the "animal"

It moved again. Danielle tried to back the car up, but her tires were just too bogged down. She didn't know anything about the woods, but she knew that whatever it was, it was probably a deer or elk or something, and harmless. Bears don't move that fast, and it was too big to be a wolf. Still, she waited a moment before she opened the door.

Dani stepped out and smoothed her black skirt over her black and green plaid dress stockings. Her funeral dress was in the suitcase. There was a wake, her grandmother's, tonight at Millhaven Manor; her destination. Knee high black dress boots sunk into the mud on the side of the road. She felt the rain hit her white blouse top, so she leaned back into the car to pull out her designer leather jacket. As she did so, her jaw-length designer Auburn hair fell across her forehead, and she brushed it back behind her ear. The green of her eyes glowed in the pale light reflected off of the trees by her headlights.

Again, she saw it move behind her in the rearview mirror, just in the shadows. Her breath quickened, but she steeled herself and stepped away from the car to put the jacket on. She walked to the front of the car. It was hopeless. Her tires were buried in the mud. Dani sighed, and leaned against the tree. She was in the full glare of the headlights. Barely, she saw it at the back of the car. It looked human.

Almost.