Wade glanced at the speedometer as the pickup truck flew down the road. The good news? Norman never broke the speed limit, not even once. The bad news? He never dropped a single mile below it, unless the road rules demanded it. G forces yanked at Wade as Norman blazed around the corners.

Wade was all for thrills within reason, but this was borderline irresponsible. He was about to speak up. It was a residential area, after all. Then Norman banked to the right around a blind corner.

Wade’s heart skipped a beat.

Norman had dodged a gaggle of children, playing marbles in the road. He’d dodged them before he could see them.

Wade turned his attention from the speedometer to the man at the wheel. He eyed Norman up and down in a new light. The pattern of strangeness was escalating. He fancied himself a good judge of character. However, while Norman always read him like a book, Wade could discern very little about his odd companion.

“Norman, are you human?” Wade asked out of the blue.

Norman smirked. “What else would I be?”

“You tell me,” Wade pressed. “Don’t let it go to your head, but for a long time, I’ve considered you the pinnacle of human potential. The perfect rival. Right now? I’m not so sure what you even are.”

Norman laughed. “Why? ‘Cause I can topple you with the basic laws of physics? ‘Cause I know a couple stuff I’m ‘not supposed to’? ‘Cause I’m maybe a little too fast, a little too strong for you? Wade, that’s nothing. Chump change compared to what a human can be.

“Imagine you lived in an isolated village, stone-age style. The most marvelous weapon you’ve ever seen is a spear. You happen upon a modern soldier. He’s talking, but there’s no one there. You don’t know he has an earpiece. You wouldn’t even know what an earpiece is. You’re well-hidden. He shouldn’t see you, but he stops to look at you anyway. There’s something weird on his face. You don’t understand what infrared goggles are. Then, at his command, fire rains from the sky, and a hidden military outpost is destroyed. You know he caused it, but you can’t imagine how. You don’t understand that he called down an airstrike. Is he human? Is he normal?

“The funny thing about ‘normal’ is it depends on who you ask. A hideously mutated tree isn’t normal, but when you have a forest full of ‘em? Yeah, they’re normal. At least, they seem to be. You can’t compare them to anything else. Then when you leave the forest and you find out what a tree’s supposed to look like. In a way, I’m not normal. I’m so far below the line that I barely know what normal means. However, I’m getting closer, and I’ll get there some day.”

Wade stared, openly wary and intrigued. What on Earth was Norman on about?

“Care to elaborate?” Wade requested.

Norman thought for a moment, absent-mindedly dodging a car that came out of nowhere. Finally, he shook his head.

“No.”

Wade was about to argue.

“You might want to spend some time getting acquainted with your weapon,” Norman suggested before he could say anything.

Almost pouting, Wade lifted his … smitelight? It looked powerful. He’d admit that, but it was still just a flashlight. How could something like this give his firearm a run for its money?

Norman spoke up: “I sent you a tutorial video on how to-”

*ZZAP!*

A static burst cracked through the air. Norman’s dreadlocks stood on end. Wade blinked. Was … was that it’s taser function? This thing packed a punch!

Norman did not sound amused. “… Listen. I know that we are men, and we prefer to feel things out on our own, but please watch the tutorial. Also, don’t flash fry me while I’m driving. That would be inconvenient.”

~

Ian Anderson was better known as Chef Nyam. He’d earned quite the reputation with his oddly personal passion to cook up and scarf down nyctals of all kinds. Furthermore? They actually tased good, and they’d better. Cooking was his only talent, besides wielding the unofficial national weapon of Jamaica: The Cutlass.

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He stared at the industrial strength box sitting in his front yard. It jostled violently as the screaming thing within it thrashed. The screams sounded … almost human, but not quite. They had an odd quality that made his ears feel like bleeding. He wasn’t quite sure what this thing was, but he would cook it anyway. The last straw was when it tried to drag away his pit bull in the wee hours of the morning. His sweet little Gizzada gave it a reason to scream, and brought home its … ear? He couldn’t tell. All he knew was that it tasted like lobster and oyster. Finally, he’d trapped it and he would have more!

Chef Nyam raised his cutlass and marched for the box.

The box lurched and rocked towards him as creeping black mist seeped out of it.

He stopped.

What was he doing? This was a new, exotic nyctal he knew nothing about! Opening the box and exposing it to sunlight would definitely kill it, but there was nothing to say it wouldn’t disembowel him first. Contrary to popular belief, he wasn’t crazy. He was fully aware of the possibilities. He couldn’t just go in cutlass swinging as usual.

