ZooFall

by Lawrence Ambrose

  "I don't know," Penny moaned.

  Myth moved away from the tree to the edge of the clearing. "I don't smell her or Zurzay on the ground here. They may have flown away during the attack."

  "Flown?" asked Gunnar.

  Dan smiled at him. "She rides on the creature's back if you can believe it."

  Gunnar snorted. "What about any of this is believable?"

  They paused to watch Curly trot out into the meadow, snout near the ground. Dan and Gunnar exchanged a shrugging glance and moved out after him. They were now visible to any watchful eyes from the surrounding forest, but a confrontation was inevitable no matter how stealthy they were. With four well-armed individuals – two of them former elite soldiers – they could lay down a line of fire that would surely deter even the most obstinately determined group of Nazrene.

  The addition of Gunnar provided a huge lift to Dan's confidence. They were now a force to be reckoned with. And he wasn't even counting Penny's dog, which looked more than capable of doing some serious reckoning himself. It was also good to have another man onboard – someone to talk to, to bounce strategies off. Myth might be awesome physically now, and no doubt intelligent, but she lacked the warrior perspective – not to mention a human perspective.

  By the time they reached the cylinder, Dan was half-hoping the Nazrene would charge out of the woods they were approaching and attack them. A half-mile of open killing field – couldn't get much better than that. But the alien apes were not mindless monsters. They'd wait in the trees and try to ambush them at close-quarters. "Try" being the operative word. That might work against a mere human, but there were three beings in his troop that he suspected could easily sniff out their presence in advance – an incredible edge in a combat situation. Made him wonder if some DOD geek hadn't been working on odor-detectors to complement night vision and heat detection.

  Dan, Myth, and Gunnar entered the landing craft while Penny and her four-legged companion assumed guard duty outside. Empty boxes and a smattering of their contents were strewn across its sandy floor. Unlike the Glenwald cylinder, this craft had three doorways which helped shed light on its interior. Dan, Myth, and Gunnar picked their way through the debris, stopping to inspect anything that struck them as interesting. Most of it consisted of empty leather-like pouches and containers.

  "They were here," said Myth. "Diana and Zurzay. And someone else..." She drew in a deep breath through her nose.

  "A man," said Penny.

  "Gary," said Myth. "Gary Hanson."

  Dan straightened up from inspecting a box and stared at her. "The Gary Hanson that killed and ate his sister?"

  "Yes."

  "But what..." Dan frowned at the possibilities, which on further thought didn't seem so bad. Starting with the fact that Diana and her friend had survived the attack at the tree. "He must've followed them. Or been following the Nazrene and ran into them." He noted Gunnar's raised eyebrows. "Gary was another Adderall survivor."

  "There is someone else." Myth was inhaling hard through her nose. "But it's coming mostly from outside. I think it may be a female."

  "It smells like you, Mr. Jenson," said Penny. "But softer."

  Hope flickered and then flared in Dan, burning through his veins in one molten burst.

  "Sonja?" he croaked, the word barely emerging. "Laurie?"

  "That's possible," said Myth.

  Dan focused on downsizing the torrent of emotion. He had to stay on point.

  Myth retrieved a small jar and scooped a wad of blue goop out on three fingers.

  "This could help you, Dan," she said. "It's a powerful healing cream."

  "It can heal broken bones?" Dan's smile was skeptical.

  "Help heal anything."

  "Should I remove my splint?"

  "I don't think it's necessary. Just put on your forearm should work."

  Okay." Dan extended his arm. "Lay it on me."

  Myth dabbed on the blue cream between the wood slats and duct tape on his forearm. He thought what the hell and rolled up the jeans on his right leg, pointing to his knee. Myth rubbed in the last of the goop where he pointed.

  The effect was startling and immediate: deep pulses that reminded him of electro-stimulation treatments he'd received for his high school football knee injury raced back and forth through his forearm and around his knee. There was no pain or discomfort. He straightened his leg and rolled down his pants, placing more weight on his ginger right knee than he had since the injury. It felt solid. The dull ache in his left forearm receded. Placebo effect? But why question that an alien race that had the technology to destroy a civilization could also create something that saves lives?

