Analog SFF, September 2009

by Dell Magazine Authors

"Yes, in advance of any other construction,” Victor said. “It's the only major development in the area so far. Are you wondering if the snakes might have migrated here in response?"

  "Maybe,” Helki said. “If the cooling system disturbed their natural habitat, they may have been forced to relocate."

  Victor scratched his chin. “You know, there's another possibility. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but is it possible that these snakes were introduced into the environment on purpose?"

  Helki finished marking and releasing the snakes, leaving only six specimens behind. “To stop the construction? I doubt it. If you want to rally the public against habitat destruction, you need something cute. Reptiles don't cut it. Snakes, especially, don't cut it. Believe me, I know."

  From her pack, Helki took a plastic sweater box that she had lined with newspaper. Removing the lid, she placed the six remaining snakes in the box, which she had stocked with a homemade blend of gelatin and pulverized trout. As she watched the snakes, she was struck again by the jeweled perfection of their heads, the graceful engineering of their streamlined bodies. It was a shame, she thought, that so few people could appreciate such elegance.

  "If only we had more time,” Helki said, caught off guard by her own frustration. “Nothing we do is going to stop this development."

  Victor was watching her closely. “It's been a long time since I've seen you so angry."

  "I know,” Helki said. “But this isn't why you hired me. I promise that my report will be completely objective."

  "I never doubted that it would be,” Victor said. “If it makes you feel any better, I hate this, too. I couldn't say anything to those hikers, but the last thing that the world needs is another ski resort. Just don't tell my wife—"

  Helki smiled at this. The day before, at Lake Molluk, Victor's wife had immediately fallen in love with the resort, along with Helki's husband and daughter. Before leaving the hotel that morning, Helki had promised to come back in the afternoon, so that they could all hit the slopes together. She supposed that her family was outside now, savoring the beauty of the morning and the pleasure of fresh powder without giving more than a passing thought to their environmental cost. It must be nice, she thought, to enjoy such things with a clear conscience.

  They climbed back over the ridge, away from the lake, until the den of snakes was out of sight. Helki carried the sweater box by its handle, swinging it gently from side to side. When they returned to the spot where they had met the hikers, she saw that the pickup truck and jeep were gone. She lingered for a second, looking at the deserted clump of pines, remembering how she had wanted to tell the hikers that working within the system was the best way to get things done. For the first time in a long while, she allowed herself to wonder if she might be wrong.

  The same thing seemed to have occurred to Victor. Without looking in her direction, he cleared his throat. “I don't think that we need to report this encounter to anyone. What do you say?"

  Helki took a moment to reply. “Are you hoping for some direct action? Or is it—"

  "I didn't say that,” Victor said, cutting her off. “I'm only suggesting that we leave it alone. If someone wants to take the fight outside the system, I'm willing to look the other way."

  Helki felt a surge of affection for Victor, who, it seemed, had not entirely abandoned the ideals of his youth, as quixotic as they might seem in the light of adulthood. “Me too. Let's leave it at that."

  As she spoke, a muffled explosion came from beyond the ridge. Helki turned toward the sound. She assumed that it was noise from the construction taking place on the far side of the lake, but part of her wanted to believe that it was something more. “Our friends at work?"

  "I'm impressed,” Victor said, although he clearly didn't take her suggestion seriously. “They certainly—"

  He broke off. A low roar, slowly gathering in volume, was coming from beyond the hill. At first, it was no more than a vibration, a tremor that Helki sensed as much through the soles of her feet as with her ears. As the roar grew louder, it rose to the level of thunder, although it continued to hug the ground. At its loudest, a few seconds after it had begun, it sounded as if a fighter plane were swooping low across the lake, which was hidden from view by the hillside.

  Finally, the sound died, the volume diminishing as if someone were turning down the knob on a stereo. In the sweater box, the snakes were writhing in agitation. Helki looked at Victor. “What the hell was that?"

  "I don't know,” Victor said, his voice full of uncertainty. “Let's check it out."

