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A bright white box, infinitely long. Jake ran one direction then another but couldn’t find the end. He yelled into the void, heard his echo transform into a vicious growl. He sat in the middle of the white space. Then he heard a voice float by him, sweet and melodic at first, but then frantic and screaming. He couldn’t make out the words.
The ground under his feet began turning red, and though he jumped there was no getting away from it. The redness spread in every direction, stopping at the base of the walls.
He ran, fast as he could. Faster than he thought possible. The red turned to green and then to black. It got so dark, he couldn’t see anything anymore.
Then, out of nowhere, a sheep appeared before him, bleating in the emptiness. It eyed him.
Screaming erupted, from everywhere at once. People were crying in fear. Tons of them. He put his hands over his ears but it did nothing—as though the noise came from within him.
Then it stopped, and there was only silence. The sheep walked towards him, growing larger with every step until its eyes were level with his own. Its mouth opened, issuing strange noises. Rattling and banging. It wasn’t a noise an animal could make.
The noise continued as the sheep shut its mouth and turned to run away from him, shrinking back down to size. A deep hatred welled inside Jake and he gave chase. As fast as he ran, the sheep ran faster, bounding along. The clanging continued. Jake stopped. Everything faded back to white.
***
Jake’s head exploded with noise, and he awoke in a panic. He calmed his breathing, then lost focus as he realized he was sitting in bed wearing boxers, with no idea of how he’d gotten there.
The sheep’s muted bleating filled his bedroom. The beast hadn’t taken the bait. The sheep’s incessant noise served as only background now, though, surely not the cause of his panic. He remained quiet.
There was a light clicking noise. The sound of metal turning. A soft creak.
Someone entering the house.
Nothing that even remotely resembled a weapon sat near his bed. He had put his baseball bat by the window, now too far away from him to be of any use. He stood and clenched his fists. He had only punched one person in his life, and that had been back in high school.
Footsteps. Loud ones. The intruder wore boots.
“Jake? Where the hell are you?”
Only Steve. Jake relaxed. “In here.”
Steve appeared at the door as Jake turned on the lamp next to his bed. Steve looked different than normal; shaken and scared.
“I was beatin’ on the door for five minutes!” Steve said, uncharacteristically frustrated.
“Sorry. I guess I was dead asleep. Are you okay?”
“No. I am not okay. That thing. That beast? It’s real. I saw it. The whole town saw it. It almost killed Dub Higgins.”
Jake went numb. “No, no, no. That can’t be right. Bernard says it doesn’t hurt people.”
“I don’t give a damn what Bernard says. That thing showed up at the football game and shattered Dub’s hand. He’ll be a gimp the rest of his life.”
Steve seemed mad, which Jake found disconcerting and alarming. He imagined the scenario from Steve’s point of view. Jake understood awe, fear, or excitement, but why anger?
“Did they catch it? Or kill it? Is it over?” Jake asked.
“Nah. The sheriff shot it. A bunch. It ran off. Fast. Everyone was so shocked, no one chased it. No one did anything except Dub and Cam. A bunch of goddamn cowards.”
Ah. Steve’s anger aimed squarely at himself. In a moment of action, Steve had failed to act.
“It’s probably better that more people didn’t engage it.”
Steve answered slowly. “Maybe. But it’s still out there. I thought you were crazy. I don’t know how to process this.”
They moved into the living area where Steve sat in the chair, staring out at the sheep he had placed there earlier. Jake recognized Steve’s agitation, but curiosity got the better of him. “What did it look like? What was it?”
“I dunno, man. Bigfoot?” Steve shook his head and stared at the floor. “Kind of like a dude, but not. It was too strong. Too big. Too fast. I just -
“Why didn’t you answer your phone?” Steve asked, abruptly changing the subject. “I tried calling, texting. I don’t know what you would have done, but you’re the only person I know who even has a chance at understanding.”
