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“Jeanne, lock the manor up as tight as you can once I leave. I don’t want that thing out there to have a chance to get at the children.”

Lord Thomas Aurok hefted his rifle over his shoulder and stepped out into the night, scanning the twilight horizon for any signs of movement. He sighed with relief when he heard the manor doors slam shut, followed by the click of the deadbolt sliding into place. The doors were solid oak, and would protect his family from whatever kind of creature was out prowling the night.

He knew there was something though, and there had been for at least a week. First, it had killed the gardener, who lived in a small house outside the main structure of the manor. All that was left of him was a pool of stagnant blood and a headless corpse. By the time Lord Aurok had found his body, they’d already lost the butler who had gone outside to check on some strange noises outside the children’s rooms. Afterward, they continued to loose their working staff one by one as each night the creature brutally killed someone. Now, all the staff had quit for fear of their lives, and that left only himself, Jeanne, and the children. Now, he was out trying to protect them from some unknown horror.

The last bit of light faded into the mountains, and a chill set in as the moon rose, a full, cold sphere. Aurok settled in and sighted down the length of the rifle’s barrel. The gardener’s quarters stood out off to his right, looking bitter and lifeless without it’s inhabitant. Off to his right lay a great expanse of field, barren and open in the fall season. He stationed himself carefully between the gardener’s shack and the children’s rooms, where he had an easy view of the open field and where anything that might bring harm to his family could be easily spotted.

He watched out across the breadth of the field, ignoring the chill that was sinking into his bones. His breath rose up in short huffs, pale specters against the dark night sky. He caught a bit of movement out of the corner of his eye in the direction of the old gardener’s shack, and he shifted his view, sighting down the length of the rifle at were he thought he’d seen the motion.

Aurok held his aim on the edge of the house, not moving, barely breathing. He was about to give up the sight for his overactive imagination, when he heard a quiet noise form the other side of the shed. It was a soft, muffled tearing noise like someone trying to creep across a bed of crisp leaves. He shifted his gaze again, aiming for the edge where the noise had emanated.

He didn’t have to wait long before a figure immerged from around the corner. It looked like the form of an unnaturally large man, bent double and keeping a long inhuman snout close to the ground. It moved slowly. Purposefully. As if tracking a something. Recognizing that this must be the creature he was looking for, Aurok drew a sharp breath. The creature looked up at the sound, which echoed through the night as clear as a shattering of glass.

Aurok sighted and fired before the creature could react to his presence.

CRACK! The gunshot echoed across the field, the rifle kicked in Aurok’s frozen grasp, and the muzzle of the gun flashed with the shot. Blinded for a moment by the sudden bright light in the darkness, Aurok lost sight of his target. He quickly pulled back the pin on the loading mechanism, drawing another round into the gun’s barrel.

His vision adjusted again to the moonlit arena. He saw the creature charging across the field towards him. He must have missed the shot, because the creature ran uninhibited. If he tried to take another shot and missed, the creature would be upon him before he had time to recover and reload, and it would be all over.

Aurok sighted down the barrel of the rifle again, aiming straight for the creature’s chest. Out in the open moonlight, he could make out the creature much more clearly. It had dusk gray fur that lightened as it came around to the chest. It could have been a giant man were it not for the canine snout, complete with razor sharp teeth and eerie yellow eyes that shone in the darkness.

It ran towards him, clearing the distance in amazingly fluidic movements. Muscle and sinew relaxed and contracted rhythmically as it ran, eliminating the space between them in a startlingly short time. It was almost upon him before Aurok could react to fire.

CRACK! The rifle kicked again, but this time the bullet connected square with the creature’s chest, causing it to stumble as it ran towards him. Aurok moved out of the way quickly as the thing collided with the ground, flailing claws and teeth at where he had been only a moment before. He made as if to check to see if the thing was dead, but it was already trying to get back to its feet, roaring in a beastly rage. There was something about the roar that chilled the soul. It was so close to being human, yet it was laced with something else that wasn't natural.

Aurok dropped the rifle and ran. Its ammunition was spent, and he wouldn’t have time to reload before the creature was recovered. It looked as if the bullet wound wasn’t going to keep it down. Aurok ran for the gardener’s quarters. If Jeanne had followed his instructions, the house would be locked up tight, and there would be no way that he could make it inside. Especially without letting that thing inside. The shed was the closest bit of cover.

The creature got to its feet and sniffed the air, searching for its quarry. It spotted Aurok and made after him, limping slightly, but still closing the distance quickly. It would be a close dash to see who made it there first.

