I watched some lightning strike far off in the distance while I stood by the glass doors of my work office, reading a text and replying before setting off.  It was pouring down to where the line of sight was more obstructed by the constant thick mist of rainwater rather than the darkness that the storm always brings with it, clouding what little sun was left in the remaining hours of the day.
Work was all I had to keep my mind off things.  Once you lose something close, you try your hardest to fill that void with whatever is available.  It's always in vein though.  There's always something missing.  I just didn't want to be home.  Home where my wife will never be again.  My home just served as a constant reminder of how I lost her.  The empty bed, the aroma of therapeutic candles she insisted to be kept lit.  And her voice that I would hear whenever I walked in through the door after a long day at work.
But my obsession with work was getting out of hand.  Late nights, working off the clock without pay.  When I got home I drowned myself in the architectural designs I was familiar enough with at work.  Editing, drawing, sketching, pondering, just anything pertaining to work.  My other world was with family and friends.  My family - my wife - was always more important than friends.  After she was gone, I gave up on friendships, as opposed to what most everyone else would do - seek comfort there.
And it was the week before that night that I decided to move on.  There was nothing I could do.  The solution to this nagging problem was probably hundreds of miles away by now.  And that was what the text was for.  I hated text messaging ever since it came out, but I answered that one because that was the way to find at least some solace in the friend that would receive the message.  It was the text that prevented me from leaving the office earlier.  The text message that allowed so much pain to finally be alleviated.
Because I never texted beforehand, it took me five minutes to churn out a text message without any grammatical issues or spelling errors.
When I finished, I marched drowsily to the car and listened to the heavy rain patter on the hood of my rain coat.
I sank my wet key into the slot and turned it, then hopped in quickly to get to some warmth and dryness.

While I waited for the car to warm up, I took out my wallet and took out the picture of Jessica that I always kept.  It was laminated just so I could keep it without worrying about it being ruined.  It was a whole body shot while she was laying on the couch.  An orange T-shirt, some expensive jeans, white socks, her short blonde hair hung naturally to her shoulders.  Her head was tilted slightly and she flashed a toothy smile towards the camera.  She looked so good in the picture.  She had a beautiful face and body.  I looked at the picture and tried not to think of what she probably looked like by now.  But it was like tonguing a sore on the inside of your mouth.  It hurts when you do it, and its preventing it from healing, but it's hard not to do it for some strange reason.
I couldn't stop thinking about the comparisons between how she probably looked now and how she looked then.  She wasn't in peace the last time I saw her.  The only chance of that given the circumstances would be to see her at rest in her funeral - which wasn't going to happen.  They never found her body.  I already knew her body wouldn't turn up long before the police ever told me that they were giving up the search.  I could never say to them that I knew that, because the reason for my knowledge would sound like the ravings of a lunatic to everyone except for the very sane man sharing it.
I licked the sore again one more time and put the picture back in.
I checked in back and saw that my window was pretty much completely defogged.  And that's when I left.  At the perfect time.
I went five miles under as I drove down the street.  It was busy out.  People were getting off work.  Anxious to get home.  I wasn't.  Things were changing and I wasn't too excited to see what would happen once I got home.
And it wasn't long before I stopped at the stoplight.  When it was red, people were stopped in their places; after it turned green, nothing changed.  After some initial honking from the people in the back (including myself), everything grew silent.  All we could hear were the howls and wails of some woman in pain.
I figured it was an animal.  It had to be.  Maybe someone ran one over and now people are stopped because the driver is taking it out of the street.  That's when I heard the screams.  Not from the same source of the pain wails, but from someone else.  It was fear.  And that's when I knew that it wasn't an animal that was hit.  But I was still wrong.
I had finally seen what the traffic had stopped for.  A woman stumbled down the street with her face half torn off.  The right arm had been taken off in the middle of the bicep.  Her torso bore shreds of a sweater and gallons of blood.  She was walking with a limp as the kneecap in one leg was completely destroyed.
She had fumbled out of a thick forest neighboring the road we were on and passed-up three cars before getting to mine and collapsing.  She slammed against the side of my car, smearing blood there, and then collapsed to the ground.
That scene took about five seconds.  It took everyone five seconds to get out of their cars and help the woman.  Some people in the back began honking again, but were only met with middle fingers.  Six of us had carried her into the first car in line - a Saturn SUV and opened up the trunk to put her in it and to get her out of the rain.
I grabbed some towels from my trunk and wrapped her in them as best as I could while someone called 911.
"I don't know what happened!" Said the woman on the phone.  "She just came out of the woods and she was already hurt.  She's not going to live much longer!"
"What happened?" I asked the injured woman.
She didn't answer, after repeated attempts, it occurred to me that answering my question wasn't a priority of hers.  But it wasn't long before my question was answered.  Because another shriek was let loose.  I looked up and saw what had most likely killed this woman.  The gigantic creature threw its body into the middle of the road carelessly, and then threw itself back into the forest and ran for dear life.
