Flash Fiction #4

Crouched behind the thorny bush, hands clenching hard on the grip of his lumberjacks axe, Ben tried to calm his breath. As air flowed through his nostrils he could smell the scent of the cedar trees, but mixed with something... otherworldly. The apparition from before had disappeared, and now the forest was eerily silent. No birds. No wind even.

         Little Johnny was somewhere out there and Ben knew he had to do whatever he could to find him. The kid had his whole future ahead of him. More than could be said for the rest of the old treehugging lot. His work at the logging camp had been interrupted when two of the hairy things had appeared. Stuart had been killed with a savage backhanded blow by one of the creatures and Little Johnny had been grabbed by the other and carried off. Ben had managed to get the smaller of the two with his axe, but the bigger one carrying Johnny had escaped into the woods.

         Ben got up again and peered over the top of the bush. Fifty paces from him, the still form of Little Johnny lay on the ground. The big hairy creature was no where in sight. Perhaps it had left? Ben stepped out from behind the bush and began sneaking toward Johnny. He was wary of the surroundings, but no where he looked he could see any signs of the monster. Twenty paces from Johnny, his heart caught in his throat as he heard quick, hard thumps on the ground behind him. He spun around, hefting his axe and readying for a blow. The white-haired thing was rushing at him, fangs bared. He swung wildly, adrenaline pumping through his body. As the axe connected with the creature's head, it went immediately limp. The now dead creature fell into Ben and they landed on the ground together.

         It took some time before he had calmed down enough to maneuver out from underneath the corpse. He crawled over the where Little Johnny lay, and shook him gently. The kid groaned as his eyes fluttered open, but everything seemed to be okay.
"Thank god, Johnny. I thought I had lost you."