Death's Saviour

Song of the Chapter: Monster by Willyecho

I sit in my chair looking out into the forest with a deep longing that I haven’t felt in a long time, I just want to go out for a run to leave behind all this stress. Yet, that is something I can’t do, not since I ended that life. Now I have the responsibility to uphold the way of the Wolves, I must wait for the next full moon for my time to run. Behind me Tucker spins a pen on my desk while he flexes his muscles, we call him the guns of the group considering he is built like a giant and doesn’t have any brains. Next to Tucker Danny leans against my door staring past me and into the distance, he is the brains, he is one of the smartest Wolves. Danny is too kind and gentle for his own good as he associates with the humans treating them as our equals. He showed that today when he helped Noah through his panic attack. Caroline sits on my bed cradling her arms around her as tears continue to pour from her makeup stained eyes. She lost her younger brother today, he was murdered in the forest right behind the school while we were inside. The idea of feeling that powerless struggles through me sending goosebumps crawling up my arms.

“What could have done this to my baby brother? What monster is capable of killing a child?” Caroline sobs out her voice tinged with loss as angrily she digs her fingers into her skin along her arms.

“The same monster that killed Fiona,” Danny responds with a smooth voice from behind us causing us all to turn to look at him as I raise my eyebrow.

The eyebrow is meant to convey curiosity to cover up the real anger that burns through my heart. Of course, Danny sees right through it as only he is capable of doing as my cousin.

“You think all of these killings are connected?” Tucker asks in a faked macho man voice but really, he is scared, we all are.

The pack has never had to deal with something this powerful before, nothing and no one has ever dared to attack the pack. We have struck fear into the hearts of our enemies, not this one. This enemy as struck fear into us, it has hit so close to home that the pack has started to question its alphas, question me as the heir. The pack is starting to fear that we are weak. Anger rings through me at the idea of being weak, I am far from weak.

“It is the same monster; the same thing has been attacking us over and over again!” I say my voice strong because this I am certain of, I can feel the truth of it in my bones.

“This thing killed my baby brother and Fiona, it caused a church fire and killed your father’s brother, it killed the assassins the pack sent after those two humans with ease. All in the space of a few months this thing has killed so many, who’s next?” Caroline sobs, anger is absent from her voice as the slight hint of panic replaces it.

“Nothing has ever killed our assassins before, not with such ease,” Tucker growls out his voice uneasy and I can’t help but notice how true his statement is.

Nothing has ever been able to handle the Wolves that we call assassins, they have always handled any problems they were sent against. Not this time, this time we found them tattered and dead in the backyard of some humans. They were slaughtered as if they were simply flies that needed to be swatted.

“Why did it protect those two humans?” Danny questions interested, I get his interest as he could be onto something important.

“Maybe they really were harbouring it?” I suggest but Danny ignores my suggestion as he moves around me to look out into the forest as if the answers lie there.

The forest is where we once felt safe, now all we feel is hunted in our own lands. It’s a new feeling for the pack to be hunted.

“I have overheard mother and father talking about something called a Hellhound. Perhaps that is what this creature is called. If we know what it is called then maybe we can find out more about it, then we can figure out its weakness leading us to know how to kill it.” Danny’s voice comes out quickly as he continues to think at a racing pace out loud.

Danny is up and moving as he settles at my laptop after removing Tucker from it. We watch as he types ‘Hellhound’ into the search engine of google, then his fingers hover over the enter button as he swallows. His finger begins to move down when someone clears their throat from the doorway. We turn to see Caroline’s mother; her eyes are red, and she has mascara running down her cheeks much like Caroline. Her lips quiver as she looks all of us over before narrowing her eyes at the word ‘Hellhound’ typed into my computer.

“If it is a Hellhound we are dealing with then there is no use searching it up on there. A Hellhound has no weakness and comes in many forms with the potential of any powres, it is a creature born purely of death the Wolf God herself. If they have sent a Hellhound for us than we must figure out what is we are doing wrong, or we must pray to the Wolf God for a swift death because that is what we can expect. Death, it’s what a Hellhound is made for. It’s ironic really, we deserve it… we will all be dead soon, children make your rights and are ready.” Caroline’s mom tells us with a raw voice, her words sending chills thorough us all as we sit their eyes wide listening to her.

“It killed Cree mom, it has to be killable! I have to kill it for him!” Caroline demands from my bed; her mother meets her eyes, she just looks defeated.

“The last time a Hellhound appeared in our history it killed all the Wolves off. It ran us extinct except for one Wolf, the Wolf it fell in love with. They mated and kept the Wolf line going hoping to keep it as a just and smart race. That is how we had come to be different coloured Wolves. But obviously we have fallen from that path if another Hellhound is here and is killing!” Caroline’s mother explains her voice dark and ominous causing me to feel as though she is drowning me, she has her hands on my throat and is holding me underwater.

She leaves us all sitting to our thoughts, thoughts of a Hellhound and our impending deaths. Danny hits the enter button and what pops up on the screen only makes everything so much worse. The Hellhound could be anyone, it is not limited. It could be someone from the past, someone from the future or even one of our own here and now. The Hellhound has a crazy history, there has only been one other to walk this earth. That Hellhound was the one that Caroline’s mother was telling us about, and it lives in what we have named the horror days. I sigh scrubbing my hands over my eyes as we keep reading hoping for any sign of anything that can help us. We come across nothing, nothing at all that can help. We are all going to die!