“Is this safe?” Sinclair wheezed, catching up with Ranger Tom.

Ranger Tom adjusted the tranquilizer rifle over his backpack and twitched his upper lip, mustache convulsing like a hairy caterpillar.  “You’re safe as you can be out here, long as I’m around.  Those tranqs’ll knock out a moose in 30 seconds, and if we’re in a pinch?” he patted the high-caliber handgun holstered at his hip, “I got ol’ reliable to back us up.  Ain’t been a beast to best me in 40 years.”

Sinclair puffed and fell back to the end of the line again.  He shifted the straps of the loaded canvas bag on his back and pushed through the ache in his lungs as the hill creeped upward.  Sweat clung to his skin beneath his henley and he resisted the urge to roll the sleeves up.  His head swam in the heat of the early evening.  At the top of the hill, Jericho stopped.  The shadows of the trees stretched long.  Jericho set his bag down next to a boulder overlooking a meadow below.

Sinclair dropped his pack and slouched onto the boulder.  “Are we stopping here?”

“Well,” Jericho said, “it’s getting dark now, and you don’t look like you’ve got much left in you,” he pointed to a spot in the meadow below, “I first saw the thing there.  I thought you might want to check it out.  Besides, I know a good place to pitch camp.  It’s not far, and all downhill.”

Sinclair followed his pointing to a brownish-red spot in the meadow.  He could barely make it out.  “Yeah,” he huffed, then turned to Ranger Tom, “youse guys get a lot of shit like this?”

“Bears, dogs, deranged coyote, yup.” Ranger Tom spat in the dirt.

Jericho rolled his eyes.

“It’s one of those, son.” Ranger Tom set down his tranq gun with the certainty of a man who believed himself the apex predator in those woods, glaring at Jericho.

“I know what I saw,” Jericho insisted, “and it’s nothing I’ve seen before.”

“You ain’t seen a bear with a chip on his shoulder,” Ranger Tom argued, “he may as well be the wrath of god.”

“I’ve been treed by my fair share of mama bears,” Jericho bickered back.

Sinclair held up a hand to the both of them.  “Let’s make camp first.  The carcass is still gonna be there tomorrow, if there’s anything left of it at all.  It’s already been out there a week.”  He realized that a small portion of his tattoos peeked out from beneath his sleeve and tugged it down, crossing his arms.

“This way,” Jericho made for the verge.

Sinclair heaved his backpack over his shoulders and followed him.  Each step in the gravel slipped beneath his feet, his spine threatening to crack as he half-slid down the hill and into the clearing after Jericho.  Ranger Tom followed, light on his feet.  Jericho stood at the center of the clearing, a circle of stones marking the fire pit.

Sinclair looked around.  “We gonna have enough space for three tents?”

Jericho shrugged.  “I can always squeeze in with you, if you’re worried.”

Sinclair cleared his throat, his face flushing red.  “Nah, we’ll be fine.”  He fumbled with his lighter as he lit a cigarette.

“You’d better pack those butts out, son,” Ranger Tom warned.

Sinclair waved a ziploc bag full of cigarette butts at him.

Ranger Tom glared at Sinclair over his mustache. “You know how to put up a tent, son?”

Sinclair unclipped the lightweight backpacking tent from the bottom of the canvas bag and yanked it free.  “Of course I know how to set up a tent, I was a fuckin’ eagle scout.”

Jericho held the tent steady while Sinclair secured the last pole to the ground.  He shoved his hair out of his face and looked over his handiwork and the triangle of tents around a small campfire stoked by Ranger Tom, who was already halfway done with his dinner.  Sinclair shimmied into the tent and unlaced his shoes.

“Aren’t you going to eat something?” Jericho asked, standing over the tent, “we’re going to have to haul all our food into a tree, so you won’t be able to get anything until morning.”

“I’m not hungry,” Sinclair lied.

Jericho sighed.  “You walked for hours today.  You’re going to make yourself sick if you don’t eat something.”

“I can take care of myself.” Sinclair set his shoes to the side and secured the fly on the tent closed.

Jericho pinched the bridge of his nose.  He tapped on the tent.  “Hey, I’m not going to tell anyone you have tattoos if you decide not to wear the long sleeve tomorrow.”

Sinclair turned over.  “It’s not a secret.”

Jericho picked up Sinclair’s pack and brought it over to the fire.  “Could have fooled me,” he muttered.  He tossed the bag against the other two and sat down in the dirt across from Ranger Tom.

“No sheriff?” Ranger Tom asked, poking the fire and sending sparks into the air.

Jericho shook his head.

“So, what exactly did you see, kid?  You been cagey about it.  Makes me think you saw something bad.” He leaned forward on his fire stick, light glinting in his eyes in anticipation of a tall tale, “if it’s got the madman spooked, I wanna know.”

Jericho stared up at the sky, lighting up in shades of yellow and orange.  “A mangy bear or something, I don’t know.”

Ranger Tom grinned, teeth white beneath his mustache.  “No aliens?”

“It’s probably a rabid animal,” Jericho set his jaw, “I don’t know.  I was far away the first time, and the second time it was dark.”

“Get bear spray in your eyes or something?  I don’t know why you kids even bother carrying that stuff.  Won’t do shit against anything with half an idea to kill you,” Ranger Tom jabbed the fire again in disappointment and sat back.

“Worked fine when I tried it.” Jericho took a big bite out of a protein bar.

“You’re smart, kid, you’re packing.  Not high enough caliber for these here woods, but at least you got some sense,” Ranger Tom spat in the dirt, “lotta hikers go missing ‘cause they don’t got the good sense to pack firepower and know how to use it.  Best defense you got against anything here, other hikers ‘specially, given your condition.”

