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“Stop!” I tried to run forward to physically prevent him from going to Jacob, Tyson and Bellatrix held me back.
“You gotta get up.” Alex dropped to his knees and began trying to physically lift him.
Like a scene from a horror movie, whatever had been chasing us moved from within the trees. For the first time since this hellish nightmare began, we were able to see whatever was picking us off one by one.
It wasn’t an animal—resembling more of an extremely large man with a hood over his head. Aside from two glowing eyes all that could be seen was a murky black outline that had human-like hands and long pointed claws. It covered Jacob’s face and slipped its hand into his open mouth, slicing through his cheeks with its nails.
Jacob screamed in agony, choking as blood pooled inside mouth. His screams grew louder as the beast grabbed hold of his lower jaw and began to pull both ways.
Alex jumped up and charged at it, ignoring our pleas for him to come to us. Stopping its torture of Jacob for only a second, Alex was knocked back across the trail, landing partially in overgrowth. He hit the ground so hard his glasses flew off his face. As he coughed and spit up blood, I realized he’d been hit in the face. Ribbons of flesh were completely torn away.
The three of us huddled together a mere few yards further down the trail, unable to come up with something that would save them without getting ourselves killed in the process.
The sound of Jacob’s jaw being torn apart would haunt me for the rest of my life. Like Velcro ripping apart and a wet towel being wrung, it was left hanging by thin strips of tendons at a lopsided angle.
This didn’t kill him, making it so much worse.
He continued to wail, somehow remaining conscious even though he had to be in agonizing pain. There was so much blood, his intelligible words were drenched in it.
“Help him,” Alex begged, crawling across the ground.
I wanted to—with every piece of my breaking heart I wanted to save my best friends. I didn’t know how. The beast stood, the size of it stabbing me with icy-cold terror. Its glowing eyes swept over Alex and Jacob before resting on us.
“Don’t look at it!” Tyson shouted.
He grabbed hold of me and Bellatrix and began to run, dragging us away from Alex and Jacob.
“What are you doing they’re still alive?”
“Barely! We can’t do anything for them without crossing the path of that thing.”
I knew he was right.
That didn’t make it any easier to accept.
Their pleas turned to a mix of terror and agony, the sound of a ringing bell and them being torn apart echoing through the woods.
In the chaos I’d almost forgotten that thing wasn’t alone. Another followed on our trail, its fucking bell ringing as twigs broke behind us like it was right there.
My body was in pure fight or flight mode, the fear and adrenaline kept me moving despite my lungs feeling as if they were going to give out and every breath wheezing through a dry mouth.
I couldn’t stop to process or think.
We had to keep going.
When the clearing finally came into view, the sight of the car gave us a fresh burst of speed. Our rental was the only one there. Both the Civic and Sasha’s car were gone. I crawled beneath the rope that warned us not to go into the woods with tears cascading down my cheeks.
We piled into the sedan, me in the passenger seat, Bellatrix in the back. I looked up, seeing three glowing sets of eyes hovering at the tree line, but not coming any further.
Remembering what Tyson said, I covered my face and ducked down. He started the car and slammed the pedal to the floor, reversing back to the main road.
As he drove away, I couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever had been lurking out there had purposely let us go.
The festival was in full swing when we got back to the village of Demonio. No one paid our significantly smaller group any extra attention. The rugged state we were in didn’t raise any red flags when half the crowd was wearing various costumes of horror.
We didn’t stop to speak to anyone. It was agreed before getting out of the car we wouldn’t go for help.
Not here.
The local legend had become too real and those who knew of that folktale could be fully aware of what went down in the woods that surrounded their precious village.
We went right into our rooms, gathering everything we would need to get the fuck out of this place and nothing more, sticking together as if our lives depended on it.
Inside the boys’ room, I tried not to stare at all the things that belonged to Alex and Jacob.
