We had been trying to outrun them for fifty whole minutes. No normal animal could have possibly chased us for that long at the rate they were moving. Of course, these were not normal by any means, and God knows what the hell they even were or where they came from. I was at the point where I was considering risking everything and just driving as fast as the car could take us in order to outrun them, but just as I was about to slam on the gas... the leading member of the pack suddenly stopped dead in its tracks. There was no motion or transition... one second it had been sprinting after us, the next it was just standing there. The others, however, hastily scrambled on their feet, skidding forward a bit as they too tried to stop. As confused as I was, I didn't let the opportunity go to waste, I just kept my foot down on the gas.

As the shapes of the things faded in the distance behind us, I heard the leader let out a bloodcurdling howl that nearly sounded like a human scream, then all of them turned tail and ran off.

We couldn't feel even a fraction of relief until a full ten minutes had passed. Only then were we able to feel like they had actually gone. The three of us sighed all at once.

"What the hell was their deal?" Jared started, "Hounding after us like that and then just taking off..."

"I didn't think we were going to make it..." Aaron said, shuddering in the backseat.

"Well..." I swallowed, "Luckily we did. I don't know why they stopped chasing us, or why they were even chasing us to begin with... but we're all right now."

By now our surroundings were thick patches of trees, we had left the abandoned farmland behind us.

We had to find another vehicle, there was no way we could make it around the city with the broken windshield. But we hadn't seen any cars or even houses so far, which was a little weird...

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It was a pretty long time since I had been to Crestland... but I swear it never took that long to get past the farmland. I remembered there being a bit more houses, too.

We had to be close by now... but there was no way we were going to risk going through the city itself, we had to go around it. A gut feeling told me that if there was any more horrors lurking around, which by then I didn't doubt for one second, they would probably be congregating around the more heavily populated areas.

But then again... it had been a month. Who knows what it was like now?...or whether or not anybody else was even left?

I tried to stay optimistic though. Maybe we'd even leave the reach of the storm? Who knows...

A low rumbling noise echoed from the blackened heavens above. My first thought was that it was a jet flying over us, like I had been accustomed to hearing on our trek a month ago, but there was something about it... It wasn't a jet.

I strained my eyes, looking at the source of the sound. It was no good, I couldn't see anything far away through the broken windshield, the rain and the darkness of the night.

Jared had evidently heard the noise too, because he peeked his head out of the window, looking towards the sky. I saw him nearly jump with shock.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"There's something flying up in the air there... I thought it was a plane, but... it's not shaped like any plane I've ever seen. It almost looks like... a bird, or something... The wings..." his worried mumbling transformed into a panicked shout as he stuck his head back into the car, "They're flapping! Markus, it's definitely a living thing! Whatever it is, it's huge!"

"Please don't notice us..." I couldn't help but beg out loud, "Please, please just leave us alone..."

There was nothing we could do. There was nowhere to hide.

No... if I thought about it logically... there was no way it hadn't already noticed us.

"Do you hear that?!" Aaron shouted.

I did. A high pitched whistling noise tore through the air, and at the same time I finally made out the shadow of the flying thing. I couldn't make out any of its features through the darkness and the rain, all I could see was its movement... and it was diving down, flying directly towards us!