They shuffled along, and Mattie felt the creature watching them from the trees, waiting for its chance. Its gaze seemed to press down on her, stopping the breath in her lungs.
Just stay focused on the stream, on putting one foot in front of the other, on keeping C.P. upright.
“Hey,” he said, and he sounded more alert. “Hey, am I hallucinating or is that a road?”
He gestured with his stump, wincing when he caught sight of the bloodied shirt wrapped around it.
Mattie saw it then, too—a dirt road that wound along parallel to the stream, almost hidden by the trees.
The trees. There weren’t many of them, but to get to the road they’d have to cross through the trees.
“The vehicle. Remember the key?” he said. “Oh my god, we’re saved. Let’s go find it.”
The stream was wider here, and there were almost no rocks to step on to keep their feet dry. C.P. plowed forward, tugging Mattie along with him, splashing through the water.
A branch cracked behind them.
“No,” Mattie said. “Don’t follow us. Stay away.”
They climbed up the little incline on the other side of the bank. The trees weren’t as thick here. They could see the road in between the trunks.
“We have to run through,” Mattie said. “Because the trees are its hunting ground. Can you run?”
“I can do anything if there’s a car waiting on the other side.”
“We don’t know there is for sure,” Mattie said. She didn’t want him to get his hopes up and then have them dashed if William had hidden his vehicle so well that they couldn’t find it.
“It’s got to be,” he said. “That’s a car key around your neck, and there’s a road. That guy had a way of getting up and down this mountain quickly.”
“Okay,” Mattie said. “Okay. Let’s run.”
They took off, pushing through the snow, both of them barely upright.
The tree trunks were closer, closer, closer, and then they were inside them and Mattie saw the road on the other side, maybe ten feet away. Nine feet, eight feet, seven feet. They were almost out.
The creature roared again, louder than before, and the sound wanted to break her but she could taste her freedom and so could C.P. He grabbed her hand and they ran, breaking free of the woods, their feet touching the dirt road.
“He cleared this,” C.P. said, looking left and right. “That’s the only reason we could see it from the stream. He must have a truck with a plow on it.”
Mattie didn’t care what kind of vehicle it was as long as it was near, but she didn’t see anything.
“It’s not here,” she said.
The roaring had stopped, and there was no warning crunch of branches breaking.
“Just because we can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not here,” he said. “It’s probably that way, closer to the cabin.”
The cabin. Everything in her life seemed to circle back to that place, no matter how hard she tried to get away from it.
And the creature was following. If they went back in the direction of its cave, it might decide to eliminate them both with one swipe of its paw.
“Maybe we should just follow the road down,” Mattie said. “On foot. It will still be easier than hiking through the snow.”
“Let’s just look,” he said. “Just a little ways in that direction.”
Mattie glanced back at the trees behind them. There was an enormous silhouette there, waiting.
“It’s watching us,” she whispered.
She saw him find the silhouette with his eyes, saw the blood drain out of his already pale face.
“But it’s not attacking,” he said, his voice trembling. “It’s just watching. So let’s just follow the plan.”
He took her hand again, and squeezed hard. They walked up the road, toward the cabin.
“It can’t be too close to the cabin. Otherwise you would have heard the sound of the engine every time he went somewhere.”
Mattie knew he was trying to sound calm and normal, to pretend that the shadow in the trees wasn’t following them with unnatural silence.
It’s watching and waiting. It’s trying to decide if we’re still a threat.
She heard the creature’s breath suddenly, heard the huff of its exhale.
It’s going to attack. It’s not going to wait any longer.
“There it is!” C.P. shouted.
The creature paused.
And there, parked in the middle of the road, was a huge black truck.