[Chapter 2-2] of [Book I'll likely not finish]

Here's the third chapter of this venture. It's actually more like part two of chapter two however... and yes. I do know I'm going a bit overboard with Cthulu jokes! But that's what editing is for - right? :)

PS: as this is the second part of chapter two it's a bit shorter (sorry!) but I'll have the real chapter three up by tomorrow morning!

"I - I don't understan -"

The boy beside her moved first. His phone went up and there was a sudden flash as he pressed the trigger button, and then he gasped as if he'd been wounded. His terror brought her back to herself and finally her gun was out. Had the creature noticed the flash of light? Riz killed her flashlight. What had she thought coming here alone? What did she know Cthulu was capable of? All she'd heard about him was fiction and this? This creature? What if it was a ghost and she couldn't wound it?

"What should we do!" the boy whispered. His voice was harsh and terrified and HOW SHE HATED CHILDREN. Why had he come out here? He wasn't any smarter than she and now he expected her to solve it! How could she protect this brat if she didn't even know what she was up against? She could barely see anything ahead, her eyes still trying to adapt, and he thought she could do something to protect them?

"Officer!" he whimpered.

"Quiet!" she snapped back. Protocol. Remember protocol. The innocent behind you, the gun in front. "Don't speak and follow me! Quickly!"

If she could go around the road she might be able to get a better look at it, and they'd have a better chance to get in their car, but if it spotted them...? Then what? Where was it, even? Her sight was coming back somewhat, but the thing she'd seen was gone, the road empty, except.

"Riz?"

Tension drained out of her like a rushing waterfall and she was suddenly inexplicably tired.

"You followed me."

"Of course I followed you!" Mel exclaimed. "Gee, you look like you've seen a ghost."

Riz chuckled. A ghost, huh.

"Haven't you seen anything when you came down here?"

"A lot of trees. Who's that?"

Riz turned to see the boy staring at Mel (well, her lips, anyway). "That's uh -"

"Ekko," he said, half mutinous, half enthralled by Mel.

Riz scowled at him, almost jealously (she caught herself just in time) then turned back to the road, to her car. "And you didn't see anything when you arrived?"

"No." Her brow creased. "Was there anything I was supposed to see?"

An apparition, a ghost. Cthulu's grand grand-kid. An apparition in the dark, shrouded by mist, with antlers on top of its head.

"What did the witnesses say the yeti looked like?"

"Uh," said Mel. "Tall, like a man, dark fog surrounding it. It wears a mask of bone, like the skull of a moose, or an elk, but Riz - Do you believe in this crap?"

What was she to believe? A moment ago she would've bet her life (or at least Ekko's life) that there'd been something supernatural on the road, but now, with Mel there, it was difficult to concive such a notion, difficult to say she'd spotted bigfoot with a straight face.

"I need sleep" she said instead, and walked past Mel to check on her car. It was undisturbed, but in the darkness around her, Ekko's words echoed when he spoke.

"It's not the Yeti," he said, as if annoyed. "It's a leshen."