Author's Note: There's a bit of graphic violence in this story, so consider yourself warned.

Frozen

"I don't know what you're talking about. I haven't seen any tracks out here."

Jeff Tracy, only seven years of age, looked at where fourteen-year old twins Ron and Ray Sipple, and their seven-year old brother Rex, were all crouched on the ground out in the soybean field that edged the southern boundary of the Tracy family farm.

"Come on, Jeff, bring that other flashlight over here," Ron said, waving his own at him. "We need the light, it's black as pitch out here."

"I'm going to get grounded," Jeff pouted as he approached, crouched down next to Ray and shone his flashlight at the same area of tilled soil the rest of them were looking at.

"And all for no reason, I'll bet," Ray commented. Ron scowled at him. "What?" Ray said with a shrug. "We've been out here every night for a week and haven't seen any tracks."

"Well, I saw them before Jeff's dad had this field plowed, not two weeks ago," Ron insisted. He hiked his father's Winchester 1886 over his shoulder by its worn, drab green strap and rose to his feet, continuing to scan the ground.

"Daddy said there weren't any mountain lions in Kansas," Rex proclaimed with the certainty of a child who believes every word his idolized father says. He turned to Jeff. "What's your dad say about 'em?"

Jeff shrugged. He was a bit cold and way more worried about his parents finding out he'd snuck out of the house at ten o'clock at night to meet the Sipples, than he was about some phantom animal.

"Well, we're going to keep looking."

"Why are you so het up on this, anyway?" Ray asked. "This cougar's become like your Moby Dick."

"Mountain lion," Ron corrected.

"Same difference," Ray retorted.

"Whatever, call it what you—a ha! Look! I told you!" Ron shone his light at a point in the dirt directly in front of his workboot-clad feet. "See?"

The rest of them moved near, shining their lights down at the ground. "Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle," Ray breathed. "Look at that."

Jeff crouched down, followed by Rex and then the twins. To his surprise, sure enough there was a perfect cat paw print…only this was much larger than the paw prints made by the farm cats that lived in their various barns and kept the rodent population in check. Jeff reached out, feeling compelled to actually touch this print that was larger than his hand, but Ron stopped him with a firm grip on his forearm.

There was something in the gesture that made Jeff go instantly still. He turned his head to look at him, but Ron squeezed his arm harder. "Don't move," he whispered so quietly that Jeff barely knew he'd spoken save for seeing his lips move in the glow from the flashlights.

Jeff swallowed hard when he got a look at Rex's face. The Sipples were the family that lived closest to the massive Tracy farm. Jeff and Rex attended school together, hung out during recesses together and spent as much off-school time as possible together, as farm chores allowed. So he knew his friend well enough to recognize the look on his face, and it sent a cold chill through Jeff when he identified that look: pure, unadulterated fear.

"Is that what I think it is?" Ray whispered. Jeff's eyes darted to his face. Not much above his nose was visible, but Ray's chest was heaving so fast it was like he'd just run a marathon.

"What's going on?" Rex squeaked.

"Sh!" came from Ron as he let go of Jeff's arm and rose to his feet. "Be quiet and don't move!"

Jeff's eyes widened when Ron pulled the rifle off his shoulder and readied it to fire. His sharp mind worked fast and he finally got that the animal who'd made the paw print his hand still hovered over, had come back. He swallowed hard again as Ron held his flashlight flush with the barrel of the gun.

"Shit," Ray whispered, also rising to his feet.

"Get them behind you," Ron ordered as he turned away from the three of them and pointed his gun into the dark of night.

Ray quickly grabbed Jeff and Rex by their shoulders and shoved them behind his body. In the bustle, Rex dropped his flashlight. It landed in the dirt at a 45-degree angle, and what its beam landed on made Jeff's heart race. He couldn't believe his eyes and so blinked and then blinked again to be sure he was really seeing what he thought he was seeing.

There, maybe six feet in front of Ron, was the biggest feline Jeff had ever seen outside a zoo. In the light shining from Ron's flashlight, the creature seemed to take on an ethereal glow. Jeff was transfixed. If that cat stood on its hind legs, he knew it'd be taller than Ron. And it was all muscle. It grimaced, lips pulling back to reveal long, sharp fangs.

"Shoot it!" Ray whispered fiercely.

But Ron never got the chance.

In a moment that was both slow-motion and the fastest acceleration of time on record, the mountain lion pounced, sailing through the air and knocking Ron to the ground. The gun went off, but the big cat was already on the move again. It leapt from Ron's chest toward the other three boys. Rex screamed and started running. Ray whipped his flashlight around, hollering, "Rex!" and then going after him.

Jeff stood stone still as, very clearly seen in the light of Ray's flashlight, the mountain lion pounced on Ray, slapping him hard to the ground and knocking the wind out of him.

