What Killed Evan
A Short Story by Chad Schomber
I once went on a date with a guy who assured me he knew a remote backcountry skiing area.
It turned out he did not, in fact, know the area.
He also told me not to bring anything because he was “totally prepared.”
We ended up stranded for nearly two days.
And then a werewolf killed him.
People always focus on the werewolf part.
That’s understandable.
Personally, I think the bigger red flag was that he brought one granola bar for a weekend trip.
His name was Evan.
Looking back, there were warning signs everywhere.
Not werewolf signs.
Man signs. The kind you ignore because someone’s attractive and funny and seems confident about things.
Especially things they should not be confident about.
“Trust me,” Evan said as we drove deeper into the mountains. “I’ve done this route a dozen times.”
I looked out the window at endless snow-covered pines.
“Good.”
“You sound worried.”
“I’m trapped in a car with a guy I met three weeks ago.”
“You’re making it sound like a hostage situation.”
“It’s not, right?”
He grinned.
I hated how charming that grin was.
The forecast had promised clear skies and fresh powder. The mountains rose around us in blue-white ridges beneath the winter sun. Everything looked postcard perfect.
Evan talked the entire drive.
Past ski trips.
Camping adventures.
Close calls he’d survived.
Entertaining.
At the time I just thought he was nervous.
Or trying too hard.
When we reached the trailhead, the parking area was nearly empty.
A handful of vehicles sat buried beneath snow.
The nearest building was miles away.
Exactly the kind of remote wilderness experience Evan had promised.
He jumped out first. The cold slapped my face as soon as I opened the door. “Perfect day,” he announced.
I glanced upward. Clouds were gathering over distant peaks. Just enough to make me uneasy.
“You sure about the weather?”
“Absolutely.”
That should have been another warning sign.
People who know what they’re doing rarely speak in absolutes.
People like Even doing love them.
Fast forward, we skied for several hours. Everything was wonderful.
Fresh snow.
Silent forests.
Long downhill runs. The kind of wilderness that makes you feel very small yet very alive.
Around noon I noticed Evan checking his phone repeatedly.
There was no signal.
He kept staring at a downloaded map.
“Everything okay?”
“Of course.”
A little too quickly.
“We’re headed toward that ridgeline?”
“Yep.”
“You sound unsure.”
He said nothing.
The first knot of anxiety tightened in my stomach.
By midafternoon we reached a fork between two narrow valleys.
Evan stopped.
Studied the landscape.
Then studied it again.
The pause lasted slightly too long.
“You know where we’re going, right?”
He laughed. Too loudly.
“Obviously.”
Another warning sign.
He chose the left valley.
An hour later we found ourselves standing at the edge of a steep ravine that definitely wasn’t supposed to be there.
Evan stared at it.
I stared at him.
“Interesting.”
“Interesting?”
“I don’t remember this.”
I folded my arms.
“You don’t remember the giant ravine?”
“No.”
“That’s concerning.”
He gave me a reassuring smile.
It was beginning to lose effectiveness.
The clouds had thickened overhead. Looked angry.
The temperature was dropping.
And for the first time all day I realized I had no idea where we actually were.
We retraced our path. Well, we tried.
The terrain seemed different now.
The landmarks no longer matched.
The forest closed around us.
Endless trees.
Endless snow.
The world becoming smaller and larger at the same time.
“Evan.”
“Yeah?”
“Seriously, how well do you really know this area? I’m scared.”
He looked away.
Only for a second.
But it was enough.
And in that moment I understood.
The weekend was about to become much worse.
“I know it,” he said.
The hesitation told me everything.
The storm arrived just before sunset.
And somewhere deep in the trees, something howled.
The storm trapped us. We had a pathetic little shelter wedged beneath a rocky outcrop.
The good news was we weren’t freezing. Everything else was shit.
I sat with my knees pulled against my chest while snow blew across the mouth of that stupid outcrop.
Evan avoided eye contact.
“How lost are we?” I asked.
He sighed.
“Pretty lost.”
I stared at him.
“Pretty lost. Great!”
