“We’ll walk through the field, close to the edge of tree line over there,” I said, nodding to my right.
“That way, if we have a problem with something out in the open or attacking us from the air, we can take refuge in the forest. And if there’s anything hiding in the trees, we force it to come out in the open, where we can see it and deal with it in plain sight. Anybody got a problem with that?”
Bear scowled. He wanted to be the leader, I could tell, so he made the plan look like it was his decision.
“OK,” he said. “We’re heading north. Move.”
–––––
I estimated that we’d get to the castle on foot in about four hours. That was assuming we wouldn’t get distracted by going after locations on the map marked with treasure chests. They offered food and other supplies, but I hoped we’d stay on course.
The sun was up now. It had to be, even though we couldn’t see it. It was impossible to tell where it was in the sky. Dark clouds stirred as the sky brewed rain.
I felt a little better, now that we had a game plan. I’d feel better once we got to the castle. Right now, we all had the same goal and we were moving towards it. We had a temporary truce and we were working together. I had somehow become the leader. I liked that we were following my plan, but I knew I’d get the blame if things got bad, and one thing was certain. Things were going to get bad. I was worried about the monsters, but I was also worried about these armed thugs around me. I wondered how long this peace would last. A voice in my head I didn’t want to hear said, “Probably not long.”
“We should have stayed in the middle,” Trish said as we walked near the edge of the forest. She looked at me as she spoke. Nobody said anything. She tried again, more forceful this time.
“We should stay away from the trees. We need to go over there.”
“Then go,” I said. “We’re walking this way.”
Trish tried a new tactic.
“What do you think, Bear?”
Bear continued to scan the scenery like a small animal watching out for larger ones. Without losing a step of his pace, he said, “You want to know what I think? I think you should all shut the hell up! Shut up and keep moving!”
I glanced into the woods on my right. The sunless sky was lighter now, but just a few meters past the tree line, the darkness was deep and foreboding. It was as if the dark of night had refused to leave and had just retreated into the forest. I understood why it unnerved Trish.
That darkness was unsettling. I saw (or thought I saw) shapes, darker than the surrounding shadows, darting from tree to tree, crouching and hiding behind the trunks. I couldn’t tell if there were many things or just one. Whatever it was, the shadow thing was quiet and somehow kept pace with our group. Then again, it could have been nothing.
Stay cool, I told myself. I’m seeing things ... I think.
I was scared but not too badly, not yet. The day had just started. My group was fresh and ready and all together – at the moment. As the day and the night went on, I knew that would change. Even if we were just hiking all day, we would be tired, hungry, and stressed. But this wasn’t a casual hike. This was Monster Gauntlet, and the monsters were coming.
A twig snapped. Everyone flinched.
“Did you hear that?” said Bear.
“No,” Mason said. “Let’s keep moving.”
Bear looked over his shoulder and glared at Mason. The big man clearly didn’t like anyone else giving orders.
Another twig snapped. It sounded closer this time. Mason wanted to pick up the pace. Nobody argued with him.
I forced myself to look away from the woods and keep my focus forward on the open space head. Mountains rose sharply on either side of us. Until this moment, the highlands had always represented freedom in my mind. The openness and vastness had an eerie beauty. Now, the mountains, with their tops disappearing into the clouds, seemed like passable giants meant to wall us in.
I found myself dreaming about the luxuries of home: a hot shower, a warm bed, food, a sense of security – things I had none of here.
I glanced into the woods again. I couldn’t help it. I didn’t see anything. I wasn’t sure if “the thing” was still there, assuming it had ever been there. I shuddered. I was stressed out, sure, but it was way too early to be losing my mind.
I ran my hand over the smooth metal canister and plastic pistol grip of the weapon at my hip. The cold solidity of it felt reassuring, but at the same time it seemed woefully inadequate. At the time the “gas gun” seemed like a good idea. Now I wanted a real one.
Maybe Bear was right. We need firepower. The thought haunted me like a restless spirit: I should have picked the machine gun.
We walked in silence. Eventually, the open plain seemed to narrow and the forest started closing in on either side. It was right about the time when this started bothering me that Mason shouted, “Monster!”
