He didn’t dare blink as he watched the tree line beyond the stream for fear that was all the opportunity whatever was out there would need. The smoke seared his eyes and burned his lungs, yet he battled the sensations. There would be plenty of time to worry about such things when he was dead.
“There!” Evelyn shouted from behind him, but he knew he couldn’t turn. He had to trust her to nail the shot if it presented itself. “No…there!”
There was an explosive roar from behind him, raising the hackles along his spine. The barrel of his gun shook so awfully it was like trying to sight down a flag in a gale.
Another ferocious roar, this time from directly ahead, beyond the wall of smoke clinging to the edge of the forest. Was that…? He thought he saw movement, a darker shade of gray passing through the smoke, only vaguely humanoid. And then it was gone as though it had never been. His finger tightened on the trigger, nearly discharging a wasted shot.
“I can’t see a thing!” Missy shrieked. She was to his right, facing back the way they had come, the smoke creeping down the hillside now obscuring the path of retreat. Panic emanated from her in waves.
“Stay focused,” Mare snapped. “If you see anything, shoot it. You can do this.”
He tried to sound strong for his sister, but the bottom line was he wasn’t even sure he would be able to. If whatever he had seen through the smoke was indeed what was coming for them, it had moved so fast that he wouldn’t have been able to draw a bead on it unless it was running right at him. Even then, it would probably be upon him before he could force his finger to squeeze.
Jake whimpered behind him. Ray whispered something to the child, silencing him momentarily. Phoenix, Ray, and Jake were all enclosed in the middle of their pentagon, with Adam facing directly ahead down the path, while Jill and Evelyn covered the opposite slope. Mare couldn’t help but think of the old westerns he had loved as a child, watching in his little chaps with a plastic six-shooter in a holster on his hip. What was it the characters always said? This is the perfect place for an ambush. And it was. They were boxed into the shallow canyon with an unknown number of assassins hiding all round them.
“They’re right on top of us,” Phoenix said.
“I can’t see a damn thing!” Adam shouted.
“I can feel them. They’re all around us.”
“Where? Tell me where!”
Jill screamed from behind him. Mare couldn’t resist the urge this time and turned to see her barrel pointed up the hill into a thick copse of trees, the bark burning upward into the canopy.
Her cry was answered by a hideous bellow.
Mare whirled back to face ahead, catching a flood of motion. A hazy black shape knifed through the smoke from the cover of one fiery trunk to the next. He aligned his sight on the trunk, waiting for the first sign of movement, his finger tightening on the trigger in preparation of firing.
Bang!
“Where did it go?” Evelyn cried over the ringing in his ears. “It was right there!”
“Did you get it?” Adam shouted.
“I don’t know!”
Mare looked back over his shoulder, but all he could see beyond Evelyn’s shaking barrel was churning smoke. When he turned again, he didn’t even have time to gasp.
A black shadow exploded from the smoke ahead, barreling straight at him.
Bang!
The shotgun bucked against his shoulder before he knew he had pulled the trigger. A cloud of dirt and soot blossomed from the ground where the silhouette had been, the dark from slashing through the smoke overhead like a shooting star. Had it dropped to all fours and launched itself into the air?
Bang! Another shot from behind.
Mare felt warmth on his forehead before the ferocious pain erupted from his scalp. Claws flashed back into the smoke, trailing arcs of his blood. Oh, God, it hurt. It hurt! He shucked the spent casing and chambered another.
“Where did it come from?” Jill screamed.
“I didn’t see it!” Missy said. “I can’t see anything!”
“Where did they go?” Mare shouted, his voice cracking with panic.
“I can’t see them!” Evelyn yelled. “They could be anywhere!”
Ray pulled Jake to him, wrapping his arms around the boy’s head while Jake clung to his leg. He turned slowly in a circle, the fear in the voices around him the only thing able to penetrate the ringing in his ears from the gunfire all around him.
Mare pulled a shell from his pocket and fed it into his shotgun.
Ray tensed in preparation of bolting. A horrible roar made even the air around him shiver, curing his body of the instinctual desire for flight.
Jill screamed and he whirled again in her direction, momentarily sure he had heard something scampering across a mat of dead pine needles and broken branches.
He felt so useless. All he could do was stand there and listen to the others in the throes of terror, nearly as ineffectual as he. He couldn’t help defend them, though once upon a time he had been a crack shot out on the marshes with his dad in duck season. The best he could hope for was to not shoot them all before whatever made those terrible sounds tore them apart. Even trying to protect Jake with nothing more than his arms was a fool’s proposition. Those monsters had to be the size of horses, judging by the sounds they made as they crashed through the forest. He had reached a new pinnacle of helplessness and was starting to feel like he was counting down the heartbeats to his last.
“There!” Missy said, the concussive noise of gunfire right behind.
“Did you get it?” Adam called.
“They’re too fast! I didn’t even get a good look at it!”
Another wretched howl echoed from the woods, taunting them.
Phoenix bumped into Ray from behind, nearly startling him out of his skin.
“They can’t see through the smoke,” Phoenix said, his voice unnervingly calm.
