The Demon Wolf - Chapter 26：A Spark in the Dark

Everyone jumps back when claws made of shadows emerge from nowhere, dragging Grotto’s corpse into the darkness. Their shadows moves down to the dirt floor below, claws erupting from them and grabbing everyone by their legs. The walkway breaks apart under their feet as they’re pulled to the ground. Jerard and Red are consumed by the darkness below while Randy and Helena slam into the cold dirt floor.

Randy and Helena struggle to push themselves off the floor as the impact left their bodies weak and in pain. Randy manages to push himself up and tries to grab the disappearing shadows as they melt into the ground.

“Jerard?! Red!?” He exclaims.

…

Pitch Black. Red can’t see anyone or anything. Though she feels something around her ankles, gravity is the only thing pulling her at this point. Her hoodie flails around as air flies through it. She suddenly starts moving backwards as gravity seems to shift and she starts rolling sideways on a cold hard floor that she can’t see. She finally comes to a stop, out of breath but, other than that, somehow pretty okay. As she rises to her feet she gazes around at the nothingness that seems to be closing in on her.

A sudden chill surrounds her, causing her to shiver. She hears a strange distorted voice that seems to be everywhere.

“You’ve had enough fun, now it’s time to get back to work,”

It’s very deep and human-like, but it’s just different enough to know that whatever was talking, was not human. After a long pause the voice erupts in laughter.

“They’re back with the living, while you’re stuck with me and the dead. If you want to get back to the others alive, than just join me once more, or I’ll do to you what I did to Grotto and Pierre. Hold on…Something, else is here…something that shouldn’t be…go find whatever it is and bring it to us,”

Red quickly looks around once more, for something, anything. Before she knows it she hears something, faint footsteps. They seem to echo as if in a cave. A small spark appears out of the nothingness. The gentle footsteps seem to be made by the spark of light. As it nears her another voice starts speaking in her ears, a woman, friendly, familiar.

“Red, you must find you’re father and get out of here” The voice pleas, “Worry not, I’ll be your light, only you will be able to see me,” The small spark approaches Red, going into her. A warmth fills her, fighting off the cold and a soft glow starts to shield her from the dark, dimly illuminating the broken remains of a room. Looking around she realizes she’s in her room, back in Granny’s house. The room looks like both an earthquake and a tornado attacked it. All the colors are faded and dull, almost monochromatic.

A broken lamp on the ground and her ceiling fan torn to pieces and scattered about the floor. Parts of the floor are torn apart. Making her way to door slash marks cover it, but they look nothing like the ones her dad had made. These ones are much smaller, with four claw marks going through the door. Red reaches for the doorknob, deathly cold to the touch.

Opening the door, an empty hallway greets her. Looking down at the floor, something dull red is trailed along the torn up carpet. Stepping over it and into the hall, she quietly tip-toes as she tries to not disturb the silence. She reaches the part of the hallway where Granny’s door is to her right and the livingroom to her left. Something can be heard almost growling on the other side of Granny’s door, which has claw marks covering it.

Red continues down the hall, her breathing becoming a bit shaky as she walks past the door, trying to put as much space between it and her as she can.

What happened to that other voice?

“It’s blocking you out, so you can’t hear it,” The woman’s voice says in her ears.

Reaching the front door she grabs the handle and goes to turn it, but it doesn’t budge in the slightest. She suddenly sees something wooden a couple inches above her hand. Looking up, she sees boards covering the door, boards that were not there before. Taking a step back she turns around and sees that her room door is now boarded up as well. Hesitantly, she walks back down the hall. Remembering the backdoor in the kitchen, she heads for the livingroom.

Walking into the livingroom Red sees that all the windows are boarded up, and the furniture seems to have aged as if they’re hundreds of years old, covered in tears and ripped seams. The tv is on, showing only static, but no noise is coming from it. In fact, light doesn’t even seem to be coming from it at all, it seems the light coming from her is the only light at all. Turning to the kitchen she can already see that the backdoor is boarded up. That’s when she hears the creaking of a door opening up behind her.

Not wasting anytime Red darts behind the couch. Stumbling footsteps can be heard as a weird voice starts talking. It’s all muffled and talking complete gibberish. It sounds like Granny, but as if someone is doing a poor job at mimicking her voice. The whole time a low growling can be heard whenever the things stops talking.

