It moved too fast. I stared as it roared and leapt straight in the air, craning my neck to track it. Shotguns went off all around me until my ears rang and I heard nothing but ringing. At least nine feet tall when it landed off the trail, though it dropped to four legs. Canine. Bright red eyes shot through with black. Massive paws tipped with claws. Gray-black fur, long and tangled, that reeked of death and rotting flesh. I gagged as it went upwind.
More shotguns, the team shouting directions at each other, gesturing, trying to form up. Ryan’s arm wrapped around my middle and hauled me back, shoving me against two trees and leaned back against me so his body protected me from the beast. I stared over his shoulder, paralyzed. Apparently I wasn’t good at everything. Being brave definitely wasn’t on the list.
Logic didn’t help against a demon dog of some kind.
Something Archer had said tickled the back of my memory. He knew what it was.
Sound crashed into my ears as curses and growling filled the air and bounced off the trees. Ryan, leaning against me, called directions as he tracked the huge wolf attacking his colleagues. How was he so calm? How were any of them so calm?
Lars ran out of cartridges and calmly swung the shotgun to bludgeon the wolf whenever it got close. The beast dripped blood and saliva as it attempted to bite them, charging again and again into a barrage of shotgun blasts that didn’t even slow it down. Archer shot the thing point-blank in the mouth and its head snapped back as it flipped.
They leapt forward – when my genius brain said to fucking run the other direction – as the wolf rolled down into a ditch and then… then it got up and started running.
I couldn’t breathe. I hadn’t blinked for hours, it felt like my eyes were dry and scratchy and permanently open as wide as possible. I gasped little huffs of air, gripping Ryan’s shoulders like he could keep me from losing my shit completely.
Archer barked orders and caught a bag that Isidro retrieved from the ATVs, then he and Lars ran after it.
Ran after it.
Ryan exhaled but didn’t relax. He stepped forward and I slid until my feet hit the dirt, then kept on going. He picked me up like I weighed no more than his morning coffee and carried me and the shotgun toward the ATVs. Giselle loaded a crossbow, her pinched face more determined than ever, and strode off after Archer. Into the trees, following a blood trail, listening for snarls or the sounds of the damn thing eating her friends.
I shuddered and latched onto him as the ATV lurched at full speed down the trail. “What was that? What just happened? Where did they… Why did they go after it?”
“That was a werewolf,” he said. He didn’t say anything else until we reached the trucks.
I half expected him to start laughing at the great prank they’d pulled for the cameras, but he remained stone-faced. Convinced.
A knot tied up my throat. I’d dealt with plenty of misfit toys in the Bigfoot community, but none of them struck me as truly dangerous. I didn’t know if I could say the same for Archer’s crew. They sure as hell weren’t cameramen and producers.