The List

by Christopher Coleman

  But she was safe in her spot for now, hidden by the large cluster of rocks that rose four feet or so above the banks of the tributary, and far enough from the tower to be nearly imperceptible.

  And Danielle soon saw the advantage of this new vigilance by the soldier. If the next guard had the same consideration to detail as this one, standing at attention, spanning the view for survivors, it would make for a relatively easy shot.

  Danielle checked the round in the chamber, instinctively trying to muffle the sound with slow, deliberate movements. But her care was unnecessary; the showers around her crashed against the trees like a barrage of cymbals.

  And then, through the sound of falling water and the rush of a freshly supplied tributary, another noise erupted, this one from behind her in the forest, past the tree line. It was a sound less pure than that of the rain, violent even, like the crackling of a fire.

  Crunching.

  Still crouched behind the rocks, Danielle kept her feet and torso motionless as she twisted her neck toward the trees, trying to find the source of the sound. She couldn’t see more than a few feet through the thick vegetation, however, and she quickly turned back toward the tower, checking the status of the watch through her binoculars. With no auditory clues with which to work, Danielle was hesitant to take her eyes from the guards for longer than a few seconds, fearing she would miss the transition.

  Still though, what was that sound?

  Danielle studied the soldier for another thirty seconds and, seeing no visual signs of radio contact, she turned back to the tree line, in full now, squinting through the wet greenery, trying desperately to find the chomping noise beyond. Then, with her back now to the river and the tower beyond, she walked in a crouching position for several yards until she gained the cover of the trees.

  Danielle finally stood tall but remained in place, still searching for the source of the crunching, the rain now coming down in sheets. It was closer now, the sound, that much she could tell, but it was still masked by the falling water, making locating its exact spot nearly impossible.

  Then, as Danielle spun to return to the rock cluster, she caught a twinkle of white from somewhere deeper into the woods, thirty yards or so, maybe less, just to the right of her periphery. The sparkle was barely detectable, but she had seen it, and she took a step to her right to clear the sightline further. And there, through the V-shaped opening of a pair of fern fronds, the surreal vision of the crabs fell into view.

  There were two of them, wet and shimmering like a pair mythical forest ghosts, the backs of their canvas white heads glistening with the splatter of rain.

  They were hunched, their shoulders and chins tucked close to their chests as their heads shifted and pulled in various directions. They seemed focused, intense, and Danielle squinted, desperate to see what was occurring in front of them.

  And then her question was answered almost immediately as one twisted its head upward, turning its profile in Danielle’s direction, far enough that she could see the string of sinewy meat hanging from its mouth and the ring of blood that had formed around it.

  Danielle froze in place, one foot still in mid-step, and she instinctively placed her left hand against a nearby tree trunk to keep her balance as she lowered her foot to the ground. She swallowed slowly, afraid even the relative silence of that sound could be a trigger, and then she turned and checked her sides in both directions, not quite sure of the next play.

  But she couldn’t just stand there, that much was certain, so she took another small step to the right, clearing her view of the fern fronds, gaining a clear picture of the crabs and the scene around them, seeing now that they were not alone.

  There was perhaps a dozen of the creatures, maybe a few more, bunched tightly like maggots, and Danielle nearly choked on the lump that erupted in her throat, causing her to elicit some ancient version of a cough.

  She threw a hand to her mouth, a move that resembled embarrassment, as if she’d accidentally belched at a dinner party. Her eyes were wide with fright, shifting and searching.

  But the ghosts hadn’t noticed her—not yet—and each of the savage creatures continued to rip away at the corpse of a large brown buck that lay destroyed beneath them, the animal’s tongue hanging across its mouth almost comically, its lifeless eyes somehow containing a last glimmer of sadness and pain.

  Danielle held her breath and took three steps back until she was again standing in the spot where she’d first seen them, and from there she mentally began working on an exit strategy. There would be no escape from the cordon tonight, that was obvious; the only question now was whether she could leave these woods unnoticed and make it back to the truck alive.

  Her reconnaissance had been bad; she hadn’t covered all her bases. She had been so worried about the guards in the tower and any soldiers who might be embedded inside that she hadn’t considered other dangers, namely the ones currently crouched in front of her, fewer than a hundred feet away, tearing at the flesh of a deer.

  Danielle thought of Michael again and how vital it was that she make it back to him. She had been the one who took him away from his house—which she knew was the right thing to do, but still, he was safe there—and now, because of her, he was alone in the truck. Alone in the cordon. And his terror would surely grow with every hour that passed.

  And what if another group of ghosts had found him? Perhaps even tracked the truck from the bar? What if they had surrounded the truck and were at this moment banging on the glass, sending spider webs of cracks all around him, their black eyes and gnashing mouths terrorizing him?

  She closed her eyes ruefully and took one deep breath, exhaling slowly through her nose as she steadied her breathing, directing her thoughts to the boy she’d left behind, trying to regain her focus and composure.

  She continued this meditation for several seconds, repeating the breaths, until soon she could feel the cortisone levels in her body begin to drop as her mind rattled clear.

