Josh Roberts

David awoke, lying in the grass. Dried blood matted his hair, and there was a horrible pain radiating from the right side of his face. He pushed himself into a sitting position and looked around.

David awoke, lying in the grass. Dried blood matted his hair, and there was a horrible pain radiating from the right side of his face. He pushed himself into a sitting position and looked around. It was early morning, and he was at the lake. They’d been attacked.

Sharp pain stabbed at his chest as he struggled to his feet. He must have cracked a rib when he was thrown, probably more than one. He pushed the pain aside; he didn’t have time to think about it. David needed to find his friends—find Mia. 

A dense fog had engulfed the mountain overnight, making it impossible to see more than ten feet into the distance. He made an instinctive decision to run in the direction he’d last seen Mia going, limping up the path to Pine Bluff. She’d been calm—too calm—as she glanced at David and headed up the trail. The image haunted him. In the midst of everything going on, she appeared to be at peace.

He shouted as he moved through the fog: “Mia! Dom!” Then, with senses clouded by fear, he listened for a response. Nothing.

Eventually he spotted his Jeep lying on its side, just as it had been when he last saw it with three of his friends trapped inside. Only now, the driver-side door was bent all the way back to the hood and the roof was torn open, a gaping hole at its center.

He ran to the vehicle and used the front axle to hoist himself up. He peered inside. It was empty. 

“Dom!” he shouted again, punching the Jeep’s bent frame when only his echo responded. 

He hopped down and ran in the direction of the forest. The trail was fairly easy to find, even through the fog, as he was able to make out the tree line as he came closer. When he approached the thick wall of trees, he looked for a gap, a carved out opening, amid the high-climbing firs.

Although the shade from the surrounding forest combined with the fog made the path challenging to traverse, David made quick work of the initial stretch. But the closer he came to the place where the path emerged from the trees, the steeper it got. He remembered how challenging it had been to climb in the low light of the evening the night prior. That was before everything went to hell.

After about thirty minutes, David burst out of the trees and into the open plateau. The fog had dissipated enough that he could scan for signs of life. 

Then he saw her, twenty feet away, lying on the enormous halved boulder that served as the centerpiece of the clearing.

“Mia?” he said softly as he approached.

The closer he came the more his chest tightened, and bile climbed into his throat. The surface of the rock around her was black, like charcoal. Her body was burned too—her skin blistered and blackened as if she’d been struck by lightning.

David dropped beside Mia, his system infused with adrenaline and shock, then pulled her into his lap and tried to wake her.

“Mia. Mia, baby, wake up. Mia, come on. You can’t be—this isn’t—” The sight of her lifeless eyes rolling back into her skull caused him to erupt into uncontrollable sobs. He yanked her into a tight hug, gripping her limp body as if his squeezing would somehow bring her back to life. Somewhere deep in his subconscious, David knew she felt all wrong. Beneath the burns, her body felt soft, too malleable, as if the bones that had once constituted her frame had been shattered.

Finally, he pulled up and looked at her petite frame through blurred eyes. Her clothes were shredded, and more singed skin could be seen through every rip. And there were gashes, hundreds of them, as if she’d been attacked by a knife-wielding lunatic. It was obvious, though, that these wounds weren’t something a knife could produce; they were too large. Her whole body was covered in huge, jagged claw marks, as if she’d been ripped apart by the talons of a massive eagle.

A glint near her neck caught David’s eye. What he saw when he looked up shattered him.

Hanging from a chain around Mia’s throat was the engagement ring he’d given her just before the attack.