So I did the only thing that’s ever worked in these situations.
“Dex?” I whispered harshly. “Are you awake?”
No answer. I poked him in the side. No movement. I contemplated tickling him awake but decided his laughter might scare off the thing making the noise. Not that I wanted it to stick around but I at least wanted him to hear what I had been hearing.
I poked him again. “Dex,” I hissed.
Finally he stirred.
I placed my hand on his arm and whispered, “Be quiet.”
“Be quiet?” he answered back and I had to shush him right away. “I’m half-asleep and you’re telling me to be quiet.”
“There’s a noise outside, listen.”
He held in his breath and we both listened.
Nothing.
“What was it?” he asked.
I shushed him again and closed my eyes, thinking it would help.
Nothing. The scratching had stopped.
“Fuck,” I muttered.
“What was it?” he asked again, his voice drowsy.
“Scratching,” I told him. “Like nails on the side of the cabin.”
He let out a low, short laugh. “Maybe it’s deer. Remember on D’Arcy Island?”
“It wasn’t deer. This was something worse than that.”
“You’re just spooked,” he said with a yawn. “Go to sleep. Or at least let me go to sleep.”
“I heard something,” I said determinedly.
“Then go look out the window and check.”
I really didn’t want to do that. I was afraid that if I looked out the window, the face of a big ugly monster with red eyes would pop up and scare the shit out of me. Yeah, I know that sounds like something that only happens in the movies, but they were a common occurrence with me. And that didn’t make them any less scary.
“Fine,” I mumbled and slowly eased myself out of the covers. I placed my hands on the corners of the window sill and pulled myself up. I kept my eyes closed until the right moment and, after taking a breath of courage, opened them.
It was white outside. The snow had stopped falling with only a casual flake drifting slowly and the sky was lit up glowing grey. I could make out the white-dusted trees nearby and the edge of the outhouse farther off. To my disappointment, there were no trees next to the cabin, nothing that could have made the noise I had heard.
If I had even heard a noise at all.
I lowered myself down to the bed and snuggled under the covers until I was warm again, hugging my knees in the fetal position. Eventually Dex said, “See anything freaky?”
I bumped my butt against his back in response and soon I was asleep.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Holy f**k.”
Dex’s voice rang out from behind the cabin just as I was heading outside to use the outhouse. Mitch was at the llama corral, feeding them their daily dose of hay and grains.
I quickly shut the door and stomped my way through the snow. It was about ten in the morning and the sun was high in the sky, making the snow that had fallen during the night sparkle like diamonds, and feel just as hard beneath my boots.
I rounded the corner, pulling my knit cap down over my forehead and stopped when I saw Dex standing beneath our bedroom window looking at the ground, then up at the window and back down again.
“What is it?” I asked, my pulse quickening.
“Tell me about the sound you heard last night,” he said, his voice trailing off.
I bit my lip anxiously and came over to join him.
Dex was standing right in front of a set of footprints that lay right beneath the window. Footprints that looked eerily like the one Rigby had shown us. And on closer inspection, I realized that it wasn’t just one set of prints but many. They were messy and blurry with snow having blown down their ridges, looking like they were left in a hurry.
Dex pointed off to the otherside of the cabin.
“They disappear into the forest over there,” he said. He finally brought his eyes over to look at me and they looked startlingly brown and clear in the harsh, snow-blind white of morning.
I held his gaze for a minute, surprised at the sudden way my heart was tingling at the sight of him. Memories of what he said last night, his tattoo, that I was his light, surfaced in my head. Then I broke away. I crouched down to the snow and lightly touched the print. It wasn’t quite as clear as the cast but it was definitely the same shape. About a foot and a half long with a deep, narrow indent at the heel. Whoever – or whatever – left these seemed to have stood in the one place for a long time, then perhaps circled the area before taking off for the woods. Considering the place was right below the window, it probably meant it was the source of the sound.
“I told you,” I said, my eyes focusing and un-focusing on the glittering snow, “it was a scratching sound.”
“Huh,” Dex said. He had stepped forward and was running his hand down the side of the building. I got up and peered at it. There were five grooves made into the rough cabin wall, fresh splinters sticking out of it. They weren’t that deep but they was there. And that was enough.
I suddenly felt sick to my stomach and turned away from the sight, walking a few feet away until I was at the base of a tree. I leaned against it and breathed in sharply through my nose, trying to keep the nausea at bay.
“Perry,” Dex said in quiet alarm and came beside me. I felt his hand on my shoulder, giving me strength.
I closed my eyes. “There was something there last night. While we were sleeping.”
“It could be anything,” he said, though his voice wavered with lack of confidence.
“Anything is still something.” I swallowed back the bitter taste in my mouth and stood up. I don’t know why I was having such a physical reaction to the fear but I suppose fear wasn’t something I handled very well anymore. This was the first time I was met with something terrifying since the whole possession game.
“Maybe this was a mistake,” Dex whispered. His gloved hand went from my shoulder down to my hand and he squeezed it hard, hard enough that I had to look up at him. He couldn’t have looked more worried. “I knew I shouldn’t have brought you out here.”
I cleared my throat. “Once again, it was my idea to do this. I didn’t believe in a Sasquatch.”
“Do you now?”
I shook my head in confusion. “I don’t know what I believe. Something was here though. Something big with sharp claws and it was right beneath our window.”