MacKenzie Fire(45)

“Ian?!” I shout out into the woods. My voice sounds muffled. I expected an echo, but it’s more like I’ve yelled into a pillow.

“Ian! I’m coming! Where are you?!”

“Get back in the truck!” He sounds mad and a little desperate.

His voice came from my left, so I alter my direction. My legs are quaking with the fear and the cold. There’s a ringing in my ears too, which may be the result of my blood pressure being off the charts.

“I’m already out!” I yell, trying to use the same footsteps he already made. It’s way better than fighting the snow drifts. Under the trees it’s not as bad, but it’s still way worse than any street I’ve ever walked in Florida. I’m never going to complain about a silly rainstorm ever again, I swear.

He shouts again. “Heeyah! Get outta here! Yah!!”

“You don’t have to be rude about it!” He needs a serious lesson in manners.

“I’m not talking to you! Heeyah! Beat it! Yah!!”

Either Ian’s having a seizure or something is very wrong. My brain won’t let me analyze what that wrong thing is or could be. I’ve suddenly lost the ability to reason. Ian sounds like he’s riding a horse that won’t move. His voice is getting louder, though, so I’m confident I’ll get to the bottom of this mystery very soon. Please God, don’t let there be a lion there. Let it be … paw prints or … a fox or …

“Where are you?!” I yell, falling into full-on panic mode, knowing I’m just fooling myself. This shit is real and it’s going down right now, with Ian in the middle of it and completely unarmed. “I can’t see you!”

“Goddammit, Candice, I told you to stay in the damn truck!”

I see some movement behind a thick grouping of trees and smile. “Ah-ha! Found ya!” I come from between two of the trees to walk up behind him. I feel much better seeing him standing there in one piece. Just being in his presence makes me brave. I am She-Rah! Rawr.

“Congratulations,” he says, out of breath and obviously angry. “Look who else you found.”

He has a giant stick in his hand — more a small log, really — and he’s pointing it at something on the ground.

It makes no sense, but I expect to see a cow. The concept of a mountain lion being anywhere but behind zoo bars is too foreign for my brain to process. But instead of seeing a cow, I see a cat. A really, really big cat.

And it ain’t no Persian one either.

“That’s a …” My empty hand goes to my mouth as I try to process what I’m seeing. Yes, I know he told me there was one of these out here, but reading that in a text and seeing one live are two totally different things. Cougars are waaaay bigger in real life than they are on Google, by the way. This one is the same size as Ian, pretty much.

As I take that into consideration, that’s when it all becomes clear to me. Ian and I are probably going to die out here together in this f*cking cold-ass snow. My life flashes before my eyes, and I ache from head to toe knowing I’ll never get the chance to find the happiness that my best friend Andie did. It’s too late for me.

“That’s the cat who took out a fully grown cow,” Ian says, snapping me back to reality. “Now we just need to get out of here before she takes us out too.” A tiny spark of hope comes to life in my heart at the idea that Ian has a plan to save us. My hero!

The cougar’s ears are back and she’s growling low in her throat. My fantasy about surviving and that spark of hope both disappear in a puff of smoke. This thing is definitely going to kill us.

I’ve heard that expression where people say that the hair on the back of their necks stood up, but until this moment, I never understood how that could possibly happen. Well, let me tell you … it seriously does. The hair goes right up from the roots. Oh, and people can also pee themselves a little when terrified, that’s a fact.

Ian talks softly to me. “We’re going to just keep waving this branch and making noise and hope that scares her off. Look as big as you can.”

“What?” I stare at Ian. He’s talking crazy. This demon-possessed lion is going to eat us for breakfast. We are bagels and lox as far as she’s concerned. There’s blood all over her mouth already from her appetizer course of steak tartare.

“Cats respond to threats. Be a threat!” He waves the branch he’s holding at her and yells again, some kind of caveman nonsense.

My hand that has Millie in it lifts of its own accord, without any conscious thought on my part. I see it coming up in my peripheral vision, but I can’t bring myself to point it at her. I aim it to her left instead. “Go away, cat. I don’t want to have to shoot you.” My voice comes out weak and trembling, and my arm is weaving all over the place, left and right, up and down. At this point I’m sure I won’t be able to hit even the broad side of a barn, let alone a slinky, crouching lion, so I pray she knows what a gun is and the fact that she should avoid having one pointed near her.

Ian stops waving his branch around. “What in the hell …?”

“Go on!” I yell, wiggling my arm a little at the lion, getting braver since she hasn’t yet killed me and Ian seems to have calmed down. “This is way more dangerous than that stick he has. Just move on and I won’t shoot you.”