  They headed for the ridge, which would give them a view of the forest. In the silence that followed the thunder, the woods seemed unnaturally quiet. Helki felt a series of dry thumps at her side. Looking down, she saw that the snakes were throwing themselves against the walls of the box, as if trying to escape.

  A moment later, as they reached the switchback trail that led to the crest of the hill, Helki paused. There was a strange smell on the breeze, like a faint whiff of rotten eggs. “Victor, hold on for a second."

  Victor halted and looked back at her. She could tell that he was worried. “What is it?"

  "Something's wrong.” Helki was about to say something else, but was cut short by an acidic taste in her mouth. Her saliva had grown sour, as if she had swallowed a dose of bad medicine. “We need to get out of here—"

  Even as she spoke, she grew disoriented, as if the ground had tilted to one side. All around her, the forest seemed to expand and contract. Her breathing became rapid and shallow.

  Looking at Victor, she saw that his face was flushed. As she drew a surprised gasp at the sight, the first intake of air told her everything. There was something on the wind. A stiff breeze was blowing across the forest, and with every breath that she took, an invisible invader was passing into her bloodstream.

  "Come on,” Victor said. They turned and cut across the switchback trail, walking quickly, then breaking into a run, the toes of their shoes knocking up spumes of pumice and sand. Although Victor was normally the faster runner, Helki overtook him with ease. Something was terribly wrong, but the danger, if real, was internal and inescapable. It filled her with a freezing horror, a sense of being occupied by an unseen enemy. Her nerves were screaming. For the first time in her life, she had a sense of how it would feel to go mad.

  She ran blindly, aware of nothing but the hole that seemed to grow in her chest with every lungful of air. As she neared where they had parked the Land Rover, she found that she could no longer hear Victor's steps. Turning, she saw him crumpled in the road, his hands clutching at the sandy soil.

  The box fell from her hands, struck the ground, and broke open. The snakes began to slither slowly away, their tails flicking feebly against the dust. Although she barely had the strength to walk, she ran to where Victor had fallen, the woods seeming to press against her from all directions. She knelt at Victor's side, trying to shake him awake, but his eyelids only fluttered in response. Helki swore, hoping that the sound would give her courage, but only a whisper escaped from her lips. All around her, the world was growing red.

  She hauled Victor to his feet, his arm slung over her shoulders, and stumbled towards the Land Rover, feeling as if her legs were mired in mud. Her muscles protested, aching, as she willed herself forward one inch at a time.

  As the forest grew darker, Helki felt the acid taste spreading through her mouth and throat, sharpening the smell of rotten eggs. She no longer remembered why she was trying to reach the Land Rover. It seemed like a senseless effort, pointless, when all that she wanted was to sleep—

  Her legs scissored onward, more through momentum than conscious effort. The Land Rover trembled before her, as tantalizing as any mirage, and then she was at its side. Next to her, Victor groaned.

  Helki's strength was all but gone, but she managed to open the back door and shove Victor inside. As she shut the door, reaching the driver's seat seemed impossible, but she forced herself to take the few necessary steps.
Her fingers seized the door handle and yanked it open. She got behind the wheel. The sound of the closing door was like that of a safe swinging shut.

  Helki stared at the driver's console, her sight failing. She couldn't remember what she was doing here. Her hands groped for her key ring, operating solely out of muscle memory, but when her fingers closed around the cool metal of the keys, she no longer recalled what they were for.

  Her head fell forward, coming to rest against the steering wheel. In the last second before she lost consciousness, she saw something through the windshield, an image that followed her down into the darkness. The sweater box lay where it had fallen open, but the snakes were no longer moving.

  * * * *

  II.

  When Helki opened her eyes, her first thought was that the sun was in the wrong place. She was slumped forward, her body aching from being in such an awkward position for so long. Her nose was a few inches from a pebbled surface, like the cratered expanse of an asteroid. As her vision cleared, she saw that it was the grain of the steering wheel. She was still in the driver's seat.

