by Tempe O'Kun
“Might be worthwhile to buy hiking boots.” He turned his long white muzzle back toward Windfall. “I’m sure the hunting store in town would have something.”
“Hiking boots?” Her fists propped on her hips. “What if I needed to swim?”
“You wouldn’t.” He smirked. “That’s the whole problem.”
They continued down a gully, under the precarious trees and shrubs that clutched its crumbling cliffside. Looking up the slope, Kylie stubbed her toe on a half-buried log and stumbled back, swearing. As Max held her steady, she cradled her aching foot with a grimace and wondered very loudly if all this stomping around was worth it. Whatever they might find, it could wait another day. Besides, as much as she appreciated Max helping her track down the crazy in her family, it wasn’t doing much to clear up whether he wanted to date her or not. She only had two more weeks of him; maybe she should keep him at home a bit more, figure out how to bring the subject up. It wasn’t fair to blow his entire vacation on a wild goose chase for her benefit, either. Even she could admit that was probably pretty selfish.
With a huff, she trudged on, contemplating that she might just be cursed. Then her eyes caught on pale slats of wood through the trees. Weariness forgotten, she dashed forward, wriggled through a gnarled, grasping cluster of trees, and stared.
The shack squatted against the wall of a crag, almost as gray as the rock around it. Roof half-collapsed, walls bowed, boards tilted like malformed teeth; time seemed eager to crush the tiny building. It seemed on the verge of victory.
Kylie hadn’t been getting much sleep with the journals haunting her. Walking the property had eroded the last of her energy, or so she’d thought. Now she squeaked, bouncing and pointing.
Max nodded, then looked away when his gaze seemed to fall on her breasts. He’d seemed flustered like that all day, though it could just be her dreams from last night following her around. Nonetheless, he gave her an encouraging wag and they picked their way down the hillside.
Bounding up to the structure, she tried the door. It didn’t budge. “What the heck? Is it locked?” She braced a foot against the frame, pulling on the knob.
“From the inside?” The dog’s ears drooped.
Kylie winced, thinking of what it being locked from the inside might mean. Her curiosity burned unabated, even as dread crept up her spine.
Max studied the damp, rotting timber. “It’s not locked. The wood’s warped and it’s stuck shut.”
She breathed again. That meant they wouldn’t find her great uncle’s corpse in there. Probably. She gave the knob another yank. The sphere of rusted iron came off in her paw. She frowned at it. “Carp! What do we do now?”
Contemplative, the husky studied the ancient door, poked the yielding surface with one digit, then wound back and punched it with enough force to shake the entire building. His fist burst straight through the ancient, rotting wood. In one smooth motion, he gripped the crossbeam and ripped the whole door free, then dropped it to the stony turf.
Impressed, the otter gave a slow nod.
With a sheepish wring of his paws, he shrugged and shook the rotten splinters from his paw. “I always wanted to do that in real life.”
She poked her head inside the structure. “What was it for, do you think?”
The decayed remains of a cot, an overturned trunk, and scattered shotgun shells with oxidized heads littered the floor. Max sniffed at the musty air, his breath swirling dust motes in the light that crept through drafty walls. “Hunting cabin, maybe?”
“Maybe…” They searched the cabin, but found nothing except a crumbling calendar and a few empty tuna cans. After ten minutes, Kylie plopped down to the floor with a groan. “Really? All that searching and it’s empty?”
He crouched beside her, paw on her shoulder. “It’s been here for decades. Someone else may have wandered by.”
She propped her elbows on her crossed legs, fists under her chin. Her gaze fell to the floor, which lay powdered with orange lichen. The boards had warped and rotted as much as the rest of the cabin, spreading to reveal the ground beneath. She stared at the dirt, feeling at least as low. Then she saw it.
White.
Like bone.
A chill ran through her. “Maxie, I need you to rip up the floor.”
His ears perked at her, his muzzle turning her way a heartbeat later. He set down a tatter of the cot fabric, which he’d been peeking under.
She pointed. “I think there’s something under there.”
