Chapter Four
I opened my bleary eyes as the first rays of the sun were appearing on the field. A soft, pale light poured through the clouds. I was frozen solid. My body ached from the cold. I was tired and spent, I wanted to crawl into a bed, a real bed and sleep.
I didn’t believe it at first. But when I couldn't hear the lion below me. I looked down into the barn and didn’t see it anywhere. I looked up and out the window. There the great beast was, far off in the field, loping towards the sun. Was this a trap, was it really gone? I watched as it ran farther and farther away from me.
When it was nothing more than a dot on the far horizon I stumbled to my feet. It hurt to move. My joints cried out in pain as I walked towards the stairs. I clung to the rungs with my numb hands hurrying down the ladder. I still couldn't quite believe it was gone.
Daylight was breaking as I picked up my speed. I ran through the field. I tripped over roots and fell more than once. I kept looking behind me searching for the lion, but it was nowhere in sight. I ran until I was back on the trail. My lungs were burning from the cold and a stitch was forming in my side.
I didn’t stop until I got to town. Once I was on the street surrounded by people, by real people, I managed to catch my breath. It seemed impossible that I had been this close to civilization. Last night it felt like I was the only person left in the world and now I was watching shop owners open their stores.
“Officer!” I saw two policewomen sitting in an idling police car and sipping their coffees. I ran up to their car and both of them stepped out to greet me.
“Lion,” I gasped. “There’s a lion on the loose.”
“No there isn’t,” the older of the two women said. “That’s just an urban legend teenagers spread. There is no lion on the loose in Maine, especially not in winter.”
“I saw it!” I said my eyes searching between the two women. The older one had a head of shocking red hair and her name tag said “Officer Day.” Her partner, Officer Ponderosa, was younger with long brown hair. “I spent all night trapped in the old barn off the hiking trail. I saw it there. It tried to eat me!”
They looked at each other and then back at me. “Really?” the younger one asked.
“Yes!”
“And you’re willing to go on the record saying that?”
“Yes. If we go to the barn we could see paw prints,” I said.
“We can’t go to that barn,” Officer Day said. “It’s on private property. You were technically trespassing last night. Didn’t you see the posted signs?”
I opened my mouth but said nothing. Yes, I saw the signs. But I didn’t know that meant there was a lion running rampant on the property.
“What’s your name and address?” The older officer said as she opened a notebook.
Crap! This wasn’t what I wanted. None of this was right. Was I about to be in trouble for trespassing? Did no one care that I had seen a freaking lion the night before?
“Never mind,” I said, backing away.
“You’re not in trouble,” Officer Ponderosa said as she moved slowly towards me. She was approaching me like I was a wild animal, her hands were up and her knees were bent. She was ready to tackle.
“No, I don’t want to file a report. I didn’t see anything.”
“If you’re in some kind of trouble, we can help you.”
“No. I’m not...” I said. “Please, just leave me alone.” I turned around and hurried down the street turning down the first alley I could find. Tears poured down my face, but I wasn’t sad, I was frustrated and confused. I had spent the night hunted by a huge wild animal and when I went to get help, I was reminded that I couldn’t go for help.
I wiped a tear away. Thankfully, I had a shift at the bookstore. At least I would have somewhere warm to spend the day.
***
I hurried home to get some clean clothes and then went to the Y to shower. I arrived at work early, letting myself into the bookstore and making a fresh pot of hot coffee for the customers, and a cup of tea for me. It took forever for me to finally feel warm again. I had a tickle in my throat and with my blanket wrapped around me, I prayed that I wasn’t getting sick.
It was a thankfully quiet day. I struggled to keep my eyes open. I’m sure I fell asleep more than once, but the jingling bells on the doors always woke me up when a customer entered. I kept thinking I heard the lion. Soft footsteps upstairs, the glimpse of a tan coat and my heart would start jackhammering in my chest.
The bells chimed and I was jerked awake. I looked around praying there was no one in the store. I couldn’t keep falling asleep like this. I was going to lose my job, or worse, someone could do something to the bookstore. I didn’t want to let Harold and Sarah down. They had taken a chance on me.
I sat up, forcing my eyes to stay open. I smiled at the man who had just walked in. He appeared to be around my age, in his early twenties, with long hair he kept in a ponytail and the thin shadow of a mustache on his upper lip. He was wearing a tattered trench coat and a pair of mud-scuffed boots.
He looked around the store, glancing up the stairs and listening before he finally approached the desk.
“I heard someone saw a lion last night,” he whispered. He stood at the counter but didn’t look me in the eye. Instead, he rifled through the brochures we kept on a small rack.
“Yeah, I did,” I said. Being tired made me cranky and impatient.
“Really?” He asked, looking at me. “Are you messing with me? Did Paulie put you up to this? That guy’s a jerk and you should keep your distance.
“I have no idea who Paulie is,” I said. “Last night I went for a walk, wandered onto private property and spent the night stuck up in a barn while a lion tried to eat me. You can go and see the paw prints. I was in the abandoned barn up off the hiking trail by the park.”
“That’s Lev property,” he said. “They are crazy about trespassing. Two years ago Sonny Marks got drunk and ended up on their property. They had him arrested and pressed charges for trespassing.” He raised his eyebrows at me as if I too could not believe what I was hearing.
“How did you find out about this?” I asked.
“Police radio,” he answered. “I was listening this morning while I had my coffee. I heard Day and Ponderosa telling animal control that the new girl who worked at the bookstore claimed to see a huge animal on the Ponderosa field.”
“How did they know who I was? I didn’t even give them my name.”
“It’s a small town. You’re new. Everyone knows you already.”
I rolled my eyes. I had never lived in a small town before. I had been born and raised in New York City where I never had any idea of who my neighbors were.
“So what’s the deal with the lion? When I told the cops they thought I was joking.”
He leaned towards me and in a conspiratorial whisper said. “The Lev family keeps lions on their property. I’m sure of it. They moved here in the early 1900s, running away from the Bolsheviks. Before that, Williamstown was just a small logging town, nothing special. But then, things got weird.
When the Lev’s moved in, the lion stories came with them. The very first sighting of a strange, big cat was the summer of 1918, just one month after the Lev’s first moved here. There have been sightings and maulings ever since.”
“Maulings?” I asked. I remembered the lion from the other night. The way it paced below me, waiting for me to fall so it could devour me.