by Karina Halle
Dex’s grip on my hand tightened and I squeezed back just as hard. Both our eyes stayed focused straight ahead, the anticipation feeling as loud as our heart rates.
Another snap. Then a scraping sound.
Right before my eyes, right in front of the bush, I saw a foot step into view.
It was unlike any foot I’d ever seen and I struggled even trying to explain it. It looked like the leg of a small kangaroo, if anything. The foot was covered with dense brown fur, matted and rough. There were three or four toes with sharp black claws at the front of the foot and it was the ball of this that touched down first. The second part touched down seconds later, not really part of the foot at all but looking like it if you were to only examine the print. That deep narrow mark we thought was a heel was in fact the hock of the animal, briefly touching the ground.
My mouth was filling with saliva I couldn’t swallow in case it made a sound. I had never been so still, so silent, so fucking frightened, in my entire life. Dex and I were lying in a bush, just inches away from some unknown creature that was slowly walking past us. Even with guns by our sides, I had never felt so damn unsafe and ripe for the picking.
I waited for that creature to stop its trek, to just sit back on those hocks and perhaps sniff the air around it. I couldn’t see any other part of it and as curious as I was, I was pretty sure that was a good thing. I could only imagine the human like fingers and black claws on its hands, the way that Rigby had described. No, this was no hoax. This was the real deal and with every second that passed, it was a wonder that we weren’t dead.
But, somehow, the creature kept walking. It walked until it was well out of our line of sight.
I finally had the courage to rip my eyes away and look over at Dex. He was watching me carefully, maybe gauging how well I was holding it together.
I stared at him, then closed my eyes and projected the thought, can you hear me?
After a few seconds I opened my eyes but he was still looking at me with a concerned expression. I shot him a weak smile to show him I was fine and decided to ignore the experiment. I knew the more pressing question was when we were going to make a run for it.
I never had to ponder that long.
Without warning, the camera in between us flashed red three times and let out an extremely loud beep.
God damn fucking thing had been left on this entire time, despite no memory card. And now, it was running out of battery.
And it decided to let us know about it.
My eyes widened and the most God awful fear stuck its clammy hand into my heart and squeezed it until I couldn’t do anything but stare at the camera in a frozen panic. Terror had taken over and left nothing of me except a husk.
Thank God for Dex. What felt like ages to me was probably only a few seconds. At the beep, he looked at me in shock, the whites of his eyes shining. Then he burst forward out of the bush, grabbing me only by the collar of my coat. With his crazy strength he yanked me clear out of the brush, branches breaking with a sickening snap, leaves flying everywhere like confetti. The only thing I could do was hold onto the rifle with all my might as I was dragged a few feet out of the bushes.
Then by Dex’s help or some deep-honed instinct I found my feet. I found my footing. I found my strength. And I ran.
I ran like I’d never run before. There was no time for thoughts. No time to wonder if the creature had heard us or how far away it was. It was just one foot in front of the other, one boot leaping above a log, the other boot stretching over a rock. It was Dex and I side by side, leg going in front of leg, knees reaching up and down, arms pumping like cogs in a clock, the rifle never leaving my grasp.
We ran and ran and ran, past branches that scraped at my cheek, a pain I didn’t have time to feel. We ran until the rock face disappeared into the brush and the way became dark and crowded with trees, rough trunks that we both bounced off of but kept on going because to quit running meant to die.
And all this time we were both very aware of something on our trail. Something that growled and snapped and broke through the same obstacles that we had. We hadn’t slowed down and neither had it. It was coming, maybe just one, maybe many, but it was coming and if you listened hard enough past your own breathing you could hear its breathing, the proof that something alive was still out there, still chasing you.
In my fear-addled, adrenaline-fueled state of delirium, I was certain I could run forever, and if I died, it would be on my feet, legs extended, arms shielding my face against the next tree branch. I would die running and it was a better alternative than being decapitated and gutted by whatever was behind us. The thing I didn’t dare once look behind me to see.
I kept these thoughtless thoughts circling my brain, the shallowness of it all keeping me from totally losing it, from realizing what a hopeless situation we were in. It kept me from realizing something had to give.
I just didn’t know what until I noticed another roar fill my eardrums and the forest petered out into an open space of soggy late winter grass. The sun was out, the light was blinding and disconcerting, and after a few uncertain strides I realized that Dex was no longer beside me.
I slowed momentarily and took the chance to look behind me. Dex had fallen on the wet grass and was just getting to his feet, his face filled with panic and his eyes screamed at me to keep running.
I swallowed, my breath nowhere to be found, and convinced my legs to keep going again, faster this time, knowing that Dex would eventually catch up.
I ran and ran and ran through that brownish-green grass, through that open meadow, hearing that rush of water fill my ears like an overflowing symphony.
I ran until an extra step meant another form of death.
My feet skidded to a halt just as the meadow ended abruptly. I was a foot away from going over the edge of a cliff, a forty-foot drop down into the river that ran below it in a deep blue rush that sliced through the trees.
My hands went out to balance me from pitching forward and I quickly turned around to look back at Dex.
