Page 131 of Mazywood

No staff, stick, or stone near Tasha was thick enough to wield power or stab it in defense. Instead, she tugged on a natural shelf above her to stagger to her feet, making herself taller as she leaned on her right leg. She spread out her arms. The sleeves of Mazelle’s red robe fanned out, her own wings.

“Get away!”

Less than ten yards from her, Not A Bear raised itself as if it were mirroring her. Its long, snakelike torso transformed, arching. Its winglike flaps snapped open with a gust of warm, foul stink. The creature was seven feet tall and at least eight feet across with those flaps extended. It lowered its long snout, teeth glimmering from the corners of its mouth as its silvery eyes leveled with hers. Its tail lashed back and forth, sweeping aside debris. A sound like an oversized insect’s whine vibrated from its throat.

Tasha clutched her stomach—her baby boy—with both arms.

“What are you?” she screamed at it as if it could answer. “Stay away from me!”

Her voice was going hoarse. She would not be able to scream again. Her body trembled so much from combined terror and cold that she could barely stay on her feet, sagging back against the wall as she curled over to protect her midsection, hugging her baby with sobs of regret. (I’m sorry I was so afraid. I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to protect you. I’m sorry.)

Tasha couldn’t stand to watch Not A Bear’s advance, or to see those teeth again, so she lowered her flashlight beam to her feet, where she was standing on another crumpled newspaper article with Mazelle’s face grinning back at her as Lazy Mazy. If Tasha weren’t sobbing so hard, she might have been overcome with hysterical laughter.

And why not? It was like looking at herself. Her own face.

I look like Mazelle, she remembered. That fact mattered suddenly—a lot. Deeper comprehension teased Tasha, a mental key to unlocking the mysteries of this terrible day.

But her thoughts melted when the creature came face-to-face with her in one long, impossible swoop of its flaps. She didn’t have time to scream. Reflexively, she raised her flashlight beam, praying she could scare it away with light. But it wasn’t a bat, or a vampire.

Not A Bear had taken her during daylight. It hunted in the sun.

The light revealed so much that Tasha was transported by her curiosity even now, when her right leg was shaking so violently. Thin, pointed tips teeth-shaped to mangle, not merely to bite. When she smelled its rank breath, stinking of death, she forced herself to notice how the thick fur was almost spiky up close, not nearly as smooth as it looked from a distance. When the beast lowered its snout to bring its eyes even with hers, she forced herself to notice how they were silver at the rims the way she would have imagined a werewolf’s, but up close those irises were mostly a deep brown. The creature’s eyes were oddly discerning.

“Mom?” Imani’s voice wailed from the dark behind her, as small as a gnat.

The creature’s eyes darted toward the sound too.

“Don’t,” Tasha whispered. “Don’t hurt my children.”

She didn’t have any reason to believe Not A Bear could understand her, but begging was all she had left. The creature’s gaze returned to her when she spoke, away from Imani’s hiding place. “If you understand me…” Tasha said. “I love my babies. Please don’t hurt my babies.”

Those eyes! The way those eyes stared at her with such sober expressiveness, as if the creature truly did understand.

Too late, Tasha realized she had not advocated for her own life. Or her unborn’s.

As her knee buckled, her strength stolen by the shock of consorting with impossibility, a deafening whoosh clapped her ears. She didn’t feel herself drop her phone.

The creature’s flaps whipped around her, swallowing her in the dark.

“Yes, it’s risky…” Daddy’s voice, hushed. Strangled and so robotic. “If I have to, I’ll carry her. But we need to get moving. I promised her.”

Imani opened her eyes and saw Daddy and Sharise framed in the gap, both standing outside. They had taken a few steps away, maybe for privacy, but Imani heard them without trying to. Daddy had his rifle raised, and Sharise clutched her snowboard under her arm. Daddy was talking to Sharise, but his eyes were scanning around him for the Beast.

Sharise’s words sounded more like sobs. “Dad, look at her! You can’t carry her, and there’s no way she can come like this. She’s in shock. We’re all in shock!”

Gravel sank Daddy’s voice. “We need to move while it’s somewhere else.” While it’s with Mom, he meant. The gravel in his voice was from trying not to say the unthinkable out loud. The gravel rattled in Imani’s stomach and made her want to close her eyes again. But she didn’t.

“It’s too fast,” Sharise said, matching him truth for truth. “It’ll catch us.”

The snowfall had stopped. How much time had gone by since Mom’s terrible shrieking and begging? Imani’s face was a mask of cold tears. Somehow her skin felt hot. Her whole body felt hot, a sudden fever. She imagined steam rising from her cheeks.

“We don’t have time to argue,” Daddy said. “If we stay here, it’ll just wait us out. And you were right before: I can’t leave you here. We were guessing it was safe here. You heard her just like I did, Sharise—she made me promise to take you home. That was the last thing…”

He didn’t finish the terrible sentence, but he didn’t have to.

“But she wouldn’t want you dragging Imani out there to die either,” Sharise said.

Imani’s nose was clotted with snot from crying, so she huffed through her mouth as she sat up, orienting herself. Mom’s shrieks from the tunnel that scalded her insides had stopped, but the silence was the greater horror. The sudden silence had sent Imani into wild sobs while Sharise clamped her hand over her mouth to keep her from screaming their mother’s name. Once Imani had surrendered to her sobs, she had hyperventilated and couldn’t stop gasping for air until she was curled on the ground with her knees pulled to her chest.