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Miriam’s mind buzzed. She’d think about Macy a few times, wondering why she hadn’t heard from her, but then she’d think of another cryptid, another possibility, another avenue of research or tracking, and so lose thoughts of Macy to all the noise. Adrenaline caused her mind to scatter, but Miriam knew from experience that eventually her focus would narrow on a single directive. She would solve the problem, find the answer, and win.
Win.
Kim sat in front of the smoldering fire, her chin propped up on her hand, her glittering green nail polish chipped and aging. Dark circles hung under her eyes, her blue hair tied back in a messy ponytail. Her glow had dissipated. Miriam wasn’t sure it was due to lack of sleep or fear.
To be fair, Miriam knew that no one could handle her when she got like this. She’d turned into a laser-guided missile, her coordinates locked in, with only one singular focus. She could no longer be a generalist. Only a specialist. She hadn’t slept much herself, but she didn’t care how that made her look, and didn’t care if her body tried to stop her with fatigue. If Miriam had one skill, one strength, it was that her will could out-vote her body every time.
She paced and mumbled and talked at no one. She wanted to go back to the trap in the daylight. She wanted to find the tracks. Those alone might give her some insight, but even if they didn’t, she could follow them until she found the lair of the devil. Kim insisted on breakfast first, though she’d hardly eaten anything, and seemed intent on staring into burning embers instead.
“So...” Miriam said, trailing off, hoping Kim would snap back into focus. “Ready to go?”
Kim looked up. “Um. Yeah. I guess. Maybe we should stay here, though? People see it in the lake most often, you know.”
“Yeah, but we saw it out there. In that hole, or trap, or whatever it was.”
It seemed as if Kim wanted to say something else, but instead she stood up. “Fine. But shouldn’t we fill Macy in on what happened?”
Of course, that made sense.
Miriam walked to her pack slouched up against the side of her tent, pulled out the radio, and depressed the button. “Hey, Macy. We’ve got some news. Are you there? Over.”
Nothing.
“It’s been a while,” Kim said. “I hope she’s okay.”
“I’m sure she’s fine. Girl sleeps like a rock. She’s probably inches away on the cot. It’s still pretty early.”
“If you say so.”
On Kim’s reluctance, Miriam tried one more time. “Macy. Come on. Wake up. Over.”
Still nothing.
“We’ll try again later, and we’ll take the radio with us this time.”
She should have had it with her last time Macy checked in, but they never left eyesight of the camp, and before they knew it, they’d rounded a bend in the lake and put a significant distance between themselves and their gear.
As Kim walked away, Miriam stuffed the radio into her pack and hefted it over her shoulders. Kim had done the same by the time Miriam turned around.
“Camp’ll be okay, right?” Miriam asked.
“Yeah. Should be fine. We’re not leaving anything except our food and bedding.”
“Speaking of which.” Miriam used a rope to lower her food bag and fish out a few protein bars. “Might be a long day. Make sure your canteen is full.”
“Full enough,” Kim said.
Miriam tested her own and decided the same. She didn’t want to take the time to boil water, anyway.
As they started walking, Miriam attempted to quench her curiosity. “So are otters common around her?”
“Yes. River otters, anyway. Sea otters were wiped out during the fur trade and reintroduced in the late 60s. They’re more rare, but, in general, otters tend to be elusive.”
“Well, the one we saw was in a trap, so I guess we just got lucky.”
Miriam tried to picture the otter from the night before, but the image had been hazy even then. With nothing but a flashlight, she couldn’t really remember many of the details of the creature. Something nagged at her, though. Something about the dimensions or the size, or...
“What did the tail last night look like?” she asked Kim.
“I don’t know. I didn’t get a good look.”
Miriam knew a few things about otters, of course, just as she knew things about most animals. Even without Kim’s concurrence, Miriam felt sure that something about the thing’s tail didn’t match what she expected from a river otter. Vague recollections formed, as she considered obvious differences between river and sea otters.
“I think it was a sea otter, not a river otter. But a sea otter this far inland and out of the water? That’s unheard of.”
“Maybe the anomaly brought it here,” Kim suggested. “It seems pretty big, so it’s not crazy that it would have a huge territory.”
“Maybe.”
The conversation just made Miriam all the more eager to find the truth. It didn’t really make sense that the devil would have brought a sea otter inland just to dump it into a trap of its own making. But it had been dark, and creepy, and Miriam could easily believe that they’d misremembered the dimensions and traits of the otter they’d seen. Until proved otherwise, Miriam was cautiously willing to believe it was a full-grown river otter, unfortunately caught in a trap, then eaten by a mythical monster.
And so, she marched on, never doubting that she’d find her quarry.
***
The “trap” seemed completely different in daylight. Miriam slid her way to the bottom for a more thorough inspection. The ground had been worn away almost perfectly flat. Though present, the carcasses and bones weren’t nearly as plentiful as she remembered from the night before. It was pretty large, but not as big as she remembered. Some of the sides weren’t nearly as steep, low enough that she’d easily be able to climb out on her own.
Kim stayed on the edge, watching cautiously. Miriam didn’t think she seemed scared, just tired and uninterested.
The mostly-smooth ground was disturbed with the claw marks of the otter. It had trampled over its own tracks so much that she had a hard time picking out any one footprint, which she really wanted to find to verify its probable size. No luck there, but she had another thing to look for. The devil had stepped into the trap, and that meant...
