Elias stepped from the truck bed and let the door fall shut behind him. The sound carried farther than it should have in the damp air. He had come for the hound that had not returned the night before. The tracks leading off the gravel were too wide for any dog he knew, and they sank deeper than a man’s boot. Spanish moss hung still between the cypress.
Water moved somewhere slow and deliberate. Elias followed the prints until the ground softened and the smell changed. It was not the usual rot of the swamp. Something sat under it. A rank musk that clung to the back of his throat. He found the first claw mark on a trunk at shoulder height. Four parallel grooves, the wood still pale and wet.
A second set higher up. The prints had changed. They no longer showed the drag of a walking foot. Something had stopped, turned, and waited. A low sound rose from the water ahead. Not a howl. A wet, rhythmic breathing that paused when Elias stopped. He raised the rifle and thumbed the safety off. The beam of his headlamp cut a tunnel through the fog and stopped on a shape standing where the black water met the bank.
It was upright, the arms hung past the knees, dark fur matted against the chest and shoulders, catching the light in wet clumps. The head tilted, eyes reflected nothing at first, then two points of dull orange fixed on him. The mouth was open just enough to show the lower teeth, longer than they should have been. Elias fired.
The round struck the upper chest and staggered the thing sideways into the shallows. It did not fall. One long arm swung out and caught the rifle barrel, wrenching it free. The stock cracked across Elias’s forearm. Bone gave. He went down on one knee in the mud, the pain sharp and bright. The creature stepped forward. Water streamed from the fur.
Its free hand closed around Elias’s throat and lifted. The claws sank in, warmth ran down his collar. He kicked once, the grip tightened until the sound in his ears narrowed to the wet click of something breathing close to his face. The last thing he saw was the open mouth and the teeth that had never belonged in any cage. Then the pressure increased and the swamp went quiet again.