Ray could tell the smoke was growing ticker. The heat on his exposed skin intensified steadily, the ash and cinder carried on the smothering clouds thickening on his flesh. Soon the smoke would envelope them and they would be at the mercy of those creatures. They would never see death coming before the darkness claimed them.
But how was it that the shadows stalking them could see through the smoke when they couldn’t? How did they—?
A bellowing roar severed his thoughts. It sounded as though it was all around them at once.
“We need to get out of here!” Missy screamed.
“No!” Adam shouted. “We can’t give up our position! If we try to fall back, they’ll attack! They’re toying with us now.”
Another roar, from the other side of them as if to prove his theory.
“I can’t keep my eyes open!” Jill railed. “The smoke stings too much!”
Ray cocked his head. The serpentine tail of thought slithered through his mental grasp.
“Do your best,” Mare said.
“We have to fall back!” Evelyn screamed.
“Then we do so as a unit,” Adam said. “Hold this formation! We can’t separate even for a second!”
Ray tried to focus his mind through the shouting. If Jill’s eyes were burning, then surely those things in the thick smoke would be in much worse shape. Unless they weren’t using their eyes…
“Everyone be quiet!” Ray shouted. “They can’t see through the smoke either. They have to be using some other means.”
If they were being targeted by sound, then they were making themselves easy targets with all of the screaming and wasted gunfire. Maybe if they were all silent they could hide in the smoke like the predators stalking them, but they would have to move. Their current location was already clearly triangulated.
His words must have made sense to the others. The only noise surrounding them now was their harsh breathing and nervous shifting from one foot to the other on the dirt path.
Another roar ripped through the silence, followed by yet another.
Ray had to focus on h
is thrumming heartbeat, which pounded in his temples and against his ribcage from within, to keep from screaming. Those beasts couldn’t have been more than ten yards away! It was too late now. Too late.
Concentrate on your breathing, he told himself. Don’t let them hear anything. One quiet inhalation. Hold it. Exhale slowly. Slowly. Another deep breath—
A faint gray haze filled his vision, surrounding him. He could see the others around him, their pale silhouettes ghost-like against the smoke. Directly ahead up the mild slope, white tree trunks crackled with flames. Something moved through the haze. It was low to the ground, almost as though it crawled on all fours. Twin ivory cores burned in the center of its head and in its chest, the remainder of its body, formed of various shades of gray darkening outwards from those almost blindingly white—
His sight faded with the revelation. He could see them. While all of the others were blinded by the smoke, he could see them.
“Jesus Christ,” he gasped. He could see them!
He grabbed Jill and she screamed.
“Give me your gun!” he shouted.
“Ray—”
“Give me the goddamned gun!”
He took it from her and seated it against his shoulder. All he could see was the unwavering sheet of blackness. “Concentrate,” he told himself, raging against his frayed nerves. He felt his pulse throbbing in his head. Count the beats. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Force everything else out. Eight. Nine. Ten. The darkness faded away by degree and the forest stretched out before him. The recently fired barrel glowed white hot, pointing toward the embankment over Jill’s shoulder. He raised the sight toward the edge of the thicket, between the burning trees.
There! The shape had moved from where it had been before, and was now on the other side of the tree trunk. He aligned the barrel and held his breath, tightening his finger gently on the trigger—
Bang!
The shape flew backwards, skidding through the soot. The white core where its head had been was no more, and the ground was spotted with whiteness fading to gray. Its legs carved at the earth, shoving it in reverse, spastic movements that slowly stilled.
“I got it,” he whispered, then louder. “I got it!”
He shucked out the shell and slammed the pump back and forth, but the chamber was dry. Casting it to the ground, he whirled toward Adam. “Give me your gun!”
There was no time to argue. Adam passed Ray the rifle and ducked as Ray raised it where he had been a heartbeat prior.
Another form dashed across the trail, sprinting toward where the other beast fell, darkening as the light fluids spilled out onto the soft earth. The creature stopped beside the first and spun to face them. Its back arched and the white glare of its head lowered. The start of a roar exploded from it, but was drowned out by the crack of rifle fire. Its chest exploded in a quasar of whites. It staggered backward several feet before losing its balance and falling to the ground, making no effort to try to rise.
The air came to life with roaring from all around them.
“He really got it,” Missy said. “Ray, how did you—?”
He cut her off by slamming the bolt back, ejecting a smoldering casing and chambering another.
Another body flashed past the white wall of the burning trees, pausing by the mess of its brethren.
Ray pulled the trigger again, but the creature was already moving. The bullet struck one of the carcasses in its wake with a fountain of gray. It roared as it ran, though it sounded more like a human shout.
“I missed,” Ray said, struggling to replace the spent cartridge with trembling hands.
His ears rang, drowning out the sound of everything but his thoughts. He couldn’t see where the creature had gone. Only the searing glow of the fire. No movement but the snapping flames. Nothing.
He retched, coughing so hard he nearly doubled over, but he managed to stay erect.
Where did it go? Where did it go?
He spun to his left, sighting around the obstruction of Missy’s head. Nothing but the haze of smoke and dots of ash.
“I can’t see it!” Ray shouted.
