And not the little rustling of the underbrush or the sound of a little paw stepping on a twig.
Oh, no.
That was a big paw.
I knew the rule.
You never, ever, ran from a predator.
You never, ever, wanted to engage their primal drive.
You didn’t want to become prey.
But in that moment, it wasn’t my Appalachian summers brain that kicked in, it was my every-other-day city brain. Where the predators were of the two-footed variety, and running was often the only way to escape getting mauled.
So I didn’t look back.
I didn’t think twice.
I just bolted.
See, now, the whole purpose of starting to take daily hikes was because, well, the last year of a shitty job in an increasingly unfulfilling city had led to a bit of a, well, depression. And that depression mixed with the all-too-convenient food delivery services where I didn’t even have to open the door and talk to anyone? Yeah, it meant I’d packed on some pounds.
Almost fifty of them, to be exact.
So I’d promised myself that I would get my body active again, and maybe drop a few of them while I figured out what my future held for me.
The thing is, those extra pounds and the past year of being completely sedentary, yeah, it slowed me down a lot more than I could have anticipated.
I mean, I wasn’t expecting to have to, you know, run for my life. Had I known that was going to be a part of my reality, maybe I would have started cardio a little sooner.
It was a little too late now, though, as I tore through the woods, completely losing track of the path in a matter of minutes. And the lack of a path meant I was running face-first into branches that whipped my face until I had the mind enough to raise my arms and cut those up instead.
My lungs burned. Each ragged breath felt like swallowing fire.
But with each stride, I could hear the feet behind me.
Following me.
With the small bit of oxygen able to help my brain think straight, I thought that it was weird that whatever it was that was behind me was following at exactly my pace.
That was weird, right?
I mean, I felt like I was slowing down with each passing moment.
Which meant that it should have been able to overtake me.
Right?
If it was capable, why wasn’t it?
What kind of predator toyed with its prey first?
Cats?
Big cats?
I didn’t remember my grandmother warning me about the kinds of cats that could take down a full-grown woman, though.
Fear, prickly and electric, sparked through my system, distracting me enough that I missed it.
The downed tree right in front of me.
I didn’t know it was there until it was too late, until I was falling forward over it, until I was flying through the air for one heart-dropping moment, before slamming down on my palms.
The rocks and twigs and underbrush bit at my skin, ripping it open, letting the dirt in.
Which should have been the least of my concerns, but I couldn’t seem to stop my mind from panicking about possible infections.
I knew what I was supposed to do.
If you were down and there was nothing around to defend yourself with, you had one choice.
Curl into a ball and use your hands to protect your throat and neck. Then hope they got sick of mauling and eating you before they hit any vital organs.
Did I do that, though?
No.
No, of course not.
Because, clearly, something was wrong with my brain right then as I threw myself onto my back, intent on facing down whatever was following me.
And there it was.
The biggest freaking wolf I’d ever seen in my life.
I mean, no, I hadn’t exactly seen a lot of wolves in person. Or, you know, any wolves. But I was pretty sure they weren’t supposed to be so big.
Clearly, he was eating well.
Feasting on stupid human flesh who didn’t know better than to get stuck in the woods after the sun set.
I was scrambling backward before I was even aware of telling my brain to do so as those yellow-brown eyes pinned me, watching me, likely trying to figure out how many bites it would take to consume me completely.
I barely scuttled back two feet before it was arching backward, then leaping over the downed tree, flying right at me.
The scream that came out of me was ear-piercing, coming from somewhere buried deep as I watched its gray furry belly coming over me.
I slammed backward, my head knocking off the ground hard.
And that was the reason, surely it was, that I saw what I thought I saw.
A man bursting from the beast.
But I couldn’t convince myself of that a second later as the body came over mine, pinning it to the ground.
The muscled, naked body.
I was having a stroke.
Did people hallucinate with a stroke?
I was pretty sure they didn’t.