by Leito, Chad
And in the process, it’s made me mentally unstable.
“I’m fine,” Asa whispered to himself.
He was jerked from his thoughts as he heard something again: a clear ‘snap!’ broke the silence. Asa gripped his spear harder, and let out another echolocation cry. This one showed something.
When Asa opened his eyes, they immediately locked onto the source that he had detected with his echo. He crouched lower behind the bush and watched the man through the snowy tangle of branches and leaves, too scared to breath.
Chapter 2
Four Strangers in the Woods
Asa had never seen this person before; he didn’t look like he belonged to the Academy. He wasn’t wearing either the white or black tight suit that the graduates and students wore. A civilian hunter? The man was dirty, with a washed-out brown long sleeve shirt, and camouflaged pants on. Both of these were stained with blood. A knife handle stuck out of a sheath on the man’s hip. There were leaves and sticks in the black mess of hair atop his head and tangled within his thick beard.
The man was muttering something that Asa couldn’t hear, and walking with his head down, lost in thought. Asa’s heart was thudding as he watched him pass. Asa stayed put until the muttering person was lost in the layers of forest. Even at a distance, the mutterings and footsteps of the man could be heard in the quiet.
Asa took another look up through the trees. In all his walks into the woods, he had never been out this far before. The passing stranger, the blood, and the dead primates had left Asa with a nauseating fear…but also with mounting curiosity. The stranger that had walked by Asa didn’t seem to belong to the Academy, as Asa had guessed. Just as the footsteps became too quiet to hear, Asa stood and began to follow in the snow.
The man wasn’t moving quickly, and at a light jog Asa had the man within sight after one minute. The man veered slightly right at a place in the forest that looked completely ordinary to Asa. Asa followed, the spear still clutched in his hand.
Even while moving, Asa was shivering in the cold air; when the wind blew, he had to catch his breath. He turned the heat on his suit up more and wondered how the man was able to stand the temperatures in such little clothing. They continued on, walking through beams of light that penetrated the canopy above. Asa saw nothing in the man’s walk that suggested he knew he was being followed.
Finally, the dirty man came to a campfire in a clearing. There were three camouflage tents set up, and the smell of meat drifted to Asa’s nose from a pot on the fire.
There was a woman sitting on a log near the fire. Coils of rope were laid at her feet, and she was snaking them through her hands, making knots occasionally. It looked like the same kind of rope that the monkeys had been tied up with. Asa saw her head turn to look at the man he had been following. Asa ducked behind a thick tree, scared she would see him.
“Eyyy! Joney!” She cried. “What kept you so long, you weren’t peakin’ up at the kiddos on the Mount, I don’t suppose?”
“Shut up!” Joney said. They both had accents that Asa didn’t recognize, but they sounded closer to Australian than anything else. “That was once, Edna, you hear me? Once, I was peakin’ in on ‘em and you won’t let it go. Michael has let it go! Why won’t you?”
“I’m only teasin’, my friend. Here, sit. The stew is almost ready.”
Joney obeyed and for a long while they were quiet. Asa kept his back against the tree trunk, and occasionally sent out echolocation calls to make sure that they had not quietly gotten up from their log in an attempt to sneak up on their eavesdropper. He had thought that finding the source of the dead monkeys would help to answer some of his questions, but he was now more confused than ever. What are these people doing here? Do they have any idea who the “kiddos on the Mount” are? Asa decided that he would watch for a time, and then, if these were indeed human hunters, he would warn them of the danger that they were in; If the Academy finds them, they’re dead; if they run into a Rock Dragon, they’re dead. For now though, he needed to observe for longer.
After a time, Asa hid his spear under a bush, sprinkled some snow over it, and climbed high up into the tree so that he could observe the two people without much risk of being noticed. Given his abnormal strength, Asa was able to climb vertically up the bark using only his hands and feet. If the two of them saw me climb, I’d bet that they’d drop their things, scream and run. Asa smiled as the thought crossed his mind.
