Not Just a Moonlight Tryst

"Stop driving so fast." Laura commented mildly. She'd been bothering him about his driving since they were sixteen, so Damien didn't think much of it at the time.

They were doing nearly ninety on the moonlit roads in the northern reaches of Washington, slowing only occasionally to negotiate a difficult bend in the road. The tree-lined roadway was devoid of traffic, but that was no surprise at almost two in the morning.

"There's no cops. It'll be fine," he replied.

"It isn't cops I'm worried about."

"We've been making this drive most weekends for almost ten years now. You know I'm a good driver," he saw Laura nod out of the corner of his eye, "so what're you worried about?"

The trees flickered past almost too quickly to see, weaving moonlight and shadow into a continuous writhing pattern on the road. The little Porsche barked happily as Damien down-shifted, slowing just a bit to slip around a corner.

Laura mumbled something and he could practically hear the flush in her voice.

"What was that?"

"Bigfoot," she mumbled a little more loudly.

He chuckled, but stopped himself quickly, concerned about hurting his friend's feelings.

"There's no such thing as Bigfoot." The engine hummed again as they sped up into the straights.

"Yes there is. I've seen him."

Damien glanced at her for just an instant. She was adorable when she pouted, her full lips and ever so slightly pudgy cheeks coupled with her layered brunette hair gave her a cute chipmunk quality and he wondered for perhaps the thousandth time why they'd never hooked up as teens. They were both married now, of course, so the point was moot, but still…

He sighed and shook his head. "Whatever you say, Laura." She glared at him but he just smiled. "I promise you that I won't hit Bigfoot."

Something huge and heavy leapt from the tree line several hundred yards ahead of them. It landed in the middle of the highway on all fours and turned to face the lights of the car. Damien had just an instant to glimpse the creature, broad and squat like some kind of unholy cross between a wolf and a crocodile. It bared a huge gaping maw full of teeth at them and they heard a keening wail burst from its throat. Then the Porsche struck the beast.

At just shy of a hundred miles an hour, and as low-slung as the little sports car was, the creature should have bounced over the top of the car, probably crushing much of the roof on its way, but it didn't. The car crumpled as it collided with the animal. The entire front end collapsed, folding around the monster as though it were a concrete pillar. Damien and Laura were thrown into the exploding airbags, their seatbelts humming with the strain of holding them in place. Damien felt a sickening pop as his shoulder was wrenched from its socket by the force of the collision and then he felt his consciousness swimming with the jolt of his face against the onrushing airbag.

The Porsche had gone from over ninety to a dead stop in less than three seconds and had pushed the crocodile-wolf creature only a dozen feet in the process. There were deep score marks in the asphalt where huge talons had dug into it.

Laura groaned in pain as Damien managed to raise his head. Through the shattered front window he could see the beast as it disentangled itself from the remnants of the shattered car. It looked straight at him and snapped its gator-jaws at him once making a kind of hungry crooning noise. The sound of a semi-truck coming up the road reached Damien's ears over the sound of Laura's pained grumbles. The creature must have heard it too, because it looked back, then finished prying itself loose and loped off into the woods on the far side of the road from where it had come.

As the lights of the semi reached their destroyed car, Damien pulled himself loose from the car and helped Laura out as well. She staggered and there was a nasty cut over one eyebrow, but otherwise she seemed largely intact. His shoulder burned and ached as Damien moved and he was struggling not to pass out.

"Well, do you believe in Bigfoot now?" Laura demanded, weaving on her feet.

"I don't think that was Bigfoot," Damien whispered, watching the woods. "But I'll believe anything you want if you promise I never have to see that again."

"I think you ruined your car!" A gruff voice called out from beside the halted truck. "What did you hit? A moose?"

"Yeah," Damien said vaguely as the man approached them, already dialing his cell phone for help. "A moose."

A little distance away in the deep woods of the northwest, a keening wail announced that Laura wasn't the only one that believed in Bigfoot. As the moon settled itself, full-bellied and tired, onto the horizon, the creature keened one final time and loped off in search of softer prey.