Fast as lighting, the cougar leapt from Ray's back. Seconds later, terrified screams of someone in the worst pain imaginable tore through the night air, making Jeff's ears ring. Ray fumbled with his flashlight, trying to see what was going on even as he tried to catch his breath. In that light, Jeff saw the cat's face turn red as it became soaked with blood. The cougar took a swipe at Rex, slicing four large gashes into his chest. Rex went down as Ray tried to stand, the flashlight falling away from his trembling hands, leaving whatever the cat was doing shrouded in darkness.

More screams.

The sickening sound of flesh being torn apart.

The screaming stopped.

Jeff just stood there. He couldn't run. He couldn't scream. He couldn't even blink. And when Ron managed to get to his feet and grab his flashlight, it revealed something that none of them, farm boys though they were, had ever witnessed before.

Rex was being torn limb from limb and devoured.

A shot rang out. The cat dropped dead onto what was left as recognizably human of Rex's small body. "Oh, my God," Ron was saying as he dropped to his knees, the gun hitting the soil with a thud. "No, no, no, oh, my God."

Jeff was completely and totally frozen.

It'd been more than two years since Jeff had visited the family farm. Between Tracy Corporation acquiring both the Boeing and Lockheed Martin companies three and two years earlier respectively, and keeping International Rescue running smoothly, Jeff had barely had time to sleep let alone take anything resembling a vacation.

And while this particular trip had stemmed from having to deal with some staffing issues at his Kansas City office, Jeff's sons had convinced him to chill out at the farm for a while. Scott had even threatened to come along to force Jeff into some downtime while away from Tracy Island. But Jeff hadn't wanted or needed a mother hen, and so he'd made a promise to his boys that he'd take some farm time R&R and if there was one thing Jeff Tracy always did, it was keep his promises.

He smiled as lightning flashed in the distance. That was most likely the first good storm of the Spring headed his way. Though he often forgot about it while holed up in his private paradise, Jeff had always loved the thunderstorms you could only find in the Midwestern United States. They were unpredictable and spectacular. A gentle breeze brought the scent of rain wafting his way but contrary to most peoples' instincts when they saw a sky that ominous, Jeff let the back screen door of the farmhouse slam shut and headed toward the barns.

The current renters of all the fields on his property had recently tilled the soil. The sun had been beating down on it all day, and the warm smell of it rose from the ground surrounding the home, garage, pole barn and two standard barns that dotted the clearing that was the Tracy homestead.

He heard the soft neighing and snorting of the eight horses being boarded in the two red barns as he passed between them. A dirt path – the same dirt path that had been there since Jeff's earliest memories – led from the edge of their gigantic dirt driveway south into the depths of the fields that stretched as far as the eye could see. With the storm approaching from the west, Jeff decided to take a literal as well as figurative trek down Memory Lane.

Having passed both the first and second fields, Jeff stopped at an intersection. If he kept going, the path would lead him down to a grove of Cottonwood trees that lined both sides of a creek. It was technically too large to be a creek, but too small to be a river, and ran through the southern quadrant of the farm. To his left, the east, the sky was blue and cloudless. To the right, the west, the sky had grown so dark it was nearly black. Jeff knew storm clouds, though, and this wasn't the type that'd throw twisters. He turned to look back behind him, but was far enough from the house that he could no longer see it.

The scent of rain filled the air. The distant rumble of thunder made him think that in this case, discretion was probably the better part of valor. And so he turned and headed back the way he'd come, determined to make a call to the man who handled the horse boarding and see if he couldn't arrange for Jeff to ride one of them tomorrow.

It'd been so long since he'd had been on horseback, but it was like riding a bike or driving a car – you never forgot how. Just the idea of brushing down a Quarter Horse or an Andalusian and saddling him up, of having his feet firmly planted in stirrups and feeling the power and freedom of such a magnificent creature beneath him, made Jeff smile. One of his favorite things to do as a boy had been horseback riding, and they'd had plenty of horses to go around.

He could tell the storm wasn't far off now. The thunder was louder, the flashes of lightning, closer. He could just see the first red barn appearing in the distance and knew he'd make it there before the deluge hit. Inhaling deeply as he walked the path he knew as well as the backs of his own hands, Jeff reveled in the strong scent of rain now hitting his senses. The warmth, the humidity.

Yes, it'd been far too long since he'd been home.

As he made to step around the same smooth, large gray rock that'd always been stuck smack-dab in the middle of the pathway right here where Field Two gave way to Field One, Jeff felt the base of his skull start to tingle. It stopped him short. His first thought was lightning...perhaps it was about to strike. So he dashed forward, and looked off to his right toward the approaching thunderheads.

What he saw brought him to a screeching halt.

