“So . . . how do we handle this?”
“Well, if it’s supposed to be a bear, then we should holler and make a bunch of noise and chase it away.”
She looked at him; he looked at her. They got to their feet, shouting, hollering, shooing. “Yaaa! Go on! Get out of here!”
The woman outscreamed them in length, in volume, and definitely in terror effect, her cry searing up the ravine like black fire as she thrashed in the brush.
A wooden creak, a splintering snap, cloth tearing.
That broken cot in front of the cabin. She was that close.
A very loud, throaty growl shattered the air and rippled through the trees. Whatever had made that first whistle was bursting out in anger or fear or—whatever it was, it wasn’t good. They heard footfalls moving quickly, pounding and thrashing up the bank.
The woman screamed in reply, splashing in the creek, then moving up the bank as if in pursuit.
Reed and Beck shied back in the dark. Beck clicked on her flashlight to match Reed’s. They swept the perimeter. Trees. Brush. Bony, dead limbs. Blackness beyond.
“Th-th-th-three of them,” Beck said, her voice broken with terror.
“Think,” Reed said, to her and to himself. “Don’t panic, just think.”
Beck thought out loud, “B-big, hungry beasts, two t-t-tender, chewable people—”
“You’re letting your imagination run away with you.”
“It’s my imagination!”
She exhaled, trying to steady herself.
It was quiet out there.
“I’m think-th-thinking something,” she said.
“I’m listening.”
“Cap and Sing w-wouldn’t do this. They’d never b-betray our trust. George Johnson, yeah, but not Cap, and not Sing.”
Reed mulled that over for a precious second. “You’re right.” In a moment, he came back with, “But if something out there was hunting us, it wouldn’t be making all this noise. It would’ve sneaked up on us.”
More listening. More silence. Then some rustling and movement up the bank. Whatever the creatures were, they were still there.
“I s-say we get out of here,” she said.
Snap! Thud.
“Don’t panic. If we panic, we’re sunk.” He tried to steady his voice as he quickly added, “If we stick with the plan, Mr. Thompson and Cap and Sing will know where to find us. If they get here tomorrow and we’re not here—”
A howl up in the woods. Something—and it was no small coyote or wolf—was very upset.
“They might be going away. Don’t panic,” Reed pleaded.
“You’re s-s-scared too; come on.”
“I’m not scared.”
“Come on, your voice is shaking!”
“I’m cold.”
“W-w-well I’m wearing a jacket, s-so there!”
Reed started scrambling around the campsite.
“What are you doing now?”
“I’m getting rid of these sandwich containers.”
“You, youuu can’t hang those up in the trees now!”
“I’m gonna throw ’em, just get ’em away from us!”
“Yeah, and leave me here?”
“What’s the matter, you scared?”
She didn’t answer. He turned, his arms full, and left.
She stood there, alone in the dark, her flashlight shining into a black infinity. The quiet out there was not comforting. At least when those unknowns were making noise, she knew where they were.
Uh-oh, there was that growl again, somewhere up the bank across the ravine. Now it sounded alarmed. But no response from the wailing woman. Where was she?
A whistle! Long, loud, like escaping steam, warbling—and close.
Beck swept the woods that direction with her flashlight. Tree trunks. Dead limbs. A broken snag. Nothing beyond.
What on earth . . . ? Now she smelled something. She sniffed, first one direction, then another. It was terrible, like the worst body odor, like something rotten.
“R-r-reed? D-do youuu smell that?”
No answer.
“Reed?”
Something rustled behind her, and then came that whistle again, this time low and hissing. She spun, her hands shaking, and shined her light up the hill, across a row of tree trunks, past a black chasm of nothing, over some more trunks— Something glimmered in that black chasm. She returned to the darkness between the trees.
She knew what it was. Anytime Jonah, their dog, looked back at a flashlight beam, anytime a cat would look into their car’s headlights, the eyes always reflected the light back like . . . like what she was seeing right now.
