King of the Wilds - Tasha Black

1

Miranda

Miranda Cannon stepped gingerly between the trees, trying her best not to snag her clothes or lose a shoe. Her boss demanded that she look “office ready” at all times, which in his mind meant two-inch heels and a tailored suit.

But today, Miranda’s office was a mosquito-ridden cove in the woods on the border between Rosethorn Valley and Tarker’s Hollow. And she was pretty sure the mud from the recent storms was trying to eat her Jimmy Choos right off her feet.

And it was all just because some worker bee stopped paying attention and took a nasty tumble.

“It was right here,” Larry, the foreman of the current job, turned to tell her, eyes round as saucers. “This is where Joey saw the lights.”

Miranda looked around.

She wasn’t exactly the outdoorsy type, but she couldn’t detect anything unusual about this part of the forest. It was the same goopy, muddy path that they had used to get here - between thickets of bushes and stands of giant trees.

All around them, birds and other noisy creatures were yelling at each other and the air was humid enough to make her hair try to escape its bun and hightail it back to the city.

“So one of your men allegedly saw some lights here,” she confirmed. “What kind of lights, exactly?”

She’d investigated workplace injury claims before, and knew better than to come right out and admit anything had happened the way it was reported - at least not until she had all the facts.

“He said they were small and twinkling, with an… otherworldly glow,” Larry replied in a low, careful voice, as if he thought the lights were going to appear right now and carry him off to Neverland.

“It’s June, and this is suburban Pennsylvania,” Miranda said, trying to hide her smile.

“And?” Larry asked.

“Don’t make me spell it out for you,” she pleaded.

But he didn’t answer.

“Is it possible that the lights he saw were merely fireflies?” she asked.

“Joey’s a Jersey guy. He knows what fireflies are,” Larry said, scowling at her. “This ain’t them.”

Miranda sighed.

“So he allegedly saw these little twinkling, glowing lights, and then what?” she asked.

“He followed them,” Larry replied.

“Off the path?” Miranda asked in horror. She could not imagine lights pretty enough to lure her into the tangle of trees to ruin the rest of her clothes and get eaten alive by mosquitos.

“Yes,” Larry said. “Follow me.”

“Is that really necessary?” Miranda asked. “If this is some elaborate hoax to trick my employer into giving you guys overtime, there’s no point bothering. It isn’t going to happen. He’d sooner fire all of you and hire a completely new crew.”

Larry drew himself up with an expression of injured pride.

“The Dolor corporation has flown my crew all over the country to break ground for his projects. If we wanted more money, we would ask. This is something else. Something… different.”

“Lead the way,” Miranda said, surrendering.

Larry held back the branches of some thorny-looking shrubbery to let her proceed deeper into the woods.

He stepped in behind her and let the branches snap back into place. It was darker off the path, where the trees met overhead without interruption.

Miranda had never been easily spooked, but something about the forest set her on edge. An inexplicable shiver of dread traced its icy fingers down her spine in spite of herself.

“This way,” Larry said quietly.

She followed him through the trees. Everything was so green and lush. There was no sign that any other human had been here before, and she had to remind herself that if she had to, she could walk her way back out of it and reach town in a couple of hours, even without her car, which waited back at the dirt lot the workers used.

“Okay, this is where he fell,” Larry said at length, pointing to a ravine just below them.

“Wow,” Miranda murmured.

The ravine was steep with jagged rocks at the bottom. It was no wonder the man had been badly injured. He was probably lucky to have survived.

“After that, things got bad,” Larry said solemnly.

“After that?” Miranda echoed.

“I know it sounds crazy, but he saw something in the woods,” Larry said. “Something big and furry.”

“A bear?” Miranda suggested. “Bear sightings are not unheard of around here.”

“It was carrying a club,” Larry said, shaking his head. “Joey said it smelled like sulfur. And when it got closer, he saw that it only had one big eye at the center of its face.”

“Didn’t he hit his head?” Miranda asked doubtfully.

“That wouldn’t impact his sense of smell,” Larry