The Gorge

by Scott Nicholson

Behind them, back in the trees, Farrengalli was bellowing something, probably harassing Raintree, who had paused in the woods to attend to some private matter. Castle had fallen to the rear, whether from some misguided notion of protecting the group, or because he figured numbers would be more likely to draw the attention of the creatures. If the beasts worked on radar and smell, as Bowie theorized, then they’d be more likely to detect humans if they were traveling in a pack.

  Which made Dove’s company even more dangerous than usual.

  “Do you think we’re safe here in the trees?” Dove’s grip on his hand tightened. He couldn’t tell if she was scared or just pretending. Maybe it made no difference.

  “They like to attack from above. So far, they’ve hit us when we were out in the open. But remember, if we accept them as some undiscovered species, then this is their natural habitat. They would have adapted to the terrain.”

  “Unless they usually hunt on the river.”

  Bowie pushed away a wet rhododendron branch and let Dove pass. After he ducked beneath it, the branch slapped his helmet as it swung back into place. “Some choice,” he said. “We risk walking out of here, on terrain that’s nearly as rough as the rapids, or we make a blind run with the rafts. And we don’t know enough about those things to make the best decision.”

  “We trust you, Bowie.”

  He winced. Trust. Like he needed a reminder. “You like Raintree, don’t you?”

  She let go of his hand and adjusted her backpack. “Robert? He’s okay. A little on the quiet side.”

  Built pretty well, too, Bowie wanted to add, but he discovered he wasn’t jealous. Dove was like a roomful of chocolate. You couldn’t wait to eat your way through the door, but once inside, you were in danger of getting suffocated by her sweetness and your own appetite.

  “If anything happens to me, then he’s the one you should count on,” Bowie said.

  “Nothing’s going to happen to us. Besides, I wasn’t counting on you, anyway. I know better.”

  “Smart girl.”

  The rain had slackened a bit, but was like icy snakes as trickles of it worked down his neck and under his PFD. Leaves rattled and he thought the rain was picking up again.

  SkeeEEEEeeek.

  “Bogie at twelve o’clock,” Farrengalli shouted.

  Bowie turned, cursing his lack of a firearm. He held his paddle out before him like a jujitsu bo stick, the sound of wet leaves rattling overhead as branches snapped.

  Forget the safe-under-the-trees theory. Forget the safe-anywhere theory.

  Farther up the trail, Raintree had ducked under the relative cover of a swooning pine tree. Castle was out of sight, his pistol not able to provide any immediate help. But, as they had learned, bullets didn’t necessarily make much of a difference.

  Farrengalli raced down the path, the deflated raft in his arms, which were folded like an offensive tackle’s blocking for an end sweep. He bulled his way between Bowie and Dove, knocking Dove to her knees in the mud. Bowie regained his amateur jujitsu pose as the overhead menace swept nearer.

  The rain hampered his ability to trace the sound, and it was only when he realized branches were now snapping fifty feet to his right that he realized something else was approaching behind him and to his left. Bansheelike shrieks of two different frequencies ripped the forest.

  “Stay down!” he yelled at Dove, knowing the instruction was stupid, that the creatures had already exhibited a deadly tenacity and suddenness. But instinct kicked in, one born of primordial fear and the desire to survive despite the odds.

  The first creature broke through the canopy with its arms extended, following its gleaming talons toward its prey. The red-rimmed eyes, though sightless, glimmered with a luminescence that seemed to bore twin holes into Bowie’s flesh. He knelt and braced himself for the assault when a blur of movement caught his eye just in front of him. His initial thought was that it was a third creature, and he knew he would never be able to fight off such a multipronged attack.

  Then another shriek ripped the foggy sky. Not a monstrous shriek of the high pitch emitted by the creatures, but the wail of an attacking warrior. Raintree raced headlong, carrying a long, sharpened stake before him as if he were a medieval jouster. His scream wasn’t like those of the dehumanized villains in Westerns, where the cool-eyed white men picked off their hapless, poorly armed attackers one by one. No, this scream was fueled by rage and hearkened back to a primitive era when perhaps his ancestors had fought these same creatures.