He couldn’t hear a thing. Even his own voice sounded like a whisper from down a long hallway. Were it not for the high-pitched ringing, he might have heard the scampering sounds of clawed feet tearing through burning detritus and gouging into the earth. Perhaps even the harsh rasping of heavy breathing or the grunt before something large and angry leapt into the air. The whistle of claws parting the smoke. The scraping of overgrown teeth unhinging like a bear trap.
He could hear the screaming, though.
There was no escaping the screams.
VI
THE SMELL OF ITS PREY DROVE IT INTO A FRENZY. THAT DIVINE AROMA WAS all around it now, seeping through its pores to induce a state of euphoria. Whatever small measure of control it once held over its faculties was now a memory. Its instincts assumed full control of its body, and they were tapped into a primal core where only rage and bloodlust resided. The wet scent of human blood caused a descent into madness with the speed of a plummeting elevator. Faster and faster it raced. Branches tore lacerations across its face and chest as it circled its quarry just out of sight, clinging to the smoke, becoming a part of it.
The beast leapt onto a boulder, hunched its back, and released a roar that brought the world into focus around it, but even that didn’t matter now. With the aroma of its prey in its nostrils and lungs, it no longer felt anything but hunger and desire. It could have sprinted headlong into a tree trunk and broken every rib without the slightest twinge of pain and been back on its feet in a second.
The scent, that wonderful, wonderful scent, intensified when it bellowed. Every sound it made, every crash of detritus underfoot or branch that snapped amplified the smell as though they were swimmers bleeding the shark-infested waters red through hundreds of small cuts, opening slowly, tantalizingly. It parted the shroud of smoke and was assaulted by the sweet music of screams, each one thickening the aroma of their fear until it was an oil clinging to its skin, filling it with ecstasy.
It wanted to hurl itself down into their midst, to carve them to the bone and gorge itself on the meat. The anticipation was maddening, but at the same time, the symphony of fear it conducted was still building to a wet crescendo, and when it reached that point it would throw itself upon them alongside its brethren with savage ferocity and a rush of blood.
The others were feeling the same thing, pausing in their whirlwind torment only long enough to bray into the smoke. One after another—
Bang!
It stopped where it was and flattened to its belly in the cinders. The sound had been peripherally familiar, an echo from a past life. The food corralled between them had made that sound several times, but that one had been different. The explosive noise hadn’t culminated with the dry pounding of the earth and a scattering of pellets and gravel, but a damp thud that was followed by the thump of a body hitting the ground amidst a splash of fluids. It could taste the death on the air, the bitter tang of spilled blood, and even though the mess positively reeked, it only added to is fervor.
It arched its back, pushing itself only far enough up from the earth to accommodate its swelling chest, and released a roar.
One of its kin was helpless against the rotten smell of one of their own, unable to resist the bloodlust coursing through its veins. It released a hideous call and tore through the flaming underbrush to scavenge the shuddering carcass. The sound of its advance was too loud, its approach unguarded. No sooner had it reached the bleeding mess than it raised its arms to slash through the bloody flesh—
Bang!
From where it cringed against the ground, the beast heard the bullet thuck into flesh and the dull thump of a body striking the dirt behind. The smell of festering blood intensified. The creature’s body hit the ground and skidded to a halt in the mud. It registered a sensation that it had never experienced before, a very non-predatory feeling that caused its muscles to tense. Enough
toying with them. Enough reveling in the scent of their fear. The time had come to commence with the slaughter.
It roared and propelled itself forward, alighting in a bipedal sprint. The fires lapped its flesh, but it felt no pain. Only longing and an insatiable hunger. It slowed just long enough to witness the stilled bodies of is brothers. In such close proximity, even their foul, meaty scent called out to be feasted upon, but the crack of gunfire cured it of the need. The bullet screamed past behind it and struck the sickly pile of meat.
The world was fading around it, becoming a haze of smoke and flames. It roared to bring its vision into focus, but the proper intonation eluded it. The beast hadn’t had the proper inhalation to emit a thunderous roar. Its voice instead sounded similar to the shouts its prey now made.
It shouldered a burning tree, a cloud of cinders raining down upon it, and staggered deeper into the cover of the smoke where it knew it was hidden. Crouching, its chest filled and it roared up into the heavens. A whooshing sound became audible behind it as the bringer of fire finally caught up with them. Or was that black demon deliberately lagging? It snarled at the assumed cowardice and dashed ahead.
The ground sloped away beneath it, lending even more speed as it crossed the path and splashed through the stream.
Bang!
The report echoed all around it, but the pattern of steel had been nowhere close.
“It’s back here!” a voice screamed, but it was already up the opposite hillside and concealed behind a burning stand of trunks. It leaned against a tree, the transferred flames covering its thick hide, consuming it.
The beast bellowed and it could see them down there in a circle, the weakest protected between them. Its fingers snapped open, the long claws unfurling. Sharp teeth screeching, it allowed its heartbeat to escalate in anticipation.
It could already taste the blood.
Springing from behind the fiery cover, the flames along its back and head forming a mane of fire, it took two great strides and launched itself into the air above them, already bringing its outstretched arms down, talons whistling through the air in preparation of the killing stroke.
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