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SUMMARY: The fourth in a 14 part serial short story- a new one every week. I wrote this to be recorded as an audio story- you can hear it at www.williamhrdina.com- but I think it holds up as a regular short story as well, and its finished so it won't disappear.

Croucher--Part IV- An Ill Omen
By William Hrdina

It was the third day. He would never admit it out loud, but Logan was really enjoying himself. It was John's idea to free-climb the rock face. "It'll be a great view from up there." He said. At first Logan was scared. He'd never tried to climb a rock face before. He wasn't ever even into climbing trees.
But then he started up, and found he loved climbing. It came easily, Logan could see the way forward as clearly as a path- each hand and foothold almost lighting up in his mind's eye. By the time the adults were halfway up, Logan was far ahead.
The last ten feet went by in a blur. He gripped the edge and yanked himself up.
"Great job Logan!" Came the winded call of his Dad from far below. Logan grinned in spite of himself, he looked back down over the edge, and waved.
Logan figured he finally had enough guaranteed time alone and he whipped out a cigarette and a lighter out of his backpack like a magician performing sleight of hand. He lit it, took a long drag and groaned with satisfaction. Stepping away from the edge so no one would see the plume of smoke, Logan explored the rocky slope of the plateau. Huge boulders, taller than he was, littered the wide flat expanse of rock.
He found the statue behind one of the trees and as soon as he saw it- he wished he didn't.
It was a figure- but not a human one. It didn't look like any animal Logan had ever seen either. It was a combination of an insect and a lizard- the most unappealing aspects of both creatures mixed into a single horrifying visage, just looking at the statue made Logan's heart beat wildly like a bird in a cage. Transfixed by the statue, Logan let his cigarette drop from his fingers. There was something, unnatural about the figure- even though it was carved from ordinary stone. All he wanted to do was to get away from it.
Logan waited near the edge of the cliff and breathed a sigh of relief when the remainder of the grown-ups finally arrived at the top. Logan briefly considered keeping his discovery of the statue a secret- after all, the adults would probably just chastise him for disturbing what was presumably some sort of ancient Indian site of one kind or another.
When, a few minutes later, Logan showed John his discovery, he didn't expect the reaction he got. Instead of anger, John's eyes lit up like a little kid who's spied a bicycle shaped present standing next to the Christmas tree.
"Oh my God. It's real." John said.
They tried to get him to say more, but he just shook his head. "I don't want to get my hopes up" was John's excuse.
They hiked for another day with John driving them like cattle. Every time someone would complain, they'd slow down for a few minutes, but before long, they were once again marching fast, almost jogging. Any pretense they were following a pre-selected trail was abandoned. It was a hard slog, but the exertion kept Logan from complaining and the three adults all felt the exercise was probably good for them- they were all guilty of living overly sedimentary lives, so nobody made a big deal about it and all of them tried to pretend the possibility of a heart attack didn't float through their middle-aged minds.
But they kept up the pace and no one had a heart attack. Instead, on the morning of their fifth and final day of hiking before turning around and heading back home, John let out a shout of excitement. Everyone, already winded from the first 2 hours of walking, hurried to see what the commotion was about. When they reached him, John was pointing across a steep ravine to what appeared to be a village of some kind, nestled into a clearing at the base of a sharply rising mountain peak.
"I can't believe it. After 5 years, I finally found it."
"What? What did you find?" Ryan demanded.
"Croucher."