Creature of Carpenter Mountain

Content reminder: This story contains graphic depictions of violence, death, and gore, which some readers may find disturbing. Reader’s discretion is advised.

A monster in the woods,

Quick go call a ranger

There’s a monster in the woods

-

They had walked this path several times over the last few months, always at the same hour of the morning. Dottie needed routine, and if he was completely honest, so did he.

Noah initially thought it silly, driving to walk the dog. But his apartment didn’t have a yard and there was no shared common green space. There was what could be called a small playground - a swing set with one broken swing and a patch of grass. Though he kept getting glares from parents if he walked Dottie there, even though he always cleaned up. Several passive aggressive comments later, and in the end, it wasn’t worth it.

Sure, he could walk around the block, but their neighborhood was pretty sketchy, broken glass and needles all over the sidewalk. The traffic during the day was so loud he could barely hear his airpod, and he didn’t dare walk at night. They tried a few times to just push through, but a close call with a souped up sedan one morning was the final straw - he gave up convenience and googled nearby dog friendly walking locations to travel to instead.

If the trouble of a rearranged workday, taking his lunch break at ten in the morning, and having to put gas in his car more often resulted in Dottie’s pure joy every day, then the results were well worth the costs. And he had to admit it was nice to encounter only smiles from the other hikers. A few even complimented Dottie’s coloring and asked after her breed. Kids loved her excitement, wiggling and licking and sniffing while they laughed for a few delighted moments before their parents ushered them on with a thanks and a wave.

As for Dottie, one person’s hassle was another dog’s delight. Fascinating forest smells and car rides. How could that ever be anything other than the best day ever, everyday?

So it was that this particular April morning struck him as odd. He doubted it was the weather; while chilly, it was still comfortable for the season. The parking lot was pretty empty - just his car and the ranger’s jeep settled in front of their station. Fairly typical. Dottie was acting just as chaotic as she always was. No cause for alarm there either. Then what had him so on edge?

Maybe it was the smell.

A stench of hot, rotting vegetation. Like wet leaves and grass left to mold and cook in the sunshine. It assaulted him as soon as he opened the car door and seemed to linger all along the path. Following them; chasing him. Or maybe it was the trees. With gaping holes on the trunks they dotted the trail, like something had come along and taken a crunchy bite out of the bark. All of them either dead or dying.

Birds on the branches broke through his increasingly nervous thoughts, and Noah blinked away the panic that had been creeping in to blur his vision. Their calls sounded normal at first, but the more he listened, the stranger they became. Cawing frantically, they were getting worked up, distressed. Dottie pulled on the leash, wanting to leave the trail; usually not so persistent, she strained against her harness towards her target.

Pushing through his growing unease, Noah followed along as he indulged her, but held her back from what was her ultimate objective: a brush pile. Looking for the source of her determination, his eyes landed on a partially eaten squirrel carcass. Well, that explains it. Gently shaking the leash, he brought Dottie’s attention back to him.

“Ew, Dot leave it.”

As he hauled her back onto the path, Noah frowned at the dead animal. Something felt off, but he couldn’t pinpoint what. He sniffed in disgust and nearly gagged as that moldy smell returned even stronger. With a lick to his pant leg, Dottie went back to leading their excursion towards the next marker of their walk, the bridge crossing the mountain falls. Her wagging tail acting as a propeller for her large, gangly body, she often made him think of a baby giraffe - all legs.

The squirrel, it seemed, was forgotten.

They approached and subsequently made quick work of that rickety log bridge; Noah held his breath the entire time. He always held his breath over the bridge. Something silly and superstitious he did, as if it made him lighter. As if that would stop the rotten logs older than his twice-great grandfather from giving way.

Silly.

The wind picked up as they left the falls behind and reached a flat part of the trail, bringing with it a fresh scent that piqued Dot’s interest. She tugged on the leash, leading towards the next curve in the path and the thick brush bordering it. The birds became uproarious.

As they rounded the bend, Dot jerked so hard against the harness and leash Noah was forced to leave the path to follow her. There was a slight incline, and underbrush covered the terrain. He decided he’d only let her have a few feet for this detour - he didn’t want to get stuck off the trail, and the squirrel was still fresh in his mind. There was something about it, something wrong.

Dottie’s excitement peaked as she started not just pulling but whining in excited distress. She had found something.

