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  After only a few gulps, she heard a familiar whistle and froze to listen. Her furry captor heard it too and became alert, cocking her head one way, then another. When the whistle came again, she pressed her lips against her teeth and returned a whistle of her own. Its piercing sound made Beck flinch.

  The whistle answered, closer this time, and now Beck heard rustling and saw movement in the brush on the other side of the draw. She backed away from the stream on one knee and two hands, looking about for a hiding place.

  The beast reached with her inescapably long arm and pulled Beck in, half-dragging her, pressing her close against her furry, sweaty side. Beck felt like a trophy, a prize, a fresh kill about to be shared. Playing dead occurred to her, but the beast’s big arm wouldn’t let her fall down.

  Across the stream, from somewhere in the trees and thick brush, a low whistle sounded, and then a pig grunt.

  The beast whistled back and gave a soft pig grunt of her own.

  There was an interval, a strange moment when nothing happened— no sound, no stirrings, no whistles or calls. Beck searched the bushes, but all she could see across the creek was a sea of leaves, motionless except for an occasional flickering in the breeze. She had the distinct feeling she wasn’t just being watched—she was being studied.

  Then, so slowly, so silently that it almost escaped notice, a gray, hairy dome rose like a dark moon out of the brush. Beck looked directly at it—

  It vanished as if it was never there.

  The big female whistled again and then made that strange guttural noise with the loud tongue clicking. Tok! Tok!

  The gray dome rose again, and this time, two steely, amber eyes glared at Beck, narrow with suspicion.

  Beck could only hang there motionless, expressionless, without the first thought of what she could do.

  With its eyes darting from Beck to the big female and back, the second creature moved forward, only the head and shoulders visible above the brush, until it emerged, stooped over, stealing, sneaking, edging closer.

  Beck looked it in the eye again. It leaped back several paces, almost vanishing in the brush, hissing through clenched teeth.

  Don’t look it in the eye, Beck thought to herself. It doesn’t like that.

  She looked down at the water instead and watched the beast’s rippling reflection as it relaxed enough to approach again. It came closer, one furtive step at a time, until it reached the other edge of the stream, and then stood there, still making a nervous, hissing noise with every breath. Beck ventured a look at the feet. All five toes were up front, in a row, but the bone structure was somehow different from human. The feet had a funny way of flexing in the middle, conforming to the streambed, curving over the rocks.

  Beck let her eyes move up a little more. The creature was standing nearly upright now, almost seven feet tall by Beck’s estimate. It was another female, a mass of muscle covered in dark gray fur and a little thinner than the first one, although at the moment its fur stood out and bristled, making it appear larger and anything but friendly.

  It uttered some pig grunts that could have been an inquiry. Beck’s female gave some pig grunts that could have been an answer, then extended an open hand. The other female ignored it, eyeing Beck with vicious suspicion.

  There was another stirring in the brush, and a third creature appeared. It was steely gray in color and, judging from its size, a youngster. It sidled up to the big gray, gripped her leg, and joined her in staring at Beck. This one appeared to be a male. Beck stole one quick little glance at its eyes; he was unflinching. He stood at least five feet tall. The face was pale, like a baby chimp’s, and the hair on its head stuck out in wild directions. If she’d seen this thing in a zoo from a safe distance with bars between them, she probably would have thought it was cute.

  She ventured one more look in its eyes—

  “Roargghh!” The little beast exploded like a bomb going off, leaping into the stream, sending up a spray of water that doused her. Terrified, Beck squirmed, kicked, and tried to get free while the juvenile roared from the middle of the stream, arms flexing, fists clenched, fur on end, teeth bared in a vicious display. Then his mother got into it, roaring and putting on a horrific show of anger.

  The big red female pulled Beck in close and turned her back to the onslaught. Beck was glad for the shield, but the female was cowering, and Beck could feel her tremble.

