The click of claws, the stamp of hooves, the chitter-chatter of fangs filled our first night in the cabin we had rented for two weeks of relaxation.

Something which we never found on that desperate vacation to get away from it all… we did get away, but we found something else… or it found us.

We would be changed.

One thing we could definitely say - it was or they were nocturnal - we weren’t sure if it was one, or a pack. And we weren’t sure at all what we were dealing with.

It certainly was a beast, some kind of creature that did not want to be seen.

My wife wanted to leave after the first night, after the long darkness from dusk to dawn - the long wheezing, whimpering, scratches, and howls.

I told her there was nothing to be afraid of, it must be harmless. It didn’t seem to want to attack. But we kept the windows sealed tight and the door locked and jammed with an armchair and cabinet.

We still weren’t sure if we could keep it out.

It was only in the night that the fear found us. When the sun rose the lakeshore brightened, the birds announced the joy of clean air with a pine and birch scent. The trout and salmon from the tumbling river were delicious and sweet. All around in the forest there was an abundance of berries, a cornucopia of red and blue to tempt the tongue. And mushrooms filled the damp leafed and fern floor; they plumped our pans. They were sautéed with butter and collected wild herbs.

A feast so simply foraged.

In the light, it was a paradise - an Eden that filled our bodies and minds. A bliss.

But then night came. We didn’t go out. We let the stars remain to themselves.

When we looked out we thought there was a faint glow from the ground and a luminescence in the lake.

We left the night to its own, we stayed in our wooden and stone oasis. We kept the fire burning, the candles aflame.

We prayed, but did not let each other know.

We trembled alone.

I always had my rifle propped on the wall next to the bed. My wife had her small pistol at the ready on the night table.

We slept, but not well.

The long wheezing, whimpering, scratches and howls. The long whining, growling, mewls, and yowls.

On the sixth day, I was also ready to leave. We boxed up our supplies, emptied the refrigerator, and decided to lose our deposit and not clean.

But we were not going anywhere, the tires of the car and even the trailer had been sliced and flattened in the night. There was no way to leave, a hike out would take at least two days, and there was no reception for our cellphones.

That had been the idea to get away from it all.

As we lugged all the supplies back to the house, I noticed the prints around in the mud. There were paws and hooves, talons and semi-human prints drying in the late morning sun.

Was it one, or was it pack?

We most certainly were not alone.

One more night might tell… if we survived.

We didn’t have to wait long. We began to see things more clearly… even in the night, as we became more nocturnal.

Those salmon and trout, those berries and mushrooms, those wild crafted herbs… they had flourished from the fallout from an alien ship that had crashed in the deep winter when no one was there to see the fireball hitting the lake and rising up in a mushroom shaped cloud.

It explained the faint glow and luminescence.

It explained the sloughing of our skin and our genetic rearrangement.

It explained it all.

My wife was the first to begin to wheeze, whimper, scratch and howl. Her limbs had reformed and ended in a hoof, a talon, a paw, and semi-human hand.

I next felt the stretch of what I had been into something else… whining, growling, mewls, and yowls. I only had hooves and paws, but something more… antlers sprouting and encircling my head.

We lost the light of day, our pupils swelled to swallow the night.

We walked out the door, we joined that pack of one. The first renter of the year who had come two weeks before us.

He had come to get away from it all, to find the bliss of fresh fish and forest food.

We waited in the night for the next visitors… we whimpered, wailed, and howled…

We no longer hungered after fish nor fowl, berry nor fungi…

…only those carrying the flesh we once had had…

It’s not easy starving at the top of the food chain.