Creature Instinct

Another 69er. One of a group of three related shorts.

In the full-moon light, the cedar forest snapped and cracked. Was it the single-digit cold, expanding and bursting cellular structure? I wasn't convinced.

Smoking a cigarette, I eyed the woods from my porch. I imagined the beast of my nightmares, rushing toward me, snapping fallen branches as it came. It moved upright, body hairy, sightly hunched, open mouth wetly glistening.

My heart lurched, reason arguing with instinct.