  With just one eye peering through red fur, Beck saw the other female standing her ground on the opposite bank, teeth bared and growling, while the youngster, emboldened by his mother, splashed across the stream, grabbed up pine cones, and threw them. The hurled cones bounced off the big female. Beck leaned out a little too far and one glanced off her shoulder. It smarted. Another pine cone whizzed by her ear and she ducked.

  The big gray stepped into the stream. In only a few long strides, she loomed over them, eyes burning with anger—particularly at Beck.

  Shaking with terror, Beck buried herself against the red female’s chest.

  The female toppled forward.

  “Nooo!” Beck cried.

  Suddenly Beck was buried under an avalanche of muscle, fat, and fur, nearly smothering in the coarse hair, her back pinned against the rocks, in total darkness. On top of her, the mountain trembled and quaked, the heart pounding like a huge drum. Beck couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move either. She cried out to God. Things got quiet. The mountain lifted slightly and daylight trickled in through the hair, along with breathable air. A pine cone bounced on the ground just outside, but it landed lightly, so it had to have been tossed, not hurled.

  Beck heard feet sloshing back across the stream as the mountain sat up. She dared to peek. The youngster and his mother were returning across the stream. He clung to a fistful of fur on her side, and she stroked his head. He looked back over his shoulder as they left, bared his teeth, and huffed at Beck and her keeper.

  With one parting, spiteful grunt, mother and son hurried into the brush, then barked one more loud insult before they vanished from sight.

  So there were three of them.

  Reed sat on the bed in Room 105, Beck’s bent and soiled backpack in front of him. Carefully, solemnly, he removed the contents, handing each article to Cap. As Cap arranged everything on the floor, Sing listed each in her notebook: dry changes of clothes, an extra pair of long underwear, rain gear, matches, dehydrated snacks, a first aid kit, a tool kit, a compact tube tent, a compass, a Swiss Army knife. Reed wept when he found two rolls of toilet paper and a small pouch containing makeup, but he kept going. He couldn’t allow his emotions to keep him from this task. Next came a thermal blanket, some containers of food, and—Reed paused to look at it—a crumpled, bent book, Wilderness Survival, by Randy Thompson. Several pages were marked and paragraphs highlighted.

  “She read it,” he marveled. “She actually read all this stuff.”

  With so much precious time lost and Beck not found, Reed felt as if he were in a torturous limbo between faith that they would find her and cold reason that insisted she couldn’t be alive. He dared not voice such things, for he wasn’t ready to face them, not yet.

  “I’m proud of her,” he said, withered by emotion. “I’m really proud that she tried. You know she never finished a painting? She did finish one novel, but she was afraid to send it to any publishers. She was afraid of what they’d think.”

  “It was a great book!” Sing affirmed. “And listen, Reed, for the record, the survival vacation was a great idea. Sure, Beck needed it, but I think we all could have gotten something out of it.”

  “You did the right thing,” Cap agreed.

  Reed gazed down at the pack. It was empty now. Cap took it off his hands and he sat quietly, trying to fathom the day’s disappointments. The two teams had returned for the night, some to stay at the Tall Pine, some to catch a few winks at home. What little hope there was, was fading. Reed wondered if they would all return the next morning. “They don’t believe me, do they?”

 
“It’s tough to get a read on some of them,” said Cap. “I think Pete and the trackers are with you, but as for the others, there’s some talk starting up.”

  Sing tried to reassure him, “You have to expect that, Reed. You know this business. It’s all you can do to keep faith in people.”

  “I saw Randy’s body. Beck saw it. We both saw it!”

  Sing put out a hand to halt any more of that. “Reed, let’s move on. Something happened to it. What—that’s the question now.”

  “Pete did find the tree, right?”

  Sing answered, “As near as we could tell from your map and directions. He thinks he found your and Beck’s footprints around it, and that bush you say she fell into. That all lined up.”

  “But no body.”

  “No body. Anywhere.”

  “But no bear tracks either, right?”

  “There may have been tracks—”

  “But not bear tracks!”

