MWA 17

Leaves fluttered on the bronzed grass. Hank tightened his grip on the rifle as he crawled into the clearing, his jumpsuit and hat blending into the carpet of Autumn detritus. Thirty yards away grazed an oblivious ten-point buck, antlers almost snarling in the scrub as it chewed the fading shrubbery.
With a whisper of kissing leaves, he sighted the buck in his scope, began to squeeze the trigger...

A howl out of some twisted nightmare tore through the clearing. Hank flinched, fumbling the rifle upward and firing. The deer started, and managed three steps before a giant blur of striped fur enveloped it with a roar. Hank lay prone in the leaves, eyes clinched shut, clutching the rifle to his chest like a safety blanket.

The crunch of deer bone shocked him back to reality. He forced his eyes open, the rest of his body tensed from skin to sinew. His hunter's instinct loosened his grip on the rifle, moved his hand over its action, and kept his eyes locked on the gargantuan cat feasting on its kill, massive canines scything through flesh and bone.

The first click made the beast's ears twitch.
The second made them stand up straight.
The third laid them flat, a low growl emanating from the lowered head still tearing chunks of flesh from its prey.

Hank sighted the striped flank in his scope, praying a .30-06 with a deer load would be enough to bring down the monster.
He wrapped a finger around the trigger, keeping the scope to his eye. He began to squeeze.

The beast reared, a slitted orange eye now filling the scope.

He fired.

The beast charged, sidling left in a blur to catch the bullet near its rear and not lose forward momentum.

Only years of practice guided his hands in that moment, ejecting the spent cartridge and loading another without conscious intervention as thirty yards became three, became none.

Hank threw himself backwards as the great cat leaped.

The shot's report rebounded off trees and rocks and clouds in the clearing.

Hank lay in a mass of moss and fungi at the base of at tree, a single massive paw digging claws into his outstretched boot, its owner dead a few feet away.