Blood River Down

by Lionel Fenn

  There was also a huge lake, egg-shaped and, as far as he could tell, perfectly calm.

  And in staring at the water, the rivers, the trees, it all snapped abruptly into focus and into a perspective that had him gasping.

  Floating through the cloud—once he had determined that death was not terribly imminent—had not been so bad, all things considered. Despite the visions and the frustrating sight of the ladders on the cliff face, he could have been dangling only three or four inches above the floor of his living room. Helpless, cold, unsettling, but not so bad once he'd gotten used to it. In a curiously unfathomable way, it felt almost unreal, almost safe.

  This, however, was all too real.

  The ground was several thousand feet below, and though he was still floating in the general direction of his demise, able in small ways to control his direction, he was still going down. And those trees there were a lot higher than they looked, and the lake grew into an inland sea, the surface no longer smooth but rippled now with whitecaps whose size he was unable to determine. The rivers, too, were wider, and now that he was closer and the sun was no longer flaring off them, he could see that they were tinted by the landscape; and one of them, which appeared to rise from the base of the mountain, was a disturbing red whose source he could not locate.

  Suddenly, he discovered he was afraid to move his head. A single wrong motion now might disrupt whatever forces were working to prevent precipitous plummeting, and he wished he could see signs of life. But there were no roads visible through the woods, no villages or isolated buildings or even signals that would tell him his friends had landed safely.

  Worse: no matter how hard he wriggled his fingers, shifted his limbs, or prayed, he was unable to stop himself from drifting directly toward the sea.

  When you're in serious trouble, his sister had once told him, whistling doesn't do a damn thing but waste good air, especially if the other guy has a tin ear. What you have to do if you're going to get out of it is think fast, think smart, and then run like hell. It was easy for her to say. Trouble avoided her all her life, until the night he received the call from the state police; they had found her rented automobile on its back in a California river. Apparently, she had driven through the guardrail on an old wooden bridge during a sudden autumn storm. The car was towed out just before dawn, but his sister's body was gone, swept away, the police informed him, to an unknown grave in the Pacific.

  Now it seemed as if he had an ocean of his own to contend with, and from the looks of the waves that rolled onto the eastern shoreline, it wasn't going to part for him so he could walk back to the beach.

  The trees speared at him, their leaves broad, here and there some with dagger-like needles.

  He could see no fording areas as he had along the Rushes, reluctantly concluding that shallows were not part of their makeup.

  He shook his hands. He bunched his legs and curled his arms over his chest. He tried positioning himself in a swan dive. But nothing worked—he could neither turn nor slow down, spin away or alter direction. As if strung to a guy wire, he was heading directly for the water.

  Which, he thought, was not so bad in itself since he ought to be able to swim to safety; what he didn't like were the shapes he spotted on the surface. Dark shapes, somewhat long and perhaps scaled, and from a hundred feet up he knew damn well they weren't boulders.

  Ninety feet.

  Fish food, he thought grimly; the quarterback ends up as fish food.

  Sixty feet.

  The shapes broke the surface in the manner of whales sounding, but their details were obscured by the sun's glare in his eyes. He thought he heard watery snorting, faint splashing, and he strained when he was sure he had heard something snarling.

  Forty feet, and he realized with a groan he was moving faster.

  Thirty feet.

  The trees towered above him, the far shore of the sea was lost in a mist that seemed too much like fog, and he estimated he would land some ten yards from the beach.

  And at twenty feet he was released by whatever had held him.

  He yelled, and he fell, but he still dropped into the water.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Trying to keep a cool head to prevent undue catastrophe, Gideon let his body sink into the water. The inland sea was cold but not shockingly so, and his system adjusted rapidly, with little more than a single spasm that almost tore his head from his neck—a small price to pay for not drowning, he decided.

  Though his eyes were open, there wasn't much to see but a distressing number of bubbles escaping between his lips and the roll of the gentle surf above; the bottom, whatever it consisted of and whatever dwelt down there, lay beyond the reach of the light. He waited several seconds, until his descent slowed, before flexing and thrusting upward, breaking through the surface with a gasp for air and a toss of his head to clear hair and water from his eyes.

  He sank again before he could move his arms.

  Another thrust, and he broke up again, treading water as best he could while he turned in a slow circle, hunting for the shore and looking up every so often at the sky, the drifting clouds, and the imagined glide path of his landing.

  He almost sank when he realized the distance he had fallen, but at last, the push and nudge of the low breakers turned him toward the beach, and he struck out wearily, wishing he were able to swim faster, but for the time content to let the tide do most of the work. He had never realized how tiring falling off cliffs could be, and for a brief moment he feared not being able to make it. The trees and the sand seemed awfully far off, and the way they kept bobbing up and down made him feel a bit seasick. Only a dismal belief that he was fated to die in some more exotic way than drowning in a freshwater lake kept his arms moving, kept his legs moving, kept his mouth closed so as not to admit more ballast.

  Then his feet kicked the bottom, and he stood, the water in the troughs barely up to his waist. Bracing himself against the waves, he gulped at the air, touching his side to be sure his bat was still there. Then he walked, half hopped, until he staggered onto the sand.

