Koontz, Dean - Dark of the Woods

by Dark Of The Woods(Lit)

  . . . sleep found him in the middle of the thought.

  It was a dreamless night until, near wakefulness, he began to have a nightmare in which he was caught by Alliance troops, shackled and led away to be turned over to the rep who had promised to destroy him. In the port city, he was taken down into dungeons beneath the gray block building of the government headquarters and chained to a wall where he was beaten, severely, again and again by an assortment of guards. Then the rep had him transferred to a cot where he was tightly lashed, and the ancient Chinese water torture was applied. Drop by drop, the liquid splashed on his forehead, ran down his face and neck. The sound of it grew from an almost inaudible tick to a resounding, crashing boom that was driving him insane. All the while, he marveled at the effectiveness of so ancient and simple a torture in a time when Science and man were so developed and sophisticated. It seemed anachronistic.. But it worked. Drop . . . by . . . drop . . . booming . . . on his . . . head . . . head . . . head . . . He felt his mind beginning to go, and he screamed—which awakened him.

  The scream he had bellowed in the nightmare issued as a faint croak in his throat in the reality of the morning on Demos. But a piece of the nightmare persisted. The water continued to drop on his head. From a white ceiling, a steady, quick rhythmically timed series of water droplets fell to explode on the bridge of his nose. For a moment, he could not imagine where he was and what the dripping water could mean. Then a section of the snow ceiling, about as large as his hand, fell directly onto his face, a cold mass of slush that remedied his disorientation and woke him fully.

  With a sinking feeling in his stomach, he sat up as if he had been propelled by a spring mechanism. The melted spot above his head was not the only breach of the shelter. There was a second hole past his shoulder where another column of hot air had worked its way through, and there were four places whose thinness was apparent from the amount of light that passed through and flushed into the cavelet. In a very little while, their sanctuary would cease to exist.

  The disaster had been unavoidable. They would have frozen to death without the heat blanket, even with the body heat that would have collected in the tiny room. Yet the heavy amount of heat produced by the device was bound to be more than the snow could filter to coolness without, itself, being melted. Unavoidable, yes. A surprise, no. He should have thought of it, should have tried to arrange some method of waking in the middle of the night to turn it off, to give the crystalline walls of their dugout a chance to recuperate. He had been tired and had given in to the urge to consider the victory last night a final victory—when he knew perfectly well it could only be temporary. The Alliance was never going to give up that easily.

  He sat there, very tense, waiting for the sound of a soldier, waiting for the startled exclamation of discovery and the shout of triumph. But when, after a long while, he heard nothing, he pulled up the sleeve of his coat and checked the time. It was already past midday. The soldiers would have had sufficient time, starting at dawn, to comb the valley again. They were gone by now, surely.

  He tickled Leah's nose until she finally lifted an eyelid to stare at him sleepily with an expression that said she had not decided whether to kiss him or pulverize him. "They're gone," he informed her.

  She sat up, yawning. "For now."

  "I'm supposed to be the pessimist here."

  "You've infected me, then," she said, smiling thinly.

  They had a breakfast of vitamin paste, chocolate, stew, and water. Though that was not the most agreeable combination to put into their stomachs and begin the day on, they both agreed that every bite of everything had tasted like something they might have purchased in a delicacy shop. After toilet duties had been finished with, and they had exercised their cramped and aching muscles thoroughly enough to dare to put them to the torture of more walking and climbing, they made their way up the last thousand feet of the ridge, to the brink of the valley which had been so heavily guarded last night and was now so lonely and bleak.

  They looked back the way they had come, to the mountain they had crossed the day before. Three helicopters fluttered around the tops of the yil trees on that last mountain, and from the flurry of hoisting and lowering, it appeared the search had been shifted to this area and that a good number of ground troops were involved. Such a fortuitous decision would never have been made by the Alliance if Davis had prayed for it, he was certain. But without hope, their luck had changed for the better, and the enemy was off on some wild goose extravaganza behind them. Perhaps they would make Tooth after all.

  They turned, went down the other side of the ridge, out of the forest into a clearing three hundred yards across which broke between two arms of the heavy woods. The sky was only partially clouded, and bits of sun shone down on them, making their faces warm as they walked. They moved briskly, though they knew the enemy was far behind, for they had become accustomed to moving in shadows and felt oddly as if they were on a stage when out in the open. They did not have to worry about leaving prints, for the troops and helicopters which must have been here until just a short while ago had destroyed the smooth blanket of windblown snow.

  Halfway across, Davis saw something which did not seem right, though he could not pinpoint what it was. He carefully examined the area of the approaching woods which he had been watching when the feeling of uneasiness had descended over him, and saw it again, in a patch of brush: the gleam of sunlight on glass or metal . . .

  "Veer left," he said.

  She asked no questions, but did exactly as he instructed.

  "Walk as fast as you can, but don't break into a run."

  The moment their pace picked up, the camouflage net dropped away from the one-man scout copter which had been on sentry duty, and the machine kicked its rotors on, danced off the ground, and sped toward them, the sound of its blades cracking in sharp echo on the open basin between the trees.

