Near the Bone by Christina Henry (ebook reader color screen txt) 📗

need to go,” C.P. said. He gently let Griffin off his shoulder, and the other man slumped in a sitting position on the ground. “Southeast. But unless you’ve got rappelling gear in your pocket, we’ve got to turn around and find another way down.”

“Maybe we can follow the cliff for a while?” Jen asked.

“The face of the cliff is running east-west,” he said. “So either we go directly east, which is really the way we need to go anyway but there’s a supposedly huge killer monster in that direction eating up the guy who tried to beat us with a shovel. Or we go the other way and end up on the top of the mountain where the monster lives, which also happens to not be in the direction of home and/or the police.”

“No need to be an ass,” Jen said. “I only asked a question.”

“A dumb question,” C.P. said.

“Fuck off,” she said, her face flushing. “What do you want to do, C.P.? We obviously can’t jump off the mountain and land at the bottom, so we’ve got to go in one direction or the other.”

“Why did I get picked to be the captain?” C.P. said, then pointed at Mattie. “Why doesn’t she tell us the best way to go? She’s the one who’s lived here forever.”

Mattie started. She’d felt herself shrinking backward, shrinking inwards while they argued. Shouting meant hitting. Hitting meant pain.

“Don’t try to drag her into your stupidity,” Jen said. “She already said that asshole never let her leave the cabin. She’s a kidnap victim. How’s she supposed to know the best way to go?”

C.P.’s face flushed the same angry red as Jen’s.

Warning. It’s a warning. Don’t argue with him. Don’t contradict. Don’t.

“Don’t,” she said to Jen, tugging at her sleeve, trying to pull her backward.

Mattie stumbled, her heels catching in a protruding root buried in the snow. She fell onto her bottom, and everything spun and ached but she kicked at the snow with her boots, trying to find purchase, trying to move away, away from the shouting and the noise and the place where she would be punished for not knowing where to go and what to do.

“Hey,” C.P. said, his face changing. “Hey, what’s the matter?”

“You were shouting, you idiot,” Jen said, but her own voice was much softer now, her tone gently chiding instead of angry. “And I was, too. I’m sorry. I’m sorry we scared you.”

Jen crouched down in the snow, her hand out, like she was trying to lure a small frightened animal to her palm. “It’s okay now. It’s okay.”

“Hit . . . you,” Mattie said, looking from Jen to C.P. and back again. “Punish.”

C.P. looked outraged. “I would never hit a girl! Or a woman, for that matter. What kind of man do you think I am?”

“I think,” Jen said, very softly, “it’s more the kind of man that he was.”

Mattie’s heart was still rabbiting away in her chest, but the sense of panic receded. She looked at Jen, and saw something that made Mattie turn her head away in shame.

Pity.

The other woman pitied her.

That pity made everything she’d endured somehow worse than before, made all the years of hurt and fear bloom afresh.

“Sorry,” Mattie said. “I . . . didn’t . . .”

“It’s okay,” Jen said again. “It’s okay.”

“We’ve gotta find somewhere to rest,” C.P. said. “We’re all half out of our minds. I can’t remember the last time I ate, and Samantha and Griffin are dead on their feet.”

“Not . . . cave,” Mattie said. She might not be certain how to get off the mountain, but she was absolutely certain that they should not go in the direction of the caves.

“I don’t really know that the wacko with the shovel is a better option,” C.P. said.

“We’ve got to go in one direction or another,” Jen said. “We might as well try to make some progress going down.”

They both glanced at Griffin, looking for his opinion, but his eyes were closed.

“Griffin?” Jen said, kneeling in front of him and tapping the side of his face. “Griffin, come on.”

Griffin’s eyes cracked open, but it was clearly a struggle. “Want to sleep.”

“You can’t sleep yet,” Jen said. “Come on, you have to wake up. It’s not safe here.”

It’s not safe anywhere, Mattie thought, but as she watched Jen and C.P. try to bully Griffin into waking and standing, she realized they had no choice but to find a place to stop and rest.

But not here. It’s too exposed here. We’re too close to William.

Of course, William might be dead already, killed by a creature that he’d angered with his trap. And even if he wasn’t dead then surely he was seriously injured. He wouldn’t be able to chase after them—at least not right away.

The back of Mattie’s neck itched. She was still sitting in the snow, and she pulled herself up, using a tree trunk as a prop. She clung to the tree, her eyes darting all around.

Something’s near.

Something’s watching.

The woods had gone silent, the way they always did when the creature was close.

Jen and C.P. were loudly cajoling Griffin to wake up, to stand up.

“Shhhhhh,” Mattie said.

She stared up into the heavy canopy of the pines and realized then what good cover it was for the creature—a permanent camouflage, never lost in the winter.

The other three didn’t seem to have heard her.

“Qu-quiet,” she said, much louder than she’d intended.

They stopped their fussing then, and Jen said, “What is it?”

“It’s . . . near,” Mattie whispered.

“The cryptid?” C.P. said.

Mattie put her finger to her lips, then signed that they should both help Griffin up. She didn’t know why she was bothering to be quiet—surely the creature could sniff them out—but her instinct, when faced with danger, was to make herself as small and unnoticeable as possible.

Jen moved toward Mattie, to help her, but Mattie shook her head. She still felt wobbly but she thought she could walk—or at least hurl herself from tree to tree as she’d done when William abandoned her in the woods. Griffin, on the other hand, seemed to be unconscious,