A few hours have already passed by with no clues. At the pace I'm going, this is about ten miles in, and I have extensive experience traveling long distances over rough terrain. These guys were just kids and had no food or water with them. Not to mention no weapons. At least I had a backpack with supplies. Anyone stupid enough to walk straight into a resource-deprived environment was insane or under some influence, and I was thinking about the latter. Something must have drawn them out here. The way Farrah explained it, sounded like they blatantly disregard her warnings. 'Did they ever hear her words?' There are only two other reasons for a person to come out here like this. 'Family or a woman.'

"I can't believe they would think my sisters would come out here. If they did, then why?" I whispered.

This wasn't saying much as I was out here. At least I have training for this type of situation. I don't care how tough a person is; they don't willingly go into a place like this. A gust of wind sent the hairs on the back of my neck wild. The smell's familiar to me, and I began looking toward the wind. Something caught my eye in the distance prompting me to click my radio on.

"I've got something about ten miles out from my last location," I whispered, clicking the radio off and safety on my rifle.

"Copy. I've checked the other side of the valley. There's an identical road here which ends the same way. I'm heading back to town. Watch your back!" Rhonda said over the radio.

"Will do, I'll radio soon!" I replied, clicking the radio off again.

A shoe lay just over forty yards away behind a dead tree. A small hill obstructs anything more. It was at the crest of the hill. I hunch aiming my rifle ahead. I carefully scanned the area as I came over the top. Then I see what I fear the most. A body, probably of Lawrence Newman, by his hair. He was a blonde-haired twenty-two-year-old from the Western Coast Southern Territories and my sister Delilah's boyfriend. Of the three, he was the brightest and more conservative. There's no way he'd come out here unprepared. I'd expect that from Todd Ashley, Farrah's boyfriend. Still, Lawrence was the reason and logic of the group. 'You're telling me he could not talk sense into the other two?' Shaking my head, I kneeled beside the poor kid. I gave him a quick prayer.

"No, this ain't right...," I whispered, studying his remains.

No animal did this. Something inhuman killed this man in cold blood. He didn't see it coming either. It wasn't just cold blood. Whatever did this to Lawrence, it was for sport. 'This thing kills for fun.' It had toyed with him before he finally passed. The problem was, from what I can tell, he's been out here for days. 'Yeah, that's impossible.' They weren't over ten minutes ahead of me and yet I heard nothing. That didn't explain the clear evidence, let alone his body being days old. Rigor mortis doesn't lie. He's been dead for at least a day or more by the color and smell of the body. If I had to guess, it's been three to five days as parts of his body had already bloated. Beside his body were more tracks that kept going ahead. It's like something grabbed Lawrence without the other two men ever noticing.

"Orkan, I found... I found a body. I think it's Lawrence Newman. But his body isn't fresh," I said, whispering into my radio.

"My god, is it really Lawrence?" the sheriff said over the radio.

"I'm positive. There are more tracks to follow. I'll stay in contact. Sheriff, say nothing to my family yet," I answered on my radio.

"Ah... Yeah... I copy," he said with a heavy sigh.

Now wasn't the time to let my sisters know. I push on, hoping I can find the other two men alive.

____

Two hours later and I'm standing over Brad Williams's body. The scrapes of red-haired littering the ground made his identification clear. My sister, Appoline's boyfriend, lay in a disfigured heap on the ground. Brad put up a hell of a fight against whatever attacked him. The man knew how to fight and fix your car any time of the day. 'That's an army mechanic for you and still on active duty like me.' Brad isn't a man dumb enough to get himself lost like this, let alone killed. Something I didn't fully understand lured them out here. That means the cabin may or may not be safe. I have to check-in. Like Lawrence, some creature played with his body until the very end. More so than Lawrence. Whatever it was, it took one limb at a time. The world's suns hung high in the sky in a perpetual morning sun rise. Their positions only slightly changed in the past few hours. I look at my watch and I'm six hours in already. There's no telling when nightfall will come. If it came at all and I held no illusions about this being another world. The how and why we'd an unknown force brought us here is the least of our worries. I now know with no uncertainty we are in imminent danger.

"Deputy Orkan, what is your status?" I asked over the radio.

"Nothing much going on here except some worried girls. How's it going? Did you find those boys?" Rhonda asked.

I purposefully pause for a long moment, hoping my lack of words will convey my point before answering.

"No," I whispered.

"Really?" she asked.