  The beast spun in midair, graceless, as if unused to maneuvering in the tight quarters between trees. Raintree’s sudden movement had confused the thing’s radar. It hovered for a moment, ten feet off the ground, its ragged, vestigial wings quivering in a mockery of avian flight. Bowie, realizing the creature was homing in on Raintree, swung his paddle in the air and smacked the shaft against a tree.

  The creature turned its dead eyes toward the sound, lips parting to reveal slick teeth and two curving incisors.

  Dove, catching on to Bowie’s plan of overloading the creature’s perception, rolled off the path and grabbed a stone from the mud. She hurled it at the creature, and though it missed by several feet, the creature’s head tracked the stone’s trajectory.

  Raintree seized the opportunity to leap forward and plunge the point of his makeshift spear into the creature’s chest.

  The creature’s expression curdled into what might have passed for anger on a human’s face. Elephantine skin collapsed around its eyes and the long tongue rolled out in a soundless hiss. Raintree knelt and balanced beneath the creature as a pole vaulter might prepare to hurdle a high bar. The creature slid down the length of the spear, and Raintree released it just before the unwholesome flesh of the nightmare reached his hands.

  The second shriek signaled the attack of the other beast, and Bowie wondered if they had learned that their prey could fight back and had thus changed their strategy. The thought that these deadly monsters, already cursed with claws, fangs, and a seeming invincibility, could develop complex tactics and coordinate their attacks filled Bowie with deep, sick dread.

  He swung the paddle around just as the creature exploded from the trees. The shriek rose in intensity as it accelerated straight for Bowie. Dove had collected another rock and hurled it toward the creature, but it ignored whatever stimulus the missile had aroused. This one, larger than the first, appeared hell bent to take out Bowie, like a heat-seeking missile targeting an artillery post. Bowie slapped with the paddle, but the creature grabbed the shaft with one hand, wiry fingers ripping it from Bowie’s grasp.

  The thing plowed into Bowie, striking him in the chest, and he went down hard, lungs dead for air.

  The creature crawled along his torso, claws making painful tracks up his arms, the PFD ripping like a toilet-paper kite in a hurricane.

  Up close, its eyes gave off a strange radiance, as if deep in the back of the orbs, muted kaleidoscopes spun and glimmered.

  But the eyes didn’t get much of Bowie’s attention, because the teeth were closing in on his throat, and his arms were pinned to the ground. Though no wind of breath issued from the gaping mouth, a putrid stench rose from the thing’s inner workings.

  Bowie bucked, trying to toss off the writhing burden like Raintree had once thrown his wrestling opponents. The creature was only half of Bowie’s weight, but clung with a desperation born of unholy hunger.

  Failure.

  The final one.

  Bowie was about to close his eyes so he wouldn’t see the red proof of his own futility when, over the creature’s shoulder, he saw Dove, face straining, arms quivering, a large, jagged rock raised over her head. She brought the blunt point of the rock against the creature’s head just as it was countering Bowie’s evasive maneuver.

  The contact made a moist sloosh, like the dropping of a watermelon on pavement.

  This time, Bowie did close his eyes as gore squirted from the top of the wizened, bald skull. The viscid juice splattered acro
ss his face, mixing with the rain. The creature didn’t immediately release its grip, but gave a startled turn of its head. Bowie opened his eyes, hoping the obscene blood wasn’t infectious. Dove was lifting the rock for another blow, a thin strand of gray fluid stringing from its tip. Bowie saw the shattered back of the creature’s head, and the bloated, larvalike meat of its primitive brain.

  Though the crenulated brain was violated with deep wounds, the creature’s physical responses were still quick and strong.

  Because it thinks with its mouth.

  And its thinking had turned from hunger to self-defense, because its talons slid from Bowie’s arms and, monkey-quick, it lifted toward Dove. Bowie flinched, waiting for the latest death of someone he loved.

  The creature never reached her, because Raintree skewered it in midair. He must have retrieved his spear from the body of the first creature.