He needed photos for social media!

One hand would snap the pics. The other was for the cutlass. He’d hit it a little harder than usual too. It was a good plan.

A pickup truck skidded to a stop before him.

Norman flung open the door, strode up to his side and examined nightmare box.

“How much do you want for it?” Norman asked.

Chef Nyam grinned. A greedy giggle bubbled up in his throat.

~

Wade scrolled through his phone and almost laughed at the post. “According to Chef Nyam, ‘Jus pawn aff ah blood-tirsty monstuh tuh sum poor Missa Brinks!’”

Norman didn’t bother hold it back. “HAHA! That guy cracks me up!”

A haunting scream sliced through the moment. Wade eyed the little box or horrors on the back of his pickup truck. It left a trail of black as they sped along the road. The thing had to weigh at least 400 pounds. It had taken the combined strength of Norman, the Chef Nyam and himself to hoist it into the back. With every lurch, it looked to be on the verge of breaking free.

“Twilight’s comin’ fast,” Wade announced.

“I know,” Norman answered simply.

“Most nyctals can’t handle twilight, but A.M.E.s can,” Wade added.

“A.M.E.s are extremely rare,” Norman noted.

“Yet here we are, in the neighbourhood where one snatched a girl last evening,” Wade parried.

Wade caught Norman sighing through his nostrils.

“Who?” asked Norman.

Wade studied Norman for more reactions.

“Hard to say,” Wade shrugged. “They couldn’t identify the body. It was all over the morning news.”

“… That was Amy,” Norman quietly declared.

Wade froze.

Norman couldn’t be serious. The dark cloud that descended over his mood confirmed otherwise. Wade had never heard Norman sound so defeated, and yet …

“… Why are you so calm about this?” Wade inquired.

It almost sounded like an accusation.

Norman’s eyes alit with hope. “Because she’s -.”

The creature stilled in its box.

Norman and Wade exchanged looks. Very suspicious.

It screamed at a new pitch, in a new pattern.

Wade clutched his ears. It felt like they’d burst.

Norman handed him something. It looked like some kind of sci-fi visor. Norman now had one on his forehead. It didn’t cover his eyes at the moment, but there were parts shielding his ears.

Wade put it on, covering his ears. He could still hear almost like normal, but the sound was moderated to a tolerable level. Interesting.

He was glad he took the visor.

A deeper, howling scream shook the vehicle, matching the patterns of the smaller one.

Something struck.

Right way up became upside down. The world spun. A moment of weightlessness. Then the pickup truck crashed into a streetlight, bending the pole out of shape.

Hanging upside down in his seatbelt, Wade fought to gather his wits. What hit them?

Norman was gone.

Wade undid the seatbelt and fell hard. From the questionable safety of the truck, he saw an insectoid claw embedded in the road where they’d been. It towered up and up until the inverted car door blocked it from sight. Black smoke poured from the building on the far side of the street. If this was a nyctal, how could it-? Ah … the rapidly descending Sun cast a great shadow from the building. Maybe it took the edge off the evening light just enough to create a safe zone for nyctals.

That wasn’t enough. The ambient light should have killed it nonetheless.

A memory tickled at the back of his impact-addled mind. There were whispers across the forums dedicated to categorising nyctals. Tales of a creature that hunted just before dark, blacking out the setting sun with its ebony fog.

T̴̗̐̅̍̐hẽ̵͎͠͝ S̵̈́̎̐̃moķ̵̟̤̦̏̈͂̔̕͜͝͠e S̷͍͐cream̵̧̟͝.̴̅͘

It peeled its way out of the building, gingerly removing outer fragments of hollowed architecture like a jigsaw puzzle. Great flaps emerged from the building, fanning the black mist across the area. The fog formed a crude dome, turning evening to night. Now, Wade could barely see a thing.

He pulled down the visor. It activated automatically, illuminating a twilit world that looked neither night nor day. He crawled closer to the window for a better look.

Arachnid forelimbs loomed out of the building, to a body mostly concealed in mist. Its singular, amber eye peered out of the black, swarming with splattered pupils. Some gazed upon Wade. Others scanned the environment, falling on anything that drew their attention.

All as one, those pupils focused down on the challenger approaching the giant.

Norman.