“I was trying to impress you.”
I laughed.
“You told me not to bring supplies.”
“I know.”
“You brought a granola bar. One, you fucking idiot!”
Outside, something howled again.
The sound rolled through the forest like distant thunder.
Both of us went silent.
Evan forced a smile.
“Coyote.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No coyote has ever sounded like that.”
The howl came again.
Closer now.
This time even Evan didn’t argue.
The forest fell quiet. The kind of silence that makes you feel watched.
Minutes passed.
Then I noticed tracks around where we were trapped.
Huge.
The storm should have covered them. Which meant they were recent.
“Evan.”
He followed my gaze.
The smile disappeared.
Something moved between the trees.
Tall.
Fast.
Gone before either of us could focus on it.
Neither of us spoke.
Then came another sound.
Breathing.
Heavy.
Close.
Right outside.
The darkness beyond the shelter felt suffocating.
I could feel the blackness take shape.
For one frozen second, golden eyes reflected the moonlight.
Then the creature lunged.
It hit the shelter hard enough to collapse part of it.
Snow exploded inward.
I screamed.
Evan shouted something muffled and blurry in the chaos.
The thing crashed through the entrance, a streak of dark fur and impossible size.
For one insane second my brain refused to process what I was seeing.
It moved on two legs.
Then four.
Then two again.
The shape seemed to change every time I blinked, hoping this wasn’t real.
Evan grabbed a ski pole.
Of course he did. What a dick.
A man who got lost because he couldn’t admit he was lost was absolutely the kind of man who thought a ski pole could solve a werewolf problem.
“Run!” he shouted.
For once in his life, excellent advice.
The creature slammed him into the snow before I could move.
The impact shook the ground beneath me.
Evan screamed. The sound cut straight through me.
I scrambled backward as claws flashed through the darkness.
The creature wasn’t just attacking.
It was overwhelming Evan.
Fast.
Strong.
Brutal.
I should have helped. But the lizard part of my brain understood a simple truth: save yourself.
The creature lowered its head.
Evan suddenly grabbed it.
Wrapped both arms around its neck.
And bit down.
Hard.
The creature roared and reared backward.
For the first time it seemed genuinely startled.
Evan had drawn blood.
The victory lasted less than a second.
The claws came down.
Evan disappeared beneath them.
His scream ended abruptly.
Silence.
Heavy.
Terrible.
The creature stood over him. Breathing hard.
Steam rising from its body into the frozen air.
I couldn’t see Evan anymore.
Only red snow.
The creature slowly turned toward me.
Golden eyes.
Intelligent eyes. It knew I was there. It had known the entire time.
Every instinct I possessed screamed, run.
I did.
I grabbed my skis and launched myself downhill.
Branches whipped past.
Snow blinded me.
I fell.
Got up.
Fell again.
Kept moving.
Behind me I heard nothing.
Nothing crashing through the forest.
That frightened me even more.
Because it meant the creature wasn’t chasing me.
Did it choose not to, I thought.
That stayed with me through the rest of the night.
Through every stumble.
Every terrified glance over my shoulder.
Every desperate step.
The storm finally began to weaken near dawn.
The trees thinned.
The slope flattened.
Then, impossibly, I saw tire tracks.
A road.
I almost cried.
Half an hour later a snowplow driver found me wandering along the shoulder.
Cold.
Exhausted.
Barely coherent.
I remember fragments after that.
Questions.
Blankets.
Flashing lights.
Concerned faces.
Everyone asking what happened.
Everyone looking skeptical when I answered.
A search team went out that afternoon.
They found signs of an animal attack.
Blood.
Damage.
No body.
Just enough evidence to confirm something terrible had happened.
Not enough to explain what.
Another storm trapped everyone at the mountain lodge overnight.
Including me.
I spent most of the evening staring into a cup of coffee I wasn’t drinking.
Trying not to think about golden eyes in the darkness.
Trying not to think about Evan.
Trying not to think about the moment the creature looked directly at me.
The moment it decided not to kill me.
“Mind if I sit?”
I looked up.
The man standing beside the table was unfairly handsome.
