The First Ones

by Michael Weinberger

  Jet saw that his .44 was empty and stopped walking to unsnap a pouch holding one of his speed loaders. Letting the cartridges slide smoothly into his Smith, he glanced at the deer once more, and saw it was trying to roll onto its belly, perhaps in an attempt to stand, but it slumped back after a moment. Jet returned the loader back into its holder and was snapping the pouch closed, when he felt something brushing his right thigh.

  Jet looked down and nearly jumped out of his skin! Standing less than a foot away from him was a very small girl. Jet quickly holstered his now loaded revolver, put one hand over his heart and mentally chanted a calming mantra, as he tried to relax.

  “Damn little girl, you almost gave me a heart attack. Sneaking up on someone like that could be dangerous.”

  The child just stood there, looking down the road at the deer as if she hadn’t heard a word he had spoken. Jet knew he wasn’t very good when it came to guessing a child’s age, but thought that if this tiny girl were more than two years old he have been shocked. Jet followed her gaze to the still twitching deer on the road, and realized how traumatic the scene must be for someone so young, not to mention the task he was about to undertake. He knelt down to the girl and spoke in a very calm voice.

  “Honey can you hear me?” The girl was unresponsive. “Where are your parents?”

  Jet waited, but the girl simply watched the deer in the road as it again and again kept trying to right itself, and every time it failed.

  “Listen honey, if your parents are hurt you have to take me to them,” he said softly although the girl’s eyes stayed on the deer. Jet looked at the deer before looking back to the child, “I’m so sorry about the deer, but it’s my job to help you and whoever was in the car with you. Can you take me to them?”

  Still the girl made no sound and Jet sighed heavily, “Looks like it’s going to be a very, very long night,” he declared.

  Then, in a very high-pitched voice, the tiny girl said quietly, “We should go back to your truck.”

  Jet’s eyes nearly burst from his head in surprise. The sound of her voice was consistent with the age she appeared to be, but the temperament, inflection and eloquence was that of someone far older.

  “Uh, that’s a good idea? Ok, let’s get you back to the truck, and then I’ll see if I can find your parents.”

  “There is no need to look. The Guardian will find us soon enough, but we really should hurry back to your truck.” The girl raised her slender arm, pointing a tiny finger at the deer, “It’s not dead.”

  The child began to walk away, but Jet couldn’t help himself and he looked back to the deer as it again tried to stand. This time, it managed to raise itself up more than he would have expected. When he turned back to the child, he was surprised to see how far she had traveled, despite the tiny steps she was taking.

  “It’s all right honey, the deer won’t hurt…”

  “That,” the little girl turned and again pointed one finger at the deer in the road, “is not a deer.”

  Frowning, Jet turned back once more to the “not a deer” and squinted as he looked again at the animal in the road. What he saw made the breath catch in his chest as the “not a deer” appeared to be supporting the entire weight of its upper body on what now looked nothing like the forelegs of a deer. The limbs appeared thick with muscle and it had strange paws, not hooves. Then the creature’s head suddenly twisted toward him, snarling with long teeth bared from within its gaping maw, and it began to crawl forward.

  Jet jumped in surprise, instinctively drew his weapon and hastily raised his .44 Magnum, as he back pedaled. The spotlight had only barely revealed the creature, but it crawled into the peripheral light from the beam and now Jet could see the shape of a long canine snout and sharp fangs with such a sudden clarity that it made the blood freeze in his veins.

  The creature had again tried to stand, not on all fours but on its hind legs. It couldn’t manage it, as its lower body seemed to collapse limply under its own weight, so it abandoned its attempts and began to drag itself forward, propelling itself with its front legs while dragging the lower half of its body behind itself. Upon seeing, but not completely believing what he saw, Jet still broke into as much of a full sideways run as he could manage as the girl shouted, “Don’t look back, just run! It’s coming now!”

