Big Game

by Daniel Smith

  But the light was too bright, and the sound was wrong. It didn’t build up the way thunder usually did. It didn’t roll and rumble and expand. It was too sudden. It had to be something else. Something to do with Hazar and those metal tubes I had seen.

  Rocket launchers.

  My suspicions were confirmed within a few seconds, when the sky lit up once again. This time, though, it was not a bright white light, but an orange, fiery glow. Dim at first, somewhere over to my right, but growing brighter. A sound accompanied it: a sort of rattling and screaming and growling all at once. It was as if some kind of monster was coming toward me over the wilderness, making the most awful sound that cut right through me, shredding my nerves.

  The noise grew louder and louder, and the light grew brighter and brighter, then came the sound of ripping and tearing as whatever it was skimmed over the forest.

  It came like a force of nature — like Ajatar, Mom’s Devil of the Woods — breaking through the trees, falling lower and lower, smashing through the branches, tearing the trunks from the earth like they were nothing but twigs. The clamor of its approach was almost deafening. It drowned the sound of the ATV engine and my ears were filled with that screeching, ripping noise. It vibrated through me, shaking the ground like an earthquake.

  There was a second when I thought I should do something — speed up or slow down or something — but that moment was snatched away when a huge ball of fire came smashing through the forest to my right, ploughing burning trees in front of it and throwing them out behind it. Sparks and flames exploded in the night as the object slammed into the dirt fifty yards away, sending tremors through the earth.

  There was an ear-splitting BOOM! and fire erupted everywhere as the thing bounced and ripped across the track, gouging a huge tear in the ground and destroying everything in its path. It tumbled and barreled, twisting and careering through the trees as it continued to my left, mowing through the pines and spruce as if they were grass.

  All kinds of forest debris filled the hot air. Burning pine needles, incinerated twigs, smoking glowing leaves. Bark and wood splintered like shrapnel; thick tree branches whizzed like spears; pinecones popped and exploded like grenades. Before I knew what was happening, a huge juggernaut of a log came rolling out at me, slamming into the front of the ATV and throwing me over the handlebars, straight into the clouds of fire.

  I sailed through the nightmare of black smoke and glowing embers as one thought went through my mind … not again … then a white light of pain flared in my head and I crashed down with a horrible crunch. I skidded and rolled across the forest floor like a rag doll, landing facedown in a large puddle of dirty rainwater, while the firestorm raged around me.

  When I was five years old, Dad took me to the waterfall at Lake Tuonela. It was more than a hundred feet high and the water made the most amazing sound as it fell from the river, cascading into the chilly lake below. He took me to the top, right out onto a rocky ledge that hung over the drop, and we stood there looking down. I remembered how afraid I was to be so high, and to stare through the mist and spray at that angry, frothy water. It looked to me as if it was boiling, and I imagined the shape-shifter down there — the näkki — waiting to pull me in and drown me at the bottom. I had seen a picture in a book, of a giant squid trying to drag down a submarine, and that’s what I thought of right then. I thought the näkki had turned into that squid and was looking up at me with those staring yellow eyes, its long tentacles swaying in the current, ready to wrap around me.

  “Now that you are five years old,” Dad said, “it’s time for you to begin your journey as a man.”

  I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.

  “Don’t be afraid, Oskari, you know how to swim. You swim better than I ever did at your age.”

  I remembered looking up at him and nodding. “I like swimming. Are we going swimming?”

  Dad looked down at me with a serious expression. “In a manner of speaking.”

  I reached up to hold his hand, but he pulled away and turned to glance behind us. I looked back to see the other men standing on the rocks, Hamara right there at the front. He nodded at Dad, and Dad frowned and nodded back.

  We stripped down to our shorts and stood shivering in the cold air, while Dad took a coiled rope from over his shoulder and tied one end around his waist. I asked what he was doing, but he just smiled and told me it was going to be fun. When he tied the other end of the rope around my waist, I finally understood.

