Chapter content warnings: censored cussing, canon events, leg pain, some condescension/light misogyny/that one sleazy guy hitting on her at the bar, Claudia's world imploding.
Word count: 6,292
13:02 / 1:02 p.m.
The Eddington Hotel was not what Claudia had expected.
The building was made of brick and three stories tall, and its shape was vaguely reminiscent of an 18th-century estate home. Inside, it was rather homey, and the lobby went straight into a bar. Opposite was a long row of comfortable booths, all wood and dark leatherette, with a fish tank on one end and a piano on the other. An odd touch, in her opinion, but not unwelcome. A man was sitting at the piano and playing a lovely tune that she didn't recognize.
Having arrived just after noon, Claudia booked a room and ordered a plate of bangers and mash. She had packed a light bag, which she left in her room, and after she freshened up she went back downstairs. She selected a booth in the middle and sat facing the door, and she waited.
She ate her lunch when it came- surprisingly good for a hotel meal- and left a generous tip, then headed back to her room to brush her teeth (sausage breath is unprofessional). On her way, she caught sight of a tall blond man, clad in an olive drab woolen military jacket, speaking to the barman. She recognized him as one Professor Nick Cutter, a paleontologist who lectured at one of London's universities. He would be the perfect person to ask to clear up this whole mess. She quickened her step, finishing her errand speedily, but when she returned the professor was nowhere to be seen. So she returned to her booth and sat down, intending to remain until he returned.
Into the hotel strode a man- average in looks, wearing a cheap suit and carrying a sorry excuse for a briefcase. His gait was a cocky swagger that he probably thought made him a chick magnet but was more likely to be chick repellent, if the way she instinctually cringed was anything to go by.
Definitely not Professor Cutter.
She averted her gaze, but it was too late- the random man's gaze was already firmly affixed to her. He sauntered over nauseatingly, flashing her a terrible smile. "Hey, doll." He greeted. Her stomach turned at his tone. "This seat taken?"
"I'm waiting for someone." She returned politely.
He was apparently incapable of taking a hint, and promptly slid into the booth opposite her. The briefcase was plonked down beside him and he gave her what he probably thought was a charming smile. "I'm Gareth. What's your name, gorgeous?"
She did not answer.
"Playing hard to get, huh? That's alright. I bet I can guess your name." He boasted.
She immediately tuned him out.
Maintaining a neutral expression that he was too dull to realize was one of boredom and disregard, Claudia searched her mind for an excuse to escape.
Fortunately, it came a few minutes later. The professor returned and sat down, and a few moments later, he was poured a glass of something amber and probably strong enough to sterilize a wound. (She wondered if it would also sterilize… Gary? Garth? Whatever his name was.) Hope flared in her chest. She quickly formulated a coherent excuse in her head, chocolate eyes trained on the professor's back.
"…especially ones as pretty as yours. I must admit though, I've never seen you around here myself, and uh, hey, why don't we get a drink afterwards?"
"Excuse me." She spoke, interrupting his drivel and grabbing her leather bag from beside her. "My boyfriend just got here."
Determinedly, she moved with a faux nonchalance and a surprisingly real enthusiasm toward the professor and prayed that he would play along with the charade and not deem her unprofessional or fail to take her seriously. The professor took out a leather wallet and flipped it open, seeming to inspect the photograph inside.
"Excuse me." Claudia drew his attention to her, depositing the bag on the bar close by. He turned, and she dropped her hand onto his shoulder and leaned down to kiss him.
After just a couple seconds, she pulled back and flashed him a smile, half awkwardness and half playing the part. "Don't panic." She pleaded as she shifted to sit on the barstool beside him. "I just told that slimeball over there you were my boyfriend." The professor leaned slightly and glanced in the man's direction. "One more sleazy chat-up line and I was going to have to kill him." She half-joked.
