Vesps

Vesps are the main antagonists of the 2015 book The Silence by Tim Lebbon and its 2019 film adaptation of the same name. They are an ancient species that, while blind, are highly sensitive to sound. After being freed from a subterranean cave system, begin attacking and killing off life on Earth.

History
The vesps were found by a mining team in a North American cave system. They proceeded to kill the team and escape through the passages the miners had dug.

Before long, the vesps began making their way to inhabited areas, swarming and attacking cities by brutally killing people with their razor-sharp teeth and clawed wings. In a video posted online by a survivor, she explained that the creatures were attracted by noise and urged people to stay quiet. Many people followed the advice, though it resulted in loud individuals such as crying children being forced out onto the streets to be killed for the good of the other people nearby.

While the government instructed people to stay in their homes, the Andrews family decided to flee and take their cars out to drive north. After being caught in a traffic jam, they go off-road and one of the cars crashes. As the other car's passengers are preparing to get help, the dog begins barking, attracting the vesps into attacking the car. The family patriarch Hugh is forced to let the dog out of the car to be killed. The passenger of the crashed car, Glenn, shoots at the vesps but just attracts them, leading to them killing him as well.

Hugh is able to quietly get out of the car and deduce that the creatures are blind, and only rely on their hearing and other senses. Hugh lights the crashed car on fire as a distraction, then has his family flee. They find a nearby farmhouse, where they watch as the clueless homeowner comes out threatening them with a rifle and is subsequently killed by the vesps. The family get onto the property through a storm drain, but unknowingly disturb a rattlesnake that begins loudly hissing. Vesps descend on the pipe, and begin attacking matriarch Kelly's leg. Hugh turns on a nearby woodchipper, attracting the monsters and killing those that try and attack the machine.

The family make it to the house, but Kelly's wound becomes infected. Ally learns through the news on the internet that the vesps cannot survive the cold, and that people above the Arctic Circle are surviving. The next day Hugh and his deaf daughter Ally go to the nearby town to get antibiotics. As they are walking through the store, they come across corpses of victims. Ally checks one of them to see that the victims are not being eaten, but rather being used as cocoons for the vesps to lay their eggs in. The two are attacked by vesps, but manage to escape by tripping a fire alarm to mask their noise.

Upon leaving, they come across a Reverend who invites them to cut out their tongues and join his cult, the Hushed. The two refuse, but the reverend comes back with his cult later offering again, claiming that he wants Ally because she is "fertile", and can be used for repopulation. Hugh chases them off with a shotgun, but they return that night, setting traps and sending a little girl in as bait. They tape ringing cell phones to the windows and the girl's vest, attracting vesps into attacking the house. The cult runs in and abducts Ally, but her grandmother saves her by attacking the cult and screaming, attracting the vesps to kill her and the cultists. The Reverend is killed, and the survuving family escapes. They head north to a refuge.

The film ends with Ally hunting the vesps with a bow and arrows, wondering who will adapt first: the vesps to the cold or humans to a silent lifestyle.

Appearance
Vesps resemble small, pterosaur-like creatures with wide wingspans and small bodies. Their heads are large and almost completely consist of mouths with hundreds of sharp teeth. They have no eyes, but possess two large glands on the sides of their heads and large, oval nostrils.

Trivia

 * The name "vesps" comes from the Spanish word avispa, meaning wasps.