The team waited with a trailer of ATVs in the gravel lot next to the access road. I slid out of the truck and put down ramps to get my ATV out. Despite being delirious with manic energy and visions of creating a UV-resistant tuxedo for Dragomir, I managed to focus long enough to find the hiking pants I knew made my butt look awesome and braided my hair into some Heidi-like ropes since it looked cuter under my watch cap.
Dad would have laughed his ass off to see me worrying about how I looked in front of Archer instead of dressing for the weather, and Jamie would have teased me mercilessly before confronting Archer about his intentions. I’d had one crush I confessed to Jamie and paid for it for years. Lesson learned.
Ryan held up a massive bag that smelled like grease and bacon. “Lunch awaits.”
I grinned. “Fantastic.”
Archer’s head tilted as he studied me. I dialed down the enthusiasm and tried for ‘cheerful’ instead of ‘manic.’ “You guys want to lead or should I?”
I expected Giselle to tell me to get up front so they could film me exploring the woods that almost claimed my life, thinking big thoughts, but instead Archer pulled his ATV to the front. “I’m going first, then Lars. Then Ada, Ryan, Giselle, Isidro.”
There was that military precision coming out again. I quelled the anticipation bubbling in my chest. We probably wouldn’t see anything. The sasquatch was probably long gone, and if it heard the ATVs’ noise, it would go to ground. The most I hoped for were some hair strands, possibly blood, a footprint or two. Maybe.
We started out and the team remained upright and tense, scanning all around them instead of focusing on cameras or mics or asking me probing questions. I enjoyed the relative quiet under the hum and pulse of the ATVs, looking at the trees with fresh eyes. Strange, I hadn’t noticed how intensely green the leaves were, or the damp mossy smell of rotting vegetation in the undergrowth. The morning looked full of promise and activity, even without squirrels and birds moving about.
I frowned. No squirrels or birds. Odd. The ATVs must have chased them off.
Archer stopped his ATV where the path got too narrow to proceed, and looked back at me. “Now what?”
“It’s about half a mile down the trail,” I said. I cut my ATV off and got ready to hike, then stood there like an idiot as they all turned theirs to face toward the truck.
“You going to reverse all the way back to the road?” Isidro asked, grinning.
I rolled my eyes, feeling like a teenager again, and grudgingly hauled the damn thing around. Archer conferred quietly with Giselle up front; when I would have eavesdropped, Ryan held up a tangle of wires and a battery pack. “Let’s get friendly.”
I laughed and held my arms up, though I winced when my ribs pulled a bit. “Second base only. You gotta buy me dinner to get to third.”
He chuckled and clipped the battery pack to my belt, then started weaving the wires into my clothes. He bumped my arm and I winced, pulling away. Ryan stepped back. “Shit, I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?”
“Nah,” I said. The sunburn. That goddamn sunburn. I cleared my throat and forced a smile. “Just a bump.”
“Let me see,” Isidro said, moving my sleeve before I could protest. His eyebrows arched. “That’s a burn. Did you get sunburned?”
“Stood too close to the fire,” I said, then fiddled with the mic myself until it clipped to my flannel. “Call me Icarus.”
They traded looks but by then Archer and Giselle wanted to proceed, and we all started slowly down the trail. Giselle stuck close by me, Archer still in front, and she asked questions as we walked. Most of it was about flora and fauna in the area, and some of the stranger things I’d seen in the mountains that had nothing to do with cryptids. Despite her questions and my highly entertaining story about local moonshiners who over-engineered their still, everyone else kept their attention on the trees and undergrowth around us.
A chill ran down my spine. The forest stilled, save the rustle of wind through the tree tops. The drone of honeybees dissipated into pure silence with only footsteps and breathing to break it. I stopped talking and no one asked me to start again. Maybe they felt the creepy tension, too.
The closed-in feeling of the trees on either side of the trail drove me to move faster, despite my aching legs. Something wasn’t right. It hadn’t felt like that yesterday, even when a sasquatch hunted in the area. Now the forest held its breath, still and silent, as the prey animals went to ground and hoped the danger passed them by.