  He was so stunned by the clarity of the child’s words that he did exactly the opposite of what she had shouted. Turning back to the road he saw the creature coming at him using its two working front limbs, which were oscillating wildly as it was clawing up the ground and gaining on him with unnatural speed.

  “Run!!!” the tiny girl called out again and this time her words broke Jet out of the cloud into which his mind had fallen.

  When he arrived, he found the girl had already climbed into the truck and sat patiently in the passenger seat. Their eyes met briefly and Jet felt time slow as, in the child’s gaze, something passed between them that felt almost tangible. Then the moment was over as quickly as it had come and Jet launched his body into the driver’s seat, slamming the door shut behind him. He scrambled for his keys to start the vehicle while simultaneously he looked out the window and saw the creature now less than ten yards away.

  “Not going to make it,” the girl said to Jet so calmly, and in such a ‘matter of fact’ manner, that her words once again belied her apparent age.

  As the child spoke the words, the truth about them seemed absolute and infallible. Instantaneously Jet stopped trying to work his keys, and instead he placed his left hand on the door handle, with his right hand just below the window, and waited until just the right moment.

  Jet could only pray, when the thing passed out of view in front of the bumper, that the creature would move to his side of the vehicle instead of the little girl’s. Then Jet heard the creature snarl just on the other side of his door. He unlatched the door handle with his left hand while using all his strength to shove the door open with his right.

  The sound of the metallic “CLANG” from the impact was followed quickly by a surprised and painful yelp… two of the most pleasing sounds that, in the moment, Jet thought he had ever heard. Immediately he swiveled his position, so that he lay sideways across the driver’s seat, with both feet pressed firmly against the door, and again waited for a sign. As soon as the sound coming from the creature morphed out of the yelp and back into a quiet snarl, Jet kicked the door open again, and with the much stronger force from both of his legs behind it. This time there was no yelping sound after the clanging impact. Instead there had been an awful biological crunch, and the creature could be seen through the window rolling back and away from the truck until it came to rest a few feet away, lying motionless between the shoulder and the surface of the road.

  Jet stared through the window at the thing and realized that he had absolutely no idea what kind of hellish creature was lying there. His mind began desperately working to make some sense out of what was happening to his normally calm life, when he heard the passenger door of his truck close. Startled, he turned to find the passenger seat empty. Jet lifted his head and saw the mysterious little girl running back toward the Range Rover in that clumsy bouncing-hopping manner so typical of a toddler.

  “Wait!” he yelled.

  Without thinking, Jet jumped out of the truck, only to realize he was precariously close to the thing he had just bludgeoned with his door. It still wasn’t moving, but he opted to give the thing a wide berth as he began chasing after the child.

  Jet thought that nothing else could surprise him, but once he reached the Range Rover, a beautiful and very intense woman emerged from the shadows of the tree line and headed toward him while pointing one of the largest hand cannons he had ever seen at his face.

  She had him dead to rights, and it took all of Jet’s concentration not to go for his own gun. Slowly he raised his hands in a placating gesture towards the woman, who stopped moving and peered at him, as if she were trying to read him and his intentions in his body language
. Then something in her eyes twitched ever so slightly and the grim, determined look she wore turned gentler and she lowered the weapon, pointing it away from Jet and toward the creature on the ground by his truck.

  The woman took aim, and before Jet had a chance to say or do anything, she fired two rounds directly into the beast’s head, just behind its ear. Jet had closed his eyes, and he was trying to cover his ears as well, but it was too late, as the cacophony erupting from her weapon deafened him. When he opened his eyes he saw that the head of the creature had been pulped by the large projectiles, and the woman was opening the door of the Range Rover for the child while beckoning him to follow suit. When he didn’t move she appeared to call out to him as well, but all Jet could hear was a high-pitched, ringing noise in his head, as his hearing had yet to fully recover from the high caliber gunshots.

  Disoriented and slightly confused, Jet simply followed the woman’s hand signals and he could just begin to make out her words, as she held up her keys and indicated he should drive.

