—Kendra—

Kendra and Casey entered the kitchen. The two moved to the back when they reached a pile of bags set to the side of the back door. "Alright, let's get this trash set." Casey said as he pulled out his phone. "Still no Spotify." His shoulder raised in a shrug. "Good thing I got the album on my phone." With a few taps, guitar riffs played as he tucked his phone into his pocket.

Kendra watched him as his head kept to the rhythm while he hurried to the door. The riffs continued as he stood at the door with his body seemingly in position. "What are you-"

Before she could get her question out, the drums began. He raised his foot, then kicked the door's exit bar just as the guitar went into full swing. The noise of the metal made Kendra's ears ring. The equipment on the wall shook as the door slammed against the building.

She stared at him for a moment. "Did you really need to kick the door open?" Kendra asked as she watched the door to the dining room to see if an enraged Miss Della would storm in to tear him a new one.

"Relax, it's fine," he said as Kendra stared out at the parking lot, her view slightly obstructed by her co-worker.

"Sure it is." Her voice lacked confidence when Casey's sarcastic smile vanished. He reached into his pocket and held his phone again.

"Load up on guns–" He tapped the screen to pause the music, and the two remained in silence.

Casey frowned. "Ok, what the hell is up with you today?"

She didn't need this right now. "It's nothing okay?" She said hoping he'd drop it.

That hope quickly died. "You're acting off and getting all quiet." She felt her heart in her throat as he stepped towards her. Why did he always feel a need to pry?

"I'm fine!" Her words did nothing to stop his advance.

"You only do this when you're about to lose your shit." He stood before her, went silent, and waited for her response. Until his patience ran out. "Say something, dammit."

Could she tell him? Would he believe her?

"That guy you found..." The gears head were turning, making assumptions as his brows furrowed. "Did he do something to you?" His hands balled into fists. "Cause if he did, me and Fred-"

She shook her head. "No, do you really think our boss would've let him live, let alone stay here if he did?"

His face and hands eased. "Well... no." For once, he didn't have a comeback. "But seriously, what's wrong?"

She sighed, "Let's just get the trash done, then I'll tell you, okay?" With her promise made, he took a step back as he reached for the bags. They rustled as he lifted two in each hand.

"I got the trash, you take the cardboard." He said before making his way outside.

"Sure," she took the last bag off the floor. The bag was light but stuffed to its limit with broken-down boxes.

Kendra made her way to the door. As she looked outside, the water and uneven pavement had formed an archipelago of shallow puddles and raised, cracked concrete islands.

It would be okay. She would just take the cardboard out, then get back inside and talk with Casey.

Simple enough.

She took her first step outside. The petrichor in the air was calming. Water dripped off the building into rippling puddles.

She just needed to stay calm.

A slam pulled her back to reality as the lid of the dumpster clattered. "Almost had it." He said as he grabbed at the hard plastic and heaved it upwards. The lid slowed as it reached the peak of its arc. "C'mon, fall back!" The lid froze in place a moment before it fell backward, and another slam sounded from the back wall of the dumpster. He pumped his arm up before reaching for a bag and tossing it in.

He was so carefree, would he be able to handle the truth?

"Kendra, it defeats the purpose of you helping me if I have to take all the trash to the dumpster," Casey said as he tossed his last bag in as Kendra stood there. "C'mon!"

Just get the trash to the dumpster; get it done. "I'm coming," Kendra said as she made her way to him, avoiding the puddles and hopping along the above-water pavement to avoid drenching her shoes.

Halfway to the dumpster, he pulled out his phone, a pack of cigarettes, and a lighter. "Damn, no signal outside either." He shook the box of cigarettes until one stuck out. He then held the box up and pulled out the cancer stick with his lips. When his focus returned to Kendra, he registered her appalled reaction.

"What? I'm handling trash. I don't want to get that all over them." He waved the pack of cigarettes at her.

"God forbid you get sick from smoking." She scoffed.

He shook his head when his lighter flicked to life and lit the cigarette. "What? The world's probably gonna end before these things can take me out." Kendra paused at his defense as he dug through his phone.

Maybe he'd be calm about it?

She gripped the bag tighter as the bag stretched and deformed around her grip.

Would he think she's crazy?