It was colossal, easily weighing 500 pounds.  Roughly the size of a Lion.  It walked on four legs but was obviously bipedal as well.  The forelegs resembled arms too well to just be legs.  As the fingers were too long and the nails were different than the ones on the hind legs.  Its furry body was wet from the rain and the jet black of the hair had a sheen like black ice.  Its glowing yellow eyes flashed anger at everyone as it stood for that brief second in the road.  Its long pointed ears twitched and the nose that sat at the end of its long snout quivered with inhalation.
When it darted back into the forest, I knew what it was.  It was that thing that was responsible for my misery and my loneliness.  Now was the time to end everything.
Everyone saw it, nobody chased it.  Except me.  I had bought a .44 Magnum a week after Jessica was gone.  I bought it for an occasion such as this.  I knew I needed a powerful handgun, and apparently, this could take its head "clean-off".  I grabbed it from under the passenger's seat and loaded it quickly.  I didn't have time to grab more, every second was important.  I locked the car doors behind me and disregarded all the warnings and pleas directed towards me.  I was not going to let it go this time.
I snuck through the forest quietly.  Slowly, the sound of the cars outside dissipated and I was only left with the sinister noises that nature provided at night.  Owls screamed and wet leaves clung to my shoes with a disgusting sound.
It was the coldest I had ever been.  It was fall going on winter and it was just above freezing.  I had forgotten my  coat in the car and I was soaking wet in a cold forest with a devastatingly vicious wind blowing through.
When I stepped on some twigs, I looked down to see for some strange reason.  And that's when I saw it.  It had indicated that this was the place.  The place where it all began.  The place that if Jessica and I avoided, none of this would be happening.  I saw a shred of clothing from Jessica's favorite shirt.  It had the odd zigzag patterning to it.  It was muddy and very dirty, but it was definitely hers.  It had been caught up well within a tree root sprouting from the ground.  Which explains why it was never carried away by the wind.  Animals had no interest in it, and bugs simply passed on over it since I clung flatly to the ground so strongly.  The mud caked on it kept it from biodegrading.
It occurred to me that this creature couldn't have lived here this whole time.  This was a rather big expanse of trees and forestry and the like, but not big enough to harbor a creature like the one I saw in the road for as long as I believed it to have been living there.  For some reason, it made its way back to the area that I first saw it six months ago.
Then I saw it.  Staring me right in the face.  Not nine feet away from me.  It had crept up so quietly it was amazing.  It snarled at me with hatred, which made me want to do the same thing back.  How dare it hate me?  What had I done wrong besides picking a bad spot to go camping?  A spot that if I had avoided, Jessica would still be around…
I pointed the magnum at the creature and it jerked to its right then lunged at me.  I dodged it barely and turned around just in time to see it facing me and preparing for another attack.  I aimed the gun and it charged at me.  I didn't cower this time.  I shot it, but the fear and intensity had made my hands tremble too much, and I only nicked its left shoulder.  It apparently hurt enough to make it stop.  I fired again as it rolled once on the ground to regain its equilibrium, but missed.
Then, angrier than ever, it roared like a banshee.  Its voice was both low and high.  It was not of this world.  It sounded like what I imagine Hell to sound like.  Saliva spewed from its mouth as it opened its jaws.
And I shot off another round.  This time, the front left leg was hit directly.  It squealed like a dog and immediately regained its composure after I had stood up completely.
It got up on its hind legs, with a hunched back and crooked neck.  It came at me with its arms extended when I put the fourth round into the chest.  It stopped, near death.  Then, when the shot was easy, I fired the fifth shot.  It hit the creature right in the heart.
And as it collapsed to the ground, lifeless.  The pain was alleviated.  The magnum fell out of my hands and onto the ground.
What should have been a tragic moment for most men was now the greatest moment of my life.  It felt like I had fixed what I had done wrong.  My mistake wasn't malicious or careless.  It was just fate.  And fate had played her part again to make sure that I was the one to shoot the creature.
I watched it as what could be called "nature" took its course on the carcass.  When it was all done with, I grabbed the cellphone out of my pocket and dialed the number.  I figured the police officers were already at the scene in the middle of the road, but I had to be sure I was gone long before they found the body.
And I was gone when they arrived.  I saw it on the news that they had found what I had just riddled with .44 caliber bullets.  And I know it won't be long before they come knocking on my door.  Now that I'm done writing this, I can honestly say I provided the best argument I could for what I did tonight in the woods.  If they don't believe it now, they certainly won't believe it if I was alive and arguing my story.
I fired off five rounds, I have one left, and I intend to use it.  Not on the other creature I know still lurks in this city however.  Because I know I won't find it for as long as I live.
I want my last memory to be of the final event in the woods.
When I watched it after I had killed it, the dead skin peeled off and flopped onto the moist ground with a sticky sound.  Then, in the piles of dead skin, I beheld the much smaller body that was inside the creature.  That used to be the creature but now became human again.  I beheld the curled-up, dead body of Jessica.