Without a question, he wiggled his fingers through the gap and hauled the board up. Nails screamed, wood splintered, lichen pulverized. He worried the board back and forth until it came free, then tossed it on the ruined bed.
With shaking paws, Kylie lifted the pale circle from the earth. Light as old bone, smooth as ceramic, save for a tangle of semi-random lines. Etchings? Veins? It weighed as little as a sand dollar, but felt solid. Pinprick holes dotted the edge, for some purpose she couldn’t guess at. It fit her two palms, dust and soil falling away, refusing to adhere. She lifted it for Max’s inspection.
“I have no idea what that is.” He sniffed it. “Must have been here a long time; only smells like the shack.”
“Is it bone? Antler?”
He touched her hand, brushing it back from the disk. “Bone doesn’t age that well, not in a place this damp.”
“Pottery?”
“Could be.” He squinted. “Looks like something from a gallery.”
The otter watched the grooves dance in their infinite snarl. Trying to trace just one unfocused her vision. She squeezed her eyes shut and looked back at Max. “What’d we do now?”
The husky peeked into the floorboards, then gave the cabin a final glance-over. “Take it to your place and research?”
She nodded. Not that she imagined they’d be able to find out much—the disk looked like nothing Kylie had ever seen. She stuck it in one of the larger pockets of her vest.
They started to climb out of the rocky valley. Soil and scree shifted under their feet, boulders and branches lay scattered. Halfway up, she slipped and almost fell on her tail, but Max caught her by the arm. Big, strong paws handled her with delicate care. He flashed her a little smile, wagging as she found her footing.
“Thanks.” Blushing under her fur, the lutrine tried to think of a way to bring up how much she appreciated that he was always there for her, how she wanted to be there for him, in a forever sort of way. She blushed harder. It sounded stupid in her head and it would probably sound stupider out loud, but she had to say something. She knew he’d listen while she fumbled through an explanation. “Maxie, I—”
Max shushed her softly, touched her elbow, and pointed out into the forest.
Fifty yards out, on the crest of a ridge, a feral deer posed with wild dignity, backlit against the evening canopy. Its ears rotated, listening to the forest as is glided through the dappled shadows to nibble on a low-hanging leaf. Light caught, glowing within its fur. It looked around suddenly, alert. Kylie supposed it had scented them.
Kylie crouched beside Max, fascinated. She was a cynical city girl at heart, and as much as she’d gotten used to the forest, nature still managed to strike her with its beauty now and then. To think, that elegant four-legged creature was related to every sentient deer she’d ever met.
Her eyes caught movement in the canopy. Something glossy and dark dropped from a tree, like a soundless, jagged nightmare. Iridescent black blades flashed through the deer. It tumbled into bloody shreds with a bisected gasp. The shreds twitched as predator and prey together hit the dense underbrush with an impact that shook the leaves.
Then the black thing, perched on too many legs and, moving in a way that was jerky and spastic and somehow fundamentally wrong, dove in and began to feed.
Cracks of bone and snaps of sinew echoed down the gully all around Kylie and Max. The otter jumped as she felt something grasp her arm. Max’s hand. He drew her away. Her eyes remained locked on the black thi
ng as it buried its front in gore, half obscured now by undergrowth. A few snaps of sinew later, it sat up, as if remembering its manners. Three front limbs plucked trembling strips of muscle from the kill, gorging them down a triangular maw. Blood rolled down the black carapace, trailing the plates to soak deep nooks. A trio of golden eyes shone with raw culinary contentment, mandibles clattering in obvious relish. Kylie’s mind grappled with it from fifty meters away, unable to process what she was seeing.
The husky’s arms closed around her middle. He shushed her squeak and dragged her to a rot-hollowed log, well out of sight of the creature, and hurried her into the narrow space.
Her thoughts bubbled into a frantic whisper: “Did you see that?”
Ears pinned back with terror, he crammed himself in beside her and whispered: “Yes!” He glanced around to ensure they weren’t followed, then stopped, studying her expression. “Wait. Are you…happy?”
