Key Of Valor (Key 3)

She should be able to manage it and still get back before Simon got home from school. But she should stop and call, just in case. She should let Dana and Malory know she wouldn't be in to work.

She would go in early the next day to make it up, and she could work that night on the slipcovers for the sofa, maybe swing by HomeMakers at some point the next day and pick up the shelving she wanted. If she could get that together, and the next shipment of her supplies came as scheduled, she could…

Her busy thoughts trailed off as she stopped and turned in a circle.

She'd detoured off the path, she realized, which served her right for letting her mind wander. The undergrowth was thicker here, and armed with thorns that would play hell with her pants and jacket if she wasn't careful.

She looked up to try to judge her direction by the sun, but the sky had gone to pewter, with a few angry clouds crawling across the dull plate of it.

She would just go back the way she'd come for a bit, she decided. It hardly mattered, as the woods were no wider than a football field, creating a wedge between the field and the trailer court.

Annoyed with herself, she stuffed her hands in her pockets and started back. The air had chilled while she walked, and the scent it carried was more of snow than rain. She walked quickly, in a hurry to be on her way as much as to keep warm.

The trees looked bigger, closer together than they should have, and the shadows much too long for so early in the day. There was no tapping woodpecker now, no rustling from squirrels running about their business. The woods had gone quiet as a tomb.

She stopped again, baffled that she should be so disoriented in a place where she'd run tame as a child. Things changed, of course, everything changed. But hadn't it struck her when she'd come into it how little this place had changed?

Her stomach dropped as she stared down at the long, deep shadows crossing her path.

How could there be shadows when there was no sun to cast them?

As the first flakes of snow fell, she heard the low, throaty growl from deeper in the trees.

Her first thought was bear. There were still bear in these hills. As a child she remembered seeing their tracks and their droppings. Once in a while they would wander into the court at night and bang around in the garbage if it hadn't been stored properly.

Even as her heart fluttered at the base of her throat, she ordered herself to be calm. A bear wasn't interested in her. She had no food, she posed no threat.

She simply had to get back to the court, or out to the field and her car.

She walked backward for a time, scanning the trees in the direction of the growl. And began to wade through a creeping fog that was edged with blue.

Turning on her heel, she walked quickly now through the thickly falling snow, and dug in her back pocket for her penknife.

As weapons went, it was pitiful, but she felt better with it in her hand.

She heard the growl again, closer, and on the other side. She quickened her pace to a jog and gripped her shoulder bag with her free hand. It had weight and a long strap. It could suit up as another weapon if necessary.

She set her teeth to keep them from chattering. Around her the snow fell so fast and hard, it filled in her footprints almost as soon as they formed.

Whatever stalked her matched her pace, turned as she turned. It had her scent, she knew. Just as she had its— strong and wild.

Briars seemed to spring up, straight out of the ground fog to block her path, with stems thick as her wrist, with thorns that glinted like razors.

"It isn't real. It's not real," she chanted, but those thorns tore at clothes and flesh as she fought through them.

And now she smelled her own fear, and her own blood.

A vine whipped up like a snake to wrap around her ankle and send her face-first onto the ground.

Panting, she rolled onto her back. And saw it.

Perhaps it was a bear, but not one that had ever wandered these woods or foraged for food in the garbage.

It was black as the mouth of hell, with eyes of poisonous red. When it snarled, she saw teeth long and sharp as sabers. As she hacked desperately at the vine with her pocketknife, it rose on its hind legs and blocked out the world.

"You son of a bitch. You son of a bitch." Tearing free of the vine, she sprang to her feet and began to run.

It would kill her. Tear her to pieces.