The first sound was a single, discordant chime, shattering the deep, velvety silence of the house at one in the morning. It was the doorbell. Jack, hunched over his keyboard in the glow of his monitor, didn't hear it. The frantic, whispered accusations of an internet drama commentator filled his noise-canceling headphones, painting a world of trivial conflict far removed from his dark, quiet room.
Then came the knocks. Gentle at first, a polite, almost hesitant tap-tap-tap. They grew steadily more insistent, the sound bleeding through the headphones as a dull, rhythmic thud. Annoyed, Jack pulled one ear cup away, the sudden absence of the commentator's voice making the knocking seem unnaturally loud. The house remained silent around him; his parents asleep down the hall, his nine-year-old twin sisters in the room across from his. He was the only one awake to hear the urgency growing at the front door.
He stood, the gaming chair groaning in relief, and crept into the hallway. The floorboards were cold under his bare feet. The knocking was no longer a request; it was a demand, a solid, jarring BANG. BANG. BANG. that vibrated through the very frame of the house.
His parents' bedroom door opened before he reached it. His father, Mark, emerged, his face a mask of sleep-sharpened alertness. But it was what was in his hands that froze the air in Jack's lungs. It was a pistol, matte black and deadly serious. The sight was so alien, so fundamentally wrong in the context of his suburban home, that Jack's brain stuttered. His father's eyes, usually warm with dry humor, were flat and somber. He didn't speak, just turned back into the bedroom.
Adrenaline, a cold, sharp tide, flooded Jack's system. This wasn't a drill. This was the real, terrifying thing his parents' military pasts had supposedly insulated them from.
By the time Jack reached their door, his father was back. He still held the pistol, low and ready, but now his other hand held a combat knife, its serrated edge catching the dim hall light. He pressed the cold, hard polymer of the knife's grip into Jack's palm. The weight of it was shocking.
"Take your sisters to the basement," his father said, his voice a low, gravelly whisper that brooked no argument. "The steel-reinforced room. You know the one. If anyone comes down those stairs and it's not me or your mother, you protect your sisters. You understand?"
Jack's gaze flickered over his father's shoulder. His mother, Sarah, was a whirl of quiet efficiency. She wasn't packing clothes. She was pulling heavy, boxy magazines from a drawer and laying them out on the bed in a neat, lethal line. The reality of the situation crystallized: his parents, the ex-soldiers, were preparing for a war on their doorstep. He, the untrained civilian, was being handed a knife and a responsibility that felt too vast for his fourteen-year-old shoulders.
He looked back into his father's eyes, the command and the fear warring within them, and managed a single, choked nod. "Okay."
As his father moved past him toward the top of the stairs, Jack's eyes found the crack in his sisters' doorway. Two small, identical faces, pale and wide-eyed, were peering out. The scent of their strawberry-scented shampoo cut through the metallic smell of gun oil and his own rising panic.
Downstairs, the banging stopped. A new sound replaced it—a low, guttural growl that seemed to vibrate through the floorboards. It was followed by the splintering crack of wood and the shriek of twisting metal as the front door was torn from its hinges.
"Jack, now!" his mother hissed, her voice tight as she slammed a magazine into a rifle Jack had never known they owned.
He grabbed his sisters, their small hands clammy with fear, and pulled them toward the hall. The air was suddenly filled with sounds from below: a snarling roar that was half-animal, half-human, the deafening report of his father's pistol, once, twice, and then a wet, sickening crunch followed by a scream of pure agony that was unmistakably his father's.
"Dad!" one of the twins whimpered.
"Don't look!" Jack choked out, shoving them forward toward the basement door. He risked a glance back. His mother was at the top of the stairs, the rifle raised. "Mark!" she screamed, and then she fired, the muzzle flash illuminating the hallway in a strobing, terrifying snapshot of a massive, shadowy form leaping up the stairs.
The roar that answered was one of triumph and fury. Jack didn't see the impact, only heard the brutal sound of it, the crunch of bone and the thud of a body hitting the wall. His mother didn't scream. There was just a final, choked gasp, and then silence.
