With that, the shape changed posture and closed on Ron before he could blink. He thrust his blade forward and screamed. The blade went limp as something held his wrist. “Fucking Jesus! Help me!”
Ken and Olaf closed from opposite sides.
The machete snapped in half. Blood gushed from Ron’s forearm as his hand disappeared from view. “Christ, it’s got me!”
“Hold on!” Ken swung his pick ax, missing at first, then connecting. The creature did not cry as he sank it deep and tore it from the writhing invisible shape. Ken watched Olaf break the shovel and have his knife slapped from his hand.
“The rest of you, run!”
Out of the corner of his eye, Ken watched Tom grab Kara by the hand and start away, back through the graveyard. Lee waddled along behind them, top-heavy under the weight of Ken’s pack. The couple stopped and each of them took him by the hand.
No, not that way, Ken thought.
“Jesus God! Get it off!” Ron struggled in place, his blood now staining his ski parka.
“Olaf! Get him away!” Ken took another swing as the Swede roped his arms under Ron’s for a fireman’s carry. As his strike connected, something formed in the air. A mass, like a stain colored deep green, almost indistinguishable from the underbrush. From far away, it would be difficult to pick out, but close up it was easy to see. It’s bleeding, Ken thought. A smile curled his lips.
His smile ended with a bone-crunching snap. Olaf fell to the ground, Ron on top of him, screaming. There was so much blood that Ken couldn’t tell at first that Ron’s right arm was gone.
It hovered in mid-air, held inside the transparent blur. As Ken watched, it disappeared by degrees, until it was no more.
Ken ran to the two searchers. “Get up! Now!” He pulled Ron to his feet, looping his remaining arm over his shoulder, and ran in the direction of his teammates. He heard Olaf’s heavy footsteps behind him, then the brush shaking. Ken stopped and pivoted. Olaf lay face down on the ground. Dark stains were moving through his wool pants. Ken could not see his feet.
“Go,” Olaf said. “There is nothing you can do.”
Ken stayed in place while Ron vomited. Shock, he thought. He’ll die in minutes from blood loss if I don’t do something. But Olaf…
Before Ken resumed his escape, he watched Olaf turn over and struggle with unseen limbs. Then the creature pulled him away at a shocking speed. Ken could hear him shout something in Swedish before he disappeared behind the trees, then a final shriek seconds before Ron started to swoon.
“No! Damn you, come on! Stay with me, you arrogant prick! Don’t you go out on me, not like this!”
Twenty feet ahead was the Desoto. Tom, Kara and Lee all stood at Ken’s hobbling approach.
“What the hell are you still doing here?” Ken called as he struggled to bring Ron into concealment behind the car.
“We couldn’t leave without you,” Kara said.
“That’s why I gave my pack to Lee. It’s got my compass and the maps.” Ken slapped Ron on the face to rouse him. “Stay with me, Ron. You’re gonna be fine.”
Ron’s eyes rolled as Tom produced a Boy Scouts of America bandana. Kara found some gauze and Ken wrapped it around his bleeding shoulder, using Tom’s belt to tie it off with a rough tourniquet. “Water,” he breathed.
Lee unscrewed the cap and handed the canteen to Ken. He dribbled some into Ron’s mouth. Tom and Kara worked to lay him flat.
Ron’s remaining arm found Ken’s collar and pulled him close. “I’m going to die, right?”
“You’re gonna be fine, we’ve just got to get you out of here in one piece, that’s all.” Ken cringed at his faux pas.
“Don’t let it get me,” Ron said. He let Ken go and struggled to remove his bowie knife.
“I won’t,” Ken said mechanically, afraid he understood what he meant.
“No, I’m serious,” Ron repeated, pressing the knife into Ken’s hands. “Don’t let it get me.”
The other teens hardly breathed as Ken paused, then wordlessly accepted the knife. “We need to build a stretcher,” Ken told them.
“What about that thing?”
Ken looked at Tom. “If he’s getting out of here alive, he needs to come out flat. I could carry him, but that would kill him.”