Her face did feel strained, as if by a paralyzed grin. “Do you know what this means? My family wasn’t crazy!” She gripped his shoulders, then slackened, processing. Horror drained her of heat. “Oh my gosh, my family wasn’t crazy. We’re gonna die.”
He put a finger to her lips, precluding further speculation.
They strained their ears, but couldn’t tell savage eating from branches in the lovely light breeze. Now and again, Max reached his phone past the end of the log, watching the screen, checking if anything picked up on its camera. The recording icon flashed.
Kylie buried her face in his chest and concentrated on breathing. Quietly. Her heart thundered in her chest. The chill in her guts had spread to her fingertips and webbing. The log stunk of mold and rotten bits of wood kept falling in her eyes, which she barely dared to wipe away. More than once, she shifted, desperate to leave, to run, though this only resulted in Max holding her tighter. So she turned in on him instead, burrowing in against his chest, eyes screwed shut, as though he could protect her from that…thing. She opened her eyes to find the forest darker than she’d left it.
The husky climbed out, remaining crouched, ears scanning the woods. Sharp blue eyes scrutinized every bush and tree, but at long last he looked down to her and lifted his eyebrows.
The otter slipped out from under the log, her leg unresponsive and prickly from laying on it wrong. She stumbled.
His wide paws swept in to support her before she could collapse.
She glanced down at her leg, bending it to make sure it worked right. Cramped muscles ached as she tried to extend them.
Again, without a sound, he turned and drew her by the hand onto his back. Together, they picked their way down the shadowy hillside, away from the feeding site.
“Where’re we going?” She breathed in his ear. “Home’s back that way.”
He shifted her higher on his back. “We’re cutting down to the edge of the property, taking the road back.”
She nodded into his shoulder. The long way, around Bourn Holt and down the highway. The way someone might at least hear them scream. She tried not to think about it, breathed in Max’s scent, and told herself she felt reassured.
He carried her through the trees, jumping at shadows all the while, until they reached a narrow band of cleared dirt. Some kind of trail carved by ATVs or snowmobiles. By this point her leg was feeling better, but when she tried to slip off him his grip tightened on her knees, keeping her in place. With some distance and time behind them, Max must have felt it was safe to speak, albeit softly. “Well, that was exciting.”
She squeezed his shoulders, curling closer as she croaked a hollow chuckle. “Yeah, no kidding.”
He cleared his throat. “So…now that you know your family hasn’t really been crazy all these years, I guess we’re done with the investigations?” A strained, hopeful edge sharpened his voice.
The otter gave a weak laugh.
“Kylie!” The canine groaned, trudging on. “No. Absolutely not. I don’t know what that was, but we need to stay away from it. This is real life; we aren’t main characters.”
“That…thing, or things like it, have been driving my family crazy for generations.” The panic had subsided, mostly, replaced by gnawing dread and a deep, smouldering ember of outrage. “They wouldn’t have obsessed like that if it weren’t important.”
He growled. She couldn’t see his face, but his ear flicked her on the forehead as it pinned back. “We don’t know what’s going on, but we do know that part of it involves something that can rip a deer apart for lunch. What are we gonna do, lasso it?”
Her muzzle bumped his shoulder with a frown. Resting against his back, though, she couldn’t help but feel protected. But who’d protect Max? Having him safe and across the country was one thing; she didn’t know how she’d live with herself if something happened to him. She’d have to watch his back, she thought as she snuggled against it. Even now, as they fled from a monster, she felt safe.
So safe, in fact, that she fell asleep.
An hour later, aching from tension and exertion, Max trudged out from the woods to the roadside, hackles raised at every noise. Kylie had been quiet for the last ten minutes or so, but he could feel the steady rhythm of her breathing. He considered waking her, but then decided to let her rest. If anything dropped from the trees, her being rested might help. He tried not to think about what would happen if it didn’t.
An engine’s hum echoed from behind him. The husky turned to see a battered pickup trundling up the highway, purring despite its obvious age. His gaze met the driver’s and a sigh of relief left him as he recognized the beaver handyman Ms. Bevy had hired to fix up the manor.
The truck puttered to a stop. A beaver leaned out the window with a polite smile. “You kids need a lift?”
