Jericho lay on his side.  Silence shuddered through the forest in the howl’s wake.  The memory of it lingered in the quiet rustling of squirrels and birds slipping away into their hollows.  No warning calls.  Jericho grabbed his gun, laced up his boots, and sat still inside the tent. He held his breath as he unzipped the tent fly and slipped onto the quiet campsite.

Tom tread carefully over the gravel.  He muffled each crunching step with a hunter’s practice, tranquilizer rifle held at the ready as he joined Jericho by his tent.

“No wolves in these woods for years…” he whispered, barely audible, as Jericho turned to watch his back.

“We need cover,” Jericho hissed back.

“Where’s the sheriff?” Tom asked, inching towards the boulder at the center of the clearing, “he ain’t in the tent.”

Jericho glanced at Sinclair’s tent, relieved to see it in one piece.  “No damage inside?”

“No, just up ‘n left.  Zipped his sleeping bag up.” Tom turned towards a crack in the woods, lowering the rifle when he saw nothing.  He shoved a set of keys at Jericho, “grabbed his car keys, in case.”

Jericho tucked the keys into his pocket.  They scanned the trees, searching for things in the shifting shadows.  A branch snapped behind them and both whirled to face it.  Ranger Tom aimed the rifle in the direction of the sound, but whatever made the noise slipped from his sight.

Leaves rustled.  Jericho turned in time to see the branches of a pine tree seven feet off the ground swaying.  He hunkered down, his muscles tensed to run at the first sign of teeth.  

“Bastard’s circling us,” Ranger Tom grimaced, following the rustle of leaves with the rifle.  He grunted and thrust the tranquilizer rifle at Jericho, drawing the high caliber pistol from his hip, and aimed it into the woods, “take the tranq.”

Jericho pointed the barrel at the ground.

“Up, boy.  Up and ready to fire,” Tom corrected him, eyes trained into the surrounding forest.

Jericho followed Tom’s aim.

“Hope the sheriff can find my ex wife if we don’t get out of this,” Tom joked before firing into the woods.  The bang broke the silence and sent frightened birds fleeing from the branches of trees surrounding the clearing, “she’d get a kick out of it.”

Jericho whipped around with the tranquilizer rifle looking for the beast and caught the flash of eyes between the trees.  Ranger Tom aimed his gun at the creature and fired, but it ducked the shot.  The beast’s maw parted in a toothy grin and it closed the distance between them in two massive bounds.  Jericho leapt back from the heavy impact of the beast’s paws as it bowled Tom over.  Tom’s voice cracked as he screamed and fell to the ground.  Short, brown hair bristled on its body as it hulked over Tom.  It pinned him to the ground with one hand, claws buried in his chest, the other wrapped around his upper arm and yanked.

Tom’s skin ripped like cotton.  His bones cracked as they gave way, arm separating from his shoulder in a spray of arterial blood.  Tom wailed.  The beast threw his arm over the side of the hill, the gun still locked in the death grip of Tom’s hand.  The beast bore down on him, placing all his weight on Tom’s chest.  Its emaciated body heaved and Tom’s chest caved in with a crunch.

Jericho fired the tranquilizer rifle.  It connected with the beast’s shoulder, its neon feathered tail hanging in the beast’s hair like the remains of a child’s feather boa.  The thing didn’t notice, its muzzle buried in Tom’s ruined chest cavity.  It grunted with pleasure.  Jericho fired again and the dart buried itself in the beast’s neck.  It’s eyes flicked up, meeting Jericho’s, and raised its head.  Tom’s body rose with it, his mouth gaping as he rose by the string of his trachea.  Bile rose in Jericho’s throat at the sight of Tom’s lungs clenched between the beast’s teeth.

He took a step back, rifle aimed at the beast’s head.  Its eyes focused on him, maw dripping with blood.  Jericho fired another dart into its eye.  It yowled in pain, reeling backwards and pawing at its face.  Tom fell to the dirt with a wet splat.  As it twisted, a gunshot rang out in the clearing.  The beast fell onto its side with the force of the blast as a bullet ripped into its shoulder.

