Skull

"I...I think we found the missing scout" shouted Negan, recoiling in horror from what he was witnessing. His thick fur bristled up on his shoulders as he looked down at the remains of Reyne, the scout who had gone missing last night. Oleander yelled back from afar, hearing the fear in Negan's voice.

"Is he gone?" He asked,  trotting over with some urgency in his step. In the wastelands, really anything could happen and death was close at all time.

"Um...yeah," replied Negan, swallowing down the bile that was rising in his throat. It was a grisly scene in front of him. A thick layer of stinking red blood splashed across the ground along with chunks of drying flesh and hair. The viscera still at the scene was now buzzing with flies in the rapidly warming weather. Most of the body was still whole, but Reyne's head was severed and laying several feet away. The flesh had been stripped from it, leaving behind a grinning white skull. 

"What kind of creature do you think would haven done something like this?" He asked Oleander as he padded up behind him. Oleander's face was pale in the face of such destruction, but his voice was steady as he answered. It didn't betray any fear he may have been feeling.

"I don't know. But we have to give him last rites and inform his family," he replied cooly. Negan's eyes lingered on him for a moment, someone in awe of his ability to remain calm in the face of such brutality. Negan hadn't known Reyne very well, but he'd always been pleasant to be around even if a little timid. He had no idea what would've caused him to leave the camp in the middle of the night and come to such a fate as this. A shiver went down his spine.

His eyes drifted back to the corpse in front of them. He was somehow unable to look away from the empty eye sockets of the skull, so strangely white and clean despite the carnage. Oleander was moving off, now, presumably to inform the rest of the scouting party. Negan wanted to follow, despite not being part of the scouts, but instead hung back and tried to make sense of the scene. He wished he didn't have to be Oleander's secret, he wished he could take shelter in the camp with them. This brutal attack threw into sharp relief the danger that he was in, unable to be protected by walls and by numbers. He hid himself before the scouts came back in some scrubby vegetation that hid his large body. 

As the scouts came toward the scene, some quiet conversation gave way to gasps and retching. One of the younger boys ran off toward the camp, wailing. But the rest of them were able to steel their resolve and bury the poor creature's body. All that remained was the pure white skull, grinning maddeningly. They hesitated before burying that, as well. 

Later that night, the scouts somehow managed to get to sleep. Negan slept in his cave right outside the camp, where he was well hidden and yet still somewhat protected by the camp's proximity. Hazy, horrifying dreams haunted every single one of their slumbers.