Bjorn Einarsson

The sun sank behind Yellowstone in long gold streaks as I signed out the patrol SUV. 3 months on the job & I still followed every rule like it mattered. Bjorn leaned against the ranger station doorway smoking in silence. “Lost hiker near Blacktail Ridge,” he said. “That it?” “For now.” Nobody liked him. The Norse accent. The sarcasm. The way he watched people too carefully. Hikers kept reporting strange sightings. A man running beside wolves. Golden eyes in the dark. Black fur spreading across human skin. Bjorn called it fear & bad weather. Hours later my radio died in static deep in the woods. I left the SUV near an old trail & continued on foot. An owl called somewhere above me. A badger crossed the road. Then branches cracked nearby. The bobcat attacked fast. Teeth out. Low to the ground. Something larger slammed into it from the dark. The animal fled screaming. What stood there was not a wolf. Too tall. Wrong shape. Black fur covered its shoulders & back. Golden eyes caught my flashlight for a second. My camera recorded just long enough for the creature to crush it. Then it grabbed me. Trees blurred past. The thing carried me through the forest faster than the SUV ever could. When it stopped, it dropped me onto an empty fire road miles away. Bjorn stood there breathing hard. His ranger jacket hung torn open. Blood ran down one arm where fur still pushed through skin. “You saw nothing,” he said. “You are the thing people reported.” Bjorn looked toward the trees. “No. I am what finds it first.” Far off in the dark someone screamed once. Human. “You left the hiker out there.” “I was late.”