Two huge eyes, like silvery green headlights floating slowly in the dark. They blinked at her, then vanished as if blocked by a hand or arm. Heavy footfalls, snapping, crunching!
Beck plunged into the trees, looking for Reed. She may have been screaming; she only knew she was running, dodging tree trunks as they leaped from left and right into her light. “R-r-rr-r—” His name just wouldn’t form. She abandoned consonants and let any sound leap out that would.
“Here—”
This time a scream came out easily, without forethought or construction, mainly because she ran right into him.
“Whoa, whoa, easy!”
She screamed and stuttered and spit something about seeing the eyes and the smell and how close it was and how high off the ground those eyes were and the noise it made and how— Screams! Savage screeches! Howls! The rage and thunder of demons, banshees, black minions of hell, roared, echoed, crackled down the hillside, reverberating off the trees, quaking and bouncing through the ravine, rippling up the creek. The beasts were close, so close, the thump of their footfalls like subwoofers in the ground.
Reed and Beck found the same tree in the quaking, sweeping beams of their flashlights, a tangled, half-dead cedar. Both had the same thought: Climb! Climb and never come down, never ever—
He got one hand under her foot to give her a boost. The first limb she grabbed wore a shirt and gave way the moment she touched it. A bloody, broken arm dropped out of the tree. She didn’t scream this time. No sound would come. She only fell away, numbed by the sight, as she dropped for a slow-motion eternity before landing in a tangle of bushes.
A wide-eyed, crazed-faced man dropped into the beam of their lights. He was upside down, swinging, flopping, limp and purple with death, his legs snarled in the branches, his long braid dangling like a black viper below his head.
The man’s head was barely attached.
They ran, through tree trunks that flashed and flickered across their light beams, over uneven, leg-grabbing tangles of growth, into endless night and darkness, oblivious, reckless, mad with fear.
Their backpacks were nearly an afterthought, but a shred of wisdom still remained, and they grabbed them up as they passed by. They didn’t know where the trail was, only that it was below them in the ravine, so down they went, over the bank, grabbing roots, plants, tree trunks, anything to keep from tumbling headlong as they dropped down, gripping, heeling in, slipping, grabbing, dropping again.
The beasts, the demons, the spirits of the forest were still screaming as if in the throes of battle. Their voices were everywhere, so loud that Beck had to scream to be heard. She sputtered something about seeing the trail.
One more leap and they were on the path, running up the trail out of the ravine, hoping and praying it was the right one, the one that would get them out of this hellish place and down to Abney, a town they’d only heard about.
They ran as fast as they could see to run, adrenaline rushing, the trail, the trees, the turns quaking in their light beams. They climbed, cut around switchbacks, clambered over rocks, dodged around windfalls, getting distance, getting away, getting distance.
But another enemy was stalking them, overcoming them like a slow, creeping death: fatigue. The steep grade, the altitude, and their heavy packs pulled them down, stole their breath, consumed their muscles.
Beck was in the lead, groping up a steep, precarious portion of trail on all fours, gasping for breath, whimpering. She looked over her shoulder. Tears streaked her face. “W-w-where . . . ?”
“I don’t know.” Reed stopped, trying to stop panting long enough to hear if they’d outrun it.
There was a moment when they couldn’t hear anything. But only a moment.
The woman was still out there. She wailed again and wouldn’t stop screaming while another beast howled, its voice rumbling and fluttering from a deep, slimy throat.
“Behind us,” Reed finally answered.
They kept going, inch by agonizing inch.
They made it up out of the ravine, and the trail finally began to head downward. They stumbled along, feet like lead, legs screaming in pain, lungs laboring for air.
Beck’s legs collapsed. She went down and stayed there. The ground felt good. Not moving felt like life itself.
Reed crumpled just behind her, gasping, slick with sweat, wiping salty perspiration from his eyes.
They listened, eyes darting.