“Why don’t you carry him until we’re safe?” suggested Kara.
“Shhh!” Lee held one finger to his lips. Their eyes grew wide as they noticed slow, careful rustle of brush growing nearer.
“No time for this.” Ken’s eyes caught sight of the radio attached to Kara’s backpack. He suddenly yearned to hear Paula’s voice more than anything. Ken’s fingers tightened on the knife. “It’s here.”
Slowly, they stood. The thing confronted them from the other side of the car, invisible but for a smear of green about waist high, a stain that looked now dry and dusty like a thick layer of pollen.
“Go away,” Ken commanded. “Haven’t you had enough?”
Lee made a sudden sideways lurch. The creature did not move. Ken suddenly realized that it was focused entirely on him.
“Run,” Ken said lowly. The other searchers looked at him in disbelief. “Split up, but watch where each other goes.”
“That’s crazy,” said Tom.
“It’ll kill us,” said Kara.
“It’ll kill you,” said Lee.
“It wants me because I wounded it,” Ken replied, somehow sure of it. “Now go. Scatter. It’s our only chance.”
Lee went. He launched off one way, awkwardly moving through the trees and around the scattered corpses. The invisible thing did not move.
Ken looked at Tom’s face, alive with bewilderment and sweat. “Watch where Lee goes and catch up with him.”
“What about you? And Ron?”
“We’ll meet up with you guys. Now go.”
“C’mon Tom!” They ran off, hand in hand into the gruesome woods.
Ken looked at the unmoving beast.
“So, it’s just you and me, you bastard.”
Ken watched what could have been its hands run a nail or a claw along the car’s paint, peeling it up in a wide streak. The sound grated into Ken’s bravery.
He knew that if he ran he wouldn’t make it a dozen steps. Still, the more he could toy with it, the farther away his team could get, the faster someone could find help, saving them all.
All except him.
Something grabbed his leg.
Ken nearly messed himself as he looked down to see Ron still clinging to life, barely conscious. If he ran, he couldn’t take the boy with him.
Suddenly Ken remembered the bowie knife in his hand.
“I won’t let it get you, Ron,” he said.
Ken raised the knife and threw it down. The blade arched perfectly, heavily plunging into the meaty part of Ron’s throat. Looking down for only a fraction of a second, he could swear that the boy was smiling. His labored breathing became raspy and wet.
Ken ran.
He heard the creature hurl itself at him, scrambling over the hood. He heard the brush rattle behind him, but then it stopped. Ken kept running. He ran until his heart threatened to pound up and out of his throat. He looped behind a tree, looking desperately for the others. Lee was nowhere in sight. Tom and Kara were still hand-in-hand, racing towards freedom a hundred feet from him.
Why didn’t it follow me? Ken looked back and saw blood spattered on the windows and hood. His heart went slack at a sight of Ron’s amputated leg, discarded and smeared against the trunk of a tree.
Then Kara began to scream.
Ken watched them run, stumbling over dead bodies and between trees like they were participants in some demented three-legged race. He couldn’t see the creature, but he could see the signs: the quick movements through the brush, the couple dodging and lunging at nothing, the screaming, the sheer panic of both as they ran, first out of the graveyard, then back inside, like they were being herded into a corral.
Ken observed the invisible thing cha
se them down, heard them call out to each other. He knew he was next. He thought of Lee. Where had he gone? Did he escape? He was probably already dead. Ken watched the drama unfold like a stranger in his own body. He thought of Paula, of Bruce, of fishing in the river, of his future he put on hold to come here today, and he watched Tom and Kara run and run and run.
Then Kara tripped. Tom came down with her. He watched Tom struggle to arm himself with a fallen branch while Kara screamed, warm red stains beginning to show through her coat sleeves.
Ken had to do something.
He scanned the area for something—anything—that could be a weapon. Ten feet away were the remains of a surveyor clad in a reflective yellow vest. His body lay crumpled atop his folded tripod.
Ken ran to it, pushed the body off, and examined it. The metal showed no decay, just like the plane and cars. Ken grabbed it and ran straight for them.