"I saw a deer this morning-" His look of worry vanished into sarcasm.

"You saw a deer? In rural Pennsylvania? How rare." She gritted her teeth in annoyance. Once again, he was looking punchable.

She threw the bag to the ground. "Listen asshole, you can act like I'm crazy, but there's some sort of fucked up deer running around." His side-eye persisted until his mouth opened slightly and his cigarette fell to the ground. "So let's hear it. I'm sure you got another sarcastic comment for me." She watched him, his eyes seemed frozen to whatever was behind her as if he couldn't process what he was looking at.

"Did that deer have three heads?" He asked when Kendra turned to see what had left him terrified.

A Three-headed deer.

The creature that caught this animal had turned it into a macabre deer version of the beast that guarded the underworld it might have escaped from. Three heads seemed to look in different directions. The center head was the original animal. Crude stitching had attached the two other heads to the deltoids of the deer.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Kendra and Casey watched the deer make its slow approach. The body looked ragged. Patches of fur had fallen off to expose its rotting hide. The original head was the most intact of the three. Its cloudy eyes had a tinge of purple to them. The left head looked to be in a further stage of decay with more exposed, rotting flesh. The right head seemed the oldest. It had lost an ear and only the black strings had kept the dangling lower jaw from falling off it.

How long had this thing been hunting the forest animals down?

The heads moved around, despite being a short distance away, as if the creature were blind. Had the dumpster or their conversations drawn it in?

If they panicked, it would end badly. They needed a plan.

Try to find answers, focus on the creature, and how it works. Stay calm. You and Casey need to get away from this thing.

Stay calm, the words she kept telling herself despite the cold sweat coating her body.

The deer roared out when jagged metal pierced the rotting flesh. The metal looked just like what had pierced her jeep's back door.

Jagged and sharp.

The needles broke free of their decaying prison. Black threads rose and thrashed about. As the seconds ticked by, the threads slowed until they went still as the needles dangled in place. A breeze picked up and the needles swayed in the wind. The stench of decay hit the trapped pair as Kendra fought the urge to gag. The stink made the dumpster seem pleasant.

"What the fuck is that thing?" Casey asked, and the heads focused on their location. The threads moved and Kendra recognized the motion from the jeep attack.

Kendra dropped to her knees, grabbed the bag of cardboard, and pulled it in front of herself. She could only stare at the wet pavement as she prayed. Her makeshift shield jolted from an impact. A hard exhale escaped her as she looked over her body.

The box had taken the brunt of the attack and stopped the needle.

She was unharmed.

She looked at Casey.

He hadn't been so lucky as he stared at the needle sticking out his forearm.

He grunted, His eyes widened at his injury, the adrenaline coursing through him seemed to block out the pain from the pair of needles that had pierced his flesh. "What the fuck?" He asked when he tried to grab the jagged metal, only to wince in pain as blood ran down from his fingers. "Kendra... help me-" He screamed out in pain as the needles twitched, convulsed, and sank deeper into his arm.

The deer stomped its hooves when nearly a dozen new needles and strings emerged and moved about again. It was getting ready for the next attack. The bag of cardboard was her only defense, but how many hits could it take?

She'd rather wander than find out.

She rose from her knees as she brought the bag up. A pair of bloodied hands grabbed onto her arm. "Please help me." He begged. Kendra only stared at his hands, the blood. It was all over her arm. There was so much of it.

"Casey-" She saw a bulge under the flesh of his biceps and forearm. One moved up towards his shoulder while the other wormed its way towards his hands.

Towards her.

The metal broke through his skin. She yanked her arm away as the needle emerged with a red thread connected to it. She fell back against the dumpster in her attempt to dodge. Her footing slipped as she fell, pulling the bag in front of herself. A cacophony of metal hitting the dumpster echoed out.

Kendra looked at her companion, who now had needles sticking out of his other arm and chest. The betrayal in his eyes twisted her heart. His eyes widened, then came the screams of agony. He flailed about in a desperate attempt to knock the impaled metal loose as his blood splattered on everything around him.

The deer had made him a human pincushion.

The needles twitched and wormed their way into his limbs and body. The look of pain on his face would haunt her, the screams something she'd never forget, and the way he fell to the ground and writhed as blood spilled from his mouth were like something from a nightmare.

