Out Poster: Dread

I lay on my side, knees curled to my chest, and stared past the evergreen branches into the night. A breeze rattled the needles, smelling of frost, and crickets sang of the changing weather. A dull stabbing pain throbbed in my abdomen, and I shifted in a useless attempt to assuage it.

'Stupid flightless form. Every fall, it's the same thing.' Growling, I rolled onto my stomach, pressing an arm beneath me. My legs flopped out from underneath my crochet blanket, the bare flesh quickly cooling; I yanked the blanket down with my toes, flopping back onto my side. 'Bad enough it takes daylight and hands to tan a deer hide — why do I have to bleed, too?'

Temptation beckoned — to abandon my fruitless attempts at sleep and shift, winging into the night. I could patrol, maybe snag a rabbit. My mouth watered at the thought of ripping into the tender, raw meat with my beak. 'A mouse would be better — swallow it down, no fuss, no muss, and just a pellet to show for it later.'

My limbs ached, straining for my winged form. Memory nagged — I had, once, shifted while on my cycle then spent the night beating off unwanted suitors. The most agonizing cramps my flightless form had ever endured racked my flesh for the following day and a half. I shuddered and tugged the blanket higher, a stray thread tickling my cheek.

'Nope. Not doing that again.'

Rolling back onto my stomach, a warm trickle snaked down my leg. I bared my teeth in a feral grimace and adjusted the rags tied between my legs. My hand came away damp, and I thrust it outside my nest.

'Is it worth getting up?' My blankets — or at least the one covering the springy boughs that protected me from the hard platform — would already be stained. Inevitably, I'd need to scrub them in the creek, and the material would no doubt sport yet another series of mottled splotches. 'It's not like anyone else will see, anyway.'

Grumbling beneath my breath, I hauled my limbs from the blanket-induced warmth and crawled toward the pine's trunk. Splinters from the platform's boards bit my palms and knees — another hazard of this shape. Once there, my fingers sought my spare rag clout, tucked on a shelf that even my night-blind flightless form had no trouble locating. Fumbling, I switched the soaked cloth for dry, leaving the used rags to tidy in the morning, and rinsed my sticky fingers with a splash of water from a fire-baked clay pitcher. Any trace of sleepiness had fled by the time I crawled into my nest to shiver myself back to warmth.

'It's going to be a hard winter.' The muskrat family that made its home on the pond at the edge of my normal patrols had built its den much higher than in previous years, and the geese that were usually just starting their migration had long since departed for their wintering-over lake. My lips twitched into a smile as I recalled following them once, long ago. The smile faded as I remembered whose idea that trip had been, and acid churned in my stomach. I tugged the blanket over my head, burying myself beneath the familiar interwoven strands. 'Don't think about it. I can't change anything, so just don't think.'

A not-so-distant thump, followed by the rhythmic pad of feet on the spiraling platform, jerked me from my thoughts. I sighed, relaxing from the tight ball I'd curled into, and peered through a larger-than-average gap in the blanket's yarn. Darkness and mottled fur cloaked the oversized paws, gangling limbs, and scrawny body, but I would recognize the nearly grown lynx anywhere. The familiar shadow approached my nest, and I drew the blanket tight.

He yowled, pawing at my cover. With a giggle, I raised the edge of the blanket, allowing the cat to snuggle into my side. The waft of his breath held the tang of blood, telling me his evening hunt had been successful. He bunted his head against my arm, and I obliged, scratching the edge of his lower jaw just the way he liked it. He settled in, a comforting warmth that soothed the cramps, and the rumble of his purr lulled me into sleep.

♫♪♫♪

Morning dawned, as ever, with an obscenely cheerful chorus of small birds and a glaringly bright sun stabbing through my pine's needles.

"Breakfast," I snarled, throwing my blanket aside in the face of the unrelenting, cheerful twitters. "You're all breakfast!"

The songbirds paid no heed, though they at least had the courtesy to avoid my home tree. Scrubbing my fingers across my face, I trudged to my pitcher, poured a palmful of water, and applied it vigorously to my face and hands.

"Cold! Cold!" I danced in place, as if that would warm the liquid, and poured another palmful. I slurped it up, swirled it through my mouth, and swallowed it down. "Cold!"

