Slipping the flask into his breast pocket and grasping the scalpel, Steele used the flashlight to push through the bushes and into the darkness of the cave.
Oh, Christ, the smell!
It was like nothing Jonathan Steele or any other living human had ever known. It seemed to be everywhere at once, in his nose and mouth and stomach like the devil's musty wine, and his mind felt alive with snakes. There, near the end of the cave, was a giant black mound. And was it moving just a tiny bit? Steele's hair stood on end, and he thought he was going to piss his pants.
Taking a deep breath of rancid air, he sent a beam of white light probing the dank recesses. And dropped it when the beam picked out the form of an immense dog-like thing, fully three times the size of the biggest goddamn St. Bernard ever known.
Dire wolf.
The name slipped through his mind even as his flashlight crashed to the cave floor, popping out the lens, knocking off the end cap and plunging the cave into fetid darkness. Steele was at once on his knees, fumbling for the flashlight, whimpering in terror.
Oh, Jesus, he had seen it!
It was real, a horror from legend--real all this time, real and waiting!
Fumbling, gasping, whining with fear, Steele gathered up batteries, the case, the lens, the cap.
God, can yuh hear it wake, boy?
Were yuh told t' stay outen the Sawhenny?
Desperately, fingers tangling as though they had terrified minds of their own, he fumbled the light back together, and again the beam picked out the mammoth creature. It lay as though dead in the cold, massive wrinkled brow overhanging glazed yellow eyes with reptilian pupils that stared straight ahead and sent Steele's heart crashing back into his boots.
)
