A few nights later, a sudden thirst woke Chloe at 3:00 AM. She padded down the quiet hallway toward the kitchen for a glass of water, expecting to find Max curled up at the foot of her bed. Instead, the house was completely silent. Panic flared in her chest. She searched the living room, but Max was nowhere to be found.
Heart hammering, she stepped out onto the back porch, shining her phone flashlight into the dense treeline bordering her property. Movement caught her eye. Emerging from the shadows was Max. He wasn’t running or panicked; he was trotting purposefully back toward the house. More shockingly, his mouth was clamped tightly around a large, premium soup bone Chloe had left in his bowl earlier that evening.
He didn’t eat it. He had returned from the woods entirely empty-handed. A chilling thought struck Chloe: the rumors were true, but Max wasn’t running from the predator. He was actively sneaking out into the dark to feed it.