Love, Lies & Red Eyes | ONC 2023 (Complete)

Chapter One | Arturo

The humans are celebrating something tonight. The air is crisp with oncoming fog and the clouds hang low in the sky, threatening rain. But the forest is clear.

For now.

I know the olebras will be here soon. They always are. And it's my job to fend them off, even at the expense of my own life.

Really drew the short end of the stick on that one. All the white cadejos have to do is guide inebriated travellers home and alert us of any dangers. Glorified tour guides, if you ask me.

But no. I was born a black cadejo. I was also born a scapegoat. A scapegoat to keep the humans from realizing a greater evil walks among them.

Nearby revelry breaks my concentration and I walk toward the noise. How did Lucho manage to let these fools wander so far from the path? I wonder. Even glorified tour guiding is too difficult for him.

Another noise like the snap of a tree branch rings out from the direction of the humans.

I push faster, staying in my full dog form, narrowing my eyes to lasers until I can see the group of men, beer bottles in hand and comical hats tilted on their heads.

Of course.

I would end up with the tourists.

Even when drunk, the locals understand the dangers of this place. It's been drilled into them since they were in the womb, mothers whispering tales of caution of their babies even before they could hear. And that kind of understanding runs deep, no matter how much intellectual belief or capacity they have.

But the tourists are another story altogether. They have never heard the tale, and if they have, they throw it away as some cute local story from some primitive past.

And they do it to their detriment. The only ones I've ever lost have been tourists, and something prickles in my ears tonight. A shiver rolls through me. I cannot seem to reach Lucho at all.

Something isn't right. And I have a terrible feeling about this.

I press down into the wet dirt, leaping over fallen logs and around dense brush, racing toward the drunken party of three—or is it four?—dancing through the forest without a care in the world. And doing it at a volume they can probably hear in Brazil.

When I am close enough that I can see them without my superior vision, I let out a low growl loud enough for them to hear between songs.

"Did you hear that, man?" One of the humans asks his buddies, coming to a complete stop in the middle of the bush.

"The girls said us to meet them right here," the second one slurs. "And I'm not moving from this spot just to find out they came right after I left." He snickers to himself a little. "Came."

Sweet Savannah, I do not wish to be held responsible for these two. And I'm not supposed to be working double duty. Needing to scare them off is lessening my ability to patrol. And the woods are too quiet. Something is coming, I just don't know when.

I need to dispatch this crew quickly. And the only way I can do that is revealing myself to them. Another fun tale to tell their friends. Another cautionary tale of a near miss with the terrifying murderous beast in the forest.

They won't know how wrong they are. Or how right.

I growl again, breaking through the treeline and coming to a stop in a small clearing, bearing my sharp teeth in a menacing snarl I've perfected over the years.

"Oh, shit!" the third man shouts. "Shit! Fuck! Run!"

Why is he shouting? He is going to attract the attention of things far more dangerous than I am.