Monster by Frank Peretti Page B

on its head stuck out in wild directions. If she’d seen this thing in a zoo from a safe distance with bars between them, she probably would have thought it was cute.
    She ventured one more look in its eyes—
    “Roargghh!” The little beast exploded like a bomb going off, leaping into the stream, sending up a spray of water that doused her. Terrified, Beck squirmed, kicked, and tried to get free while the juvenile roared from the middle of the stream, arms flexing, fists clenched, fur on end, teeth bared in a vicious display. Then his mother got into it, roaring and putting on a horrific show of anger.
    The big red female pulled Beck in close and turned her back to the onslaught. Beck was glad for the shield, but the female was cowering, and Beck could feel her tremble.
    With just one eye peering through red fur, Beck saw the other female standing her ground on the opposite bank, teeth bared and growling, while the youngster, emboldened by his mother, splashed across the stream, grabbed up pine cones, and threw them. The hurled cones bounced off the big female. Beck leaned out a little too far and one glanced off her shoulder. It smarted. Another pine cone whizzed by her ear and she ducked.
    The big gray stepped into the stream. In only a few long strides, she loomed over them, eyes burning with anger—particularly at Beck.
    Shaking with terror, Beck buried herself against the red female’s chest.
    The female toppled forward.
    “Nooo!” Beck cried.
    Suddenly Beck was buried under an avalanche of muscle, fat, and fur, nearly smothering in the coarse hair, her back pinned against the rocks, in total darkness. On top of her, the mountain trembled and quaked, the heart pounding like a huge drum. Beck couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move either. She cried out to God. Things got quiet. The mountain lifted slightly and daylight trickled in through the hair, along with breathable air. A pine cone bounced on the ground just outside, but it landed lightly, so it had to have been tossed, not hurled.
    Beck heard feet sloshing back across the stream as the mountain sat up. She dared to peek. The youngster and his mother were returning across the stream. He clung to a fistful of fur on her side, and she stroked his head. He looked back over his shoulder as they left, bared his teeth, and huffed at Beck and her keeper.
    With one parting, spiteful grunt, mother and son hurried into the brush, then barked one more loud insult before they vanished from sight.
    So there were three of them.
    Reed sat on the bed in Room 105, Beck’s bent and soiled backpack in front of him. Carefully, solemnly, he removed the contents, handing each article to Cap. As Cap arranged everything on the floor, Sing listed each in her notebook: dry changes of clothes, an extra pair of long underwear, rain gear, matches, dehydrated snacks, a first aid kit, a tool kit, a compact tube tent, a compass, a Swiss Army knife. Reed wept when he found two rolls of toilet paper and a small pouch containing makeup, but he kept going. He couldn’t allow his emotions to keep him from this task. Next came a thermal blanket, some containers of food, and—Reed paused to look at it—a crumpled, bent book, Wilderness Survival, by Randy Thompson. Several pages were marked and paragraphs highlighted.
    “She read it,” he marveled. “She actually read all this stuff.”
    With so much precious time lost and Beck not found, Reed felt as if he were in a torturous limbo between faith that they would find her and cold reason that insisted she couldn’t be alive. He dared not voice such things, for he wasn’t ready to face them, not yet.
    “I’m proud of her,” he said, withered by emotion. “I’m really proud that she tried. You know she never finished a painting? She did finish one novel, but she was afraid to send it to any publishers. She was afraid of what they’d think.”
    “It was a great book!” Sing affirmed. “And listen, Reed, for the record, the survival