Chapter Six – Blood and Moonlight

The forest exploded.

The thing lunged from the shadows, its bulk blotting out the moonlight, claws tearing at the ground as it surged toward them. Evelyn’s body reacted before her mind did—she stumbled back, heart pounding so hard it felt like it might tear through her ribs.

Jonah shoved her aside, rifle snapping up. The crack of the shot split the night, deafening in its closeness. The muzzle flash lit his face in stark relief—eyes narrowed, teeth clenched.

The bullet didn’t slow it.

The creature roared, a guttural bellow that vibrated through the marrow of Evelyn’s bones. It charged again, massive form blurring between trees, and she realized with sick clarity that it was hunting her.

“Run!” Jonah barked, shoving her toward the path. “Go, damn it!”

Her legs obeyed even as her brain screamed in protest. She stumbled into motion, boots slamming against frozen soil, branches whipping her arms and face. Behind her, the beast’s growl deepened—hungry, intent.

She heard it gaining. Heavy strides, claws raking bark as it pursued. Her lungs burned with cold, each breath a ragged knife.

Another shot cracked through the trees. The blast of the rifle echoed, and the creature’s roar rose higher—angrier.

Evelyn risked a glance over her shoulder. Jonah stood firm in the clearing, reloading with practiced speed, his silhouette taut with defiance. The beast barreled toward him, eyes blazing like molten gold.

Jonah fired again. This time, the bullet hit.

The creature staggered, its shoulder jerking back in a spray of dark liquid. Its roar ripped through the night, louder than anything Evelyn had ever heard—a sound that seemed to shake the very canopy.

And then the woods answered.

Howls erupted all around them. Dozens, maybe more, voices rising in unison—high and low, near and far. The sound was feral, chilling, as if the entire forest had come alive.

Evelyn froze mid-step, the chorus pressing against her skull until her vision blurred. Jonah spun toward her, eyes wide.

“They’re calling back,” he rasped. “Move, Evelyn—move!”

But she couldn’t. Her body locked, rooted by the unholy sound of wolves—or things like wolves—closing in.

The beast roared again, clutching its bleeding shoulder. Then, as if the howls had summoned it elsewhere, it turned. One heartbeat it was there, glaring at them with molten fury, the next it was gone—vanished into the trees, leaving only the rustle of branches in its wake.

The silence that followed was nearly as deafening as the howls.

Evelyn’s breath came in sharp, shallow gasps. She forced herself to lower the flashlight, beam trembling over the clearing. The carcass of the cow still steamed on the ground. Sap still bled from the clawed trees. But the monster was gone.

Only one thing remained.

Blood.

A dark trail led from the spot where Jonah’s bullet had struck, thick droplets staining leaves and grass.

Jonah stepped forward cautiously, rifle raised, eyes scanning every shadow. Evelyn followed more slowly, legs still shaking.

“Careful,” Jonah murmured. “It’s wounded, not dead. That makes it meaner.”

Evelyn barely heard him. Her light caught on something glinting in the dirt near where the creature had stood.

She crouched, hands trembling as she brushed away frost and soil.

It was a pendant.

Old—ancient, perhaps—its surface tarnished but intact. A heavy disc of silver, engraved with a sigil she didn’t recognize. A circle, within it a crescent moon, lines radiating outward like beams. Symbols she couldn’t read curled around the edge.

Her throat tightened.

The pendant lay exactly where the beast had stood—as if it had dropped it. Or left it.

She lifted it carefully, the metal colder than the night air. Her gloves muffled its weight, but she could still feel the strange pull of it, heavy with history.

“Jonah,” she whispered.

He turned, rifle still raised. His gaze dropped to her hand, and for the first time, fear flickered in his eyes.

“You shouldn’t touch that,” he said hoarsely.

Evelyn’s pulse hammered. “It was here. Where it stood.”

Jonah stepped closer, eyes darting between the pendant and the dark woods. “That’s not for us. That’s old. Older than this town, older than these woods. Put it back.”

But Evelyn couldn’t. She stared at the sigil, the lunar engraving gleaming faintly in the beam of her flashlight. Logic strained against the weight of what she’d just seen, what she now held.

A creature that defied every classification. Wolves answering its roar. And now this—an artifact that spoke not of animals, but of ritual, of worship, of something human twined with the monstrous.

She slipped the pendant into her satchel.

Jonah swore under his breath. “You don’t know what you’ve done.”

“Then tell me,” she snapped, her fear sharpening into defiance. “Tell me what that thing is.”

Jonah’s jaw clenched. His eyes flicked once more to the blood trail, then back to her.

“You already saw it,” he said quietly. “You just don’t want to believe it.”

The forest creaked around them, a cold wind rattling the branches. Evelyn’s satchel seemed heavier by the second, the pendant pressing against her side like a heartbeat.

Somewhere deep in the woods, another howl rose—longer, closer, trembling with hunger.

Evelyn gripped her satchel tighter. For the first time in her life, she realized she no longer had words for what she was facing.

And worse—she suspected that words might not save her anyway.