Killer

[Cold Tiger]

Killer

Samantha Williams awoke bright and early and rose with the sun. Though a big morning person, this was early even for her. No need to sleep in, though, as the fresh cool air of the Ozarks made her feel extremely invigorated and alive. After watching the sun rise, she goes back to the tent and looks in at her boyfriend, Nathan Hendricks, who is still asleep. Typical. She has always thought it ironic that such a morning person as herself ended up with someone who would sleep past noon every day of his life if he was given the chance. No matter, though. They’ve discussed this thoroughly, and Nathan knows what to expect if Samantha’s not there when he wakes up. The area they’ve been traveling through for the last few days has been so beautiful and fascinating, and Samantha knows that Nathan won’t mind if she explores the surrounding woods for the next few hours until he wakes up.
She packs her supply quickly, and prepares to head out. A little food and first aid, just in case. She won’t be gone long. Samantha heads out into the woods, listening to the bird songs as she goes. The woods are so peaceful up here in the mountains, she thinks. She looses track of time. By the time she finally remembers too look at her watch, it’s nearly one. “Goodness.” she mutters angrily to herself. Nathan will almost surely be awake by now, and she still has the whole trek back.
Samantha turns to head back in the direction of the camp, but something catches her eye. Is that a path? She turns and looks, and sure enough it does look like a path. But who could have made it? She eagerly walks over and squats down to take a closer look. It’s a dirt path, narrow but clear. Again she asks herself, who could have made it? As far as she knows, no one lives anywhere near here, and the path looks well worn. Samantha’s natural curiosity gets the better of her. She’ll just follow it a bit, then go back and get Nathan and show him.
As she follows the path, she finds it goes much deeper into the woods. The further she goes, the more is seams as if whoever made the path was deliberately trying to take the most difficult route possible. It’s ridiculous. Ever the tomboy, Samantha accepts the path’s challenge. The trees around path are getting quite thick now, at places the path seams to be little more than a slight indent into them. The branches scratch and poke at Samantha’s skin. Enough. That’s quite enough. Samantha decides that she’s finally tired of this, she’ll go back the camp now. She turns and heads back along the path.
After a while, she realizes something’s wrong. She didn’t go this far along the path after it headed into the thick woods, did she? No. She’s getting very worried now. She claws desperately along the thickly overgrown path, hoping to see it begin to thin out ahead. No luck. If anything, it’s only getting thicker. Samantha’s arms, face and unprotected legs are aching and badly scratched. She stops for a rest and looks at her watch. 4:36PM. Not good. How on earth did she get herself into this? She sighs tiredly, and, feeling a bit better, gets up to start all over again.
After a bit more blundering along, Samantha reaches a fork in the path. Great! Now she sees. She must have went the wrong way when she tried to go back. She goes down the fork. More scrambling and pushing down the thickly overchoked path. It quickly becomes apparent to her that this isn’t the right way either. O well, she’ll just have to go along with it and see where it takes her. She’s too tired to do anything else. More scrambling and pushing. So tired.
Finally, after what seams like a long, long time, she sees that the path is thinning out ahead. She walks gratefully out of the scratching branches of the poorly located path and into a clearing of sorts. Now that she can see the clear sky spread out in front of her, she gets a good idea of how late it must be now. She looks at her watch again. 7:14PM. Dang it… She’s frustrated, but yet again she’ll have to make the best of it. She’s tough, she can handle it. No problem. Samantha finds a good place to sit down and get some much needed rest.
She looks up at the sky. It’s beautifully clear, with few clouds. Doesn’t look like stormy weather. Good. It’ll be getting dark soon, already is a bit dark. Samantha decides that she might as well stay where she is to sleep, she’ll head out in the morning and try again to find her way to camp. Preferably, a different way. Looking down at her arms and legs, she is amazed to see the nasty array of scratches she has collected. Amazing, she thinks to herself, that she isn’t in more pain. She leans back against a tree and tries to relax. It’s a bit hard because of her stiff and sore muscles. O well. She relaxes her mind, eats a bit of the food from her pack. Nathan. O my gosh, Nathan. “He must be worried sick”, she thinks. “He must be looking for me. Perhaps he’ll find me here. Perhaps I won’t have to sleep out here in the cold after all. Perhaps-” What was that?
She saw something move, she’s sure of it. Out of the corner of her eye. She looks over to where she saw it, glad that it’s not too dark to see yet. What is it? She doesn’t see it immediately, it sort of blends in with the background. She finds it after a few moments, and stands up to get a better look. What is that thing? Squinting, she tries to get a good look at it.
It’s large and pale brown. I looks like fur. It, it looks like, an animal! Samantha feels a cold chill run down her back. She has no desire to run into any dangerous wild animals up here! Mountain lions are supposed live in this area, aren’t they? She’s terrified now, completely focused on the figure. It’s too close. Much too close. A few more moments, and the creature moves again. It slowly stands up onto two legs, much to Samantha’s surprise. She shivers violently. It’s a man! O my gosh it’s a man! She can’t believe it, it’s like a nightmare.
The man is large and tall and powerfully built. He’s got long, graying, wild looking hair that falls over his shoulders and a stone cold face. Almost expressionless. No sign of a smile or anything, just cold, dark eyes. These are the things Samantha notices first about him, but when she gets a better look at the man she nearly screams. He’s wearing tattered old clothing, and a robe of some sort. Fur. It looks like fur, tawny brown fur. At the top of the robe the animal’s head is still attached, the man is wearing it like a cap. It looks like a cat. She also notices something apparently hanging down from the back of the man’s robe, possibly the animal’s tail. But it’s his hand that really make her blood run cold. They don’t look like hands. They look like paws! She can’t see any fingers on them, just large hooked claws.
Samantha feels paralyzed, too terrified to move or scream. What is this thing? She doesn’t have much time to think about it. The man moves swiftly and is upon her before she can react. The last thing she sees is the fur robe moving, the claws reaching out for her. The animal man pounces on her and slashes at her throat with his claws. In a matter of moments Samantha Williams is dead. The animal man takes her slashed body back to his lair to feed.

By noon the next day Nathan Hendricks is still looking for his girlfriend. He finds a path that seams to lead deep into the woods. He follows it.

Within a couple of days, officials find the remains of two hikers, a man and a woman, deep in the Ozark forests. They’ve been chewed and clawed to pieces. Looks like a mountain lion attack. There’ve been a lot of mountain lion attacks around these parts, haven’t there? Strange. Yet no one thinks much of it. It’s just another pair of hikers to add to the list of those who have been killed in cougar country. Nothing unique, they say.
But it is, and quite so. For these and their fellow victims were killed by a human mountain lion, a man who wears a mountain lion’s skin, uses a mountain lion’s claws, and lives like a mountain lion, deep in the Ozark woods. A human cat, always on the lookout for new prey…


So, what do you guys think?