He was running toward me at full speed.
And behind him, yards away, was the beast.
It was sprinting with long skinny legs, a creature of thick brown hair, muscular arms and protruding claws that hung from the ends of its human-like hands. Its head was shaped like a small-watermelon, black lidless eyes and a razor-toothed mouth that resembled a cross between man and ape.
I opened my mouth to scream at its proximity to Dex. I opened my mouth to scream at its proximity to me.
And I opened my mouth to scream because I was standing on the edge of a cliff and Dex was not slowing down.
He wasn’t slowing down at all.
The next thing I saw was the determined look on Dex’s face as he came at me, his body jerking low at the last minute. He lunged at me in a tackle, propelling himself forward and wrapping his arms around me.
Together we flew off the edge of the cliff, the rifle flying out of my hand. For one empty moment it was just he and I in an embrace, weightless, effortless, floating in mid-air, a beast snapping viciously at us from a piece of land it refused to leave.
Then we were falling, Dex on top of me, and I saw the sky get farther and farther away as my back crashed down in to icy cold water.
My torso constricted as I gasped for breath. Then my body submerged and I felt nothing else.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I could have fallen asleep underwater in that numbed dreamstate of vibrant blue and effervescent bubbles if my shoulder didn’t immediately crack against a boulder as I was pushed violently along.
The pain shook me awake and in seconds I was bursting up through the surface, catching my breath in giant gulps, my unfeeling arms flapping to keep me afloat as the river carried me quickly downstream.
I looked around the raging water. There didn’t seem to be any more big rocks in the path before me, but my knees and legs were sure catching the tops of ones submerged beneath, slamming into them as I went.
“Dex!” I cried out, the panic climbing up my throat as I wildly tried to tread the water. The backpack was still on my back and I was tempted to take it off until I realized it was helping me stay a bit buoyant.
“Perry!”
I looked behind me, my heart swelling at the sight of him. He was just a few yards away and once he spotted me, he was at my side in a few powerful strokes of his arms.
“Hang on to me,” he said through chattering teeth, wrapping one strong arm around my waist, keeping me up. “We have to get out of the water now or we’ll die in here.”
I nodded, not having the strength to speak.
He held me tighter to him and as we approached an upcoming bend, he yelled in my ear, “Now kick to the left with all you’ve got! Go! Kick, Perry, kick!”
I did what I could, bringing up the last reserves of strength and soon I felt pebbles underneath my feet. Dex got out first then pulled me up and along, my legs weak and shaking. Out of the water, my boots and coat were as heavy as sin and soaking me to the bone with a cold that only increased with each second that passed. I made it a few feet onto the grassy riverbank before my knees gave out and I collapsed to the ground.
“Hang in there,” Dex said. “We’ve dealt with this before. We’ll be fine.”
The first part was true. On D’Arcy Island we had both been in the ocean for an extended period of time. The last part was unknown. I didn’t understand how we’d even begin to be fine. The sun at the moment was strong because of the elevation and it was warm but it was still March, still Canada, still the mountains, and we were totally alone, with no shelter or dry clothes, soaked in glacier water. How could we be fine?
Dex took my backpack off, as well as his, and started emptying the contents. Most of the items, including the extra clothing, were soaked. He quickly laid them all out on the grass, then started ripping open the packets of space blankets.
“Take off your clothes,” he said without humor.
I tried to make a joke but shivers rocked my body from the core. In seconds he was at my side and quickly pulling my clothes off.
“Please baby,” he said quietly, trying to quell his own chattering teeth. “Try.”
I did, finding my boots too intricate to undo with numb fingers, but my sweater came easily.
I stole a quick glance at Dex. He was throwing his jacket out on the grass, spreading it wide for the sun to warm and ripping open the remaining space blankets with shaking hands. There were five of them in total and he spread out two on the bottom and three on the top, like a makeshift sleeping bag.
When he was done, he slipped off his boots in a hurry and came over to me, making sure I could get mine off.
“Get in under the space blankets as soon you’re naked,” he ordered. “Don’t go in there with wet clothes; it’ll stop you from retaining heat.
I nodded and pulled off my wet jeans, wincing at the feeling of the legs being rolled down over icy blue thighs.
Soon, both of us were naked and as blue and mottled as a newborn baby. I didn’t have time for modesty, didn’t have the chance or strength to care. I just crawled onto the reflective silver blanket, noticing that the silver sheets on the ground were thicker than the ones above us.
Dex joined me, wrapping his body around mine and pulling in the sides of the blankets, tucking their crinkled edges beneath our bodies until we were entirely encased in them, like butterflies in metallic cocoons.
We held each other, limb around limb, blocks of ice against blocks of ice. From time to time the shivers would rock us, and then they’d slowly increase until we were both shaking. But with the shaking came the feeling as our skin tingled and nerves became alive again. Our heart beats returned to normal, I could feel the pulse of his neck as it pressed against mine, our heads against each other. Our breathing became less labored and more natural. If the grey morning hadn’t burned away to bright sunshine, it might have been a different story. But after a long time of our skin on skin, I knew we were going to be all right. We weren’t out of the woods – in fact it was all around us as we lay entwined on the grass together – but we escaped the beast and we would live to see another day. Or at least see the moon rise.
