She was coming. Dark thunderclouds hid the sun as he crouched lower behind the bushes. He knew she wouldn’t see or hear him.  Wind whistled through tall pine trees covering any sounds he might have made.  She was almost there.  He held his breath, getting ready.

    Her scream split the air like a knife when his hand shot out and grabbed her ankle.  She fell back on her rear, scrambling backwards frantically trying to escape.

    His hysterical laughter turned his sister’s fear to instant rage.  “You should have seen your face!” the boy gasped between peels of laughter.  Andy was a ten-year-old pain in his sister’s butt.

    “You are dead!” Kelly growled, pushing her long auburn hair out of her eyes.  She was two years older than Andy, but only a few inches taller.  Hazel eyes shot promises of pain into laughing brown ones.  Kelly jumped at Andy.  He zigged the other way.  She stayed after him, determined to do him bodily harm.  Andy’s laughter slowed him down.  He made an exaggerated look of fright and screamed, pretending to be her.  His Yankee’s baseball cap sat crooked on his head, a small leafy branch from some bush stuck in his shaggy, dark brown hair. 

Kelly giggled and then burst into laughter.  She jumped on top of him, tackling him to the ground.  “Can you be any more of a nerd?” she asked.

    They both heard it, stopping them dead in their tracks.  Slowly getting to their feet Andy whispered,   “What was that?”

    Kelly shook her head, goose bumps covering her body, “Let’s get back to camp,” she said.   They ran, looking back over their shoulders.  The forest closed in on them.  “I think we’re going the wrong way.  I don’t recognize anything around here!”  Kelly whispered to her brother in a panic.

Andy glanced at her.  “We passed that big dead stump,” he replied, pointing down the road.  “That scream was not human.  You know what I think it was?”

“No, and I don’t want to know either!  Let’s go!”  Kelly said, grabbing his arm, pulling him toward the dead tree.  He tried to pull out of her grasp, but her death grip wouldn’t be broken.  “I’m sure it’s this way,” Kelly said, dragging him behind her.  They walked what seemed like miles.  Clouds were getting darker and the wind was picking up. They ended up in a thick stand of trees. “We’re lost,” Kelly cried, eyes tearing up.

 “Don’t cry, Kelly.  We’ll find the campsite.”  Andy said, none too concerned about their current predicament.  “Man, something stinks!  Can you smell that?”  Andy asked.  There was definitely something and it smelled horrible!  They both looked around. 

“What’s that up there?”  Andy pointed up in the tree.  They went closer to get a better look.   Both kids took a step backward. Something had been half eaten and thrown up on a high branch.

“Oh,” Kelly whimpered, running out of the trees. “I’m going to be sick!  What would have done that?”  Kelly looked around, eyes full of fear.  “We are lost!  It’s almost dark and there is some….something out there!  Mom!  Dad!”  Kelly was screaming now.

“Kelly,” Andy yelled into her face, “look over there.  There’s a house or something!”

Kelly saw what her brother was pointing and took off running, with Andy close behind.  When they got there, they saw it wasn’t a house at all, but a really old, rickety shack.  The wood was bug eaten, with big gaps in the wood, allowing them to peek inside.  The front door was held on by a single hinge and rotten shutters were the only thing that kept animals from climbing in the windows. 

    The loud clap of thunder boomed overhead.  Both Andy and Kelly jumped and ran to push their way through the front door.  Once inside, they propped the door closed, hoping the single hinge and an old metal chair would hold the door closed against the wind.  Kelly stared, not moving.  Andy, on the other hand, was exploring every inch of the place.   

    “Look!” he called.  “Here’s an old candle.  See if you can find some matches.  Check that old cupboard.”  Andy pointed to an old cabinet in the corner, covered with spider webs.     

     “No way,” she told him.   

    With a disgusted grunt Andy went over to look for himself.  Amazingly he found a pack.  “Hey, here are cans of beans and peaches.”   Andy held up dust covered cans.

The storm was getting louder.  Andy and Kelly could feel the wind blowing through some of the boards of the old shack.  Thunder cracked and then rain pounded the roof.  “It’s raining,” Andy announced.

    “Of course it’s raining,” Kelly said, going to stand by the lighted candle.  “It always storms before the murders begin.”

    Laughing Andy found a rusty old can opener and gave his sister a can of peaches.

Using their fingers they ate in silence.  “I’ll bet mom and dad are freaking out,” Kelly said.

    “Yea, but they’ll be so glad to see us tomorrow; they will forget to be mad!” Andy said.

    “Yea, right,” Kelly responded dryly.

    They finished their dinner and threw the cans in the corner.  “I think that scream was a Sasquatch,” Andy burst out.

    “Sasq-what?”

    “Sasquatch, you know, Big Foot.  I read where they have been seen in the Pacific Northwest.   They are like half human and half hairy monster type things.

    “Andy, be quiet!  I mean it!  I don’t need to hear this now.”  Kelly yelled, her voice trembling.

They were sitting against the wall when a flash of lightening lit up the shack.  Kelly screamed and pointed toward the back wall.  “There was something outside.  I saw it.”

    “What was it?”  Andy gasped.  He tried to get up but she held him tight.

    “I don’t know.  It looked, it looked……huge.  I swear there was something there.”  Kelly whispered, shivering.

    At that moment the front door burst open, a light blinding both kids.  “Kelly! Andy!” It was Mom.

    “Mom!  Dad!”  The two kids were across the room and in their parents’ arms.  Both were talking at once.  Kelly was blaming Andy and Andy was telling them about the Sasquatch.     

    That caught dad’s attention, “The what?”

    He told his parents about the scream, the dead thing up in the tree, and what Kelly thought she had seen just before they came in.

    “It was probably some owl’s dinner and he put it there for safe keeping,” Dad said.

“No way, Dad,” Andy argued. “It was gross, like something had ripped it in two and what about that really horrible scream we heard?”

“That’s enough Andy.  You’re scaring Kelly, plus I’m not too crazy about this whole conversation, either!” his mother said.

 Andy’s dad agreed.  “Look, it’s raining pretty hard outside.  Why don’t we sleep here tonight and get an early start tomorrow.”  Everybody agreed with that idea. With mom and dad close by, Andy and Kelly went right to sleep.

    The next morning the whole family woke up to the sun shining through the gaps.

The sky was blue and there was a light breeze. 

Right outside the door, Kelly and Andy stopped and stared at the muddy ground.  There were tracks.  Foot long tracks with claws that dug deep into the mud.  They started under one of the windows and trailed into the forest.    

    All four of them were out of breath by the time they reached the campground.  The tent was down and the truck was loaded within the hour.

    “Do you think they were Sasquatch tracks?” Andy asked

    “No!” Mom, Dad, and Kelly replied, overly loud.

    “Me, too,” Andy said, looking at the forest as they drove out of the campground.