The screaming and wailing had stopped. Maybe it was over. Maybe they’d outrun the danger. Maybe the rest on the ground and a few precious molecules of oxygen were bringing the inkling of hope now rising in their hearts, the vague and dreamlike notion that they just might get out of this alive.
Reed pulled the map from his pocket and unfolded it, the crinkling, creased pages rattling loudly in the dark.
“Oh, quiet, quiet!” Beck pleaded.
“Got to see where we are, where we’re going.”
He shined his light on the map, turned it right side up, searched up and down the page for something familiar. “The trail’s going . . . southeast, I guess.”
“Sounds right.”
Wump! Thump! The ground quivered.
“Oh, dear Lord, no!” Beck cried in a whisper.
Reed clicked off his light, then tapped Beck, who did the same. They stifled their breathing and heard it plainly: heavy footfalls and snapping twigs, something moving above them, moving fast, moving . . .
It stopped. Not a sound. They waited, longing for air but hardly breathing, probing the darkness with inadequate eyes.
“If we keep quiet,” Reed whispered in Beck’s ear, “maybe it’ll give up and leave.”
But Beck touched his nose and sniffed, a signal. Reed sniffed quietly. They’d both been running, panting, sweating like crazy, but nothing coming from them could match this stench. Beck pointed up the hill, and he understood. Night air moved downhill. That thing was above them somewhere.
Then came the whistle, long and steady, with a little warble at the end. It was closer than they’d thought.
Sitting still wasn’t going to work. They eased back onto the trail and started to run again, but their legs were feeble and teetering, their bodies exhausted, and they had no choice but to use their lights.
The whistle sounded again, keeping pace.
Faster, faster!
The footfalls and thrashing in the brush did not fade back but only came closer, louder, closing the distance. They were being hunted. That thing was running them down, keeping up with no problem, and it could see.
Beck heard the rush of a waterfall. Abruptly, the trail cut through a streambed, snaking through and over slick, sharp-edged rocks. Reed stopped, stumbling on the rocks, his legs wobbly. He bent as if searching for rocks to throw, a stick he might use as a club, anything.
Beck just wanted to get across, get on smooth trail again. The waterfall was loud, close, just to her right—
The rocks broke away under her foot. She tumbled sideways, then fell headlong over the precipice, flipping end over end—
Her backpack absorbed some of the impact with the rocks, but she was still tumbling, her flashlight flipping in midair.
Her head hit. A blinding flash exploded in her brain.
Reed heard her go down, and he searched with his light.
“Beck!” There she was, flailed like a rag doll on the rocks about ten feet below the trail, her leg dangling in the flowing water, a streak of blood reaching down her face. He found a way down, a slow but sure course through brush, limbs, and saplings. “Beck!”
He grabbed the first limb and swung himself down, then another limb, then a fistful of brush. Lower, lower!
“Beck! Say something! Talk to me!”
There was a commotion across the stream. Oh dear Lord, don’t let it be—
The beam caught the silvery-green glimmer of two retinas suspended within a massive black shadow that swallowed up his light. He screamed, half out of his own terror, half to cause terror. Would nothing chase this thing away?
The shadow moved so fast he lost it. He searched, waved his light about. It caught one fleeting image of his wife’s body swept up like a toy, arms limp, long brown hair flying.
The shadow enfolded her like a blanket. There were heavy, bass-note footfalls up the bank, and then . . .
Nothing.
Three
Reed dashed across the stream, frantic, shining his light in every direction but seeing only thick, tangled forest. The stream and waterfall made so much noise he couldn’t hear anything else. He got out of there, clambering up the other side, only guessing which way that thing went.
“Beck!” he called.
No answer.
But she wasn’t dead. No. He would not allow himself to think that. She was alive and breathing, and any moment she was going to hear his call and answer. If she screamed for help, he would hear her.
Think, he told himself. Don’t panic. You can’t see much at all, but can you hear anything? Can you smell anything?
There! He heard limbs snapping farther up the slope. He raced along the trail, probing with his flashlight. A broken tree limb! Then another! He slipped out of his pack and dove into the trees, probing, climbing, looking for signs, listening, then calling.
