We call them Hléoðor - the sound without form. The unseen arms that wrap around your throat and take your voice, your dying breath and all your memories too. It becomes you for five days and within those 5 days it tracks down people you knew, hoping to take their voice, their life and continue its own.
It can't live without a voice, without that dying breath to keep it wandering the world like the cursed beast that it is. A small family of them moved into the area some thirty-odd years ago and we've not known any peace since nor will we til the last blasted thing is dead as all their victims.
The youngest isn't much trouble, gives you a bad case of asthma-like symptoms and bad memory for five days you always recover. Lazy little bugger tends to stick to the old folk's home where they dcan't tell who it's attacked and who's just senile.
The elder is deadly - a true, cold-hearted Hléoðor who sees us as food and knows just what to say to trick you into walking towards those unseen arms then crunch goes your neck and you're gone. Nasty brute prefers the downtown area where people have always gone missing.
The third though, the third has what the others lack - cunning. It's adapted to modern humanity far quicker and far better than either of the others. It's figured out phones and uses them to call victims all over the city. We've had to set up secret codewords and pray the bloody demon doesn't figure them out.
Sooner or later they'll move on, as is their way. We know the elder will for sure, he's a traditional beast who's been set in his ways for thousands of years but the younger ones worry me. They're too comfortable where they are and they've carved better niches than the old fellow.
Time'll tell if we outlive their comforts or if we join their repertoire of voices.
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