  “Hurry!” the woman was expressing a certain urgency in her voice, but Jet’s wits returned, along with his hearing, and there was no way he was going anywhere before he knew what was happening. He raised a finger, as if asking her to pause, and was about to demand some answers, when the sound of several howling creatures who were far too close for comfort, echoed out of the surrounding forest.

  He just looked at the woman, who had raised the gun into a ready position as she scanned the immediate area, and then turned questioningly back to Jet. He looked from the woman, to his raised finger, back to the woman and then pointed the raised finger commandingly at her.

  “I’m driving!”

  Chapter 7: The Long and Winding Road

  Slamming the Driver’s door behind him and not bothering to snap the seatbelt across his body, Jet pulled the gearshift into drive and slammed the pedal to the floor. The woman had just managed to close the door behind her when the rear tires began spinning, throwing the soft dirt and gravel from side of the road into the air. The Range Rover’s powerful engine screamed, and the tires finally caught something solid underneath the loose earth as the SUV bounded off the shoulder before landing gracelessly back on the road’s paved surface.

  “WHEEEEEEEEE!!!!” the voice of the little girl came from the rear seats, as if she had completely forgotten the monster in the road. Now she was smiling and screaming an enthusiastic cheer as Jet drove even faster down the narrow straightaway.

  The woman turned to the child, “You need to sit down until…” The woman’s eyes shifted from the girl to something she saw through the rear window of the vehicle. In one quick and fluid motion the woman opened her door, placed a foot on the side step and extended half of her body out the door facing the road behind them.

  Jet was about to make a grab for her, when in the periphery of his vision he saw a shape dart across the road in the car’s rearview mirror. Turning to look directly in the mirror he could see another creature running behind the vehicle and, unbelievably closing the distance between them. Jet held pressure on the accelerator, hoping to gain some distance between the vehicle and its pursuer, but the additional burst of speed caused the woman to hesitate, almost falling from the doorway.

  “Get back in here!” Jet yelled to the woman, “The road is going to start twisting and I won’t be able to keep this pace.”

  “Hold it steady for one second!” the woman shouted back, and Jet realized she was aiming the handgun at the creature running after them.

  Jet knew the situation was about to go from bad to worse as the straightaway of the road was going to end. The twisting design of the road thereafter would require him to slow the vehicle down significantly, or risk rolling the SUV off the road, and his mind raced for a way to finish off this new threat before they reached the upcoming bends. He checked the rearview mirror again and saw the creature jump for the rear bumper of the SUV. The woman fired several shots, which were mercifully muffled with the gun being outside of the vehicle, and one of the bullets did manage to find its mark. The projectile knocked the creature back and away from the car, before it could complete the leap as its body was rocked by the impact of the bullet. If the shot had done any damage, then the creature displayed no indication of it as it landed in a roll, was immediately back on its feet and sprinting after them again.

  A thought popped into Jet’s head and he called out to the woman. “Get back in here, I have a plan!”

  The woman’s head peered back into the vehicle and looked dubiously at Jet, but did as she was told.

  “Alright, what’s your idea?”

  “Seat belts!” he demanded.

  “Wha...?” she started.

  “Your seatbelt! Do it now!” Jet screamed again, fumbling to snap the buckle of his own belt into place with one hand, while continuing to steer the Rover with the other.

  The woman turned to the child, beckoning Aurora to climb into the front passenger seat and join her. Smiling and happy as ever, the child crawled across the console between the Driver and passenger seats, and sat down in the woman’s lap. The woman pulled the seatbelt around them both and latched it just as Jet swerved the SUV again, in order to avoid the creature behind them, who was attempting to make another leap for the bumper.

  “Okay,” Jet said, in as steady a voice as he could muster, “I need you to watch in the mirror and tell me when that thing is going to leap at us again.”

  Without questioning, the woman reached up and turned the rearview mirror so she’d be able to see out the rear window.

  “Good,” Jet continued, “I also need you to give me your gun.”