The thing from downstairs was in the hall with them now. The stench of it hit Jack first—wet dog, raw meat, and something coppery and ancient. It was huge, easily seven feet tall, covered in a pelt of coarse, dark fur. Its limbs were grotesquely long and corded with muscle, ending in paws where thick, black claws scraped grooves into the hardwood. But its face was the stuff of nightmares. It was a twisted fusion of wolf and man, with a elongated, tooth-filled snout and intelligent, hateful yellow eyes that locked directly onto him.
It stood over his mother's still form, its muzzle dripping. It took a step toward them, its growl a promise of violence.
The basement door was just feet away. Jack's mind went blank, all training, all thought, obliterated by primal terror. He did the only thing he could. He turned, shoved his sisters through the open doorway, and slammed the heavy door shut, throwing the deadbolt just as a colossal weight smashed against the other side.
The sound was deafening in the confined space of the basement stairwell. THUD. The metal door groaned. THUD. A long, deep scratch screeched down its length.
"Jack?" Lily, or maybe it was Rose, sobbed in the darkness.
He didn't answer. He stood on the stairs, the knife held in a white-knuckled grip, staring at the door as it buckled inward with each impact. The wood around the bolt began to splinter. A single, black claw punched through the metal, ripping a long gash and wiggling, searching for the lock.
He was backing down the stairs, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird, when the bolt gave way with a final, metallic shriek.
The door exploded inward.
The werewolf filled the doorway, a hulking silhouette against the hellish glow from the hallway above. Its hot, rank breath fogged in the cold basement air. It didn't rush. It descended the stairs slowly, deliberately, its yellow eyes pinning him in place. The knife in his hand felt like a toy.
He raised it, a pathetic, trembling defense. The creature let out a sound that was almost a laugh, a low chuffing noise. With a swipe of a paw faster than his eyes could follow, it sent the knife clattering into the darkness, the force of the blow numbing his entire arm.
He stumbled back, falling against the cold concrete wall. There was nowhere left to go. His sisters were screaming, huddled behind a stack of boxes.
The beast loomed over him, its massive head blocking out the light. Saliva dripped onto his face, warm and foul. He could see the gore matted in its fur, smell the death on its breath. This was it. This was how he died, in his own basement, crushed and consumed by a force of nature with no more thought than a tornado.
But the killing bite to the throat didn't come.
The creature seemed confused by his stillness. It snuffled at him, its wet nose pressing against his chest, his neck. It was scenting him. Its small, black eyes showed no understanding, only a primal drive. Then, as if following an ingrained, instinctual script, its jaws opened and clamped down, not on his throat to kill, but high on his shoulder, where the neck met the collarbone.
It was not a precise bite. It was a crushing, grinding weight. Searing, white-hot pain erupted through his entire nervous system as the creature's teeth, designed for crushing bone and tearing flesh, sank deep. He screamed, a raw, animal sound of agony, as the pressure intensified, the sound of his own clavicle cracking muffled by the beast's muzzle. The pain was absolute, a fire that consumed all thought.
It released him, and he collapsed to the floor, the world graying at the edges, the coppery taste of blood filling his mouth. The creature seemed to lose interest in him immediately, as if a switch had been flipped. Its head swiveled towards the source of the screaming. With a guttural growl of renewed hunger, it launched itself towards the stack of boxes where his sisters hid.
Jack, through a haze of shock and agony, heard their screams turn to shrill, short-lived cries of terror that were brutally, efficiently cut off. The sounds that followed were wet, and tearing, and mercifully brief.
The last thing Jack saw before the darkness took him was the creature's hulking form, its back to him, hunched over its grisly work, its tail giving a single, slow, contented wag. The last thing he felt was not the cold of the concrete, but a strange, invasive heat blooming from the ruin of his shoulder, a feverish infection spreading through his veins, a new, terrible life being forced into his broken body by a mindless, primal curse. The change had already begun.