Eyes narrowed, gun in hand, Sam paused and looked carefully around the seemingly empty clearing.
Midnight shadows and moonlight, trees, heavy stands of night-blooming jasmine. The lambent eyes of an owl glaring at him from a swaying branch, flying off in pursuit of its dinner after a few moments.
Nothing obviously wrong.
There was something out there, though. He could feel its eyes on him, taste its evil in the air.
His phone vibrated in his pocket. Sam ignored it. After a minute it fell silent.
There was a faint rustle in the bushes, about twenty yards to his left.