  The woman frowned but before she could protest Jet cut her off, “You won’t be able to shoot that thing properly with the kid in your lap. Give it up!”

  The woman was clearly unhappy about doing so, but she handed the Desert Eagle over without further argument.

  “Now let me know when it’s going to leap.”

  “How will I be able to tell?” she asked.

  “I saw it lower its head a few strides before it tried to make the jump last time. Watch for that and tell me when.”

  The woman nodded as Jet concentrated on the road ahead. He desperately hoped that the beast didn’t realize that all it had to do was wait for about another quarter mile where they would be forced to slow down as a result of the bends in the road. Jet kept his right foot pressed on the accelerator, but held his left foot over the brake pedal, as he waited for the woman’s signal.

  “Now!” the woman yelled and Jet slammed his left foot down on the brake as hard as he could, while also lifting his right foot from the gas. The force of the sudden deceleration threw everyone in the vehicle forward, with only the seatbelts preventing them from slamming their faces into the windshield.

  Outside the creature was in the process of launching itself at the SUV when Jet hit the brakes. Its hind paws had just left the road when it realized what was happening and its eyes bulged with sudden fright, as it flew into the Range Rover’s rear window, shattering the glass and having three quarters of its body pass into the rear section of the vehicle.

  Stunned, and with tiny shards of glass in its eyes, the creature bellowed in pain, raising its claw-like hands to its face as it tried to clear away the debris. Quickly it recovered, looking into the cabin in time to see Jet pointing the barrel of the Desert Eagle between its eyes from less than a foot away.

  “Sit!” Jet hissed, as he pulled the trigger.

  The front of the creature’s head blew apart and the beast’s whole body contorted from the impact, and then it fell limply onto the floor of the Jeep’s cabin. Undaunted by the apparent demise of the creature Jet fired two more shots into what was left of its head spraying more blood and viscera all over the occupants, the fine leather and every unprotected section inside the Range Rover’s cabin.

  Jet kept the gun trained on the thing until his ears stopped ringing and he could hear himself say, “Now be a good dog and play
dead…” Jet’s voice faltered slightly as he continued, “…please, please, please play dead.”

  The creature filling the rear of the vehicle complied, showing no further signs of life. Jet finally allowed his gun hand to drop down and away from the pulped mass that had been the creature’s head.

  “Are you two alright?” Jet asked without looking over to the woman and the girl. In the periphery of his vision he saw the woman nod her response, but Jet couldn’t take his eyes off of the dead… “thing” that he had just killed.

  What was it? He wondered in disbelief.

  It was covered in long charcoal grey hair, or maybe fur, and it had several canine characteristics. Its head and snout had been very wolf-like, but its body was elongated like that of a Great Dane or perhaps a dog like a Russian wolfhound. It wasn’t until Jet looked to its paws that the nightmare of what he had just faced revealed itself. The front paws were not paws at all, but hands with elongated fingers tipped with wicked looking hooked claws.

  Suddenly the stories that his grandfather had told to him when he was a boy began to nudge their way to the surface of his consciousness. His grandfather had always been so serious about his ghost stories, saying that they were part of his Squamish heritage, and it was Jet’s responsibility to learn them and pass them on to the next generation.

  Now the stories had a whole new relevance because, if this monster was real, then it was all too feasible that the other impossible creatures that his grandfather had spoken of so many years ago were also just as real.

  It was the gentle voice of the woman that brought Jet out of his daydream.

  “We need to keep moving, more will be on the way,” as she spoke she placed her hand on the Desert Eagle and gently lifted it out of Jet’s hand.

  Jet nodded at the simple logic of the statement, he was too stunned to argue or ask questions anyway, “Let me take care of this first.”

  Jet put the SUV in park and went around to the back of the vehicle. There he nervously pulled on the creature’s feet, not paws but feet, with the same human-like characteristics and the same hooked claws at the tips as the thing’s hands. Jet kept pulling until he had extricated the entire corpse from the vehicle.