Chapter 5 - The Print

ELOWEN

The paw print was the size of my hand.

I crouched at the bottom of the porch steps, phone out, taking picture after picture like documentation would somehow make this less terrifying. The morning light was gray and flat, washing out the details, so I grabbed a measuring tape from the junk drawer and laid it next to the print.

Six inches across. Maybe more.

I sat back on my heels and tried to breathe.

Six inches. That was bigger than a wolf. Bigger than any dog I'd ever seen. That was... what? A bear? But bears didn't have paw prints like this — I'd seen bear tracks before, up near the creek, and they looked different. Wider. More pad, less claw.

This was canine. Unmistakably canine. A dog or a wolf, just... impossibly large.

I took one more photo, then retreated inside and locked the door behind me.

G****e was not reassuring.

I sat at the kitchen table, laptop open, .22 within arm's reach, and fell down a rabbit hole of wildlife identification pages. Gray wolf tracks averaged four to five inches. Red wolves, smaller. Coyotes, smaller still. The largest domestic dogs — Great Danes, Irish Wolfhounds — topped out around five inches, maybe five and a half.

Six inches was off the charts.

I scrolled through image after image, comparing them to the photos on my phone. The shape was right — four toes, claw marks, the distinctive triangular pad. But the size was wrong. Everything about this was wrong.

Dire wolf, my brain supplied unhelpfully. Werewolf. Monster.

I closed the laptop and pressed my palms against my eyes.

I was being ridiculous. There had to be a logical explanation. Maybe the ground was soft, made the print spread wider than it actually was. Maybe I'd measured wrong. Maybe—

Maybe something impossible was stalking me, and I was going to die alone in this cabin because I was too stubborn to ask for help.

I picked up my phone.

The contact list stared back at me, full of names I didn't want to call.

Mom and Dad were out. They'd insist I come home, insist I was overreacting, insist that this was proof I couldn't handle living alone. Or worse — they'd take it seriously, show up with police and animal control and concerned neighbors, turn my quiet life into a spectacle.

Trevor was absolutely out. I could already hear his voice: See, this is why you need someone looking out for you. Come stay with me. I'll keep you safe. No. Fuck no.

Carmen? She'd tell me I was crazy for living out here in the first place. Which — fair. But not helpful.

I scrolled past acquaintances and coworkers, past the friend-group chat that was mostly Trevor's friends anyway, past numbers I hadn't called in months.

My thumb hovered over Rowan's name.

We'd been best friends since third grade — the kind of friendship that survived distance and time and all the ways people grew apart. She lived in the city now, had a real job with benefits and a 401k, but she still answered when I called. Still knew me better than anyone.

She wouldn't judge. She never judged.

I hit call before I could talk myself out of it.

"Girl, it's like ten in the morning. Someone better be dead."

"Not yet," I said, and the words came out shakier than I intended.

A pause. Rustling, like she was sitting up in bed. "El? What's going on?"

I opened my mouth to explain, and everything poured out — the rabbit, the deer, the blood on the porch, the drag marks, and now the paw print, the impossible print that was too big to be real. I talked until my throat was dry and my hands were shaking and Rowan hadn't interrupted once.

"Holy shit," she said when I finally stopped.

"Yeah."

"Elowen. What the fuck."

"I know."

"Have you called anyone? Like, animal control? The police? A fucking park ranger?"

I laughed — a broken, humorless sound. "And tell them what? A really big dog left a paw print on my porch? They'll think I'm insane."

"You have photos, right?"

"Yeah, but—"

"Send them to me."

I did, right then, fingers fumbling over the screen. I heard the notification sound on her end, then silence as she looked.

"Jesus Christ," she said quietly. "That's... that's huge."

"I know."

"Like, bear-sized huge."

"Bears don't have paw prints like that."

"No, I know, I just—" She exhaled. "Okay. Okay, so something really big and really canine is hanging around your cabin. Something that hunts deer and leaves them on your porch like presents."

Hearing her say it out loud made it feel more real. And more insane.

"What do I do?" I hated how small my voice sounded.

"You get out of there. Come stay with me. Hell, sleep on my couch, I don't care. Just — don't be alone out there with whatever the fuck that is."

"I can't just leave. This is my home."

"Elowen." Her voice dropped, the way it always did when she was about to say something I didn't want to hear. "I've known you since we were eight years old. I know you're stubborn as hell and twice as proud. But this isn't about proving you can handle yourself. Something is stalking you. Something big. And I swear to God, if you get eaten by a mutant wolf because you're too stubborn to ask for help, I will find a way to resurrect you just so I can kill you myself."

Despite everything, I almost smiled. "That's very specific."

"I've had time to think about it. Every time you tell me about that creepy cabin in the murder woods, I picture the ways it could go wrong."

"It's not creepy. It's peaceful."

"It was peaceful. Now it's a hunting ground." She paused. "Please, El. Just come into the city for a few days. Let someone check it out. Let me feed you wine and talk shit about Trevor and pretend everything's normal."

