by Ike Hamill
While he waited for his flying refreshments, Crooked Tree reached out and attempted to sense the boy. The boy’s thoughts were elusive, as if he had learned how to disguise his mind amongst the masses, but eventually Crooked Tree was able to hone in on him. Crooked Tree was dismayed to find that the boy had been developing rapidly; closer to outbreak than Crooked Tree would have imagined.
He mustered his strength and pulled himself through the hole, breathing plentiful fresh air and turning his face to the sky.
How many winters does it take for the stars to change? Crooked Tree wondered as he beheld the sky.
The effect was disorienting: not only had some of the stars moved, but hundreds were missing. It took him several deep breaths to realize the issue. Even though the moon had set, the sky looked as bright as if the moon were nearly full. In several directions the horizon glowed, as if giant fires burned. When he closed his eyes, Crooked Tree realized that the directions with the most light coincided with places where he sensed multitudes of human minds. He wondered again how long he had been unconscious in the cave.
He crossed the small clearing and compared the landscape to his memory. Rocks had tumbled from the cliff, leaving the clearing littered with their debris. Some of that he attributed to the attempts to wall him into the cave, but others were too big to have been influenced by human hands.
A breeze lofted up from the valley and Crooked Tree tilted his head back to receive the information it carried. He gagged on the air, it was tainted with foreign, acrid smells. Under the local noises, far in the distance, he detected a rhythmic hissing sound, droning like rushing water.
Reducing himself to shallow, cautious breaths, he stepped through the thick bushes into the forest. Forced to duck and step over crowded limbs, Crooked Tree noted how dense and tangled the forest had become. The inhabitants were different as well—more rodents and prey compared to apex predators. He tilted his head down and listened to them scurry away from his unusual presence. He was glad to find a path that wound through the trees, but still had to hunch over to account for his height.
Moving downhill at an even pace, Crooked Tree made his way to the river while stretching his muscles and cracking his joints. Each breath helped him stand taller. At the river’s edge he knelt and lowered his face to the deep pool carved off the main current in the lee of a rock. The water’s surface bubbled and foamed with foul-smelling contamination, but his thirst overpowered his revulsion. He drank through pursed lips, sipping slowly so as not to overwhelm his tight knot of a stomach.
He drank for hours, pulling in a tiny amount of water with each sip and letting it find its way to his dehydrated extremities. He took long breaks from drinking, propping himself up against the rock and memorizing the new patterns of stars through the gaps in the canopy. Many of the trees were shorn and re-grown, several feet from the tops. Others were dead and leafless, waiting for the next strong breeze to topple them. Crooked Tree wondered what had visited all this devastation on the valley he had once known so well.
When he stood again, thirst completely slaked, he felt firm and plump. He flexed his naked muscles and admired his own form in the dim light. Crooked Tree cocked his head and listened for the hissing he had heard from the from the clearing. It was there, but greatly filtered by the trees and leaves. He was anxious to determine the source of the noise, but it emanated from the other side of river in front of him. Upstream from this point he could find a spot where he could leap across the running water, but that wouldn’t solve his entire problem.
Crooked Tree knew the boy he sought lived east, far east of this valley, and running through the center was a river he could not hope to cross. He had traversed the river before, when he was a boy, but that was when he was human and not afraid of the consequences of submerging his body in rushing water. He picked his way south along the riverbank as he considered his problem. The big river ran as far north and south as he had ever ventured, and although he knew there must be headwaters somewhere, he couldn’t gauge how far that would take him astray from his quarry.
Hundreds of paces south from where he drank, Crooked Tree climbed a small hill and found a location where the river narrowed to squeeze between walls of rock. He estimated the distance and backed away from the edge, preparing to make the leap. Just as he prepared to run, a grinding, hissing sound caught his attention to the south. Dropping to a crouch and focusing all his senses towards the sound, Crooked Tree discovered something completely unexpected. A light flickered, moving through the woods faster than a human could run. But he sensed a human associated with the light. The sound, light, and person moved from left to right and he tracked the presence until it disappeared to the west.
