“I’m on my way now. If you’re concerned about dogs, turn on all the lights, put on some loud music. That should scare away man or beast, but wait for me. If someone wanted to abandon a baby, a church or a hospital would make more sense.”
“Maybe there’s too much surveillance there or too many people, too much chance of being seen. Maybe—”
“Wait!”
I’d already grabbed my keys off the counter, and my shepherd, Beau, hearing them, was pawing at my leg, asking to come. He’d heard the tension in Sarah’s voice straight through the phone. Or maybe in mine, and he wasn’t letting me go alone.
“Get your leash.”
He did a half spin and took off to where I left it hanging on a hook with his harness as I ran down our short hall to let Luke know where we were going. I had to yell twice to penetrate his ever-present headphones, but I finally got through, and by that time, Beau was bumping my hand with the leash and harness in his mouth. I got him into the harness, scratching him quickly as I went and telling him what a good boy he was, but neither of us lingered. We were both up and running for the door as the last snap clicked into place.
After that, our only brief pause was for Beau to water the path twice on the way to the car, either to refresh his marking of our territory or because Luke had forgotten to let him out earlier. Either way, it didn’t keep us long, and we were rumbling in my Jeep down the steep drive to the actual roadway in no time.
As anxious as I was to get to Sarah, I didn’t put my pedal to the metal. Our crazy Colorado weather—freezing and thawing, often in the same day, the sometimes drought followed by flash-floods—and the volume of our visitor traffic took a toll on our paved drive. Cracks, potholes, erosion at the edges. At night with only headlights as a guide, the drive could be a hazard, but with no oncoming traffic expected, I stayed to the center and drove as fast as I dared.
I carved ten minutes down to nine, glad Beau was strapped into his doggy hammock in the back, so he wasn’t shaken around. He whined only once and put his head up to make a vee in the sling so that I could see him if I looked over my shoulder or angled my rearview mirror. I didn’t, but I could feel him there.
As soon as we pulled into Sarah’s drive, though, he went crazy, as though he could pull himself out of his car seat by force of will. He threw himself at the door. He’d never done that before. Quickly, I got myself out and went around to get him out, but that put my back to the night, and I didn’t like it. My own hackles rose in reaction—hair on the back of my neck, up and down my arms, all over my body standing on end. My t-shirt, flannel and jeans suddenly felt like flimsy protection against whatever was out there.
And something was out there. Just as Spirit had sensed earlier.
As Beau sensed now.
I freed Beau from his car seat and jumped out of the way as he flung himself out of the car, snarling and barking and ready to chase down Sarah’s intruder. I grabbed the end of his leash just in time to get my shoulder wrenched as I tried to hold him back.
At my command, Beau quieted, except for low growls to let me know there was still something out there, as though I couldn’t feel it. But I needed to hear what Sarah had heard, what I thought I’d heard even over his ruckus: a baby crying, screaming for someone to save it. No one with a heart could resist. It was eerie. Haunting. Horrible. My mind had already sorted through all of Luke’s baby cries, and this wasn’t like any of them. It wasn’t one of want—food, changing, comfort. It was one of desperate, immediate need. One of terror.
With my cell gone, I couldn’t let Sarah know we were there, but when I looked toward the house, I saw that Beau’s barking had done that already. She was silhouetted in the window beside her door, looking out into the night. She raised a hand, and I gave a nod back. Then I turned my full focus onto the trouble.
“Find it,” I told Beau. “Go. Good boy.”
He didn’t need to be told. His ears were already back, and his body tense, spine rigid, tail low. His nose was pressed to the ground, scenting. He strained at the leash, pulling us forward, and I wasn’t at all surprised when the trail took us toward the baby’s cries, which seemed to come from the bushes beneath Sarah’s bow window.
The closer we came, the louder the baby’s cries. The more I wanted to grab it up, cradle it in my arms. Save it. I almost launched myself into the bushes. Beau seemed to sense that, and stopped short in front of me, quivering, tacking right and left to block me as I tried to go around him. I had no choice but to stop or fall over him. Try to see what had him on alert.
At first, I couldn’t make sense of his behavior. The light from the house didn’t extend out over the hedges. All I could see was that they were overgrown. Trimming them had been Joe’s job, and the least of Sarah’s worries after his death, but thorns and brambles wouldn’t set Beau off like that.
And then the shaggiest part of the bush moved, and I realized that those weren’t jagged leaves or branches at the top. They were matted fur and raised hackles, a ruff or a mane or… I couldn’t even make sense of what I was seeing. The thing in the bushes was far bigger than a wolf; bigger than any predatory animal we had here in Colorado except the black bear, and this was no bear.
It turned toward me as I stood stunned, its dark eyes flashing in the night, and my arms and legs suddenly felt as though they were made of clay, heavy and hardening. Terrified, I tried to reach for the ever-present treats in my pocket so that I could throw them far afield, divert the thing long enough to grab up the baby and run, get it and Beau to safety, but I couldn’t move. Not a muscle. My stunned paralysis had become all too real.
All I could do was look my fill, but that didn’t help with the horror. This was like nothing I’d ever seen. It was more of a size with a male lion and had a mane like one as well—or like a hyena, since it was dark and spotted. That mane continued in a ridge down its back as far as I could see. And its teeth… My mind sputtered. Not teeth. Or yes, one on top, one on bottom, but each arcing the entire jaw. One singular ridge of bone sharpened like a butcher’s blade.
Truly terrifying.
Beau lunged, and the beast rose up, its shadow falling upon Beau, and his rigid spine seemed to become fused. He was frozen. A block of Beau.
But the thing’s movement had released me, at least for now. I wanted to drop to Beau’s side, assure myself that he lived and breathed, but that would leave us both vulnerable. I had to defend him. And get to that baby…
And that was when I realized the cries had stopped. Had there even been a baby? Was it all a ruse? Bobcats were said to sound like babies crying, but nothing like this.
This was another level. And the paralysis… I’d heard of basilisks and cockatrices, but in mythology, not in reality, and anyway, they turned things to stone, didn’t they?
I was out of my depth. This was completely beyond my experience. I didn’t want to go for the knife in the sheath at my belt, the one I carried with me everywhere in case I had to cut one of my rescues loose of something or finish taking down branches felled by our weather.
But I reached for it now, and when the thing’s attention swung back to me, I avoided it and dove for the bushes. My plan wasn’t to kill the beast—not if I could help it—but I would if I had to in self-defense. Otherwise, I would find a way to subdue it and take it in. Maybe it had been driven out of its territory. Maybe it was a species so endangered we didn’t even know it still existed, or a cryptid someone was searching for. Either way, it deserved a chance. And if Beau didn’t come out of his paralysis, this thing might have the answer for that too!