The cat snarled and swiped at Angie. Angie jumped back, just missing the razor-sharp claws.
“Come on!” she roared.
Rain spattered the mud all around them. The big cat bared its fangs, its mouth wrinkling up in a snarl. It growled a loud wildcat growl that shook them all. And then suddenly, the cat coiled down and leapt at Angie.
The force of the impact was like being hit by a car.
The cat struck her squarely in the chest, and Angie flew backwards and hit the ground. All the wind rushed out of her, and her vision blurred over. Everything was a white haze for a moment, and she scrambled to get up on her feet.
The big cat had gone over her and landed back where John was laying facedown in the mud.
Angie struggled to her feet and swung around to face the cat. She was soaked with rain; half her body was now covered with mud. Her normally beautiful brown hair hung down stringy, soaked, and clumped with mud. Her arms hung like mallets on either side of her body; her fists were clinched. She looked pissed.
Her useless rifle lay ten feet to her left in the mud. Rain spattered on it.
Suddenly, a strong wind kicked up and swept through the forest, driving rain at them almost horizontally.
Angie reached down and grabbed a big thick tree branch that was on the ground at her feet. She hefted it up like a bat. The big cat stood there two feet left of John who was still facedown in the mud. The cat stared at Angie.
“Come on!” Angie screamed. “Come on and fight me, now!”
She swung the solid branch out into the air. It whickered around fiercely. The cat stood its ground. Angie looked into its golden eyes and felt twenty years of fear welling up inside her.
“Come on!” she screamed.
Angie’s shirt was torn open on the front where the cat had clawed her. The left half of her body was covered in mud. Her hair hung down, stringy, clumped, and soaked.
“I’ll kill you,” she said. “I’ll kill you!”
On the ground, John started to come to. He felt hot pain in his hip, and he felt the rain beating down on his back. The left side of his face was in the mud, and he slowly opened his eyes. He saw the giant cat standing there just two feet from him.
He heard Angie screaming somewhere not far away. He could smell the damp fur of the animal it was so close. There was a deep growling sound coming from inside the animal. The rain spattered on the mud all around him. He saw the mountain lion’s claws, but he realized that the animal’s attention was on Angie just ten feet away. He realized too that if the animal wanted, right that moment it could lunge down at him and rip his throat out without any difficulty whatsoever. But Angie was screaming at the animal. Angie was keeping the big cat’s attention.
John wanted to get up and run, but he was afraid to. He felt he needed to lie perfectly still and hope that this animal wouldn’t turn and rip his throat out. He felt mud on the side of his face.
Robert stood there frozen. Angie was five feet in front of him to his left. The giant mountain lion was ten feet in front of her. John’s body was on the muddy ground right beside the mountain lion. Robert had a gun in his hand, but he was paralyzed with fear and couldn’t move. His mouth hung open in shock. His head shook a little like he was having a seizure. His face was pale. He slowly looked down at the gun in his hand. He tried to lift it and saw that his hand was shaking terribly.
Angie screamed something at the animal.
Rain pounded Robert, but he lifted the .357 up. His hand was shaking so badly it looked like he had Parkinson’s. But he got the gun aimed in the general direction of the animal.
Angie swung a tree branch at the animal. Robert felt his finger squeezing around the trigger. He saw the mountain lion crouching down ready to leap on Angie again. He closed his eyes and pulled the trigger. The gun fired. It kicked back.
There was a sound across the way. It sounded like an animal. Robert looked up and saw the mountain lion turn and run backwards about thirty feet. It was so dark out now that they couldn’t see far through the pouring rain and darkened forest.
“You hit it!” Angie shouted. She looked back over her shoulder at Robert.
Robert looked at his gun, as though surprised that it had actually worked.
“You shot it, Robert,” Angie said.
Robert came up beside her. He looked at her. She wiped rainwater away from her eyes, and they both looked at the mountain lion up on the hill, now. The cat had stopped and was staring down at them from the hill.
“Where?” Robert said. “What kind of shot was it? I didn’t see.”
“I think you grazed his back left leg,” Angie said. She stood there, still poised in case the mountain lion came back down the hill.
John was climbing to his feet. Angie and Robert came over to him. Angie helped him up. John got his arm around her shoulder, and she helped support his weight. Robert stood there with both hands on his .357, and they all three watched the mountain lion on the hill. It stared at them a moment more, turned, and trotted quickly up the hill, vanishing into the pouring rain and darkness
• •
The group didn’t waste any time. As soon as the cougar was out of sight, they gathered themselves together and started off in the opposite direction. Angie checked her wristwatch and saw that it was seven-twenty. It was so dark now they couldn’t see much at all. The rain continued to pour, but they struggled onward away from the attack site.
