Shua’s quip trails off when he sees what I already have. The deer—all of them—have stopped. They form a neat line, stretching out into the field, as though held back by an invisible barrier.
“What are they doing?” Shua asks.
I’ve never seen animal behavior like this. It’s like they’re afraid of something, but not enough to run away, only to keep a rigid distance.
I lower the stretcher to the ground, forcing Shua to do the same.
“We should keep moving,” he says. “Forget the deer.”
Ignoring him, I cut an ear of corn, peel it quickly and crouch. The deer snuff at the air, their eyes on the corncob just a few feet out of reach. It’s an easy meal. Several of the deer stretch their necks out toward me, but won’t step forward.
I toss the cob to the deer and stand up, scanning the area, but I see only corn. “They’re afraid of something, but there’s nothing out here to—”
My eyes lock on to the huge, jagged stone, which is coated in green growth. We’re just fifty feet away. By now, the others are crossing by it. I can see grasses, moss, and even saplings rising from the hard surface. But there’s something wrong with the stone.
It’s moving.
Fluttering.
It’s not stone, I realize. It’s skin. Old, dry, sun-bleached skin, peeling away in sheets to reveal the darkness underneath. If not for the stiff breeze bending both corn and loose flesh, I would have never seen it for anything but a rock.
The formation was never a hill, the tip of a covered glacial valley, or just some oversized rock. “It’s a Golyat,” I whisper.
Shua whips around, staring at the rock. “But there’re plants growing from it.”
“It’s been there for a long time,” I say. “Maybe hundreds of years. Long enough to collect soil and seeds on its body. Long enough for saplings to grow as tall as me.”
“Then it must be dead,” he says.
“We still need to get past it.” I bend and pick up the stretcher. “Quick as we can, without making a sound.”
Shua nods, hoists up his side, and heads out. We reach something close to a jog. Moving quickly with a stretcher is a challenge. Running needs to be perfectly coordinated. Charging through a field of cornstalks without making a lot of noise is nearly impossible.
When we reach the massive figure lying on the ground, we slow until we’re silent. The others have already moved past without trouble. We can do the same.
I watch the colossal form as we pass, trying to determine what its head, body, and limbs must look like, but it is too covered in growth for me to discern its bends and folds.
Halfway past the once-human, now geological formation, something changes. It’s just a feeling at first, unseen, but it slows me to a stop, and Shua with me.
Shua makes a gentle clicking sound at me, the message clear, ‘Move your ass.’
But I can’t look away.
I need to see if I’m right.
And then I do.
Deep within the black, white, and green form, an orange light blooms to life.
The Golyat isn’t just alive.
It’s awake.
38
Shua and I fall into a natural kind of sync, our legs working in tandem despite the difference in gait. No longer concerned about making noise or disturbing the corn, we slide through the field like an arrow through grass, barreling through every stalk in our path.
Our retreat isn’t stealthy, but right now, I think we have time. While the thing we mistook for strange geology is a Golyat, it’s been there for a very long time. Its joints will be stiff, and the roots covering its body might bind it for a time.
I’m even feeling hopeful that we’ll be able to clear the field and re-enter the forest by the time the thing actually manages to rise. But then Shua trips. As he falls forward, he lets go of the stretcher to catch himself. He hits hard, rolling through several stalks of corn, but he doesn’t get the worst of it.
I do.
The stretcher arms hit the ground, dig in, and come to an immediate stop. I, on the other hand, do not. I careen into the stretcher, my left thigh smashing into the handle before I’m tossed up and over onto the bundles of strapped-down rope. I land hard on my back, coughing and gasping.
And if all the noise wasn’t enough to stir the beast, the smell of blood, so bitter compared to the permeating scent of corn, wafts into the air.
Shua is hurt, is my first thought. Then I sit up, wince, and realize that the scent of blood is coming from me. The stretcher handle struck my mostly healed, mountain lion bite, separating new skin and old stitches. A spot of blood oozes from my leg. The wound will need tending, the blood cleaned away, and the stitches redone, but not here, and not any time soon.