He stalked towards the spot where the thing had passed. As he neared the trail of the thing, he detected its odor—the same foul-smelling mixture he had whiffed earlier. He ascended a mound of gravel and found himself on a hard, gray surface, etched with countless black streaks, and bisected with both a solid and a dashed yellow line. It was clearly the hard-packed path of a huge entity. Crooked Tree guessed immediately that the trail had been formed to provide a path for a human conveyance, and he marveled at the work it must have taken to create such a trail. He was pleasantly surprised to see that the trail continued unbroken over the river he had been following.
He moved tentatively on to the bridge, bouncing to ensure its stability before committing his weight to the span. Dropping to all fours, ready to pounce for the opposite shore, he stalked across the bridge. When he had reached the other side, he heard the same hissing behind him. The lights followed almost immediately. The thing moved at a blinding speed. Crooked Tree whipped his head around and leapt into the boughs of an overhanging tree just as the lights swept over his position.
Crooked Tree held his breath as he watched the giant thing streak past on the trail below. The smell it left on the wind was disgusting, but Crooked Tree had become accustomed enough to refrain from coughing. Once it passed he dropped back to the hard surface and laid his hand on the tracks. He could feel the vibrations of the thing moving away, and felt no more smelly things coming his way. He decided to keep to the hard-packed trail. It was nearly straight, and provided enough headroom for him to run comfortably.
He covered several miles, stopping only to creep off into the woods occasionally to find his bearings. Once away from the occasional interruption of the fast-moving things, he could meditate and pinpoint the boy’s location to be sure he was moving in the right direction. Soon, his path was joined with a high strand, stretched from pole to pole. Crooked Tree’s mouth hung open as he regarded these bizarre artifacts created during his long slumber.
Eventually, his trail was broken by another similar trail, running perpendicular. Crooked Tree evaluated the merits of the new possibilities, but decided to continue straight. The landscape changed as his path wound down a hill and the trees on either side opened up to patches of grassland. He slowed to a walk and considered the animals trapped behind sharp wire fences, draped from post to post. Crooked Tree slowed even more at the first dwelling he encountered. Reaching out with his senses he established that the inhabitants were fast asleep. His ability to be surprised was quickly waning. By the third encampment he passed, Crooked Tree moved casually. He ignored the foreign sights and smells and kept his focus on the boy.
As he approached a nearby cluster of people, Crooked Tree found it difficult to maintain his focus on the boy’s distant mind. He sensed grave, infectious diseases, and suboptimal lineage in the people around him and wondered why they survived in this world. He managed to ignore them while they were still in the distance, but once he was surrounded by distractions, he found it impossible to continue his hunt.
To the north, a burning infection called to him. He knew that if he could just snuff this beckoning, he would have a better chance of resuming his quest. He took a deep breath, confirming that the person was in his vicinity, and changed his direction to seek and eliminate the abomination whic
h clouded his senses.
Off the hard-packed trail, over a fence, and on the other side of a small hill, Crooked Tree found a two-story dwelling, dark beneath tall oak trees. The swift-moving animals, like giant deer, penned inside the fence were unfamiliar to Crooked Tree, but he disregarded them as they sprinted off into the night. He stepped easily over another fence and found himself in a small yard adjacent to the house. Creeping slowly to the nearest window, he knelt down to peer inside. Strange angles met his eyes, but he recognized these new things as works of man. Circling the building, navigating over fences and around bushes, he surveyed the lower floor completely, but saw no sign of inhabitants. The windows of the second floor were just out of range of his curiosity.
