No one said a word. Not until the monster had left the town and disappeared out of sight.

Once it was gone, I couldn’t help myself. I needed answers. “What the hell is going on here?”

“Stay down,” the priest said. “Keep quiet. There could be more.”

The guards continued to look out over the town, scanning slowly back and forth. Guns at the ready.

“They sometimes hunt in packs,” the bald man said.

A good twenty minutes later they seemed to relax. Ed gave the all clear to the priest. The town was empty.

“What was that thing?” Kenji asked.

“Mutations,” Daniel whispered to no one.

“The first ones showed up about a month ago,” the priest explained. “After the dust storm had died down. Most of the time they come out at night.”

“They?” Maria asked. “So you mean like, there’s more of them?”

“When the storm cleared my men started seeing things,” the priest continued. “Strange things. Demons. Monsters. Call them what you will. The smaller ones hunt in packs. The bigger one hunts alone.”

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“How many are there?” Kenji asked.

“We don’t know. It’s impossible to tell. All we know is they come back every few days to feed. And on the hot days, the days where the wind dies down to a whisper; a black cloud of death appears. The devil takes many forms.”

“Why did you hang those women up?” Maria asked. “Why did you feed them to that thing!?”

“They were already dead,” the priest answered. “Both women had been bitten multiple times. They were infected. You needed to see this. You needed to see what we are up against. We hide underground not because we want to, but because we have to. My men blindfolded you, tied you up out of necessity.”

“You fed an innocent woman to a monster because you had to?” Maria asked in disbelief.

“It was for the protection of the group. It is the only way.”

“You’re insane!”

“There was an incident a few weeks ago,” the priest said. “One of our people wandered off. Her house is just over there.” He pointed to a small row of houses near the edge of the township. “She wanted to get a photo album,” he continued. “She claimed she could not live without it. She brought a whole pack of them into the town. They hunted her, tracked her. Chased her down like a pride of lions, a pack of wolves. You must understand that they are constantly watching us. If we stray too far from the group, if we leave the safety of our shelters for too long, they will come for us. They are ferocious hunters. There is no stopping them. We choose to sacrifice our dead to the monsters because it is the only way we can survive. They come back every few days. Sometimes a week or more passes. Sometimes longer. But they always come back. Always. We’ve trained them to feed on scraps. As a result, they leave us alone. If we have nothing to offer, they become more aggressive. Are they demons? Is it Lucifer himself? I don’t know. I just don’t know anymore. But I do know this. If we feed them; we live.”