“Up,” I groan, rolling off the ropes and pushing myself to my feet. My back and leg scream at me, begging me to sit, but I bend down for the stretcher handles instead. “And watch your damn step.”
While Shua picks up his side, a breeze rolls over me, pulling my attention back. I watch the cornstalks bend, revealing the wind’s course, stopping only when the breeze reaches the mound.
The orange light flares brighter.
A gurgle like a stream over rocks fills the air.
And then, a single chomp of unseen teeth. The sound resonates through my body, draws a yelp from my lips, and sets Shua and me running again.
We’ve only made it fifteen feet when a second chomp rolls across the landscape, no doubt sending the deer running to the field’s far side. They might not be afraid of people, but their aversion to the long-slumbering Golyat reveals they knew exactly how far away to stay.
The chomps come a few seconds apart, speeding up into a bona fide chatter, that, as usual, stand my hair on end.
I flinch when I spot Salem running beside me, carrying a stretcher with Del. On the surface, they know what’s happening—we’re running from a Golyat—but they haven’t figured out where it is yet.
“That rock.” I motion behind us with my head. “Not a rock!”
Salem glances back and nearly trips like Shua did.
“Don’t look,” I shout, and then I disregard my own advice when the ground shakes. The formless mass rises and peels itself with all the quickness of a flower blooming in the morning.
It looks slow because it’s big, I chide myself. What looks like a few feet from this distance could be closer to twenty.
When we catch up to Plistim and Dyer, I know we’ve reached our peak speed. No one is going to get left behind, even if it means we all run a little slower.
“Straight ahead,” I shout to them. “We need the trees!”
I don’t think the trees will stop or even slow it down, but I suspect its size will put it above the canopy. If we can reach the shade, it might not be able to see us.
We’re chased by the sounds of a waking behemoth. Its old joints pop like thunderclaps, snapping back into place. When it chatters again, this time somehow even louder, the pace approaching frenetic, I can’t stop myself from looking back.
None of us can, and as a group, we slow.
Great sheets of old flesh are caught in the wind and yanked away. Roots stretch and snap. Blankets of moss fall to the ground, while others cling to the monster’s flesh. As the Golyat unfurls, the long spires of its spine—those at the crest of its back stretching forty feet long—separate and flex open.
Massive legs push off the ground. Arms unfold, unleashing a torrent of collected dirt. The monster rises higher and higher, shedding more of itself and its collected growth, until all at once the day grows darker, the sun blotted out by the creature’s head.
Staring up at the Golyat’s back, I know that this is the true monster of legend. The destroyer of men. Nearly twice the size of the largest Golyat we’ve seen, this creature could make a meal of hundreds of men and hunger for more a few seconds later. How many did it eat to reach such a size? And how long has it been since its last meal?
The more important question i
s: How long until its next meal?
Hoping the answer is, ‘Not any time soon,’ I nudge the stretcher into Shua and urge the others faster, whispering, “Go, go, go!”
When the ground rumbles again, I alone look back. The Golyat is shifting, turning its body, torso first and then legs, grinding the earth beneath its wide, weight-bearing feet. With much of the old skin shredded away, I’m given a clear view of its slender form. Not only is its skin stretched and tight, but so are its insides. Between its ribs and hips, there are gaps in the flesh, all the way through the body, where organs would have once been contained. But they have long since been digested by its own internal combustion.
The Golyat brings its arms forward, stretching out the last of its kinks. Ribs pop apart, the giant rib cage expanding. A breath, like howling wind, is sucked down deep.
Up in the sun, the face turns toward us, sunken in, coated in crumbling greenery, and covered in cracks and gaps. Its black teeth are exposed and clenched tight. The two black eyes snap open, blink twice, and turn down.
