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Its night vision was focused on the task at hand.
Mary’s house.
As it lurked through the edge of the forest, also known as Mary’s backyard, it never let its eyes wander from staring at the back patio door.
It uncontrollably let out a quiet growl.
Emotion blocks out the ability to think logically, and the emotion coursing through its veins was pure rage.
It had a mission to accomplish, and there was no point in dragging out the inevitable.
It twitched for a second before rushing at full speed towards Mary’s house.
*****
CRASH!
Mary Luden and her husband, Tom, were jolted awake.
“What the fuck was that!?” Tom exclaimed.
Mary was blurry-eyed and somewhat incapacitated from the melatonin still in full effect from her sleep state.
“Huh? What?...” she managed to say in a tired voice.
Tom jumped out of the bed and rushed towards his safe.
Mary sat up and asked, “What... what are you doing, Tom?”
“You didn’t hear that noise from downstairs?” he answered.
Mary shook her head and squeezed her eyes tightly to get herself to a condition of alertness that she knew her mind needed to get to.
“Yes, I did,” she said. “What was it?”
“I have no idea,” Tom replied. “But it sure didn’t sound like one of the cats.”
He pulled the gun out of the safe and ensured it was loaded.
“Stay here,” he commanded. “And call the police.”
Tom quietly opened the bedroom door as Mary searched for the phone.
Tom closed the bedroom door and realized that he couldn’t see more than five feet in front of him. The hallway was completely dark. He purchased this 1850s house ten years ago and made very little upgrades. He always talked about adding this or that over time, but just never got around to it. At the current moment, Tom wished that he would’ve at least installed hallway lights.
He stepped slowly into the black, clutching his Glock 17.
Sweat began to appear on his hands, making the gun a little slippery to hold, but not impossible.
“I’ve got a gun!” he yelled into the silence. “I’ve called the police!”
Tom waited a few seconds for a response, or at least a rustling noise indicating that the intruder was leaving. Neither occurred.
“Whoever’s in here, you better get the hell out NOW!”
He inched closer towards the stairs. He could tell he was getting close to the stairway because his left hand felt the familiar portion of the guard rail that always gave him a splinter.
He reached the stairway and stood completely still.
He couldn’t see anything downstairs.
It took him a moment to realize that he hadn’t taken a decent breath since the abrupt wakeup.
Tom drew in a deep inhale.
Before he could exhale (and begin to fathom that maybe the noise was not malicious or came from somewhere else), he felt the sudden and hard impact of a large furry beast wrestle him to the floor.
His head hit the second story hardwood and caused an immediate concussion. Had he been able to see through the darkness, his vision would have been dazed.
A second later, a loud roar erupted in his ears, followed by a horrible and indescribable pain.
The mouth of the beast had secured its long teeth deeply into the back and front of his left shoulder. With no time to accept what was going on, Tom was airborne. Using its mouth, the beast had shifted its neck and released its grip. Tom landed on the fifth step and tumbled down the rest of the way to the first-floor hardwood. He finally exhaled before falling unconscious.
Mary had heard the commotion and was frantically opening up the window with her right hand while grasping the phone in her left.
“Yes, please come now! There’s an intruder in our...”
Before she could finish her sentence, the bedroom door was obliterated and in its place stood the ten-foot tall unearthly creature.
The dispatcher on the other line heard a combination of both a deathly final scream and a loud guttural sound before the call suddenly cut off.