What I’m about to tell you happened a year ago. I’m a veterinarian in a small town and on a couple of occasions, the local police bring animals to me that have been hit by cars on the highway. Sometimes, I’m called on to drive out there and put down a deer or small animal that wandered into the road and met its end.
On the night in question, I was at home after a long day at work, fixing myself a gin and getting ready to relax in front of the TV. As I was about to pour the liquor, the phone rang. Thinking it might be my sister, who lived in Boca Raton and called occasionally to see how I was doing, I put down the bottle and picked up the phone.
It wasn’t my sister. The voice on the other end of the line belonged to Max Carter, a deputy sheriff who had brought plenty of injured animals into my surgery over the years.
“Got a job for you, Doc,” he said. “There’s an injured animal out here. The guy who hit it says it went into the woods. You want to come look for it?”
To be honest, looking for a wounded animal was the last thing I wanted to do right now, but I knew I wouldn’t sleep tonight if I let some poor creature suffer just because I was too lazy to get in my car and drive a few miles to find it.
“Sure,” I told Max. “Give me your location and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
He gave me his coordinates—the highway east of town—and hung up. I got my bag, which contained everything from painkillers to shots that would put an animal down humanely, and put on my jacket before going out to my car. The weather was cold for the season, and a light rain had begun to fall.
I got in my Taurus, tossed the bag onto the passenger seat, and made my way through the rainy night toward the highway. It wasn’t long before the light rain turned into a downpour and I had to put the wipers on at full speed to keep the windshield clear.
It wasn’t hard to find Max. He had the lights flashing on his patrol car and he’d placed bright red flares on the road. He’d done that because a green Hyundai with a crumpled hood was sitting in the middle of the road and he wanted to avoid someone else running into the stationary vehicle.
I parked the Taurus at the side of the highway and got out. Max was in the patrol car, sitting behind the wheel. He had someone in the backseat but I couldn’t see the guy’s face because of the shadows. It was a dark night.
Max rolled his window down. “Get in, Doc. You’re gonna want to hear this.”
I climbed in the passenger side and closed the door. Max had the heat on and the windows were steaming up. I opened my jacket. “Gonna want to hear what?”
He looked in the rearview so he could see the guy in the back seat and said, “Tell the doc what you just told me.”
When the guy in the back spoke, I realized he was clearly shaken by whatever had happened to him and his Hyundai on this lonely stretch of road.
“It ran out of the trees. Right in front of me. I didn’t have time to hit the brakes.”
“Yeah, he gathered that from looking at the wreck that used two be your vehicle,” Max said. “Tell him the other thing. Tell him about the creature.”
“It was horrible. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was as big as a horse. It had…horns. And its teeth. Oh God, its teeth!”
Max looked at me with a grim expression. “He hasn’t been drinking. I checked. And he isn’t high.”
“So, he’s hallucinating?” I offered as an explanation of the guy’s incredible story.
“Maybe.” Max looked in the rearview again. “But he isn’t hallucinating the damage to his vehicle. Damn thing’s crumpled up like a piece of aluminium.”
“Are you saying you think there’s a monster out there somewhere?” I asked incredulously. I didn’t believe in such things. Most events that were labeled supernatural could be explained away, and I was sure that the so-called monster that had hit this guy’s car was no different.
“I don’t know what I’m saying.” Max shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “But I reckon we should both go into the woods to look for that thing.”
I looked at the trees and nodded. Even though I was sure the guy in the back had hit nothing more sinister than a deer, or even a tree, it would be comforting to have an armed officer of the law with me in those dark woods.
We got out of the car. Max went to the trunk and returned brandishing a shotgun. We left the shook up guy in the back seat. He was in no condition to help.
I had a flashlight in my bag. I got out and turned it on, aiming the beam into the darkness beneath the trees.
Max and I moved forward, leaving the road behind as we trudged through the undergrowth.
“It definitely came this way,” I said, pointing the light at several broken branches that were covered with blood.
The deputy nodded. “It’s gotta be something big to snap those high branches like that.”
He was right about that. Whatever came through here was the height of a horse, or maybe even taller.
I ran through a mental list of wild animals in this area that could grow that big and came up empty. A large black bear, maybe, but it would have to be walking upright to break the highest branches I could see dangling from the trees.
We followed the trail deeper into the woods. I was starting to get nervous. If we were following a bear and it was wounded, the animal was going to be mighty pissed when we found it. I was glad Max had the shotgun, and a .45 on his belt.
The highway seemed to be an awful long way behind us now. When I looked over my shoulder in that direction, all I could see was an inky darkness. The canopy of foliage above our heads blotted out the stars, and it was as if we were walking through a void, the only light the thin beam from the flashlight.
We must have walked at least a mile from the highway, but neither of us suggested turning back.
We were both curious to see exactly what kind of creature we were tracking and, in Max’s case at least, he felt he had a duty to protect the good folk of our small town from it if it turned out to be a monster like the Hyundai guy had described.
Monsters were the furthest thing from my mind during that mile-long trek into the woods. I was concerned that we might run into something that was pissed as all hell, but I didn’t believe we’d encounter anything more unusual than the Ursus Americanus—the American black bear.
Those thoughts fled when the flashlight picked up a large, dark shape lying on the ground ahead of us.
The sight of it stopped us in our tracks.
“What the hell is that?” Max whispered.
“I don’t know.” My throat was dry as I whispered the words. The thing in front of us was no bear. I had no idea what it was.
Its body was covered in a brown pelt not unlike that of a deer, but the markings looked like those of a zebra—long white strips that reached rom the belly to the creature’s back. The Hyundai guy had mentioned horns but he’d been mistaken. This beast had tusks. They curved forward from each side of its mouth, two on each side.
