‘After last night there’s nothing boring about this expedition. There’s something out here, Ethan, and it’s not friendly,’ Lopez said. ‘Why don’t we just hike down with our injured friend here then come back in helicopters? Preferably the gunship kind.’
Ethan smiled with gritted teeth as he and Duran slipped and slid down a muddy track and onto firmer ground, the stretcher rocking and shuddering as the soldiers followed them down.
‘The weather’s too heavy here for flying,’ he replied. ‘We’d never see a thing.’
‘Oh no,’ Lopez murmured, ‘what a great shame that would be. Then we’d have to go back to Illinois or maybe take a vacation down Bermuda way.’
‘Now you’re tempting me,’ Ethan grinned at her.
Duran Wilkes looked across at them as they walked through trees that were once again densely packed but on mercifully level ground. ‘You can’t run away from destiny.’
‘You’re damned right there,’ Lopez replied, ‘and it’s my destiny to live out my years on a beach with a small army of servants tending to my every need.’
‘Your every need?’ Ethan enquired.
‘Keep it clean, Warner,’ she said, watching him from the corner of her eye. ‘This is my fantasy world we’re talkin’ about, not yours.’
‘You might want to put that fantasy on hold,’ Duran said quietly.
‘You okay?’ Ethan asked, looking at the old man.
Duran nodded once.
‘So far,’ he replied, ‘but we’re being watched.’
Ethan turned and looked out across the forest. He saw nothing but the endless, densely packed ranks of cedars and pines, the carpet of damp foliage shivering as drops of water fell from the canopy above in a constant torrent.
‘I don’t see anything,’ Ethan replied.
‘Nor do I,’ Duran replied. ‘And I don’t hear anything either. That’s my point.’
Ethan attuned his ear to the forest around them and suddenly became aware of the absolute silence, so quiet that it almost seemed tangible. No birds sang. There was no rustle of animals in the bushes. Just the endless pattering of raindrops stretching away to infinity around them.
Lopez whispered across to Ethan.
‘You remember what Cletus’s wife said, about the woods outside her home?’
Ethan nodded. ‘The wildlife left when the sasquatch appeared.’
Ahead, Kurt Agry slowed down and raised a clenched fist into the air. Ethan stopped walking and watched with interest as the soldier stood motionless, looking around him at the forest as though uncertain. He glanced back at Ethan and the stretcher, then continued to survey their surroundings.
‘You think he’s noticed?’ Lopez whispered.
‘Definitely,’ Ethan said. ‘He may be an asshole, but you don’t lead a paramilitary platoon if you’re not a great soldier.’
‘How did he figure it out?’ Lopez asked.
‘Sixth sense,’ Ethan whispered back. ‘You’d be surprised how common it is with soldiers.’
Ethan knew that although there was little time for the supernatural among the military, there was a sincere appreciation for the strange but undeniable ability of people to detect the watching gaze of an observer, often from great distances. Ethan himself had been trained never to look too long into the eyes of a target, especially an animal if hunting for food. Sooner or later, they would sense the presence of the hunter and flee.
Likewise, human targets occasionally detected snipers with supernatural accuracy and avoided the bullet that would otherwise have opened their skull like an axe through a melon. There was no predicting when such a bizarre event would occur, but the fact that it did meant that the military took the ability seriously.
Lopez looked around her at the woods and shivered.
‘It’s out there, isn’t it,’ she said.
It was Duran who replied.
‘It’s been out there the whole time. There are birds ahead of us that take off too soon to have been spooked by us.’
Ethan watched for a moment as he considered what Duran was saying.
‘It’s in front of us.’
‘No more than two hundred yards.’
Kurt Agry waved a signal to his men and they began drawing back toward the stretcher, their rifles raised and aimed out into the woods around them. Ethan watched as they pulled back, and Kurt turned to them.
‘There’s something moving ahead of us,’ he said. ‘We’ll check it out. Warner, Lopez, you cover the stretcher.’
‘Great,’ Lopez uttered as the soldiers moved out, and pulled her pistol from its holster.