  We were going to jump.

  “I don’t want to do it,” I told him. “Please. I don’t want to.”

  I cried and held on to his leg, my whole body shivering. I begged him not to make me do it; I was so afraid of that long drop into the mist and froth and the näkki waiting for me below. All I could think was that I would sink and sink and never come back up. I would never see Mom again.

  Dad reached down and put a hand on my head to comfort me, but he was looking back at Hamara. “Don’t be afraid,” Dad said. “I’ll keep you safe. It’ll be fun.” Breaking my grip, he pulled me away from his leg and moved us right to the edge. “The rope will keep us together.”

  Then he picked me up and stepped over the edge.

  We fell and fell and fell.

  I kept my eyes closed the whole way down. There was a tremendous tightness in my chest, pressing the air right out of my lungs as the wind rushed about me and the spray from the waterfall battered me like rain. When we finally hit the bubbling surface, there was a sudden sensation of cold, and my muscles stiffened as we cut through the water.

  The power of the waterfall cascading above us was terrifying. It pushed us deeper and deeper into the never-ending darkness of the lake, as if we would never be able to get back to the surface. My lungs were empty and my head was pounding and I began to panic. I opened my mouth, desperate for air but sucking in only water, and right then, sinking in the raging lake, I thought I was going to die.

  I thought the näkki had me in its twisting, crushing tentacles and would never let go.

  That’s what I woke up to now: the feeling of the world raging about me, a cramping in my chest, and the sensation of my muscles tightening like cords. The memory of the lake was fading from my thoughts, pushed away by the sound of crashing and tearing, and the rain of forest wreckage that continued to fall on me. My face was right in a muddy puddle and I was drawing in water as I tried to breathe, but as reality snapped back to me and I remembered where I was, I lifted my head and coughed the puddle water from my mouth and nose. Lying on my front with my mouth open wide, I gasped for air, but something solid struck my back. Hard and painful, it thumped me right between the shoulders, and I immediately curled myself into a ball, tucking my head beneath my arms, wishing it would all stop.

  I stayed like that for a long time, waiting for the worst of it to pass and for the terrible noises to die down. After a while, the forest grew quiet, so quiet that even the birds didn’t dare sing, and the only sounds were the gentle patter of falling rain, the crackle of fire, and the creaking of the trees.

  Even then, I hardly dared move. But I knew I couldn’t spend all night like that, so, preparing for the worst, I uncurled, opened my eyes, and slowly got to my feet.

  The path was gone. Nowhere to be seen. Instead, I found myself standing in what looked like a war zone.

  A few feet ahead, there was a huge scar through the forest. That was the only word I could think of: scar. A massive trail of destruction cut right across what had once been the path, and now I was surrounded by broken and splintered tree trunks, scattered about like snapped matchsticks. Here and there, small fires crackled in the rain that now fell freely through the enormous hole left in the forest by the destruction.

  Smoke drifted around the smashed trees. It settled across the ground or whipped about in storms where the breeze caught it and lifted it into miniature swirling tornadoes. The smell of it was strong, but it wasn’t just the pleasant scent of wood smoke; there were other
smells in there, too. Melted plastic, maybe, charred rubber, and even the cloying stink of burning fuel. And everywhere I looked, sparks and embers and glowing wisps of papery birch bark floated in the night, dancing in the dark like fireflies.

  I stumbled about, shell-shocked, wondering at the awesome power of whatever had caused this, but also at how amazing everything looked. Despite the destruction, it was beautiful in a strange kind of way.

  When I kicked something hard with the toe of my boot, I crouched to pick up a piece of steaming metal that hissed when the rain touched it. “Ouch!” It burned the tip of my forefinger and thumb, so I withdrew quickly and pinched the cold lobe of my ear to prevent my fingers from blistering.