Angie and Robert held John between them; John’s arms were around their shoulders. They staggered along like that through the trees not really sure at all if they were headed in the right direction toward the cabin or not. They only knew they were headed in the opposite direction from the mountain lion, and that seemed the most important thing.
They kept seeing movement out of the corners of their eyes, just beyond the edge of darkness to their right and left. They half expected to see the mountain lion appear in front of them, ready to finish off what he had started.
“Have you ever seen a mountain lion do that?” John asked.
“Never,” Angie said.
They carried on down a steep hill, slipping and sliding. There was a flash of lightning up ahead of them. They all saw the sparks and were soon enveloped in the enormous crash of thunder. The lightning struck a tree somewhere up the hill from them. A few seconds later, they caught the whiff of electricity and smoke as it wafted down the hill in the driving rain.
“That cat was almost twelve feet long,” Robert said.
“It was more,” Angie said.
John slipped and fell down and nearly brought the other two down with him, but they held him tight and kept him up on his feet.
“Sorry,” he said.
And they continued on, now heading uphill sidestepping trees and cacti.
“The biggest mountain lion I’ve ever heard reported was two hundred ninety-five,” Angie said. “The one we just saw was easily fifty pounds more than that.”
She glanced down at her chest where her shirt had been ripped open. Her white bra was exposed, but no one really noticed. They all looked like hell and were just trying to stay on their feet and get as much distance between themselves and that cat as they could.
The air had grown cold and they were completely soaked, but they were pumped on adrenaline and fear. The temperature would catch up with them eventually, if they didn’t find a trail, if they didn’t find the cabin. Angie’s hands were numb with cold, and she kept flexing her fingers and feeling the cold tingle through them. It was colds, but the rain and the wind made it feel even colder.
If there had been enough light, she would have seen that her hands were bright red from the cold. And still the rain continued to beat at them.
Suddenly, a tree branch snapped up ahead and came crashing down out of the darkness toward them. All three fell backwards landing smack in the mud and soaked earth, and the large branch lay there just a few feet away. It was a solid chunk of wood that would have killed them had it struck them squarly on
the head.
“Shit,” Robert said.
“Come on,” Angie said. She knelt down to give Robert a hand. He took her hand, and she helped him to his feet, and then the two of them helped John up.
“How’s your leg?” Angie said.
“It’s my hip,” John said.
He glanced down at it and saw that his jeans were torn open on his left hip. He could feel that he’d been bleeding, but he didn’t think it was too bad.
“I’ll be alright,” he said. “At least I can move it. At least I can put some weight on it.”
• •
They came to the clearing twenty minutes later, though it wasn’t until they were halfway across the clearing that they realized where they were.
“This is it!” Angie said.
Robert and John immediately realized she was right.
“The kennel,” Robert said. “What happened to the kennel?”
In the darkness and rain, they could see that the kennel was dismantled. They crossed to it and found one side had been hacked through with some sort of chopping tool.
Robert said, “The son of a bitch chopped up my kennel.”
“Come on,” Angie said. “There’s nothing you can do.”
Robert picked up one side of the kennel and tried to hold it up, but the pieces fell apart and clattered to the ground.
“The maniac tore up my kennel,” he said.
John said, “Here’s the trail! Here’s the sign!”
He stood there in the pouring rain pointing at the little wooden sign with the arrow and the word “cabin” etched into it. All three saw the opening into the woods on that side of the clearing, and they saw the trail leading up the hill into the woods. They started shouting and cheering, and they hugged one another. Angie wanted to cry she was so happy.
“We’re not home yet,” Robert cautioned.
They all realized he was right. They still had a stretch of dark forest to make it through, and what if the mountain lion was waiting in ambush for them on the trail up ahead?
“Come on,” Robert said, and he led them up the hill into the forest.
John was walking well enough that only Angie had to help him along, but the last stretch was the scariest. They knew they were home safe if they could only make it another ten minutes. But the forest was dense on both sides of the trail, and there were plenty of places for the mountain lion to lie in wait.
Angie kept looking up through the darkness and the rain, hoping to see the warm lights of the cabin windows. They could only see ten feet or so in front of them, but the trail was pretty clear to them now. They were almost home. Almost home!
Angie could hardly contain her excitement and only wanted to hurry faster and faster up the trail.
