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Henry returned after a few tense moments. “The creature is nowhere to be seen.”

I threw Phil a look and got a firm nod. Then I glanced back at Henry. “One last time to be sure we’re all on the same page. The dining hall is four cabins down. It’s the biggest one.”

“Aye, correct. A short sprint of perhaps two hundred yards,” the specter in shredded flannel replied as he floated nearby.

“Okay, good. We can do that.” I could do it. Two hundred yards. That wasn’t that far. Sure, I may have failed gym class in high school thanks to track and field. Ugh. Running. I’d vowed once I had made up that credit that I would never run again unless something gruesome was chasing me, which…yeah, this counted. Still though. Running. Yikes.

“Thumbs to your chin, Arch. Focus on the finish line.” Phil gave me a hug for confidence. “I’ll be right beside you. I won’t let you fall behind, I promise.”

The smile I gave him was shaky. Not that I didn’t believe he would run at turtle speed to stay with me because I knew he would. I was nervous that my sloth-like running would see us turned into shredded humans for a hidebehind sandwich.

“Then we go,” Phil announced, grabbing my hand so tightly I nearly yelped. With a grunt, he unlocked the lock, threw the door open, and took off like a shot from a starter’s gun. Being the athletic thing that I am, I was not ready to go, so I was tugged out into the gray day, sneakers tangling, as Phil leaped off the porch like a damn gazelle. Somehow I managed to land on my feet when we landed. The grass was soaked. My left foot zipped out from under me. Phil jerked on my arm hard, righting me, then pulling me along in his wake. Rain speckled my face and glasses, making vision dicey. All I could hear was our harsh breaths and the sound of rain hitting naked trees and cascading to the muddy soil. Slewing this way and that, I stumbled over a rock and bounced into Phil. He threw an arm around me, hoisted me to his hip, and ran on. He was barely breathing hard. He was such a showoff. It was nearly impossible to check my mirror as we ran.

“Hold on tight,” he barked just as a shape exploded out from behind a small pine, red eyes glowing in the murky morning light. The hidebehind streaked at us. I linked my legs around Phil’s middle, my arms around his neck, and called out to my ancestors to bless us. The cryptid lunged at us. Phil threw an arm straight out as if he were merely blocking a tackle-man—sue me, I don’t know football terms—and stiff-armed the monstrosity. The hidebehind struck out with one hand, long claws ripping into Phil’s upper arm. A grunt of pain was all I heard from my man as he juked right then left then right. The cryptid slipped on the wet ground. Phil turned on the afterburners as I shouted that the mess hall was right ahead of us. Bounding over a log, Phil crashed through the door of the dining hall, dropped me to my feet, and pressed his shoulder into the door as I fumbled around like a doofus trying to drop the thick bar into place. Guess they wanted to give the food facility some hefty anti-bear security measures.

Phil moved back as soon as the bar was in place, blood dripping from his arm to the dusty floor. My eyes flared.

“You’re bleeding,” I said while the hidebehind began attacking the door.

“It’s just a flesh wound,” he replied in his best Monty Python accent. We moved away from the door, my hand in his, around long tables with benches, most now coated with dead leaves, rodent droppings, and cobwebs.

“Still needs to be treated.” We jogged into the food prep area and were greeted with a plethora of pots, pans, and cooking utensils. And not just spatulas and slotted spoons. Knives and cleavers. Real weapons we might very well need. “Let me see.” I started pushing up his sleeve. He rolled his eyes and eased his arm out of his hoodie. The sleeve was ripped and stained with fresh blood. He would for sure need a new one. This one was toast. The sleeve of his tee was in shreds. The flesh of his bicep sported three large gashes. Deep ones that probably needed stitches. Sadly, all we had was a mini first-aid kit. “Someone needs to trim his claws,” I joked to ease the tension. Phil gave me a wan smile as he studied his arm.

“Just wrap it up. Here.” He tore his hoodie sleeve totally off and handed it to me. “Tie it tight. I’ll be fine. I’ve had worse injuries.”

I bobbed my head, cinching the sleeve around his beefy bicep and tying it tightly but not too tight. I was no medic. If he’d been torn open worse than this on some field somewhere, I was never going to go watch whatever gladiator-type sport he was playing.

Staring at each other, soaked and bleeding and winded, we both heard it at the same time.

Silence.

