"Speak."

"Must I?" I questioned.

My answer was a shiny barrel pointed at my head. I gulped. This had not been the first time I had been threatened by a weapon, but I knew better than to toil with my life when a bullet could enter my mind at any time and cease any plan I had at discovering what was beyond those fences.

"Speak," the old man croaked out, pushing the shotgun's double barrel farther into my forehead.

I moaned in pain and begged him to stop, but he did not listen to my blubbering. So, I began to speak instead of whine, as the man had asked me before. "I came in search of whatever creature just leaped over into your yard," I told him.

"And that gives you the damn right to set your dirty feet on my property?"

I glanced at my mud-stained white Vans. Before, they weren't so dirty, old man, I wanted to say, but I bit my tongue. "I thought this was public property," I went on to say after I sufficiently held back my words. "There's nothing around here that says otherwise."

"Bullshit there ain't nothing otherwise," spat the elderly gentleman, and he seized his shotgun and struck my head with the back end. I tumbled backward in a daze, my aviator jacket smudged with mud and grime and sticks. I groaned in agony as I started to rise, digging my hands into the uneven grass, collecting bits of mud between my fingers.

"There's a sign right over yonder which says no goddamn trespassers," snapped the man. He lifted his gun again, and swung to strike me in the legs as I was getting to my feet, but thankfully I had leant away from the man, and his weapon found its way into the mud between us.
With ascending fright mounting my chest, I grabbed the shotgun, wound it around in my hands and pointed the double-barrel at its previous wielder.

"Don't make me shoot you," I said, my voice quivering.

"You couldn't shoot a duck if you 'ad the chance," he told me. "Shoot. I don't care."

"I didn't come to shoot you," I admitted, lowering the weapon, gesturing to him with it, "but if I don't get my answers, I'll – I'll blow your head off." I couldn't imagine the thought of that, yet I had to sedate the man somehow – his wild hair and equally fiery eyes made it seem as though he was about to explode.

"Do it – I dare ye," he went on. "I won't answer not one of your damnable questions, I did not live out here to be bothered by some man-child."

"Please, sir, I need you to," I urged him. Who else had seen that creature? I, only for a second, witnessed its hideous form, but then it was gone after that, consumed by the shadow which loomed over the forest now. It encapsulated the man in front on me now. He was nothing but smoke and denial.

"Why would I do anything for you?"

"I have the shotgun."

"I have more guns than you've ever seen back in the house."

"Move one more inch back and I swear I'll shoot."

"Like I said, you wouldn't –"

I fingered the trigger and squeezed it mightily, blasting the shotgun shell into the wooden patio directly to his right. Flung backward by the abounding force, I stumbled and nearly ate mud again, but I quickly reoriented myself, straightening up to meet the old man in a horrified passing of glances.

He was not looking at me. He was looking beyond my shoulder.

"I told you not to," he said.