There’s blood everywhere.
The ranger must’ve been sitting on his couch. There’s a magazine on the floor, alongside a broken mug and a soggy teabag. Reading his magazine, drinking his tea. Then digging claws and teeth shoving him down so hard the impact sent him forward and destroyed his coffee table. That’s where I find him, amidst the splinters and broken glass. I can still make out some of his uniform underneath the blood. But as for him…
He’s torn apart. Open, bits of him spilling out. Things you’re not supposed to see: ribs, organs, intestines, fluids, all stained a burning red. The smell is intolerable now; hot and rotten and filling my nostrils until my eyes burn. His eyes are blue. They stick out in that sea of bodily fluids. They’re wide open.
I run outside, chased away by the sight and the smell. I throw up on the wet porch, my vomit slowly sliding away in the rain. I cough up a couple of sobs, too. For the ranger, for Becca. For me. The last place I want to be is inside this cabin. But after a few minutes, I make myself go back in. I need to find the phone. I make a point of not looking at the ranger. In the narrow hallway leading to the other rooms, there’s an old rotary style phone on an end table. Frantic, I pick it up and start dialing 9-1-1.
The line’s dead. I’m almost too petrified to look. The phone line’s been neatly snipped in half, just like the truck’s inner workings. I check the other rooms, but only find a dark bathroom and a bedroom. Just as I worked up the courage to check the dead man’s pockets for his cellphone, I see a smartphone on the floor. Smashed into little pieces, tiny circuits and plastic crushed into useless bits. That’s when the rising alarm coiling up inside of me finally snaps. I curl up on the bed and hyperventilate for at least ten minutes. But it’s hard to keep track of time during a panic attack, when every second seems to draw out into an eternity of anxiety and dread.
I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die…
I force myself to take long, deep breaths. It helps a little, and eventually my heart no longer feels like it’s going to tear apart my chest like the poor ranger’s. I sit up, and I think.
Something was in the woods. A bear, or a cougar maybe.
And Becca was out there. Naked, confused, cold...
I needed to get out of here and find help, before Becca ended up like the ranger. I didn’t want to believe she was already like the ranger. I grab two bottles of water from the fridge, drinking one right there. I put the other one in my pocket. I don’t look in the living room. Outside there’s a green Jeep, and the door’s unlocked. Before I go looking for a key on the mangled corpse inside, I pop the hood. Someone’s snipped this engine up, too. No surprise there. That left walking. The sky is illuminated by the dim ashen light of late afternoon. The sun sets early in January, so it will be dark soon.
I stick to the dirt road. It must be so easy to watch me from the trees, but I don’t trust myself to try and navigate off-trail. My calves and thighs throb in protest. My feet ache. They beg me to stop. Just sit down by the side of the road, take a break, it won’t matter anyway… I just keep walking. I keep looking over my shoulder. I watch the trees, expecting to see eyes. I don’t know if they’ll be human or not. Sometimes a twig snaps, or an owl hoots, and I break into a brief, frantic run before I calm down.
The sun is setting faster than I thought. The sky is a grisly shade of red. I try not to look at it; it reminds me of flesh. When the visceral sky finally darkens, I stop. I’m tired. There’s no panic left, no adrenaline remaining in my tanks. I can’t be far from the road, though. I have to keep going. I turn on the little flashlight I keep on my keychain as the woods grow dark. Every shadow looks like a monster.
Snap.
I stiffen. There is a low growl from the bushes. My blood is ice, and I can’t breathe. But slowly, I swivel the light to my left. There is the glint of bright yellow eyes, the glimmer of drooling teeth embedded in a maw the size of my forearm, fur so dark I couldn’t distinguish it from the night.
There’s no scream, just running. The light from my phone casts an erratic silhouette into the trees and across the road as my arms move back and forth. There’s the sound of paws padding behind me, gently hitting the dirt. It’s much too close.
“Steph?”
I stop so fast I almost fall flat on my ass. I turn, and there she is in the harsh white light of my flashlight. Becca. Naked, caked in filth, and alive. I make a noise because there aren’t words for the immense wave of relief that I feel. I take her in my arms, kissing and crying into her neck.
“Becca, Becca, oh my God…!” I wrap my coat around her, although she doesn’t appear to be shivering. “We have to get out of here right now! There’s…”
Nothing. Behind Becca, there’s nothing in the beam of light. Where did it go? I stumble behind her, drunk on adrenal fluids and confusion. There are its tracks. God, it’s enormous. Bigger than any normal wolf or bear. But are they getting smaller? My eyes are playing tricks on me. Now they’re a different shape. My head is swimming. They end at Becca’s bare feet, and she watches me carefully as