He found a small nook up above and was able to stand on a branch while looking around the trunk at the two people. He was so high up that it would have been difficult for someone to notice him at any angle. Asa was actually starting to calm down a bit. At the sight of the dirty people, he was fairly confident that they couldn’t be from the Academy. The Academy had far too much money to have members who looked like this. After a few minutes of staring at the people below him, Asa believed that they hadn’t had haircuts in years. All people affiliated with the Academy are offered exceptional grooming services, free of charge. There was a salon ran by raccoons in the middle of Town: you just pointed to a picture of a haircut you wanted, and they delivered perfectly. The raccoons worked much faster than a human barber could.
Edna stood, brushing dirty brown hair off her forehead, and walked around the fire. There was a small backpack next to one of the tents and she squatted down and began looking through it. Joney stopped his work with the ropes and looked at her. “What’re you doin’, Edna?”
“Looking for my knife. Can’t find it. Must’ve…”
Asa had to use self-control not to gasp. While Edna’s back was turned, Joney picked up a knife that was sitting under the log, and reared back. The blade was long and thick—a hunter’s knife, and Joney held it between his thumb and forefinger. He looked as though he had thrown a knife before. With a quick lunge of his entire body, Joney fired the knife right at the woman who was kneeling only feet from him. The blade moved at an incredible speed, flipping end over end through the fire towards the target.
As the blade was sailing towards Edna’s exposed back, Asa’s mind was baffled. In that split second between the time the knife was picked up to the time it stopped moving, he thought: Why kill her?
One moment, the blade was flying towards Edna, and the next, it was in her hand, motionless and harmless. Asa gripped the bark a little harder after seeing the spectacular catch. She had moved so quickly that Asa wasn’t even able to see what had happened. Asa felt his pulse quicken at the super human display of speed.
“It was on the floor, you dummy!” Joney cried. “Right where you left it!”
Edna pulled the knife back, and flung it at Joney. This throw, like the first, was well over 100 miles per hour, and, like the first, was easily caught. Asa’s unease was returning.
“Don’t be throwin’ knives at me!” Edna said back, and a slight smile played on her lips, which opened just enough for Asa to see the black gums underneath.
Multipliers!
Now Asa felt utterly trapped, and his heart was beating away in his chest wildly. He felt sick.
Edna the Multiplier came back and sat next to Joney and resumed the work on the ropes. Their hands were moving oddly fast, and their motions were incredibly precise.
“So really,” Edna went on, “if you weren’t peakin’ in at the kiddos, why were you gone for so long then?”
“A couple of the traps we set were full and, I’ll be honest with you, I got a little lost coming back.”
“How do you get lost ‘ere?”
“It’s easy. There’s not much to guide you with once you go out there closer to the mountains. And besides, I’ve only been here a couple weeks. It ain’t like I had ever been to the Academy b’fore.”
“Tha’s for sure,” Edna said. “Only the best and brightest git to go, so no way you’d been there!”
“Ehh! Shut up now!”
“Only joking, mah friend,” Edna said.
Asa felt as though he were frozen to the tree. His legs were s
haking beneath him, and he was quietly admonishing himself for following Joney out to this campsite. These people aren’t from the Academy, they don’t even know how to get around the premises. So who turned them into Multipliers? And what are they doing here?
Asa’s jaw was clenched, and he was breathing very rapidly through his teeth. He felt as though he might vomit when a third person entered the camp.
“Just in time, Michael,” said Edna. “Stew’s ready.”
Michael did not look pleased. He was the heaviest and tallest of the three Multipliers, with a thick mustache and a balding head. He wore a Hawaiian shirt, blue jeans and cowboy boots. His steps were heavy and loud. “What’ve you two been doin’ while I’ve been gone?” His voice was deep and carried well.
Edna and Joney looked at each other. Michael had his hands on his hips, waiting with a stern expression on his face.
