Free Monster by Frank Peretti

it all out—
    And the whole world shook.
    Beck opened her eyes. They were still slimy from a long sleep, and her vision was blurred. Nothing was real, not yet.
    Someone was holding her, cradling her in a smelly brown blanket.
    Rescue! I’ve been rescued!
    There came that whistle again, like a boiling teakettle.
    Shmoosh! More gooky berries in her mouth, and she could feel some of them smeared on her face. She jerked her head away, spit them out, blinked to clear her vision.
    The world came into focus, and she gathered she wasn’t home. All she could see were tangled branches and green leaves. The cool breeze told her she was still outside, somewhere in the mountains, somewhere in the shelter of thick bushes. Bushes with berries. Huckleberries?
    She looked up—
    NO!
    Her lungs pulled in a long, quaking gasp and held it there as her mouth hung open and her jaw began to quiver. Though her hands began to shake on their own, she dared not move or utter a sound. She could only lie there, stiff with terror, and gape at the deep, monstrous eyes looking back at her.
    The eyes were dark amber, with muddy brown around the iris instead of the usual white. They were intense and probing— studying her as if she were a specimen under a microscope—deep set under a prominent brow. The face was reddish brown, leathery like an old saddle, bordered by thick, straggly hair.
    Beck felt hot breath passing by her face in sour little puffs. The bulging lips tightened against a row of white teeth and the thing whistled at her.
    The same whistle Beck heard in the dark when glowing eyes bored into her and a dead man dangled from a tree.

four
    Unthinking, her mind paralyzed by fear, Beck responded as she was taught to respond to hornets, bees, rattlesnakes, and assorted monsters of childhood: she froze—except for the trembling in her hands, which she couldn’t help.
    The thing shoved more berries into her mouth with fingers the size of sausages. Beck forgot her mouth was already open, and now suddenly it was full again. She closed her mouth, an unconscious reflex, and the berries remained inside, an unchewed mass. The beastly eyes locked on her, waiting, the face stern under a heavy, furrowed brow. The thing grunted again, then tapped on Beck’s mouth with thick, berry-stained fingers.
    Somehow, it occurred to Beck to chew. The berries burst in her mouth, filling it with juice, half-sweet, half-tart. The wizened face waited and watched, huge volumes of air rushing in and out through the broad, flat nose.
    Still chewing, and just now remembering to breathe herself, Beck let her eyes drop enough to see another huge hand with dirty black fingernails curled around her, pressing her against a mountain of dark, reddish-brown hair. The hair was coarse and oily, the body beneath it warm and moist, with a familiar—and unpleasant—sweaty smell. She could feel the rib cage expanding, pressing against her, then easing away as the mountain breathed. She’d never been this close to anything with lungs this big.
    Oh, please, don’t kill me . . .
    Could she run? Where? As near as she could tell, she was in the woods somewhere. Beyond the tangle of the huckleberry bushes, she could see the thick forest, and through its canopy, a blue sky.
    A powerful, hairy arm reached up and grabbed another cluster of berries from a branch.
    When the hand that was bigger than her whole head descended to deliver the berries, Beck didn’t dare argue. She opened up, let the berries tumble in, and started chewing.
    With the taste of the berries and her ability to chew them came a conscious realization that she was still alive—quite notable, given the circumstances. How long she would remain that way she had no idea and no encouraging thoughts.
    She turned her head just enough to study her situation. She was being held by what appeared to be a huge ape, similar to a gorilla, but not quite a gorilla. The crown of its head extended to a narrow crest like a gorilla’s, and