Finding no obvious entrance, Crooked Tree laid his palm across several mullioned panes and pressed. The window creaked and buckled under his pressure, shooting a jagged crack from top to bottom of the glass. Its snap startled Crooked Tree. He removed his hand and studied the transparent surface. To his left, a small porch led to the kitchen door. He lowered his face to the boards and studied the wear of thousands of tracks. He deduced the purpose of the door and pressed his hand against the worn brass door-handle.
The wood snapped and splintered, swinging the heavy door inward and revealing a rectangular portal into the house. Crooked Tree nodded to himself, absorbing these new details as easily as he had rehydrated earlier. He hunched into a crouch and moved inside the house, experiencing the new sights and smells as the floor bowed under his weight. As he made his way down the center hallway, shoulders brushing the walls on either side, he heard labored breathing from the second floor.
His mind locked on the disease that had drawn him to this place, but another sound suddenly overshadowed the heavy wheezing—tiny claws chattered across a hard floor above him, padded down the upstairs hall, and revealed diminutive, yipping dog at the top of the stairs. Crooked Tree smiled at the miniature hunter, bouncing and barking above him.
When the dog saw that Crooked Tree refused to flee, it bounded down the stairs. Before it could begin its futile attack, Crooked Tree reached out and swatted it, sending the dog flying towards the banister uprights. The dog flopped down the stairs, rolling and squealing, its front paws waving frantically while its hind legs stretched taught, but useless. The dog’s back had broken.
Crooked Tree silenced the dog’s screams with his foot as he ascended. The staircase, two hundred years old but thousands of years younger than the giant who climbed them, groaned and sagged with his weight. At the top of the stairs, Crooked Tree sat on his heels, uncomfortably crowded by the low farmhouse ceilings. He turned his head and located his target. With a few sliding steps he reached the half-open door of the inhabitant.
“Oh, good lord,” gasped the gaunt man tucked in to the bed.
Crooked Tree smiled. He had no need for words to understand the sentiment. A wave of urine smell crashed through the room as the man panicked.
“Are you an angel?” the dying man whispered at the naked mammoth.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Davey
“SERIOUSLY, I JUST FELT A DROP!” Davey exclaimed.
“Oh shut up,” said Paul. “You probably just spit on yourself.”
They pushed themselves on the swings with their feet, achieving only tiny arcs. At the other side of the park, Paul’s brother, Kris, sat in a small circle with his friends, passing a joint one direction and a basketball in the other.
“If we wait for it to be completely raining, then we’ll be all wet by the time we get back to your house,” argued Davey.
“My mom said it wasn’t going to rain at all,” said Paul. “Besides, if I get home before my brother then my mom is going to be pissed at him. Then he’ll get pissed at me. That’s the last thing I need.”
“He probably wants to go too,” Davey waved in Kris’s direction. “He’s not going to want to get his pot all wet.”
Paul waved a hand towards Davey, trying to smack him on the shoulder, but missing and hitting the heavy chain of the swing. “Ow!” he yelled. “Don’t talk about him smoking anything. If he knows you’re talking about that he’ll kill you.”
“Whatever,” said Davey. “If he cared he wouldn’t be doing it right out in the open like this.”
“Just don’t say anything,” said Paul.
“What’s with you? We should go play that game at your house. It’s not even fair. My mom won’t let me have it, and you won’t let me play it at your house. What the hell?” asked Davey.
“You just can’t,” said Paul. “I’ll get in trouble.”
“How come?”
“My mom doesn’t want me to hang out with you right now,” Paul admitted after they had swung back and forth, passing each other several times.
“What? Why?” asked Davey. “Sophie loves me. Who doesn’t?”
“She said you’re a bad influence,” said Paul. He dragged his feet in the dirt, skidding to a halt.
“Me?” asked Davey. “How am I a bad influence?”
“I don’t know,” said Paul. He stood up from the swing.
“She must have said something,” Davey insisted, he rose and followed Paul in a slow walk across the playground.
“Well, there was that day you got hurt ‘cause we were away from the school. Then, the other day when I got in trouble because you put a mouse in Ted’s book.”