  Helki forced herself to sit up. Her head was pounding, and she was painfully thirsty, her tongue adhering to the roof of her mouth. She had been lying on her right arm. As she shifted it gingerly, feeling as if a scrap of dead flesh had been grafted onto her shoulder, it flooded with pins and needles.

  The air inside the Land Rover was stale. In the back seat, Victor was leaning to one side, his head resting against the window. His eyes were closed. Helki reached back and nudged him with her left hand. “Victor?"

  Victor's head jerked upward, his hands rising in an automatic gesture of defense. He looked at her wildly. “What happened?"

  "I don't know,” Helki said. There were blisters on Victor's forehead, inflamed circles the size of pinheads. A glance in the mirror revealed the same blisters on her own face, as well as a red triangle from where her head had pressed against the steering wheel. She suppressed a crazy laugh at the sight.

  Victor was looking around the Land Rover in confusion. “How did I get here?"

  "I carried you,” Helki said. “I got as far as the driver's seat, and I passed out. That's all I know."

  Victor clutched his head. “You carried me? How long have we been like this?"

  Helki pulled out her cell phone to check the time. As she did, she noticed a blinking red light on the display, which said that she had ten missed calls. Her sense of dread only deepened when she saw what time it was.

  "It's four in the afternoon,” Helki said dully. “We've been here for eight hours."

  Victor stared. “You're kidding.” He pulled up his sleeve to check his own watch, and was unable to speak for a long time. When he did, his voice was hushed. “What the hell happened?"

  Before she could reply, Victor opened his door and climbed out of the car. Helki tried to stop him, afraid of the possible danger, but when he seemed to suffer no ill effects, she opened her own door a crack.

  The smell of rotten eggs was gone. After a moment of hesitation, she opened her door all the way and got out, her shoes crunching in the dirt. The forest was still. No birds sang. The insects were silent.

  "Look at this,” Victor said, kneeling in the road. Helki limped over to where he was crouching, her legs weak. When she bent down to see what he had found, she saw that the ground was covered with lifeless insects. She picked up the fragile husk of a dragonfly. It was perfectly intact, but dead.

  Helki went further into the woods. At the foot of a lodgepole pine, she found a dead bird, a woodpecker that had fallen from the branches. Other birds lay unmoving on the ground, thrushes and sparrows lying among the lavender asters. A squirrel had died with its paws clenched.

  Victor was standing beside her, the color drained from his face. “We can't stay here."

  "Wait,” Helki said. She went back to where she had dropped the box of snakes, only fifty feet from the Land Rover, although the distance had seemed endless at the time. The box lay where it had fallen, the lid open, sheets of newspaper and shreds of food scattered along the ground. The six snakes were nearby. One had died inside the box itself, while four others had managed to crawl a few feet. The final snake had died two yards from the box, its body twisted and contorted.

  Helki looked at the dead snakes in silence. Before she knew what she was doing, she was moving up the trail towards the ridge. Victor fell into step beside her. “Where do you think you're going?"

  "The snakes,” Helki said, her voice weak from thirst. “I need to see if they're okay."

  As she ran forward, she noted further signs of devastation. More dead birds lay on the ground. Lifeless bugs crunched underfoot. When she reached the path that led to the top of the hill, she ran towards the spur. A minute later, the lake and hillside were at her feet. When she saw what was there, tears sprang into her eyes, but she wiped them quickly away.

  All of the snakes were dead. The hill, which had once teemed with life, was covered in thousands of bodies, as inert as severed lengths of cord. Helki picked up the remains of a mating ball. The snakes were heavy and limp.

  No scavengers had descended. Helki knew that crows should have appeared to pick out the livers of the snakes, gorging themselves on so tempting a feast, but nothing stirred on the hillside. No insects. No birds.

  Victor's shadow fell across the ground before her. There was a pause before he spoke. “I'm so sorry."

  Helki shook her head. “It's genocide. There's no telling if any of the snakes survived to carry on the reproductive cycle.” She looked up at Victor. “Who did this? What reason could anyone possibly have?"

