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All is still.
Almost too still.
The normal sounds of birds and small animals moving around have ceased.
Gulping, I take a step back toward the path. “Weston, are you out here?”
No reply again.
I should get back to the house.
Maybe that’s where he was headed, and he can’t hear me.
At least, that’s what I try to convince myself happened as I start back on the path, the thick forest around me immediately engulfing me and swallowing any remaining tendrils of daylight.
It isn’t pitch-black the way it was the night I arrived, but it’s getting darker by the minute. I can barely see the path in front of me anymore, yet I move as quickly as I can, stumbling over a branch in a way that makes my foot ache again.
“Shit.”
I grab a tree trunk to keep from falling over as I make my way closer to the house.
It can’t be far now.
Only a few hundred yards.
A couple of football fields, at most.
Easy. Just keep walking.
Leaves rustle to my right, and I freeze.
Another flash of silver darts in my peripheral vision.
What the hell is going on?
“Weston?”
Bile climbs my throat as I await a response that I know won’t come. I swallow it back as I narrow my eyes on the spot where I saw movement.
Another set of eyes stares back.
And they sure as hell don’t belong to The Beast.
WESTON
I swipe the sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand and finish securing the woodshed for the night after loading in more pieces of the tree I felled the other day.
The sun finally dips behind the trees on the horizon, darkness quickly enveloping the clearing and further chilling the air that already holds hints of the coming fall.
A long, hot shower sounds incredible right now to soothe my aching muscles after days and days of breaking down the massive tree, but I know that isn’t where I will head first…
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Callista, worrying about her incessantly, every waking moment, and unable to sleep when I try. Even though it was my idea—my promise and rule—that she stay away from me, it’s proving harder to live with than I thought it would be.
Knowing it’s best for her and that I was the one who demanded it doesn’t ease the sense of loss I feel each day I don’t see her.
I start to make my way back to the house but only make it halfway across the open expanse toward the path when a preternatural stillness settles over the woods.
Birds stop chirping.