Dark hair.
Broad shoulders.
Easy smile. Nothing close to Evan’s.
The kind of face that immediately lowers your defenses. If you know what I mean.
Which, under the circumstances, should have concerned me a lot more than it did.
“Mind if I sit?” The man smiled.
I looked around the nearly empty lodge restaurant.
At least twenty other seats were available.
“Sure.”
He slid into the chair across from me.
Up close, he looked even better. That annoyed me immediately.
I’d just survived a monster attack. My standards should have been higher.
Or at least stranger.
“I’m Lucas.”
“Claire.”
His smile widened slightly.
“It’s nice to meet you.”
I almost laughed. Nice wasn’t exactly how I’d describe my week.
The waitress appeared and poured him coffee.
She seemed to know him.
That struck me as odd. I hadn’t seen him earlier.
Then again, I’d spent most of the day wrapped in blankets while answering questions from people who thought hypothermia explained everything.
Maybe I’d missed him.
Lucas nodded toward the window.
The storm had finally begun to weaken.
Snow drifted through the darkness outside.
“Looks like you picked a bad weekend for the mountains.”
“You have no idea.”
“I heard there was a rescue this morning.”
I looked at him carefully.
Most people had treated me with a mixture of sympathy and skepticism.
Lucas simply looked interested.
“My date got us lost.”
“Ouch.”
“Then things got worse.”
“That tends to happen once you’re lost.”
The comment should have sounded flippant.
Instead it felt oddly sincere. Like someone speaking from experience.
I studied him over the rim of my coffee cup.
He was relaxed. Comfortable. The kind of person who never seemed to be performing.
The exact opposite of Evan.
The comparison felt unfair.
Mostly because, well, Evan was dead.
A brief silence settled between us.
Outside, the wind rattled against the windows.
Inside, the fire crackled.
For the first time in two days, my shoulders began to unclench.
That realization unsettled me. Trust should not return this quickly.
Especially after what I’d seen.
Lucas seemed to notice.
“You don’t have to tell me about it.”
“About what?”
“Whatever happened out there.”
I stared at him.
His expression remained calm.
Patient.
“You think something happened.”
“I think people don’t look like that because they got turned around on a trail.”
That was fair.
I looked down at my hands.
Tiny scratches covered my knuckles.
Everything felt unreal now.
The storm.
Evan.
The blood.
The thing in the forest.
Part of me worried that if I started talking, I wouldn’t be able to stop.
“You ever see something you couldn’t explain?” I asked.
Lucas considered the question.
A strange smile touched the corner of his mouth.
“Once or twice.”
“That’s not really an answer.”
“No.”
“It isn’t.”
For a moment his eyes met mine. A flicker of something passed through them. As if he already knew me.
The feeling vanished before I could identify it.
The waitress returned.
Lucas ordered pie.
That somehow made him seem more trustworthy. No serial killer in history ordered pie, right?
At least that was my theory.
He pointed at the menu.
“You should eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“That’s a lie.”
“It might be.”
“You look exhausted.”
“I am.”
“Then eat.”
The annoying thing was that he was right.
An hour later I realized we’d been talking the entire time.
About nothing.
About skiing.
Travel.
Books.
I found myself laughing.
Actually laughing.
Not nervous laughter.
Real laughter.
Lucas watched me with a certain amount of amusement.
As if he had been waiting for that sound.
The thought warmed me, deep.
Eventually he stood.
“I should let you get some sleep.”
“Probably.”
Neither of us moved immediately.
The pause lingered.
Small.
Charged.
Interesting.
Then he offered a hand.
I took it.
His grip was warm.
Almost hot.
A pulse of memory shot through me.
Steam rising from dark fur.
Heat in the freezing night.
Golden eyes.
The image appeared and vanished in the same instant.
Lucas released my hand.
“See you around, Claire.”
“Yeah, ok, bye.”
He turned toward the hallway.
I watched him go.
Halfway there he pushed back his sleeve to check his watch.
The movement exposed a row of healing puncture wounds along his forearm.
My stomach dropped.