Red peeks over the side of the couch to see someone standing in front of the now open doorway to Granny’s room. The figure is shaking constantly, the head twitching unnaturally. It looks like Granny, but splattered with blood, her eyes, ears, and nose are all gone. Her fingernails are long and sharp, covered in dried blood.

Red quickly moves her head back to the safety of behind the couch as she quietly takes deep breaths to calm herself, her heart feeling like it could jump out of her chest any second. She sees a ball of yarn sitting on the floor a couple inches from her. She goes to reach for it, but as her hand is just about to grab it, the thing lets out a loud growl, and then what she can only guess is it sniffing the air.

She quickly grabs the yarn, and chucks it into the kitchen, a light thud as it hits the counter and bounces onto the tile floor. Red starts travelling towards the windows as she hears the thing moving. With each step, the sounds of something cracking can be heard as it mumbles loudly and stumbles to the kitchen. She heads around the chair and sneaks into Granny’s room.

Looking around, she sees that most of the window is boarded up, but part of the window is exposed, just enough for a kid to fit through. The hole is near the top, too high up for her to be able to reach. Near the window is a small chest, the one Granny keeps the yarn she’s not using. Glancing back she sees the silhouette of the thing in the kitchen still. Steeling herself, she goes to the door, and quickly pulls it closed, just stopping it in time before it reaches the wall.

To her relief the speed stopped it from creaking. Slowly, she closes the door, and locks it. She goes over to the chest and grabs a handle on the side and starts dragging it towards the window, scratching the floor beneath it as she pulls it. She hears aloud growl from the other side of the door and rapid footsteps. She hurriedly drags it under the window and gets on top. There’s loud bangning on the door as something starts clawing at it. Red jumps up and starts pushing herself through the window. She manages to get most of herself through, with the lower parts of her legs still inside when the door bursts open.

She gets all th way through and falls through down onto the floor. as claws barely miss her. She hears screaming from the window as clawed hands flail about trying to grab anything near the hole. Though there’s a lot of space between her and the hole in the window barricade, she still crawls a bit before standing up. She keeps her eyes on the house as she distances herself from it. Feeling safe enough to take her eyes off of it, she looks around to see that she’s in the town.

All the buildings are barricaded close and heavily damaged. Giant cracks in the road and even holes in buildings. Some light poles and telephone poles have been uprooted, now laying on the road and sidewalks, wires waiting to tangle up anyone who tries to walk on them. She turns to the woods to see an eerie red glow emanating from them.

Red gets the feeling that her father must be in there somewhere. As she approaches the trees they seem to almost move, as if opening up to her. As she walks further and further into them, the glow doesn’t seem to get any stronger, as if she’s not getting any close to the source. She suddenly hears her father screaming in agony.

“Dad?!” She cries out before she starts running. As she hurries through the woods she starts to hear sounds from both sides. Looking to her sides she can see silhouettes chasing after her, moving as unnaturally as the fake Granny. Her heartbeat quickens as she tries to run as fast as she can.

“Dad?! Dad!?” She calls out. She sees the thing on her left getting very close, no more than four feet from her. It suddenly lunges at her. She stops and ducks and it flies over her, but she gets hit by something from the right side. She lands on her back as another one of those eyeless creatures starts screaming at her as it holds her to the floor. The thing raises a claw but a leg kicks it in the side, breaking apart its abdomen and forcing the thing off her. Blood splatters onto Red’s clothes and some gets on her face.

“Red!” Jerard exclaims as he helps her up from the floor and holds her close. The other thing that had missed Red comes back, and claws at Jerard’s back. Jerard lets go of Red, turning around and punching the thing in the head. With a hard punch, Jerard’s fist breaks open its chest, and it falls to the floor.

The ground suddenly starts to shake as a large creature shrowded in darkness rushes towards them.

“D-dad, what is-”

“No time, you two must leave!” The woman’s voice from before interrupts her.

As the thing nears them a sudden light surrounds them.

…

Randy and Helena stand at the empty sawmill, looking around for any sign of Red and Jerard to no avail. Suddenly all the lights and machines in the sawmill turn on. The giant saw blade in the main building roars to life as it starts to pick up speed. The two are completely caught off guard from the sudden barrage of noise to their ears. There’s a sudden flash as Red and Jerard are thrown out of thin air onto the ground.

“Are you two alright?!” Helena and Randy exclaim as they run over to them.

“Y-yeah,” Jerard says with winded breath as they get up.