Jericho scarfed down the rest of the protein bar and got up to haul his bag and Sinclair’s into the tree.  He felt the weight of the gun strapped to his leg and wished for his bear spray back.  

Ranger Tom tracked him past the fire to his tent.  “What, no smores?” He laughed at his own joke and poked at the fire again.

A need throbbed at the base of Sinclair’s being as he crouched in the void.  He flexed his hands, claws piercing the yielding dark.  When he lifted his face to taste the air a scent washed over him and set his blood coursing through his veins.  He salivated, maw dripping.  Each drop echoed hollow around him.  When he could stand the smell no more, he ran.  His feet hit the ground with heavy thudding steps.  The world became a swirling mosaic of smells and sounds.  Some he knew, and some he didn’t understand.  

The hallway turned sharply and the scent beckoned him onward.  The sweetness of blood and sex called for him.  His claws clicked against the linoleum of the police station floor, then gave way to the crackle of dirt and gravel.  Dust clung to him, his chase a hot dry haze.  

The thrill made him twitch, overeager.  His body strained in pursuit and he ricocheted off the old trees in the woods.  The forest stank of dirt, vanilla, and pine.  The smell of his quarry wafted towards him, dark musk and sweat.  Familiar -- a smell like home -- just past the threshold and marinated in adrenaline.

His eyes flashed when he finally found his prey.  Jericho ran.  His steps unsteady with panic.  The memory of prey sung in his muscles, a wire taut and aching.  Like every wild hunt down the Chicago streets, Sinclair honed in on the stench of gasoline and the sound of his own feet on the pavement as he leapt the potholes and curbs of his cityside hunting ground.  His prey stood no chance of escape, Jericho stood no chance of escape.

Sinclair turned his name over in his mind again and again.  Jericho.

Sinclair growled his name as he collided with his prey at the end of a dingy alleyway.  “Jericho…”

Jericho screamed in surprise as Sinclair pinned to the ground.  His voice broke.  Sinclair saw him in the incandescent light of the naked bulb swinging above their heads.  His claws pressed down on Jericho’s sides, his flesh yielding and soft as his clothes ripped away.  Sinclair’s breath steamed.  He pressed his nose to Jericho’s hair and inhaled, head swimming in his scent.

Sinclair’s body seethed.  He thrust into his prey, savoring the break in Jericho’s voice.  Jericho’s warmth engulfed him.  Sinclair shuddered with base hunger as he began moving.  His claws scratched down Jericho’s sides and punctured his skin where they settled, forcing him to arch his back as Sinclair rutted into him.  Sinclair ran his tongue up the back of Jericho’s neck and bit down.  Jericho cried out, matching the growl roiling from deep within Sinclair’s chest, rolling thunder-like around the alley walls.  Sinclair encouraged Jericho to sink deeper, accept his fate as he bit down harder.  Blood welled up against his fangs. 

Jericho’s voice rose in a cry like Sinclair’s name and he pressed back.  Blood welled up beneath Sinclair’s claws and dripped to the concrete below, staining it cherry red and sweet.  With sanguine taste on his lips, Sinclair gave into the ravening hunger gnawing at his hollow body and sank his teeth in deep.  Jericho’s shoulder yielded, meat swallowed down easy.  Sinclair’s teeth met the hard surface of Jericho’s scapula as his thrusts lost rhythm, coming quick and desperate in a bid for release.  Jericho’s bones gave way with a crunch.

Sinclair awoke with a start, groaning as the last wave of his orgasm flooded through his waking mind.  He sat up in his sleeping bag and shimmied uncomfortably out of it, trying to avoid smearing the wet spot in his boxers on the inside lining.  He unbuttoned the tent fly and peeked out.  A mist settled into the meadow below, cloaking the early morning.  Ranger Tom’s snores harmonized with the early singing of the birds.  He spotted his pack hanging up in a tree beside the others, undisturbed.  Sinclair pulled on his unlaced shoes and tiptoed through the camp to haul them down and find the toilet paper stashed in his pack before slipping off into the woods.

Sinclair buried the toilet paper in the woods and shuffled back to his tent to put his pants on.  He tried to shake the dream from his head.  The peace of the morning soothed him.  He glanced down towards the meadow.  It couldn’t hurt to take a look before the other two woke up, save some daylight.

He donned his henley and rolled it up over his forearms as he picked his way down the slope and into the meadow.  He lost the carcass in the long grass at the bottom of the hill.  Sinclair zig-zagged through the meadow until he caught the stench of carrion and turned towards it, coming upon the trampled patch of grass and the carcass.

Dried fur and skin clung to the ribcage, long since cleaned out by scavengers. The same scavengers that left limbs and vertebrae strewn across the clearing.  Sinclair nudged the ribcage, casting the deep gashes and greenstick breaks on the bones in relief as the angle of the light changed.  He took a knee next to the bones and compared the claw marks to the size of his own hands.  Carrion beetles scattered as he flipped the carcass over.  Fewer injuries on the hidden side, just a broken rib or two where the predator slammed it into the dirt.  

He flipped it back and ran a finger over the gashes on the inside of the ribs.  Whatever killed it ripped into the belly, dug from one side to the other.  Sinclair winced, imagining the brutality of the attack.

“Isn’t nature beautiful,” he muttered to himself as he stood up and wiped his hands on his pants.

Sinclair circled the carcass slowly, widening his search as he went.  He tracked the scattered the remains until he found the skull lying crushed in the grass.  He bent down to pick it up when an unearthly howl flowed down into the meadow from the ridge above.  Sinclair’s heart stuttered in his chest.  The ridge betrayed nothing, still in the fearful weight of the silence that followed the sound.