Lucas disappeared around the corner.
I remained frozen beside the table.
Unable to breathe.
I should have gone to the police.
Or the search team.
Or literally anyone.
Instead, I spent the next day thinking about Lucas.
That was embarrassing enough before adding the whole werewolf thing. Or whatever I was thinking.
I watched him from a distance around the lodge.
He seemed normal.
Annoyingly normal.
He drank coffee.
Read a book by the fireplace.
Helped an elderly couple carry luggage through the snow.
Not once did he look like a creature that had ripped a man apart in the woods.
Late that afternoon, I finally cornered him outside on a covered deck overlooking the mountain.
The storm had passed. Mostly.
The forest stretched endlessly below us.
Lucas looked up as I approached.
“I was wondering how long it would take.”
That stopped me.
His gaze held mine.
Steady.
Calm.
Infuriating.
I folded my arms.
“You were there.”
He didn’t answer immediately.
Which was answer enough.
“You were in the forest.”
Still silence.
The mountain wind whispered through the trees below.
Finally Lucas sighed.
“Yes.”
The word landed between us.
Simple.
Heavy.
Real.
I should have walked away.
Instead I stepped closer.
“Why didn’t you kill me?”
Something changed in his expression.
For the first time since we’d met, he seemed uncertain.
“You ask direct questions.”
“You didn’t answer mine.”
“No.”
His eyes drifted toward the mountains.
“I don’t know.”
I laughed.
“That’s convenient.”
“It’s the truth.”
“You murdered my date and you don’t know why you let me go?”
His jaw tightened.
“I said I didn’t know.”
The frustration in his voice surprised me.
It sounded genuine.
For a long moment neither of us spoke.
The tension between us felt different now.
Something far more dangerous.
Awareness.
Lucas looked back at me.
“Do you know what the smart thing would be?”
“Leave?”
“Immediately.”
“And if I don’t?”
His gaze dropped briefly to my mouth.
Only for a second.
But I saw it.
And suddenly the cold mountain air felt much warmer.
“Then you’re making a mistake.”
My heart kicked hard against my ribs.
The sensible part of me was screaming.
The rest of me was paying very little attention.
“Maybe I’m tired of sensible decisions.”
A faint smile appeared.
“Claire.”
The way he said my name felt like a warning.
Or a temptation.
I stepped closer.
Close enough now to see the gold hidden inside his eyes.
Close enough to feel the heat coming off him.
Close enough to know exactly how bad an idea this was.
Neither of us moved.
The moment stretched.
Neither of us looked away.
Then Lucas touched my face.
Lightly.
I kissed him.
For a second he didn’t respond.
Then he did.
And that turned out to be an even worse decision.
Because suddenly there was no room left for logic.
Only heat.
Only relief.
Only the terrifying realization that I wanted this despite knowing exactly what he was.
When the kiss finally broke, both of us were breathing harder than before.
Lucas rested his forehead against mine.
His eyes were closed.
As if he were trying very hard not to do something.
Or become something.
“Claire.”
There was genuine strain in his voice now.
“You should go.”
I smiled.
“That’s the second time you’ve said that.”
“And you’re still not listening.”
“No.”
His laugh was quiet. Dangerously warm.
When he opened his eyes again, the gold seemed brighter.
The mountain wind carried the scent of pine and snow between us.
For the first time, I wondered whether Lucas was afraid of me staying.
Or afraid of how much he wanted me to.
By the time we reached Lucas’s room, I had stopped pretending I was there for answers.
The questions were still there.
So was the fear. But they had been pushed to the edges by something stronger.
The room was quiet.
Warm.
A fire crackled in the stone hearth.
Outside, darkness had settled over the mountain.
Neither of us spoke. The silence felt charged.
Lucas stood near the window.
Watching the snow drift through the night.
“You can still leave,” he said.
I smiled softly.
“You keep saying that.”
“Because you should.”
“You killed my date.”
The words hung between us.
Neither accusation nor forgiveness.
Just fact.
Lucas lowered his gaze.
“Yes.”
Most people would have denied it. Made excuses. Looked for a way out.