The professor only smiled along with her. "Well, I'm very glad I was here to help." He returned, surprising her with a Scottish accent. "Um, I'm Nick Cutter."
"Actually, I know who you are." She admitted. "Claudia Brown, Home Office." She explained, and reached into her bag for the picture. "I saw you at the hotel. I'm hoping you can do me a favor, Professor."
"Another one?" He joked.
"I suspect that this is why we're both here." Claudia set the photograph on the bar between them, and he picked it up. "We get dozens of rogue animal sightings every year. You'd be doing me a great favor if you could confirm this is all nonsense."
"I can't dismiss the evidence out of hand." He returned, which was a respectable but irritating reply.
"Surely you're not giving this whole 'monster' story any credibility, Professor?"
He shook his head in lieu of a shrug. "Just trying to keep an open mind."
"People always say that as though it's such a good thing." Claudia responded. If working for the government had taught her anything, it was that it was safest for the public for them to think deep inside the box.
"Well, you see, that depends on how you define 'monster'." Professor Cutter explained. "A wild panther might look pretty terrifying on a dark night." He suggested.
"Is that what we're dealing with?" Please say yes.
"My best guess. If it exists at all. The last sighting was somewhere near the Forest. Would you care to join the search?"
She should really decline politely and thank him for his professional opinion, go home and call it an open-and-shut case. But Professor Cutter was smart and seemed to have a decent sense of humor, and had handled her escape from Slimeball and very unprofessional introduction with a grace she hadn't expected. And she'd always prided herself on being more human than the rest of her peers.
"I suppose I owe it to the taxpayer to do more than sit in my room and suck the minibar dry." She accepted his offer, and he laughed. "Would you excuse me so I can fetch my coat?"
Five minutes later, she was comfortable in her white-trimmed black coat, a pair of grey gloves tucked into the pockets along with her phone, wallet, and taser, and her bag was safely back in her room. Professor Cutter had waited for her at the bar, sans drink and no longer gazing into his wallet. He smiled when he saw her.
"You didn't have to wait for me, Professor."
"Oh, it's no bother." He assured her. "And please, call me 'Nick'."
She returned his smile. "Only if you call me 'Claudia'."
Outside, a silver Toyota Hilux was parked, and two men stood close to it, looking at a laptop set up on the bonnet. "You know we're not talking about a wild cat, don't you?" The one on the left was saying to the one on the right as Claudia and Nick reached them.
"This is Claudia Brown from the Home Office. She'll be coming with us." Nick explained.
"Knew it, it's a coverup." The one on the left again spoke to the other, seeming to believe Claudia wouldn't hear him. The silent one simply observed her somewhere between curiously and critically, a faint smirk on his face as he looked between her and Nick. Had he seen how they met? Dear God, it was embarrassing enough that she had thoroughly embarrassed herself in front of Professor Cu- Nick- but for one or both of his colleagues to have also witnessed it….
"What's he talking about?" She asked bemusedly, to Nick or the man on the right- either would be fine. Anything to put a stop to the humiliating train of thought rampaging through her mind.
"Connor never met a conspiracy theory he didn't like." Nick replied- cryptic, but at least he'd given a name to one of the faces. And with that, he made to get into the truck. Claudia followed, slipping into the seat behind the drivers' seat. Connor slid in opposite her and the still-nameless man joined Nick in the front seat. "This is my laboratory technician, Stephen Hart, and back there with you is Connor Temple. He's apparently one of my students and the whole reason Stephen and I are out here."
"It's nice to meet you both." Claudia responded politely.
A short ride later, Nick pulled into a cul-de-sac and parked in an empty spot. "This is as far as we can go by truck. We'll have to leg it from here." Stephen announced.
The four climbed out of the vehicle, and Claudia paused, checking her mobile for messages. Connor was muttering to himself, fiddling with something in or on his bag. The professor and his laboratory assistant stood together, a meter or so away from the front of the truck. "How'd you meet her?" Stephen queried to Nick lowly.