Ethan lowered the stretcher down onto the ground, glancing at Simmons’s pale face and guessing that he had hours to live. The build-up of pressure on his brain due to the hemorrhage would kill him before nightfall.
Ethan checked his own weapon and squatted down alongside Duran as Kurt and the troops moved out.
‘This isn’t going to work,’ Duran said. ‘We need to get out of here.’
‘You were the one voting to get this guy off the mountain,’ Ethan said.
Duran turned slowly to look at him. ‘That was before we were being hunted.’
Lopez grabbed the old man’s jacket. ‘What’s that now?’
‘High ground on all sides,’ Duran said, and gestured to the valley around them. ‘A natural choke point ahead. Perfect for an ambush.’
Ethan scanned the woods ahead. ‘You’re saying this is deliberate? The terrain is perfect for an attack, but would they even be capable of something like that?’
Duran opened his mouth to reply but he never got the word out.
A crackle of machine-gun fire smashed the silence of the forest as one of the soldiers blazed automatic rounds into the woods. Ethan barely spotted him before a dull, wet, gray rock smashed down barely three feet from where he crouched.
‘Shit, not again,’ Lopez shouted as she whirled and aimed out into the woods to their left.
‘We need to move, now!’ Duran shouted. ‘Grab the stretcher!’
Dana and Proctor lifted the rear of the stretcher as Duran and Ethan grabbed the front.
Another heavy chunk of rock sailed down from above as if tossed on a high arc out of the woods toward them. This one hit the ground just behind Proctor and made the biologist leap into the air with fright.
‘Keep moving,’ Ethan shouted as they plunged forward through the dense foliage.
Another burst of gunfire cracked the air, followed by the splatter of bullets hitting tree trunks, the impacts echoing through the forest around them as Ethan stumbled and struggled beneath the weight of the stretcher, his boots slipping on mud and dead leaves.
A pair of rocks smacked the ground nearby, one of them bouncing off the trunk of a cedar and narrowly missing Lopez’s head.
‘I can’t see it!’ she shouted, aiming wildly into the woods but not firing.
‘You’ll never hit it at this range even if you could see it,’ Duran said. ‘Keep moving.’
Ethan led the way into the ravine, hitting a slope near the bottom. He saw through the trees a narrow creek that ran through the forest toward the valley exit. The soaring slopes of the ravine rose up around them as Ethan deliberately descended toward the creek.
‘You’re giving up the high ground,’ Lopez said as they slipped and slid down the hillside.
‘It’s useless to us now,’ Ethan shouted. ‘We’ll make faster progress in the creek.’
Lopez hit the bottom first and landed in thick mud beside water that was only a few inches deep but was flecked with a thin flotsam of ice. Moments later two heavy rocks crashed into the water either side of her, fountains of frigid water splashing her jacket.
‘It’s still with us!’ she shouted, squinting up into the woods for a target.
Ethan got down the slope with Duran, Dana and Proctor struggling along behind them as they splashed into the creek. The icy water flooded into their boots, so cold it felt as though it were leaking directl
y into Ethan’s bones as they jogged unsteadily along the creek toward the end of the valley.
‘What the hell do we do when we get out of here?’ Lopez asked.
Ethan did not have a good answer for her.
A terrific scream shrieked across the valley from somewhere ahead, like something between a bird of prey and a cougar, and loud enough to ring in Ethan’s ears. His legs shuddered to a halt beneath him, frozen still by the terrifying pitch of the cry.
Duran, Proctor and Dana all froze at almost the same instant, the stretcher quivering and swaying as they stood motionless in the water.
‘That’s not good,’ Duran spat. ‘It’s between us and Kurt’s men.’
Ethan scanned the creek ahead and made his decision. He turned toward the bank and walked out of the water, forcing Duran and the others to follow his every move as he set the stretcher down on the mud.
Then he drew his pistol and set off on foot down the creek.
‘Where are you going?’ Lopez whispered urgently.
‘We can’t run away from it,’ Ethan said. ‘We’ve got to show it that we won’t be intimidated. It’s more wild animal than human, right? That means it can be fooled.’
