The next few moments were frightening. One moment my light was shining on the injured deer, the next, a large, reddish-brown creature lunged forward and singlehandedly tore the broken leg off of the injured deer’s body. There was a loud rip and pop sound as the leg was ripped off in a grisly fashion.
The doe cried out in horrible, garbled pain as Simon himself yelled in shocked surprise. That was the wrong thing to do; the creature quickly turned its attention to where Simon and I stood. Its eyes were a piercing, haunting yellow. A low slurping sound could be heard as the animal started chomping on the deer’s leg. It had taken off the leg and most of the deer’s torso with its mighty rip. With a shaking hand, I held the beam of the flashlight close. The animal dropped the leg and soon turned its hungry attention onto the deer. It lunged. The creature went through the doe’s throat in a sudden hungry frenzy. Whatever it was that was now eating the deer stood on hind legs. Its reddish-brown fur covered every inch of its large body, the glow of the flashlight illuminating the hairs. Sharp talons protruded from its furry hands; its feet were monstrous in size. My flashlight quivered as I trembled in terrified fear. I looked up to find the creature was well over six feet in height. My garbled scream became lost in my throat as the creature released a loud and utterly inhuman howl into the cold night. Its attention was solely on the deer, not me, but that meant nothing. The animal snarled and snapped, and I realized that whatever it was could easily kill us if it wanted.
“Run!” I hissed in a voice that was loud enough for my brother but hopefully not too loud for the beast before us. Simon and I suddenly launched ourselves into a panicked sprint back toward the truck. Somehow during the commotion, I dropped my flashlight. It was a bulky object that my father had gotten me a few years ago when I had turned eighteen. It was long, and the hard frame had my name engraved on it. The panicked sprint was scarier in the dark. It was blinding blackness outside the headlights from the truck still being on. I barely noticed the dark. I only prayed Simon got to the truck in time before whatever creature in the dark woods caught up to us. He did. Simon got in quicker than I did, screaming for me to drive. I didn’t need to be told twice. Snarling and growling could still be heard, only now the sounds were growing closer. Without buckling up, we slammed our doors shut, and I mentally congratulated myself on not turning the truck off—only parking it. I gunned down the road at the same time Simon locked the doors.
The few miles to drive back home didn’t calm us. I thought of calling the police and animal control, but Simon and I were having trouble agreeing on what it was we saw in the forest. Bear? Coyote? Mountain lion? Even after we arrived home, the two of us sat in the truck for a few moments in stunned silence. It was as if we both knew we were simultaneously trying to process what we saw.
“Bigfoot?” I eventually guessed half-heartedly as I stared off into space. My mind couldn’t forget the horror of seeing the deer ripped into as easily as a knife slipping into soft butter.
Simon shook his head slowly, his face still pale and frightful. He didn’t laugh at my random guess or mock it. Instead, he looked at me fearfully. “Everly…I think we saw a werewolf.”
***
I didn’t sleep that night. I tossed and turned in my bed, still frightened of whatever it was we saw eating the deer. Even as I shut down Simon’s hypothesis that it was a werewolf, I wasn’t sure if I was right to dismiss his guess. There weren’t a large variety of animals it could be as I researched it that night. It was far too big to be a coyote or a wolf. Cougars didn’t stand on their hind legs. My best guess was that we saw a bear. They could stand on their hind legs. In the back of my mind, I knew I was only kidding myself. Whatever it was wasn’t a normal animal by any means. There was no one to tell, either. Simon and I couldn’t tell our parents what we saw. They were still overseas traveling for my dad’s large presentation for the sister corporation of his company. We could call or text, but with the time difference, I didn’t exactly know how to broach the topic of a “werewolf” with my parents. Not to mention I couldn’t tell them this over the phone late at night and expect them to take me seriously. Hell, I couldn’t expect them to take me seriously even in the morning. The truth of what we saw was too absurd.
The next morning as I made coffee, Simon entered the kitchen with his laptop in hand. “Why are there not more lore books on werewolves?” he complained as he shoved his laptop screen under my nose.
There were many fiction books based on werewolves but not too much regarding any concrete myths. “We’re still gonna tell Mom and Dad it was a werewolf?” The skepticism wasn’t hidden in my question.
“I can’t think of anything else it could have been.” Simon shrugged as he allowed me to take the laptop to search. He proceeded to the cupboard to pull out a colorful box of cereal. As he found himself a bowl and spoon, I found my voice.
“They’re never going to believe us.”
“Yeah, but we know what we saw.”
“And what exactly are we going to say to them?”
“I dunno, but we should probably tell someone a giant werewolf is outside hunting the deer…”
Suddenly Miranda appeared down the stairs of our lavish five-bedroom farmhouse. Her wet hair was put up in a towel turban, her fluffy pink robe covering her from neck to toe. “What are you two arguing about?” She didn’t look at us as she asked her question and proceeded to get herself some coffee. The eldest of us three Davis children, Miranda had gone to the University of Madison for a degree in business. Upon graduation, she had found a nice job for an advertising agency near her college. When our dad announced that he and Mom would be traveling for his job overseas, they offered Miranda the chance to stay in the house in the Dells rent free as long as she looked after Simon and me. It was a joke to even “offer” free rent. My parents would never make any of their children pay rent regardless of what age we reached. Still, Miranda said yes, and that was the arrangement the last few weeks. Given Simon was still a minor, this worked out perfectly for him and our parents, who still wanted him supervised. But I found myself sour nowadays. It wasn’t bad enough my writing career still hadn’t taken off. Now I was back to living at home and under the supervision of my overbearing and know-it-all elder sister. It was like I was twelve again minus the hideous braces.
Wanting to show Simon that no one was going to believe us, I sighed. “Driving home last night, I hit a deer crossing the road. A large werewolf then came up and ate it.” I nodded seriously as Miranda snorted into her first cup of coffee.
She didn’t bat an eyelash as she played around on her cell phone. “You’re hilarious. Simon, hurry up or you’re going to be late for school. Everly, good luck today.”
Miranda ripped open a packet of fake sugar to dump into her coffee. As she went in search of a spoon, I shot a pair of raised eyebrows at Simon to prove my point. No one was going to believe whatever it was we saw last night.
“She’s not kidding. We saw a werewolf,” said Simon enthusiastically. “It ripped apart the deer and everything! We could have died!” But Miranda was unfazed by his explanation.
“Yeah…just like the garden gnomes were watching the house.” Miranda nodded seriously. “And just like the snowman you guys built somehow kept finding its way to being outside my bedroom window.”