Chapter 1: Hunted
Netty
Trudging through the snow, Netty had to pause to catch her breath, her eyes skipping over all the whiteness surrounding her.
“You good back there?” someone called, probably Jason, her best friend and the person responsible for their impromptu trip.
When she’d called him crying and babbling incoherently about discovering her fiancee, Garreth, buried inside his secretary, Jason picked her up, booked lodgings and plane tickets, and the rest was history.
She only wished she’d had the stamina she had a year ago, before she allowed Garreth to convince her to quit climbing. She and Jason used to book trips like this every two to three months.
“I’m fine,” she panted, resuming her modest pace, carefully picking a path forward. The downside of everything being covered in snow was that you never knew what lay underneath, like a death trap prepared to snap your ankle.
She couldn’t risk an injury like that when her life was on the cusp of imploding. She’d have to find a new apartment, cancel their wedding plans and handle the blowout from both of their families. The likelihood of Garreth taking any accountability was low.
“He’d probably find a way to blame it on me,” she muttered under her breath, wincing when she stepped in a particularly large pile of white fluff, wetting her pants leg.
“Damn snow,” she grumbled, shaking off her boot. Her eyes were trained on her foot, but something shifted in her periphery, snapping her gaze upward. She froze, not daring to breathe as her eyes resumed scanning her surroundings.
Everything looked the same.
Deciduous trees with white bark and topped with snow, weighing down their branches, stared back at her, and the muffled crunch of her friend’s boots a few feet ahead, carried on the eerily still wind.
Nothing moved. No birds chirped, or rabbits hopped around, blending with the snow.
Utter silence…like when a large predator lurked nearby.
Her breathing quickened, and she stepped forward, her head swiveling left and right, but the inexplicable movement didn’t occur again.
She increased her pace to catch back up with Jason and the group they’d linked up with back at the lodge. All of them enjoyed the thrill of hiking, mountain climbing and zip lining—nature and adrenaline enthusiasts.
But she’d somehow gotten even farther behind than she thought, the backs of their backs appearing as vague shadows, steadily moving away.
“Hey! Wait up—” She froze, the hairs on her nape lifting, something large and white shifting out of the corner of her eye again—too fucking big to be a rabbit.
I don’t believe in Yetis or Bigfoot.
In that moment, however, every conspiracy theory and missing person headline flashed in her mind.
She broke into a sprint, shouting after her group.
“Jason! Miranda! Alek!” Tears stung her eyes, the frigid air slapped against her exposed face, and her lungs cramped.
Whatever the fuck was running parallel to her, kept pace, even dropping to all fours, loping along like an oversized fucking bear.
“Help!” she wheezed, right before a buried log sent her catapulting into several inches of snow. She inhaled, immediately coughing as it caught in her throat.
“Fuck…” She scrambled to her hands and knees, her gaze skimming the trees.
There!
Crouched between the white bark, a pair of amber eyes stared at her, unblinking but…not radiating malice.
It didn’t come closer, merely observed her as she slowly got to her feet, like they’d been playing a game.
The fucker hadn’t made a single sound while they’d run opposite of each other, and it didn’t make one now, gazing at her.
She stepped to the side, brushing snow out of her way to ensure she didn’t trip again.
It didn’t move, just continued staring.
“Netty!”
Her head jerked to the right to see Jason trotting toward her, his face contorted with fear and his brown eyes blazing with concern as they scanned her.
“What the fuck? Did you fall? Did something—” He followed where her gaze went, but the eyes…were gone.
She’d never even seen it move, too distracted by Jason’s reappearance.
“I’m fine,” she gasped, reaching for him and wondering what the hell she’d just witnessed.
Whatever it was…it was big and moved fast as fuck.
And she didn’t want to stick around to discover what something of that size ate.
“Let’s get the hell out of here and back to the lodge. I’ve got the creeps,” she confessed, tugging Jason away from the last place she’d seen the creature.
She prayed she wouldn’t see it again.