Initially he thought they just stumbled on someone’s trash - but knew that wasn’t right the moment it entered his head. The trail was well maintained, and Noah never saw any sort of litter all the times they had hiked this path. He approached for a better look, to help his brain decipher what his eyes were seeing.

Dot fought against the leash, nearly frantic, and it was as he kept her firmly at his side that a heavy, terrifying realization rushed over him.

It was a body. A person.

He stared at her face, angled as it was down towards the trail. Her cheeks were scratched, the marks all the more striking against the bloodless grey pallor of her skin. Mouth open wide and jaw unhinged, as if she were screaming. And her eyes. He’d never really appreciated how much you could tell about a person from their eyes. All the things they could reveal.

Her eyes had been gouged out.

Feeling sick to his stomach but unable to look away completely, Noah moved his gaze up from her face to the rest of her body. One arm was bent backwards over her throat, the other reaching up towards the sky. The diamond of an engagement ring glinted in a brief, weak ray of sunlight. Her finger was broken at a sickening angle.

And her legs. He could see that one twisted beneath her, propping her back up into an arch. He couldn’t find the other one.

There were several holes in her pink rain jacket, and the jagged edges fluttered every time the breeze picked up. While the rips had no obvious shape to them, the injuries beneath were oval. But those wounds - he’d never seen anything like it. What kind of animal could make wounds like that? He didn’t think there was one that could.

You’ve never seen a real dead body in your life, let alone one from an animal attack. You don’t know what the wounds look like.

Dot’s straining against his grip on the leash was almost out of his control, and Noah restrained her against him as he backed towards the path while fumbling in his pocket for his phone. Clarity came briefly before hysteria overwhelmed him: the birds were silent. A cold sweat followed the explosion of abject terror in his stomach. That rotten plant stench was overpowering.

“Dot Matrix! Heel!”

Yanking Dottie back to his legs - nearly tripping them both - Noah’s shaking hand worked on dialing emergency services; mistyping 9-9 twice, he struggled to bring himself under control. Finally getting the number, he worked on making his breathing slow and even, the need to vomit crawling up his throat, threatening to choke him. He was still shaking when the call connected.

“I’ve just - I think I just found a dead body.” He paused as the person on the line tried to calm him down, “on the Carpenter Mountain trail. Where? Where on the, fuck, where am I - I’m on the Old Carpenter Loop. Up by the bridge.”

Speaking to the dispatcher while pulling Dot away, he missed the pair of gloves falling out of his pocket. In his struggle to keep Dottie from the body and the fumbling for his cellphone, they were pulled free. Bundled together they rolled onto the ground beneath the underbrush, with the scent of his coat, of his person, of his life, lingering in the fabric.

Waiting to be found.

Leave no trace behind,

It smells you once and hunts you twice

Better leave no trace behind.

-

It was quarter to ten at night, and he was twenty minutes into the game, nearing the first boss, when he heard it. A rapid sort of scratchscratchscratchscratch somewhere on the edge of his awareness. A quick glance to Dottie at his feet, but she seemed oblivious of anything unusual from her bed under the desk. Turning down the music, he paused the game and listened, waiting for something to happen.

When nothing did, Noah turned the volume back up and returned to the game. He was in a video game version of a bookclub with a couple of work buddies, and he was way behind on the latest campaign. Tim was hot on his heels to dethrone him as the record holding speed runner; he’d never be able to show his face in the break room again if he succeeded. And if he thought the guys were getting fed up with him, his boss definitely wouldn’t let him keep fucking around procrastinating.

Although he had used the discovery of the body to milk nearly a week off work for emotional distress, he knew he was skirting the line. He still saw her at night when trying to go to bed, and he hadn’t been able to take Dottie back on that trail since. He tried, but the paranoia of being watched had fully gripped him as soon as they pulled into the parking lot, overwhelming him. Even Dottie seemed to lose her enthusiasm for the trail. And he doubted the smell would ever leave his nose - but his work provided insurance didn’t cover therapy.

So, all that aside, he was probably fine.

As the cut scene before the battle played out, his thoughts drifted back to that squirrel. Now that the shock had worn off and he’d had time to process, he realized why it bothered him so much. Why it looked so wrong. The bite marks weren’t that of an animal that gripped and ripped. It was like a half empty carton of ice cream.

The flesh wasn’t torn. It was scooped out. Shaved.

