"I never wanted a war. I only wanted to let people know what happened those 45 days the sun went down. I only wanted to let them know what was coming: the inevitable."
There was something in the stables, tearing our horses apart. I heard the snarls, cries, and howls from my bedroom on the second floor, but when I looked out the window, I couldn't see anything. The garage that housed the cars and the power generator was on fire, and it was raining. The combination of rain and smoke made it impossible to see. It seemed as if there was nothing out there. I knew differently. I started to turn around when I got that feeling.
Have you ever had that feeling, where the little hairs on your arms and the back of your neck stand up? The feeling of not-rightness or the feeling like your being watched?
Yeah, it was that feeling.
I was in the doorway about to run towards my sisters room when I heard them screaming from the first floor. Triplet girls. Barely 3 years old. I locked my door and hid in the closet. Which, I found kind of ironic, since I was completely freaked out by darkness.
I could hear the thump, thump, thump, thump of their paws coming up the stairs. There was a snuffling, too. Like the kind an animal makes when they're sniffing. Eight thumps. That meant there were two. I saw shadows pass the door of my room through the cracks of the closet door. One passed by, while another paused at my door. There was a bump and then a second later, another bump. I heard cracking and a hole appeared towards the bottom of my door.
Light started to crack through, and suddenly there was a sharp snap and chucks of wood flew to the floor and scattered. A long, black snout emerged through the hole, teeth bared in a feral snarl. I heard a rumbling sound, like thunder. It took me a minute to realize it was the animal snarling. Its teeth were pearl white and as sharp as knives. Eyes appeared next. Huge, black abysses full of emptiness. Then it was a paw, and another paw, and then a large, furry body.
Finally, after what seemed like hours, but I knew to be only minutes, the thing was fully inside my room. It was as big as a stallion, and black as night. It was my favorite animal, yet I knew for a fact that they never got that big. It was impossible.
The wolf sniffed at the air, and as if it knew I was hiding in the closet, its head slowly turned and looked directly at me. It didn't move. It simply stared at me.
I can't say what made me do it, but afterward I knew I should've stayed in the closet. Everything would have been fine, if I'd just stayed in the closet. But, I was a curious girl, I always had been, so I left the safety of my little, cupboard closet, and walked slowly towards the wolf.
It moved.
Lowering itself down towards the ground, its eyes never left mine. I was so close to it now that I could see it breathing. It was steady and in an eerie kind of way, it was comforting. I knelt in front of the wolfs' massive head and tentatively reached out a hand.
Big mistake.
The wolf sprung up from its place on the floor and pinned me down on my back. Its' mouth opened and lowered towards my neck. I was paralyzed with fear only for a moment before my fighting instinct kicked into gear. I grabbed the nearest thing to me from my position on the floor, which just so happened to be a light pink, flowery Hello Kitty plastic hairbrush, and shoved into the wolf's face, with all the force I could muster. The wolf recoiled, jumping off of me and he fell off towards the side. I flew up, dived through the remains of my bedroom door, and made a mad dash towards the stairs.
It was probably the STUPIDEST thing I had ever done. Honestly, how did I expect to outrun 2 wolves the size of Bigfoot? I made it to the bottom of the stairs before I saw the reflection of the white wolf that had made it to the top of the steps. I ran out the open back door, and made it halfway around my house when I heard them chasing me.
Adrenaline pumped through my veins and kept my head clear while I ran, trying to figure out a plan. I could try and run to my neighbors house… Granted, they were two miles away, but I figured it was worth a try.
I put on an extra burst of speed and tripped over a rock and went sprawling onto the ground. I flipped myself over when suddenly there was a wolf on top of me. I struggled, yelled, kicked and fought, but I might as well have been fighting against a wall. The black wolf looked down at me and abruptly lunged at my throat.
I screamed bloody murder, but it made no difference. The wolf simply bit down on my throat harder and harder. Fire was slowly spreading through my veins, and I just wanted it to stop.
Darkness came, but I wasn't afraid of it anymore. This was a different darkness. It promised relief from the pain. Emptiness. A sudden, crazy thought went through my mind. I would see my parents, and my brothers, and my nieces and sisters. So when the darkness reached for me, I took it gladly.
The last thing I heard was a pack of wolves howling into the night.
"The next day police found a girl in a small field, about twelve lying in a pool of blood. Her brunette hair was coming loose from a ponytail, and it was covered in grass. She was wearing a light blue tank top and black boyshorts, both of which were covered in blood.
The police had no idea what had caused the families death. There were no signs of a struggle, and there weren't any wounds or scratches on their bodies. The blood they found the bodies lying in wasn't theirs.
However, this wasn't the most disturbing thing.
What disturbed them most was the look of utter peace on the girls face. Her eyes were closed, and her lips were curved slightly upwards.
A few days later, another family died the same way. There were no signs of struggling, and the houses were locked tight and the area was secured. Only this time there was a survivor.
The survivor was a twelve year old, brunette girl, who always wore her hair in a braid. When they found her behind the house, hiding in some bushes, she was wearing a blue short-sleeved shirt, and black yoga pants. Her hair was in a messy ponytail, and strands were falling out.
She swore to police that she had gone to bed with her hair in a braid, and she had been wearing a large green shirt that had been her dads. She said two wolves ran her out of the house, and chased her around the yard. Her twin sister was missing. They didn't find her body in the house, and the survivor swore she was in the house when she had gone to bed.
A week later some hikers in the woods found her. She was wearing a blue tank top, and black shorts. Her hair was in a ponytail, and small branches and twigs had gotten caught in the loose strands. This time, there was a message. On one of the thicker oak trees, written in blood, was the message: Now they belong to us.
Days after that message had been found; the bodies of the families disappeared from the city morgue one by one. The lone survivor went to a friend's house, but never made it there. Reports started coming in about a huge pack of wolves that attacked anyone on sight. And after a week, around midnight, people swore they could hear howling coming from the forest.
The howling stopped after that week, and everything seemed to return to normal.
Then, they came back. Only this time, they went straight for the town. They killed everyone. Men, women, children; it made no difference. They killed them all. Then, after everyone was dead, one by one, the wolves started to shift. Bones cracking, and breaking, their fur started to recede, and then there were people standing in the places the wolves had disappeared from.
The human-wolves took over the town. They cleaned it up, and then pretended as if nothing had happened.
However, there was one person who made it out alive. A boy, around fourteen, with dark brown hair, and hazel eyes. He ran, and ran, and ran, getting as far away from that town as possible.
He survived, and lived to tell the tale of what happened, those 45 days the sun went down.
"They don't want you to know any of this," said the eighteen year old man who stood behind the podium. "But, I think people have a right to know. This is not over. They will come for you. And, no matter how hard you fight, you will lose."
They did come, just like he said, and everyone died.