Claudia's breath seemed to jam in her throat as she waited for Nick's reply, the reply that would make or break the group's perception of her and how seriously they should take her.
The Scotsman was quiet for a moment. "She approached me." Well, that was one way of putting it. "Er, she showed me the picture from the paper, wanted to know what I thought. I offered her to come with us as we looked into it."
"And that's it?" Stephen pressed, stopping Claudia in the middle of a relieved sigh. "You don't pick up women at bars, no matter why either of you are there. That's more my thing than yours." Even as stressed as she was, Claudia could here the jesting undertone of his words.
"Don't I know it, ye bloody tart." The insult was said rather affectionately, and Claudia assumed there was an inside joke there. The men chuckled.
"Really, though," Stephen said, more seriously now, "are you sure that's all? You went in for a drink because this whole bloody ordeal brought up old memories of Helen. I know this is hard on you, but it's not like you to handle things in this way."
"'In this way'?" Nick repeated, his voice hard. "And what does that mean?"
Stephen sighed. "Today's a nonstop reminder of the disappearance of your wife. You go into a bar, and come out with a woman. Now, that's not like you. You handle your problems by either ignoring them or being aggressive toward them. If there really is something out there in the Forest, I won't be surprised if you try to bloody wrestle with it."
"I didn't invite Claudia to come along with us because I'm trying to replace Helen." Nick said after a moment, his voice almost hard. "I invited her along because she was friendly, and polite, and seemed like more of a human being than every other robot bureaucrat. She was already here, so I thought 'why the h£ll not?' and invited her. There's nothing out there that's dangerous. We'll take a look around, confirm that it's just a wild animal in the wrong place, and we'll go home. She goes back to the Home Office and writes a report, we go back to the university, and Connor goes back to his classes."
"Alright." Stephen conceded. "But I reserve the right to be an arse if she starts acting like a bureaucrat."
Nick chuckled. "Fair enough. But I didn't get the impression that she was like that."
"No, neither did I." The brunet agreed.
Connor was apparently satisfied with whatever he had been focusing on, and when he headed for the other men, Claudia took it as her cue to do the same. She was careful to not show any indication that she'd overheard their conversation.
They left the cul-de-sac and headed into the Forest. Claudia, in her terrible shoes that she knew would probably be destroyed by the end of this jaunt, was grateful that the Forest was tidy and clean- if those were the right terms- compared to other wooded areas. Although a carpet of soggy fallen leaves and pine needles covered the damp earth, there were no overgrown thickets of bushes and plants crowding the walking space, just clear, unobstructed ground. Despite this, Claudia was all too aware of the damage every step did to her professional shoes, which were already proving to be a poor choice to wear in a forest. Her toes were freezing.
Up ahead, Stephen ducked under a low-hanging branch of a very spindly and short tree and consulted his map. "If there really were some creature around here, wouldn't the journalists have found it by now?" Claudia felt obligated to ask.
"They wouldn't know what they were looking for." Nick replied simply.
Admittedly, she was rather skeptical. "But you do?"
"Mm." Nick gestured to his lab assistant. "I've seen Stephen track wounded animals through the rainforest for up to ten days at a time." Well, that was certainly an impressive feat.
"Not to mention wrestle an anaconda and save a whale." Connor chimed in excitedly, picking up the pace to walk closer to the man in question. She made a mental note to look into that later.
"Maybe there is something here and maybe there isn't. Frankly, I doubt it." Confessed Nick.
"Cutter!" Stephen called almost immediately. Curious, the others joined him where he was standing still, staring directly at a tree- or rather, what was in it.
A black cow hung from its branches, looking peculiarly intact.
"Okay, now I'm getting interested." Nick declared.
Claudia agreed silently.
