The Hobgoblin of the Redwoods by Trevor Scott

Author:Trevor Scott
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Salvo Press
Published: 2013-11-05T05:00:00+00:00

9

I guessed we were about a mile up the road when I hit the brakes and slid to a stop. Sara slowed and put her foot down.

“Why’d ya stop?” she asked.

“I thought I saw something cross about here.”

“Was it that bear?”

“I thought you told me Danielle said bears sleep during the day?”

“Right.” Then she looked up to the sky, which had now turned from sun to partial sun and on to complete clouds. “But it’s getting dark.”

I didn’t have a watch, but I knew it was somewhere around two in the afternoon. “It won’t be dark for hours,” I told her. I looked back down the road we had just traveled. We had climbed a small hill. Then I noticed it.

Sitting back in the ferns on the right side of the road was a small wooden sign with holes where someone had shot it—the sign read “Now Entering Redwood National Park.”

“Look, Sara,” I said, pointing to the sign. “We’re in the Redwoods.”

“Cool.” Then a look of near horror came across her face. “But Danielle told us not to go into the Redwoods.”

I sighed. “Sara, what am I gonna do with you? That’s a figure of speech. Sort of like how she says she’s going into the field to work. But there is no field. Only woods. Redwoods. She just didn’t want us to go into the woods.”

“Because of the Hobgoblin.”

I shook my head and started walking the bike along the road. Sara followed.

“Well? What about the Hobgoblin?” she asked.

I stopped. “That was a camp fire story. She was trying to scare us.”

“Well, it worked.”

Suddenly I heard the brush rustling on the right side of the road. “Shhh,” I whispered.

Sara heard it now as well. “What is it? Was it what you saw cross the road?”

I shook my head no. “That went across over there.” I pointed over to the left side of the road.

The rustling got louder and now we could see the ferns moving. Then nothing.

I listened carefully. That was strange. I couldn’t hear a thing. Not even a bird chirping.

Then the hairy beast stepped from the ferns. Or should I say hopped?

It was a furry bunny rabbit.

Sara held her breath. “Look,” she whispered loudly. “It’s so cute.” She lay her bike alongside the road, and the motion made the rabbit jump to the middle of the road.

“Don’t move,” I pleaded quietly.

It seemed to know we were there, but it didn’t seem to care much. I set my bike down onto the edge of the road and tried to step toward the rabbit.

The rabbit hopped once, its eye checking us out, and its nose sniffing the air.

I stepped forward again.

And again it hopped once.

“Maybe we should leave it alone,” I said to Sara.

By now she had crept forward and was at my side. I looked up and down the road. There were no cars. In fact, no cars had come by the whole time we were on the road.

I didn’t say anything, so Sara moved slowly toward the rabbit. It let her get within a few feet before scurrying off into the woods on the left side.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.