  I booted the piece of metal away, and took the bow from my back to check it was intact. Satisfied it was in one piece, I ventured through the smoke, waving my hands in front of me, trying to clear the air. Stepping over small dying fires and broken branches, I finally found the ATV, upside down like a dead insect, with the trunk of a large pine lying across it. The vehicle was crushed beyond use. Three of the tires were shredded and the front was dented.

  Dad was going to kill me — if I even made it back alive.

  I trudged over to the ATV and walked around it, wondering if there was any chance of saving it.

  “Damn!” I kicked the side of it, making a hollow clanging sound. “Damn!” I balled my hands into fists and put back my head and shouted at the sky. “Damn!”

  To my surprise, the sky answered with a blinking red light.

  The strange red light hung in the darkness above the broken trees as if it was just floating there, and it took me a few moments to realize that it was actually growing larger. Whatever it was, it was coming closer, drifting slowly from right to left — the same way the destruction had come — and I craned my neck to watch it, mesmerized by the regular blinking of that red light.

  On. Off. On. Off. On. Off.

  “What the hell is that?” I whispered.

  The light drifted lower and closer until it passed overhead and I could see there was something behind it.

  A large dark shape.

  I was beginning to wonder if the day could get any worse. First the helicopter and Hazar, then the … well, whatever it was that had just happened — some kind of crash or attack, I guessed. “And now there’s you,” I moaned at the blinking red light. “What the hell are you?”

  The red light didn’t answer. It just blinked on and off and floated past, coming down in the trees on the other side of the scar. There was a crackle of breaking branches, followed by a soft thump.

  Whatever it was, it had just landed. And it was close.

  A part of me wanted to ignore it — to just keep on moving, but it had sparked my curiosity. I wanted to know what it was. And when I looked at the ATV, I knew I wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry.

  I glanced back across the scar. The red light wasn’t far out of my way. In fact, it was more or less on my way. And it was probably my duty to find out what it was. It had crashed in our wilderness, after all.

  I had to know.

  “Right,” I said. “Let’s find out what you are.”

  I jogged over to the ATV and salvaged what I could of my gear. The backpack carrying-frame was still intact, so I secured as much to it as I could and grabbed the bow.

  Crossing the huge scar wasn’t easy. I had to climb over and crawl under the fallen trunks of ancient, gnarled trees. The air stank of burning and it irritated my throat, making me cough when I was in the thickest of the smoke. I had to scramble through twisting, clawing branches, all of them trying to snag my camouflage netting.

  Despite the cold night air, I was sweating under my rain jacket when I finally made it to the other side of the scar and stood on a large, knotted trunk, watching the red light winking at me through the trees.

  On. Off. On. Off. On. Off.

  A shiver ran through me and I considered turning back. Maybe that was the best thing to do. As I stared at the light, though, I remembered Hamara’s last words before I left: A boy sets out into the wilderness, but it is a man who will return.

  A man. I should not be afraid.

  “Be brave,” I whispered. “Be brave.”

  Taking a deep breath to steel myself, I jumped down from the tree and headed deeper into the forest, keeping my eyes fixed on the winking red light.

  A strange metal pod was nestled at a slight angle among the ferns at the edge of an area where the trees were more thinned out. Shaped like a flat-topped cone, it wasn’t much taller than me, and was shiny and smooth, like polished silver. There was an antenna sticking up from the top, with a flashing red light on the end of it, and two more lights on either side of the cone. They continued to blink. On. Off. On. Off.

  An eerie mist had fallen with the darkness, and it mingled with the smoke from the fires and the firefly embers, so the red light washed into the night like smeared blood. Behind the strange metallic object, a parachute hung limp from the branches of a mountain ash, trailing along the forest floor. It was attached to the top of the pod by a number of cords that tightened and loosened as the material swelled and deflated in the breeze. At the front of the pod, facing me, there was a single door with a small window that glowed as if there was a light inside, but there was no sign of life.

