River Dweller

 After it bit me, I dropped the gun and started running. I hadn’t run but maybe 20 yards when I had to stop, bending over to welcome back the contents of my stomach.

There I was, all sweaty and huffing and trying to stop heaving. My hands shook, and I felt weak in the knees. I looked back. The house was farther then I thought. No sign of the dog or the thing that bit me… or my buddies. I thought maybe I could hear them calling for me, but my heart was pounding so loud that I couldn’t be sure. Then there was the wind and the darkness that obscured so much. I looked up as I panted, to see the moon coming out from behind the clouds. In the distance came a howling. 

Suddenly, to my surprise, I joined in. It was a shaky but throaty howl there in the sight of the full moon. I looked down at my paws and did a double take. My knees bent under my weight as I realized that what were once hands were that no longer. I hunched over on my forelegs and ran off into the forest, never looking back…

Jenn was poised on a branch in the middle of the creek like flow that the locals called a river, eying the water suspiciously. This river had been cleaned and restored, but Jenn remembered the history of it too well to trust the water. Legend had it that the river was once so polluted by chemicals that it had been known as the rainbow river. The only time it resembled an actual river by her standards is when the storm waters rose. The small ravine would fill with a torrent of water, as if the time of the Ark was upon us once again.

Above the whisper of the flowing water she could hear little. The forest was almost too quiet. There was an odd scent on the wind, however, that she almost didn’t know how to describe. It was an unpleasant odor, almost that of decay or refuse.

A bird call from the NW. Sarah was in position off the trail where it looped back around to return to the entrance. A shriek of girlish laughter from the other end near the lake was Jess’s response. Jenn was still reviewing her logic. If she was right, the stranger would attempt to evade detection. Otherwise Jess had now become the bait. She was hard to track, being invisible and quiet, except for one thing: Jess had a distinctive aroma… not quite sugar and spice, but like a spring breeze… all pollens, flowers, and earthy scents. Diamond was harder to track, slipping from one spot to the next so quietly that at times she was harder to find then an invisible girl. 

Jenn twitched nervously and sniffed the breeze again, reassured by Ashes’ smoky and crisp presence. For all of his bravado and aloofness, he had the qualities of a good noose: reliable, hardy, vigilant, and on a hair trigger. He rarely needed and almost never heeded instruction whereas Sarah had such strong instincts and awareness that she could perform almost any task with only a hint of direction.

Jenn liked to play her cards close. Her arrangement with Sarah had taken on a new quality when Jess found them. She remembered how it all began…

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