“Where the hell did you two-” Before Randy can finish his question the ground starts to shake as a demonic laugh starts echoing through the air.

They all back away from the center of the yard as a large hole forms, and something starts crawling out from it. A large twisted figure emerges, towering over all of them. It looks human, but giant and covered in pitch black skin stained with blood. It’s head has no resemblance of a face. It’s limbs are all twisted and torn apart, somehow being held together by thin strings of muscle. The hole at it’s feet climbs onto its legs and over its body. It goes over the head, revealing a demonic face, eyes red with thin slits for pupils. Razer sharp teeth sticking through it’s torn apart lips.

Large, sharp feathered wings erupt from its back. Though the wings seems to be torn in several places, the very tips of its wings have large curved claws.

“What the fuck is that?” Randy asks as the massive creature looks down at them.

“You could have joined me Wolf,” The demon says with an echoing voice, “But now you’ll die like the rest!” Before any of them can react the thing charges at them. It slashes at the group with sharp claws, sending them all flying back. Bloodied and injured, no one has the strength to get up as the demon picks up Jerard.

“Dad!” Red cries out as she uses all her strength to push herself up, raising a hand in the air, helplessly trying to reach for him.

“Now little Red here has to watch her poor excuse of a father get crushed to death,”

Jerard starts screaming in pain as it holds him with both hands and starts tightening its grip. As Red struggles to get up she hears the faintest words as a blurry memory flashed in her mind..

“…There we go! Your Red Hoodie, made with a touch of love. I can’t wait to see you grow into this..!” The voice sounds just like the one the little spark thing had.

She looks at her dirty and damaged hoodie, than looks at the demon as it watches Jerard suffer in pure, twisted, delight. Fighting through the pain from the scratches across her body, Red manages to get up, taking her hoodie off as she runs to the demon. Unable to think of doing anything else, Red presses her hoodie up against it’s ankle.

The demon shouts in pain as the hoodie ignites into flames, burning it and causing it to loose its grip on Jerard. As it steps back, Jerard lands on the floor with a hard thud, coughing up blood.

“Dad, dad!” Red exclaims as she runs over to him. The demon looks down at the little girl with burning hatred, but before it can start to move it feels a slight burning in its side as something shoots at it.

“Red…you need to, run…” Jerard struggles to say.

“No, i’m not leaving you here. J-just, turn into your wolf form, you can heal right back, right?”

“No, I can’t risk, losing control and hurting you again…”

“Y-You won’t, I know you won’t because you’re my dad! I just got you in my life, I-I can’t lose you!” Red exclaims as she cries into his shoulder. Tears break through the lines of blood on Jerard’s face as he lays there, slowly dying faster and faster with every second he fights the need to transform.

Red lifts her head up as she feels his shoulder move. As she wipes the tears from her eyes to see more clearly, Jerard grows larger, becoming covered in a thick coat of black fur as he turns into the demon wolf.

Meanwhile the demon reaches inside the locker room as it feels around for Randy, crushing benches and lockers. It retracts it’s arm when flames suddenly engulf it, burning at its dead flesh. Waving its arm puts out the fire, its skin starting to regenerate already. Enraged, the demon jabs its hands under the roof, and tears it off, tossing it to the side. Inside stands Randy with a flamethrower, the fuel tank having a cross written on it in sharpie.

“The priest looked at me crazy for having him bless the gas, but look who was right,” Randy mutters to himself as he looks up at the demon. The demon raises a hand to slam down on Randy, something large bites onto its wrist. It turns to see Wolf, glaring up at it with blood red eyes, his giant sharp teeth going all the way through. Wolf starts shaking his head violently as the demon struggles to break free of his teeth.

With a hard pull, the demons arm comes flying off as dark red blood sprays out from the torn up arm. Jerard goes to bite the demon again but the demon grabs him from the neck, pulling him, forcing him onto just his hind legs.

“You son of a bitch!” The demon shouts before stabbing him in the side with its wing. Wolf manages to break out from his grasp and lunges at him, managing to get him on the shoulder. As he tears at the demons flesh and muscle the demon claws at him with its hand and wings, but Jerard refuses to let go. His grip starts to loosen when the demon jabs a wing into the side of his neck.

Slamming its other wing and hand into Jerard’s neck, he lets go of the demon. The demon throws him at a building, which crushes beneath the demon wolf’s weight, making a large cloud of dust. As the dust settles, the wolf lays there, unmoving and barely breathing.