#flashfiction

The trail winding through the Wilson Bayou Nature Preserve brought Savannah Lee to the edge of the Gulf of Mexico. She stopped to stare, awestruck, at the expanse of water reaching to the horizon.
The sun was low in the sky, beginning to dip behind distant storm clouds. Savannah Lee removed her sunglasses and placed them on her head where they disappeared within the teased mass of blonde hair. She had about a half hour of daylight left, more than enough to make it back to her car. She wanted to take in this sight for as long as she could. The park ranger had suggested this trail and his description of the view at its terminus as ‘heavenly’ just didn’t do it justice.
The sun painted the sky with colored shafts and Savannah Lee turned to face it and noticed a lone tree that had somehow escaped the bayou and stood just off shore. She could imagine it as an explorer, tired of its existence as part of the forest and setting off into the great vastness of the sea.
The setting sun turned the tree into an enormous shadow shape and Savannah Lee’s eye was drawn to the largest bird’s nest she had ever seen perched at the very top of the tree. The tree was almost fifty feet off shore and the distance made it hard to tell scale but she guessed the nest was at least four feet across. Could it be an eagle’s nest? She had read somewhere that eagles made enormous nests.
She craned her neck and squinted into the glare of the sun. She thought she saw some movement and hoped that the nest’s inhabitant would reveal itself. The nest appeared to shudder and rock on the branch. The nest trembled again and the left side lifted skyward. It looked like the nest was extending part of itself toward the sky. Another piece reached skyward on the right and then the entire nest lifted itself upward. The nest, clearly it was some sort of animal not a nest she admitted, stood on two shaggy legs and flexed long bristly arms like a person stretching out tight muscles after a long sleep.
Savannah Lee gasped and the shape jerked and turned. She could not see any features but knew that whatever it was, it was now staring at her.
The wildly furred shape dropped from the tree and water geysered a dozen feet into the air where it hit. The shape rose from the Gulf, dripping, and began to move toward shore. Savannah Lee knew she should run but she was locked in place by terror and fascination watching the shape loom closer. Everything went silent around her. The only sound was the sloshing of the waves made by the creature’s legs. The creature towered over her, almost twice her height now that it was close enough to see. It was covered in spines and stiff fur that would do a porcupine proud – assuming the porcupine was from some lower plane of Hell. Its arms reached to well below the thing’s knees and its clawed fingertips drew tiny wakes through the water as it neared. Below the enormous hump of the thing’s shoulders it head hung low. It was a marriage of a lion and a bull, long horns spouting from a stiff mane surrounded glowing red eyes and an enormous mouth filled with needle dagger fangs.
Savannah Lee’s feet gave up waiting for her brain to issue coherent orders and launched her backward in a staggering run returning the way she had come. She made it three steps before an impact knocked her to the ground. Searing pain tore a scream from her as the monster’s talons drove into her leg. Savannah Lee screamed for a long time while the sun painted the sky pink and purple – a heavenly backdrop for the beast to feed.