I swallowed hard and brushed past Giselle, wanting to get to the clearing so we could actually see what was around us. We were closer to the pool than the ATVs, and I didn’t like being in the near-dark on the trail.
“What’s the matter?” Archer asked, catching my elbow. “Why are you running?”
“I’m not running,” I said, shaking my head. But I kept going, tugging against his hold. Straining to hear anything in the undergrowth got me nowhere, not with the heavier breathing of the rest of the crew and the beat of blood in my ears. “But something isn’t right. It doesn’t feel right.”
“Then stay behind me,” he said. “How far to where we’re going?”
“Couple hundred feet,” I said, staring down the path. Was it Dragomir, screwing with us from the depths of the forest? Or maybe the sasquatch in a stalk-and-hunt kind of mood? “We should go back. We need to go back.”
He and Giselle traded looks, and then they all had shotguns. I blinked, swinging around. They all had shotguns? Camera equipment, sound equipment, clipboard… all forgotten. Rather atypical for the cryptid hunters who usually showed up. They were no motley collection of conspiracy theorists and pseudoscientists who believed in warped space-time and Bigfoot’s ability to jump into a different dimension. Archer’s crew... they were serious.
I gulped air and backed up, not wanting to take another step. Every cell in my body screamed to flee. Shotguns wouldn’t make a difference. Shotguns couldn’t protect us. I shook my head more. “Nope. Nope. We need to go.”
“Okay.” Archer gestured and the team turned, smoothly shaping into a box with Giselle and Lars up front, Ryan with his hand on my shoulder, and Archer and Isidro in the back. “Don’t run, don’t panic. Just move calmly, keep your heads on a swivel.”
Grumbles of assent all around. Business-like movement, scanning the forest from roots to canopy, everyone watching their quadrant.
They definitely weren’t a film crew.
I looked at Ryan and whispered, “What are you doing?”
“Protecting you,” he said. He smiled but didn’t take his attention away from scanning all around. “And carrying you if we have to run.”
“I ate a big breakfast,” I said.
“It’ll be okay.” He squeezed my shoulder, but it didn’t help.
The sense of pursuit increased in a sudden flashback of bolting through the rain toward the cave with the madman on my heels, breathing down my neck. Clenching the hems of my hiking pants didn’t relieve the anxiety, so I picked up a reasonably-sized branch next to the trail. I could swing that shit with the best of them after spending years playing who’s-on-first with Jamie during his baseball obsession.
“It’s probably just a bear,” I said. “Getting ready to hibernate and not wanting to be disturbed.”
“It’s not a bear,” Archer said. He searched behind us when I glanced back, shotgun sweeping everywhere he looked.
“It could be two bears,” I said.
“It’s not a bear,” Giselle said, her tone sharper.
“Are you sure you’re not mistaken?” I asked innocently. “Maybe you hallucinated and it’s really just a bear.”
“It’s not –” she started, then stopped.
I adjusted my grip on the branch. “Uh huh. Not fun, is it?”
From the set of her shoulders, she fumed. Probably wanted to strangle me, but had to keep her attention on the forest.
Archer scanned the surroundings as we eased into a wider part of the trail, almost to the ATVs. The urge to bolt gripped me, but so did Ryan. He won. “I don’t think it’s a… natural predator.”
I didn’t want to believe it was anything but a bear, but my skin prickled like static charges surrounded us, like a spring storm with more lightning than rain. I fought my own incredulity as I tried to get Dragomir’s attention. Maybe it was him. Maybe he lurked out there and fucked with Archer just for fun. Vampires got bored.
Amusement and a vague curiosity reached me in sleepy strands, but Dragomir made clear it wasn’t him. I clenched my jaw. Shit. Whatever stalked us might have needed the apex predator to take it down.
Then perhaps you should have worked faster.
Smug son of a bitch.
He distracted me enough that I forgot to be afraid. So I was the only one who didn’t yell when something massive barreled out of the trees and slammed into Archer.