werewolvesversus:

An excerpt from Andrew Scott’s story of the same title, published in WEREWOLVES VERSUS: SPACE.

More of Andrew Scott’s work can be found here.

The first to go were the chickens. Three to start with, more the next couple of nights. It was inevitable – Greg was always a cheapskate when it came to building materials. First the door falling off the tool shed, and now this. Cheap-ass chicken wire had no chance against the ‘yotes, and could be bypassed entirely if you couldn’t be bothered to bury the bottom. Greg snapped at the suggestion, however, and marched all six heads of the council to the coop to reclaim his reputation.

Walking round every inch of the twenty foot enclosure revealed not a single sign of damage, tampering or anything else that could account for the animals’ disappearance. Glen joked that the poultry might have been raptured ahead of the rest of the world. Pastor Deane set his jaw, a look similar to one Gideon had seen on him as they stood in the church’s smouldering skeleton back in Chatham.

A few weeks later, the goats went. They found them not far away. What was left, at least. The curve of their ribs jutting up into the air, the tatters of flesh catching the breeze like flags, and the grass made sticky and redolent with stale blood. They pored over the line of the pen, looking for a tuft of fur, a snapped wire, any sign of how the attacker had entered or the goats had escaped. The worst they could find was a leaning fencepost.

Two months down the line, they heard it get the milking cow. Gideon was first up, Deane not far behind him, still sprightly for his 60’s. They rounded the barn and saw… it.

It looked like a coyote, but no coyote got that big. It was nearly as large as the two of them put together. It crouched over the spluttering cow, shook its head with its teeth clamped deep into its neck. It tore out a huge lump, snapping down and swallowing in greedy gulps. Then it stood up.

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