I looked at the window. At the curtains I'd closed last night and hadn't opened since.

"I'll think about it."

"That's not a yes."

"It's not a no either."

She sighed — the long-suffering sigh of someone who'd known me too long to expect anything different. "Fine. But I'm calling you tonight. And tomorrow. And every day until you either come stay with me or I drive out there myself. Got it?"

Something loosened in my chest. Just a little. "Got it."

"And El?"

"Yeah?"

"Keep that gun loaded. And if you see that thing, you shoot first and feel bad about it later. Okay?"

"Okay."

"I love you, idiot."

"Love you too."

After I hung up, I did another sweep of the cabin.

Every door, every window, every potential point of entry. The front door was solid — heavy wood, deadbolt, chain. The back door was flimsier, but I'd shoved a chair under the handle last night and it was still there. The windows were all latched, curtains drawn. The only real vulnerability was size — something big enough could break through glass, could splinter wood, could—

Stop it.

I forced myself to sit down. To breathe. To think.

Facts. I needed facts, not panic.

Fact one: Something was out there. Something large, canine, and interested in me.

Fact two: It had been leaving me... gifts? The rabbit, arranged on my porch. The deer, gutted and presented like an offering. If it wanted to hurt me, wouldn't it have done so by now?

Fact three: It had come onto my porch last night. I'd heard it. And it had left without breaking in, without attacking, without doing anything except... what? Standing there?

I turned that over in my mind. A predator stalking prey didn't usually announce itself. Didn't leave presents. Didn't creep up to the door and then retreat without striking.

So what did that mean?

It's not hunting you, a small voice whispered. It's courting you.

The thought was absurd. Insane. The kind of thing that would get me locked up if I said it out loud.

But it wouldn't leave my head.

I spent the rest of the day in a state of suspended animation.

I couldn't work — every time I tried to focus on the laptop, my eyes drifted to the windows, the doors, the shadows that pooled in the corners as the light shifted. I couldn't eat — my stomach was a tight knot that rejected even the thought of food. I couldn't sleep — every time I closed my eyes, I saw the paw print, the drag marks, the darkness beyond the tree line.

All I could do was wait.

Wait for night. Wait for whatever came next. Wait for the sound of something heavy on the porch, the creak of boards, the knowledge that the thing was right there, just on the other side of the wall.

Around four o'clock, my phone buzzed. Mom.

I let it go to voicemail.

It buzzed again. Text this time.

Thinking about you, sweetheart. Call when you can. Dad says hi.

I typed back: Busy with work. Talk soon. Love you.

It wasn't a lie, exactly. I was busy. Just not with work.

Dusk came slowly, the gray light fading to purple to black.

I turned on every lamp in the cabin, chasing the shadows into the corners. Made myself eat something — crackers and cheese, the only things that didn't make my stomach rebel. Checked the locks again, even though I'd checked them an hour ago. And an hour before that.

The .22 sat on the coffee table, loaded, safety off. I'd moved it from the bedroom because the bedroom felt too far away, too isolated. If something came through that door, I wanted to be ready.

If something comes through that door, a .22 isn't going to stop it.

I shoved the thought down and picked up my phone. Eight o'clock. Rowan would call soon, like she promised. I could talk to her, let her voice fill the silence, pretend for a few minutes that everything was normal.

But first—

I don't know what made me do it. Curiosity, maybe. Or the need to know, even if what I found terrified me.

I walked to the window. The big one, the one that faced the tree line. I stood there for a long moment, hand on the curtain, heart pounding in my throat.

Then I pulled it back.

The woods were dark.

Just trees and shadows, the same view I'd looked at a thousand times before. Nothing moved. Nothing lurked at the edge of the light. Just the empty yard, the gravel path, the tree line swallowed by night.

I let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding.

See? Nothing there. You're paranoid. You're—

And then I saw it.

At the very edge of the porch light's reach, half-hidden in the shadows between two pines. A shape. Massive. Four-legged. And two points of gold, glowing like embers in the dark.

Eyes.

It was looking at me.

I couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't do anything but stand there, frozen, staring at the thing that had been hunting me.

It was huge. Bigger than I'd imagined, bigger than any wolf had a right to be. Its fur was dark — red-black, the color of dried blood — and its body was a mountain of muscle, built for killing. And those eyes, those terrible golden eyes, were fixed on me with an intensity that made my blood run cold.

We stared at each other across the darkness.

It didn't move. Didn't advance. Just... watched. Like it had been waiting for this moment, waiting for me to see it, waiting for me to know.

My hand found the curtain. Pulled it shut.

I backed away from the window on shaking legs, grabbed the .22, and sank onto the couch with my back to the wall.

It was out there. It was real. And now it knew that I knew.

I didn't sleep that night.

I just sat there, gun in my lap, waiting for the door to splinter.

It never did.