  "Run!" he shouted, grabbing the suitcase and wrenching it from her. He knew the copter pilot had radioed the other Alliance aircraft that he had found the fugitives and that the area of search would be hot on their trail in minutes. He also knew, with a certain dread, that though the Alliance might want to take them alive, this pilot probably also had orders to kill if they seemed about to gain the next strip of woodland before the other copters could arrive. They would not have the slightest idea how the two of them had hidden in a valley searched two or three times with thermal tracking units, and they would not want to give them a second chance to use the same trick.

  "Run! Run!" he shouted to her as she lagged behind him by half a dozen paces.

  The woods looked so far away.

  The first stutter of gunfire burst from the one-man copter and tore into the ground fifteen feet behind them.

  X

  "FASTER!" DAVIS shouted.

  She stumbled and went down.

  The copter swept overhead, its landing skis no more than six feet above them as it passed. The deafening, chaotic explosion of its blades ate into Davis's bones and made him feel as if he were in a great blender, being spun around the walls.

  He ran back to her, helped her up, cradled her in his arm and, half dragging, half carrying her, he ran for the trees and the safety they offered, no matter how short-lived that safety would be when the ground forces and the other three copters arrived.

  The one-man craft arced, doubled back, fluttered in toward them, the sun opaquing its glass-bubble cockpit and giving it the look of mercury. The pilot banked, bringing the side-mounted machine gun into the proper angle, and let off another burst of shells.

  Davis was spun around and sent crashing head over heels with Leah in his arm. For a short, horrible moment, he was certain he had been hit in the arm, for it was numb. But he saw there was no blood . . . And he saw that the suitcase had been hit, taking the full brunt of the bullets. It was torn up the middle, and everything it had held was shredded and spilled across the snow: the plastic with which the lean-to could be made, the heat blanket which was the
ir only protection against the stinging, awful cold of the night . . .

  "He's coming back!" Leah shouted, struggling to her feet, trying to help him up.

  He gained his feet, grabbed her with his numbed arm, and ran, wondering how they would survive another night without the warmth of the blanket, wondering If it might not be better for both of them to just stop and offer themselves to the pilot of the little craft, open their arms and get it over with in the quick bite of the bullets.

  The copter passed, spraying the ground immediately ahead of them with heavy fire.

  Davis stumbled and went down in his urgency to keep from running into the death zone. Lying there, trying to get up, he realized that the pilot could have killed them easily before this, that he was trying to see if he couldn't contain them, slow them from the woods until the others had arrived to take them alive. And he was doing very well at that. Only seconds could remain until ground troops would be arriving.

  He stopped trying to reach his feet, told Leah to be still, and fumbled the pistol out of his holster. He laid on the ground, as if he were too weak to continue, and waited for the copter to make another pass. He did not know if he could manage what he was about to do, but he had to try. A moment later, the glass-bubble cockpit" swept at them, tilted so the pilot could get a good look. He was grinning, and his finger was on the trigger for his gun.

  Had Davis misjudged? Was the pilot just playing with them, tiring them and then killing them like a cat does with a mouse, without any concern about when the ground forces would arrive in the other copters? There was no doubt at all in his mind that the man in that control seat was a sadist. No other sort of man could have that expression with his finger on the trigger of a deadly weapon.

  He rolled, brought up the pistol, and fired two rounds into the glass of the machine, directly at the man in the chair. The sharp sound of the gun sounded unrealistic.

  The copter pulled up, passed over them, stalled, and spiraled into the earth a hundred yards away. It burst into orange and blue flames that stopped the gurgled scream of the pilot before he and Leah had reached the trees that had been their goal.

  "The blanket!" she said when they were in the cool shadows of the trees.

  "It was shredded. Useless. The radiators wouldn't work even if there was enough of it to crawl under. We've got to make time."

  In the distance, the sound of approaching aircraft . . .

  "Now!" he hissed.

  She followed him into the trees, along another herd path. Without the suitcase they made far better time, for she was easily able to keep up with whatever pace he set as long as the ground was flat and relatively easy-going. They had gone perhaps five hundred yards when one of the huge Alliance copters, a troop carrier, shuddered by, just above tree level. Davis looked up, afraid he might see the hoist lowering armed men, but the worry was unfounded. He bent his head and concentrated on making time. He hoped the craft was not planning on depositing a crew somewhere ahead and letting the fugitives collide with them.

  Even though the machine could not attack other men, Davis was pleased to see Proteus floating twenty feet ahead, hull gleaming, marked in one spot by the dark crease of a bullet that had been fired from the one-man copter back on the open field. As long as Proteus was nearby, Davis could remain sane. As children had security blankets which were of no use to ward off their enemies but which still gave them comfort, so he had his protection robot which could not do him any good in the battle in which he was now engaged but which still provided solace because of its past associations with triumph over death and danger.

  Then the forest flared crimson . . .

  There was a wash of flame, like liquid, bursting through the trees across their path, sweeping over Proteus,

  And there was sound: a bellowing thunder . . .

  Concussion: a fist that thumped the ground and tossed both of them down—hard.