Aurok made the shed seconds before the creature and slammed the door closed. Shortly afterward, he felt the creature collide headlong into the wall. This door was no dependable oak masterpiece, and the frame splintered a little under the force of the blow, threatening to give way at a second attempt.

Aurok looked around frantically for something, anything to use to defend himself. His hands were shaking so badly that he could barely get a hold of the gardener’s rake, and he had to steady himself against the wall to keep his knees from buckling.

The creature hit the door again, and the door bent inward. Again. The frame popped loose at one corner. Again. The door bent further inward and shattered under the powerful force of the creature’s muscle.

Suddenly, there it was, charging at him through the broken remains of the doorway. The moment seemed frozen in time. Aurok could smell the creature’s rancid breath. He could count the teeth, all thirty two of them, that lined its mouth. He could see the look of terrible rage in the creature’s bright yellow eyes.

The creature leapt. Aurok swung the rake.

The creature’s claws met Aurok’s shoulder, cutting into the skin around his collarbone, leaving a deep tear. At that exact same instant, the rake contacted the creature’s face, it’s three prongs tearing into the skin just above its left eye and leaving a gash marks that ripped all the way down past it’s horrid muzzle.

The creature hit the ground, shielding its face from another blow with a clawed hand and backed away, growling deeply from its throat. As it neared the splintered remains of the door it turned and bolted, running off across the field away from the manor and the shed, and away from Lord Aurok’s family.

He dropped the rake and slumped down with his back against the wall, gingerly examining his wound. Tearing off his shirt for a crude bandage, he treated the wound, hoping that he wouldn’t get an infection from the cut. Slowly, his adrenaline levels dropped, and he fell into a dreamless sleep, out in the gardener’s shed. Thankfully, the creature stayed away.

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Lord Aurok woke with a start some hours later to find the sun rising slowly into the sky. He stood up, becoming once more aware of the searing pain in his shoulder, and walked out of the shed. He limped over to the rifle, and retrieved it, heading back for the front door, where he was greeted enthusiastically by Jeanne.

“Oh my God! Thomas!” She ran up next to him, eyeing his shoulder carefully, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Aurok groaned, knowing perfectly well that he was not, “Go and get the children. We’re leaving this wretched place today before we have to face that thing again.”

Aurok took some time and washed himself, this time being sure to clean and dress his wounds properly. The creature had done more damage to him than he’d realized. They had to leave as soon as possible, before he was torn apart defending his family.

He was just putting on his shirt when Jeanne burst into the room, in a frantic state, “Thomas! Aria! The creature! Oh lord help us!”

“Calm down, calm down,” Aurok comforted Jeanne, trying to get her to calm down enough to tell her what was wrong. He’d heard the name of his eldest daughter used roughly in the same sentence with the creature, “What’s wrong?”

“I was gathering all the children in the front room so that we could leave, but when I went to get Aria,” Jeanne broke down into tears, and Aurok waited calmly for her to regain her composure, “I couldn’t find her! She wasn’t in her room, and the window was wide open!”

Aurok broke into a run, making for Aria’s room. The creature couldn’t have gotten her! He’d seen it run off away from the house. It had to have! He wouldn’t have let himself fall asleep if it had gone the other direction. He couldn’t have!

When Aria’s room proved to be empty as predicted, he ran down to the front room, putting on some small amount of composure for the children. He asked one of the elder boys if they’d seen Aria anywhere.

“Aria?” Jeremy, the second eldest tried his best to answer his father’s question. As it was, he wasn’t exactly sure what was going on. The children hadn’t been told about the creature, and the whole group had just been hustled down to the front room without any warning, “Last I saw her, she was sitting out front crying.”

Aurok nodded in thanks to his son and made his way out front. His heart swelled with relief to find her sitting on the front porch. She had her head in her hands, her long dusky hair falling over her head, completely obscuring her face, and she was sobbing.

He walked up slowly and sat down next to her, and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. He spoke to her in the most comforting tones he could manage.

“What’s wrong Aria?”

Aria lifted her head out of her hands and slowly turned to look at him, sniffling as she did so. He stared at her face. Three bright red gashes ran from the top of her forehead and came down across her face, ending just above her chin. Even more striking, was that the left eye stayed full and bright and yellow. It was hard to look at the eye without remembering the look of pure hatred that it had given him last night. Now, it gazed back at him, and a tear slid out if its corner, and ran down his daughter’s face.

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