Chapter Ten
Abigail
By the morning of her sixteenth day, Abby’s boundaries had begun to expand.
For the first two weeks, she had treated her campsite like a fortress, terrified to venture more than a hundred yards in any direction.
The small clearing, the creek, and the immediate tree line were the entirety of her known universe.
But as her knee continued to heal, her confidence grew, and the invisible walls of her prison began to widen.
She needed better firewood. The deadfall around her camp was picked clean, leaving only green wood that smoked horribly and damp twigs that burned too fast. She had noticed a stand of dead cedar about a quarter-mile to the east. Cedar burned hot, clean, and smelled incredible.
Now that her knee wasn’t swollen any longer, she could finally wear the jeans she brought. She put her sneakers on, laced them tight, and clipped the heavy canister of bear spray to her waistband. She grabbed her hatchet and began the hike.
The woods were beautiful in the mid-morning light. The oppressive heat of the previous week had broken slightly, leaving the air crisp and fragrant. Shafts of golden sunlight pierced the heavy canopy, illuminating millions of dust motes dancing in the air.
Abby moved slowly, her eyes scanning the ground for snakes and uneven roots.
She was no longer the frantic, terrified woman who had dumped canned heat on the floor of Matty’s General Store.
Her movements were deliberate. She felt grounded, connected to the dirt beneath her boots in a way she hadn't felt since childhood.
She reached the cedar stand twenty minutes later. It was perfect. A massive, dead tree had splintered in a past storm, dropping thick, dry limbs across the mossy forest floor.
She knelt beside a thick branch, raised the hatchet, and brought it down hard. The wood split with a satisfying, echoing crack.
She worked for twenty minutes, her muscles burning with a pleasant, now-familiar exertion. She piled the split wood into a neat stack, wiping the sweat from her brow with the back of her forearm.
She raised the hatchet for another swing but stopped mid-air.
Something had changed.
It wasn't a sound. It was the distinct, terrifying absence of one. The rhythmic drumming of a woodpecker a few trees over had abruptly ceased. The chattering squirrels were gone. Even the wind seemed to die, leaving the forest trapped in a suffocating, unnatural vacuum.
The hair on the back of Abby’s neck stood on end. A cold, primal shiver traced the line of her spine.
You are being watched.
The thought didn't come from her corporate, logical brain. It came from the ancient, lizard part of her brain, the part that recognized her place in the food chain.
Abby slowly, agonizingly slowly, lowered the hatchet. She didn't turn her back. She didn't make any sudden movements. She just turned her head, inch by inch, scanning the dense brush and the rocky outcroppings to her right.
At first, she saw nothing but shadows and pine needles.
And then, a shadow shifted.
Less than forty feet away, crouched low atop a slab of granite, was a mountain lion.
It was massive, its tawny coat blending perfectly with the dried brush and stone.
Its muscular shoulders were hunched, its long, thick tail twitching in a slow, hypnotic rhythm.
But it was the eyes that froze the blood in Abby’s veins.
They were pale, unblinking, and locked directly onto her with predatory calculation.
It wasn't a bear, bumbling through the woods looking for a free meal from a cooler. This was an apex predator, an assassin built for silence and lethal speed. And it was deciding whether or not she was prey.
Panic, blinding and absolute, slammed into her chest. Her heart hammered against her ribs so fiercely she thought her ribs might crack. The instinct to turn and sprint blindly back down the slope toward the safety of her tent screamed through every nerve ending in her body.
Don't run.
The voice of the Girl Scout camp counselor from twenty years ago surfaced through the terror. You run, you become prey. You will not outrun a cat.
Abby forced her boots to remain glued to the forest floor. She drew in a shaky, ragged breath, forcing oxygen into her locking lungs.
She slowly reached her left hand down to her hip.
Her fingers fumbled blindly, slick with cold sweat, until they closed around the thick plastic grip of the bear spray.
She unclipped it, pulling it up and resting her thumb heavily on the safety mechanism.
In her right hand, she gripped the hatchet so tightly her knuckles were stark white.
The mountain lion shifted, its front paws inching forward on the rock. It lowered its head, the muscles in its hindquarters bunching.
Make yourself big.
Abby didn't retreat. Instead, she took a half-step forward. She threw her arms out wide to drastically increase her silhouette.
"HEY!" Abby screamed.
It wasn't a shriek of terror. It was a guttural, ferocious roar torn from the bottom of her diaphragm. It ripped through her vocal cords, echoing forcibly through the silent timber.
"GET BACK! HEY!"
She slammed the flat side of the hatchet blade aggressively against the trunk of a nearby pine tree. BANG. BANG.
The mountain lion flinched, its ears pinning flat against its skull at the sudden, explosive wall of noise. It hadn't expected the frail-looking creature to expand and fight back.
Abby took one agonizingly slow step backward. She didn't break eye contact. She didn't blink.
"GET OUT OF HERE!" she bellowed, her voice raw, brandishing the bear spray in front of her like a shield.
The cat stood up on the rock, revealing its full, terrifying size. It let out a low, vibrating hiss that Abby felt in her teeth. It took one step down toward the moss.
Abby popped the safety off the bear spray with a sharp click. She raised the hatchet higher. She dug her heels into the dirt, preparing for the impact, preparing to fight for her life in the dirt.
I am not dying out here, a voice inside her head snarled. Not to a boardroom, and not to a cat. I am not dying out here.
They stood locked in a standoff that felt like hours but lasted only seconds. The apex predator weighing the caloric gain against the sudden, aggressive risk of the roaring, metal-wielding creature in front of it.
The lion flicked its ears. It let out another low, dismissive hiss, turned broadside, and with a single, fluid leap, vanished silently into the thick underbrush.
Abby didn't stop yelling. She kept screaming, backing down the trail, her eyes darting to every shadow, every rustling leaf. She walked backward for a full ten minutes before she finally turned and limp-jogged the rest of the way to her clearing.
When she burst into her camp, she threw the hatchet onto the ground, collapsed against her cooler, and threw up into the dirt.
Her body shook with tremors so intense her teeth chattered. She pulled her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs, the bear spray still clutched in a death grip in her hand.
She was hyperventilating, tears of sheer adrenaline streaming down her face.
But as she sat there in the dirt, wiping her mouth with the back of her trembling hand, the terror slowly began to recede, replaced by a profound, staggering realization.
No one had saved her. No guardian angel left a kit. No property owner had driven down the trail to intervene. She had faced the monster in the woods completely alone, and she had won.
Abby let out a ragged, breathless laugh, resting her forehead against her knees. She was alive.