I couldn’t make out the shape of the body in the darkness because of the creature’s position in the undergrowth, but I could see the head clearly. It was long and thick, tapering to a maw full of wicked-looking teeth. This thing was a carnivore, there was no doubt about that.
Max raised the shotgun and took aim.
“Wait!” I said, pushing the gun’s muzzle up into the air.
It went off, the shot cracking the night. Birds scattered from nearby trees, fluttering into the air before coming to rest again.
“What did you do that for, Doc?” Max looked angry.
“We can’t just kill it.”
“Look at it. Look at those teeth. We’re in danger.”
“It’s in no condition to attack us or anything else. Look at the way it’s just lying there. It’s been hit by a car, Max. It’s wounded.”
He let out a long breath. “So, what are we gonna do with it?”
“I want to take a closer look.”
“Are you crazy? It might be playing possum. As soon as you go over there, the damn thing could tear your face off.”
“I don’t think so. But stay close and keep that shotgun ready.”
He nodded and we moved closer to the injured creature. I could see its eyes now. Two dark red orbs with black, slitted pupils that watched us as we approached. I couldn’t tell if the look it gave us was one of disinterest, or if it was sizing us up to be its next meal.
I’ve dealt with dogs and cats in my surgery so often that I can usually tell what they’re about to do just from looking at their faces, but this creature’s eyes didn’t give anything away.
“I don’t like this one bit,” Max whispered. “If that thing kills us, I want it known that this wasn’t my crazy idea.”
“If it kills us, you won’t have anything to worry about, Max.”
As we got closer, the creature snorted. Was that a warning? Or something else? I was dealing with the unknown here, and—veterinarian or not—I was way out of my comfort zone.
When I was six feet away from the beast, I halted and indicated to Max that he should do the same. I might have been crazy enough to approach the thing in the first place, but I was staying out of reach of the creature’s claws, which I could now see clearly in the flashlight’s beam. the long talons were attached to scaly paws and long, muscular legs.
I could see why the creature had collapsed. A bloody wound stretched from one huge shoulder to the other, a consequence of the beast’s run-in with the Hyundai. I moved the light down the front of the animal and saw a dark, expanding pool of blood on the ground.
“It’s dying,” I told Max.
He nodded. “Yeah, I see that.”
Suddenly, it raised its head and bellowed. The sound reverberated through the trees, making the woods come alive with animals that had been sleeping or going about their business and were now fleeing form that blood-curdling cry.
The beast’s head lowered, the long tusks resting on the ground, and the red eyes slowly closed as it died.
Then I heard another sound. Something huge crashing through the undergrowth. It was coming this way.
“We need to get out of here,” Max said, a sense of urgency in his voice. “I think its mom is coming!”
We tried to run but the closeness of the trees prevented us from attaining any real speed.
“Turn the light off!” Max said. “It’ll see us!”
I switched the flashlight off and we were plunged into sudden, complete darkness. We hit the deck, getting low in the undergrowth and using a tree for cover as we peered back the way we’d come.
The crashing sounds slowed into heavy, thumping footfalls as whatever was back there reached the dead creature.
I squinted into the darkness and, as my eyes adjusted, saw what had made all the noise. It was a another creature, identical to the one we’d just watch die, except in one aspect; this one was twice the size. Max had been right. This was mommy.
She stood stock still for a few moments, sniffing the night air. I ha da sudden, terrible vision of her catching our scent and coming straight for us, those deadly tusks ready to rend us limb from limb. Every muscle in my body tightened with fear.
But she didn’t look in our direction. After inspecting the surrounding area, she turned her attention to the dead creature—which I now realized was her calf—on the ground. Her blood red eyes narrowed and she raised her head, emitting a bellow that shook the trees. I shrank back from the sound, my bones and teeth shaking.
When she was done, she turned her face to the dead creature on the ground again and scooped it up with her tusks. The limp body must have weighed a ton, but she her neck and shoulders were packed with muscle and she achieved the task easily before turning away and moving deeper into the woods, taking her calf with her.
After the heavy footfalls had faded in the distance, Max turned to me and said, “What the fuck did we just see?”
“A mother caring for her child. Come on, we should leave.”
We got our feet and made our way back to the highway.
When we reached the road, the tow truck had arrived to take away the damaged car. The Hyundai guy was talking Skip Johnson, who owned the garage in town.
When Skip saw us, he raised his eyebrows. “This feller says he saw a monster tonight. Is that right, Max?”
Max shook his head. “No monster, Skip. Just a bear.”
Skip turned his attention to the Hyundai. “Must have been a big one to do all this damage.”
“Yeah, pretty big,” I said.
Max and I exchanged looks.We hadn’t mentioned keeping this a secret, but it just kinda turned out that way.
Like I said, that was year ago. But the sight of that creature has never left my memory. And now, I’m beginning to think Max should have shot that big one when it came out of the trees for its baby.
You see, people have started to go missing over the past twelve months. It started when a couple of cars were found smashed up on the highway, their occupants vanished without a trace. Then, people started disappearing from the houses at the edge of town. The police say it looks like they were taken from their yards. Their yards that back up right to the tree line.
Max isn’t around anymore. Two months ago, his patrol car was found in the exact spot where that Hyundai hit the calf a year ago. Rumor is, he went into the woods with his shotgun and enough ammo to take down a small army.
He never came back.
And now I’m worried. I don’t live on the edge of town but I’ve marked the places where people were taken from their yards on a map and it’s clear that the beast is gradually getting closer to my house.
Maybe she got my scent after all.