  Victor said nothing, his eye caught by something in the distance. Following his gaze, Helki looked at the lake itself, and realized that things were even stranger than she had guessed.

  Lake Yomigo, which was normally a deep blue, had turned red. Although the edges of the lake remained transparent, a crimson pool, the color of blood, had appeared at the center of the water. The sight, which reminded her of the plagues of Egypt, made her own blood run cold.

  When she raised her eyes further, she saw disaster of a more everyday kind. At the far shore of the lake, the cooling station was in ruins. Although the fire, if there had been one, had gone out, the walls and roof of the station had fallen in. Fire trucks and emergency vehicles were parked nearby, paramedics and firemen moving in efficient formations. The sight was strangely comforting.

  "We should drive over there,” Victor said. “Maybe they can tell us what happened."

  "Give me a second,” Helki said. She picked up a pair of dead snakes, acting out of a vague sense that it would be wrong to leave them here. Victor watched, but did not lend a hand. As she gathered the snakes, a scrap of conversation echoed through her brain. She wanted to ignore it, but couldn't stop remembering what the blond hiker had said. A day of reckoning—

  They were heading back to the road when the cell phone vibrated against Helki's hip. It was her husband, whom she had left behind at Lake Molluk. Remembering her ten missed calls, she answered the phone. “Jeff?"

  His voice was full of anxiety. “Where are you? I've been trying to call for hours—"

  "I know,” Helki said. “Something happened here. I couldn't call back before now."

  "Are you all right? There have been reports of an explosion at the lake. The police are calling it ecoterrorism. I've been trying to talk to the ski patrol, but they won't give me a straight answer—"

  "Don't worry,” Helki said, although her heart was pounding at the news. “I'll be back at the resort soon. How is Emily doing?"

  "She's fine, but she wants to know where her mommy is. Why couldn't you call?"

  Helki hesitated, not wanting him to worry. “It's a long story. I can explain everything when I see you again."

  "All right, but don't stay out much longer,” Jeff said. “We need you back here."

  Jeff hung up. Helki exhaled deeply, missing him, the dead snakes heavy in her other hand. Victor, whose
cell phone failed to get a signal, borrowed her phone to call his wife, who was also at the resort. As soon as she answered, he reassured her, in a mixture of Japanese and English, that they were coming back soon. When he was done, he hung up and returned the phone to Helki without a word.

  As they neared the spot where they had parked, Helki silently reviewed the morning's events, hoping that she would remember something that would convince her that the hikers had not been responsible for what she had seen. Whenever she came close to persuading herself, she remembered the monkey wrench hanging from the rearview mirror. The signs had been there, and she had ignored them, or welcomed them, hoping that the hikers would engage in some minor act of vandalism that would force the resort to take notice. But if they had decided to go further—

  This train of thought was severed as soon as she came within sight of the Land Rover. A police car had pulled up nearby, and two figures were standing next to the cruiser. One was a sheriff's deputy, his appearance calm and professional. The other man, wearing a fleece jacket embroidered with the logo of the ski resort, had his back turned, but Helki recognized him at once.

  "What do you know?” Victor said quietly. He picked up the pace. “It's Frank."

  Helki knew that he was not pleased by this. Frank Burton was the head of mountain operations at Lake Molluk. He was shrewd and friendly, but a company man to the core, and had cooperated only grudgingly with the Forest Service's environmental studies. When he saw them coming, however, the look of relief on his face seemed genuine. “Thank God,” Frank said as they approached. “I was afraid that we were going to find another pair of bodies."

  Victor went up to the two men, with Helki hanging back a few steps. “Bodies? How many have you found?"

  "Twelve dead,” the deputy said. “Mostly campers. All within five miles of the lake."

  Helki was shocked by the news. On some level, she had been hoping that there would be no human casualties. “What was it?"

  "Nobody knows,” Frank said. “It looks like the victims just lay down and died.” He regarded them curiously. “You must have been right by the lake when it happened. Are you all right?"