While the creature’s expression remains locked in place, the sudden flare of light from its gut reveals that we have been spotted.
Head turned toward the clouds, it looks big enough to reach up and touch them. The Golyat unleashes a ravenous roar that staggers all of us to a stop, stretchers dropped, hands clutched to ears, our own shouts of pain making a chorus.
While screaming and holding my head, I look forward. The tree line is just a quarter mile ahead.
“We need to move!” I scream, but not even I can hear my voice, nor can I remove my hands from my ears.
When the roar is finished, my whole body registers the shift. Shaking corn stalks go still. And for a moment, there is peace.
“We need to move,” I say again, the words barely leaving my throat, but this time everyone hears and everyone obeys.
The first thunderous footfall shakes the ground just as we get started, stretchers retrieved.
Ahead of us, the Golyat’s shadow reaches the tree line first, rising up as it takes a second step.
I don’t have to look back to know it’s gaining on us.
“We should drop the stretchers!” Del shouts.
“We will die without them,” Plistim replies, out of breath, but pushing through it.
“We could circle back,” Del says, lacking conviction.
“We either escape this together, or we die together,” Plistim’s declaration falls under the purview of his leadership. Mine is to make decisions that keep us alive. Plistim’s is to make bold, sweeping guidelines to which we all adhere. In this case, we’ll either live as a group, or die as one.
On the surface, it sounds foolish—the words of an elder who’s lived a long life and outlived most of the people he loved. But I have no argument to make. We either make the trees with the ropes and survive, or we die here and now. Losing the ropes means giving up on crossing the Divide, and that means we’d all die out here eventually.
Queensland.
The carved word flits through my mind.
Someone survived out here, and for who knows how long. Perhaps years. Maybe even generations. If deer can adapt to life beyond the Divide, why not people?
The third impact shakes the ground so violently that I stumble. Shua slows for a step and keeps me from falling. Then we’re back to full speed, but a stretcher-length behind the others.
A quick look over my shoulder reveals a foot and leg, fifty feet back.
Teeth smash together far overhead, finally reaching the staccato rhythm of the smaller Golyats. It senses the kill.
I don’t have to look back to know it’s reaching for me, its hand large enough to engulf both Shua and myself, not to mention dozens more.
A second chatter cuts through the air, slamming into my body, but not from above. This time the sound came from…ahead.
“There’s another one!” I shout, and I’m a little surprised when I sound hopeful. “Keep going! Straight ahead. Don’t stop for anything!”
The trees ahead explode apart, giving birth to a hundred-foot-tall Golyat. Like the rest, its black skin is sucked inward in sheets of stretched out and parched flesh. But its bone structure is different. Like most Golyats we’ve seen, its bones have lengthened and thickened, sometimes in dramatic ways, like the spines rising from their backs. But the newcomer’s ribs have grown spikes, some a few feet in length, others closer to fifteen feet, and all of them punching through the dried skin.
Its black eyes find us first, and then its competition.
While its stomach flares, the creature charges into the cornfield. Even though it’s smaller than the gigantic Golyat to our back, it is far less decayed, free of tangling roots, and much faster. Despite the distraction, the larger of the pair remains on task, which I only know because its fingers, each ten feet long, slide up beside us in the cornfield and begin to curl shut.
39
“Left!” I shout.
Shua angles away from the Golyat’s hand, which we have no hope of outrunning. The fingers slap through the corn, sending ears sailing through the air, pelting us as we flee.
The fingers start to close, and I shout again. “Down!”
Working in unison, Shua and I fall to the ground. I land hard on my stomach, making no effort to slow my fall with my hands. My ribs, stomach, and head take the brunt of the impact. Air coughs from my lungs, but instead of feeling breathless, I feel momentary relief.
The hand scours the field around and above me, grasping hold of several dozen cornstalks but missing me and Shua. The bottom of the creature’s hand clips the stretcher, yanking it up. The stretcher flips through the air, coming down twenty feet away, still intact, the bundles of rope still bound in place.