There, between two furrows of freshly-turned earth, was something he'd not seen in person for fifty years. It was so still it could've been a statue, with its front right paw raised in mid-step, mirroring its back left paw. It was nothing less than a full-grown mountain lion.

Normally one to think quick on his feet and act even quicker, Jeff suddenly wasn't thinking at all. His mind went blank. He felt like a statue himself, feet cemented to the land.

Jeff was completely and totally frozen.

As though a 3-D movie had begun playing in 360 degrees around him – a terrible, gut-wrenching, horrid movie that he couldn't stop seeing, couldn't stop living – he was seven years old again, standing stock still and watching something he couldn't possibly be watching.

The screams of a child – of little Rex, once his best friend – filled Jeff's ears. He felt his eyes get big, felt his jaw drop. The screams grew louder. Jeff clapped his hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut. But the volume increased.

He saw the mountain lion pounce and knock Ron to the ground. He saw it jump from Ron to Ray, flattening him. He saw Rex turn tail and run for his life. He saw the mountain lion slice Rex's small body open from neck to pelvis. The big cat's jaw closed over Rex's arm as the boy continued to scream bloody murder. And Jeff heard the sickening crunch of Rex's arm being ripped from his body.

Jeff opened his eyes. The cougar was now standing on all fours, and eyeing him warily. Hands still covering his ears, Jeff could only stare. And stare.

And stare.

It was going to kill him. He knew it as surely as he knew his own name. This beast, this wild animal, it couldn't be the same one that'd gotten Rex, not fifty years later. But maybe it was related. Maybe, like those old Jaws movies, this was the son of the one Jeff Tracy had witnessed maim the twins and kill Rex. Ron's right arm had never worked right again, and Ray still bore scars on his back and legs from the cougar's claws. Rex had never gotten to see his eighth birthday, merely three days after his death, when his family celebrated his life not with balloons, cake and presents, but with a small casket and a funeral.

But Jeff had escaped unscathed. So now this son of that mountain lion had returned, at the precise time and in the precise location when Jeff would be here. In the jumbled thoughts vying for position in his mind, that was the only thing that made sense.

He was going to die.

Jeff swallowed hard when the cougar took a step forward, its eyes never leaving his face. And still, Jeff was unable to move.

It took a second step forward as a light mist began to fall from the sky...the precursor to the Kansas storm about to hit. The mist didn't seem to bother the cat at all...it just kept staring.

I'm a dead man. That thought repeated over and over in Jeff's mind like a twisted mantra he couldn't stop hearing himself think.

The cat lowered its rear end and bent its front legs. Jeff had seen enough nature shows to know precisely what the cougar was up to. His muscles tensed as the world around him came back into focus. The smell of the rain as the drops grew larger. The flash of lightning just as the sun was blotted from the sky by huge, black clouds. The roll of thunder that vibrated through his body.

In a moment that was both slow-motion and the fastest acceleration of time on record, the mountain lion pounced, sailing through the air. Jeff saw its mouth open wide, baring four long, sharp fangs.

Ron hadn't seen it coming.

Ray had been trying to save Rex.

And Rex, just a boy, had never stood a chance.

If only Jeff could somehow have saved him. If only he didn't now have to die like Rex had. If only he could've moved instead of standing there in shock and horror.

If only he could've moved!

As the cat's large black-padded paws sailed ever-nearer to Jeff's chest, something snapped inside him. He cried out at the top of his lungs, "No!"

Quick as the lightning strikes happening overhead, Jeff extended his arms forward, catching the big cat's chest with his palms. He vaulted it over his head toward his right. It yelped in surprise as it plummeted head-first into the smooth gray rock in the middle of the pathway.

Jeff's chest was heaving as he squared his body to face the still alive but disoriented mountain lion which was doing its best to get to its feet without stumbling. He was in combat mode, his only thought self-preservation...to do what he hadn't been able to do when he was seven.

The cat, finally on its feet somewhat steadily, shook its head and looked up at him just as a bolt of lightning zig-zagged far too close for comfort to where they stood. The mountain lion looked at him. Jeff glared at it. If he'd had a shotgun in his hand right now, that thing would be dead. But since all he had were his hands, his wits and fifty years of a suppressed memory that still rocked him to his very core, he just had to wait to see what the creature would do.

To his complete surprise, it licked its lips, turned and began trotting away from him. The heavens opened up then, soaking Jeff in five seconds flat as thunder boomed, chasing lightning through the pouring rain.

Jeff just stood there, watching the mountain lion until it had disappeared into the darkness brought about by the afternoon storm. It was gone...and Jeff was still alive. Shaking and wet to the bone, but alive.

He'd faced down the monster from his childhood trauma and subsequent nightmares. He'd fought the battle, and he'd won.

When he finally turned around to head back to the farmhouse, Jeff could've sworn he heard Rex's laughter on the wind.