Laughing With His Mouth Full

They are calling it Shadowfang.

It stalks the darkness of the surrounding forest like an avenging spirit, if such things even exist. It hunts at night. Bullets never find it. Only open flames can drive back the darkness, can keep it at bay.

Sometimes, even fire isn't enough.

They're using flamethrowers, newly arrived from headquarters, to fend it off, but the 'throwers burn the trees as well, cutting into the bottom line. Something has to be done. Mechified mercenaries were sent out, and found days later, their mechanical parts laid out, still bloodstained, like eggshells. All the flesh was gone. Eaten. A team of Biomade bounty hunters were sent out. The next morning, their psi-guns were neatly cut in half and hanging from the low branches of a tree. Still sparking feebly with faint pink light.

That was when the nightmares began. Loggers waking up screaming. Or not at all.

They say it can hear your thoughts, now. That it can disappear. A flicker, then a sudden flash of stripes from the side, from behind, colors washed out by the faint moonlight, and another logger, or guard, or foreman, snatched up by the neck, a shake of the head to break it, and it is gone.

Sometimes, it just uses bullets, large caliber sniper rounds, your skull exploding like a melon before the gun's report is even heard echoing out in the forest. But they say it prefers to feed on a fresh kill.

Slowly, it moves north. Crunching bones out in the darkness. Killing almost at will. It seems like there is no end to its hunger.

Getting closer and closer to the city.

You can hear it, laughing, the sound making your spine crawl, stealing sleep away night after night. It laughts when it kills, it laughs when it eats. Your neck broken, it bites down into your abdomen, mouth trailing entrails, your entrails, and it is the last thing you hear.