Monster by Frank Peretti Read Free Book Online Page A

would be no help to Beck or himself.
    The dying orange beam of his flashlight found an old fallen snag just a few feeble steps up the hill, with a hollow in the ground beneath it. His heart screamed against the decision, but his mind made it stick.
    He would shelter himself under the snag to maintain his body heat, and rest until daylight.
    “Beck . . . Beck . . . Beck!”
    Beck was dreaming, far from fear in the dark, merely puzzled by her husband’s anguished voice as he screamed her name. Beyond her dream was a faraway pain, a dull throbbing, a dizzy world tipping and turning, a body aching, but she didn’t wake up from the dream. She didn’t want to. Waking would hurt; the dream didn’t. In the dream she was floating as if in a stream, gliding past limbs and trees and leaves that went swish , with the ground so far below.
    She was warm, as if cuddled in a furry blanket, but it was dark, like being in her bedroom at night.
    Can’t wake up, won’t wake up, eyes won’t open, staying in the dream, moving fast, can feel the breeze . . .
    Monsters, snorting, drooling, stomping, invisible in the dark. All around, closer, closer. Beck! Beck! His legs wouldn’t move—
    “Reed! Beck!”
    Reed awoke with a start.
    “Reed!” That sounded like Cap.
    He stirred, unclear as to where he was, but willing his legs and arms to move, to pull, push, and claw his way into the open, through tangled exposed roots and crumbled rocks into eye-stinging daylight.
    The distant call came again: “Reed! Beck!”
    Reed rolled out into the grass, the dew soaking through his clothes. Everything looked so different. “Hello!” he cried.
    He heard Sing’s voice call, “Reed! Where are you?”
    “Up here!” he called.
    He leaped to his feet, but his head emptied of blood and he fell, reminded of how weak and shaken he was. They shouted again, he answered again, and that was all he was good for until his friends reached him, snapping and rustling their way through the thick undergrowth until they emerged into the clearing. They looked prepared for a week in the wilderness, with packs on their backs, hats, boots, jackets. Reed figured he must look pretty horrible, judging from their expressions.
    “Reed! We found your pack down by the creek. What happened?” Cap asked.
    “Where’s Beck?”
    By that afternoon, the Tall Pine Resort began to see more activity than it had all season. Two squad cars from the Whitcomb County Sheriff’s Department were angled in against the meandering, up-and-down porch. On either side of them were the pickup trucks, SUVs, cars, and motorcycles that had brought the Search and Rescue volunteers. The volunteers, more than a dozen strong, wasted no time unloading and filling backpacks with needed gear, testing portable radios, and organizing survival equipment and medical supplies. Some of the guys prepared high-powered rifles and stowed cases of ammunition. A van arrived and lurched into a space at the far end of the parking lot, an eager German shepherd barking and whining in the back. Across the parking lot, hooked to an RV power outlet, was the Search and Rescue command vehicle, a converted school bus now crammed with equipment, supplies, a computer, and radios. Close to the main door was a sharp-looking King Cab pickup with an Idaho Department of Fish and Game insignia on the side.
    Deputy Sheriff Patrick Saunders, in green field jacket and billed cap, walked briskly out the main door, reporting into a handheld radio, “Yeah, Jimmy Clark’s here debriefing the witness. We’ll all get rolling when he’s done. It’s a probable bear attack, so we’re lining up some hunters—”
    Sheriff Patrick Mills signaled a halt right in front of Dave’s mouth and whispered sharply, “Dave, let’s not say it so loud, shall we?”
    The deputy followed the sheriff’s glance to where Reed Shelton sat on a wooden bench farther up the meandering porch, just outside Room 105. He was haggard, dazed, and dirty,