Tom had forced himself between the thing and Kara, keeping it at bay with the fallen branch. Ken noticed that the green spot was definitely smaller than before. It’s healing, he thought as he swung.
He felt the tripod sink into something but it came away without wounding it. He heard claws whistle past his face and watched Tom’s branch snap in two. A second claw-like strike caught Tom across the face and sent him tumbling.
Kara stood, Swiss army knife poised, and took Tom’s place.
Ken swung wildly, hitting nothing, but driving the creature back, making it easy for Kara to stab it somewhere in the vicinity of the green splotch.
Still it made no sound, but a distorted column of air moved, catching Kara in the torso and knocking her back against a nearby tree, where she hit her head and landed awkwardly at its base. Ken could see the blood flowing fast out of her ears.
“Kara, no!” Tom ran to her while Ken continued his attack. The monster bled more green from Kara’s wound. Her knife, still lodged in its side, waved in the air, making it an easier target.
“Tom,” Ken yelled, “get out of here!”
“I can’t leave her,” he cried, putting his hand behind her head. It came away bloody.
“Tom, save yourself!” Ken’s sentence broke into swearing as the creature lashed him across the face. He could feel his nerves spring into use, pulling blood to the surface.
Tom yelled, “No, you bastard! Not him too!” He threw himself at it.
Ken stumbled backward and fell. Resting on his elbows, he could see Tom hovering two feet above the ground, twitching and struggling with the barbed invisible arm that strangled him. Ken grabbed for his tripod. He stood and steeled himself.
That’s when engine one of the DC-3 roared to life.
Ken felt his bladder release as he turned to find the plane looming behind him. His heart filled with incoherent fear.
The blow from the creature sent him flying. Tom landed beside him. Ken watched his head buckle awkwardly under his body as he rolled.
The plane was moving toward them fast. Ken scrambled to his feet, only to be grabbed from behind and held in place. The back of his jacket ripped away as sharp claws dug for naked skin and found it. The airplane, its right engine emitting a demonic, band saw hum, pivoted forward. Ken screamed.
In the cockpit, he saw something move. Lee waved to him, then ducked out of sight, just as its left wing butted into a tree, sending it turning toward him even faster. It was only ten feet away, arching to slice him to ribbons.
Ken reached back, still screaming, into what he hoped was the face of the thing that held him. He felt something sharp, like spines, and skin the consistency of runny eggs. Ken hit it with all his strength.
The creature did not scream, did not move, it only held Ken toward the roaring engine.
Finally, the left wing snapped.
Rivets flew like bullets as the left wing peeled away from the fuselage. Fuel splashed to the ground. The trees shook.
Ken turned, twisted, struggled to loosen the hold of the creature. It let him go. The DC-3 swept closer. Instead of running, Ken turned and shoved the creature forward into the path of the wounded plane.
For a moment Ken saw the propeller blades shimmer and he thought that the creature had ducked out of the way. Then an emerald rain splashed down on him and covered the wing as the landing gear snapped and the blades ground into the thing and pinned it to the mossy earth. The engine ground to a halt.
As silence returned, Ken took one step forward in disbelief. The mound of molted green now pinned under the wing convulsed and burbled and writhed.
It reached for him.
Ken whirled around and found his tripod. He swung it down again and again. Finally the thing stopped moving.
The sound of rushing fuel and sparking wires was lost on him. The explosion knocked him off his feet, fiery hot debris cutting into the trees and brush. After a time, he pulled himself up and tried to shake it off. Over the sound of crackling, charring metal and the smell of burning corpses, he heard a scream.
Lee.
Ken moved through the smoke to the rear of the plane. Lee was lying in the bare dirt, rolling desperately in and out of the dripping flames. Ken ran to him despite the heat and pulled him out of reach of the hungry fire.
As Ken patted out the spot fires still clinging to his wool, Lee choked out, “Pack’s inside. Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Ken said. “You’re alive, that’s what counts.”
“Not much longer,” Lee said, as coughs wracked his body, and suddenly Ken noticed how labored his breathing was.