Lopez stared at him for one disbelieving second, and then she drew her pistol.
‘What did I tell you about us getting in way over our heads?’ she muttered.
Ethan nodded as they started off down the creek.
‘This is the last time, trust me.’
37
Ethan edged forward in the bitterly cold water, keeping himself in plain sight to get a better look at the two hillsides flanking his position. Hugging the banks would get him out of the water and provide cover, but then he would not be able to see any attack coming.
The creek bubbled softly around rocks and fallen branches that were rotting in the damp, moisture-laden air. The bed of the creek was a cobbled morass of polished stones as big as his fist and as smooth as eggshells. He stared thoughtfully down at them for a moment, the water rippling around his boots. Ethan could no longer feel his feet and his hands were numb from the cold.
‘You see anything yet?’ Lopez asked.
‘Nothing,’ he replied, ‘but it’s not throwing rocks now.’
Lopez seemed surprised to realize that the bombardment had indeed stopped. The screech that had echoed through the forest moments before had clearly spooked her and he could hear her breathing coming in short, sharp bursts as she stayed close to him.
Ethan squatted down, and picked up a handful of the big round stones from the bed of the creek. He shoved them into his pockets and zipped them up.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ Lopez asked in confusion.
‘Tell you later,’ he promised as they moved forward.
The creek ahead rounded a gentle corner to the right, a cedar tree growing right out of the bank at a 45-degree angle making a huge arch that loomed over the creek. Ethan glanced up at the immense tree as he eased forward.
‘Our pistols are going to be useless against it,’ Lopez said.
Lopez was right, but he figured they were better with any weapon than without. He realized that the ghoulish scream had affected him more than he thought. He blinked rain out of his eyes and focused on rounding the corner, one finger ready on the trigger and the other tucked behind it in the guard, just in case the cold made him fire by accident.
‘I can’t hear the soldiers,’ Lopez said softly.
Kurt Agry and his team were somewhere up ahead, and the sudden silence after the blasts of automatic fire unnerved Ethan further. More than that, the firing had sounded more sporadic, more panicked. He wondered if Kurt’s men were beginning to crack under the strain of being hunted by an unknown enemy.
‘Kurt’s hold over them is failing,’ Ethan said. ‘It’s unlikely they were briefed in detail about what they would be facing out here.’
Lopez didn’t reply as they slowly rounded the corner and ducked down to pass beneath the thick trunk of the cedar, a web of gnarled and twisted branches forming a dense net in front of them. Fat drops of icy rainwater plopped down around Ethan into the creek as he ducked beneath the trunk, trickling down the collar of his jacket and smelling of rot and stale, musty air.
They emerged from beneath the fallen cedar and edged their way down the creek. Dense coils of dead creepers spilled down from the banks to Ethan’s right, surrounding the rotten core of a tree that had probably fallen years ago, the bark black and sodden.
Ethan led Lopez up to the tangle of creepers and vines and peered over the top down the creek ahead.
A blast of noise crackled toward him and a spray of sodden woodchips spat across his face as he flinched away and ducked back out of sight.
‘Hold your fire!’ Lopez shouted.
Ethan swiped shards and splinters of wood and bark from his face as Lopez, her hands in the air, stepped out into plain view in the creek.
‘Agry?’ she called out. ‘It’s us.’
‘I told you to stay put!’ came the bellowed response.
Ethan cursed as he stepped out in time to see Kurt and three of his men emerge from the cover of pine trees flanking the creek fifty yards further downstream. They jogged through the water toward them, Kurt’s face stained with camouflage paint that had smeared in the damp conditions.
‘We were following it,’ he said to Ethan. ‘Saw you moving and assumed it was waiting for us.’
‘It didn’t come through here,’ Ethan said. ‘We left Duran and the others with the stretcher and headed down this way after it shrieked.’
Kurt nodded, wiping rainwater from his brow. ‘Yeah, we heard it too and figured it had somehow gotten around behind us.’
Lopez frowned, scanning the hills either side. ‘Where the hell did it go then?’
