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Craig Nybo

10

sinew. Mostly it was hungry. It longed to bite into warm, vulnerable flesh and feel the pulse of tepid blood run down its gullet. Sometimes the hunt brought its own difficulty, like in the instance of a stag; but tonight, everything had come easily. The smell of a man had wafted to the predator on the wind like a gift from nature.

The predator felt almost certain that it would find the man sleeping, lying prostrate in its wooden cave. But the predator still had to be cautious—always cautious. There could be other men nearby. Though man-things were slow—walking on two legs rather than four—they could be clever. The predator remembered a cold night when men had hurt it. One man had pointed something long and hard at it. There was a noise, ghastly and deafening. There was pain in the predator’s right haunch. Two more men had come out of the woods after the sound and the pain. But the predator was cleverer than men. It had crawled into a clod of deep foliage and waited until the men had gone away. The spot on the predator’s right thigh where the men had hurt it ached at the memory.

The predator sat in a copse of trees just outside the shack’s yard. It sniffed at the air and perked its ears. It heard no other men about, only the sounds of night crickets and a fox in the distance.

Finally satisfied, the predator rose to all fours and padded out of the woods into the clearing toward the wooden cave. It approached carefully. The smell of the man was strong. The predator circled the wooden cave and found an opening where it could enter.

The predator stood outside the opening for a moment to gather its wits. Then it acted, moving stealthily into the darkness of the man dwelling. It padded across the hard floor and found the man laying curled up. So easy this time, the predator thought as it leapt out of the darkness and closed its maw on the man’s pale, exposed throat.