WARNING: The chapters of this story have been rearranged, the comments below may not properly reflect the content of this chapter. The order has been changed due to accurate constructive criticism, and these changes will reduce the jarring back and forth between perspectives. Thank you to all of my readers whose feedback allowed me to make these changes, please enjoy the chapter.

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Sheriff Gerald Pike sat at his heavy oaken desk, gradually working through a mountain of paperwork. The day wasn't even half over, but he felt as if he had been stuck here for days. In all his years of being a sheriff, reports and the sheer monotony of the paperwork had never gotten easier. If anything, they were more cumbersome than ever. He had thought that being the Sheriff would allow him to dump the paperwork on the deputies, but instead there was only more paperwork. As time went on, more and more accountability laws were passed, and the detail required for each report became absurd. Sheriff Pike was a stern, honest man. He started as deputy in Brelwick over forty years ago, and it had become his entire identity. The gray of age had claimed his hair some time ago, yet his body still clung to the vigor of youth, denying the passage of time. As he sat, glaring at the next piece of paper, he was happily relieved from his work. "Gerry!" Dianne called out, "You'd best get your gear. Rodger needs you out at the woodcrest trail." "What's he got?" Pike asked his assistant, pulling his gun and badge from the top-right drawer of his desk. But then she only gasped in reply. Something Rodger had said had almost made her drop the phone. "What does Rodger have Diane?" He repeated sternly. "T-Three bodies sir! B-But it's much worse than t-that." she stuttered. "Worse? How girl!? Details!" "The bones are picked clean, deep bite marks all over. Blood everywhere." "Has to be wolves." Pike declared as he unlocked the armory. "Rodger says they aren't any wolves he's ever seen. The blood is fresh. This only happened a few hours ago, but all three bodies are completely stripped clean. The bones are broken, the marrow is gone and there are a handful of giant rodent bones nearby. Those are completely bare too." "A starving wolf pack then? But their prey should be plentiful this time of year!" "He says the bite marks on the bone are all wrong. Something smaller-!" she cut off mid sentence, her face white as a sheet. "What is it wo-!" then Pike heard the sound of gunfire from the phone, "What is happening?!" "I-I don't know!" she sobbed, "He yelled, and it sounded like the phone dropped. Then they were shooting and shouting something about how huge they were!" "Dammit!" Pike roared, and pressed the speaker button. Suddenly the entire cramped office was filled with the sounds of the dying men's screams, gunfire, and the sounds of angry screeching. As they all listened, frozen in shock, the screams and screeches died down, only to be replaced with the horrific sound of gnashing teeth and crunching bones. It took five minutes for the sheriff's station to snap out of their shocked trance. Pike was the first to action. He gently pressed the phone hook down, putting an end to the sounds of his men being devoured. "Boys, get the trucks! Pile every last gun we have in the armory into the back. Don't worry about racks or locking them up!" Pike roared, sparking the deputies into action, "Dianne, call the mayor. Call the radio station. Call the shooting range. Call the mill. Call the big shops. Call every last man you know that can use a gun. Put the word out, something in those woods is killing grown and well armed men, not to mention whoever it was they got before Rodger and his partner. Every able bodied man is to report to the woodcrest trail head, or drive their trucks out to the farms surrounding the forest to keep watch. No-one sets foot in that forest without five other heavily armed men!" Pike didn't have a clue what was going on. Something had killed and devoured those people. Something had killed his men, and from the sounds of it they didn't stand a chance. It should have been wolves. It had to be wolves, but he had heard those squeaks and screeches. No wolf could make noises like that. Whatever it was, he would descend upon it with a boundless fury. He would hunt every last predator in that forest to extinction if he had to, but he had a horrible feeling about this. Not just the loss of his best deputy, but something else. Something churned in his gut, telling him that this had only just begun. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As Sheriff Pike glared down the trail from the road, he had never imagined he would be happy to know that there were over one hundred and ten gun toting, frenzied hunters behind him. His gut instinct was screaming at him now: telling him to run. He was not afraid, but it was a feeling he had never felt in his entire life. He had organized hunts for man-killing animals before, both bears and wolves. But something was different this time. It felt as if the very air was offended at his presence. He was comforted that he was alone in this feeling. His ten surviving deputies and the hooting adrenaline junkies behind him were completely immune. The plan was simple. They had distributed their rifles and shotguns out to each man who didn't have a proper firearm, and they also passed out their handguns as spares. Each deputy and himself would form a group with eight other men. Pike would lead the first group, with the men filing behind him, watching through the dense trees for any movement. The second group would follow in kind, leaving twenty feet between them. It was the same for every group except the middle group, and the last two which were split into two groups of twenty. One of these would form the rearguard, and the other would guard the trail head. This way if something went wrong, they had a place to fall back to and any new arrivals