Therion

 

Wet snow splattered against my warm skin as I pressed on down the trail. I squinted my eyes against the ensuing storm, it felt good. My forward march was painstaking and my dampening clothes were not a good thing in such frigid temperatures.

“I should take a break,” I mumbled aloud. I pulled out my thermos to take a swig but it turned up empty and that’s when I smelled it, the sour stink of a rotten corpse.

I scanned the ground ahead of me for tracks but found none. I thought twice about entering the scrub bushes that skirted the deeper forest but soon resigned my hesitation and dove in, disappearing into the growth.

I covered my mouth and pursed my lips, trying hard, as I saw the decaying body, to hold down my lunch. She was so young, robbed of her life and dignity. Her dress was torn and bloodied. A stuffed bear hung from a crook in a small nearby tree - a boy’s toy. I remembered the files. The trends over the last two years were that of missing persons but the majority were children.

I did not see it at first but the brush had been woven together to form a circular sort of blind and as my eyes adjusted to the darkness I began to see more - a tennis shoe, parts of a sleeping bag, and soft dirt. Were more victims buried here? I had found the kill site. I dialed the number in my cell phone, I needed a forensic team to examine the site and we needed to find the killer. No service. On my hands and knees, I crept back into the open. I found myself standing amid a blizzard, surrounded by a vast state game area spanning over a thousand acres.

Instinctively, I put my right hand on my gun and scanned the treeline opposite the nest. Something black and shadowy returned my gaze. In the waning light, everything was black and shadowy. Did I trust my instinct and believe something was there with me - the killer?

I waited, motionless but the only sound to be heard was the howl of the wind and the creaking sway of the trees.

Hurriedly, I hiked toward the trailhead where my vehicle sat as the loud ‘CRACK’ of a breaking tree branch echoed behind me. I pulled out my standard-issue Glock and pointed at the sound, but I saw nothing. I holstered it and checked for a cell signal again but again, nothing. I carried on panting my way towards the SUV hoping to make the few miles before complete darkness fell.

Something shadowy and thin crossed the path ahead of me. It was so quick that I second-guessed myself.

“Maybe it was nothing.”

I found its tracks quickly disappearing under the falling snow. This time I pulled my weapon, switched the safety off, and followed the evidence into the forest.

The nagging in the back of my head urged me to leave it alone and make my way back, but that wasn’t how I worked. Even when I was a beat cop in Detroit I didn’t call for backup. I caught more than one bad guy that way, by not hesitating.

A heavy stick whooshed by my head smashing into a tree behind me. I fired three times in his direction. Twelve rounds left out of 15.

The hoot of an owl sounded to my right and I saw the shadow again. I fired, one in the head two in the chest. Nine rounds left. He ran away.

“No way I could miss at that range, I was a better shot than that,’ I thought. ‘Was this a man or was it a beast?”

Thoughts of NHEs or Non-Human-Entities rang through my mind as nausea pushed up my throat.

This time I made wise and retreated, zigzagging through the forest. I moved like an animal and circled back to the parking lot. Complete darkness enveloped me along with cold fear. My shaking hands struggled to press the button on the CB.

“One, possibly two suspects, please send back…” my voice caught.

It squeezed my shoulder, sinking its thick fingers into my skin, pulling me into the night. The dome light shone through the open door growing smaller and smaller, gone.

A lone coyote howled long and sorrowfully into the snowy moonless night.