by J. Dursky
Chapter 8
I don't see any movement. I don't think Ayla sees any either. I am sure she would point it out if she did. She is not shy about pointing out the obvious. We walk along the fence to see if there is anything strange going on inside. Maybe they shut it down from the accident. I don't know how one train car tipping over could shut an entire corporation down for the day.
"Let's split up, we can both go half way around the property, then head back, which will cover more ground. As exciting as this is, I have better things to do today." I say with a playful tone.
"Yeah, me too. I want some breakfast! I am starving!" She replies. "I’ll go this way and stay on the path."
"Just go to the edge of the first pond and then come back whether you see anything or not. I’m going up the hill to maybe climb a tree and get a look at the entire property."
I head west, to find a good view point. I keep checking inside the fence as I travel around the property. My curiosity has the best of me. I hope I see the accident that I heard about. I wonder if there are any National Guard trucks here. I don't see anything yet. There is still an eerie quiet. It makes me a little uneasy. I approach the bottom of the hill and see a good path. I’ll use this as an extra workout. I sprint up the hill, juking trees and dodging branches. I do everything in my power to avoid running my face through spider webs that may run between branches. Running into a web face first seems to be scarier than the actual spider itself. I have done it before while looking for Morel mushrooms in the spring. When it happens, it scares me so much I instantly turn into some screaming, 11 year old, light footed, ninja, Girl Scout, spider slayer and sprint away peeling the web off of my face as quickly as possible. I make it to the top of the hill without a single spider web catastrophe.
Now I need to find a good tree to climb. The leaves have been changing colors for quite some time now, but not all of them are on the ground. I cannot just look through the trees. I need to climb a big one to see over or through the rest of the trees to see if there was anything that even happened here. There is a giant Oak tree that will give me a good vantage point but there are no branches low enough to grab. The lowest one is even too high to jump to straight off the ground and reach. I think if I can run at the tree and kick off of it, I can reach the branch. I back up as far as I can, still having a straight line to the tree. I run at it, jump off the ground with my left leg, kick and thrust myself upward with my right and reach for the branch. I grab it. Now, to start climbing. I have always been very good at climbing trees. I navigate through the maze of branches and make my way as close to the top as I can. If I get too high it may not support my weight. The final branch I stand on is very thick but I put my foot as close to the base portion of the tree as I can. A “Y” or a fork are the strongest point of any live tree.
I have a view of the entire property from here. I see Ayla over by the pond straight across from me. I scan the area to see if there is anything out of the ordinary. This isn't easy. I have never looked at it from this angle. There are containers, train cars, buildings with pipes running between rooftops, silos, and things of that nature. I look over the property like I am reading a really good book. I pay close attention to every detail, intensely scanning top to bottom from my angle, and left to right. I look over the entire area. I don't notice anything out of the ordinary, other than no noise or movement at all. Then I see something. There is movement. I am so far away it is hard to see. It looks like a person walking. It is not Ayla, I can still see the defined colors of her white t-shirt, blue shorts, and blonde hair. She is walking around the pond. I wonder if she can see them from her angle. Whoever it is wears darker clothes than Ayla and me. They do not walk like someone who is working. They do not walk like they are on patrol or looking for something. They are just walking. I see Ayla stop. The dark figure turns its shoulders toward her. It starts running toward the fence, towards Ayla. She turns and runs the other way, back to where we split up. I have to get to her, NOW!
I climb down the tree as fast as I can. Climbing down is not as easy as climbing up. I get down to the first branch I climbed up and jump out. As I impact the ground I roll forward to lessen the impact on my ankles and knees. I run down the hill, as fast as I can. I can no longer see the depot from here. I am not looking anyway, only concentrating on navigating through the trees as quickly as possible. Whatever is going on right now, there is a giant security fence between them, and Ayla is fast. She shouldn't have any trouble getting away.
When I get around the fence to where I thought Ayla would be, she is not there. I’m breathing too hard to stop and listen. My heart beat throbs in my ears. My lungs burn for more oxygen. I yell her name, and look around. I still don't see her. I think of what I would have done if I were her. I run down the path, she probably ran to her car. It is over a mile away from here but it is the safest thing in the area. I am not running at full speed. I feel the need to look around and listen. If she is still in the area I do not want to get all the way to the car, only to come back.
