As I came upon the stream that ran through the encampment I was approaching, I knew I hadn't arrived in time. The water flowed with the blood of the dead from the area not more than fifty feet away from me. I could see the flames of the fire, still burning, that the people had probably been gathered around, laughing and dancing not ten minutes before. I put on my gloves to load my revolver. I took six bullets out of a Ziploc bag and put them into the chamber and then flicked it back into place with my wrist like they do in the movies. I resealed the Ziploc, put it back in my bag and started creeping slowly toward the fire. When I was about ten feet from the clearing where the fire was, I heard the familiar sounds of eating chicken wings. Sure, it’s human flesh, but it still always sounded like someone eating chicken wings to me. As I passed all but the last of the trees that separated the woods and the clearing, I saw the hairy beast through the flames on the other side devouring one of the now limp victims. I readied my revolver in one hand and picked up a rock from the ground in the other. I threw the rock into the stream behind him with a loud splash, and the creature immediately sprung up several feet in the air and landed near the water where the rock went in. The night was silent at that point except for the crackling fire and the cocking of the hammer on my revolver. That sound made the creature slowly turn his head toward me while emitting an internal guttural growl. In one motion, he turned and leapt in the air towards me and my gun rang out in the darkness three times. The body fell roughly three feet in front of me, already turning back to its human form. He looked up at me, life slowly fading from his eyes.
“Why?” he asked.
“This is my territory,” I responded.
“Why didn’t you just ask me to leave?” he pleaded.
I replied, “You know we are allowed to kill trespassers, and there’s already too many of us.” As his life faded, I began my own transformation so I could consume the only still fresh meat in the vicinity...eating around the silver bullets of course.