Chapter 6: The Rabid Wolf

Chapter 6: The Rabid Wolf

For a single, drawn-out second, time stopped. The universe consisted only of the dusty hallway, the four terrified students, and the impossible thing unfolding itself from the shadows at the top of the stairs. It did not move like a man. It flowed, a river of pale skin and elongated limbs, its featureless face a perfect, horrifying void.

The silence was shattered by Chloe’s shriek. It was not a human sound; it was the raw, high-pitched scream of a cornered animal, a sound of pure, system-shocking terror that broke the spell of paralysis.

Panic erupted. It was a singular, mindless organism that seized them all, a rabid wolf sinking its teeth into their collective reason. There was no plan, no thought, only a primal, lizard-brain command: flee.

The retreat was a chaotic, graceless tumble. James, roaring a wordless challenge, grabbed Chloe and Sam and physically shoved them back down the hallway. Sam, for the first time since they’d arrived, looked utterly lost, her camera bouncing uselessly against her chest as she stumbled backward. Her flashlight beam, once a tool of confident exploration, now slashed wildly across the walls and ceiling, creating a nauseating strobe effect of splintered wood and peeling wallpaper.

Leo was the last to turn. His feet felt rooted to the floor, his eyes locked on the gaping, black maw that had opened in the creature’s smooth face. The memory, the terror of his ten-year-old self, was a tidal wave drowning him. It was James’s hand, grabbing the back of his hoodie and yanking him backward with bone-jarring force, that finally broke his trance.

“LEO, MOVE!”

The flight down the grand staircase was a cascade of bodies and frantic, thudding footsteps. The house groaned around them, the ancient wood seeming to amplify their terror. Leo’s heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drumbeat against the backdrop of Chloe’s ragged sobbing and James’s guttural curses. He risked a glance over his shoulder. The creature was not running. It was simply… there. One moment it was at the end of the second-floor hall, the next it was at the top of the stairs, its long, spindly form silhouetted against the gloom, descending with an unnatural, silent fluidity that was far more terrifying than any thunderous pursuit.

They hit the bottom of the stairs in a heap. In the confusion, Chloe tripped over the invading kudzu vine that snaked across the foyer floor, going down with a painful cry.

“Get her up!” Sam yelled, her own light shaking.

James was already there, hauling Chloe to her feet. “The door! Go!”

In that split second of chaos, someone—maybe James, maybe a flailing Chloe—slammed into Leo. He was knocked off balance, stumbling sideways, his shoulder hitting the wall hard. His small flashlight, slick with the sweat from his palm, flew from his grasp. It hit the floorboards with a plastic clatter and rolled, its beam spinning crazily before winking out into darkness.

He was blind.

“James?” he yelled, his voice cracking.

The only answer was the sound of the great oak door groaning open, a brief slice of grey, pre-dawn light, and then the deafening slam as it was pulled shut.

They had left him.

For a moment, he didn’t believe it. They wouldn’t. James would never. But the silence that crashed down in the wake of the slamming door was absolute. He was alone. Alone in the suffocating darkness with that thing.

Panic, cold and sharp, stabbed through him. He couldn't breathe. The air was too thick, too heavy with the smell of dust and that cloying, sweet rot. He scrambled on the floor, his hands slapping against the dusty wood, searching for his flashlight. His fingers brushed against something cold, metallic—no, just the dead grandfather clock.

He had to get out. The door. They had just used the door. He pushed himself to his feet, one hand outstretched, and shuffled forward. His hand met the rough surface of the wall. He followed it, his heart a wild bird trapped in his chest. His mind was a maelstrom of terror, but one thought burned through: the door was to the right of the stairs. He just had to follow the wall.

He moved through the inky blackness, his breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps. The silence was a living entity, pressing in on him, listening. He couldn’t hear the creature. There were no footsteps, no breathing, nothing to indicate where it might be. That was the worst part. It could be anywhere. It could be right behind him.

His outstretched hand suddenly met empty air. An archway. He must have gotten turned around. Was this the living room? He remembered it was on the left when they entered. His internal compass was shattered. Cursing under his breath, he turned, trying to retrace his steps, convinced he was going in circles. The layout of the house, which had seemed so simple in the light, had become a shifting, malevolent maze designed to trap him.

He took another shuffling step forward into what he hoped was the foyer.

His foot kicked something.

It wasn’t the soft thud of wood or the crump of plaster. It was a sharp, metallic sound. A hollow clatter-skitter that echoed in the dead silence of the room.

Leo froze.

He knew that sound. He had built an entire funny story around that sound.

Slowly, trembling, he knelt down, his hands sweeping across the floorboards in front of him. His fingers brushed against something cool, round, and light. A cylinder of thin metal with ridged edges.

A tin can.

His blood ran cold. This was the living room. He had stumbled right back into the one place he was supposed to find the nest. But the nest wasn't here. He had seen it with his own eyes. The floor was bare.

A sliver of moonlight, pale and weak, finally pierced through a grime-caked window high on the wall, offering the barest hint of illumination. It wasn't enough to see by, but it was enough to turn the absolute blackness into a murky, suffocating grey. And in that grey, he could see shapes.

He wasn’t standing on a bare floor.

He was standing in a small clearing. And all around him, rising up in the gloom like the jagged teeth of a colossal trap, were walls. Low, circular walls built of dark, stacked shapes. Hundreds of them. The nest hadn’t been missing. It had been waiting. It had manifested around him. He had stumbled into the center of the snare.

The sickly-sweet smell was overpowering now, a physical force that made his stomach churn. It was the smell of rot and decay, of rust and preserved beans, and something else—the coppery, metallic tang of old blood.

He had become the punchline to his own terrible joke.

From the darkness directly behind him came a soft, wet, clicking sound. The sound of a vast, empty hunger stirring.

The Can Man was right behind him.