Not more than 400 meters down the trail I stop. I see her. She is off the trail in the woods. I don’t know what she is doing. She is sneaking forward, looking at the ground, like she is trying to catch something. It seems like she is trying some sort of a stealth attack on something. She lunges forward and disappears behind the brush that is between knee and waist high to her. I see her pop back up and take off at a full sprint running parallel to the path.
"Ayla!" I yell at her.
She immediately shifts her attention from whatever she’s doing, to me. She is close enough to me that I know it’s her, yet far enough I cannot see any detail on her. She steps behind a tree, as if she is hiding from me.
"Ayla, what are you doing?" I plead to her.
I know she can hear me from this distance. She peaks around the tree, we make eye contact, and she tucks back behind the tree again. She seems afraid. I am so confused.
"Hey, this isn't funny. What are you doing? What happened with the person who ran at you? What were you chasing in the weeds?"
She doesn’t reply, she doesn’t make a sound. Something isn't right here. I get goose bumps. I walk into the woods to get a little closer and see if I can figure this out. Walking through the trees I look around a little but never take my eyes off the tree for more than a few seconds at a time. I am less than ten feet from the tree, I am not silent, and I know she can hear me coming. The leaves on the ground crunch under my running shoes, the plants whoosh against my legs as I walk through them. The tree is wide enough for her to stand behind without being seen but I see her crouch behind it. This exposes her knees and the top of her head. She has to be playing some sort of stupid game, I don’t know why else she would hide from me.
I take one more, slow step toward her and as the leaves crunch under me, she reacts! She rockets out of her crouched position and lunges at me. I jump backward as she screams and rushes at me with her hands out. I swat at her hands as they reach for me. I walk backward, not letting her out of my sight. She doesn't look like her anymore. I mean, I know it’s her but she looks completely different. Her nose crinkles, her lips curl up, and it looks like a snarl. She stops and tilts her head back and breathes in through her nose. Is she smelling me?
She looks angry, her eyes are bloodshot, and she hisses. She snaps her jaw at me. I feel like I have become her new prey. I should have let her chase whatever she was after in the weeds. She lunges at me and I cannot back up fast enough. She moves like a rabid dog jumping up onto my chest and knocking me down. I struggle to defend myself. I want her off of me but I do not want to hurt her. I don’t understand why she is acting like this. She has her right hand on my left arm, fingers wrapped around my biceps. H
er left hand is on my chest. I feel her fingernails pierce my skin. I let out a yell. I can feel her weight shift and I use that to my advantage. I have a flood of even more adrenaline than was already present in my system. I have my right hand on her ribs, my left is bent at 90 degrees with my forearm pressed against her throat. She leans down wanting to bite my neck, pressing her full body weight from her throat, onto my arm. This position allows me to shove her with my right arm and roll to my left, pressing my heels into the ground for leverage. With her small frame and the extra surge of energy I have running through me, I shove her into the air and she hits the ground rolling backwards.
I climb to my feet. I want to say something to her. I want to ask her so many questions. I don't know what to say so I turn and run in the direction of the trail. She starts to chase me. I picture her face as I run from her. She seemed so angry. Her eyes were more bloodshot than I have ever seen eyes look, almost completely red without a hint of white in them, and the scream did not sound like her voice. I run at almost full speed to get away from her. It has always been very easy for me to outrun her. She is fast for a girl but then again, I am fast for a guy. I am full of adrenaline, running through the trees very quickly. I don't hear anything but my own breath and heartbeat again. There's no way she kept up with me. I should be far enough from her to attempt to look back to see if she is still chasing me.
I slow for a second to peak over my shoulder and she is still right there. She screams at me again. It is a low, rough scream. It almost sounds like a growl. She claws at my shoulder and pulls at my shirt. She is desperate to get me to stop, but I think she would try to hurt me if I did.
I get back to the path and with a hard step I pivot and turn right, a move I am familiar with from football games. Ayla is not prepared for the sudden direction change and she’s thrown off balance and stumbles into the ditch on the opposite side of the trail. I heard her fall in the weeds so I turn to look. As I do, I see a man in an all-black outfit behind us on the path. He is covered from head to toe. No portion of his athletic frame has skin showing. He looks more equipment than man. He wears a black helmet, goggles, a face mask like a pilot, and backpack with a communication radio attached to one of the straps, Kevlar vest, elbow pads, padded gloves, knee pads, long pants tucked into big black boots. Oh, and the most important thing, an assault rifle, aimed at me.