  And then, as she lingered in the foliage with the rain still falling all around her, Danielle noticed that the crunching had stopped. She opened her eyes and looked back to the huddle of crabs, and there, staring back at her, were two pairs of eyes, black pearls of curiosity, locked and unblinking.

  Danielle wanted to scream, of course, but her throat was locked tight with fear, and seconds later, another pair of dusky orbs entered her vision, the white head that housed them bobbing slightly left, studying her in the same way as the others.

  “Mother shit,” she mouthed, and then began to back away slowly, in the direction of the tree line from where she’d come.

  And as she did, the crabs crept forward.

  Danielle took several more steps, still backpedaling, still slowly, maintaining her sightline on the ghosts the whole way. She tripped over a stray root but was back on her feet in a flash, never losing the vantage. The ghosts were moving more quickly now, seemingly triggered by her fall, and Danielle finally turned her back to the monsters and began to run to the perimeter of the forest.

  She was outside the edge of the trees in seconds, and from there she looked up blindly in the direction of the tower. The mission there was lost for now, no sense arguing that fact, so she turned and sprinted in the opposite direction, back up the shoreline and toward the truck. She made no attempt to keep covered from the tower guard as she ran; getting spotted by the soldier on duty would make little difference if she got devoured by the horde of ghosts behind her.

  Danielle glanced several times over her shoulder as she ran, and within moments, in her rear, she could see a few of the crabs emerge from the forest.

  But only a pair of them had followed her past the tree line, and they had stopped there, apparently deciding not to pursue her. They kept their stares fastened to Danielle as they crouched in place, swaying from side to side as if caught in some swirling breeze.

  Danielle gave a silent prayer of thanks that the chase was over, and that the other monsters—those jumbled around the
kill in the forest—were apparently too preoccupied with their venison to join the other white predators outside the trees. If they had kept on the hunt, she knew they would have had their prey within a quarter mile.

  Danielle had caught a break for the moment.

  But her fortune was short lived.

  As she maintained her steady pace along the rocky beach, she glanced to her right at the tree line that ran parallel with her current path, and through the brush she could see the other crabs from the kill, which numbered around fourteen or so, galloping at full speed through the brush.

  Within seconds, they overtook the progress Danielle had made (reaffirming her theory that she could never outrun them), their ape-like bodies thrusting up and forward like deranged mutant rabbits.

  And then, before Danielle could speculate as to the purpose of this strategy, the ghosts began to seep out from the trees, their off-white bodies emerging from the leaves like pus.

  Once past the tree line, half of the crabs then fanned out in front of Danielle, spanning across the dry section of the riverbed, blocking her path. The other half of the gang fell in behind her and stopped, sealing off any escape she might have considered back in the direction of the rock cluster.

  “Oh god, no!”

  Danielle stopped and did a full revolution, her head now spinning with panic. They were everywhere, arced around her like wolves as she stood with her back to the tributary.

  The alarm inside her was blaring like the siren of a fire truck, but Danielle fended it off with a growl, and then she lifted the rifle and aimed it on the ghost directly in front of her. She took a step forward, assuring a kill shot. “You gonna go first, shithead?” she shouted through the rain, which was now surging in layers from the sky.

  The crab didn’t move—which Danielle hadn’t expected—and without weighing the options any further, she answered her own question.

  “I guess so,” she said casually, and then shot the misshapen being through the center of its head.

  The figure took two steps back and then collapsed like a bundle of dirty sheets into the puddle below it. Danielle then instantly put her aim on the crab beside it. Her wish was that by shooting the first ghost, the others would scatter, or at least back away, giving her an extra twenty yards or so to work with.

  But that wasn’t the result. The monsters had shown some level of fear previously, on the streets downtown and earlier at the dealership; but the ones before her now seemed willing to sacrifice themselves for the pack, for the greater good, perhaps for the meal that Danielle had interrupted.

  Danielle took the next shot now, killing the beast standing at one o’clock, and then she moved the gun a fraction right and shot the one beside it, continuing with deliberate movements in a clockwise circle, systematically killing each of the crabs like a prison-camp executioner.

  And then, as if finally realizing what was happening, and before their numbers could dwindle too much further, the crabs quickly began to close the circle.

  Danielle re-positioned herself now, dashing from the center of the ring to the spot in the circle where the corpses of the dead crabs now littered the shoreline.

  The crabs were mostly in front of her now—with the forest to her back—and from the corner of her eye she could see the original crabs who had followed her out of the forest begin to move in, trying to close ranks behind her.

  Danielle spun toward the encroaching crabs, and as she did, she could hear the patter of feet behind and to the wing as the beasts on her blind sides crept forward, shrinking the circle further.

  You’re going to die here.

  The thought erupted in her mind like a volcano, as if preparing her for the inevitable. Maybe these are the words of Death, she thought, the phrase of the Grim Reaper as he arrives at the bedside of a terminally ill hospice resident, or to someone pulling on the ripcord of a defective parachute.

  “No.”

  She turned back toward the river and raised the rifle high, and then fired off the next round into another crab, striking this one in the shoulder. The crab stumbled back but stayed erect, and Danielle shot it again, pure with her aim this time, killing the creature instantly.

