My best friend is an idiot crushing on a jerk. Instead of eating peanut butter cups at his house on Halloween, I'm throwing rocks at Skurdulka's house. That's how it started.
I actually lay eyes on a shapeshifting cryptid and I'm not going to live...
Red eyes glowed underneath long, matted black hair, hanging over the creature's dead face. Its black lips curled back into a snarl, revealing lines of long, spiny, yellowed teeth. Black rags covered its tall, sinewy figure, tattered around its clawed hands. Those giant hands, hanging near its knees on too-long arms, flexed, long fingers curling and uncurling like a spider's legs.
I flattened against the boarded window, unable to move, unable to breathe. It was Skurdulka. The legend, the ghoul, the local campfire cryptid—it was real, it was alive, and it was about to kill me.
Skurdulka advanced with slow steps, those red eyes gripping me, just like the dog's had. When it stood in front of me, looming a foot over me, the growl stopped but the teeth-baring snarl remained.
"Skurdulka." The word escaped me in a breathy whisper.
The snarl faded, black lips covering its gruesome teeth. It reached out a hand and I could only stand and shake. Rational thought had flown out the window. I was toe-to-toe with a shapeshifting monster and completely frozen.
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With two long, clawed fingers, Skurdulka plucked my smartphone out of my shaking hand. The blue light swiveled, then tumbled, and went black when Skurdulka dropped the phone—crack—to the floor. The creature was a looming shape in the darkness, a disembodied face holding red eyes.
Cold fingers snapped around my neck. I choked, flailing, as the monster held me by the neck up to its height.
"Any last words?" It was a dry snarl, the voice a snake would've had.
"Fu—ack!" My attempt at a reply turned into a choking cough as I struggled against the monster's steel fingers. The backs of my tennis shoes kicked uselessly against the boards and I fought the one-handed steel grip around my neck. "Let—me—go!" I croaked.
Its oily black lips peeled back into a smirk filled with layers of needle teeth. "Is that all?"
Choking in Skurdulka's hand, one thought pierced my terror. I'd actually managed to catch a glimpse of a real goddamn cryptid. And it was going to kill me before I ever got to tell anyone.
Without warning, it dropped me in a heap on the floor. Scrambling to my feet, I kept my back against the boarded window. "Are you gonna eat me?" My voice shook.
Its shoulders fell, releasing a growling sigh. Its deep-set red eyes narrowed.
It took a step.
"Wait." I held out a hand, then raised my fists. My heart still pounded and my tight fists shook, but somehow, through the terror, something hit me. I wasn't going to die like some kind of cringing princess. If this thing was going to kill me, I was going to fucking fight it. "Let me fight you."