  Soft sand that was a gentle, fog-like white with a few flecks of sparkling pink and blue. Warm from the sun. And ahead not thirty yards distant was the edge of the forest—titanic trees that made the woods of the Scarred Mountains seem like mere shrubs, their grey-and-black boles gnarled and twining, their heavy lower branches thicker around than a dozen saplings. There was a mixture of broad leaf and needle, with a few hesitant colorful blossoms that winked in and out of sight as a breeze darted among them. There was no underbrush to speak of, and as he dropped to his knees, he listened and did not hear a single sound other than the waves hissing behind him.

  Friday, he thought, I am here, so where's the booze?

  No one came to greet him, which did not reassure him; yet nothing came to eat him, which took a considerable load off his mind. Safe again, through no fault of his own.

  Slowly, he lowered himself until he was prone, resting his chin on crossed arms while he stared at the woods. He knew that he ought not to stay very long. He was more lost on this beach than he had been above, and with a few hours of daylight still left, it would be prudent of him to begin searching for signs of his friends or for a place to stay for the night.

  But the sun was comfortable on his back, and he was having a difficult time keeping his eyes open. His muscles whined for respite, his brain for a few hours' deep and dreamless sleep, and it did not take long for temptation to whisper that a good night's rest wouldn't do him any harm. After all, he wouldn't be any good to anyone if he wasn't fully recovered. It would be, he told himself, the only reasonable thing to do.

  A good point, until the sand just a foot from the tip of his nose began to bulge as something beneath pushed its way up.

  He raised an eyebrow and decided it was an omen.

  When the sand fell away and he saw a crab's pincer thrust redly into the air, he knew he was right—the pincer was a good six inches across, and if the crab itself mat
ched the size of its appendage, this beach wasn't going to be big enough for the both of them.

  It was. Twice as large, and growing larger.

  Gideon pushed himself hastily to his feet, moving slowly to his left, not taking his gaze from the crab until it shook itself again, dug a claw into the sand, and threw it at him. He blinked in surprise. The crab's eyes waved on their stalks, and it scooped up another clawful and tossed that as well. When he backed up another four feet, the crab clicked at him rapidly; another step back, and the crab, having successfully defended itself, waddled into the water.

  Amazing, he thought.

  Shortly afterward, a second crab emerged, a shade larger and less inclined to be belligerent when it saw Gideon staring; a third was larger still, at least the size of a healthy dog, and Gideon decided his curiosity had been sated. He turned and broke into a leisurely trot, veering toward the trees as he headed north, looking back only once, to see the last crab standing in the surf and watching him with one eye while the other watched its fellows bobbing on the surface. Then it was gone, the only sign of its passing a pit in the beach rapidly filling with water.

  It occurred to him to call out a name now and then, but he decided against it. Until he knew what else lived along this stretch of land, it would be the wise thing to pretend he was invisible. Besides, the silence was beginning to make his nerves stretch for stimulation. For all those trees, all that water, the only sound he heard was the breakers, which were less than thunderous, and the slap of his soles on the sand.

  Illogically, he came to believe that the minute he opened his mouth, all hell would break loose.

  One of the rivers, he decided finally, would be the best thing to aim for, so he could follow the banks inland. It was reasonable to assume that whoever lived in this part of the world would probably build a community along such a natural road; it was also reasonable to assume that his friends would head for the same place. It would be a simple matter, then, to catch up with them, exchange tales of their adventures, and discover at last his final destination.

  On the other hand, simple had never been a hallmark of his life thus far. There also were too many unknowns to consider—like procuring food and drink that wouldn't poison him outright or otherwise, unraveling the false trails he would inevitably find himself following, marshaling the ability to ration his own strength and stamina so that he didn't collapse just when he was on the verge of victory, not to mention puzzling at the way the water out there was beginning to boil.

  He slowed but didn't stop.

  Beyond the third row of breakers the sea was roiling—fan-shaped spouts of water lifting high into the air, the surface churning into dazzling white foam. Perhaps it was some sort of geyser released from the bottom. Perhaps it was a suddenly risen sandbar upon which the waves were breaking. Or perhaps the crabs he had seen were engaged in one of their mating rituals or had found something that appealed to their crustacean tastes, and that something wasn't in the mood to be eaten just yet.

  He bet on the crabs.

  Then something large and dark burst out of the middle of the cauldron and landed several feet in front of him, spraying sand in all directions and forcing him to swing even closer to the trees.

  The sea still boiled.

  He looked down and saw what was left of the largest crab, both pincers torn off and a gaping hole in its back.

  He stopped, stared, and poked at the crumpled carapace with the tip of the bat.

  "Son of a bitch," he said softly, and wrinkled his nose at a stench that burst from the dead creature when he tried to flip it over.

  He stared out at the water.

  Through the whirling white foam he could see a long dark shape rising, then abruptly falling down and away as still another portion of crab was flung cavalierly into the air. This piece, apparently unsuited for the unknown predator's taste, sailed over his head into the trees, and its crash through the canopy produced an hysterical avian shrieking. He looked up but saw nothing, peered into the shadows, and thought he saw streaks of red fleeing deeper into the forest.

