If I wasn’t here they could have run right after their friend. I’m making things worse for them, slowing them down, making everything more dangerous.
Mattie was about to open her mouth, to tell them these things, when Jen patted her shoulder and said, “Take your time and calm down. It can’t be easy to climb in that outfit. Did you make it yourself? It looks handmade.”
“Y-yes,” Mattie said.
Something rustled, and a moment later a light clicked on. A flashlight, Mattie thought. It had been years since she thought about a flashlight.
It was C.P.’s, of course. He had the light pointed at the ground and he was moving it around.
“What are you doing?” Jen asked.
“Looking for tracks,” he said. “That cryptid didn’t fall out of the sky, grab Griffin and fly away.”
“How do you know?” Jen asked. “We didn’t get a proper look at it.”
“We’re not looking for the Mothman, Jennifer,” C.P. said, his tone mocking when he said “mothman.” “We’re looking for a large, bearlike cryptid. That’s what all the reports said.”
Mattie wondered again about these “reports,” but didn’t feel it was the right time to ask.
“You know, you’re amazingly close-minded for someone who claims to be the opposite,” Jen said. “How do you know it’s not the Mothman?”
“Please,” C.P. said. “We’ve talked about this before. It’s physically impossible for a creature like that to exist. You’re not doing our field any favors by believing in stupid urban legends.”
Mattie tugged on Jen’s arm before she could argue more. “Griffin,” Mattie said.
Mattie could just make out Jen’s silhouette in the dark, see the other woman nod her head.
“You’re right. This is not the time to engage with a person who claims to be a cryptozoologist but who actually doesn’t believe in the vast majority of the historical evidence of cryptids.”
“It’s too easy to disprove most of the claims. That’s why we’re here. To gather actual evidence,” C.P. said, still moving the flashlight over the ground. “Where the hell did that thing come from? The snow is totally untouched here.”
“Trees,” Mattie said.
C.P. pointed the flashlight up, but the light seemed frail and useless in that direction, swallowed up by the pine boughs.
“How can something that big—and that’s the only sense I had of it, that it was big—move from tree to tree without breaking them? How did it carry Griffin?”
“Griffin,” Mattie said again, to get them moving.
What had happened to their sense of urgency? C.P. seemed lost in thought, trying to solve the problem of the creature. She glanced nervously at the trees above them. There was a chance the animal was still up there, watching them, waiting for its chance to take the rest of them.
“She’s right. Come on, C.P.,” Jen said, grabbing his arm and pulling him along.
Mattie couldn’t help wincing, bracing for C.P.’s response to this. If Mattie had done such a thing to William, he would have told her they would leave when he was ready and not a moment before, and there would have been a slap in it for her. But C.P. meekly turned the flashlight in front of them and let Jen pull him along.
The light made the pools of darkness outside its reach behave strangely. More than once Mattie was certain she saw a shape moving on one side of them and then the other, but when she stopped to peer into the shadows, C.P. would also tilt the flashlight in that direction, and there was never anything except the trees.
It seemed they’d been walking a very long time when Mattie heard the trickle of the stream. Her feet felt frozen, and the tips of her fingers had gone numb despite her mittens. She longed for the warmth of the cabin—the fire, a blanket, a hot cup of tea.
And a monster waiting in your bedroom? The cabin isn’t a safe haven for you.
Mattie shook her head from side to side, trying to dislodge any thoughts of William. She wasn’t going to enter the cabin if he was there. And if he wasn’t around she was going to lock the door against him and leave him out in the night, just like he’d done to her.
Maybe the creature will take him then. Maybe it will swoop down from the trees and take him away like it did with Griffin.
Mattie knew that the banks of the stream were bare of trees, and that the three of them would be exposed once they exited the cover of the woods.
“W-wait,” she said.
C.P. swung around to face her and the flashlight beam went right into her eyes. She covered her eyes with her hand and turned away, but her vision was temporarily ruined and all she could see were black spots on an orange background.
“Sorry, sorry,” he said. “I thought I had the beam low enough but you’re a lot shorter than me.”
“Give me that,” Jen said, snatching the light out of his hand. “You can’t be trusted.”
“That’s not fair,” he protested.
They were going to argue again. Mattie never knew that people could enjoy arguing, but these two seemed to do just that.
They might enjoy it, but it’s making me crazy. Why can’t they just be quiet? Don’t they understand that every time they make noise they’re bringing danger nearer to us?
“Q-quiet,” Mattie said with as much authority as she could muster. It wasn’t a lot, especially given that her voice still resembled something like a mouse squeak, but she’d had enough and she thought they could tell.
She felt their gazes upon her, even though she couldn’t make