"Professor." Connor spoke up. "The compass is going haywire." He passed said object to Nick, and Claudia saw the needle rapidly spinning around as it was pulled by both the North Pole and an unknown thing. Claudia was no scientist, but she knew that whatever was strong enough to drag a compass' needle away from north was an incredibly powerful source of magnetism.
"We should keep going." Nick decided after a moment. "Stephen, is there a trail from here?"
Immediately, the brunet began searching the surrounding forest floor, and after a few moments he crouched down to examine the dirt. "There's something here. It's shallow, but it looks like people. Two- a woman and a boy, I'd say, judging by the shape and tread of the soles. Might be two kids; I'm not sure. They probably live in those houses." He looked over his shoulder with concern on his face. "There's no animal native to these parts that can drag a cow up into a tree like that. If we were in South America, I'd say a leopard or another big cat. But I have no idea what could've done that." He stood up. "If that thing's still out there, and so are they…" he indicated the footprints, referring to whoever made them.
The implication wasn't lost on Claudia. Anything capable of doing that to a cow would almost certainly make an easy victim of two kids, or a kid and a woman, or whoever's tracks Stephen had found.
Nick had realized this also. His face grim, he nodded. "Lead on. We'll see if we can't catch up to them."
Their pace quickened, the four continued deeper into the Forest.
Afternoon became evening and evening became night, and by the light of his torch Stephen continued to lead them. Unfortunately, the two sets of footprints diverged, but according to Stephen one of them seemed to be running in the general direction of the cul-de-sac houses, so with any luck, he or she had made it to safety by now. The other trail continued to wander, as if its maker was lost or unfamiliar with the Forest.
Years of practiced professionalism kept Claudia's face neutral and relaxed, devoid of displaying how she really felt. Her feet, clad in pointed-toe pumps with exposed heels, ached terribly from the uneven terrain. Her legs had only sheer nylons to protect them, and as such she was absolutely freezing. She hadn't eaten since lunch and it was many hours past dinnertime, leaving her ravenous (luckily, she had carefully timed coughs or steps onto twigs to cover the sounds of her grumbling stomach). Overall, she was hungry, cold, tired, and sore, and those things and their lack of results had amalgamated into enough frustration and emotional exhaustion she couldn't decide if she wanted to cry or throw herself into bed with her coat and makeup and shoes still on.
She'd take the shoes off, she decided, but only because they were giving her blisters all over and would be getting donated, sold, or thrown into the rubbish at the first opportunity.
And then, there was a breakthrough, for lack of a better term.
A bellowing lowing sound, somewhere between an aggravated cow's moo and a sci-fi film's dinosaur sound effect, echoed through the trees. Up ahead, moonlight penetrating through the canopy of treetops halfway illuminated a hulking form. Standing close by was a short and slim feminine figure, her pale hair shining under the moon. The realization that this was probably the woman whose footprints Stephen had found relieved Claudia.
The girl didn't seem to notice her fellow humans approaching, and seemed startled by the thing as it bellowed again. Something- an animal, perhaps- leapt out of her arms, apparently miffing the woman. She called to it exasperatedly, although Claudia didn't quite catch what she called it, and bent to look for it. The giant creature, oddly enough, seemed perturbed by her actions, shuffling backward and lowing repeatedly.
"Don't move." Nick spoke, startling the young woman. He approached cautiously, wary of spooking the animal. Something chirped nearby, not quite like a bird, but Claudia was focused entirely on the massive animal. It was probably the size of an Asian elephant, taller than any of its observers and solidly built. But its feet had short but splayed toes, its head was compact, and its neck and tail were thick. It was like nothing that Claudia had ever seen before, even in pictures or among the urban legends of the world.
"Is it real?" The woman breathed.
Nick shook his head slightly, as confused as the rest of them. "Some kind of experiment, maybe. Hybrid, throwback." He theorized, although it was weak. He looked over at the woman. "Who are you?"
"Abby Maitland. I'm a keeper at Wellington Zoo." She replied.
