Author: Eden Beck
Category: Paranormal
Go to read content：https://readnovelfree.com/p/29741_6
There’s a good feeling here, a safe feeling, which is something that I haven’t felt in a long time.
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But it doesn’t last long.
There’s a rustling sound further up in the woods, and when I look at it, something shadowy moves through the trees. It makes me pause. The shade here beneath the trees is so thick that it should be hard to cast a shadow, yet there it is again. It slinks between the trees so quickly I can’t make out what it is.
That’s … unsettling.
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I increase my pace. I don’t stop to look closer, but my vision becomes a blue of peeking over each of my shoulders, as if I’m being followed.
I pull my new burner phone out and squeeze it between my fingers, wondering how long it would take to dial the emergency line … and if I should pre-type it just to be safe. For the first time, I’m glad I agreed to the cheap cell phone. I didn’t want one at all at first. But now, here, I’m already starting to see its merit.
Each time I think my mind has made up that shadow entirely, I catch another flicker of movement just out of the corner of my eye. But each time I try to turn to spot it, it’s gone.
Then I can see the edge of the forest and the peeling sign for a gas station up ahead at the corner, and I breathe a sigh of relief. Emboldened now that the forest will soon be behind me, I look back once more.
This time, when I see the shadow, I actually get a closer look … and immediately feel like an idiot.
Whatever it is, it’s definitely not a person. Maybe it’s a deer or a fox or something. When I first suggested Washington, my mother read up on the local wildlife and made a list of native species just in case there was anything here we should keep an eye out for. At the time I thought it was stupid, but she just kept reassuring me that there weren’t any dangerous animals in the woods … and I figured she was doing it for her own peace of mind rather than mine.
Apparently, she didn’t lump my dad into the animal category of her list, although I certainly would’ve. Not that I think he’s actually here, god I hope he’s not here. I keep walking while I make sure to be vigilantly aware of anything around me. The forest is so thick that I bet no one would even hear me scream.
That little thought sends me hurrying towards the forest’s edge regardless, and a moment later, I’m glad it did.
But just when I think I was overreacting and imagining my manifested fears, there’s a noise … a sort of low, quiet howl.
Apparently, my father wasn’t the only dangerous creature my mother forgot to add to the list.
Because unless I’m mistaken, the creatures following me are wolves.
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Sabrina
Or were.
By the time I reach the edge of the forest, there’s no longer any sign of any wolves. As far as anyone else would be concerned—that howl, that creeping, sneaking sensation—it was just another figment of my imagination.
But me, I’m still not so sure.
The gas station is everything that I expect it to be; run-down, empty, and with only one working gas pump. But as long as it has fresh caffeine to help me shake this lingering sensation of being watched, of being followed, that’s all I really care about.
“Morning,” the gas station attendant says as soon as I walk through the door. He’s an older man with a kindly face overrun by thick wrinkles.
I parrot his greeting, my own voice sounding small and distant, even to myself. The inside of the gas station has the smell of a place that’s been in business longer than I’ve been alive. It’s an odd assortment of rusted hunting equipment and local tobacco advertisements. Something about the placement makes that uneasy feeling inside me flare up again.
I glance once over my shoulder for a moment, pausing at the doorway to let my eyes scan the tree line across the street.
“Hey, do you happen to know if there are any wolves in the woods here?” I’m about to mention the howling I heard, the brush of fur, the crouching shape in the underbrush, but I think better of it at the last second.
The question itself is harmless, but I don’t want to claim to have seen something I’m not so sure of already. The last thing I want to do is get myself noticed as the local crackpot. The girl who jumps at shadows. The girl who sees things that aren’t there.
The man behind the counter looks at me, amused.
“Nah, no wolves here. There haven’t been wolves in these forests since I was a kid, and that was a long time ago.” He laughs as though the thought of him being a child once is funny, even to him. His smile broadens as he looks at me, growing almost menacing. “Why you asking?”
“No reason,” I mutter, quickly ducking away from the counter, my eyes averting from his. “Must have spotted a fox, or something.”