  “Pete wouldn’t say one way or another.”

  “That’s because this isn’t a bear and he knows it!”

  Cap objected, “He doesn’t know it!”

  “He found more of the same prints he found above the waterfall, am I right?”

  Sing tossed up a hand. “He found some prints. Some of them could have been Randy’s, and some of them were just—I’ll tell you what I think: I think Pete does have some doubts about the bear theory, but he’s waiting before he says anything.”

  “Nobody knows what the real story is here,” said Cap.

  “So what were you sniffing the pack for?” Reed said.

  “What?”

  “You were sniffing the backpack! You were looking at the hairs! What were you thinking?”

  “Reed, I wasn’t thinking anything.” Reed and Sing locked eyes with him. “Well, nothing serious!”

  Sing leaned toward her husband, emphatic. “We need to identify those hairs, Cap.”

  Cap looked cornered. “Why look at me?”

  “You have friends at the university who can do it.”

  “They’re not my friends!” They locked eyes with him again. “Well, okay, some of them are. They might be.”

  Sing reached into her backpack and pulled out a plastic Ziploc bag, sealed with red “evidence” tape. The hairs were in it. She tossed it to her husband.

  He tossed it back. “I am not going back there! I can’t!” He felt their gaze again. “All right, give me more reason and I’ll think about it!”

  It took a long moment of stillness before the big red female relaxed her grip and Beck could move a little. Beck allowed herself a small bit of relief, a calming breath or two, but her heart was racing and the trembling wouldn’t go away.

  A hand with the texture of a baseball glove wrapped around her face and forced her to look directly into the creature’s face, mere inches away.

  Beck couldn’t even scream, her silent throat betraying her yet again.

  With long, slimy strokes, a big pink tongue began mopping the berry stains and blood from Beck’s face. She raised her hand to push the big mouth away—lick—but then realized—lick, lick— that this disgusting, smelly, slimy act could be—lick—an act of kindness—lick, lick—and she’d better not mess with it.

  The creature licked her some more, then inspected her face like a mother inspecting her child. Satisfied, she set Beck down and went to the stream for another drink.

  Nauseous, Beck wasted no time crawling and hobbling to the stream, where she flopped on her belly and splashed water on her face. She could feel the slime on her skin, in her hair, on her neck, even in her ears. She kept splashing, frantically washing, longing for some soap and cleansing moisturizer, that wonderful, good-smelling stuff that came out of the quaint, decorative pump bottle by her sink in her nice, warm, clean house—

  A string of slime hung from her fingers as she brought them up out of the water. When she stopped to stare at it, she heard an explosive spitting noise upstream.

  The big female was drinking, then spitting huge, stringy mouthfuls of water. Apparently she wasn’t too pleased with how Beck’s face tasted.

  Beck stopped, too insulted to continue washing. How could that disgusting monster find Beck disgusting?

  The lady finished drinking, rolled back onto her haunches, and gave Beck a relentless, studious look, a gaze so unbroken it put Beck’s nerves on edge.

  A cold wind whipped across the mountainside, swaying the trees and leaching heat from Beck’s body. The sun had dipped behind the mountain and a worrisome chill was moving in. So what to do? Was there anywhere she could curl up out of the wind? What if the other two creatures came back?

  She eyed the big red female and tried to weigh disgust against wisdom. It seemed the big gal was intent on protecting her, something Beck couldn’t figure out but had to consider. With night coming on, she might do well to reconsider that big, warm body.

  She immediately looked elsewhere. There had to be another way.

  The beast grabbed her again.

  “Noo!” Beck screeched.

  She pulled Beck close.

  The smell was enough to make Beck gag, the fur was oily and sweaty, and there was still that frightful streak of blood.

  But the body was warm.

  The beast’s big hands held her close, cuddling her. The coarse fur poked her in the eye and tickled her nose. The blood was turning sour; it gave off a smell like a dead mouse.