After a moment, Nick moved closer to it, shining his torch over its body. "It's a reptile. Five or six tonnes at least. Large supertemporal bosses, huge osteoderms on its back. It must be some kind of anapsid."
Claudia had noidea what that was.
"A tortoise?" Abby queried in disbelief, slightly clarifying Claudia's confusion.
Nick stepped a little too close, apparently, and the creature abruptly bellowed again, startling everyone into backing up several steps. "Stay in his field of vision!" Abby warned. "You're making him nervous." She explained.
Nick took her at her word and returned to standing with the rest of them, much to Claudia's relief.
"I was right; there was a dinosaur in that warehouse." Connor boasted excitedly. Claudia frowned; dinosaurs seemed like a bit of a stretch, and this creature looked nothing like the blurry image in the newspaper. The head shape was all wrong, and its… skin? hide?... wasn't dark enough.
Connor produced his mobile and snapped off a picture before Claudia could stop him, and the clicking noise and flash of light unsettled the creature, which roared at him.
"Whatever it is, it's classified until I figure out what the h£ll to do about it!" Claudia snapped, snatching the phone out of his hand to delete the photo. It was pretty grainy and blurry and very dark, but she was taking no chances. A grainy, blurry, dark photograph had led her and at least three others here.
The same chirping noise from earlier, louder now, came from somewhere nearby, and Claudia watched Nick crouch down as he and Stephen shone their torches on the source. It was a green lizard-like creature, but again like nothing Claudia had ever seen. From what she could make out, there were multicolored markings on its sides, and a fin or sail of sorts on its egg-shaped head, along with fins- please, God, not wings- on its back.
What the h£ll was going on here?
"Bloody h£ll." Stephen spoke, squatting down beside Nick. "There's two of them."
"Where did that come from?" Nick asked, though it was obvious no one had a good answer.
After a long moment of silence, Abby spoke up. "Does anyone know which way the cul-de-sac is? I came out here with a boy that lives there, but we got separated, and I got lost."
Nick stood up and nodded. "Aye, we can get you back there." Relief flooded Maitland's face, and Claudia took a few seconds to glance at Stephen. His assumption had been correct, despite not having very clear tracks to go off. A boy and a small woman. And in the dark, through the leaf-laden ground, their trail had led him to here. He was clearly an excellent tracker, and suddenly Nick and Connor's outlandish tales of his talent didn't seem so far-fetched.
"Er- what about that?" Connor interjected, gesticulating at the strange animal still grazing nearby. "We can't let it out of our sight."
The professor deliberated for a moment. "Alright, why don't you and Stephen stay and keep an eye on this thing while Miss Brown and I walk Miss Maitland back to the cul-de-sac to check up on the boy. I'll grab us the torches from the truck while I'm there."
Stephen did not look enthusiastic at the prospect of spending time alone with Connor, and Claudia was torn between amusement and sympathy. But she wasn't so sympathetic as to offer to remain with them- if the boy had made it home safely, there was potentially a very real risk of this… whatever it was… getting out of hand, depending on how old he was and how much his parents believed him. An easily dismissible photograph in a newspaper could blow up into something much more, drawing tourists, sceptics, the press, and conspiracy theorists to Gloucestershire and create a whole host of problems.
Claudia's responsibility was to assess the situation, evaluate the threat level, and contain both the situation and the knowledge of it as much as possible, all while contacting all the right people.
She set off with Nick and Abby, moving at a brisk walk back toward the houses. She longed to tread on asphalt pavement again, a flat and relatively smooth surface to balm her blistering feet and sore legs.
"Who's the boy you were with?" Nick asked.
"Ben Trent. He or his mother contacted the Zoo about an exotic lizard he'd found and I volunteered to come check it out. Our reptile section's getting slimmed down, and I wanted an excuse to be around them. I know the Forest of Dean pretty well, so my boss had no reason to turn me down." She laughed mirthlessly. "I got more than I bargained for."
