Read Monster for Free Online

effect, her cry searing up the ravine like black fire as she thrashed in the brush.
    A wooden creak, a splintering snap, cloth tearing.
    That broken cot in front of the cabin. She was that close.
    A very loud, throaty growl shattered the air and rippled through the trees. Whatever had made that first whistle was bursting out in anger or fear or—whatever it was, it wasn’t good. They heard footfalls moving quickly, pounding and thrashing up the bank.
    The woman screamed in reply, splashing in the creek, then moving up the bank as if in pursuit.
    Reed and Beck shied back in the dark. Beck clicked on her flashlight to match Reed’s. They swept the perimeter. Trees. Brush. Bony, dead limbs. Blackness beyond.
    “Th-th-th-three of them,” Beck said, her voice broken with terror.
    “ Think ,” Reed said, to her and to himself. “Don’t panic, just think.”
    Beck thought out loud, “B-big, hungry beasts, two t-t-tender, chewable people—”
    “You’re letting your imagination run away with you.”
    “It’s my imagination!”
    She exhaled, trying to steady herself.
    It was quiet out there.
    “I’m think-th-thinking something,” she said.
    “I’m listening.”
    “Cap and Sing w-wouldn’t do this. They’d never b-betray our trust. George Johnson, yeah, but not Cap, and not Sing.”
    Reed mulled that over for a precious second. “You’re right.” In a moment, he came back with, “But if something out there was hunting us, it wouldn’t be making all this noise. It would’ve sneaked up on us.”
    More listening. More silence. Then some rustling and movement up the bank. Whatever the creatures were, they were still there.
    “I s-say we get out of here,” she said.
    Snap! Thud.
    “Don’t panic. If we panic, we’re sunk.” He tried to steady his voice as he quickly added, “If we stick with the plan, Mr. Thompson and Cap and Sing will know where to find us. If they get here tomorrow and we’re not here—”
    A howl up in the woods. Something—and it was no small coyote or wolf—was very upset.
    “They might be going away. Don’t panic,” Reed pleaded.
    “You’re s-s-scared too; come on.”
    “I’m not scared.”
    “Come on, your voice is shaking!”
    “I’m cold.”
    “W-w-well I’m wearing a jacket, s-so there!”
    Reed started scrambling around the campsite.
    “What are you doing now?”
    “I’m getting rid of these sandwich containers.”
    “You, youuu can’t hang those up in the trees now!”
    “I’m gonna throw ’em, just get ’em away from us!”
    “Yeah, and leave me here?”
    “What’s the matter, you scared?”
    She didn’t answer. He turned, his arms full, and left.
    She stood there, alone in the dark, her flashlight shining into a black infinity. The quiet out there was not comforting. At least when those unknowns were making noise, she knew where they were.
    Uh-oh, there was that growl again, somewhere up the bank across the ravine. Now it sounded alarmed. But no response from the wailing woman. Where was she?
    A whistle! Long, loud, like escaping steam, warbling—and close.
    Beck swept the woods that direction with her flashlight. Tree trunks. Dead limbs. A broken snag. Nothing beyond.
    What on earth . . . ? Now she smelled something. She sniffed, first one direction, then another. It was terrible, like the worst body odor, like something rotten.
    “R-r-reed? D-do youuu smell that?”
    No answer.
    “Reed?”
    Something rustled behind her, and then came that whistle again, this time low and hissing. She spun, her hands shaking, and shined her light up the hill, across a row of tree trunks, past a black chasm of nothing, over some more trunks— Something glimmered in that black chasm. She returned to the darkness between the trees.
    She knew what it was. Anytime Jonah, their dog, looked back at a flashlight beam, anytime a cat would look into their car’s headlights, the eyes always reflected the light back like . . . like what she was seeing right now.
    Two