“I can’t wait to get back to somewhere civilized,” Brian said. “Some place with beer.”
“What do you think could have broken this tree like this?” Jessica asked.
“Don’t know, don’t care,” Brian said. “It was probably blown over in a storm or something.”
“I don’t think so,” Jessica said. “And it doesn’t look like it was chopped down, either. It looks almost like something came along and pushed it over.”
“Like what? A bear?” Brian asked, suddenly sounding alarmed.
“I don’t know. Maybe,” Jessica said. She doubted it, though. There certainly were bears in this area, but she didn’t know of any bear that would be large and strong enough to knock over a tree like this, or even why a bear would do it in the first place. Still, when she looked closer at the bark, there did appear to be fibers on it that might have been bear fur. She picked up a strand of the fur and started to examine it, but before she could look at it too closely, Brian was standing up and stumbling away from the tree as quickly as he could go.
“If there’s bears around here then I’m definitely not sticking around,” Brian said.
“Brian, where the hell are you going?” Jessica asked. “You can’t just go wandering off up here, especially without even putting your boots back on.”
But he wasn’t listening to her. With one boot left behind at the tree and the other still in his hand, he was already moving at a fast jog back the way they had come. Before Jessica could say anything more he disappeared into the bushes off the side of the path.
“Not that way!” Jessica called out after him. “You’re going to break your neck running willy-nilly through the underbrush like that.”
From somewhere deeper in the foliage, Brian made a surprised grunting sound, then went silent.
Jessica froze. Although she had no idea why, her every instinct suddenly told her she needed to be in fight-or-flight mode. “Brian?”
There was still no sound, not him complaining, not him blundering through the underbrush, not even him crying out as he stubbed his toe on something.
Go, she thought to herself. Get back down the trail as fast as possible. It was a stupid thought, she realized. That was what she would have screamed at someone to do if they were in a horror movie, but this was real life. And in real life, something didn’t just come out of the woods to kill someone. In real life, someone as incompatible with nature as Brian was much more likely to stumble off a ledge and down the steep side of the mountain. And if that were the case, then if she ran he would be as good as dead by the time she got back with help.
“Brian? If you’re playing a joke, it’s not funny,” Jessica said. “It can be dangerous out here if you goof around.”
She thought she finally heard something from the direction he had disappeared in. It sounded like something running away through the brush, something very large. Oh crap, it really is a bear, she thought, or maybe a mountain lion. Whatever it was, it seemed to be moving away from her at a very fast pace. Again she fought the urge to run, reasoning that running would only make her look like prey to something like that, and whatever it was must not be in the immediate vicinity anymore anyway. And she couldn’t leave Brian behind, especially if he might be hurt. She might be fully prepared to dump him as soon as they got back to town, but that sure as hell didn’t mean she wanted him harmed in any way.
“Brian? If you can hear me, call out to me.”
Cautiously, she followed the path he had taken into the underbrush, moving slowly and watching her footing carefully just in case there was indeed some kind of drop-off he hadn’t seen. She didn’t get far, though, before her foot squelched in something damp and squishy.
“What the fuck?” she whispered, raising her boot to see what she’d stepped in. It came up dripping red.
“Oh shit. Brian? Brian, can you hear…” She stumbled a couple of steps forward into a patch where the brush was more cleared away. That was finally where she saw the source of the blood.
The two arms lying there with blood sprayed all around them had clearly belonged to Brian. She recognized the small tattoo on his left forearm. That was all there was here, though, to show that Brian, or at least part of him, had been here. Both arms looked like they had been ripped off his body right at the shoulder joints, and the gore, bone, and muscle hanging from them implied that, whatever had removed them, it hadn’t been done with any kind of sharp blade. In fact, they looked more like they had been ripped straight off of his body.
Okay, she thought to herself with the sort of calm that could only come with sudden, inexplicable trauma. Now I can run.
Jessica turned and did exactly that. A few seconds later, something else in the forest, just as she had feared, started to give chase.
About the Author
I am a Scottish writer, now living in Canada, with over twenty five novels published in the genre press and over 300 short story credits in thirteen countries. I have books available from a variety of publishers including Dark Regions Press, DarkFuse and Dark Renaissance, and my work has appeared in a number of professional anthologies and magazines with recent sales to NATURE Futures, Penumbra and Buzzy Mag among others. I live in Newfoundland with whales, bald eagles and icebergs for company and when I’m not writing I drink beer, play guitar and dream of fortune and glory.
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