“You didn’t get in trouble,” said Davey. “I got in trouble.”
“My mom heard about it though, and she figured I got in trouble because of you. I almost did, you know.”
“That one wasn’t even my fault,” said Davey.
“Whatever,” said Paul. “She thinks it was…” he trailed off.
Davey stuffed his hands deep into his pockets, unconsciously imitating Paul. He kicked a big rock and it bounced off the metal pole of the jungle gym. A piece of the brittle rock snapped off and ricocheted up, hitting Paul in the arm.
“Ow,” said Paul, rubbing his arm. He looked up at Davey with accusing eyes.
“That was an accident,” Davey said.
Paul sat down on the edge of a big spinning platform they had named the Barf Machine on a sunnier day. Davey gave it a small push and plopped down next to Paul.
“So what? I’m not even allowed at your house anymore?” he asked.
“Just for a while, she said.” Paul frowned.
“But you’re leaving in a couple of weeks for California,” said Davey. “Then we won’t even see each other until like August.”
“I know,” said Paul. “We can still hang out at school though.”
“We only have three days left,” said Davey. “Two and a half, because Wednesday is early-release.”
They took turns pushing gently, keeping a constant, slow spin on the platform. Davey plowed into Paul’s shoulder when the platform came to a sudden halt.
“Hey bro, let’s go,” said Kris. Just a few years older than Paul and Davey, he towered over them.
“I thought you were going to hang out for a while,” said Paul with the slightest hint of whine in his voice.
“Nope,” said Kris. “Gotta get back.”
Davey and Paul stood up from the platform.
“Not you,” Kris said, pointing at Davey. “Mom doesn’t like you,” he sneered.
“Yeah, I know,” Davey looked Kris in the eye.
Kris nodded, warming up to Davey’s strength. “You be alright getting home?” he asked.
“Yup,” said Davey. “See ya, Paul,” he punched Paul lightly on the shoulder. Davey turned from the brothers and set off towards his house. He lived only a block away from the playground and was allowed to come to meet Paul if Kris was going to be around too.
Davey held his head up until he rounded the corner and glanced back to see that Paul and Kris had disappeared from view. When he was sure he was alone, he sat down hard on the curb and propped his chin up with his palms. The weekend before the end of the school year would normally thrill him, but this
year it brought a sense of loss.
His mom had signed him up for catcher’s camp every morning, and now he couldn’t go to Paul’s house in the afternoon. His afternoon would consist of hours trapped in educational summer programs.
Might as well be summer school, he thought, scowling.
He imagined a typical day and sunk further into depression. His mom would mandate breakfast at home, which meant he would have to get up even earlier than usual. Dressed in his baseball clothes, she would drop him off at the practice field, rain or shine, and he would move through perfect summer days executing drills, sucking the life out of a game he was supposed to love.
When Davey played sports, he would get lost in the game, enjoying every second. Practice was the heavy price he had to pay. Coaches always focused their attention on moving the group forward, but Davey excelled at sports and would spend the days repeating maneuvers he had nearly perfected. He wasn’t a showoff, so he didn’t anticipate the praise the practices would surely bring. Instead, Davey’s quiet shyness meant he was in store for weeks of blushing discomfort.
Davey sat up straight, surprised by a thought echoing up from the back of his head unlike his normal thoughts: I won’t have to play baseball too long, it said, he’ll come for me soon. Davey shuddered in the warm June sun. He stood slowly, brushing off the back of his pants, suddenly unsure if the voice had come from inside his head after all.
Davey ran home.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
Mike
THE MIDDAY SUN SEEPED IN around the edges of the blankets covering the windows. Mike had never been very good at home improvement. The quilts and comforters were held in place by yards of duct tape, struggling to adhere to the walls. He couldn’t remember committing this vandalous act of decor, but he resonated with the sentiment. The bright light of the day didn’t serve any purpose other than to remind him of his problems.