  Crouching at the base of a lichen-covered oak, I peered through the low branches, studying the pod and thinking that I had seen something like this before. On TV, maybe, or in a video game, I couldn’t remember. It was like the kind of thing people used to come down from space, except they were supposed to land in water. I wondered if that was what it was: if it was supposed to have landed in Lake Tuonela but had missed.

  But then I remembered the rocket launchers and the vapor trails and explosions, and I knew it had to be something to do with Hazar. The crash must have been something to do with him. But what had he shot down? Whatever had caused the scar must have been big and this was … what? Some kind of escape pod? Something alien?

  The thought made my heart stop for a moment, but I told myself that couldn’t be true. Why would aliens come to our wilderness? And was there even such a thing as aliens? Even so, I crouched lower and nocked an arrow to the bowstring, ready to fire at anything that might come out from the pod.

  I waited for some time, expecting something to happen, but nothing did. The rain continued to fall, softening to a drizzle that pattered through the trees and gently drummed on the metal pod, and the red lights continued to blink. On. Off. On. Off.

  After a few minutes, I lowered the bow and felt around for a good-size rock. I inched closer, coming out from behind the tree branches, and hurled the rock as hard as I could.

  Clunk!

  It hit the pod with a hollow metallic sound.

  Somewhere in the distance an owl hooted, but other than that, there was silence as the hollow sound echoed and faded into the night.

  Without taking my eyes from the strange object, I reached down and felt about for something else. My fingers scrabbled about in the dirt before clasping another jagged stone, but before I could throw it, a bang came from the pod.

  From inside the pod.

  I scurried back behind the tree, peering around, half expecting an alien to explode out from the door.

  Nothing.

  After a few seconds I inched forward, stopping to listen for a moment, then threw the rock. Almost immediately, another bang came from inside the pod.

  Retreating to the cover of the tree once again, I collected two more stones and threw them one after the other in quick succession. They clattered through the branches and struck the metal object.

  Clunk! Clunk!

  The reply was immediate. Two solid bangs from inside.

  Swallowing hard and toughening my nerves, I sneaked closer to the pod, walking carefully, making almost no sound. My steps were flat and soft, just like Dad had showed me.

  When I was close enough, I stared into the steamed-up, glowing window and reached o
ut, bunching my hand into a fist. Holding it close to the pod for a second, I took a deep breath and forced myself to knock on the door. The first time, it was weak and quiet, so I did it again, harder. The metal was sleek and smooth and cold under my knuckles.

  A knock came from inside in response, and a dark shape moved across the window. I flinched and stepped back in surprise as the knocking continued. My instinct was to run, to get as far away from this thing as possible, but there was another noise from the pod; something like muffled shouting.

  I stopped and peered closer to the misted window.

  Once again, a dark shadow moved across it, then a hand appeared. It looked human, but I couldn’t be sure — and I couldn’t see what the hand belonged to.

  It put out one finger and wrote something on the window.

  The symbols made no sense to me at all.

  “Alien,” I whispered, hardly believing it.

  Taking a step back, I tightened my fist around the handle of the bow and nocked the arrow back onto the string as I started to creep away. Whatever it was, alien or not, I would kill it if it tried to come after me.

  In the window, the finger shook backward and forward a few times, exactly the way Mom’s used to when she was telling me not to do something. When it stopped, it rubbed away the alien symbols and started to write something else.

  I stopped and stared as it dawned on me. They weren’t symbols, they were numbers. 1492. The hand had written them back to front the first time.

  Now the hand made a thumbs-up gesture before drawing an arrow pointing to the bottom right corner of the window. To make its point, the finger started jabbing in the same direction as the arrow.

  Peering closer and looking carefully at the pod, I saw a panel just below and to the right of the window. It was a metallic keypad with numbers and letters printed on it.

  “One-four-nine-two?” I whispered. “That’s the code?”

  The finger continued to point.