  The Alliance had given up on the bring-them-back-alive approach and was now set to destroy them, whatever the cost. The rep whose duty it was to direct Demos's forces had cracked, had let his ego snap and rule supreme over him. Davis and Leah had made a fool out of the searchers once too often; now, with the murder of the single-man copter pilot on his record, Davis was a dangerous fugitive against whom any means of capture or destruction was sanctioned by law.

  The chemical flame died as swiftly as it had erupted, though some of the yil trees—tough and durable—near the center of the blast were still burning furiously.

  Davis leaped over a twisted mass of metal, started to help Leah across it, before he realized it was the hulk of Proteus. The protection robot had been caught near the center of the grenade eruption and had been smashed open down the middle. The guardian was gone; the security blanket had been taken from him.

  For a moment, he was paralyzed with fear, unable to cope. Then, slowly, as two other phosphorescent grenades erupted around them, barely missing killing them, he remembered that she was depending on him, that he had to move, that he had to go one more lap of this journey. He had thought he could not commit violence, and he had committed plenty, starting with that rat he had destroyed in the gas shelter. He had drought he could not do without the adulation of his fans; he had found he was wrong. He had thought he could not survive against other men more rugged than he, against an uncompromising Mother Nature —but he had. Thus far, anyway. In short, he had discovered an entirely new Stauffer Davis, opened up avenues within himself that he had not known existed. It was because of her, the slight girl with wings, and he must not let her down, must not violate the trust she had given him.

  Many of the trees were aflame now.

  The snow had melted in rivers of whirling water, and the earth was even muddy in some places.

  "This way!" he shouted above the crackling and burning, above the sound of copter blades which overlaid the holocaust.

  She took his hand, followed him down a narrow corridor of brush and trees which was not yet burning. As they passed through, a grenade struck behind, setting that corridor ablaze as well. They had made it out of the fiery trap without any time to spare.

  But the Alliance pilots were apparently able to see them, for they shifted the area of attack and began lobbing chemical grenades to the left and the right. Walls of fire burst into crackling existence around them, and the corridor of safety between was quite narrow indeed. Far ahead, another aircraft began seeding the woodland floor with still more explosives. It seemed as if the okay had been given to destroy a few miles of woodland in order to destroy the prey.

  Davis was forced to shield his eyes from the intense heat that made them water and impaired his vision. The world was suddenly a place of illusion and delusion, where firewalls looked only inches away one instant, then seemed to flicker in the distance the next. The snow melted, seeped into the thawing earth and formed mud that sucked at their boots as they tried desperately to negotiate their way down the closing corridor of unburned land. Leah was having trouble walking, for her slim legs had not been made with the sort of musculature necessary to combat the gluelike earth. He walked beside her, helping her, all but carrying her.

  He wished he could stop and strip off his clothes, for he was perspiring heavily beneath them. His face, he thought, was receiving a third degree burn and was peeling and bubbling. He saw her face was red-tinted, too, and that rivulets of sweat coursed down her small, pixieish features.

  The roar of the fire had become so great that the noise of the hovering copters was no longer audible. He was certain, though he refused to accept it, that they were about to die . . .

  Then, as they came to the end of the pathway and found they were surrounded by fire on all sides, he saw the cliff through the flames, to their left. Beneath the veil of terror that had been drawn down over all his. thoughts, his mind still functioned, perhaps more quickly and cleverly than ever, spurred on—as it was—by desperation. The cliff, somehow, represented a momentary salvation. He could not think why, except that it might offer
shelter of a minimal nature where, now, they had none at all. He held her to him, tried to see the rocks more clearly, tried to pick a spot where they should strike for. But the shimmering waves of heat and the licking orange tongues made any detailed examination of the way ahead impossible.

  Leah clutched at him, whirled, tried to push herself away. Her Alaskan coat had caught fire. Small, bluish flames danced along the bottom of it. He fought her attempt to stay away from him, carried her to the ground, and fell on top of her, using his own body and clothing to smother the fledgling blaze. He tried to shout, in her ear, what he wanted to do, but the manic scream of the blaze was too great to overcome, and she could not make out what he said, even when his lips were pressed to her ear.

  He got to his feet, drew her up, and grasped her, lifted her from the ground, against his hip, when he was certain she understood that she was not to fight him, no matter what he did. Then, forcing himself to use every ounce of energy within him, he burst forward into the fire and through the six-foot line of it, to the cliffside he had caught a glimpse of earlier. As they came out of the fire, he fell, rolling under the overhang of the rock where there was still some snow and a great deal of water puddled in shallow pools, dousing their clothes which had leaped into flame.

  The recess under the overhang was about seven feet deep, and a small cavelet, tucked to one side, was wide enough to accommodate both of them and put another eight feet between them and the fire. There was still a great deal of heat, but not more than they could bear. Together, they checked themselves for wounds. Leah was only "sunburned" on the face and had a twisted ankle. He also had suffered facial burns of moderate severity but had picked up another souvenir of the encounter which could mean more trouble to their progress and escape than any burn ever could. In his thigh, on the outside, four inches above his right knee, he had collected a piece of scrap metal from the exploding casing of a chemical grenade. The sharp piece of steel was embedded deep in his flesh, and dark blood welled around it.