Leopold awoke, his arms wrapped around Susan’s waist. His throat burned and his legs were sore. I should be retired. He looked up and saw sunlight creeping in through the windows; the dust in the air manufactured brilliant rays of light. The beauty of the sunlight was dampened, however, when it revealed the peeling wallpaper (with the skeletal wooden walls beneath) and the caked dirt on the windowsill. The rest of the room was empty save he and his wife, their backpacks, and the moldy carpet.

He crawled from his sleeping bag and groggily pulled himself to a sitting position. Deciding that he had gone too long without a smoke, crawled to his backpack; he zipped it open to retrieve a hatchet and a cigar. He ran his fingers against his chin, and feeling the stubble, decided he would shave before doing anything else. He fetched the razor from his backpack’s rear pocket.

He stepped out of the room and walked down the narrow hallway to the bathroom. He turned the faucet handle, expecting it to silently reply that the plumbing was out. Instead, foggy water poured out. He splashed some on his face and then brought the razor up. A cry from outside of the house caught his attention before he touched his cheek. He stuffed his razor into his jacket pocket along with his cigar and turned off the sink.

He ran from the bathroom, taking a brief look inside the room he and Susan had slept in to see that she was still there, to the front door. He opened it slowly, hatchet in hand and muscles tense. He was briefly overwhelmed by the sunlight before his eyes adjusted as he eased open the door.

It was a chilly autumn morning; the frost covered forest was calm and silent. Most of the trees had already dropped their leaves, but a few branches remained with orange and yellow vegetation. A morning fog obscured his vision; he judged that he only had a half mile. He squinted, looking for a source of the scream, when he caught a shaking tree branch. Something leapt out of the fog and climbed into a thick patch of leaves. He couldn’t make out its form very well. He reasoned that it might have been a squirrel or a raccoon.

But he knew better. He’d seen it before from afar, and knew it had been following them. Not one of the quiet ones that grumbled and hummed, but one of the loud ones. One of the ones that didn’t die without putting up a vicious fight.

He took steps out of the doorway to go towards the forest. If nothing else, he could get a better look. And if it was the thing he feared it was, he could distract it from the house. Probably could kill it, too. The dried blood on his hatchet’s head testified to his abilities.

He considered Susan then. She had a rifle, one of the accurate ones that the army used. He turned to walk back inside, and that was when he heard the window break.

He ran in through the living area and down the hallway. As he turned the corner into the room he saw a single black feather floating through the air. It puzzled him, but it also seemed somehow familiar. Where had he heard about the black feathers before? He knelt down and grabbed it. It was oily but light. And he ran his finger along the edge and felt that it was sharp enough that it could probably cut skin if used right. He looked at the broken window and saw blood. He looked out the window and couldn’t see anything. And then he heard the scream again, the same one that had roused him from the bathroom.

He dropped the feather and went back to the front door. As he neared the aperture he heard it breathing, deep ragged inhalations that betrayed what it was. He stood in the open doorway and looked at it, and it looked back at him. It had been a woman once, he could tell it in the face. Her hair had mostly fallen out, although bandages concealed it. Maybe that had been how she was infected in the first place, a head wound. Her outfit was military camouflage, which explained to him why he’d had such a hard time seeing her in the trees. The monster’s eyes were locked on him, tinted red, pupils narrow. Maybe it saw the distracted look on his face.

The feather had meant that it wasn’t this post-soldier that had taken his wife; it had been something else, something worse. And as if reading his thoughts, the monster looked up, screamed once more, and darted off. This last scream was a sound he hadn’t heard one of the monsters make before; it sounded distinctly like fear.

Leopold turned, all of a sudden knowing what was happening. He understood it then. He backed away to get a better look at his roof and saw it there. His wife’s body was skewered on its right claw, and its eye-less head tracked him. Its mouth was open, dripping blood, although it was blood too dark to have been Susan’s. Its teeth swayed like fingers, and he realized that it didn’t breathe. Judging from its scale to his wife’s body, it was somewhat taller than the average man; perhaps eight feet. Leopold’s breath caught in his throat.

The Fleshreaper.

It fluttered twice and then rose into the air, his wife’s body still pierced on its scythe-like claw. It flew off into the trees and he saw that it was like some twisted skeletal version of an angel. Perhaps the reason it needs flesh is because it has lost so much of its own, he thought.

As Leopold was left in the doorstep of the empty house, he felt emotions welling up. But before his face could betray his emotions, he pulled out his cigar, lit the end with a match, and listened to the cold wind whistling through the woods as he took his first puff.