Same with the woman.

The cut scene ended, the battle initiated, and Noah had to force his attention back to the game. He even landed a few good hits in on his turn, before that low scratchscratchscratchscratch returned. Like a scraping against something hard. Letting the game idle on his next turn, he shut off the music this time as he sat in the computer chair and listened.

Scratchscratchscratchscratch

Even Dot sat up, head cocked in curiosity. He watched her as she looked around before cautiously investigating the sound. Her head bowed low and tail tucked between her legs, she approached the corner of the office to the left of his desk. His floor lamp cast it in shadows, but Dottie saw something there, something distressing enough that she cowered and whined in its presence. If he unfocused his eyes, he could see movement where the walls and ceiling met. The scratching got louder.

Noah reached for the knob on the lamp to brighten the room, even as his baser brain begged to leave it in the dark and his higher one reasoned it was probably rats. Prayed it was only rats. The lamp clicked.

Something was breaking through the wall. He watched the insulation, drywall, and paint chips sprinkle to the floor like snow as the thing burrowed in. Once the hole was big enough to fit a fat orange through, the intruder pushed its way in. It was small, about the size of his computer speakers, and covered in dark tree bark. Then it was moving, rolling its body up to reveal nothing but a mouth, wide and filled with jagged needle-like teeth.

Before Noah could react it sprouted legs - thin and stick-like and countless - from what he dumbly thought was the head. It skittered away from the hole, onto the ceiling like a spider. The limbs moved independently, working to carry the body. Those needle teeth began moving furiously, emitting a high pitched chitter like cicadas.

Not rats.

“The fuck.”

He could feel his mouth twitching, trying to form more words that couldn’t seem to come out. Eyes squinting as they tried to understand what was invading his home through the walls. Carefully, he reached towards his phone on the edge of the desk while his stare never left the thing on his ceiling. The sound swelled, and terror flooded him as more of them emerged from the hole. Waves poured out over his walls and across his ceiling like ants. Then that smell, the same one he could never forget, hit him. That hot, wet, rotten earth smell.

He knocked over the lamp as he ran.

Nearly tripping over Dot, who was making her own hasty retreat to the safety of her bed under the desk, Noah dared one glance over his shoulder as he fled. He wished he hadn’t.

They were streaming over the walls, taking over the office. He couldn’t see the paint anymore. The mass was too large, they scrambled over each other in their pursuit. This wasn’t a swarm. It was so much more than that. It was a legion.

Lunging through the door, he crashed into the hallway wall and ran toward the living room, towards the front door; it was no good. He hadn’t taken two steps when another wave, along walls and floor, poured in towards him. Bathroom! Though it was small, there was a window he could crawl out of.

He turned back towards the bathroom door, gripped the handle, and heard scratching from the other side.

“Fuck!” Nearly hysterical, Noah fell back against the door to the only room that seemed quiet. The bedroom. That window couldn’t be opened; there was no escape found there. But maybe he could hide, call for help, and wait these things out until it arrived.

He fumbled with the handle against his back before managing to open the door and slipping into the dark room. Slamming the door shut behind him and keeping the lights off, he dove under the covers of his bed, working to get his breathing under control. Loosening the death grip on his phone, he lifted it to his face to dial 9-1-1. But it wasn’t the screen shining in his eyes, it was the laser of his mouse.

He didn’t bother to quiet his sob.

He was going to die. He was going to die alone in the dark and he left Dot behind to die alone and god he deserved whatever was going to happen to him for that and -

Scratchscratchscratchscratch

It broke through his dark thoughts. He bit his lip to smother the noises he was making. His whole body convulsed. His breath hitched. He tasted blood.

Noah screwed his eyes shut tight against the dark of the room as he heard them penetrate the walls. Could see the creature behind his eyelids, some terrible monster of his imagination come to life. In the corner of his room, watching, approaching, making noises that made him sick.

It moved onto the bed. He knew that even as he held his breath and refused to open his eyes. If he didn’t breathe, it couldn’t hear him; if he didn’t look, it couldn’t possibly be there. Old childhood fears of the shadows in the dark rushed back to him, urging him to pull the covers tighter around his body. To hide from the boogyman that haunted him, hunted him. The chittering picked up speed, growing louder, filling his ears and all around him to the point his very bones vibrated with it.

