Forsaken An American Sasquatch Tale - By Christine Conder Page 0,32
one foot at a time.
Step, stop, sense, repeat.
As she got closer, the disruption around the entrance became clearer, but the buzz faded. So she retraced the path she’d taken and moved east, toward the road. The sensation got stronger.
She got down on all fours and crawled forward, then laid flat. The device hadn’t been dropped, she knew that much. At ground level she lost the signal entirely. She stood up and it resumed. A few more paces and there it was. Mounted at eye level, seven feet high, was a tiny black camera, aimed toward the ground. She reached around from the side of it to keep her arm out of the lens, snapped the camera off the branch, put it on the ground, and stomped on it.
She gathered up the pieces and hauled them away. Rolling a rather large mossy log, she dug a hole, and buried the evidence, rolling the log back on top.
She’d wasted too much time. Hopefully Adrian had not arrived early and left thinking she wasn’t going to show. Liberty hurried to the hatch, lifted it, sat down on the edge, and slipped in.
A quick, shallow drop and she stood there as human. Painless, with hardly a wobble.
As soon as she developed her voice, she called out in a whisper, “Adrian? It’s me, Liberty.”
No response.
A sliver of moonlight filtered down, not much and not far into the room, but enough to see the space was empty. She looked around and saw no sign he’d even been there. Confused, Liberty fetched the zipper baggie out of the recess at the base of the hatch. She pulled out a candle and lit it with one of the lighters inside the bag, then stepped further in and pulled the vine to shut the hatch.
She swept the light low to the ground, made sure no creature larger than a chipmunk had made itself a home there. When she felt certain she wasn’t in danger of coming face to face with a feisty raccoon, she grabbed a second candle from the bag, dipped its wick into the first, and when it caught fire she walked around and looked for a note. Maybe Adrian had been and gone. Nothing. Maybe he’d never been in the first place. Had he run behind? Had he been unable to sneak away?
Everything felt off, though she couldn’t put her finger on it. She stood in the middle and turned in a slow circle, eyed every inch of the space, tried to determine what wasn’t sitting right. She peered into the shadows, turned until she’d come fully around.
Right there, something nudged her brain, but she couldn’t grasp it. She started the search again, and as the light passed beneath the hatch, it clicked. The limb. It was empty.
“What the nuts?” she whispered. The sound of her own voice caused her to jump and she scolded herself.
Frowning, she walked toward the limb. Nathaniel had mounted a hickory branch near the entrance. A place to hang their clothes. A few broken cobwebs dangled from it, but that was it. The pajama bottoms and sweatshirt Liberty kept there were gone. Her skin prickled as if it finally registered the chill and knew there was no promise of coverage. And the way the spider’s silk hung in uneven strands, it had been recently disturbed.
Her eyes darted to every nook and cranny, hoped a shadow wouldn’t magically come to life. The idea of someone she didn’t know invading their private space frightened her. She felt an urge to hide.
Had Adrian made it or not? She envisioned Becky back at the truck and she seemed miles away. She had to leave right then, get back to Becky. And the somewhat safety of the truck. Hopefully Adrian had done the same.
She didn’t even bother to tuck in the candles after she’d extinguished them. Once word of the disturbance got out, the place would be off limits. She got a foothold in the side of the shaft and popped out of the cave on her first try, transformed as she rolled and, without another look back, ran like the wind for the truck.
The tailgate was still open when she arrived and she slid in.
Becky let out a startled, “Whoa.” Then laughed. “It better be my dainty friend, Liberty, or I’m going to spray your face off.” She pointed a can of mace toward the back, lowering it when they made eye contact.
Becky got out, shut the tailgate, and climbed back in the driver’s seat.