Lucas simply accepted it. That honesty made him hot, harder to hate.
“I should be terrified of you.”
“You should.”
“But I’m not.”
A shadow crossed his face.
As if that answer hurt.
“Claire...”
“What?”
He looked at me for a long moment.
Then slowly crossed the room.
Every step seemed deliberate.
Careful.
Controlled.
Like a man walking a narrow ledge.
When he reached me, he lifted a hand to my cheek.
The touch was gentle. Like a whisper from an angel.
For a moment everything else disappeared.
The mountain.
The storm.
The forest.
Even Evan.
There was only this. Him.
The strange, dangerous connection I seemed incapable of resisting.
I leaned into him.
Lucas closed his eyes.
A visible tension ran through his body.
His jaw tightened.
His shoulders stiffened.
At first I thought he was struggling with emotion.
Then I heard it.
A faint crack.
Lucas immediately stepped back.
His expression changed.
Alarm.
Real alarm.
“Lucas?”
Another crack echoed through the room.
This one louder.
His hand clenched into a fist.
The wood of a nearby chair splintered beneath his grip.
Every instinct I possessed came roaring back to life.
“What’s wrong?”
“Leave.”
The answer came instantly.
Too instantly.
His voice sounded strained.
Raw.
I took a step toward him.
“Lucas—”
“Claire.”
This time he almost growled the word.
The sound stopped me cold.
Lucas bent forward sharply.
His breathing ragged.
Pain flashed across his face.
Then another crack.
His body jerked.
Furniture rattled.
The firelight flickered across eyes that were no longer entirely human.
Gold.
Bright gold.
The same eyes from the forest.
The same eyes from my nightmares.
For one terrible second our gazes locked.
And I finally understood.
Not just what he was.
Lucas was fighting.
Not me.
Himself.
“Go,” he whispered.
The word barely sounded human.
I backed toward the door.
Heart pounding.
The room seemed smaller now.
Dangerously small.
Lucas dropped to one knee.
His hands dug into the floorboards.
Deep grooves appeared beneath his fingers.
The transformation was beginning.
And it looked agonizing.
Painful.
Violent.
Wrong.
Lucas squeezed his eyes shut.
Fighting for control.
Fighting to hold onto the man he had been only moments earlier.
For a heartbeat I thought he might succeed.
Then he looked up.
The gold had completely consumed his eyes.
“Run.”
The word came out as a snarl.
I grabbed the doorknob.
The creature that had killed Evan was emerging beneath Lucas’s skin.
And for the first time since the attack, I wasn’t sure which frightened me more.
The monster.
Or the fact that part of me still saw the man.
The door flew open.
Cold air rushed inside.
I stumbled into the hallway.
Behind me, a roar shook the room.
The last thing I saw before the door slammed shut was Lucas gripping the shattered remains of the bed frame.
I didn’t sleep.
I sat in a chair facing the door until sunrise.
Every sound in the hallway made me flinch.
Every creak of the building made my pulse spike.
Around three in the morning I convinced myself I’d imagined everything.
Around four I remembered the sound of bones breaking.
By five I was crying. Reality had stopped making sense.
Werewolves weren’t supposed to exist.
Neither were golden eyes.
Or claws.
Or men who could look at you like they wanted to kiss you one minute and tear your throat out the next.
My brain spent hours trying to find another explanation.
Drugs.
Shock.
Hypothermia.
A nervous breakdown.
Anything.
Everything.
None of it worked.
Because I’d seen him.
Really seen him.
And no amount of denial could put that memory back in the box.
Sunlight finally crept through the curtains.
Gray and cold.
The mountain looked peaceful again.
Like it hadn’t destroyed my understanding of the universe in less than seventy-two hours.
A knock sounded at the door.
I froze.
For a moment I couldn’t move.
Another knock.
Soft this time.
Careful.
I already knew who it was.
I wasn’t afraid.
A deep part of me had been waiting for him.
This has been a short story inspired by Andie Rupp’s basically true story. At least the way I heard it. No Evans were hurt in the writing of this piece.