She looked at John and smiled, and up ahead of them, Robert shouted, “There it is!”
He pointed forward through the driving rain, and they all saw the warm lights coming from the cabin windows up the hill through the last bit of trees.
They crossed the last stretch of yard and climbed the steps. Robert held the screen door open for them, and John and Angie stepped through onto the front porch. They looked at themselves in the dim, glowing light coming from the windows. Robert put his key to the door and opened it.
They were home. They were alive.
Thirty
The man with the ax sat in a recliner on the far side of the living room. Robert had hardly stepped one foot in the door, when a ripping flash of lightning enveloped him, Angie, and John, and then unfurled a pummel of thunder that made all three shriek. The lights inside the cabin went out, but in the split second between when the lightning hit and the power went out, Robert took one step into the cabin and saw the man with the ax sitting there in the recliner.
Robert froze.
Angie and John bumped into him from behind and instinctively felt his fear. Robert’s hands came up, palms facing outward in a defensive posture, and he took two steps back, effectively pushing Angie and John back out onto the porch.
“Yo!” Robert called to the man in the darkness. “Just take it easy, man. Everything’s cool.”
Angie and John looked over his shoulders, but the lights were still out inside the cabin and they could see nothing. Suddenly, there was another flash of lightning that lit up the whole house a moment, and all three saw Charlie sitting there in the recliner with the ax across his chest.
Angie turned and ran back off of the porch, out into the rain. John and Robert were not far behind, and they all stepped midway out into the yard. The rain continued to pour, and they stood there in the yard looking at one another.
“What is he doing?” Angie shrieked.
Robert pointed fiercely at the cabin, and said as though it was unfathomable but true, “The dude is sitting in there with an ax!”
“Oh, holy shit,” John said. “Oh, holy shit. Oh, holy shit.”
They were terrified.
“How do we handle this?” Robert said.
He was so afraid his limbs felt weightless.
The whole time they kept looking up at the cabin. They expected to see Charlie come to the door. They watched around the corners of the cabin in case he tried to slip out the back door and sneak around on them. The whole time the lights were out inside the cabin, and it just stood there in the darkness and rain like the crazy house in the Poe story.
“Wait a minute,” Angie said.
John and Robert looked at her.
She started walking toward the cabin.
“What are you doing?” John said.
She raised a hand, indicating they should stay back.
The rain continued to hammer them. Angie took one step up the front porch steps. She looked up and saw the screen door swaying slightly in the wind and rain. Beyond that, she saw the front door to the cabin was still open. She took another step up the front porch steps and slowly reached her hand forward toward the screen door’s handle.
She opened the screen door slowly, and it creaked with all the moisture and rust.
The front door to the cabin was open, and Angie could see the curtains ruffling in the windows inside from the breeze that swept through the front door. She tried to see across the inside of the cabin. All was darkness inside.
She tried to see across to the recliner on the far side of the living room, but she only saw the faintest outlines in the very dim light. She saw the area rug just inside the front door, and she saw the left arm of the sofa just beyond that, but then it was like the room disappeared into a vacuum of blackness, and she couldn’t see anything more than seven feet inside the front door.
She knew the recliner was about fifteen feet across the living room from the front door, but there just simply wasn’t enough light. She had no way to know whether Charlie was still sitting there in the recliner, or had decided to stand up and come to the front door to wait for someone to return.
Angie put one foot up onto the porch.
John and Robert stood at the bottom of the steps looking up at her.
She took another step up onto the porch. She slowly let the screen door creak shut behind her. She took another step across the front porch and found herself standing midway between the screen door and the open front door. She stood perfectly still.
Rainwater dripped down from her onto the porch as though she’d just stepped out of a shower. Her breathing was thin. She could almost see the contours of furniture inside the cabin. She felt her heart pounding in her chest.
Slowly, she looked back over her shoulder at John and Robert down behind her. They were still standing at the base of the steps, but were afraid to say anything lest they give away to Charlie the fact that Angie was standing on the porch.
She turned her head back and looked inside the pitch black cabin. She felt a stiff breeze rustle up from behind her. Her skin was soaked. The breeze pushed the front door of the cabin open ever so slightly, and this made it creak.
She gathered herself up and said firmly, “Rutledge?”
>
There was no reply; only the sound of rain hammering the roof of the porch and cabin.
“Charlie Rutledge?” Angie called firmly into the cabin.
She stood there for what must have been twenty seconds, listening to the sound of rain hammer the tin rooftop.
“Angie?” John whispered up at her. “Do you see anything?”
CLAWS Page 16