It staggered back to its feet, favoring its injured shoulder, and growled at Sinclair where he stood at the crest of the hill.  Sinclair fired again, but missed his shot as the beast lunged for him.  He scrambled to avoid the beast.  Its movements lost coordination.  It slipped and tumbled over the crest of the hill.  A sapling snapped as the beast rolled over it, ringing through the clearing.  

Jericho grabbed Sinclair’s arm and pulled him back into the ring of tents.  They both ran down the trail.  Jericho’s steady stride carried him over the rough terrain, but he slowed down when he realized Sinclair had fallen behind.  Jericho led them down the side of a hill and towards the creek below, only stopping to wait for Sinclair when he stood in the water.  His heart raced with the exertion and he bent over and vomited into the creek.

Sinclair stood on the bank and looked at Jericho.

Jericho panted for a moment, doubled over and ankle-deep in the water.  He stood up again, took a few steps upstream, and splashed his face to cool down before addressing Sinclair.  “If we walk downstream it should lose our scent.  This is how I escaped before.”

Sinclair grimaced, but stepped into the water.  It saturated his socks and squelched in his running shoes, soaking the hem of his pants.  “Are you okay?”

Jericho shrugged, leading Sinclair through the shallow water.

“Jericho, how are you so calm?” Sinclair asked, “did you expect this?”

“Uh, no,” Jericho chuckled nervously, “I just don’t get scared.”

“What do you mean you ‘don’t get scared’?” Sinclair tripped over a rock.  

Jericho caught his arm and steadied him, eyes drifting over the curling tail of a Japanese dragon emblazoned on Sinclair’s forearm.  It vanished beneath the sleeve of his shirt.

Sinclair cleared his throat.  “Mr. Khalid.”

Jericho let go of Sinclair’s arm.  “Sorry.  There’s a brain thing, something wrong with a piece of it that controls the fight or flight response,” he laughed quietly, “sorry, I can’t remember the details.  I’m a little muddled.”

Sinclair made a noise of consideration as he sloshed through the water.  “Have we gone far enough?”

“Yeah, yeah, I think so.  We shouldn’t take the path, though.  It might be faster going, but we should stick to the creek for a while.” Jericho stepped up onto a clear section of bank and took a few steps up the side of the hill where the underbrush was trampled into a narrow deer path..

Sinclair squinted through the trees to the fragments of dirt path cresting over the side of the hill before climbing after Jericho.  Dirt and pine needles stuck to his wet shoes and pants, feet sliding inside of the shoes uncomfortably.  

“You don’t think it’s down yet?” Sinclair said, incredulous.

“I mean,” Jericho scratched the back of his head, “better safe than sorry?”

Sinclair followed Jericho in silence for a while as they picked through the underbrush.  They pushed through a grove of aspen trees, then crossed the stream again as the slope became too steep to walk on.

“So, how’d you find out you can’t get scared?” Sinclair asked.

Jericho shrugged.  “My parents knew before I could talk.  I didn’t startle, I’d walk towards barking dogs, didn’t cry at loud noises.  They got me a CT scan after I jumped a fence and got bit by our neighbor’s rottweiler trying to pet it.  I was their little case study, I bet you could find a paper or two they wrote on my condition.” He chuckled.

“Did it hurt you?” Sinclair asked.

“The dog?  Well, yeah, tore my hand up pretty good,” Jericho flashed the faded scars on his right hand and forearm, “he wasn’t a bad dog, though, just tied up and scared.  He laid down with me once I started crying.  I remember begging my parents not to make our neighbor put him down.  The medical stuff was a lot worse than the dog, if I’m being honest.  Everyone kept telling me I was being ‘so brave’, it got annoying.”

“So you’d prefer the dog?” Sinclair said with a slight smile.

“Oh, any day.  You like dogs?” Jericho asked.

Sinclair shrugged.  “I guess, I never had one as a kid.  I liked my friends’ dogs.”

“No room in the big city?”

“Well, we lived in the suburbs.  Nice neighborhood, big yard, but my mom didn’t want dog fur on her furniture so no dogs.  No cats, either.  For a while, my sister Ophelia talked my mom into hermit crabs, but they didn’t live long.  After that, she and Cat would sneak in animals and take care of them until mom found them.  At one point, Ophie actually caught a rat and had it living in her closet for a month.  Hard one to explain, I thought mom would throw her out on the street right there.”  Sinclair climbed over a rock after Jericho as the creek descended into a shallow valley and started to meander.

