the opposite side of the fallen tree. It was there that Mark saw the monsters that had been pursuing them, moving with urgency.

Six in total. They were as much beast as the feline had been. These were not cats, however, but dogs. For five of them, the fur ran in a light brown pelt down their backs, their hands sporting small claws, and canine tails in a deathly focused stillness. Each of them had a wild look in their eyes, unfocused and uncaring, breathing and sniffing the air as they would move close to the ground and move on all fours from time to time. If not because of the blood drenching their chests and neck, one might have even considered the sight oddly appealing.

The sixth stood out as the leader. Her fur was obsidian, her figure lean and tall. She was at least two meters and with a physique too close to a body-builder, so much so it felt too out-of-place out here in the woods and not inside some illegal fighting ring somewhere. The black one kept moving ahead of the pack, only sniffing at the air from time to time. She didn’t run or jog, and she didn’t crouch. She stood tall, her eyes flickering around as she’d take long lungfuls and breathe in the scents, moving with determination.

It was clear she wasn’t merely focused on the hunt, but on the pack’s safety as well. There was a dangerous edge to those eyes that peered all around.

Mark’s attention turned down to Barry. The younger man sat near the bottom of the downed tree while Mark and Veronica lay on top of the fallen behemoth. Their gazes met. The younger brother froze, eyes wide and pale face. His breaths were deep and uneven. The older one moved his lips silently. “MOVE.” He mouthed the word out rather than speak it, pointing at the underside of the nearest tree. The earth below was dug out. There should be space for someone to hide there.

Anything was better than waiting out in the open where he could be instantly spotted.

With a trembling nod, Barry stumbled his way forward. His eyes flickered at his sibling and Veronica. “Mark, look.” The woman pulled his attention away from his brother and towards the approaching pack.

The black-haired one was no longer there. She’d vanished.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

For a heartbeat they both wondered where she’d gone, but the answer came to them before they could wander a guess. From the shadows atop the fallen tree, a dark silhouette emerged. The shadows had gained volume, and blackness covered it until it had grown in full. Only then did the shadows recede and in doing so revealed the dark canine as she walked up the fallen trunk’s length.

In their direction, no less.

The two humans held their breaths and pulled behind the branch to stay out of sight as best they were able to. Veronica shrunk into a ball, and Mark reached into his backpack. Slowly, his grip inched its way down to make sure he didn’t make so much as a sound. He very carefully gripped the piece of metal at the bottom and pulled it out just as slowly.

The sight of the revolver made Veronica’s eyes widen like dinner plates. Her hands covered her mouth as he clicked the safety off quietly. The metallic sound made them both flinch, ears sharpening and listening very carefully. There was a very real risk the monster might have heard of it.

But the only noise that could reach their ears was that of the pack circling around the tree in search of their prey. Barks and yips and hurried steps that were slowly gaining some distance.

And then, the sound of tree bark crunching. No more than a handful of meters away.

Mark aimed the pistol at the side of the branch he expected the beast to peek through. His grip tightened. In his mind’s eye he could see the sequence of events unfold all too clearly. The monster would step into his line of sight, and his left hand would cock the gun just as he’d squeeze the trigger with the right one. It would take a fraction of a second, the creature wouldn’t know what hit it.

And it would-

AWWWOOOOOOOO

The sound startled him.

Every muscle in Mark’s body became rigid. His attention flickered down to the pack of monsters. They were running off down the path of breadcrumbs they’d made earlier, pausing only for a moment to turn around and glance at their leader. With a swishing sound, the blackness emerged out of the shadows of the trees down on the ground next to the pack. The black-haired figure walked towards the others with slow measured steps, her back turned away from the spot Mark and Veronica had been in.

The older Dodson sibling looked around, trying to find Barry. His gaze fell on the tree he had pointed to earlier, twenty odd meters away from danger. Under its roots, he spotted a hint of orange. The younger brother was curled up, grabbing fistfuls of dirt and rubbing them against himself slowly yet insistently. He was almost invisible to Mark at this distance. That was a good sign, if any, they were leaving.

A barking sound. The black-haired one pointed in the direction of the trail the humans had left behind. The monsters set off. The yipping and barking echoes in the woods dissipated along with them.

They let out a collective sigh of relief. Mark lowered the firearm. He relaxed his hands and removed his finger from the trigger, feeling his arms tremble. With an afterthought, he cocked the gun and looked down at it. He’d been stupid not to have it prepared earlier. His jaw tightened. That had been too close for comfort.

Chuckling nervously, he stood up, forcing deep breaths and trying to work the adrenaline out of his system as best he could. Mark turned his eyes towards Barry, seeing his brother remaining still. For a second he almost considered calling out to him, but the last thing he wanted was to taking the risk of drawing attention from the monsters.

And as he was about to step out of his hiding spot, he noticed his younger sibling had suddenly become very active. He flailed dirt covered arms from side to side, pointing at the tree. Mark frowned, already half-certain he ought to head down to his brother as soon as he could.

That was when he heard the growl.