“Oh no,” Ken said. “You’re fine. You are going to be just fine.”
Lee pulled a .45 automatic from his belt. It was hot, so he dropped it. “Take,” he managed.
Ken stared at it. “Jesus, where did you find that?”
“Army,” Lee responded. He began making small wet noises with his mouth.
“Okay, let’s get you out of here.”
Lee coughed out words, but Ken couldn’t understand them. He pulled Lee to his feet.
“What did you say?”
“Did we get him?”
“I think so. But let’s not take any chances.” Ken stopped, realizing he was leaving the gun. Lee crouched down to the ground, coughing.
Ken rubbed his back and urged him to get up, but Lee continued to cough, unable to catch his breath. Ken saw that he had coughed blood into the ground in front of him.
Ken looked around, frantic to find him some water to drink. Then Lee’s hands came up to his throat, his eyes grew wide, he let out a wet gurgle, then fell over dead.
Ken could do nothing but sit in silence. Then he cried. They had all been so alive just this morning, and now they were dead, all dead, and it was his fault. I should have known, he kept thinking. I should have known.
Finally, still crying and wearing only the torn, burnt remains of his search gear, he gripped the .45 tight in one hand and walked unmolested into the darkness beyond the valley of the damned.
The fog was thick now, thicker than Ken had ever seen it. It covered him in a web of cold, wet dampness, but that didn’t matter. He wasn’t cold, he hadn’t been for days.
Days? Has it really been days?
His world was one of extremes, hard and soft. The fog was soft. The ground, hard. The moss, the underbrush, soft. The pistol, the .45, that was hard. He gripped it in his hand until his fingers went numb. He went on for a while, forgetting about it, then suddenly it would seem to appear out of nowhere and he would start to remember. Then he would run. He would run until he fell down from exhaustion, crying incoherently, then curl up next to a tree and go to sleep.
Ken knew something wasn’t right. He blamed the fog. It distorted everything, made everything thick. It makes me thick, he thought as he lay down his head to sleep. When he woke, he heard something.
Voices. A choir of voices. Calling his name.
No, he told himself. There’s nobody there. It’s the fog playing tricks on me.
He found himself shouting, crying at the top of his lun
gs. “Over here! I’m over here!”
Then came the noises. The voices he could deny, but not the noises. They filled the forest with clatter, cutting and slashing toward him, producing fast movement through the brush.
Fast movement through the brush!
Ken ran. Now you’ve done it, he thought. You let it find you. Don’t you remember that you’re alone out here? Don’t you remember that you’re all alone, except for that thing?
Shut up, he answered himself as he raced through the underbrush. Shut up shut up shut up!
Ken came to a hillside above a small brook. He meant to stop short but tripped on an exposed tree root and tumbled down the embankment into the shallow water. They were right behind him. Scrambling up, he hid under a dirt outcropping, taking the gun in both hands, bracing his arms straight out.
The noises stopped at the top of the hill. He heard familiar voices speak familiar words, but none of it seemed to make sense, or correspond to why his heart pounded so hard. Then something picked its way down the slope to the water.
He almost recognized her. She wore a yellow raincoat and navy wool pants. She had on a large backpack and dark brown hiking boots. Her hair was tucked up underneath a Greek fisherman’s cap. As she walked within a few feet of him, he pointed the gun at her. It shook in his hands.
The woman didn’t see him. Someone called down to her. “Well? What’s down there?”
She turned to answer and their eyes locked. She stopped and drew a breath.
The resemblance was remarkable. She looked just like a girl he had known. But it couldn’t be her, not out here, not after what happened.
“Ken, is that you?”
Christ, it even sounded like her!
“No,” he said, but not as an answer to her question. “No.” He clicked the safety off.
The voice from above called, “What is it?”
“Don’t come down,” the girl shouted back. She waved her arm to keep the other voice away. “Everything is fine.”
She looked at Ken and smiled. His gun didn’t waver. “Can I take off my pack?”
Lost and Found Page 4