Max weighed the relative risks and then decided he could accept a ride from a beaver half his size. “Yes, sir.”
“Hey, you’re that pup who’s staying with the Bevys.” He leaned to see around Max’s shoulder. “She alright?”
“Yeah.” He helped the lutrine slide off his back. “We got a little lost and she’s not used to walking this far.”
The beaver gave an amiable nod and unlocked the passenger door. Gray tinged his temples and muzzle. Max guessed the handyman to be about forty, though he had trouble telling with non-canids.
Kylie looked around. “What the…?”
“It’s okay.” Whispering, he patted her back and guided her toward the vehicle. “Your mom’s handyman’s giving us a ride.”
The otter murmured something and cast a worried look to the trees as she climbed in the truck.
Max followed. Remembering his manners, the canine offered a paw. “Really appreciate the ride. Joe, right?”
The handyman shook it around the bleary Kylie. “You got it.”
“I’ve seen you around.” Max positioned the otter between them, where she’d be safest. “You’re the guy Ms. Bevy hired for the roof.”
A chuckle warmed the cab of the truck. “And the porches, and the cellar door, and whatever else.”
“Yeah, she can keep a guy busy.” The dog nodded.
The handyman shone a buck-toothed smile. “Sounds like you know first hand.”
Max shrugged. “I worked for her on the show for years.”
“No kidding? Not a local then?”
“No, I’m from Montana.” The husky rolled down the window a crack, summer air breezing past his ears, stirring a hundred scents past his nose. “Just visiting.”
Joe nodded. “Weighs on a fella, being away from home.”
Kylie, having stayed awake for as long as politeness required, curled up against Max and fell into a tense, twitchy doze. A length of silence and a stretch of road passed by. Max struggled for something to say, but recent worries pressed down hard on him, and anyway Joe didn’t seem the gossipy type. In fact, it wasn’t until they rounded the mountain and Windfall came into sight that their driver piped up.
“Bit strange to see someone living in the old Bourn place again.” Joe cl
eared his throat and kept his eyes on the road rather than the otter draped over his other passenger. “That house of theirs is a local landmark. Been interested in it for quite a while. Thought it’d be nice to work on, so I made myself available.”
The husky’s ears perked. “Sounds like the Bevys have some sort of history around here.”
“Folks around here love their spooky stories.” The beaver offered a good-natured eye roll. “You hear stories about those otters putting too much stock the local legends, but that’s all from before you’d have seen my smiling face in these parts. I try to judge people on what I see.”
“Seems like a good philosophy.”
The beaver adjusted his old ball cap. “Take that Ms. Bevy. She’s an artsy type and maybe a bit of a homebody, but folks around here like a little privacy.” He adjusted his hold on the steering wheel, shifting gears with ease. “That’s what’s nice about a town like this: space to breathe.”
“I can understand that.” Max wagged, feeling tension drain away. He breathed a little deeper. After what he’d seen in the woods, the mundanity of small talk felt very reassuring, even if it was with someone he’d only seen before in passing. “Plenty of breathing room where I come from.”
“Seems this new crop of Bevys isn’t so much for the hubbub. Not so hung up on the way things used to be.” He checked his mirror, then smoothed his well-trimmed whiskers. “And that’s probably for the best. Gotta change to fit the times, go with the flow.”
“Still learning that myself.” The canine found his paw had slipped around Kylie’s waist, even as his gaze stayed on the trees. The horror of monsters inhabiting the woods wrestled for mental real estate with daydreams of dating Kylie. The last few miles rolled by. With a final turn, they rumbled up the driveway of Bourn Manor. The dog climbed out and pulled a half-limp Kylie after him. With her on his back again, he waved to Joe. “Thanks again for the ride.”
“Thanks for the conversation.” The beaver tipped his hat. “One of the few things an old guy like me can do to amuse himself.”
Max decided he liked this guy; at least he wore his opinions on his sleeve. He turned to carry his friend to the house. The pickup rumbled off. Every crunch of gravel reminded Max of the bone-snapping bites of the black thing. He shook his head and hurried on.
