Fourteen Steps to Nowhere

Writing Prompt #1

There was no sign of a body of water anywhere.  Jan stared at the map in confusion, her forehead wrinkling.  A small pond or a creek, she could understand that not making the final cut on a map, but a lake didn't normally disappear.  Jan sighed deeply and pushed a few strands of her graying hair out of face; perhaps she had read the compass wrong.  The lack of visual landmarks due to the fog hadn't made navigating easy.

Jan reached into rain jacket's front pocket and pulled out her compass and watched it quietly.  A few raindrops splattered against the compass' plastic top and she flipped her jacket's hood over her head.  The wind picked up slightly and her map flapped in the breeze loudly.

"The lake should be right here," Jan said to herself.  She looked around at the deepening fog and then back at her map, her worry and confusion only growing.

Abruptly, a snarl tore through the air.  Jan dropped the compass and the wind snatched the map from her hand as her head jerked up.  A small cry of terror scratched its way up her throat at the black beast before her.  Shaggy and wolf-like in appearance, a dog stood six feet in front of her, its eyes lanterns in the foggy afternoon.  Foam and specks of dirt dripped from its mouth as it growled and the fur on its back stood straight up.

It took all of her self-control not to break into a straight run.  Jan held her breath for a long second and tried to think of any sane, any viable option.  She thought about what she knew about dogs and remembered a fact she had heard on TV: one way dogs showed dominance was with eye contact.  The black dog, the strange growling menace, clearly had its eyes on something else.

Following its gaze, Jan noticed the dog's eyes seemed to be locked on something in the grass.  She chanced looking down and noticed the compass.

"Is that it?" Jan asked the dog.  She motioned to the compass with one hand and strangely, almost trance-like she lifted her foot and shattered the plastic compass.

The dog stopped growling and barked happily, dancing small circles and wagging its tail near Jan and leaving deep pawprints on the side of mountain.  Jan stared at it in bewilderment and then at the shattered compass.

"How will I get off the mountain?" She whispered.  The dog stopped dancing and walked over to Jan.  It leaned heavily against her side and whined quietly.  The two stood in silence for a moment and Jan shivered slightly in the chilly afternoon.  "Let's get moving," she said.

The dog barked, and it led Jan further into the fog.

***

Months later the investigators closed the case.  Jan was never heard from again nor although several other hikers saw her earlier that day.  The police investigated the rumors of a drifter living on the mountain killing and they found him, but there was no sign of a body.

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