Palmyra Paranormal

Chapter 4: Poor Georgie

Scott pulled into the driveway around 5:30 Monday evening. Mondays always seemed long and dragged out. He was mentally exhausted. The data analysis he'd been working on all day hadn't gone particularly well. He'd have to talk to Steve, his supervisor, about it.

The operators were entering too many outrageous measurements. Shifting decimals, missing zeros, and type-os of every shape and size. There had to be a way to limit what the operators could enter and reduce the number of outliers he needed to clean up.

But that was a task for another day. Now, at this moment in time, Scott was about to call Emily. Normally he would text, but he really wanted to hear her voice. He hoped she would feel the same and pick up.

He was expecting to be nervous, but as he punched up her number he felt nothing but a calm excitement.

Is that even a thing? He thought. Sounds like an oxymoron; emphasis on 'moron'.

But he didn't have long to think about it. Emily picked up almost immediately.

"Hey, Scott," her voice floated from the phone. "What's up?"

"Nothin' really," he replied (quite honestly). "I just wanted to touch base with you after all that nonsense yesterday."

Nonsense? He scolded himself. Really? Nonsense?

"Yeah, right?" Emily responded thoughtfully. "That was a bit frightening. Wasn't it? I mean, I really felt bad for that poor deer. She must have been terrified."

"I know," Scott had no trouble matching her concern. "I've never seen, or heard of, coyotes being so close to the village."

"Do you think..." Emily paused before finishing her question, but Scott jumped in so she wouldn't have to say it out loud.

"I don't know, Em," he stated, trying to sound like more of an expert than he felt. "Deer have been avoiding predators for a long time. They're pretty good at outsmarting them."

"I don't know, Scott," Emily mused. "They seemed pretty well organized. And that last one! I thought for sure he was going to go for us."

Although Scott felt the same way at the time, he felt the correct response today was, "No. He was definitely just warning us off. He didn't want us interfering with the hunt."

"Do you think he was the pack's leader?" The more Emily thought about the animals, the more fascinated she became. "Remember the pack back in the woods. You know, when we..."

The room around her faded as she drifted into memory.

She remembered being knocked down, violently. She'd hit her head pretty hard. Could she have been knocked out? She remembered why she was there.

Barely conscious, she rolled her eyes around, taking in the horror before her. They had underestimated the beast and now they were failing miserably. She closed her eyes and prayed for a miracle.

The howling brought her back to life. The intensity and number of voices was staggering! What could possibly be making so much noise?

With dream-like detachment, she watched as what appeared to be dozens of coyotes flowed around and past her like a river flows around a rock. Their calls were deafening. As she watched, the army of canines launched themselves at the monster.

But now something had a hold of her right shoulder. Before she could grasp what was happening, she felt something digging into her left shoulder as well. She twisted her head as she was being pulled into the underbrush. Brambles scratched her face, but she was determined to see who her captor was.