  Raintree bore his full weight against the creature, twisting the spear and nailing the squirming form to the ground. It raked its claws at him, but Raintree stepped back and lowered his shoulders, a study in combat leverage. Dove moved within striking distance and slammed the rock down once more, this time full on the creature’s forehead. It quivered, more of its foul, gray blood leaking from the deadly mouth.

  Bowie rolled to his feet, planning to join the attack, when he was hit by a wave of dizziness and nausea. By the time the mental fog lifted, the creature lay still, though its open eyes appeared to glare at Bowie with a smirk of victory. As if it knew the battle was just beginning, and it would somehow return.

  In the heat of his near death, Bowie had forgotten all about Dove, Raintree, the trip, the long nightmare that lay ahead, and the two victims decaying upstream. His universe had been reduced to mud and fear, a primordial combination that had spawned the birth of the world and would no doubt be its ultimate, eternal condition.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  “Take Haircut’s gun,” Ace Goodall said to the girl.

  “That’s not a good idea,” Castle replied, wondering how fast he could pull his weapon. This wasn’t Quantico, where the quickest draw would win a beer, or a Western where the actors were firing blanks.

  The short, unkempt man with the wild eyes had crept from the forest as the group reached the bottom of the falls. Castle, busy scanning the sky, noticed too late. He’d been listening for The Rook and his prey had found him instead. Another balls-up boondoggle.

  “I don’t mind killing,” Goodall said. “I done it before.” He eyed each member of the group as if counting them, apparently not noticing Farrengalli’s absence. “Where’s your sidekick? Did my trip wire get him?”

  “No, something else. That’s why you’d better let me keep my gun.”

  Goodall laughed. “The angels, you mean?”

  Total schism, The Rook said in his head. Goodall has lost all touch with reality. Delusions of religious grandeur. It fits the assessment.

  The Rook hadn’t spoken in nearly an hour, long enough that Castle had thought it had all been in his head. In your head? Ha, that’s funny. Never figured you for a sense of humor.

  “You’ve seen these creatures, too?” Bowie said.

  “You the leader of this group?” Goodall asked.

  “Looks like you are.”

  “Smart-asses all up and down this river, I swear.”

  “I don’t know how much you know, but those things have already killed two people.”

  “Maybe more,” Castle added, remembering the New Jersey couple he’d sent into the woods.

  Castle thought Goodall’s companion looked almost young enough to be his daughter, but her body was mature enough to be on its own. Though her face was etched with misery, she wasn’t being held against her will. If she had wanted, no doubt the night forest had afforded her many opportunities to flee.

  Except, where could she go? Maybe she knew about the creatures, too, and figured Ace Goodall could protect her. After all, better the devil you knew.

  Jim Castle didn’t blink as she approached him and lifted his Glock from its holster. She held the gun between two fingers as if it were a snake as she carried it back to Goodall, who took it from her with his left hand and stuffed it into the waistband of his dirty camouflage pants.

  Goodall waved his gun, a little cocky now. “Who’s going to blow up this raft?”

  “You’re the one with the explosives,” Castle said.

  “Ha-ha,” Goodall said with a sour grin. “You want to put your lips on the valve, or you got a better way?”

  “We have a portable air pump,” Bowie said.

  “Fill ‘er up, then. What the hell you waiting for? Judgment Day?”

  Raintree, standing beside Dove, hadn’t moved a muscle, as implacable as a stone pillar. Dove stooped for his backpack, but he stopped her, grabbing for it himself. He was unzipping a side pocket when Goodall said, “Easy there, Tonto. Don’t make no sudden moves.”

  Castle eyed the distance between him and Goodall. Chances were a lot less than fifty-fifty. Maybe one in a hundred. But without a gun and without a raft, their chances were near zero anyway, assuming more of those creatures came pouring from the sky. At least the rain had let up a little, though the visibility was still poor. And getting worse as darkness set down its tent pegs.

  As Raintree inflated the raft, Goodall appeared to consider something. His cold, reptilian eyes narrowed. “Clara, did you count how many there was up at the top of the falls? When the angel flew down and scattered them?”

