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My dog had as many answers to the mystery as I did and stayed silent on the subject, leaving me free to continue rambling.

"Animals can't close plastic containers. I can barely close these things on the best day. They fit weird. But it's obviously closed and unless there's a strange weirdo running around my land closing rotisserie chicken containers while also avoiding all my cameras, then that leaves just one thing that could have done it."

I knew I wasn't dealing with a cougar or a bear or any of the wildlife I'd come to know from a lifetime in the mountains. The memory of scales against my skin was enough to tell me that, but I'd assumed it was some kind of animal. Maybe someone had a Komodo dragon they'd been illegally keeping and it had escaped, or they'd let it go after realizing how big they got.

I was no expert on reptiles, but I was fairly sure Komodo dragons didn't have the ability to close containers.

"Obviously, that requires opposable thumbs, and that absolutely wasn't some kind of primate that touched me."

A quick internet search told me that koalas and pandas had thumbs, and so did possums, but none of those had scales. The only thing remotely close I found was something called a waxy monkey tree frog. It had opposable thumbs, but came in at a whopping two inches long and lived in Peru, not Colorado.

"Romulus?"

My poor, long-suffering dog just looked up at me with nothing but love and trust in his soft brown eyes.

"Are there aliens living in my woods?"

Romulus, my faithful, loyal companion, huffed and flopped back down onto the floor, resuming his role as a feline jungle gym.

Even saying it out loud made me cringe. Living in a small, somewhat remote town like Lowery's Crossing, I'd grown up surrounded by superstition and folklore. There were always stories of witches out past the edge of town and werewolves in the wild woods, but those were just stories. When I was a kid, we'd whispered them at sleepovers. As teenagers, my friends and I dared each other to go out into the woods alone while we were camping. As an adult, though, I knew none of it was real. Sure, there’d been a weird incident last year when a serial killer abducted a local and no one really knew why, but that was a one-off. And yes, somehow two teenagers had managed to go missing at separate times in the woods around town near the mountains, but that was just teenage shenanigans. Every town had strange stories, right?

What other options did that leave me with, though? Whatever was out there, it wasn't anything natural, which meant it had to be something unnatural.

Brilliant deduction. I should change my name to Sherlock.

"What should I do? I should feed it again, right? It hasn't hurt me and whatever it is, it's clearly hungry." It'd eaten even the bones of the chicken, leaving nothing behind. Even without seeing it, I got the impression that it was big. At least human-sized, perhaps more. It'd been out there for at least a few days, so it was presumably injured and unable to hunt for anything to eat. In retrospect, I should have gotten more food for it.

With at least a vague notion of a plan, I got up and went to my fridge, peering inside for any options. I wasn't a big meat eater, mainly because it seemed like a hassle to cook for just one person, so all I had were a few rolls of ground beef in my freezer. I did have several eggs, though. A few from my chickens, along with a dozen from the store to hold me over until they started laying again. There was also some deli meat I needed to eat immediately before it went bad.

I could make this work.

Gathering what I could find, I got to work. I could feel the dog's eyes on me the whole time, judging me.

"It's not weird to cook an omelet for the strange creature living in my woods," I informed Romulus as I proceeded to cook an omelet for the strange creature living in my woods. Maybe if I could convince Rom, I'd start to believe it for myself.

"This isn't weird," I whispered to myself as I plated it on a metal baking sheet. It was too big for a plate, and putting it on an actual dish felt like one step too far.

"I'm just looking out for my local wildlife," I said as I carried it outside, shivering in the brisk wind. I hadn't stopped to grab my jacket, mostly because there was a very real chance I'd talk myself out of this if I thought about it for too long, or at all.

So far, the creature had remained in the same spot, as best I could tell, so I headed that way, tromping across nearly half an acre to reach the tree line. The first night it'd approached me and I'd checked the cameras, some part of me wondered if it had purposely avoided being recorded. It'd seemed crazy at the time, but now I wouldn't be surprised if that was true.

There was still some concern that it might change its mind and eat me, but that didn't stop me from moving closer than I had before, putting me out of the camera's view as well. Maybe that would be enough to entice it to come out?

"Um… are you still here?" I called and immediately winced. This whole situation really had me questioning my sanity.

The underbrush rustled before I could spiral too far, and I realized it was the same place the creature had been last night. Had it slept there? So close to my house? Or had it come back hoping for more food?

"I thought you might still be hungry, so I brought you some breakfast. I didn't have much, but hopefully this is okay?" I groaned. "And I'm talking to you like you can understand me. After the thing with the container, though, you've got me wondering."

Moving slowly so I didn't startle it, I moved even closer, daring to get about a dozen feet from the trees before my courage faltered. I carefully laid the tray down and backed up, staring into the shadows while trying not to look like I was staring. It had chosen a good hiding spot, concealed even from the early sunlight, and I couldn't make out anything but more shadows.

"You can come out, if you want. I promise I won't be scared." Not a promise I could guarantee I'd keep, but I'd do my best. "If you're hurt, maybe I can help you? I'm no veterinarian, but I know some basics. Is that why you haven't moved on yet? You can't?"

Silence met my rambling, as I'd assumed it would. In all honesty, if the creature had started talking to me, I'd have immediately broken my promise and run screaming back to my house.

I waited, but it didn't move again.

"Okay, I'll leave you alone so you can eat." A sudden idea popped into my head and out of my mouth before my brain could slam on the brakes. "If you want to bring the tray back to the house, I'll get you some more food when I get home. I'm going to turn off my cameras in the backyard if you don't want to be seen."