  "How does it feel?" Gunnar asked.

  "Good." Dan shot him a smile. "Almost as good as Vern Gagne's miracle iron elixir."

  "Wow. That good." Gunnar laughed. "I'm surprised a young whippersnapper like you would know about that."

  "My grandfather was a great fan of that wrestling era. He forced me to watch reruns with him."

  "Lucky you."

  "Let's see if we can find more of that stuff." He turned to Myth. "Or anything else you know of that's useful."

  After shuffling through the debris the only other thing they found was some flat stones that Dan guessed were fire-starting flint. He flexed his injured arm and leg a few times, experiencing only minor pain. For the moment, he thought, this day was looking up.

  Outside the ship, Myth and Penny located a clear scent of Diana and the boy, which they followed toward the forest on the other end of the meadow. Sixty or seventy meters out a gust of wind burst from the trees. Myth and Penny jerked to a stop and Curly snarled simultaneously.

  "They're waiting in the trees," Penny announced, one hand on the bristling giant bear-dog creature at her side.

  "The Azrene," said Myth.

  Dan stared into the woods. Was that a hint of red and blue where there should only have been brown and green? "How many?"

  "Many," said Myth.

  "Let's hold up here for a minute," said Dan. "See if they show their hand."

  They stood abreast gazing into the forest. The forest gazed back. Once or twice, Dan thought he glimpsed a tiny motion, but it might've been merely a branch in the breeze.

  "Didn't you say the females have language, Myth?" Dan asked.

  "Yes."

  "The language of the Keepers, right? Which you speak?"

  "Do you want me to address them?"

  Dan thought for a moment. "Why don't you tell them we don't have a beef with them. Some of their males took three of our people and we intend to take them back." Dan paused. "They really don't like their males much, do they? Maybe they wouldn't want to oppose us?"

  "It is possible." Doubt flickered across the triangular planes of her pretty girl-man face. "But you cannot trust them. They believe all are meant to serve their will, and they will use any deception or force to make that happen."

  "I guess the Keepers didn't get that memo."

  "No." A smile crept onto her full lips. "My people didn't get it, either."

  "Okay, well, let's sound them out."

  Myth raised her voice. It was the first time Dan had heard her speak loudly and was surprised by the high, powerful, and oddly beautiful soprano notes her unintelligible alien words formed. The language was a vaguely melodic, Arabic-chant mixed with staccato and drawn-out buzzing sounds.

  "You of the people who birth beauty and color, I am Myth. You do not know me or my kind, but I know something of you. I take the form of the strongest creatures on this world. Not so strong in flesh but in mind, in the ability to control the forces around them with their great tools. They are called 'human beings.' We are looking for three that your unbound brethren took from them: two females and one male youth."

  A low murmur filtered through the trees. Myth wasn't sure the men could hear it, but Penny and her Zemzorik's heads were cocked as if they did.

  "We have seen them," a voice from the woods replied.

  "Can
you tell me where they are?"

  "If you please us with trade."

  "We have many things. The humans have many tools."

  "We want the fire-spears. Those spears which send small stones of death."

  "You mean this." Myth tapped the AR in her arms.

  "Yes. And show us how to use them."

  Myth thought quickly. What she said next could decide whether the Azrene cooperated or tried to kill them.

  "They need their fire-spears," she said. "But we can find others for you. But you must take us to the stolen humans."

  "We ask only for two of the fire-spears."

  "We will show you a place where you can have as many as you wish, but we cannot give these up."

  Myth listened to them whispering among themselves. She wished her ears were good enough to hear the words.

  "What's going on?" Dan asked. To him, the Azrene speaker had sounded more like the atonal serenade of a cat in heat than Myth's melodic calls.

  "She says they know where your family is," said Myth, "and they will take us to them if we give them two of our weapons and show them how to use them."

  "Like hell," Gunnar grunted.

