The Reckoning

It was a cold winter night. Cody was heading home after a night at the bar. He had one too many, and he was musing about his latest kill, looking forward to the next one. It was a dark night, the stars the only witnesses to his drunken figure making its way on the deserted path. His steps slow on the fresh snow, leaving a vestige of his presence before the wind and the fresh snow swallowed each footprint.

Suddenly, he felt watched. Even in his inebriated state, he sensed being followed. But, being the man that he was, he brushed it away. His fear radar —long broken with his arrogant attitude of believing himself an apex predator. As he walked on, a pair of eyes watched him from between the trees. The stars were privy to a number of figures moving cautiously and silently in the night, following a clumsy and heavy bipedal shape. A low howl followed another.

Cody was smiling. Thinking he'd heard his next victim. However, his hubris was shaken when he heard a snarl not too far from his position. And then another. And more.

The low howls from earlier had become louder, had multiplied. The man broke into a cold sweat and tried to run, but the cold hands of the snow had grabbed his ankles and kept him in place. He could now see the figures appearing from everywhere, bright eyes staring intensely at him from every direction. He was surrounded. He took out his gun and started shooting, missing the quick and evasive wolves that were fast approaching from all sides. The first bite hit him on the leg. He kept on pulling the trigger even though the night had devoured all the bullets his weapon had housed. The second bite hit his arm, each new one giving birth to a new scream. The screams lasted all night. The fatal blow came just before dawn. Night owls and creatures of the dark watched as if they all knew that what they were witnessing was a fair trial and an appropriate sentence.

The next day, a search was underway to find Cody. The monster in human clothing. The body was never recovered. A trail of blood... the only proof that he had ever existed.

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