Another splash of water dampened a bit of cloth, and I scrubbed briskly, paying special attention to the rusty smears across my thighs. An even briefer, more intimate scouring had me ready to tie on my last clean clout and slip into my denims. The denim was so worn, only the pant's waistband had stiffened in the cold; that material dug and bit, and I swore in renewed discomfort.

Gathering the dirty rags in a string bag that already held a deflated waterskin, I followed the winding platform down to the base of the tree. As I went, I checked and re-checked the supplies stored on the shelves that lined the platform. Two jars full of acorns, ready to be shelled and ground during the upcoming winter. A stack of small game hides, carefully tanned. Three more jars, filled with dried strips of meat and tightly corked. A woven basket with tiny balls of lumpy yarn and a drop spindle. I scowled as I came to the broken knife hilt, hurrying past it to jump the wingspan gap between where the platform ended and the ground. I landed lightly and scanned the clearing for any signs of danger.

'Nothing.' My shoulders slumped, but I kept my attention focused. 'Don't relax. Just because I can't see anything…'

A tuft of pale fur fluttered in the wind, caught in the splintered branch that guarded the lynx's den. As usual, he'd retreated before the dawn chorus roused me and wouldn't come out until dusk without a bribe of fresh meat.

'Two years ago, I wouldn't dream that I'd share my root cellar with a lynx.' My lips twisted into a wry smile and my stomach snarled at the memory of the meals lost to feed the scrawny beast. I'd told myself I was fattening him up — waiting for his pelt to peak before harvesting it. But I'd known I was lying to myself.

'And next spring, when he seeks a mate?' I turned away from the den, walking toward the hedge's gap. I crouched low, twisting to lie on my back and inch through, raising the thorny branches first with my hands, then my knees, and finally my bare, calloused feet. Once clear, I ran nimbly toward the creek. My eyes constantly searched the forest, and my ears strained to detect any warning calls obscured by the daft birds' songs.

The almost-invisible path to the creek proved uneventful — just as it had yesterday morning and the morning before — and I leapt over the water, landing lightly on the far side. I continued upstream until I came to a washout where the water eddied in rippling swirls. After emptying the mesh bag into the tall grasses along the bank, I climbed the ancient oak whose roots gripped the clay-heavy soil on the downstream side of the washout. A lop-sided bowl was nestled in the hollow where a massive branch had fallen away in a storm four winters past. I slipped the bowl into my bag and retreated to the ground. There, I filled the bowl from the stream and set to the distasteful task of cleaning my blood from the rag clouts, dumping the stained water well-clear of the stream.

After I wrung the rags as dry as possible and refilled the waterskin, I drank my fill from the creek and put the bowl back in its cranny. Continuing upstream in the morning light, I followed the first game trail wending to the north. The sun was halfway to midday when I reached the apple trees, and I devoured three slightly mealy apples in quick succession. My stomach protested the odd and late breakfast with cranky rumbles while I stuffed my bag full of red and green fruits.

Chickadee-dee-dee-dee-dee.

Chickadee-dee-dee-dee-dee.

I froze at the warning cry, stooped over to scoop another apple from the ground. My eyes darted around, searching for the source of alarm; I saw nothing. Abandoning the apple, I crouched low and scurried to a cottonwood, crunching through the spade-shaped leaves to grab a low branch and pull myself up. My bare feet were sure against the smooth bark as my hands sought branch after branch, winding higher up the massive tree, until I stood on a swaying limb scarcely thicker than my bicep.

My gaze quartered the terrain below methodically, and still, I couldn't trace the source of the birds' distress. The quiet rang in my ears, cut only by the soughing of the wind and the rustle of leaves across the ground. Then a motion counter to the wind's course caught my eye, and I focused in on the black shape hopping through the leaves.

The air grew thick in my lungs, and the apples threatened a reappearance. I swallowed hard, forcing my flesh into submission as I watched the rabbit nibble at the fallen fruit. A sudden gust smashed into the cottonwood, and the branch I rode bucked, knocking me loose. Swearing and scrabbling, I dropped past three secondary branches before my nails bit into a limb thick enough to stop my fall, tearing to the quick to do so. Blood welled around the nail beds, and I swung my legs up to wrap around the branch. Hanging upside down, I glanced back at the rabbit.

Blood-red eyes watched me, and the creature bared its fangs in an eerie hiss.