Sam gave it a quick pat. “That’s better. Now I have to go up there. I might be able to offer some help if someone’s hurt.”
The dog didn’t give an inch.
It shifted the weight of its front paws to the back, and jumped ahead of Sam, turning around to meet him viciously.
Sam’s eyes narrowed. “Hey, what’s got into you?”
The dog’s eyes turned toward the forest up ahead. It had been reforested with spruce-fir saplings. No more than five or six feet in height.
Sam stared at the lush forest with its blue-green foliage so dense it formed an impenetrable carpet of leaves.
He took a deep breath, settled into a defensive stance, and lifted the Remington shotgun up ready to take fire, aiming it toward the new saplings.
He stood still and listened, while his eyes swept the surroundings. The forest was silent. Much too silent to be natural. There were no birds, no insects, no chatter from squirrels playing on the branches of nearby trees. Even the omnipresent hum of the Oregon Cicadas had turned deathly quiet.
Nothing at all.
Sam felt it before he saw it. Whatever it was. If he didn’t know better, he would say he simply felt an evil presence approaching beneath the canopy of new foliage offered by the spruce-fir saplings, as though it were an ancient predator, stalking its prey.
And in this case, its prey was Sam Reilly.
Sam spotted the first flicker of movement in the woods. Nothing more than a glimmer, mostly concealed by the dense foliage of young conifer leaves.
He traced it with the Remington’s iron crosshairs until it stopped.
Sam yelled out, “Stop right there. I can see you.”
He didn’t receive a reply.
Not that he was expecting to. At this stage, he still assumed that the predator that was stalking him must have been a coyote or a mountain lion, although he’d never heard of one being so bold that it was willing to take on a fully-grown man. Besides, if it was just a wild beast, that didn’t answer the question as to why two teams of American soldiers would be scrambling from a pair of Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawks.
He mentally filed that question for something to work out after he was safe. Preferably after he’d killed whatever it was lurking in the woods.
The dog growled, voicing Sam’s sentiment. It was soft, but none-the-less menacing. Sam’s eyes darted between the dog and blanket of juvenile spruce-fir. The golden retriever’s lips skinned back from its teeth, and the dog released a guttural growl.
Sam waited. He listened. And looked. But nothing moved.
His heart pounded in the back of his ears. Sam could literally feel the evil. It was something he’d never felt before. It wasn’t fear. It was the creature itself.
Whatever it was.
Hyoo, hyoo
A mysterious sound filled the forest.
“What is that?” Sam asked.
The dog barked. If he could have talked, Sam was certain the dog was yelling, run!
Sam started to back away tentatively.
In front of him, the dense foliage of the short spruce-fir trees started to bend, and move, toward him. Whatever it was, it was running straight for him. Too fast to be human. Too confident to be a wild animal.
Sam lifted the barrel of his shotgun and fired a warning shot.
The beast continued.
Sam leveled the shotgun, took aim at the monster, whose shape he could see filtered between the branches and the undergrowth.
And fired.
Chapter Five
Sam looked at the dog. “What do you think, old boy… did I hit it?”
The dog tilted its head curiously. Its big brown eyes darting between him and the hidden section of forest. It started to growl. The fur on its ridge spiked upward.
Sam took a step forward, into the hidden section of the wood.
The dog moved in front of him, preventing Sam from moving any closer. He stepped to the left, around the dog, but the golden retriever moved with an immediateness, to block him.
Sam met the dog’s gaze. “It’s okay. I just want to see what it was.”
He took one step forward.
The dog shifted forward to prevent him from taking a second one, giving a small growl that left no confusion about its intention.
Sam swallowed. His heart thrummed and his chest burned. It was the sight of the frightened dog that infected him with fear. His eyes drifted toward the thick section of young pine trees, no more than six feet tall, where whatever had tried to attack him had been silenced.
What was the dog trying to do?
It was trying to protect him. From what though?
He said, “It’s okay, boy. Whatever it was, it can’t hurt you anymore.”
The dog just looked at him, his doe eyes, silently pleading with him not to go any farther.
Sam took one more step forward. He could almost feel the evil rising from the forest ahead of him. Again, it was a gut feeling, based on nothing more than superstitious stories of a dangerous coyote that had taken upon itself to start stalking humans in the Tillamook State Forest.
He glanced at the log house up ahead, back to the dog. “I have to go there, buddy. I need to see what happened. Someone might be hurt. They will need my help.”
The dog regarded him beseechingly and gave a soft whimper.
There was no mistaking the message. Whoever lived inside that building was beyond all help. Sam’s own fear was amplified every time he saw the dog’s fear manifest.
“I have to try,” Sam persisted. His eyes turned toward the sapling forest. “It’s okay. You don’t understand. With this weapon, I can defend us. Whatever it is, it’s no match for me.”
The dog dipped down on its front paws in a show of submission and concern.
Sam grinned. “It’s okay boy.”
He stepped to the side. The trees started to sway in the distance. Something was moving again. Sam felt that indescribable evil racing to get him.
Sam took aim at the drifting branches. His eyes narrowed through the cross-hairs at the invisible darkness that sprinted toward them, and he squeezed the trigger.
Three successive shots.
The forest went quiet once more.
Sam stepped forward.
The dog gave a baritone bark.
It was sharp, and confident, but there was no mistaking its message — something evil was in there, and I’m not letting you in to find out what!
Sam nodded.
Fear now thoroughly rising in his throat, he forced himself to smile. “You might be right, boy. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
The dog didn’t need to be told twice. It barked and then ran at full speed down the trail on which Sam had first arrived.
Sam swept the forest one last time for signs of a predator. His eyes squinted, searching for the eyes of a danger that lay concealed and hidden, staring back at him. Again, the pure evil was palpable. He’d never felt anything like it, and his work had introduced him to plenty of evil over the years. No, this was different.
Somehow, this was less human, less animal, pure evil.
He turned and ran.
Chapter Six
Sometimes he led, and sometimes the dog led.
It picked up Sam’s scent, following the invisible trail alongside the Wilson River along which he had arrived, as easily as though it had made the journey with Sam the first time round. Neither of them stopped until they were out of the forest and back at the mechanic’s garage.
Sam breathed hard. His chest burned, and the muscles in his calves and thighs pounded with lactic acid after their exertion. He turned his head, looking back over his shoulder, up at the rising forest in the distance. Everything looked still. The forest, no longer dark, somehow no longer evil.