“Move!” I shout, climbing back to my feet.
This time, Shua argues by tackling me and repeating my earlier order. “Down!”
I’m struck from the side by what feels like a Golyat’s backhand, but it’s just Shua and his heavy backpack. I hit the ground again, this time battering my back. But I don’t complain. Above me is the smaller, spikey-chested Golyat. Its foot crashes down just ten feet away, and then it’s airborne, throwing itself at the larger creature pursuing us.
Shua stands, grabs my backpack, and lifts me up beside him. My instinct is to complain that I could have done it myself, but I just run for the stretcher. Shua resumes his position at the front, and while the two titans grapple, their bones clacking together like stones in a rockslide, we strike out for the forest once more.
An impact shakes the ground, and I can’t help but look back. The cornfield obstructs everything at head level, but the Golyats are impossible to miss. The smaller of the battling pair has been thrown to the side. It’s down, but already pushing itself up and looking no more haggard than it did when it first exploded from the trees.
Despite that, the recently awakened behemoth turns its head skyward once more. I know what’s coming and shout, “Ears!”
Shua and I stop together, dropping the stretcher and clasping hands over our ears just in time to muffle the bellow. The ragged, baritone roar hurts, and not just my ears. Standing this close to the source, it feels like we’re back in the Karls River again, facing the raging current.
When it stops, the monster chatters, eyes back on us.
The fallen Golyat chatters, too, announcing its hunger to challenge the first. But the larger of the two ignores it again, reaching for us, a quick meal its only true concern.
When a third chatter knocks through the air, the monster pauses. When the ground shakes behind it, the Golyat actually stops to look. A third Golyat rises up over a distant hill. In fact, it is the same hill we first descended into the cornfield. And when the creature rises up over it, I recognize it. The two hooked arms hanging from its ribcage are impossible to mistake.
It’s been tracking us. All this time.
And that means any Golyat that walks away from this encounter will do the same if we manage to survive.
When a fourth chattering sound, this one equally powerful to the one standing above us, tears through the air from the distance, Shua and I recover the stretcher. We keep a good pace, but we avoid making a spectacle of ourselves.
As the ancient Golyat turns to face the new challenger, who is the smallest of the three, the fallen creature pushes itself back up, squaring off. The ground rumbles as something even more distant charges toward the open field, its hunger awakened.
Further still, more chatters cut through the air. And then more roars. The shaking impacts become a constant quake.
Have we managed to wake them all?
While we have encountered a number of roaming, hunting Golyats, how many more were in some kind of hibernation?
Not wanting to find out, I focus on the path ahead.
Ten seconds of running and we’re in the trees, hidden from all the Golyats. But they’re not paying us any attention. Despite their ravenous appetites, they face off to claim their prize, even as it runs away.
With more Golyats closing in, we don’t linger to see how the fight plays out. I don’t have to watch to know it will be sickening, violent, and fuel for the nightmares that will no doubt haunt me when this is over.
Do the dead dream? I wonder, and I hope not.
Running through the forest is both easier—trees are easier to run between than cornstalks—and harder. The ground is shaking. Leaves and pinecones fall around us as trees sway. A roar from ahead announces the approach of yet another Golyat.
Plistim and Dyer duck behind the largest trees they can find. Shua and I follow Dyer, while Salem and Del move in behind Plistim. We fall in against the trees, waiting as the impacts grows louder and closer. I dig into the ground, yank out a clump of decaying leaves, and pat it down on my bloody leg, hoping to conceal the scent.
The new Golyat pushes through the trees between the others and us. The fifty-foot-tall creature lunges past, barreling through the smallest trees, while being knocked about by the larger, sturdier ones. It doesn’t stand a chance against the others, but it shows no fear as it heads for the clearing and the sounds of its much larger brethren.
The Divide Page 23