There. She practically ran over to the giant depression in the mud. A well-formed track sat before her, five clawed toes and an almost triangular foot. It looked like a clawed human footprint, except that the toes were splayed a little far apart for that.
And it was huge. Easily larger than her head.
“Hey, Kim,” she hollered. “Can you look in my pack? I’ve got some plaster in there. We can mix it with some water and take a mold of this.”
Kim knelt next to Miriam’s pack and unzipped it. “You came prepared.”
“Of course, I did. I’m not an amateur.”
“I didn’t mean to...” Kim trailed off, searching through the backpack before she stood up with a plastic bag filled with white powder. “This it?”
Miriam nodded. “That’s it.”
She walked to Kim, took the bag and a canteen before making her way back to the track. She hadn’t brought enough plaster to do this more than once, so she felt pressure not to mess it up. Opening the bag, she poured in the water until it looked about the right consistency, then zipped it back up and shook it, until she had uniform sludge to work with.
She opened the bag and dumped the contents over the track, careful to fill every hole until she could see nothing but the white of the plaster. In a perfect world, she would have used a mold to ensure a better distribution of the plaster, but this would do. She patted the plaster gently, ensuring it packed neatly into the track.
“Now we wait.”
“How long?” Kim asked.
“Probably half an hour or so.”
Miriam climbed up one of the shorter sides and moved around to Kim. She sat on the edge of the hole and let her legs dangle. Kim took a seat beside her, closer than Miriam would have liked. It bothered her that Kim had deflated so much. As much as she got annoyed at being trolled, she’d grown accustomed to it.
Miriam bumped her shoulder against Kim’s. “Not bad for our first full day, eh?”
“Yeah,” Kim said. “I guess so.”
Miriam had hoped for a more interactive response, so she just sat in silence for a few minutes. Eventually, her mind wandered away from Kim back to the task at hand.
“It doesn’t deserve to be killed,” Kim finally said, glumly.
“I’m not going to kill it.”
“I know you don’t want to. But, if you had to, you would.”
“I guess,” Miriam replied. “If it was about saving my life... or yours.”
“But that’s not really the point.” Kim looked up from the ground and over to Miriam. Miriam tried to meet her gaze but withered under the passion. Is that how people felt about her when she was wrapped up in something?
“What is the point, then?”
“Look, if you find this thing—if you bring hard proof to the world—then you’re putting it in danger.”
“If I can prove its existence, then we can protect it.”
“You and what army? People are horrible, Miriam. They’ll come for it, either on purpose or accidentally. There’ll be tours set up just to get a glimpse of it. We’ll destroy its habitat, if nothing else.”
Miriam looked away, unable to take anymore of Kim’s dark judging eyes. She tried to grapple with Kim’s perspective, but ultimately, Miriam believed that science and truth would always win, that it was better to know than not. Sure, it would take effort and money, but whatever this thing was, it would likely die out anyway if not properly protected. Anything seen so infrequently couldn’t possibly have much of a population.
“What do you want me to do, Kim?” Miriam came off sounding a little more frustrated than she meant to. “How can we be sure to protect its habitat if we don’t know anything about it?”
“I...” Kim kicked her feet against the side of the trap. “I don’t know, Miriam. I’m just worried.”
Miriam didn’t quite know what to do, so she took a note out of Macy’s playbook and placed her hand on Kim’s shoulder. “Hey, it’ll be okay.”
Would it, though? Miriam didn’t like lying.
Kim looked up at her, those dark eyes watery, almost cartoonish, as if at any moment buckets of tears would gush out. She lunged at Miriam and enveloped her in an unexpected hug. A tight one. Miriam patted Kim’s back. Despite having slept in the woods, Kim’s hair smelled good. Natural and earthy. Miriam blushed for even thinking about that, for even noticing such a detail at all.
After an interminably long time, Kim backed away, but still leaned in too close.
“I like you, Miriam. I really do. You’re like badass and everything.” A smile finally peeked out. A glimmer of mischief back in her eye. “But...”
Kim finally pulled away, leaving Miriam confused and uncomfortable. Not too surprising. Miriam never did like human contact much. Macy could be emotional, sure, but rarely passionate like this. Miriam respected passion, and for the first time, she saw Kim as more than just a troll. Beneath the quips and the prodding, Kim cared about all of this. She wanted to protect it.
Unsure of how to continue the conversation, Miriam slid herself back down into the pit. “I’m gonna check on the plaster.”
Kim sniffled. “Ok. Sorry for all that.”
Miriam didn’t turn around to respond. “It’s okay. I get it.”
She really didn’t.
Miriam tapped on the plaster. A hard, hollow thunk. It had cured. She grabbed the edges and lifted carefully, turning it over to see the results of her handiwork. It was a perfect cast. With some time and research, she’d be able to match this with the track of something. If not that, at least she could compare it to known animal tracks for similarities. One thing she felt certain of: whatever this thing was, she could rule out reptiles or birds.
Definitely a mammal.
As she stood up, she looked out towards the back of the pit at the trampled greenery. That’s where it had gone. Now that she had her first piece of hard evidence, she needed to find more.
Despite her small victory, the hunt was far from over.