The room’s air changed, its weight shifted. Heavier. And then Noah knew the things were above him, hovering, looming. His breath escaped out in rapid little huffs, hyperventilating. No point in hiding. They found him.

One of them released a sound like the scream of a cat directly over his face. That hot rot smell filled his nose and mouth, flooded his lungs until it suffocated him, choking any screams. Then it attacked.

He didn’t feel any pain with the first bite. The teeth were so precise and the action so fast, his brain didn’t even register it. Half a second passed, and he felt it pulse, then agony erupted. It was needle sharp, and in the haze, that’s what they became, thousands of little needles piercing his skin.

He waited for the ripping pain and relief of the teeth pulling his skin and muscle from his leg, but it never came. Instead, the invader moved further in, a razor slicing. He felt the blood pooling, and a sucking pressure preventing it from spilling out. Dimly, he remembered the squirrel and the woman, and the lack of blood. Several more attached to his arms and legs, his stomach, his face.

Then the chewing began.

He still couldn’t scream. And then it was too late.

Leave no trace behind,

It smells you once and hunts you twice

Better leave no trace behind.

-

It was quarter to ten at night, and he was twenty minutes into the game, nearing the first boss, when he heard it. A rapid sort of scratchscratchscratchscratch somewhere on the edge of his awareness. A quick glance to Dottie at his feet, but she seemed oblivious of anything unusual from her bed under the desk. Turning down the music, he paused the game and listened, waiting for something to happen.

When nothing did, Noah turned the volume back up and returned to the game. He was in a video game version of a bookclub with a couple of work buddies, and he was way behind on the latest campaign. Tim was hot on his heels to dethrone him as the record holding speed runner; he’d never be able to show his face in the break room again if he succeeded. And if he thought the guys were getting fed up with him, his boss definitely wouldn’t let him keep fucking around procrastinating.

Although he had used the discovery of the body to milk nearly a week off work for emotional distress, he knew he was skirting the line. He still saw her at night when trying to go to bed, and he hadn’t been able to take Dottie back on that trail since. He tried, but the paranoia of being watched had fully gripped him as soon as they pulled into the parking lot, overwhelming him. Even Dottie seemed to lose her enthusiasm for the trail. And he doubted the smell would ever leave his nose - but his work provided insurance didn’t cover therapy.

So, all that aside, he was probably fine.

As the cut scene before the battle played out, his thoughts drifted back to that squirrel. Now that the shock had worn off and he’d had time to process, he realized why it bothered him so much. Why it looked so wrong. The bite marks weren’t that of an animal that gripped and ripped. It was like a half empty carton of ice cream.

The flesh wasn’t torn. It was scooped out. Shaved.

Same with the woman.

The cut scene ended, the battle initiated, and Noah had to force his attention back to the game. He even landed a few good hits in on his turn, before that low scratchscratchscratchscratch returned. Like a scraping against something hard. Letting the game idle on his next turn, he shut off the music this time as he sat in the computer chair and listened.

Scratchscratchscratchscratch

Even Dot sat up, head cocked in curiosity. He watched her as she looked around before cautiously investigating the sound. Her head bowed low and tail tucked between her legs, she approached the corner of the office to the left of his desk. His floor lamp cast it in shadows, but Dottie saw something there, something distressing enough that she cowered and whined in its presence. If he unfocused his eyes, he could see movement where the walls and ceiling met. The scratching got louder.

Noah reached for the knob on the lamp to brighten the room, even as his primitive brain begged to leave it in the dark and his thinking one reasoned it was probably rats. Prayed it was only rats. The lamp clicked.

Something was breaking through the wall. He watched the insulation, drywall, and paint chips sprinkle to the floor like snow as the thing burrowed in. Once the hole was big enough to fit a fat orange through, the intruder pushed its way in. It was small, about the size of his computer speakers, and covered in dark tree bark. Then it was moving, rolling its body up to reveal nothing but a mouth, wide and filled with jagged needle-like teeth.

Before Noah could react it sprouted legs - thin and stick-like and countless - from what he dumbly thought was the head. It skittered away from the hole, onto the ceiling like a spider. The limbs moved independently, working to carry the body. Those needle teeth began moving furiously, emitting a high pitched chitter like cicadas.

Not rats.

“The fuck.”

