Going was slow. There was no
trail on this side of the haunted hill. Away from the hilltop campfire and aided
by the bright autumnal moon, my eyes adjusted to the inhospitable October dark.
Scattered clumps of lichen-covered iron rock, gnarled overgrown bushes and
scrubby pines swam in the fog.
Something hidden in the eldritch fog
had stalked us all night. About 15 minutes ago, before my very eyes, the unearthly
thing snatched Abbie Armitage from the edge of our hilltop camp and was probably
also responsible for Kat Corwin’s disappearance. The nameless thing was big and
strong, and if I encountered it in the fog, I would be lucky to see it coming.
I would be even luckier to get off a shot with my Beretta.
I stopped to listen,
straining my ears for some cryptic clue as to the whereabouts of the two
missing Claiborne State folklore students. My plan was to find them, get them back
to the hilltop and inside our protective salt circle. So far, I’d seen no sign
of either young woman.
Thick, suffocating fog made
it impossible to see more than a few feet in any direction. Layers of slick
pine straw and decaying leaves made each step treacherous. I imagined stepping
into an unseen hole and the resulting fall that would snap my tibia like a
brittle matchstick.
Suddenly and without warning,
my boot lost its grip on a large pine root. I pitched awkwardly forward and
dull pain shot up both arms as I tried to break my fall on the uneven ground.
Dirt filled the muzzle of my handgun.
Darkness washed over me in a
fade to black. Only later did I realize that I’d struck my head against an
indifferent chunk of half-buried iron rock. Blood oozed from the meaty wound,
watering tufts of nearby rabbit tobacco with my crimson lifeblood.
I eventually came to and sat
up, listless and nauseous. My sense of time was confused, but
I felt that I’d only been down for a few minutes. Bewildered, my head ached, a
dull roar sizzled in my ears, and my fingers came away from my hair damp with sticky
blood.
I stood and broke light
discipline by switching on my headlamp to inspect my bemired gun. It was
clogged with moldy, black dirt. I dropped the magazine and ejected the round in
the chamber with an eye towards blowing the dirt and debris out of its vital
workings.
Just then, in the dim moonshine
and fog, my eyes were drawn to a large willow tree a little farther downhill.
Kat’s distinctive pumpkin-orange shirt hung from a twisted lower limb. A step
closer revealed Abbie’s clothes, folded neatly at the base of the tree, as if
she’d taken them off to go for a late-night swim.
Something was wrong. I felt
it. The hair on my neck stood at attention, like the charged hackles of a defensive
feline. A dry branch snapped loudly in the claustrophobic fog.
Gooseflesh broke out on my back and arms.
Preternatural feelings of fight,
flight or freeze kicked in as I mentally calculated a retreat to the hilltop. I
turned and grabbed the rough, brown butcher’s twine tied to my waist. I gave it
a white-knuckled tug and knew right away that there was too much slack in the
line. I continued to pull the twine and a few anxious seconds later a loose end
appeared trailing on the ground out of the wispy fog.
Like the vulgar snort of a
wild hog, something grunted in the darkness, between me and my route back to
the top of the hill. I brought up my Beretta as my nostrils were assaulted by malefic
fumes. A hoary, nightmare figure emerged menacingly from the malign fog, its bestial
eyes obsidian black like those of some terrible spider god.
I squeezed the trigger.
My ears, prepared for the
loud report of the gun, were met only by the dry snap of the firing pin as it
fell limply on an empty chamber.
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