would be formed up into groups of twenty and sent to follow. The group in the middle were mounted, riding a colorful variety of horses. After they found the bodies and the trail, they would fan out into the woods. They would keep within sight at all times, but the cavalry would rush to reinforce whoever found the beasts first. Pike was taking no chances today. He carried a rifle, a shotgun slung over his back, his sidearm, his spare, his hunting knife, and far more ammo than should have been practical. Many others were equally over-armed, although most of these seemed to be gun nuts trying to show off their collections. They weren't hard to spot, they were the ones who had taken the time to change into their cammo gear before rushing to the meeting site. As much as he generally despised these sorts of people, and how much trouble their unchecked stupidity usually caused, he was more than grateful for the firepower. "Vanguard, move out!" Pike ordered, and he strode down the trail, followed by his men. It was a beautiful day, and the lush scenery belied the grim task that lay before them. For most of the first three miles, it was completely uneventful. There were no signs that it was anything other than a lovely afternoon stroll. The world was bright and cheery, the men were hooting and hollering despite Pike's calls for silence. But then they found the bodies. As they rounded a turn in the trail just like any other, they saw what remained of Rodger and Phil. Their olive green jackets were in blood soaked tatters, and their blood had dyed the soft dirt a deep, dark red. Even the descriptions he heard from Dianne of the first bodies, and the horrid sounds they had all heard hadn't prepared him for this. Nothing remained of the men except for those rags, their gear, and bones covered in innumerable nicks and gouges where beasts had bitten and gnawed every last scrap of flesh from the skeletons. If not for a tattered name tag, he would never have known which one was Rodger. "Fuck." A man with a bright orange cap and vest cursed, and Sheriff Pike was in full agreement. Two of the men puked as they gazed upon the grizzly scene. "Keep your guards up!" Pike roared as he kneeled down at Rodger's side. He could only boast of mediocre skill in tracking, but it was more than enough to tell him what he needed to know. Just as had been described to him, giant rodent skeletons were scattered around his men. They appeared to have fallen victim to the same beasts that brought down his men, but Pike knew better. Thousands upon thousands of footprints littered the scene, and most matched the skeletons. They had been killed in the fight, and devoured by their own. Somehow these giant rodents had not only killed his men, but devoured them in less than a few hours, and if Rodger's report was to be believed, they had already eaten their fill earlier that morning. That meant an absurd number of the beasts were roaming the woods in a pack. But as he looked, something else caught his eye. There were other prints mixed into the sea of rodents. Massive dog tracks were scattered around the carnage. Rodents working with dogs? Impossible! But then there had to be two separate packs of roving beasts. "Rodents. Some damned oversized rodents did this." Pike cursed. "That's crazy!" the orange hatted hunter shouted, "No rat could do this!" "I don't know, but whatever that is-" Pike pointed to one of the oversized skeletons, "killed my men." "That's got to be a coon, or a dog or somethin!" "That's a rat skeleton if I ever saw one. I say rodent because that can't be a rat, but its something. Look at all the tracks. There could have been hundreds of the damn things." "Well shit. What do we do?" "We're gonna hunt them down, and kill them all. Keep your guns and eyes low, and keep your wits about you. This is only the start." They continued down the trail, but all merriment and excitement had evaporated from the group. They only made it a few short steps before they found the next bodies. Going from their shoes and the remains of their clothes, they had to be joggers. The three of them all together in the same stretch of trail. Spent shell casings littered the ground, probably from the gun resting next to the mangled skeleton with the pink shoes. But now the tracks from the pack diverged from the hiking trail, racing off into the trees. Pike waited for the rest of the men to catch up to the first group, and he saw two different faces amongst those gathered. Some were white with fear, the rest were possessed by a furious determination. Something in these woods had decided their town was easy pickings, just another meal to get through the day. Whatever it was, it was not welcome. The crew guarding the road had radioed ahead, another forty townsmen were on their way down the road. Pike left orders for them to secure the bodies in case the beasts came back before setting off into the woods. It was a standard search formation, the men spread out in a V formation with Pike's team in front, except that that the groups remained within twenty paces of each-other, the same as before. The plan had been for a much wider spread, but the other men had finally begun to share Pike's dire sense of danger. This forest was no longer theirs. As they pressed in, shots rang out on the right flank. The furthest group had opened fire with everything they had. Pike immediately sprinted for their position, heedless of the dangers which might be lurking in his path, but the cavalry had arrived first and the gunfire quickly ceased. As Pike reached the site of the battle after his short sprint, he sighed. A deer had run out from behind a bush, and his men panicked. "False alarm!" he roared to the men rushing to see what was happening, "Back to your positions!" As soon as they were formed up, Pike marched them onwards. The trail was obvious, with hundreds of tracks it might as well have been a paved road leading them deeper and deeper into the forest.