“How are you?” Dex whispered into my ear, his breath reassuringly hot and tickling my ear.
“Warm,” I answered, my lips grazing his earlobe. “Dry. Safe.”
“Good.” He pulled his head back and kept the tip of his nose grazing the tip of mine, peering down at me with vibrant eyes. “Good.”
A lock of dark hair fell down on his forehead and I reached up with my hand to push it out of the way. It was still wet but drying quickly. I knew my own hair was spread out the side of me like a spilled can of black paint.
The muscles in his face tightened for a moment while a wash of darkness spread across his eyes. “Did you see it?”
I nodded slowly, enjoying the feeling of the side of his nose against mine. It contrasted with the horrific image I was desperately trying to keep out of my head. I closed my eyes and his fingers trailed down the side of my bruised cheek.
“Don’t tell me now,” he said. “Later. There’s always later.”
I swallowed hard, keeping my eyes shut. The monster wasn’t the only thing I was afraid of seeing. If I opened my eyes again, I know I’d see the thing I feared the most. Dex’s face, above my naked body. The man who saved me twice today. The man I couldn’t figure out how to forgive. The one who broke my heart yet seemed to offer up his in exchange.
“Baby, look at me,” he coaxed.
And that was the other thing. He had been calling me baby and I hadn’t been saying anything to stop it. Because, against everything my head was telling me, deep in my heart, in my loins, it felt right. All of this felt right. How did something so wrong get turned on its head?
“Please,” he whispered. I felt his nose slide closer and his lips touch mine. They were soft and light. They didn’t assume, they didn’t ask anything from me. They lightly kissed my own, a brush so bare it almost didn’t exist.
My eyes flew open and I only saw him. It didn’t matter where we were, what had happened now or what had happened in the past. It was just Dex and Perry in this moment, in this now, in this rush of hearts that were speeding up their beat, in our breaths that were catching in our throats in anticipation. We both knew what was happening and neither of us was going to lift a finger to stop it. Because it needed to happen. Because we both wanted it like we wanted oxygen to breathe and water to drink. Like we needed it in every cell in our body, some driving mechanism of our evolution. It wasn’t until that moment I realized how starved for him I had become.
Our eyes only met for that brief second and in that brief second we said everything we could. That drive, that need, that want, took over after that. There was nothing that words could say. Only eyes, lips and hands.
He brought his lips down hard against mine, crushing my head against the silver ground. Our tongues fought for each other, gently at first then harder as the needs became more insistent. He kissed me like I represented another plane of life, another existence to live on. I returned the favor, my feelings deepening with each soft caress of lips and skin and wet.
Then any memory of being cold was banished out of my mind. My body felt ripe and alive, refreshed and clean from the water and burning hot from unrequited desire, a lust I had tried so hard to bury. Unlike the other night, I was sober to the point of being spiritual, every sense awakened and ready.
Dex’s hands found their way off my face and down the soft curves of my body, my skin shivering from his touch, even though I was warming beneath his gentle fingers as they trailed along from my ribcage, into the thin of my waist and out along my hips.
Suddenly he leaned back, sitting upright, and I got a full view of his softly rippled abs and taught, wide chest, those infamous words inked on them, before he grabbed me by the arms and hoisted me up like I was made of feathers. He pulled me on him as he leaned back on his legs in
a kneeling position and positioned my legs in either side of his torso so I was straddling him. He was in charge and I was prepared to do pretty much anything he asked.
He brought his arms around me and pressed my breasts against his chest. I could feel his erection pressing hard against my slit, the heat vibrating off of him.
“Are you all right?” he whispered with a wicked grin on his face.
“I’m feeling no pain,” I said.
His grin faltered as he put his hand past my ears, burying them in to the depths of my hair. “Are you having doubts about this?”
There it was. There was no question about what was happening. About what this was.
“What if I said I was?” I challenged softly, keeping my lids heavy, my eyes focused on the heaving of his chest.
“I’d keep going,” he said huskily. “Because I know I can change your mind. You think you want to say no – baby, I see those wheels turning in the back of your skull – but you won’t want to say no. I’ll make sure of that.”
“Is this you trying?”
“This is me. I’m just me. And I’m right here.”
I licked my lips and found the only words I could say. “I’m right here too.”
That grin wiped the graveness from his eyes and in seconds, his lips were back on mine, kissing me so hard I thought we were going to draw blood.
His fingers found their way out of my hair and slinked their way down my collarbone toward my breasts where he caressed them like they were precious gems he’d been searching forever for. A few moans escaped his lips as both hands were there now, cupping them, holding their weight, relishing them. I leaned back slightly, my neck open, my hair trailing down my back. He went at my neck first, licking and sucking down the windpipe, then swirling down the bones of my breastplate until his tongue found my nipples. Now it was my turn to moan, letting out days of pent-up frustration.
“That’s my girl,” he said between sucking.
Those words, those lips, that tongue. There was no turning back.