From deep in his mind came a warning: You have no gun. No weapon. You need to find something—
Another rustling sound grabbed his attention and spurred him upward. He found a game trail where the ground was disturbed by hoofprints of elk and deer. Among these prints he found a deep, half-round impression, perhaps a heel print. With new strength he climbed, and then traversed the slope, then zigzagged as he lost, then found, then lost the game trail. With the trail gone, he followed sounds, any sound.
“Beck!” The forest swallowed his voice.
He hurried, he struggled, he climbed, he doubled back, he climbed again, then descended, then climbed, until fear and desperation gave way to exhaustion and he began to realize that he was like a mite in a carpet. As loud as he might call, this wilderness stretched farther than his voice could reach. The light from his flashlight had dimmed to a dull orange glow, but the mountains had darkness to spare, plenty to swallow up any light.
The seconds had stacked up and become minutes; the minutes had stretched into hours. Steps had become yards, and yards had become miles, but the forest had not shrunk. It was still bigger than he could ever be, with more obstacles, tangles, confusion, and dark, dark, dark!
When he broke into a meadow where the stars were visible and a waning moon was finally rising, he collapsed to the ground with a quiet whimper, limp and totally spent, head hanging, conflicting thoughts bantering in his head.
She’s gone.
No, no, she isn’t. Just have to find her, that’s all.
Where? Where could you even start looking?
Well, some daylight would sure help.
She’ll be somebody’s dinner by then.
No. God won’t let that happen.
Look at what He’s already let happen! Remember where you are! There are different rules out here!
Reed’s hands went to his head as if he could corral his thoughts. His aimless thrashing around in the woods for hours had accomplished nothing; a mad and frenzied mind would accomplish even less. He forced himself to lie still, breathing for breathing’s sake until he c
ould construct a coherent thought.
First coherent thought: He hadn’t found his wife.
Second coherent thought: In all his mad scrambling and searching, he could have wandered farther from her, not closer.
Third coherent thought: He’d become part of the problem. He was lost, without provisions, without a weapon.
He still had his map and compass. If the sun ever came up again sometime in his life, he could take a look around and hopefully get his bearings. For now, he was too tired and emotionally spent to work it out, and any more wandering would only make things worse. Until he got some rest and some real light, he would be no help to Beck or himself.
The dying orange beam of his flashlight found an old fallen snag just a few feeble steps up the hill, with a hollow in the ground beneath it. His heart screamed against the decision, but his mind made it stick.
He would shelter himself under the snag to maintain his body heat, and rest until daylight.
“Beck . . . Beck . . . Beck!”
Beck was dreaming, far from fear in the dark, merely puzzled by her husband’s anguished voice as he screamed her name. Beyond her dream was a faraway pain, a dull throbbing, a dizzy world tipping and turning, a body aching, but she didn’t wake up from the dream. She didn’t want to. Waking would hurt; the dream didn’t. In the dream she was floating as if in a stream, gliding past limbs and trees and leaves that went swish, with the ground so far below.
She was warm, as if cuddled in a furry blanket, but it was dark, like being in her bedroom at night.
Can’t wake up, won’t wake up, eyes won’t open, staying in the dream, moving fast, can feel the breeze . . .
Monsters, snorting, drooling, stomping, invisible in the dark. All around, closer, closer. Beck! Beck! His legs wouldn’t move—
“Reed! Beck!”
Reed awoke with a start.
“Reed!” That sounded like Cap.
He stirred, unclear as to where he was, but willing his legs and arms to move, to pull, push, and claw his way into the open, through tangled exposed roots and crumbled rocks into eye-stinging daylight.
The distant call came again: “Reed! Beck!”
Reed rolled out into the grass, the dew soaking through his clothes. Everything looked so different. “Hello!” he cried.
The Frank Peretti Collection: The Oath, the Visitation, and Monster Page 107