“Just passin’ the time, sir! Honest!” Joney said.
Michael chortled. “What’s the rope for, then?” His face was beginning to turn red.
“You told us to hunt!” Edna said.
Michael kicked up some dirt and snow with the toe of his boot—“WHAT DID I SAY? I was gone one day, and what was the one thing that I told you not to hunt?”
Joney stood, his hands outstretched in plea. “But we don’t understand, sir! Isn’t it a good thing? The monkeys have been a threat from the start!”
“I didn’t ask you to understand,” Michael spat back. “I asked you to not kill any monkeys. And you know what I sees on my way in? Dead monkeys. You two is supposed to be huntin’ for food, not to settle some score. Our orders are to stay low until we get word from the Hive. Is this what you call stayin’ low? Do you want Fran to get involved in this?”
Joney and Edna were both on their knees now. Asa couldn’t see Edna’s face, but when she spoke it sounded like she was crying. “Sir! Please! Forgive us!”
“How long have they been hangin’ up?” Michael asked.
“The monkeys? About an hour or so.”
“And how many are there?” Michael had his arms crossed and was looking at the two of them.
“Only three, sir, honest!” Edna cried.
“Well, go get ‘em down. And if you see any kind of animal hangin’ round the bodies, kill it. Even if it’s one of the kiddos from the Mount, kill the poor thing. I ain’t havin’ this mission fail one week in because the two of ya’ can’t follow orders.” They were all still for a moment, then Michael screamed, “NOW! GO!”
Edna and Joney scrambled to their feet, and sprinted out of the clearing. They were moving much too fast to notice Asa, high up in the tree. Michael heavily readjusted his belt, groaned, and sat down on a log next to the fire. Asa watched as he carefully removed the lid to the stew and examined it.
Silent tears were streaming down Asa’s face. He hadn’t understood what kind of mission Michael was talking about, but he knew enough to understand that if he didn’t act fast these people would have no trouble killing him.
And, maybe they know about the contract. Since they are Multipliers, maybe the mission they’re talking about is to kill me. Asa looked at the Multiplier far below him begin to eat hot stew right out of the boiling pot with a spoon. What’ve I done?
Involuntarily, Asa let out a soft, high-pitched moan. He clasped his hands over his mouth and was instantly silent. Far below on the log, Michael’s spoon paused halfway between the pot and his mouth. He looked around for a moment, and then he glanced up into the trees. Asa saw that his eyes were blue.
Asa retreated behind the trunk once again, and the tears fell faster, and his chest heaved up and down with breaths. He saw me! He saw me! He saw me!
Asa knew that this was no time to let fear paralyze him. He screamed out an echolocation cry, closed his eyes, and saw that Michael had resumed his meal. Asa sighed with relief, and considered his options.
Looking up, Asa saw that the canopy above consisted of an interlinking network of trees. If I could climb to the top, I could crawl over to the next tree. Asa decided against this because he feared that his weight would make the branches creak.
Asa heard Michael slurping stew from his spoon below.
Next, he looked at a straight shot before him into the forest. Asa considered jumping and gliding through the woods; not only would that be noisy, but it would also be easy to see. If Edna and Joney come back while I’m flying through the air, I’m dead.
Asa’s pulse beat in his neck, and he wiped tears from his cheeks. He let out another echolocation cry and saw that Michael was still concentrating on the stew. He had wanted to find a way out of this situation besides crawling down the tree and moving across the ground. Going to ground level would get Asa closer to Michael, which was something that he did not want to do.
But if Joney and Edna come back before I leave, I’m dead.
Unable to come up with a better idea, Asa grasped the cold bark, and began to slowly make his way down to the floor level. Asa let out echolocation calls every few moments. Michael remained in the same place until Asa was ten feet from the floor.
“Hello?” Michael called. Catching an echo, Asa could see that the Multiplier had put his spoon down. “Edna? Joney?”