We all swung around. About 200 meters away, behind us, a large black shape slinked across the ground we had passed over minutes before. It was some type of animal. Its movements were fluid and silent.
Like a ninja, I thought.
But unlike a ninja, the beast made no effort to hide or be stealthy as it approached. It walked fearlessly out in the open. We could soon see what it was.
“It’s a cat,” I said. “A big cat.”
“What the fuck?” said Bear. “What the hell does a jungle cat have to do with Scotland?”
Marine said, “Does it matter?”
“Actually,” I said, “There are rumors of big cats roaming Britain. This fits.”
Trish shouldered her crossbow and said, “Who gives a fuck? What do we do?”
Bear stood with his legs apart and held his pistol in two hands, like a shooter at a target range. His posture suggested he had experience with shooting. That gave me a small measure of reassurance. Very small.
Mason, machete in hand, said, “Are you crazy? We should run.”
Marine said, “We need some cover.”
“Fuck you!” said Bear. “You wouldn’t need to run if you assholes had brought guns. The closer it comes, the easier it is to hit.”
The cat loomed closer. I could see the yellow of its piercing, unblinking eyes. The beast stared at us like a high-tech death device locking onto a target. Bear shifted his weight from foot to foot, suddenly uncomfortable.
“That’s a big cat,” Marine breathed.
He was right. In the distance, it looked like a jaguar, which was intimidating enough, but as it came closer, it looked huge, like a mountain lion.
“I’m outta here,” Mason said, and bolted for the woods.
Idiot, I thought. Remarkably, the running didn’t trigger the animal’s instinct to chase and attack. Apparently, Mason was going to get lucky. I wanted to run, but not into the woods. But there was nowhere else to go.
I remembered some nature show where they showed lions stalking their prey. One strategy was to work in pairs. One lion would walk openly, presenting itself to the gazelles or zebras or whatever. It would drive them towards an area where another lion was hiding, waiting to attack.
That old TV show flashed through my mind in a second. So did a vision of a zebra getting torn to pieces.
Marine said, “We need cover. I’m heading for the trees.”
He looked over at me as if inviting or even imploring me to join him. Then he turned and moved towards the forest.
I looked at Bear and Trish standing there with their long-range weapons. Then I turned and watched Marine disappear into the darkness between the trees. I followed him.
I slowly moved away, never turning my back on the beast until I crossed the tree line. Only a few meters into the forest, I felt the temperature drop. I almost felt like I had entered some type of dark, immense, cavernous room with holes in the roof.
I turned and hid behind a large tree trunk. I looked around. I couldn’t see Marine or Mason. I wasn’t too far into the woods. I could still partially see the open space through the filter of dark trees.
I heard Bear and Trish yelling. I caught a glimpse of someone running from the field. It was Trish. Apparently, those two had decided against standing their ground.
There was more yelling and a loud, blood-curling roar that could only have come from the large, inhuman throat of an animal.
A gunshot made my whole body flinch. Two more shattered the stillness of the air. They seemed unnaturally loud and I was actually shaking. They were never that loud in movies. Even at the gun range at MG training, I had earplugs in, or other protection. Real gunshots, especially this close, were terrifying.
I was shaking.
It’s freezing in here, I thought, trying to convince myself that my body’s reaction was due to the cold and not fear.
There was another gunshot. A twig snapped behind me. I spun around and raised my weapon. I saw nothing.
“Marine?” I said. “Mason?”
A large figure emerged from the darkness between trees. Bear?
He was still in the field, wasn’t he?
The large figure might have been Bear. He was about the right size, and his head looked hairless. He moved towards me. For a moment, I had a flicker of hope.
The figure came closer, and my hope was snuffed out as if someone had stomped on it. I felt terror pouring like ice water down the back of my shirt.
The thing wasn’t Bear.
The thing in front of me looked like a man, but it had no face. The “face” looked like a blurred photo, with dark smears where the features should have been.
I shouted and my hands instinctively flew up to protect my face. I pointed my mace at the thing’s head where a face should have been. I hadn’t even leveled my arm before the monster closed the distance with startling speed and knocked the weapon from hand. I slapped around my belt for my knife. I found the handle. The thing tackled me like a rugby player.
