Issue 1.4: The Second

The days crawl by, and Silverbrook clings to the hope that Bill Stanler’s **** was a one-time horror that would fade into memory.

But the nightmare doesn’t end. It only gets worse.

A week after Bill’s body was found, you wake to the same suffocating tension at the breakfast table. Your dad, Lawrence Talbot, sits with his coffee untouched, his knuckles white around the mug.

“They found another body,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper. “David Rubenstein.”

A chill slithers down your spine. David Rubenstein. You know him, or knew him. He was the husband of your math teacher, Annie Rubenstein. An outsider who moved to Silverbrook a few years ago, married Annie Bishop, and she took his last name as her own. David was quiet and unassuming, the kind of guy who blended into the background. Now, he’s just another corpse.

Your mom, Charlotte, presses a hand to her mouth. “Oh my god. Annie must be devastated.”

Your dad shakes his head, his jaw tight. “The whole town’s in shock. Two violent deaths in a week. Both bodies torn apart like... like something was eating them alive.”

The words hang in the air, grotesque and horrifying. You push your half-eaten toast away, your stomach twisting.

Silverbrook understandably descends into panic. Two violent, unexplained deaths in the span of seven days. Bodies not just killed, but mauled, ripped apart with a ferocity that doesn’t match any animal the townsfolk recognize. The rumors swirl faster now, whispered in hushed tones at the grocery store, the diner, and the gas station. There’s a "monster" in the woods. Something unnatural. Something that eats people.

The sheriff imposes a strict curfew: no one outside after dark. Schools shut down until further notice. Sheriff Brown organizes hunting parties, combing through Wolf’s Woods with Steve Kirby, your dad, and a handful of other trusted locals serving as deputies.

Despite having experienced trackers among them, they come back empty-handed every time, their faces grim, their voices tight with frustration. The only thing they bring back are whispers of impossibly large wolf prints pressed into the damp earth, too big to belong to anything natural.

Teenagers are ordered to stay indoors after sunset. Some listen. Some don’t. You’re one of the ones who does, mostly because your parents all but chain you to the house, their fear understandable. But it’s not so bad. Maria lives right next door, and you are allowed to visit the Trent house.

With school canceled and the town on lockdown, you spend most of your time at Maria’s house or yours, bouncing between horror movies and nervous speculation. Your parents encourage it, happy to know you’re with someone, safe and accounted for. Maria’s uncle doesn’t seem to mind either. If anything, he seems almost indifferent to your constant presence, watching you with those sharp, unreadable eyes of his.

“It feels like we’re living in a horror movie,” you mutter one afternoon, your gaze glued to the screen as a creature tears through a group of unsuspecting teenage campers. “Like a slasher, but without the sex scenes.”

Maria chuckles, but the sound is hollow and distracted. You glance at her and catch the way her fingers drift to her silver choker, tracing the metal absently. Her eyes flick toward the hallway, where the low rumble of John Trent’s voice carries from the kitchen. There’s something in her expression, something guarded, almost guilty.

You can’t shake the feeling she’s hiding something.

The more time you spend in the Trent house, the more you notice the oddities. John Trent’s behavior is... off. He disappears for hours at a time, slipping out the back door without a word and returning sweaty and tense, his muscles straining against his clothes.

His workouts are intense, borderline obsessive. Shirtless, his body glistening, veins bulging along his arms and chest in a way that makes you feel small and inadequate. You’re in decent shape, but John Trent is something else entirely. A **** of nature. A man carved from muscle and menace, more than twice your age but in far more impressive shape, built like a machine.

And then there’s the way he moves, fluid like a predator, like he’s always coiled and ready to strike.

You try not to stare, but it’s impossible not to notice.

Despite the unease gnawing at you, you can’t help but grow closer and closer to Maria. Every shared laugh, every brush of her fingers against yours, every time her silver eyes meet yours pulls you in further. You can’t help falling deeper for her, until you’re madly, hopelessly in love with her.

But you can’t shake the feeling that the Trents have a secret they’re not sharing with you, a secret as dark as anything lurking in Wolf’s Woods.