In his all white suit, and hanging just above eye level, Asa was painfully aware of how hard it would be for someone approaching to miss him. The moment continued on; Michael remained still, his head cocked, listening. Though Asa was stronger than natural, he had his limits. His pectorals and biceps began to burn with the effort and he wondered how much longer he could hold on to the bark.
“Stupid idiots,” Michael muttered, and he went back to slurping up spoons of stew.
When Asa reached the base of the tree, he carefully placed his feet into the snow. He paused for a moment, listening. When Michael took another slurp, Asa stepped forward.
He moved slowly at first, but after a dozen yards, Asa stood upright and moved faster, aware that he was no longer hidden behind the tree trunk. He began to run the first moment he thought it was appropriate.
Using the looming mountains as a gauge, he made a wide circle around where he believed the two hanging monkeys were. Asa moved over the ground at a speed he would have thought was impossible seven months ago. He was churning cold air in and out of his lungs. His mind was buzzing with the events that he had just witnessed, and he kept thinking to himself: Please, just let me get out of here, just let me get out of here, just let me get out of here.
The run reminded him of the jogs he had taken behind his house when he was younger. His mother had come down with the Wolf Flu, and it was painful to be in the house. There were times when Asa would go out and jog for hours. He had learned that there was a point, about two hours in, when the pain and muscle aches actually began to subside a bit, and the rhythm of his feet underneath grew easier. The exercise offered him a way out of reality, so that he didn’t have to think of his mother lying sick on the couch.
Asa picked up his speed: he was now bolting along the mountainside, taking enormous leaps over bushes and rocks. He pushed himself harder and harder until his thighs and calves began to burn and he was gasping for air. Subconsciously, he was doing the same thing he had done when he was younger: he was trying to hide from reality in a wall of pain. He didn’t want to think about the Multipliers he had just encountered or what it could mean that they secretly inhabited the mountains around the Academy, apparently on some sort of mission…
Asa dug into the ground, trying not to think.
I think I have a pretty good idea of what they want…
His feet moved even faster, and he began to hiss in and out of his teeth, feeling the consuming pain of lactic acid building in his muscles. He smiled, unable to think, and didn’t let up.
Throughout the course of the next few minutes, he covered two miles, leaving behind a track of kicked up dirt and snow behind him. He was just starting to slow down when he heard a scream break through the forest.
Instinctively, Asa hit t
he floor, sliding along the snow with momentum. Though his brain was low on oxygen, and the ache in his muscles had been consuming him, the cry brought him back to reality, and he began to think again. The scream sounded as though it had come from a young person in distress. He army crawled over to the nearest bush, and tried to let out an echolocation cry.
Panting hard, the cry was unsuccessful. Asa’s lungs hadn’t been able to produce enough force. He stayed quiet, trying to catch his breath, and listened.
Close by, he heard grunting. There was a familiar creaking sound that he associated with the white monkeys, strung up by their feet and dead. A female’s voice cursed softly, and Asa believed that he was in the vicinity of someone that he hadn’t yet encountered.
He looked behind him to make sure that Joney or Edna hadn’t followed the path he made through the woods. All was clear and quiet. Asa tried again to let out an echolocation cry, but was still too winded to do so. He slithered on his belly around the bush, and saw the female who had made the cry.
As Asa had anticipated, this person had stepped into the same trap as the monkeys had. She was wearing dirty blue jeans, and a muddy, white t-shirt. Though she was dirty, she wasn’t as unkempt as the three Multipliers around the campfire had been. This female appeared to have had her hair groomed recently; she had neat, shoulder-length dirty-blond hair (that was hanging towards the ground at the moment), and although her clothes were dirty, they weren’t tattered or ripped.
Asa felt the old anxiety begin to build inside of him: there was that awful feeling that everywhere he went, something bad was about to happen. He was miserably alert as he observed the girl.