“Well, since we’re not in Mexico or Texas, and neither of us is livestock, I think we’ll be okay,” he says, opening his door. “Give me two minutes, okay? I just wanna check it out.”
He’s out of the truck, closing the door with a quiet thunk before I can even reply. I don’t know if it’s fear or anger making me shake, but I suspect it’s a decent mix of both.
Kelley walks in front of the truck. He moves slowly, his hands held out slightly in front of him. For a second, I think about leaning over and hitting the horn. It would serve the dual purpose of scaring the crap out of Kelley and running that thing off. And it would probably piss Kelley off, ensuring that our first kiss was also our last. But do I really care anymore?
Justin’s face pops into my mind. He never would have taken me out here. And if he had, he would have taken me home when I said I wanted to leave. Guilt floods me, washing away all the anger and a fair amount of the fear. I read his text again. He misses me. Sweet Justin misses me while I’m out here fooling around with Kelley Hamilton, who may be hot, and may not be a junkie or a psychopath, but is something of a jackass.
I hit REPLY, and a message flashes on the screen: BATTERY POWER TOO LOW FOR RADIO RANGE. What?
But there, in the top left-hand corner, my battery bar has one little sliver of red. It’s almost the same color as the thing’s eyes. Which reminds me that I’ve been so busy futzing with my phone and being self-loathing that I haven’t been watching Kelley.
Heart pounding, I look up, and the sound that comes out of my mouth is half groan, half whimper.
Kelley isn’t there.
“No, no, no, no,” I mutter, the sound of my own voice too loud, too harsh in the quiet truck. Leaning forward, I squint out at the trees, trying to spot Kelley’s white T-shirt. But there’s nothing. Just trees, trees, and more trees. I don’t even see the red glow anymore.
Turning back to my phone, I speed-dial Linds, but that stupid low battery message comes back again. I toss the phone to the floorboard.
I could go out there, but the thought of doing that makes me shudder. At least in the truck, I have doors that lock. Speaking of . . .
I lean over to the driver’s seat. Distracted, I realize Kelley left the keys in the ignition, but how the hell am I supposed to get back over those hills? I remember the strain on his face as we climbed. Hadn’t his left hand been doing something? Was there a button to press? How did four-wheel drive even work, and damn it, why had I never learned?
I am nearly sobbing with frustration when there’s a thump under the truck. A small, stifled scream bursts from my throat, and I freeze.
The thump comes again, harder this time. The sound of my own blood rushing in my ears is almost painful. It’s like every piece of me, every last molecule, is straining to hear. Another thump. And then another.
The truck shimmies, and there’s a scrabbling that sounds like it’s right in front of me. The cab shakes again and I lower my face to the leather, trembling. I lie there for what feels like years as the truck rocks, and the harsh sound of something scraping against the plastic bed (claws, claws, oh, God, its claws) fills the air. But I can see my phone—my stupid, useless phone—from where I’m lying, and I know that only three minutes go by before the sounds and the rocking stop.
Three more minutes go by before I find the courage to lift my head. I make myself look out the windshield first. Still no sign of Kelley, no sign of anything. And then I turn to the back.
It’s dark. No red orbs. Holding so still that my muscles shiver and ache, I keep watching. I know this moment. This is the part in scary movies where the girl relaxes, only to have the creature or killer or alien fling itself out of the darkness. I brace myself, thinking that if it does happen, my mind will shatter into a thousand tiny shards. Because really, once a monster has jumped out of the woods at you, how can you ever go back to being okay?
But that doesn’t happen. I stay still and watch and breathe, but nothing jumps at me. Nothing growls. And the silence goes on just long enough to make me think that I imagined it. Somehow, that’s worse.
I’m still staring into the bed of the truck when the driver’s side door flies open.
I do scream then, but it doesn’t sound anything like those girls in movies. It sounds high and breathless and crazy, and I can’t seem to stop it, even when Kelley slides into the seat.
“Sam,” he says once the door is slammed behind him. He grabs my shoulders. “Sam. SAM. It’s okay—it’s just me.”
He’s breathing like he just ran a marathon, and even though his face is sickly pale, his eyes are bright.
“You said two minutes!” is all I can think to yell once I can finally form words again. “You said two minutes, and my phone doesn’t work, and there were things in the back, and—”
“Shh, shh,” Kelley murmurs, but he’s already letting go of me and starting the truck. The relief I feel is so intense, I sag against the seat, running trembling hands over my face. I don’t even care where Kelley was, or why he was running, or why two minutes turned into an eternity.
I want to go home. I want to see Linds. I want to text Justin and tell him that sure, he might be a little boring, but at least he’s never gotten me nearly killed.
I never want to see Kelley Hamilton again, no matter how good his hair is.
The truck lurches forward, and I wait for it to turn around, to make the climb back up the hill. Did I really think that was terrifying just a few minutes ago? Did it take less than half an hour to radically alter my definition of “scary”?
There is a crunch as we run over what sounds like a bunch of sticks, and the truck picks up speed.
It does not turn around.
I open my eyes and watch trees race past. We’re not heading back. We’re going deeper into the woods.
“What are you doing?” I shriek.
Kelley swerves around a pile of sticks and pine straw, speeding down the road. “I saw it, Sam,” he says. “I saw it, and it was not a possum with mange, or a bobcat, or a mutated raccoon, or anything.” His words come tumbling out in a rush, and I realize with dawning horror that he’s smiling.
“We are talking some kind of brand-new species, Sam. I mean, the kind of crap that makes people famous. We’ll probably get our own show on the Discovery Channel.”
“I don’t want a show on the Discovery Channel!” I reach out and punch him in the upper arm, hard enough to make him wince. “I want to go home, you douchebag! That thing could kill us.”
Kelley shakes his head. “No way. It was pretty small, like one of those miniature collies.”
“But there’s more than just one of them,” I say, remembering the rocking of the truck, the scraping of claws. How many “miniature collies” would it take to make a truck this big sway like that?
It’s like he doesn’t even hear me. “It ran this way, but if I can corner it . . .”
I lift my hands, wanting to wrench the steering wheel out of his hands. But as fast as we’re going, that would probably crash us into a tree. Instead, I tuck my legs underneath me, rising on my knees to face him. “Kelley, listen to me. There are lots of these things. And I think they have claws, and it doesn’t matter that they’re small if there’re hundreds of them.”
“There aren’t hundreds, Sam. People would’ve seen them. And besides—HA! Got you, you little bastard!”
Something bounds into the headlights. Kelley’s right—it’s not very big. Maybe four feet long, and I can’t tell how tall because it sort of leaps as it runs, almost like a deer. As it flees, it glances over its shoulder with a quick flare of red eyes. I catch sight of its long muzzle, and the briefest hint of teeth.