“Well I really doubt a bear did this,” Dex countered, stepping back from the llama carcass and coming over to me. He laid a supportive hand on my shoulder. “So yeah, I guess maybe we should start taking at least part of his word as truth.”
“You two are suckers.”
Dex opened his mouth to say something but I quickly stepped on his foot to get him to shut up. Just because I got away with talking back didn’t mean he would. He looked down at me, brows dark and angry, and I tried to quiet him with my eyes. It took all the grinding of his jaw to comply.
I took in a deep breath and looked around me, trying to figure out what was happening. It was growing brighter by the second as the sun was climbing above the mountains, still hidden by the low clouds. But it was growing darker in my heart. Whatever left the llama there had been outside our tent during the night. It hadn’t come after us, for whatever reason, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t out there, hiding in the gloomy trees, waiting for our next move.
“So now what?” I asked Dex feebly. “Now that you and I think the beast is real, what does that mean? Shouldn’t we, I don’t know, go back?”
“Oh we aren’t going back,” Mitch piped up, a dangerous edge in his tone. “We aren’t going back until I kill this motherfucking creature. I told you I’m a hunter. I hunt and I kill and I’m going to be doing both those things.”
Fuck, I thought in frustration. We should have taken our chances the other day and made a go for Rigby’s while we were able to.
Dex gave me a short, understanding nod then looked back at Mitch. His wiped at his beard and then smiled and I could feel the change coming over him, like he was trying a new persona.
“All right Mitch,” Dex said in a reasoning voice. “We won’t go anywhere. But what do you suppose we do now that we are out here. Wait for it to show up again?”
“That’s exactly what we’re going to do. We’ve got guns and nothing but time.”
Actually, we didn’t have a lot of time. Our supplies would only last us so long. It’s not like we were lounging on a beach in Cabo.
“I hear you.” Dex smiled. “Now what do we do with the llama leftovers?”
Mitch eyed the carcass eagerly. “I’m going to take it out into the woods, leave it as a trap. Maybe it’ll bag us a bear or a cougar in the meantime.”
“Cougar, huh,” Dex commented. “You like the older women then?”
Would have thought he was a cradle robber.
Mitch wasn’t even listening. He had grabbed both of the llama’s hind legs and was dragging the poor dead thing away from the tents and toward the forest, a thick trail of blood left behind.
Dex sighed. “I suppose I should go help him.”
I grabbed his coat and held him in place. “Why are you being so nice?” I whispered.
He gave his eyebrow ring a brief tug. “I don’t really think we have a choice.”
Then he left me and hurried after him, picking up the llama’s front legs. Together they disappeared into the woods.
I turned the camera off and brought a bottle of water from our packs and a thing of hand sanitizer. Dex was going to need it after that. Then I wrapped my coat tightly around me and went over to the fire, adding more kindling and wood and prodding it until it was going again. I felt I was safe if I was by the fire, plus the two guns were still right there. I didn’t know if I could handle the recoil of the shotgun but I knew I’d be handy with a rifle if it came down to it.
I could hear Dex and Mitch in the woods, even laughing over something, which seemed wrong and out of place. But at least I knew Dex was still alive and they weren’t being attacked by some beast. So far it seemed that the attacks only came at night and I was hoping the creature was nocturnal. Not that night attacks were great, but I was going to have a heart attack if I had to be in panic mode 24 hours a day.
I just didn’t know what to think. There was something out there, something with the power and the desire to rip the head off and gut a harmless llama. Part of my brain kept arguing with the other, saying that there was no way some unclassified, unknown beast could exist in this world of satellite feeds and YouTube videos. How was it even possible that the fabled Sasquatch might even be true? It just didn’t make any sense in my rational mind. Urban legends were just that - legends.
Yet, we now had proof of something dangerous and terrifying and the fact that it still didn’t seem possible only made it scarier. I’d dealt with ghosts and demons and I thought things couldn’t really get much worse for me. I mean, the only reason I agreed to the whole stupid episode was because I thought none of this was real. I thought none of this could hurt me. I thought I’d be given a break because I’d been through so much already.
I was very, very wrong. And whatever lurked in those dark trees was very, very real.
I rubbed my hands together, trying to get them warm. Even through the gloves, the morning air seeped through, turning them into frozen blocks of pins and needles. I heard one of the llamas snort, so I got off the log and walked around the pile of boulders to my left and over at the patch of grass that the llamas were being kept on. To my relief, they looked fine. Spooked but alive and unharmed. I felt sorry for the animals, wondering if they had to witness what had happened to their buddy.
I carefully walked toward them, wishing I had spare food or treats I could give them. Their heads were raised, snouts to the air, and the whites of their eyes showed as they rolled around, trying to figure me out.
“It’s just me,” I said, approaching Tonto first. He seemed to calm a bit at the sound of my voice, so I came forward, one step at a time. I didn’t want to freak them out and start a stampede - they wouldn’t get very far on their lead lines.
I paused and gauged the way the lines were wrapped around the tree. Mitch had said that if we turned them loose, they wouldn’t leave. I needed to believe in that because there was no way we were going to keep them tied up and unable to run if some beast was going around killing them.
I had just reached the pine tree and was untying Tonto’s lead with fumbling fingers when I heard a low moan from behind me.
I froze on the spot, the terror seizing me from limb to limb. I had seconds to try and process what the hell I had heard when the moan got lower, nastier. And human.
“You trying to make a run for it, girly?” Mitch’s depraved, sloppy voice roared from behind.