  She turned back to the tree line and shot one of the crabs that had moved in as a replacement, squeezing off several rounds into its chest. The one beside it was up next, and she directed her aim there, squeezing the trigger with confidence, steadiness of hand, feeling the flow of killing surge through her body.

  But this time nothing happened.

  Danielle squeezed again. Twice more. Each time getting the sickening click of the empty magazine.

  “No!” she screamed, and then repeated the word in rapid fire, sounding like a needle stuck on a record as she checked the magazine in disbelief.

  A full magazine should have had thirty rounds, enough to survive the ambush if she was economical, and she certainly hadn’t come close to firing that many shots. Which meant the mag had been used previously, and she had failed to check the load. Live and learn, she thought.

  Or maybe not.

  She had at least been prudent enough to pack a second magazine, but that one was in her backpack, which she’d abandoned by the rock cluster during her escape.

  Danielle’s thoughts raced for a solution, and she quickly decided that if she could distract the ghosts for a moment and get off to a good sprint, she might be able to reach the bag before the crabs got to her. At that point, however, she was stuck. She wasn’t in a track and field event—there was more to the task than just winning the race. Even if she did manage to reach the rocks, she then had to locate the bag, rummage through it to find the magazine, and then lock the ammo into the rifle and fire off enough rounds to immobilize at least a couple of her attackers.

  The effort seemed impossible when she laid it out in her mind, but maybe if she could just make it to the rock cluster without being caught—a longshot on its own—and scoop the bag immediately, she could then climb atop the boulders and out of reach of the deadly hands.

  Of course, Danielle already knew the crabs could climb like human ivy, but from her observations, they didn’t climb with abandon. They organized first, always methodical in their attacks, and she could gain a few extra seconds to carry out the remaining steps of her plan.

  Even adding this climbing element to her plan, though, it didn’t seem destined for success. But the crabs were almost at arms distance, and she was out of options.

  “Fuck it.”

  She removed the spent magazine and tossed it over the heads of the crabs that were standing on the shore of the tributary where they had clustered together as if guarding the water from intruders. They spun their heads toward the magazine, following it like dogs to a thrown stick, and in that moment of diversion, Danielle took off toward the rock cluster.

  She was maybe six steps into her escape when the first slap of feet came from behind her as the crabs began their squelching pursuit through the muddy bank, a signal that her head start was over. Danielle had always been athletic, and fairly quick in a foot race, but with the weight of the rifle and the sloppy ground beneath her, combined with her general lack of nutrition and conditioning, she felt as slow as a turtle.

  Less than halfway to the rocks, she felt the first hand upon her as one of the crabs clipped its fingers across her shin, knocking her right foot across the back of her left, nearly twisting her a hundred and eighty degrees. Miraculously, she stayed on her feet, but the stumble cost her precious distance, and less than a second later, another hand slapped Danielle’s left hip, this time with solid force, pushing her off her current course and sending her in the direction of the tributary.

  The crabs that were nearest the water when Danielle began her dash, the ones that had been distracted by Danielle’s toss of the used ammo, were still a few steps behind the others, but they were closing fast; and those that had surrounded her from the sides of the bank were now only steps away.

  The blow to Danielle’s hip had sent her t
o the shore of the tributary, and the toes of her shoes were now in the surf. She was blocked, with nowhere left to go along the pebbly shoreline. She peeked once at the tributary over her shoulder, and then, without giving herself a moment to reconsider, she backed into the rushing waters. She felt the cold water rush across her thighs and groin, and then she turned in full and waded quickly out to the middle of the shallow Maripo River offshoot.

  When she was about thirty feet from the bank, she turned back to the shore and stared at the ogling crabs, which stood like a dazzle of zebras on the Nile, anxiously compelled to make the crocodile-riddled crossing. Except Danielle was the zebra in the simile, and once the crabs began their pursuit into the water, she would be as good as dead.

  At her current location, the water level was just below Danielle’s chest, and she turned and began walking west with the flow of the river, in the direction of the tower, just trying to get parallel with the rock cluster. There was no real strategy in the decision, and no real scenario where the move paid off; but she went anyway, just trying to buy time.

  The monsoon-like rains from less than ten minutes earlier had almost ceased entirely now, and the sounds of the forest and the surrounding area returned, highlighted by a chirping conversation of birds from the trees above just as the late-afternoon sun was beginning to break through the canopy.

  But the cheer of those sounds was dwarfed by the low gurgle of light splashes that came from the bank as the crabs began to enter the river.

  Danielle turned toward the bank again to see three of the crabs entering the water; the remaining ones—which numbered six or so—had split into two even groups and were headed in opposite directions along the bank.

  She watched the group to her left first, following them as they headed upriver twenty yards or so before entering the water. She looked to the right and saw that the other group had done the same, only this time down river. They were surrounding her again, in the water now, and this time, she really had nowhere else to run. The only place unguarded was further out into the tributary, but there she’d eventually end up in the open water of the main river and would drown within minutes.