Project Hyperion (A Kaiju Thriller) (Kaiju #4)

She laughed. Considerate and funny. If she were still living, her mother would have said that Nick was a keeper. She’d heard her say that once, about a boy. But Jenny was just fourteen at the time and wasn’t yet thinking about keeping anything or anyone.

Nick walked past, toward the side of the road. “We’ll just go back a ways. Anyone comes down the road, we’ll hear them.” He held a stand of ferns aside and motioned to the pine woods with his free hand. “After you?”

Jenny just smiled and walked into the forest. While this was a first for her, like most people in the area, she grew up around and in the woods. She was as comfortable in the outdoors as she was in her living room, or in this case, her bedroom.

The woods rose up a casual hill, which she walked with long strides, knowing it would pull her already tight jeans a little bit tighter. She looked back and found Nick staring at her butt, a permanent smile locked on his face. His eyes shot up to meet hers when he finally noticed her looking at him.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m just the luckiest son-of-a-bitch in Maine.”

And he’s romantic, she thought.

She paused in a section of forest between a group of tall pine trees. The ground was covered in a thick carpet of brown pine needles. With a blanket on top, it might actually be comfortable. “This will work,” she said, keeping her back to him while unbuttoning her shirt.

She glanced back and saw Nick unfolding the blanket and unfurling it over the ground like a waiter at a fancy restaurant. “It’s a little warm,” he said. “Took it out of the dryer before I left the house.”

She paused unbuttoning, “You washed the blanket?”

“Course,” he said. “Used two dryer sheets, too.”

Definitely a keeper.

She could hear him undoing his belt. “Slow down, cowboy. Let me do that.” She turned to face him, smiling wide. Her breasts weren’t quite as impressive as her backside, but her too-tight bra did a good job accentuating what she had. Problem was, Nick didn’t seem to notice.

In fact, he wasn’t looking at her at all. His hands were frozen on his belt buckle, but his eyes quickly scanned the forest above them. His smile slowly faded away.

Sensing something wasn’t right, Jenny pulled her shirt closed and moved closer to Nick. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Can you smell it?” he asked.

She took a sniff. Pine needles. She sniffed again, deeper. “Vinegar?”

He gave a nod. “And something else. Like steak.”

She smelled it then, and put her hand over her nose. “Ugh, it’s awful.” She noticed that he was only looking uphill. “How do you know it’s coming from up there?”

“Air moves downhill,” he said. “So whatever it is, we’re downwind of it.”

“What do you mean, it?”

“Probably a bear that got into someone’s lunch, or kitchen even.”

It made sense. Black bears had no qualms going where the smell of food led them, and Jenny had heard more than a few stories of ransacked kitchens, cars and trash barrels. “Are we safe?”

“I won’t be dropping trou if that’s what you mean,” he said with a grin. “Not until I know it’s gone, at least.”

She laughed and said, “Okay, so how do we know if it’s gone?”

“Bears are afraid of people,” he said. “If it knows we’re here, it will bolt. So we just need to let it know we’re here.” A mischievous look filled his eyes and he ran up the hill, hooting loudly and shouting. “Lookout bear, here I come!”

A bit more apprehensive, Jenny followed Nick up the hill, buttoning her shirt as she scanned the area for any sign of a bear—fleeing or otherwise.

But she saw nothing.

Nick’s voice suddenly changed from a hoot to a higher pitched scream of surprise. Despite having no idea what had happened, Jenny joined in, screaming loudly and stopping in her tracks. She screamed again when Nick dove to the side and a large black bear charged over the crest of the hill and bolted past them.

She watched it sprint down the hill, it’s fur bouncing wildly. She could hear it breathing heavily, huffing with each step. And then it was gone, across the dirt road and out of sight.

“Holy shit,” Nick said, picking himself up and brushing pine needles from his clothes.

“Have you ever seen a bear run like that?” Jenny asked.

“During bear hunting season, yeah,” he said. “But it’s not hunting season, and that’s when they’re running away from people. I was making a lot of noise. It should have steered clear.”

A tingling ran up the skin of Jenny’s exposed arms. “We should leave.”

The tingle spread over her body when Nick nodded quickly, his eyes starting to show uncommon fear. She turned down the hill and hurried toward the truck. Nick was a hunter. He knew the woods—these woods—maybe better than anyone in town. If he was spooked, then something was—

Nick shouted again, but this time it was like he’d been muffled by a pillow half way through. As Jenny spun around, the now high pitched wail was cut short. Her eyes went wide as she saw the impossible. Nick stood ten feet back, but half of him was missing.