  But Beck was warm. The cold wind would not reach her tonight.

  She pushed the creature’s hair out of her eyes, then tried to relax and, of all things, accept the situation—if she could only breathe.

  Reed was right about one thing: the rules were different out here. How different? How would she learn them other than one mistake at a time, and what if a mistake turned out to be fatal? She wished Reed were here to help her.

  A cold breeze interrupted her thoughts and reminded her that there were more immediate things to worry about—like staying alive right now. Cringing, she pressed in close to the odorous, furry body and drew in the warmth. The beast cradled her with a big arm. More warmth.

  Not far south of Abney, in a small meadow about ten miles back on a logging road, Ted and Melanie Brooks, a couple in their twenties, were “roughing it,” cooking up a meal over the open fire in front of their two-person tent. Several beer bottles lay empty in the grass, and they were working on two more. A boom box kept them company, preventing any unwanted quiet with the steady pulsing of bass and drums and the angry wailings of a lead guitar.

  Ted was frying up the hamburgers. In the light of a camp lantern, Melanie was chopping up some bananas, apples, and melons for a fruit salad. Nearby was their camp cooler, the lid open, full of drinks, fresh eggs, and raw bacon for the morning’s breakfast. They’d eaten lunch in the early afternoon and burned their paper plates, but the leftover McDonald’s French fries and half of a Caesar salad still remained, resting on a stump, waiting to be part of tonight’s meal.

  “Hey, babe,” Ted said, turning his face away from the heat of the fire. “You want to take a hike later? Nothing like a walk in the dark in the woods.”

  “I’m up to it if you are,” Melanie teased back, her perfect smile lighting her face.

  It felt good to get away from the big-city grind. Ted sang along with the CD now playing, a Hendrix tune he’d sung along with from his youth, as he flipped the patties in an iron frying pan.

  “Almost done,” he announced, excessively happy. He reached for another beer.

  “Salad’s about ready,” Melanie answered, cutting crookedly as the beer metabolized.

  A reflection appeared in the trees at the edge of the meadow. It glimmered, moved, then winked out. Ted thought he saw it. “What was that?”

  Melanie looked up. “What was what?”

  Ted took the iron pan off the fire and set it on a nearby stump where the grease and burgers continued to steam and sizzle. Then he stood away from the fire, watching the darkness. “I thought I saw s
omething.”

  Melanie stood very still, though a little unsteady. “I think I heard something.”

  Ted hurried over and shut off the boom box.

  The sudden quiet was jarring, eerie. Except for the crackle of the fire and the steady breath of the camp lantern, there wasn’t a sound.

  Then there was.

  Snap! Crunch!

  Melanie grabbed Ted’s arm, hard.

  They both peered into the darkness beyond the reach of the lantern, frightened by the shadows—even their own.

  A rustling and another twig breaking.

  “Something’s out there,” Ted whispered.

  six

  “Did we bring a gun?” Melanie whispered in fear.

  “No, no gun,” Ted answered, eyes fixed on the darkness beyond the dimly lit trees. Something was still moving out there. He heard the thumping of feet on a log. “Hello? Hey!” he shouted.

  “Don’t yell. It might—”

  The scream sent a shock through their nerves, jolting their muscles, turning their stomachs, quaking their hands.

  “It’s . . . it’s a . . . there’s a woman out there!” Ted blurted, his voice high and trembling.

  The mournful wail was still going, rising, falling, rising again.

  “Who is it?” Melanie asked no one in particular.

  “Hello? Are you all right?” Ted yelled into the dark, then rebuked himself, “That’s a dumb question.” He stepped forward.

  “Where are you going?” Melanie said.

  “I’m going to see who it is.”

  “Don’t go out there!”

  Ted walked cautiously, shakily, toward the sound, just now falling away. “Hello? You hurt?” He ventured beyond the reach of the light. His form was dim, broken into segments by the shadows. He stumbled on some fallen branches he didn’t see.