From Bad to Cursed

A second noise—this one louder.

Barney flattened his ears and took off, straight into the thick woods.

I ran after him, but was forced to slow down once I got past the outer layer of trees. There were low, scrubby plants and exposed roots everywhere, and the last thing I wanted was to face-plant in the middle of a forest.

“Hey!” I yelled. “Here, boy! Come back!”

I kept going until I saw a flash of white.

“Barney!” I called. “Who wants a cookie?”

I’d stumbled on the magic word. Twigs snapped furiously as the dog tumbled back through the trees and stopped directly in front of me, his stumpy tail wiggling madly.

“Okay,” I said. “We’re doing this my way.” I leaned over and grabbed his collar. He was too transfixed by the bag of treats sticking out of my pocket to notice.

“Cookie?” I offered him one. He gobbled it down and looked back up at me, hoping for more.

Since I didn’t have a leash, I reached down and scooped him up. For such a little dog, he was solid. He settled contentedly into my arms, licking my face and snuffling the air, evidently enjoying the ride.

I looked around for a way out, but there was no discernible path. I tried listening for the lapping of the water on the shore, but I couldn’t hear anything over Barney’s excited panting and the chirping of the crickets.

And of course my cell phone was in Carter’s car. Perfect.

“It’s a good thing your food smells so good,” I said to Barney. “We might be sharing it.”

He glanced at me, then went back to the business of sniffing, his nose quivering.

“Which way is home?” I asked. He probably knew—superior sense of smell and all that—but I couldn’t set him down and take the chance that he’d run off again. So I turned in what I figured was the approximate direction of the parking lot.

Then we reached a spot where the brush grew too thick to pass. Barney looked at it, twitched his ears, and yawned. I shifted him in my arms. He was getting heavy, fast.

I knelt down to study a bit of grass, wishing I’d lasted past the friendship-bracelet-making stage of Girl Scouts.

Suddenly, the dog tensed. He scrooched deeper into my arms, ears back, and showed his teeth for a moment. A low, menacing growl rumbled in his throat.

Then, through the brush:

Snap.

Barney snarled and whined, straining toward the sound. I had to wrap both of my arms around him to keep him from jumping to the ground. His dirty paws left black streaks all over my clothes.

“Are you crazy?” I hissed. “Stop that!”

What if it was a coyote? Or what if it’s not a coyote? I suddenly thought. What if it’s a mountain lion—or a bear? Did we even have bears in Surrey?

I started walking. Any movement away from a scary sound was better than standing like a lump. Even if we walked so far we came out on the other side, the woods had to end eventually.

As we went farther, Barney calmed down. But then, after about a hundred feet or so, he tensed and growled again.

From behind us: a scratching noise, and a scrambling, and the thud and whoosh of something falling and ru

I looked around for a large branch to use as a club, if it came to that—but the one decent-sized stick I found disintegrated in my hand.

Barney whined miserably, panting and trying halfheartedly to get away.

“It’s okay, boy,” I said.

Snap-snap-snap-CRASH!

The dog yelped and vaulted out of my arms, already poised to run by the time his paws touched the ground.

I launched myself at him, belly-flopping on the pine needle floor, barely managing to hook my fingers around the edge of his collar. When he realized he was caught and couldn’t escape, he changed tactics and went on the offensive, rolling off a series of vicious-sounding barks and frantically hopping around.

“Cut it out! Get back here!” I said, tugging him toward me. I’d gone through way too much trouble finding the dumb dog to let him get eaten by a bear now. “Barney, stay!”

His barking became one extended growl, and he was pulling so hard his front legs were off the ground. My fingers felt like they were about to pop off.

Whatever was back there, he wanted to kill it.

After managing to get a better grip on his collar, I got to my feet and picked him up, pressing my cheek against the back of his head as I looked around.

“Now what?” I asked him.

“Woof!” he answered, looking over my shoulder.

I swung around to see Carter appear between two trees, looking ridiculously out of place in his starched oxford shirt and spotless brown shoes.

“Alexis? Are you okay?” He came over and scratched the dog’s neck.

“Relatively,” I said. “I have no idea how to get out of here. I hope you dropped some bread crumbs.”

“Right back this way,” Carter said. “Want me to carry Barney?”

“He’s filthy,” I said, but Carter reached out any- way, and my aching arms were dying for a break. So I gladly handed him over, and we started back through the brush.

“Kasey went back to get a leash,” I said. “I hope she stays back in the parking lot. I think there’s some sort of wild animal out here.”

Carter squinted. “I doubt it. We’re still in the suburbs.”

“Suburbs or not, I heard something,” I said. “Something big. Barney heard it, too.”

“Maybe a raccoon?”

“Bigger than that. Forget it. I don’t know.”

And then, another snap.

“Did you hear that?” I asked.

“It’s probably a bird, Lex,” he said. “Wait, where are you going?”

His dismissal a

“Just to take a peek,” I said, walking away. “I’ll be right back.”

“But what if it’s dangerous?” He looked around, sud- denly seeing the forest for what it was: Big. Dark. Spooky.

“Like a raccoon?” I asked. “Or a baby bird?”

He waited, one hand idly rubbing the dog’s belly, while I went deeper into the forest. The farther I went, the more opaque the canopy grew overhead, branches and leaves weaving into a dense cover that blocked out what little starlight there was. The trees were crowded here, the brush thicker.

More scratching…but as I got closer, it didn’t sound like scratching, exactly. It was more like…I looked down at the bed of pine needles on the floor of the woods.

Like moving. Like something was being dragged through the pine needles.

And whatever it was, it was getting closer.

Fear sent roots down through my feet, locking me in place. I gulped in half-breaths of chilled night air, waiting for an outraged, wounded mountain lion to pop out at me.

Then I saw it—between the tree trunks, which were almost as close as crayons in a box.

A shadow.

This was no wounded mountain lion. It was no wounded anything. It moved too fast. And in the deep darkness, I couldn’t tell whether it was coming closer or getting farther away.

How could I be so stupid? I’d basically lived through a horror movie and still hadn’t learned my lesson.

At some point, my eyes had squeezed shut and I’d lost the ability to breathe.

Snap out of it. Get control of yourself. And then get out of here.

I forced my eyelids open, positive that some beast would be standing right there, drooling blood and exhaling the smell of death.

But the woods were empty. And the only sound was a snap—

Right behind me.

A hand snaked around to cover my mouth, but my self-defense training kicked in. I bent my knees, reached back to grab the attacker’s arm, and delivered a swift kick as high as I could, dropping my attacker to the ground. Then I turned around to get a good look at it—him—

Her. It was my sister.

“Seriously, Kasey?”

She whipped a finger to her lips, librarian-style. “SHUT UP!” she hissed. Her eyes were wild, frantic, as she jumped to her feet and grabbed my arm, sca