I swallowed hard, my lungs wheezing, my heart racing up to speed.
“What is it?” I croaked. I looked around us but only saw the same old trees and dim light.
He didn’t say anything but motioned for me to be quiet.
I clamped my mouth shut, trying to control my breathing. I couldn’t hear anything except my heartbeat and that in itself was overpowering.
Then it came through. That low, bass-like growl. Inhuman and otherworldly.
Supernatural.
As soon as I realized it was coming straight ahead of us, I heard another sound. A high-pitched snort like something sniffing the air excitedly. It was followed by something even worse: the sound of branches breaking. Whatever it was, it was running and running toward us.
Dex took the safety off the rifle and thrust it into my hand, then we both ran back the way we had come. We were heading toward the cave again but we didn’t have much of an option. We crashed through the underbrush, stumbling over logs, sliding over rocks until we came across a very thick row of bushes that hugged the side of the bedrock.
He slid to a stop and reached out for me to stop, careful not to set off the guns. There was the rockface beside us, the caves in front of us, the beast somewhere behind us and another arm of rock across from us. We were as good as cornered.
Dex climbed deep into the brush and I followed. It was like crawling into a thicket, nothing but harsh branches and leaves blocking your way. When I was little I remember trying to make a fort out of a bramble bush in our yard. Even armed with clippers, I still wasn’t able to do it. Now I was forcing my way, ignoring the pain as my body bent the branches, and made it work for me.
Once we were both fully merged in the bush, protrusions poking every inch of us, I followed Dex’s lead and lowered myself until I was lying flat on the ground. The guns were to the sides of us, and I kept one hand on my rifle just in case. I was pretty confident that if something walked past the bush, they wouldn’t see any sign of us. We couldn’t see much ourselves except for the ground right in front of us and only about half a foot off of that. Branches and leaves blocked the rest.
Dex’s hand moved over until it was on top of mine, the camera safely tucked between us. He squeezed my hand and I could only see the shine of his eyes glinting in the darkness. He was trying to tell me not to worry, not to panic. But my heart and lungs weren’t having any of that. I was trying not to make a sound while breathing, yet my chest gasped for oxygen and my heart was racing a mile a minute, my pulse threatening to leap out of my veins. I prayed that no matter what these creatures were, that they weren’t vampires. I’d be totally f**ked.
We waited like that, our breaths quiet and controlled as possible, feeling hidden yet immeasurably vulnerable at the same time. We waited, wondering, until we heard a branch break a few feet away from us.
Dex’s grip on my hand tightened and I squeezed back just as hard. Both our eyes stayed focused straight ahead, the anticipation feeling as loud as our heart rates.
Another snap. Then a scraping sound.
Right before my eyes, right in front of the bush, I saw a foot step into view.
It was unlike any foot I’d ever seen and I struggled even trying to explain it. It looked like the leg of a small kangaroo, if anything. The foot was covered with dense brown fur, matted and rough. There were three or four toes with sharp black claws at the front of the foot and it was the ball of this that touched down first. The second part touched down seconds later, not really part of the foot at all but looking like it if you were to only examine the print. That deep narrow mark we thought was a heel was in fact the hock of the animal, briefly touching the ground.
My mouth was filling with saliva I couldn’t swallow in case it made a sound. I had never been so still, so silent, so f**king frightened, in my entire life. Dex and I were lying in a bush, just inches away from some unknown creature that was slowly walking past us. Even with guns by our sides, I had never felt so damn unsafe and ripe for the picking.
I waited for that creature to stop its trek, to just sit back on those hocks and perhaps sniff the air around it. I couldn’t see any other part of it and as curious as I was, I was pretty sure that was a good thing. I could only imagine the human like fingers and black claws on its hands, the way that Rigby had described. No, this was no hoax. This was the real deal and with every second that passed, it was a wonder that we weren’t dead.
But, somehow, the creature kept walking. It walked until it was well out of our line of sight.
I finally had the courage to rip my eyes away and look over at Dex. He was watching me carefully, maybe gauging how well I was holding it together.
I stared at him, then closed my eyes and projected the thought, can you hear me?
After a few seconds I opened my eyes but he was still looking at me with a concerned expression. I shot him a weak smile to show him I was fine and decided to ignore the experiment. I knew the more pressing question was when we were going to make a run for it.
I never had to ponder that long.
Without warning, the camera in between us flashed red three times and let out an extremely loud beep.
God damn f**king thing had been left on this entire time, despite no memory card. And now, it was running out of battery.
And it decided to let us know about it.
My eyes widened and the most God awful fear stuck its clammy hand into my heart and squeezed it until I couldn’t do anything but stare at the camera in a frozen panic. Terror had taken over and left nothing of me except a husk.
