Keira pulled on Grace’s arm as she stopped to look back. “Come on, we have to get out of here.”

“Did you hear that?”

“Yes!” Keira broke into a run and pulled Grace with her. It wasn’t the sound of something big shuffling in the woods that was sending fear racing along Grace’s spine. It was Keira’s reaction. She’d taken a picture of something, then told Grace they had to turn around and head back calmly. As soon as they broke out of the woods into a clearing, Keira wanted to run.

Huffing and coughing, they made it to the parking lot. “Let me see the picture,” Grace heaved. Keira handed her phone over with the photo app open.

“Ma’am,” can I see that? A park ranger truck had pulled up next to them. Two serious men with guns strapped to their hips surrounded Keira and Grace.

Grace handed it over without thinking, having only caught a glimpse of wild eyes as savage as a grisly bear and an upright form with hair all over it that blended into the environment.

“What is it? Is it Big Foot?” Keira assumed the men were here to protect them, until she looked up into the eyes of the man who handed her phone back to her. Something about his eyes reminded her of the monster. The hairs on her arms raised up.

“We don’t talk about it,” he said, his tone clearly telling them not to talk about it, either.

Keira glanced down at her phone. The picture had been erased! “Hey…” she started to complain, then thought better of it.

The man checked them both to see if they were using their phones’ video or mic. They weren’t.

“We couldn’t let you leave until the evidence was gone. You could get them killed.” That was all he said before both men headed back toward the truck.

“As if _we _are the dangerous ones,” Grace muttered.

Keira intended to tell everyone on Facebook about this as soon as she was away from those men, anyway.

“Wait! What is that thing?” She asked the rangers. The one wearing sunglasses paused before he got in the truck to say:

“It was just a shadow, Ma’am.” His voice lowered to a near growl as he continued, “they’re always there.” Then, they pulled out of the parking lot.

“I’m gonna check to see if there have been any missing persons as soon as I get back,” Grace headed toward her car. “Let’s get out of here,” she said, sounding like Keira. She got in her car, turned on the engine and locked the doors. She forced herself to wait on Keira.

Keira made it to her car and quickly got inside, locking the doors. She checked the woods for more “shadows” and then pulled out.

When she got home, she looked up the staff on the park’s website. There were no rangers who looked like the men she’d talked to, and it wasn’t staff policy to carry weapons. When she called and mentioned to the nice woman on the phone that the rangers had guns on their hips, the woman politely suggested that she’d merely seen shadows.

Grace couldn’t find a mention of missing persons. The whole thing died down on Facebook after about a week.