He could feel his mouth twitching, trying to form more words that couldn’t seem to come out. Eyes squinting as they tried to understand what was invading his home through the walls. Carefully, he reached towards his phone on the edge of the desk while his stare never left the thing on his ceiling. The sound swelled, and terror flooded him as more of them emerged from the hole. Waves poured out over his walls and across his ceiling like ants. Then that smell, the same one he could never forget, hit him. That hot, wet, rotten earth smell.

He knocked over the lamp as he ran.

Nearly tripping over Dot, who was making her own hasty retreat to the safety of her bed under the desk, Noah dared one glance over his shoulder as he fled. He wished he hadn’t.

They were streaming over the walls, taking over the office. He couldn’t see the paint anymore. The mass was too large, they scrambled over each other in their pursuit. This wasn’t a swarm. It was so much more than that. It was a legion.

Lunging through the door, he crashed into the hallway wall and ran towards the living room, towards the front door; it was no good. He hadn’t taken two steps when another wave, along walls and floor, poured in towards him. Bathroom! Though it was small, there was a window he could crawl out of.

He turned back towards the bathroom door, gripped the handle, and heard scratching from the other side.

“Fuck!” Nearly hysterical, Noah fell back against the door to the only room that seemed quiet. The bedroom. That window couldn’t be opened; there was no escape found there. But maybe he could hide, call for help, and wait these things out until it arrived.

He fumbled with the handle against his back before managing to open the door and slipping into the dark room. Slamming the door shut behind him and keeping the lights off, he dove under the covers of his bed, working to get his breathing under control. Loosening the death grip on his phone, he lifted it to his face to dial 9-1-1. But it wasn’t the screen shining in his eyes, it was the laser of his mouse.

He didn’t bother to quiet his sob.

He was going to die. He was going to die alone in the dark and he left Dot behind to die alone and god he deserved whatever was going to happen to him for that and -

Scratchscratchscratchscratch

It broke through his dark thoughts. He bit his lip to smother the noises he was making. His whole body convulsed. His breath hitched. He tasted blood.

Noah screwed his eyes shut tight against the dark of the room as he heard them penetrate the walls. Could see the creature behind his eyelids, some terrible monster of his imagination come to life. In the corner of his room, watching, approaching, making noises that made him sick.

It moved onto the bed. He knew that even as he held his breath and refused to open his eyes. If he didn’t breathe, it couldn’t hear him; if he didn’t look, it couldn’t possibly be there. Old childhood fears of the shadows in the dark rushed back to him, urging him to pull the covers tighter around his body. To hide from the boogyman that haunted him, hunted him. The chittering picked up speed, growing louder, filling his ears and all around him to the point his very bones vibrated with it.

The room’s air changed, its weight shifted. Heavier. And then Noah knew the things were above him, hovering, looming. His breath escaped out in rapid little huffs, hyperventilating. No point in hiding. They found him.

One of them released a sound like the scream of a cat directly over his face. That hot rot smell filled his nose and mouth, flooded his lungs until it suffocated him, choking any screams. Then it attacked.

He didn’t feel any pain with the first bite. The teeth were so precise and the action so fast, his brain didn’t even register it. Half a second passed, and he felt it pulse, then agony erupted. It was needle sharp, and in the haze, that’s what they became, thousands of little needles piercing his skin.

He waited for the ripping pain and relief of the teeth pulling his skin and muscle from his leg, but it never came. Instead, the invader moved further in, a razor slicing. He felt the blood pooling, and a sucking pressure preventing it from spilling out. Dimly, he remembered the squirrel and the woman, and the lack of blood. Several more attached to his arms and legs, his stomach, his face.

Then the chewing began.

He still couldn’t scream. And then it was too late.

-

The ranger knows the truth,

Something’s lurking in the woods

And the ranger knows the truth.

-

Any color his skin held had long since faded from blood loss. The lack of warmth in his face made his dark hair and stubble darker; brown hair almost black. His soft curls limp.

The dog sat beside the body, not so much a silent sentinel but a vocal mourner as she whined and thumped her tail when the ranger drew near. Penelope recognized her from the previous week, a Scottish Deerhound mix with a beautiful black and cream agouti coat; friendly, enthusiastic, and loyal.

“Hey pretty girl. Come on, come here.” Penelope offered her hand for the dog to smell, keeping still as she let the animal approach. The whines verged into low grumblings as she lowered her head; still she crept up to the ranger. Scratching around her collar, Penelope found her tags.

