Jack Timber had one arm left, and he meant to use it to kill the thing that took the other. For three nights the beast had crawled closer to the logging camp. He heard it drag its belly through the pine needles just past the log walls. He wanted to hunt it. But he could not hunt while he bled through his bandages, and he could not sleep with it circling in the dark. His camp was a wreck. The other loggers had run days ago. Jack sat alone against the weathered timber wall, watching the front door he could no longer trust. The stump of his shoulder throbbed. Every hour the scratching came nearer. Low. Fast. Along the ground, the way the thing always moved. He knew its shape now. He knew its rear-facing teeth. He knew the only soft spot was the pale throat, and a man needed two hands to reach it. By the third night he had a plan. He could not stay on the ground floor. The beast struck low. So he would sleep high, where its belly-crawl meant nothing. Jack worked through the afternoon with his one good arm. He dragged cut logs from the stacks beside the porch. He wedged them against the door and packed the low windows shut. Sweat soaked his bandages. Twice the wound tore and he had to stop and breathe. Then he hauled a ladder to the loft under the roof beams. He carried up water, an axe, and a lantern. He pulled the ladder up behind him. Night came. The scratching came with it. Jack lay flat in the loft and listened. The thing tested the door. Wood groaned. The logs held. It circled the walls, snuffling at the sealed windows, finding no gap low enough for its belly. It could not climb. It could not crawl up here. For the first time in three nights, Jack slept. He woke to gray light and quiet. His hand shook, but the fever in his shoulder had cooled. The bandage had scabbed clean. He had bought himself the thing he needed most: rest to heal, and a den the beast could not breach. Jack climbed down and found the front door still barred. But near the base of the log wall, the beast had left him something. The dirt was raked deep with claw marks. In the loose soil sat a print he did not expect—smaller tracks beside the big ones. Two sets. He crouched and touched the little prints. Not one beast. Two, or the big one had young. His safe den solved one night. It did nothing about a second hunter now learning his walls. Jack stood and looked at the tree line. Killing the thing that took his arm had just gotten harder. He would need more than a good arm and a high loft. He would need someone who knew how many of these things the woods still hid.