The Human

Chapter 2

Corey knew the woods well. He knew the tracks that belonged there, the sounds that belonged there, and the little signs that told him when something had moved through during the night.
That was why the disturbance caught his attention. Something had found one of his snares.
From a distance he could hear movement in the brush. Branches snapped.
Leaves shifted. Then everything went quiet.
Corey approached carefully. At first, he could not understand what he was looking at.
The creature caught in the snare was small, green, and unlike anything he had ever seen in the woods. Huge pointed ears stretched from either side of its head.
Purple hair stood in wild spikes. Its clothing was dirty from the struggle, and its expression carried more anger than fear.
Corey stopped. For several seconds, neither of them moved.
Every explanation his mind offered sounded impossible. An animal he had never seen?
Someone's escaped pet? Some kind of elaborate trick?
The creature pulled against the snare again. Corey did not know what it was.
He did not know whether it was dangerous. Then the creature looked directly at him.
"Don't." Corey froze. The woods became impossibly quiet.
The creature had spoken. "You can talk?" Its eyes narrowed.
"Obviously." That single word changed everything. Whatever Corey thought he had caught, it was not an animal.
It was someone. He moved toward the snare.
The creature recoiled. "I'm letting you out." Corey worked the snare loose as carefully as he could.
The moment the tension released, the little green figure ripped himself free and disappeared into the trees. Corey barely had time to call after him.
Within seconds, the woods were empty again. Corey stood alone, staring at the place where something impossible had just been.
He told no one. For days, Corey tried to convince himself to leave it alone.
He failed. Every time he passed through the area, he looked for tracks.
Every broken branch made him stop. Every movement in the corner of his eye brought back the same impossible image.
He considered telling someone once. Then he imagined the conversation.
Most people would think he had lost his mind. The worse possibility was that someone might believe him.
Then people would come looking. Cameras.
Hunters. Curious strangers.
Corey had already trapped the creature once. He had no intention of leading anyone else to him.
So he kept the secret. But he kept looking.
Corey found the tracks after a rain. They were faint and strange, easy to lose among the leaves.
He followed them farther into the woods than he normally traveled. Eventually the trees opened just enough for him to see the cabin.
The place looked abandoned.
Nifty could smell the human. He crept up to the window carefully.
The human was enormous from Nifty perspective. Corey stood six-foot-four, nearly twice Nifty's height, he had short beard and a hat covering his head.
To a three-and-a-half-foot gremlin caught in a snare, he might as well have been a giant from childhood stories.
A thin line of smoke rose from the chimney and disappeared between the branches. He stopped well short of the porch.
Something moved behind the window. Corey did not approach.
He did not knock. He simply stood there long enough to understand that he had found where the creature lived.
Then he turned around and left. Nifty watched him go from behind the curtain.