Jake pointed out the window. “My phone’s out there. It was supposed to catch video of it if it came for the sheep.”
Steve stood up. “There’ll be tons of video now. Hardly seems to matter.”
True. Whatever video Jake might have captured would be inconsequential next to the forthcoming avalanche of evidence. Fantasy had become reality now. Steve moved towards the door, though, so Jake put on the nearest t-shirt he could find, slipped on his flip-flops, and followed Steve outside. Maybe new video wouldn’t help, but it gave them both something productive to do.
The sheep’s bleating intensified as they moved towards the trap. Nothing seemed amiss.
“I’m going to put her back in the pen. I’ll be right back,” Steve said, immediately going to work.
Jake took out his phone and looked through the app charged with capturing the video. It reported three newly captured videos, but that didn’t mean there would be evidence of the beast in those files, not that anyone needed it now anyway. He largely ignored the avalanche of texts and missed calls. The ones from Steve and Shandi made sense, but when he read Deirdre’s name on one, something jumped inside him, stealing his focus. Before even looking at the videos, Jake opened Deirdre’s text.
Hey. Steve invited me over for dinner tomorrow. So excited! See you soon.
Every text previous to that one telegraphed professionalism, somber and to the point. Reminders of appointments. Suggestions about pain management. This text from Deirdre marked the first that strayed from her capacity as his physician. Jake found it strangely unsettling, but exciting at the same time.
To have talked to Steve, Deirdre had to have gone to the football game, which also seemed atypical. Stranger still, the text came in tonight. Had she sent it before the incident at the football stadium? Surely, she wouldn’t have sent it afterward. He checked the time of the message with the intention of asking Steve when the beast had shown up.
Jake forced himself to stop thinking about Deirdre and went back to the video app to watch the videos. He hit play on the first one. The placid image never wavered. Perhaps something had moved in and out of the detection zone before the phone started recording.
He hit play on the second video. The head of a sheep moved into frame. Could sheep jump? It appeared that it had, tripping the motion detectors with its own head. No other frames belied movement.
He hit play on the third video just as Steve returned, the faint smell of sheep wafting off him. At first, he saw only more of the still image of dying grass in the moonlight...
But then, right before the end of the video, something blurred across the screen. It moved fast, but they both saw it. The shadowed form took up the entire frame.
Without a word between them, Jake moved the video back and paused at the blur. He clicked through the video frame by frame until one of the frames came into focus. The creature on the screen could not be mistaken for anything else; the large, hairy bipedal beast.
“How the hell? It’s five miles between here and the stadium. When was that video taken?” Steve asked.
Jake backed out of the video and checked the file to find a recording time of forty-five minutes ago. Steve looked at his watch: a quaint old Timex from another decade.
“Okay,” said Steve. “I guess that’s possible if it was moving really fast? It was at the stadium about two hours ago. I can’t believe it’s been that long. I must have stayed after longer than I thought.”
“You said it was moving pretty fast. But why did it come here? And why didn’t it kill the sheep?” Jake said.
“Beats me. I don’t understand why it does anything. What’s driving it? What does it want?”
Jake didn’t have the answer to that question. It had mutilated livestock and at least one cheetah cub. It had killed a gazelle and broken a deputy’s hand. None of it added up to the actions of a creature just trying to survive. It could have surely killed Dub, but it hadn’t. This thing seemed to be driven by something other than instinct alone.
His mind nagged him into bringing Deirdre back into the forefront. “Hey. I know this may be out of left field, but was Deirdre Valentine at the football game by any chance?”
Steve cocked an eyebrow. “Yeah, she was sittin’ with us. Why do you ask?”
Her message had been from one and a half hours ago. That meant she had to have witnessed the incident with the beast and then texted Jake. Why would she not mention something like that? How could having dinner at Steve’s be her number one priority? Perhaps her seeming disinterest masked something more. Surely not.
Jake replied to Steve, “No reason. Just wondered.”