  The boiling subsided.

  The foam broke apart and was carried shoreward by the waves.

  Gideon stepped gingerly around the crab's body and started running again, fearing to take cover under the trees in case he should get lost. The inland sea was the only thing he had to mark his place in a place he had no knowledge of, and he didn't want to leave it until he absolutely had to.

  His progress, however, was not as rapid as he would have liked since he dared not take his gaze from the water. At any moment he expected to see the boiling begin again, and to see whatever it was that had taken on the giant crabs and had beaten them so handily. It affected him so badly that he was soon slowed to a fast walk, the bat swinging like a cat's tail at his side, his eyes narrowed against the sun setting redly in the west; it affected him so strongly he almost wished it would show itself and dispel the suspense. After all, he thought, how bad could it be? He had seen and battled the black beast in his pantry, and there wasn't much his imagination could conjure to rival that hellish creature.

  Then he tripped over a fallen tree and fell into a pit.

  "Well, hell," he muttered as he landed on hands and knees and spit out the sand that had collected in his mouth. The hole wasn't deep, only waist high when he stood, but he didn't move immediately. Instead, he gripped the bat more tightly.

  Ahead, for nearly fifty yards along the beach, trees had been uprooted, smashed, split in half, defoliated, stripped of branch and twig, skinned of bark, and splintered; the beach was pocked with pits like this one, not the result of digging but of a struggle in which the opponents had evidently slammed each other to the ground, spun around on massive legs, and rolled about in a futile attempt to continue living.

  As he hauled himself out of the depression, Gideon wondered if whatever he had glimpsed in the sea had been a part of this; then he looked into the forest and wondered if there were more of them living back in there.

  Then he looked behind him, at a miles-long stretch of beach on which not a single one of his footprints remained.

  Dusting the sand from his jeans, he sniffed and squinted out at the water, turning his head slightly when he saw movement on the surface—a V-shaped rushing, the bow wake of something submerged and moving toward him.

  He took a step back.

  The bow wave grew, and a black shadow appeared behind it.

  The bat lifted to his right shoulder, and he flexed his wrists nervously, not remembering until the sea creature emerged that his weapon was untried, that the only thing it had thus far successfully done combat with was a ceiling post in Whale's armory shop.

  And when he saw what he was facing, he decided that this was not the time for a baptism of fire.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The sea-beast stood poised in the shallows, water dripping from its sides, waves hissing and swirling about its feet. With the sun behind it, it was little more than a huge, ominous shadow, but there was still enough light for Gideon to see that it had the sleek, somewhat pudgy lines of a dolphin, its body ending in a forked broad tail more probably fitted to an undersized whale; its head, on the other hand, resembled a German shepherd that ate fire hydrants for breakfast—its ears were high, long, and pointed, its eyes wide and glowering, its needled snout lined with dozens of small, sharp teeth that snapped and glinted as it swiveled about, seemingly testing the air. And it stood nine feet above the water on a pair of thick, dark-furred legs, which Gideon did not doubt ended in claws unpleasantly honed.

  From one corner of its mouth a crab leg dangled unnoticed.

  Gideon took a step toward the trees.

  The sea-beast spotted him.

  Gideon brandished the bat.

  The sea-beast lowered its head and charged, raising its tail for balance, opening its mouth to save time when it was close enough to swallow.

  Gideon bolted, plunging into the forest, zigzagging around boles and propelling himse
lf with branches that might otherwise have whipped his head off. He paid as little attention as possible to his pursuit in case his legs decided the rest of him didn't have a prayer; instead, he leapt over deadfalls, veered around boulders, flew over the sudden appearance of a shallow, narrow ravine at the bottom of which he thought he saw water trickling.

  The sea-beast whistled at him, and a branch snapped at its base, barely missing his head.

  A shift to the right, a sudden one to the left, and he raced across a wide clearing knee deep in grass.

  The sea-beast whistled, and the grass turned brown.

  In the forest again he continued angling to his left, ducking as if being shot at whenever he heard the piercing whistle, his shoulders hunching as he expected one of the trees to break in half and pin him underneath.

  When the sea-beast whistled a third time, nothing happened, and the sound was definitely farther away.

  Gideon didn't slow down. He paid no heed to the screaming his lungs were doing, or to the stitch that was working its way around his waist to his spine. As long as he kept moving, he knew he had a chance, and as long as he didn't brain himself on a branch, he knew he'd soon find the boundary of the beast's range from the sea.

  Ten minutes later he was stumbling, and the crashing had been reduced to the occasional snap of a twig.

  Another ten minutes, and he was staggering, wiping sweat from his eyes with a leaden arm while his feet tripped over nothings.

  Behind him there was silence.

  At last there was nothing more he could do. His knees buckled and he fell, hands barely able to reach out and stop himself from striking a fallen log. He rolled over and lay against it, gasping. This, then, would be his last stand. This would be the place where they would erect the monument to the stranger who had failed to rescue the white duck. This would be the forest they would name in his honor, just after they had sent an armada to sea in order to exterminate the beast that had caused his demise.