  Clara, arms folded, shivering a little, spoke for the first time. “I don’t remember. It was so foggy-”

  “Five,” he said. “They was five, not counting the one that got took down.” He swung the pistol barrel back toward Castle. “You said your partner was dead?”

  I’m not dead anymore. I’m UNdead. Castle was disturbed by the distant, alien tone. The Rook should know this wasn’t a time for joking around.

  “The vampires got him,” Castle said. “He’s one of them now.”

  “Vampires? The fuck you talking about? This ain’t no comic book.”

  “The creatures,” Bowie said. “We think they’re vampires.”

  Ace laughed so hard, he leaned over with his fists on his knees. “Holy Christ, Clara. Did you hear that? These dickheads must think we’re some kind of gravy-sopping, redneck morons.”

  “I heard,” Clara said. “Let’s get out of here, Ace.”

  “You, too? I told you ya got to have faith. Have those angels harmed a hair on our heads? Nary a one. And has the Lord provided, every time we needed a lift or a hideout or a bite to eat? Damn right He has.”

  Clara didn’t look convinced. With her saturated, stringy hair trailing across her shoulders, she was as miserable as a drowned rat.

  “What about you?” Goodall said to Dove. “You and Tonto must be the brains of the bunch, since you ain’t talked much. You think they’re vampires?”

  “I think they’re a missing link,” she said. “An undiscovered species. When the world finds out, it’ll make Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster look like something out of the Goosebumps books.”

  “Big words,” Goodall said to Clara. “She must have gone to college, too.”

  “Angels don’t rip open the necks of humans and drink their blood,” Raintree said.

  “What do you think it is, Tonto? Some kind of Evil Spirit?”

  “Whatever they are, they’re dangerous, and they could attack any second,” Bowie said.

  “Take off your life jacket,” Goodall ordered. Bowie frowned and undid the plastic snaps that held the nylon restraints in place. Goodall shook the pistol at Dove and Raintree. “You, too. Throw them on the ground.”

  Clara retrieved them, giving one to Goodall, who slid one arm in, switched the pistol to his left hand, and shrugged into the other armhole. Clara put on the other one, and Ace tossed the other two into the river, where they squirted away. “All right,” he said to Bowie. “Let’s get this love boat heading downstream.”

 
; Castle wondered if Bowie would warn them the water was too treacherous. More likely, he was in a hurry to send them on their way. With nightfall coming on, Goodall and the girl would be lucky to make it a half mile before the raft was swamped or they got pitched out by the rocking rapids.

  “What about food?” Clara said.

  “Load up all the backpacks, Tonto. We’ll need all of it sooner or later.” Goodall opened one, rummaged, and brought out a magnesium flashlight. He gave it to Dove. “Rig this to your helmet.”

  He put another of the Maglites in his pocket.

  “You’re going to leave us here, unarmed and without supplies, to face the vampires?” Bowie said. “ Angels, I mean?”

  “Not all of you,” Goodall said to him. “You’re coming with us.”

  Dove stepped forward. “You’ll need another experienced paddler to make it through the water. It’s risen at least a foot.”

  “Sorry, good-looking,” Goodall said. “Might get a little too crowded, and it’s hard to class=Section2› keep a watch on two people.”

  “I’m a better paddler than Bowie.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure. But I got my hands full with Clara here. Be hard for me to keep two women satisfied.”

  “Asshole.”

  Goodall swung the gun from Castle to Dove. Raintree stepped in front of Dove.

  Hmm, Castle thought. He’s sweet on her. Or maybe he has some kind of stupid code of honor. A code of honor like I used have, back when I gave a damn.

  Because Castle realized now was the best opportunity to charge Goodall, knock the gun from his hand, throw a right punch into his crooked sneer. But like the quick-draw fantasy, this was the empty, scripted imagery from an action movie. His feet were as heavy as boulders, the rain in his eyes as warm as tears.

  So much for the courageous F-uh-bee-eye Man, taunted The Rook. You’re still four years old, pissing in bed because you’re too scared to put your feet on the floor and walk to the bathroom. Scared of what’s under there, down in the dark.

  “Nice move, Tonto,” Goodall said. “Now, load those backpacks in the raft and drag it over to the river.”