"Aye, it's been that kind of day." Nick agreed. "How'd you get separated?"
Abby sighed- not out of irritation toward the professor, Claudia noted. "We found this cow hanging out of a tree. Like something had put it there. Ben got scared and started running. He thought maybe it was a leopard, but that's ridiculous- leopards, in the Forest of Dean. Anyway, I was carrying Rex and I couldn't keep up with Ben."
About a half-hour of rapid walking later, they arrived at the cul-de-sac, and an upstairs window drew their attention. The light to the bedroom was on, showing a glimpse of yellowish walls inside. But there were no windowpanes, and the wall around the window casing was… damaged. Light filtered between the bricks that made up the structure, and the roof below was inexplicably mussed up.
"What the h£ll?" Nick and Claudia breathed in unison, united in their horror and concern.
Abby broke them from their stunned paralysis, the shorter blonde sprinting toward the corresponding front door, shouting for Ben. She rapped on the door frantically as Nick followed her. Claudia, though very worried for the boy's safety, hung back and forced herself to tune out what she said to the woman who opened the door as Mr. Hodges picked up the phone, having begun to dial his number as soon as Nick left her side. "Brown? What on Earth is it at this hour?"
"I'm sorry to trouble you so late, but I'm afraid it's urgent." Claudia apologized, wincing at his groggy tone. He'd probably fallen asleep in his office again. "The rogue animal sighting you sent me to investigate in the Forest of Dean- it's much worse than we thought."
She took a deep breath and launched into an explanation of what she'd seen over the course of the day- the strange lizard, the cow in the tree, the maybe-tortoise, the damage to the Trent house, the compass going mad. Her speech was shamefully jumbled and frantic and she completely broke etiquette, rambling in normal-people terms and swearing and stammering as she tripped over her explanation.
"Bloody h£ll, Brown, have you been drinking? Did you take anything- pills, drinks from strangers?"
The concern read as condescension to her confused and exhausted mind, and she rankled at it. "Everything I saw tonight was real and with a clear mind, Hodges. I haven't had a sip of anything stronger than coffee today, and I'm not so stupid as to take pills or things from strangers. I'm not a đдϻи teenager, and you're not my mother." She snapped. "I know what I saw." She mentally cursed herself for not at least sending herself Connor's poorly-taken picture— it was decent enough, she could've sent it to Hodges to verify herself and her story. "And I'm not the only one who saw them- there were others with me as well. Professor Nick Cutter, Stephen Hart, Connor Temple, Abby Maitland, and possibly a young boy, Ben Trent. His parents may also be witnesses, but I haven't met them yet."
"Are you absolutely barmy, Brown? Making a call like this with no proof? You've got no photographs and you haven't even spoken to everyone who may or may not have seen all these things."
"I am a government official, and a đдϻи good one." Claudia responded. "My word is proof enough."
Apparently not. Hodges spent the next several minutes lecturing Claudia on… everything. The importance of protocol. The impossibility of her claims. The likelihood that she might have been drugged to see those things, and how she should know better than to drink on the job, and to leave her drink unattended.
At long last, his yawning- Claudia no longer felt guilty for waking him up- had begun to eat at the structure of his sentences, and he quit his lecture. He had grilled her for details, and she had told him of her observations of the time, the soreness in her feet, the color of everyone's clothes- everything he had asked for and more until he was finally convinced that she was neither making it up nor hallucinating. Yet still he didn't take it seriously enough. "Fine, Brown, I believe you saw something." He finally conceded. "Can't you just ring the coppers and have them do a sweep of the Forest? They're a competent unit."
"No, I can't use the police, this is too sensitive." Claudia refuted.
"Brown." His voice was exasperated. "A giant turtle is hardly a threat."
"There are lives at stake here!" She snapped. immediately pushing her emotions back under control. But the image of the cow in the tree and the damage to the Trent house would not leave her mind, and she feared what would happen if a human aggravated the culprit.