Thank God for Dex. What felt like ages to me was probably only a few seconds. At the beep, he looked at me in shock, the whites of his eyes shining. Then he burst forward out of the bush, grabbing me only by the collar of my coat. With his crazy strength he yanked me clear out of the brush, branches breaking with a sickening snap, leaves flying everywhere like confetti. The only thing I could do was hold onto the rifle with all my might as I was dragged a few feet out of the bushes.
Then by Dex’s help or some deep-honed instinct I found my feet. I found my footing. I found my strength. And I ran.
I ran like I’d never run before. There was no time for thoughts. No time to wonder if the creature had heard us or how far away it was. It was just one foot in front of the other, one boot leaping above a log, the other boot stretching over a rock. It was Dex and I side by side, leg going in front of leg, knees reaching up and down, arms pumping like cogs in a clock, the rifle never leaving my grasp.
We ran and ran and ran, past branches that scraped at my cheek, a pain I didn’t have time to feel. We ran until the rock face disappeared into the brush and the way became dark and crowded with trees, rough trunks that we both bounced off of but kept on going because to quit running meant to die.
And all this time we were both very aware of something on our trail. Something that growled and snapped and broke through the same obstacles that we had. We hadn’t slowed down and neither had it. It was coming, maybe just one, maybe many, but it was coming and if you listened hard enough past your own breathing you could hear its breathing, the proof that something alive was still out there, still chasing you.
In my fear-addled, adrenaline-fueled state of delirium, I was certain I could run forever, and if I died, it would be on my feet, legs extended, arms shielding my face against the next tree branch. I would die running and it was a better alternative than being decapitated and gutted by whatever was behind us. The thing I didn’t dare once look behind me to see.
I kept these thoughtless thoughts circling my brain, the shallowness of it all keeping me from totally losing it, from realizing what a hopeless situation we were in. It kept me from realizing something had to give.
I just didn’t know what until I noticed another roar fill my eardrums and the forest petered out into an open space of soggy late winter grass. The sun was out, the light was blinding and disconcerting, and after a few uncertain strides I realized that Dex was no longer beside me.
I slowed momentarily and took the chance to look behind me. Dex had fallen on the wet grass and was just getting to his feet, his face filled with panic and his eyes screamed at me to keep running.
I swallowed, my breath nowhere to be found, and convinced my legs to keep going again, faster this time, knowing that Dex would eventually catch up.
I ran and ran and ran through that brownish-green grass, through that open meadow, hearing that rush of water fill my ears like an overflowing symphony.
I ran until an extra step meant another form of death.
My feet skidded to a halt just as the meadow ended abruptly. I was a foot away from going over the edge of a cliff, a forty-foot drop down into the river that ran below it in a deep blue rush that sliced through the trees.
My hands went out to balance me from pitching forward and I quickly turned around to look back at Dex.
He was running toward me at full speed.
And behind him, yards away, was the beast.
It was sprinting with long skinny legs, a creature of thick brown hair, muscular arms and protruding claws that hung from the ends of its human-like hands. Its head was shaped like a small-watermelon, black lidless eyes and a razor-toothed mouth that resembled a cross between man and ape.
I opened my mouth to scream at its proximity to Dex. I opened my mouth to scream at its proximity to me.
And I opened my mouth to scream because I was standing on the edge of a cliff and Dex was not slowing down.
He wasn’t slowing down at all.
The next thing I saw was the determined look on Dex’s face as he came at me, his body jerking low at the last minute. He lunged at me in a tackle, propelling himself forward and wrapping his arms around me.
Together we flew off the edge of the cliff, the rifle flying out of my hand. For one empty moment it was just he and I in an embrace, weightless, effortless, floating in mid-air, a beast snapping viciously at us from a piece of land it refused to leave.
Then we were falling, Dex on top of me, and I saw the sky get farther and farther away as my back crashed down in to icy cold water.
My torso constricted as I gasped for breath. Then my body submerged and I felt nothing else.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I could have fallen asleep underwater in that numbed dreamstate of vibrant blue and effervescent bubbles if my shoulder didn’t immediately crack against a boulder as I was pushed violently along.
The pain shook me awake and in seconds I was bursting up through the surface, catching my breath in giant gulps, my unfeeling arms flapping to keep me afloat as the river carried me quickly downstream.
I looked around the raging water. There didn’t seem to be any more big rocks in the path before me, but my knees and legs were sure catching the tops of ones submerged beneath, slamming into them as I went.
“Dex!” I cried out, the panic climbing up my throat as I wildly tried to tread the water. The backpack was still on my back and I was tempted to take it off until I realized it was helping me stay a bit buoyant.
“Perry!”
I looked behind me, my heart swelling at the sight of him. He was just a few yards away and once he spotted me, he was at my side in a few powerful strokes of his arms.
“Hang on to me,” he said through chattering teeth, wrapping one strong arm around my waist, keeping me up. “We have to get out of the water now or we’ll die in here.”