Defiant: Quantic Dreams Book 2 by Elizabeth McLaughlin (reading list txt) 📗

tasted good in the shelter was nothing compared to this. The river crabs weren’t big—maybe a couple of inches long—but I found enough meat in each one to satisfy my hunger. For a few minutes it was as if I was the king of the world. I cracked my quarry open like walnuts, sucking each and every morsel from their bodies. The hot food did more than satiate my growling stomach, it boosted my morale. So much so that I failed to notice the soft growling coming from my left.

Moving slowly, I placed the remainder of my meal on the ground and looked. Hidden in the grasses about a hundred yards from me was an enormous cat-like animal, its eyes fixed on me. It was like nothing I had ever seen in videos, resembling a mutated tiger more than anything else. It had dark fur, its coat reflecting rippling muscles in the morning sun. I could see massive front paws anchoring it in the dirt, one toe longer than the rest, each of them tipped in a long, sharp claw. The rear legs were coiled, muscles twitching with potential energy. There was no doubt it could reach me in a single leap. Its ears were pushed back on its head, lengthy tufts of hair slicked back to minimize its profile. A twitching tail belied its intentions. I caught a glimpse of its torso as it settled in for the jump-it was emaciated. There obviously wasn’t a lot of large game around here for it to hunt.

The spade was inches from my right hand. I had a choice. Food, or fighting. Or running, but I wouldn’t make it very far.

I creeped the fingers of my left towards the crab carcass resting in the embers of the fire. Knowing I would sustain more burns, I grimaced and tugged the crab towards me by a leg. When I had it in hand I wrapped my fingers around the thing and realized that I hadn’t thought this far ahead. If I threw my precious food would the monstrosity even chase it? Or would it perceive my pitching an object in its direction as an attack and carve me into pieces? The growling was becoming louder now as the cat-thing pressed its body closer to the ground. It didn’t matter that I had never seen this animal before. This was body language encoded into my very DNA from the ancestors. A predator about to pounce. Think fast, idiot.

Being careful not to lose eye contact I threw the crab as close to the cat-thing as I could. Its eyes followed the trajectory of the morsel and it chuffed as the carapace bounced off its huge head, rubbing one of its huge paws over its muzzle to clean itself. Okay, time for plan B. I grabbed the spade and swung it as hard as I could into the metal of the shelter’s outer door, producing a huge bang. The cat-thing hissed and backed up a couple of paces. I slammed the spade against the door again and again, adding a full throated bellow. The creature’s ears perked upwards and it turned tail and ran, throwing in a parting hiss for good measure. As soon as it was far enough away that I felt as though I wouldn’t be eaten I collapsed to the ground, heart pounding. My lungs screamed for air. I hadn’t realized that I had been holding my breath the whole time. To avoid hyperventilating I counted my breaths. In for four seconds, hold for four seconds, out for six seconds. My body rebelled against the restriction but I knew that letting things run wild was going to make it worse, not better.

“Get up,” I said to the air. “Get up Jacob.” My legs wouldn’t budge. “Get up or you’re going to die out here.” I took a deep breath and pushed myself off the ground.

“Good.” My inner voice had taken over executive functions. “Now walk to your camp and clean it up.” There really wasn’t that much to clean up, but my father’s insistence that everything should be kept as tidy as possible raised me with the same instinct. Instead of cleaning, I organized. Rearranging my meager fire pit, cleaning up the crab shells, and positioning my water catching tarp far away from the flames were the first tasks. By the time I had finished, the simple ritual of cleaning my space had considerably calmed me down.

The whole scene was surreal; the notion that there was an animal out here that could actually kill and eat me was a fantasy. Tales of monstrosities that only existed in my nightmares, and one had just practically walked up to sniff me. The urge to loose my bladder was stronger than it had been my first night outside but I managed to resist. The appearance of the cat-thing didn’t just mean that I wasn’t alone out here, it meant that my time to get the attention of someone inside the shelter was shorter than anticipated.

The addition of the crab meat to my digestive tract and the terror of nearly getting eaten had gotten things moving. Nature was calling and it was impossible to ignore the urge any longer. On my way to the latrine I felt something cool and squishy under my foot. I pulled my leg up to find that I had discovered a pat of dried animal dung. It had made its way into the cracks and crevices of the cloth still clinging to the soles of my feet. Seeing as I already stank I decided to leave it alone and continued my way to relieve myself. After a lifetime of using modern toilets I wasn’t exactly sure how to empty my bowels without making an utter mess of myself. I dropped my trousers and squatted over the hole, only to land in the dirt seconds later. It was comical. Facing certain death by giant cat, our hero find that he can’t even use the