Ethan shrugged, but then a chill pierced him deep as he remembered the raindrops falling from the huge cedar behind them. He turned slowly as the chill crept up his neck, and looked back up the creek at the dense morass of coiled branches and dripping vegetation of the fallen giant cedar.
Now, he could see pinpricks of daylight through the branches and pines that hadn’t been there before.
‘It was in the tree,’ he said in disbelief. ‘I smelled it.’
‘You serious?’ Lopez asked, suddenly nervous.
‘The rain,’ Ethan said, ‘it’s hiding the creature’s odor, but I ducked under the tree and it smelled like rotting wood and stale air.’
Kurt Agry and his men responded instantly, weapons flicking up to aim at the tree as they fanned out across the creek and advanced toward it. Ethan and Lopez followed, circling out wide and staying behind the soldiers.
‘Freakin’ thing must have run from us and headed back toward the group,’ Jenkins uttered. ‘Why the hell did it do that? And why didn’t it drop down on Ethan and Lopez?’
Kurt Agry replied as he edged closer to the tree, his cheek pressed against his rifle.
‘It lured us toward each other, trying to force us to shoot our own.’
Ethan nodded. ‘That’s what I figured.’
‘This thing tried to outwit us?’ Lopez asked in amazement.
‘Damned near worked too,’ Kurt Agry said.
The soldiers watched as Kurt Agry moved underneath the tree, aiming up into the branches, and then lowered his rifle. ‘There ain’t nothing here,’ he said.
Ethan and Lopez lowered their pistols as the soldiers regrouped around their leader.
‘Okay, let’s re-form and get the hell out of this valley while there’s still enough light to see,’ Kurt said.
The soldiers did not move, and Corporal Jenkins raised a black-gloved hand apologetically.
‘Sergeant, we want to know what this thing is that’s following us.’
Kurt Agry turned and looked at the corporal for a long moment.
‘It’s a bear, sergeant. A very clever, very agile, very strong bear.’
Beside Jenkins, one of the troopers swallowed thickly and took a pa
ce toward the sergeant.
‘All due respect, sir, that’s a fine line of bullshit you’re smoking.’
Kurt Agry paced across to the soldier, who stood a good three inches taller than he did, and squared up to him.
‘You got a problem with that, Willis?’
The trooper shook his head. ‘No, sergeant!’
‘Then secure that shit, take point and lead us out of this godforsaken place or I swear I’ll gut you from bow to stern and leave you here to rot, is that clear?’
‘Yes, sergeant!’
Kurt Agry glared at his corporal for a moment longer, and then dismissed him with a flick of his head.
Willis turned and dashed back underneath the tree before jogging away toward the valley exit. Kurt Agry turned to the rest of his men. ‘We’ll form a phalanx, staggered file. This thing hurls any more goddamned rocks at us, I want somebody to have a clear shot at it.’
The troops turned and were about to duck under the tree when a dull thump, like a baseball hitting the glove, echoed through the forest to be followed by a horrendous, blood-chilling scream of agony as though a grown man was having his innards torn out from within him. Ethan winced and Lopez cringed at the terrible noise as Kurt Agry and his men hurled themselves back under the tree and up the other side, sprinting away down the creek after Willis.
Ethan and Lopez crashed through the water behind the soldiers until they came to an abrupt halt in the center of the creek.
‘Oh Jesus,’ one of them uttered.
Ethan staggered to a halt and looked down into the water.
A cloud of dark-red blood was dispersing into the flow of the creek, some of it staining the smooth round rocks protruding from the water. There, lodged between two of them, was a black combat boot, a torn tangle of flesh spilling from the top and a wedge of splintered bone poking out into the air from within.
Lopez covered her mouth as Kurt Agry stepped forward. Lying in the water a few feet in front of him was Willis’s M16 rifle, unfired and abandoned where it had been dropped.
Kurt grabbed the weapon and lifted it from the water with one hand as the other kept his own rifle aiming at the valley exit. Slowly he slung the abandoned weapon over his shoulder and then began backing up toward Ethan.
The Chimera Secret Page 22