I didn't need to say more with the tone of her voice. That only told me our dire situation came to an escalation beyond a disaster scenario.

"Just get back to town alive," she whispered with a hint of mature knowing in her voice.

"Got one more thing to check out," I said.

"Understood... I'll pass on the information to the Sheriff," she said, ending the conversation.

I knew she was going to stress to her dad to withhold telling my sisters about what I've found out here while filling him in.

I said a brief prayer, then stood. Only one set of tracks remains. I walk double-time onwards, following the tracks away from town. I didn't have to venture far before I found the third man, Todd Ashley. Or what's left of him? Four creatures that look like dinosaurs fed on his remains. Their skin's white and scaly. The only creature I knew with any semblance of what I'm seeing was akin to a velociraptor, but not at the same time. One creature brought its nose up to the air, sniffing it. A few moments later, it looks with its golden predator eyes and glares at me. A second later, it made an almost growling smile at me, showing rows of shark-like teeth hunching its head downward. It began taking slow, precise steps toward me. A few more seconds went by and the rest of them spread their wings, as if preparing to sprint toward me. A low growl came from it as the other ignored me, choosing to continue feeding. 'The alpha of the pack?' Their bodies were malnourished. Still, this one is determined to defend its food. These creatures didn't kill Todd. They just scavenged his remains for food. I wasn't about to lie to myself about my chances. If they wanted, I'd be dead already. Those razor-sharp talons will make quick work of me. It'll be a miracle if I got a shot off, let alone a full burst.

Then the beast did something that made my blood go cold. I froze in place with a sense of absolute terror. The raptor-like creature backs up. An obvious expression of absolute fear in its eyes. The other three in union stop feeding, sensing the danger and jerking their heads in all directions. I felt it too. A sense of dread so dense and foreboding that I can practically taste it. The Bible talks of two kinds of evil. The evils of man and true evil. What I felt now is akin to that true evil. Not an evil from what I understood, but an evil alien to me. An evil alien to my world altogether. The beasts in front of me were predators, but they were not evil, by nature. And this frightens them. The alpha took a few steps back, then turned and ran with the other three in tow. Like a deer caught in headlights, I scramble, scanning my surroundings. Checking every inch, I can. The sensation is all around me, but I can't see the danger anywhere. I felt it on top of me and inside me. Choking the life out of me with every passing second. For the first time in my life, my hands were trembling. Death itself was coming for me. I knew it was coming.

A silent mass came over the hill I came from. It's almost translucent. A white, hulking monster with countless eyes stares at me. My finger fumbles as I pull the trigger. Bullets fly at it but have no observable effect. The monster, a cross between a spider, scorpion, and... and I don't know. A million things could fit what it looks like. The better image would be simply a monster from some child's mind. One that's come true in this world. I kept firing until my weapon's empty but it was too fast. God, it was so fast. I hurried to change magazines, but before I knew it, the spider-scorpion creature came down the hill at a blurry speed. I had no time to fire at such proximity. The monster's spider-like arm stabs my left leg, damn near striking the artery in my thigh, and just enough to immobilize me. Another one of its spider appendages went into my left arm, pinning me to the ground.

I felt it go in like a hot knife causing me to cry out in agonizing pain as I empty another magazine into it. Even at close range, all it did was flinch as the muzzle flashes reflected in its eyes. A thought pops into my mind and simultaneously my body reacts as I pull a flare. I pop it with the fastest haste I ever had shoving it into the monster's eyes. For the love of god, it worked. The monster cries in agony, and a sweeping motion of one of its spider appendages knocks me several yards away. I barely see it crawl away, back up the small hill, and out of sight. The feeling of dread fades with each passing second. I kept my gaze on the hill for several moments, but the attack took all my energy away. My body aches all over from that brief exchange.

That thing's responsible for killing Brad, Todd, and Laurence. I know it. Nothing else could have caused them to be so careless. It played with them for god knows how long. The same almost happened to me. I can't get up. My left leg is out of commission and so is my left arm. Blood is still pouring from both wounds.

"Shit, I'm going to bleed out slowly...," I whispered, trying to remain conscious.

As my strength waned, so did my sight. First came the blurry vision. 'I'm going to lose consciousness.' I felt my mind slipping away with each moment. It felt as if hours went by, but I knew different. 'Fuck, I'm in shock!' Following my blurry vision is an encroaching darkness at the edges of my vision. I'm going unconscious and there isn't a damn thing I can do about it.