Escaping Monsters - Rita Stradling Page 0,1

When he didn’t move right away, I tapped him harder. “The food.”

Kane groaned and finally rolled off of me. I felt around the tent desperately, looking for my underwear and shoving them on. As soon as I unzipped the tent flap and shone my flashlight out, two pairs of eyes reflected back at me.

“Wait, Teagan.” Kane pushed up beside me to look out of the flap. “Let me go out first.” He grabbed for my flashlight, but I pretended I didn’t notice and switched it to my other hand

“Look. It’s two large North American Timberwolves.” I tapped Kane’s leg. “Can you feel for my camera over there?”

“Get back in here, Teagan. I’ll go deal with it.” Kane pulled on a pair of jeans, grabbed a coat, and pushed past me. The moment he was outside, he grabbed for the tent flap and furiously zipped me in.

“No, Kane...” I leaned down and felt around for my camera. “Seriously. We’re more likely to be attacked by a raccoon. There have been like two recorded attacks from healthy, uninjured wolves in the last hundred years.” My hand circled the round, smooth camera case. I unzipped the tent and lifted my digital camera. “They’re going to get spooked and run away any second now.”

Now a total of four large adult wolves stood between the trees maybe a dozen yards away, and they didn’t so much as startle at Kane and my appearance. Kane stood feet away from the group with his hands out.

“Teagan, I said stay where you are. That’s an order.”

An order?

Rolling my eyes, I climbed out slowly, clicking images as I went. The night was cool, and I immediately felt my skin prickling into gooseflesh as I slowly treaded over the underbrush. The wolves’ pelts shone in the patches of moonlight. Not wanting to scare Kane any more than he already was, I stayed a good distance away and zoomed in as far as I could, snapping photos of the majestic animals as they stared straight at me.

The shushing and churning sound of a river grew louder as I walked, and I peered down, making sure I wasn’t getting too close to our campsite’s drop off. We’d camped about a hundred yards from a cliff over a river, and I knew I was hugging the cliffside close, but moonlight streamed in through the trees from this angle, catching the wolves as they turned to watch me. I tested the stability of the ground under me and then took one more step. After snapping a series of pictures, I turned back, only to find Kane inches away from me.

“Whoa,” I said, grabbing his arm. “I couldn’t hear you over the river. Look.” I held up my camera, showing my most recent shot. The photo had moonlight streaming through the trees and dappling two of the wolves. I turned the camera back to picture mode, thinking this would be an awesome moment to get a full moon photo of my new husband.

Holding up the camera, I said, “Say cheese!” I peered through the lens, only to find Kane glowering with an almost frightening look on his face. I lowered the camera. “Everything okay?”

“Card and Sons Pencils is bankrupt. It’s been heading that way for a while.” His voice was monotone, almost completely without inflection.

Holy shit. He had definitely kept that one from me. And, he’d promised to support me while I pursued my dream of being a photographer. It sucked. But maybe he’d been self-conscious and depressed about it.

“We’ll figure it out, baby,” I said after a prolonged silence. “Hey, if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s making it on next to nothing. Let’s just worry about all of that when we get back to our regular lives.”

“I don’t need to worry about it. I came into some unexpected money recently,” Kane said, and then a warm smile blossomed on his lips. “You understand.”

“Oh, that’s great.” His drastic shifts in mood were a little disconcerting, but I already had my camera raised, so I started to ask, “Can I take your…” I trailed off as one of the wolves stepped out of the tree line, coming straight toward us. “Kane. A wolf is heading this way.”

Obviously, all of my reading nature magazines was for shit because the wolf was bounding straight at us, and it was huge. I grabbed Kane’s arm. “Come on! We have to climb a tree.”

Kane didn’t budge. Only mere feet from us now, the wolf’s body morphed, growing and