She could only watch as the needles bulged under his skin and moved around like snakes slithering onwards. Working and weaving his insides to make another horrifying puppet. The screams of agony tapered until he went silent.

Casey was dead.

There was nothing she could do...

It wasn't her fault...

How could she have even helped him?

She would have died trying...

Yet...

Guilt gripped her heart, paired with the horrifying revelation of what the threads were.

The sinew and muscles of those it had captured.

The needles were the monster, not the strings.

The threads were just the means for its control.

"Kendra!" The voice pulled her back. She looked to the opened back door and saw Tif's hand on the handle. "You need to stay quiet! The rotting ones are blind!" The Cerberus turned to face her. More needles rose to the surface of the beast. She pulled the door, leaving it open just a crack. "Make your way around the building!" The door clang shut, followed by a set of clanks as they struck the door.

Stay quiet?

Is that why it focused on Casey?

It was blind...

How did Tif know...

The questions would overwhelm her if she kept focusing on them.

She needed to escape.

She took another breath, then took one last look at Casey, only to feel her heart drop at the state of him.

The needles had woven red strings over his arms and spread across his body. She had to move. How long would it be before it could puppet his body? The deer alone was already enough of a problem.

The object that had protected her had now left her trapped. If she ditched her shield, she'd be defenseless against the needles. If she kept it, the noise would attract the beast's attention.

Her heart pounded as she watched the buck who seemed to stay in place, its other heads focusing on the corpse at its feet as the threads on Casey's arms tensed and the arms twitched and moved gracelessly. The needles rose from his skin and wove more threads.

The strings were gaining control.

She was running out of time.

Casey's body twitched and went to its side when Kendra saw something that was hidden under the body. A phone. He must have dropped it in the initial attack.

It could be her way out of this.

Kendra inched towards the phone, breathing through her nose. She steadied her legs and slowly stepped towards the body. She gripped her bag tighter when the cheap plastic stretched and tore. Her heart nearly stopped as she grabbed and intact section of the bag to steady it before it could fall.

The Cerberus's heads all glanced in her direction when a thread rose from its body, the thread went still and the needle dangled in place.

It was trying to detect her.

Kendra looked at her former coworker and saw that many needles had migrated to his chest as they poked through his uniform and stitched red threads into his bloodied apron.

She moved again and reached for the phone. In a quick yank, she had gotten it off the pavement without scraping it against the concrete.

A quick breath to steady her nerves; she had to act quickly to get behind her barrier one last time. She looked at the screen when it lit up. With a swipe upwards, she saw the play option for the song he had paused.

"Bring your friends" The music played. Kendra saw the thread move about as she pulled the bag in front of her.

Another jolt as the bag took the hit. The deer began its approach when Kendra tossed the phone towards the creature.

"It's fun to lose" The heads looked up as the phone flew over them. As the phone hit the pavement, music continued to play. "And to pretend."

Kendra watched as it turned to face the phone. Its hooves clopped on the concrete as it made its way towards the music.

This was her chance!

She slowly set the bag down. The deer didn't react. With her only defense gone, she made slow, surgical steps to navigate the pavement. She made sure not to splash in any of the many puddles around her.

"Oh no, I know-" The music stopped, the needle must have killed the phone. Despite losing her cover, it had done its job. She was nearly at the building and would be out of the deer's range as soon as she turned the corner of the building.

A roar sounded from the dumpster that seemed to be aimed in her direction.

Casey held his upper body off the ground with his arms. His glassy eyes stared into hers. His sclerae had taken on a purple tinge as the needles weaved around his face.

The rotting ones were blind...

He hadn't rotted yet...

He could see her.

Casey pulled himself by his arms, and the deer seemed to follow along with him.

Being quiet was no longer an option. Kendra broke into a sprint. She could figure out a plan once she was inside and away from the monsters pursuing her.

She just had to make it inside.

As she reached the front of the diner, she looked into the building to see many people panicking from a man bound in the dark threads. The man was missing an arm while he thrashed about violently. Needles emerged from the threads encasing his convulsing body.

She knew what was coming and ducked. The windows of the diner shattered as glass shards rained onto the concrete.

What the hell happened while she was out here?