“Dot Matrix? What a good name for such a good girl. How about you come with me, huh? Get you away from all this, yeah? Good girl, come on.”

Taking her by the collar, Penelope led the dog out of the brush and down along the trail towards the ranger station in the parking lot. While the dog was a tall breed, she still had to stoop to keep a hand on the lead, and by the time they made it into the office she was relieved to stand up straight again. Finding and filling a bowl from the kitchens with water and laying out a blanket on the floor, the ranger left Dot and returned to the trailhead with caution cones and the Trail Closed sign.

The walk down was far faster than it should have been.

It was coming even further down the mountain. Great.

They’d have to close the trail now, say a bear had wandered in to the area and the parks services were working on tracking, catching, and releasing it further up the mountain. If they could keep the public at bay for long enough, it should move back up to its normal hunting grounds. Although how long it would stay there before migrating again, Penelope couldn’t say. This would have to be reported, plans would have to be made to keep it away from the public.

Once the signage had been posted and she was satisfied no one else would stumble upon the gruesome sight, Penelope hiked back up to the body, taking care to pay attention to the forest along the path. Even now, she saw indications of its presence, the impact it had on the environment. It had hunted down and devoured any wildlife that hadn’t fled. All the trees were dead or dying. Their dirt had eroded away, leaving exposed roots in its wake; thick cords of muscles and tendons desperately clawing into the earth.

They lined the pathway like a warped guard, along the trail and up the mountain; a silent warning. Several trees had large pieces of bark torn from them, leaving wounds of varying sizes. Holes bored into the soft flesh of the tree hidden beneath, like a sponge. She knew pressing wouldn’t yield soft rot, but hard, brittle kindling.

Because that’s what it did. Dried things out. Sucked life from its prey, be it a tree during hibernation or meat during hunting. Sucked and chewed until only a husk remained.

Struck with a sudden terrifying realization, Penelope slowed her stride to count the wounds on the trees. Five. Eight. Thirteen. Twenty-two. Thirty-eight. Fifty.

All of them new this season.

“Jesus.”

That was too many, far too many. And that was just what she could see from the trail; how many more were out of sight? Picking up her pace again, she moved as quickly as she could to the body without breaking into a run.

The body was just as she left it, neck bent at an impossible angle, holes the size of mandarin oranges dotting the flesh. Arms contorted up against his chest, fists clenched around something black. There was no blood. His eyes were gone. So were his toes. And the smell. Oh god, the smell. That hot plant rot smell was all over the body and surrounding trees. No matter how many times she encountered it, it always made her a little sick.

But that was all expected. It was when she looked beyond the wounds and the smell she noticed the things that frightened her.

He wasn’t dressed for a hike. In fact, he really wasn’t dressed at all. Though torn in several places, the pants were clearly a pair of sweats, the t-shit a faded graphic. He had no jacket, no shoes. And then there was the dog; she only had a collar, no harness, no leash. She remembered seeing both of those when they met last week. So what was he doing here, if it wasn’t to walk the dog?

Stepping forward, Penelope held her breath and gently touched his fingers. They were cold and stiff, didn’t feel human at all; more like rotting tree roots. She suppressed her gag by telling herself that’s what they were.

At first they wouldn’t give, she had to wiggle and pry the grip loose. Finally breaking the middle and index fingers, she pulled the object free. Looking down, her brain struggled to grasp what was in her hands. When it did, her stomach lurched into her throat. Startled, she fell back from the body, dropping the item with a cry of alarm.

A wireless mouse.

Fuck. This was bad. She had to call this in.

Scrambling for the walkie on her hip, Penelope radioed dispatch, thoughts racing. He never came out here; it brought him back. Just one wouldn’t have been able to carry him back to the mountain; there had to be more one. Many more.

Fear hit her like an icy wind. The only reason she had stomached all the bodies and cover-ups, her mind turning it all into mundane everyday work, was because to her, it was an animal. This wasn’t a thing terrorizing the mountain trail maliciously or for fun. It did it because that’s what it evolved to do; no different from bears or wolves or sharks or alligators. But she was wrong.

It wasn’t an animal.

It wasn’t a creature.

It wasn’t even a god.

It was a hunter.

And now she knew there was more than one, and that they left the mountain.

-

A monster in the woods,

Quick go call a ranger

There’s a monster in the woods

Creature of Carpenter Mountain

The Price