I trudged through heaps of snow that covered the unpaved, backcountry road where I had last seen my brother. Head tucked against the wind, I focused on planting one foot through the icy drifts, then the other, glancing up every so often to peer through the flurries. The tracks I was following had long been blown away, the last remaining traces of my brother lost to the elements.

I was out here on mama’s bidding. She has been worried about Clint, my brother, for some time, complaining to my about his strange behaviors and frequent paranoia. Clint always had a flare for the dramatic. He spent many a day in town at the Tulsa public library researching all manner of conspiracies and occult myths, crafting his version of the truth that governed his reality.

About week a week and a half ago, Clint had blown into our ranch home in a huff, a look of primal fear hiding in his eyes. We just assumed he almost had a car accident or something on the way home as he always was a bit dramatic, but over the next few days he only got worse. Whenever we asked him what was wrong, he kept mumbling about uncovering something. He kept saying that all his work has payed off. And that something was after him. In rural Oklahoma there is all kinds of urban legends that keep people up at night. The Mothman, Swamp Monsters, a species of mini Bigfoot, Aliens dressed in black trench coates, you name it, a few hundred people in Oklahoma will have claimed to have seen it. Clint was more into the government conspiracies than the urban legends, but the way he was acting you would’ve sworn he had seen some creature out in the bitterly cold Oklahoma winter we were currently having.

Then, about four days ago on Thursday, Clint started mumbling about something being outside. He said that he thought he lost it in the backroads but it had found him anyways. For the next two days, he sat at various positions in the ranch house, head on a swivel, monitoring the windows for any sign of whatever it was that he thought was after him. We tried to reassure him. We told him it was probably just wind noise and patterns in the snow flurries that he was seeing, but he would have none of it. Clint was a notoriously stubborn bastard.

On Saturday, the day before he disappeared, I walked downstairs in my blue long-Johns to find my brother loading our fathers M1911 handgun. He had his pump-action shotgun propped against the table beside him, several boxes of ammunition for both weapons in a black shoulder bag hanging from the chair, and a large hunting knife strapped to his belt. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and asked him what he thought he was doing with all that weaponry. He glared at me grimly and muttered, “never hurts to be prepared.” That was the last he thing he said to me before he disappeared.

The next morning I awoke to the howling wind juxtaposed with the gentle sound of snow flurries buffeting our home. I rubbed my eyes and swung my legs out of bed. They stung a little as they touched the chilled, wood floor. As I neared my door, intent on heading to the bathroom to brush my teeth and freshen up, I heard quiet sobs emanating from the kitchen downstairs. I rushed didn’t the exposed staircase that ran from the upstairs hallway to the living room downstairs and rounded the corner to see my mom in her pink, paisley robe sobbing at the kitchen table. I knelt beside her, taking her hand, and asked her what was wrong. She met my eyes, tears streaming down her cheeks, and told me that about an hour before, Clint had to a out. He had said he was tired of waiting, of feeling like the prey. He had taken his weapons and went out to meet whatever it was that was chasing him. I groaned and rushed upstairs, pulling on my Carhart coveralls, wool sweater, thermal work jacket, wool hat, and snow boots, and rushed downstairs, grabbing the keys to the lifted, family Ford Bronco that was parked outside. I had to find the dumb bastard before he got lost and froze in this blizzard. Before leaving the house, I made a split second decision and grabbed the scoped hunting rifle that was perched on two parallel, wooden pegs above the front door.