“We need to find what we need and quick before it finds a way inside,” I whispered and got a jerk of Phil’s sodden head. “We’re looking for anything that’s sticky as well as stuff that will get in his eyes, nose, and mouth.”

“I see spices.” Phil moved to a cabinet with one door hanging open. The hinges squealed when he opened the closed door. We both winced. “Jackpot!”

I rushed over to see that the shelves were full of spices as well as canned goods and preserves someone had put up in canning jars. Probably some ’70s mom had sent them to camp for the kids. That sounded like something Carol Brady would have done. Most were outdated by about fifty years. The lids were bulging. Still, they would work. Strawberry, blueberry, peach. Several flavors. All left here to rot. This camp was left in a big hurry for whatever reason. More than likely the monster with the ruby-red eyes.

“Okay, let’s grab all this shit and a couple of cleavers,” I said. “We’ll keep the baijiu for the ring of fire now that we have other stuff to drive it back.” We moved with speed, knowing the hidebehind was out there somewhere, lurking. Our equipment bag bulging with stolen rotten jams and jars of crushed red pepper, we exited the food prep area, both carrying a cleaver and a mirror, and saw Henry floating up near the ceiling. “Any signs of it out there?”

“No, it has blended into the woods again. You must be ready for it to leap out from behind anything when you return to your cabin,” he informed us as if we weren’t aware of that. “I will go ahead.”

With that, he moved through the ceiling timbers. Phil and I cracked open two small cans of black pepper and readied ourselves for another mad dash.

“I’m going to run with you,” I said while Phil eased the heavy timber barring the door. He shot me a look of skepticism. “I don’t want to slow you down. I can run. I can do it. I can.”

“Okay, just…run fast,” he replied, his face showing his doubt. I kind of had doubts too, but he couldn’t carry me everywhere. It would fatigue him much faster. I’d keep up. “And if I see you falling behind, I’m going to fireman-carry you. Nope, no arguments. I’m not losing you.”

“Sure, that’s fine.” Fine, yes, while also being highly embarrassing. Hopefully the cryptid was walking off his anger with us. Mental health was important for everyone. Phil cracked open the door. I stood at the ready, cleaver in my right hand, pepper in the left, mirror tucked into my back pocket. I needed another hand.

Henry swooped down to greet us. He waved us out. Phil shot me a look. I nodded. He took off like a cheetah. I followed in his wake like a baby cheetah with a sprained ankle. The rain was just a fine drizzle now. Phil was four lengths ahead of me. I had to keep up. I forced myself to run faster, or tried, but I was running on one bent cylinder. Lack of sleep and loss of Qi were taking a toll. Still, I pushed onward, waving my cleaver over my head to look intimidating. If I fell and cleaved myself, I’d be so fucking embarrassed. A small ring of poplar stood off to the left, the trunks no wider than my calf. A flicker of something moved. The boughs of a tree shook and droplets of water dropped to the mud. I stopped dead, skidding slightly, my sight locked on that copse of trees.

A deer bolted out of the woods, through the saplings, a doe heavy with fawn. I smiled at her bounding gait and the flash of a white tail. A snap of a branch behind me brought me around in a wild spin, cleaver arcing out. Nothing. My heart was pounding in triple time.

“Arch, come on!” Phil shouted ahead of me. I glanced his way. He was already coming back for me. I waved him off. Something to the left slithered around a bush, the small green leaves shaking and waving. I threw my cleaver at the bush. The sound that erupted from the briars was horrifying. Phil thundered at me, grabbed me as he said he would, and hefted me over his shoulder as the hidebehind lurched out of the damp bush, a meat cleaver embedded in its back. It glowered at us and melted into the shadows, thick dark blood spattering on the ground. So much for its camouflage. I felt stupidly proud even though I was being toted around the camp like a bag of rotten spuds. Thudding into the doorframe wasn’t fun. My hip was going to be bruised. Once we were inside, I was set on my feet and kissed within an inch of my life. Now that was fun. It would have been more fun if Phil could breathe properly and my hip wasn’t aching in time with my head. Still, we managed to cling to each other, breathless and banged up, but still alive.

“What the hell, Arch. You were supposed to run,” Phil panted, cradling my damp face in his big hands, his gaze searching mine. His visage was smeared with drying rain but just as beautiful as always. “Why did you stop?”

“I…I don’t know. I just froze. Like a rabbit when a hound rushes at them. I’m sorry. I just…I was stupid.”