You decide to search the shed.
Walking carefully, you tip-toe into the yard, careful not to trip on any stray toys.
You reach the shed and slowly open the door. The metal grates against its concrete base, making you wince in a fruitless attempt to block out the noise.
The inside is dark, the only light able to illuminate the small room being the single stream of moonlight that penetrates the broken window, creating a halo around a single hammer.
Without thinking, you grab the hammer, feeling its weight in your hands. It’s heavy, the metal dips the handle forward, forcing you to catch it before it smashes the concrete. Gripping the rubber tightly, you sneak out of the shed and back onto the street, hammer in hand.
You’re not very familiar with these exact streets, but if you remember right, a few right turns would get you home.
Go home…
You reach the front porch of your small suburban home. Glancing at your watch, it reads 00:09. Just after midnight.
With a small, relieved sigh, you grasp the handle of the front door to unlock it. However, to your dreaded surprise… It’s already unlocked.
Just as quickly as you ran from the monster, you rush into the house, knocking the door of its hinges as it hits the wall.
The hallway is absolutely silent. Not a single sound, not a breath from either yourself or your wife, no shuffling, nothing. You continue walking down the hall, the hairs on your neck standing straight, sensitive to the suffocating coldness. As you step forward, your footfalls sound deafening in the silence. Just the first creak of the floorboards makes you jump. You grip the hammer tighter as sweat trickles down your brow, mingling with the scent of your terror. Something isn’t right. Your gut knows that and by God is it never wrong.
You keep your eyes peeled on the upcoming doorways, and from there, you can faintly hear the wet squelch and scrape of flesh. The sound sends shivers down your spine, and you grip the handle of the hammer tighter, your knuckles clouding over into a milky white. You grab the doorway, hammer raised as your head whips around the empty space.
To your very horror, it’s the creature, hunched over the form of your beloved.
You bellow, your voice carrying a thousand pleas as you rush forward. With your combined momentum and weight, you throw the head of the hammer back, swinging it down with unnatural force into the monster’s back. The claw digs into the thorax of the creature and it lets out a howl, ripping its maw from Hannah’s face. You can see the path of blood that trickles down its muscles, tracing little rivers of crimson that reek of rotting flesh and iron.
With some effort, the monster crashes out the window, leaving behind a jagged mess of broken glass and splintered wood.
You clamber onto the bed, straddling your wife as she lays bleeding on the pillows. The pull of the monster’s maw had damaged her jaw. It hangs loosely like the hinges of an old door, bone protruding from the bottom of her chin. Her tongue is missing, in its place, a lake of crimson that spills from the tears in her skin and muscle as her head tips to the side.
Hannah’s eyes are wide, red-rimmed with hot tears that mingle with the viscous fluids on her face. From deep in her throat, she’s sputtering, coughing up thick globs of blood that fall onto the white pillows and sheets. Her voice is drowned out by gurgles as fluid fills her lungs. You lean close, wrapping your arms around her shoulders as she convulses. You can feel the warm plasma drip down your back as she hacks, her strangled cries fill the air.
You hold her tight against your chest, watching as she struggles, her arms grasping your cheeks as she grapples the words out of her throat.
“Ch…ar…lie…”
You can’t move, paralysed by the grief that grips your heart. In your arms, Hannah’s spell slowly fades as her last breaths are drowned in the thick blood that clots in her throat, churned like butter. Her gaze stays on you as her fingers feebly caress your cheek, leaving behind traces of her fluids on your skin. As the heat fades from her body, she wordlessly bids her goodbye, leaving behind a half-eaten corpse that stares blankly up at the ceiling.
You don’t know how long you sit there, clutching the ravaged body of your wife. It’s something out of a nightmare, to watch helplessly, unable to do anything.
What can you even do anymore?