Page 9 of Once Upon a Fable

The earth had never felt so comfortable. The air cooled the heat from my exertion. My muscles relaxed until I was a puddle of hiking boots and dirty leggings.

After ten minutes passed—to be honest, it could have been seconds with how quickly it came and went—I did the responsible thing and satup.

I couldn’t stop the heavy groan or the stiffness as I clambered to my feet and stretched out the worst of my tied-up and overworked muscles. My body existed in an annoying realm of what my fellow climbers called “climbing fit.” To usual humans who didn’t put their lives on the line by ascending vast piles of rock, I had more tone and strength than any gym bunny was allowed. But to other climbers? The YouTube idols and the free climbing gods, I was a couch potato who ate far too much caramel fudge.

Right now, I felt exactly like an unfit pudding and stumbled about very inelegantly as I shook out my tent, secured the poles, tightened the guy ropes, shoved my sleeping bag into the one-person orange and teal sleeping pod, and kicked off my hiking boots before crawling inside.

Darkness fell in a heavy cloak of nothingness, almost as if it had been waiting for me to have a roof before clicking out the lights. No stars tonight. No moon. Just me and my solar torch, which turned into a lantern by untwisting the middle and hanging it from the hook I’d sewn into the ceiling.

I didn’t bother changing.

I didn’t bother setting up other creature comforts such as chargers, water bottles, or a tripod for my video diary.

I was spent.

I used what little energy I had left to eat two granola bars, clean my teeth, then burrowed into my sleeping bag and crashed.

* * * * *

I woke panting.

I jack-knifed up.

I hit my head on my lantern swinging from the tent’s ceiling.

I froze and clamped both hands over my mouth to stop my heavy breathing.

What the hell was that?

I blinked.

Something...something dangerous.

My ears twitched for the bloodcurdling howl that’d woken me.

It’d reached into my dreams and yanked me out with bloody claws.

A bear?

A bobcat?

Coyote?

Slowly, I dropped my hands from my mouth and clenched my sleeping bag. Instinct made me reach for my windbreaker that I’d tossed in the corner, grabbing the knife that’d helped me more than once. A simple switchblade with a mother-of-pearl handle, it’d cut away vines that I’d stumbled into, carved firewood, and skinned fish for dinner.

It was as familiar in my fingers as stone was, but I’d never used it in self-defense. I’d taken a quick course when I’d started off-roading into deeper, more desolate places, but I’d never left myself so open to violence before.

Shit.

The noise came again.

I ducked involuntarily as if the howl could reach through the material of my tent and pluck me from my sleeping bag. It echoed in the ravine I’d camped above, ripped up the hillsides, banged morbid drums on the rock faces, and tangled with the trees that both absorbed the snarl and amplified it.

Not a bear. Not a bobcat or coyote.

Then...what is it?

I’d never heard such wretchedness. Never had a noise stop my heart and scratch itself over every inch of my skin, leaving me shaking and out of breath.