"Let's imagine for a moment that you're actually right and there is a monster in the Forest eating people. That's very far above your pay grade and your station." Hodges told her seriously.
"Listen," she sighed, "I don't need you to tell me how junior I am, okay? You're just gonna have to trust me. Now get somebody down here, fast."
"Alright, alright, I'm on it. But keep in mind that if it's as bad as you say, this would qualify as an Official Secret."
Satisfied enough, Claudia hung up with a quiet huff. She closed her eyes and took a few moments to calm herself with measured breaths, after which she pocketed her phone, straightened her coat needlessly, and headed for the Trent house. At last she could finally check on the boy and his parents for herself.
Claudia found her way upstairs to Ben's bedroom. "The simple truth is Ms. Maitland got carried away. Ben's pet was nothing more exotic than Draco Volans- it's a Southeast Asian flying lizard." Professor Cutter was telling Mary Trent, who was doing something with the blankets from Ben's loft bed.
"There was a monster, though!" Ben insisted desperately. "It chased us! Tell them, Abby!"
From her place in the doorway, Claudia watched as the zookeeper internally panicked at being placed on the spot and looked toward the professor. She couldn't see all of the blonde's face, but on it she could see the warring emotions. "I don't really know what happened, Ben. We just got frightened, that's all." Abby said, her eyes trained on the professor and shooting him a rather accusing glare. The Scotsman simply responded with a subtle nod that the Trents almost certainly missed.
"But I saw the past! Prehistoric times! I-I was there!" Ben all but shouted, surprising everyone in the room (except perhaps Mary, who remained firm in her belief he was making all of this up).
Nick, specifically, took a particular interest in Ben's statement, his face shifting from a poorly-veiled sympathy for the boy to genuine and serious intrigue. "You saw the past?"
"There was desert, and- and rocks and things." Ben answered, confusing Claudia- that certainly didn't match up with the Forest of Dean. Could he have been drugged? If drugs and strange animals were involved, this might be shaping up to be organized crime.
Words seemed to fail the boy then, and he looked to his mother ask if seeking support. She clearly gave him none, and appearing on the verge of tears the boy fled the room, darting past Claudia.
Mary Trent was clearly annoyed. "I blame the telly." She announced after a moment. That was the dumbest thing Claudia had heard all night. "Excuse me." Mary said, slipping around Claudia to presumably chastise her son. Claudia felt a wave of sympathy for the boy.
"I think we should leave." Claudia told the blondes still in the boy's bedroom. They followed her out, informing the mother and son that they were leaving and grateful for their time.
"I'm going to grab some extra torches from the truck." Nick said as Abby shut the door to the house.
"I know you feel bad about lying, but if word of this gets out, who knows what the consequences might be. You're both going to have to sign the Official Secrets Act." Claudia revealed as they reached the university's truck.
Nick stopped short and turned around on the spot, prompting both women to also stop. "Whoa, since when did this become an official secret?" Nick demanded.
"About ten minutes after I finally persuaded my boss not to have me sectioned." Claudia admitted, still put out.
"Yeah well right now we have a far more urgent problem." Nick spoke, producing the torches from a bag in the back of his truck. "That creature we saw may be many things, but it's certainly not a ruthless predator that drags its prey up into trees." He continued.
"No, you can't be sure of that." Claudia dismissed, sincerely hoping that she was misinterpreting his direction.
"He can." Abby cut in, drawing the attention to herself. "It's a herbivore, pure veggie."
"You mean there's another one out there?" Claudia demanded. If that was the case… things were even worse than she'd told Hodges.
Smiling for some unknown reason (mad genius?), Nick replied, "What did Ben mean about seeing the past? Now, these animals have to be coming from somewhere."
"What are you saying?" Claudia pressed. 'Don't say it… don't say it.'