Jericho laughed.  “A city rat?”

“Smuggled it in her parka on the rail, yep.  I’d give her whatever I didn’t eat at dinner to feed it,” Sinclair admitted.

“Oh, so you were an accomplice!” Jericho grinned at him, “I knew you had some mischief in you.”

“Well, it was cute,” Sinclair reasoned.  A blush pricked at his ears.

“A city rat your sister picked up off the street was cute, alright,” Jericho teased.  

They walked together quietly for a while, cutting across the valley to join up with the trail for the last leg of the journey back to the car.  Sinclair kept a close eye on the forest surrounding them.  Every shift of the wind in the grass made him jump and reach for Tom’s gun tucked into the waistband of his pants.  His heart shuddered every so often, but each step became easier as they approached the end of the trail.

“I’m glad you saw it,” Jericho said quietly, breaking the peace, “I’m glad it wasn’t just me.”

Sinclair remembered Ranger Tom’s severed arm, prying the gun from his clenched fingers.  The warmth drained from his face despite the high sun.  He would have to make calls, contact the family, arrange for a team to retrieve the body.  What would he write in the report?  The beast wasn’t a wolf, it wasn’t a bear.  Should he lie?  Would he be fired as a nut, fall into the same trap as Jericho and gain a reputation?  Had he seen Tom’s body?  He couldn’t remember it if he did, only the blood on the claws and maw of the beast when it spun to face him, only the ripped tendons and shattered bones of Tom’s arm.

“Sinclair?” Jericho’s voice cut through Sinclair’s line of thought.

“Sorry,” Sinclair said quickly, “distracted.”

Cicadas created a curtain of noise in the grass and insects scattered as they walked the path to where the police cruiser sat parked along the same forest service road they had driven down to get there just a day previously.  The pit in Sinclair’s stomach deepend.  He patted his pockets, feeling his notepad and wallet but no keys.  His heart dropped.

Jericho sped up as the police cruiser came into view.  He dug into his pocket for the keys and unlocked the car, opening the driver’s side door for Sinclair and tossing him the keys.  Sinclair fumbled and dropped them in the dirt.  He stooped to pick them up, finally noticing the blood staining his shirt.  He cringed at the mess.

At least the car started.  As they came back in range of dispatch along the old road, Eden’s voice chirped over the radio, mid-conversation with Tanner.

“Got that 488 taken care of, over,” Tanner’s voice said.

“Roger pressing charges this time?” Eden asked, her voice faintly amused.

Static buzzed as Tanner logged back in.  “No, all clear.  Bringing them in until their parents pick them up.”

“10-4, see you soon.” Eden signed off.

The lines went quiet until Sinclair pulled into the station.  He paused to listen, letting the car idle in the parking lot across from Jericho’s van.

“805 at 247 Pinyon.  Tanner, you available?” Eden’s announced.

“Negative, busy with an incident report.  You got Erin at the station?” He responded.

Sinclair picked up the radio.  “I just pulled into the parking lot.  Give me a few minutes to send Mr. Kahlid on his way and I’ll take the call.”

“You’re back early, sheriff,” Eden commented, surprise tinging her voice.

“I’ll fill you in when I get inside,” Sinclair said, cutting off the car engine and exiting the vehicle.  

Jericho followed him.  “You don’t think it’s that thing, do you?”

Sinclair grimaced.  “I don’t know, but I don’t like the coincidence,” he slammed the car door, “indulge a crazy theory for me?”

“That may as well be my job,” Jericho said.

“I think that thing and Brian Decker are connected,” Sinclair said, “I don’t know how, but it didn’t show up until after he ran into the woods.  An animal disturbance near his old house doesn’t sit right with me.  Maybe it ate him, but if it was in the area before it might go looking for shelter there.  We got it good.”

“Do you want me to come with you?” Jericho asked.

“No,” Sinclair said a little too sharply, “I don’t want any more civilians in the crossfire.  Go home and sleep, I’ll fill Erin in and we go properly armed.  You pumped that thing full of enough tranq to kill an elephant, if it’s still standing it’s not standing straight.”

“You sure?” Jericho hesitated by the cruiser.

“Go home, Mr. Kahlid.” Sinclair pointed at his van and marched into the station.