The ground, forest, and sky suddenly skewed. Some instinctive squirming or some stroke of luck saved me from landing with the monster on top of me. I avoided taking the full force of its weight. Instead, we both hit the ground equally hard. Not that it mattered much. The attacker recovered quickly and was on me.
I was flat on my back with the monster mounted on top of me. I’ve seen enough MMA fights to know I was screwed. I expected a knife or something to appear in the thing’s hand. He would raise it over his head, pause for dramatic effect, and then drive it down into my heart. The fist did rise, but I didn’t see a weapon. It suddenly zoomed down and filled my frame of vision.
My face exploded in pain. Blooms of light burst into view. They didn’t disappear when I closed my eyes. The thing punched me in the face, again and again. Everything went blurry and faded to black like a movie when it’s over.
I woke up with pressure on my stomach and the weird sensation of being off my feet. I remember looking down at the forest floor passing by. I was being carried over the intruder’s shoulder. I started struggling and yelling. The view of the ground became scrambled with trees and sky. Then I felt a massive jolt of pain and saw more lights. I was no longer looking at the ground but at the sky with a ring of trees poking into it.
The thing jumped on me. His weight alone was a weapon, making it hard for me to breathe. I squirmed, attempting to make space to escape. That was one of the only things I remembered my brothers telling me when they thought they were Brazilian jiu-jitsu experts and tried to give me advice on wrestling. I wasn’t interested in any of that, but now I wish I had been. Not that it would have mattered.
The thing spoke. “Stay down or I knock you out!”
The attacker drew its face closer to mine. Up close, I could make out dark hollows of eyes and a protruding nose. This wasn’t a faceless monster but a mugger in a mask – a flesh-colored stocking mask.
“You’re ... you’re a man,” I said, genuinely surprised.
“That’s right, bitch,” the thug said, his voice suddenly hushed and raspy, like the hiss of a snake. My skin felt like a living entity, retreating as far back as it could from this brute.
Maybe if I keep him talking ... I thought.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Punishment,” the man said, “I’m ...”
The man yelled as I dug my knife into his leg.
I pulled the knife out. He screamed. I was ready for another blow. He grabbed my wrist with both hands, remarkably avoiding the blade. I felt the bones in my forearm decompressing. The knife fell from my fingers.
I screamed and instinctively bucked my hips and pulled his arm. The man was committing his weight to one side, and I helped him over. Bridge and roll. A jiu-jitsu move. I’d learned something from my brothers after all. Now I was on top and he was on his back.
“BITCH!” the man yelled. There was a scramble. He knocked the knife somewhere out of reach. I ended up on bottom again. The man started punching my face again. A salty warm wetness filled my mouth. Flashes of light were going off in the forest. They appeared and disappeared in colorful bursts. There seemed to be other tiny lights zipping around in the background.
My eyes and probably my brain were taking damage.
I can’t take another blow to the head.
Then the beating suddenly stopped. Still in mount, the man sat up. A cold piece of metal dug into the center of my forehead like a burrowing animal. A weird, tingling sensation radiated from the point, like tendrils of terror spreading throughout my body. Then the man pulled his hand back far enough so I could see the gun.
“Good job, little girl,” the man said. “Nice resistance. We expected nothing less from the Hero of Mall. But now you have a choice.”
He moved the gun and leaned forward, bringing his blurry face inches away from mine. He pushed the gunpoint into the soft flesh under my chin.”
“Do you want to live?” he hissed.
I froze.
“SAY IT!”
I flinched and nodded.
“Good,” he said. “Then do what I want.”
The gun in his right hand disappeared somewhere behind his back, while at the same time, a switchblade seemed to magically appear in his left. The blade flicked open.
With the blade open in one hand, the man held me down while his other large, strong hand pulled my jacket open. With my T-shirt exposed, the man dragged the flat of the blade down the side of my neck like a caressing finger. The cord of the necklace was exposed, and he pulled up the amulet from the beneath the shirt as if he had hooked a fish.