He chuckled, shaking his head. "I'm saying that the answer is in that Forest, and maybe Ben found it."
Claudia let out a deep sigh. She pinched the bridge of her nose and looked between the blondes tiredly. "So what now?"
Nick smirked even wider. "We run."
She really needed to run more.
And get better shoes.
The three of them raced through the Forest as fast as their weary legs could carry them, carrying bright torches whose beams bounced dizzyingly with every footfall. Claudia wondered if her feet were bleeding.
Up ahead, at last, the strange, hulking creature came into their field of vision. "Stephen!" Nick shouted, his voice surprisingly loud and strong for how breathlessly he heaved and gasped. The creature bellowed and started moving. "Let him go! It's scared! Let's see where it thinks is safe!" It was rather brilliant as far as spur-of-the-moment plans went, Claudia had to admit. Stephen and Connor joined the chase, all five of them following the fleeing beast through the Forest.
A few short minutes later, something even more inexplicable appeared, and they slowed to a regular walking pace as the creature undeterredly continued toward it. A moment later, it vanished into the light.
It hung as though suspended by invisible strings, glowing strangely as if illuminated from within. Its exterior was formed by what looked like shards of glass, but seemed to emit their own light rather than reflect the apparition's glow, and the shining pieces turned and rotated with no obvious propulsion or fixtures.
It was beautiful. It was inexplicable. It was a wonder. It was impossible.
And as she gazed at it, she didn't notice how her breath all but froze in her lungs and rolled curling outside her lips, how her legs and feet ached, how her heart hammered in her chest like a moose was trying to kick its way out of her ribcage. Her mind was lost in the awe and confusion of this strange glittering thing that defied all logic and sense and science. She did not blink, lest this bewitching oddity prove to be a fata morgana and vanish the moment she took her eyes from it.
"Where's it gone?" Claudia breathed, turning her eyes to the professor.
His response was a single word that made complete sense and none at all: "Home."
She didn't know how long they just stood there in the biting cold of night, enraptured by the light that defied all understanding. At last, Connor's absurdly loud yawn startled them from their reveries, and Nick made the unchallenged suggestion for them to return to the Eddington Hotel.
In accordance with the brief discussion they'd had while walking back to their vehicles in the cul-de-sac parking lot, Claudia booked Nick and Stephen a room as they apparently had shared before, then one for Connor and Abby each. She ordered a plate of hot food and ate it without really tasting it, only eating to quiet her complaining stomach, and bid the others goodnight.
Once back in the freeing privacy of her hotel room, the first thing Claudia did was take her shoes off. Her feet were accustomed to walking in heels higher than that for longer periods of time, but on the level floors of the Home Office and the parking lot outside it. But today she'd traipsed through the Forest for hours on end, walking and even running. Her feet weren't used to that kind of abuse, most especially in heels.
The next thing she did was uncharacteristic of her, and that was going straight to the minibar she'd mentioned to Nick earlier in the day- God, that felt like a lifetime ago with how her world had been shaken- and pour herself a stiff drink. Letting out a breath, she downed it in one go and refilled it immediately. She was more of a wine drinker (stereotypical of women, yes, she knew that), although she did enjoy the occasional cocktail or martini. Only when she was very stressed or out of options did she turn to the stuff that smelled like nail polish maneuver; tonight, both applied.
A few drinks later, she was ready for bed. Claudia had perfected her nighttime routine in university, acknowledging the need for an orderly and structural schedule to handle the governmental world. She changed into her pajamas- leggings and a hand-me-down tee from her mother- and hung up her day clothes neatly, braided her hair and brushed her teeth, and checked all the door and window locks before finally tucking herself in.
During the stressful bustle of university and continuing into her career as a government official, she had come to see sleep as a haven, an escape from reality wherein her dreams, if she was lucky, were far better than being awake. Sometimes she even welcomed the nightmares.
Tonight she wanted to dream of a world where everything was normal.