  "That's not happening," Dan agreed.

  "I told them we can take them somewhere to obtain guns but we won't give ours up."

  "Have they replied to that?"

  "Not yet."

  Then the cat serenade began again.

  "You will give us one fire-spear now and others later," the Azrene speaker replied. "When you have done this, we will take you to the humans you seek."

  Myth translated that for Dan and the others.

  "I got another idea," said Gunnar. "We pretend to go along, and, depending on their numbers, kill them all except one. That should make the survivor more cooperative about taking us to your family."

  Dan turned to Myth. "Is that feasible at all?"

  "The Azrene have poison glands in their mouths," she said. "They can kill with a bite or even their spit if it strikes your eyes or a wound. Or they can place it on their claws – a mere scratch being enough to kill a full-grown male of their kind."

  "In other words, if you're anywhere near them they can kill you in a second."

  "Yes, Dan. Also, they resist any form of control. The Keepers maintained almost no personal interaction with them, unlike the Nazrene and many other species. They considered them one of the most dangerous species."

  "Great." Dan rubbed the short reddish-brown beard that was forming on his face. "Myth, ask them why the males took my family."

  "The human wishes to know why your males took his bond-mate and progeny," Myth addressed them.

  "They have said they will offer them us as gifts for favors during the upcoming binding cycle," the speaker replied.

  Myth translated.

  "What the hell does that mean?"

  "It is customary for the males to offer gifts in return for safe breeding," said Myth. "I have never heard of those gifts being living things."

  "My wife and children as gifts." Dan could feel the enamel on his teeth starting to crack. He massaged his jaw. "What would the females do with them?"

  "I don't know, Dan. Perhaps they would use them as the males have?"

  Dan sputtered out a low growl. Gunnar clamped a large hand on his shoulder.

  "I'm starting to like the nuclear option," he said. "Kill them all and let their gods or demons sort them out. From what I can see, with your bloodhounds here, human and otherwise, we should be able to track down your family fine without them."

  "You might be right," said Dan, willing himself up from the depths of his personal nightmare. "But we'll give them a chance. They take us to my family, and we'll give them guns. In that order. Final offer."

  "Of course, you wouldn't fulfill that deal," said Gunnar.

  "Not a chance. But they won't know that."

  "And if they turn down our generous offer?"

  Dan considered that for a long few seconds. "We give them an ultimatum. Clear the path and let us go our way. We need to stay on the trail. If they decline" – he met Gunnar's gaze – "we'll go 'nuclear.'"

  "Sounds fair."

  "Tell them, Myth," said Dan.

  Myth launched her words in her high, clear soprano. "The humans have said you must show them the location of their people and then they will provide you with fire-spears. They will negotiate no further on this point."

  "You will have no power to negotiate if your bodies lie in the grass and are consumed by worms."

  "This is true. Shall I tell them you have rejected their offer and declared your promise of death upon them?"

  The Azrene murmured sharply among themselves.

  "They threatened us with death," said Myth quietly. "But that is routine for them."

  Dan stared at her. "They're bluffing, then?"

  "Not necessarily."

  The scratchy warbling of Azrene words issued from the forest.

  "We agree to lead you to the area," said the speaker. "But once we are there we will tell you the exact place only after receiving many fire-spears and teachings of their use."

  Myth relayed the message to her group.

  "Tell them we will follow them," said Dan. "But to keep their distance. Tell them we understand their capabilities and they should understand ours – the ability to strike them at a distance. If they approach us without permission, we will kill them. Does that sound about right?"

  "Yes. The Azrene do not respect weakness."

  Myth conveyed the message. The group waited until the Azrene began to withdraw into the woods before continuing forward across the grass.

  "I can smell the female clearly now," said Myth. "It is your daughter, Laurie."

  "Just her?" Had the vermin killed the rest of her family?

  "Your family came through here, but her scent is the strongest. She is now separate from them."

  "So what does that mean?" Dan hungered for the olfactory sense that she and Penny had. "She escaped?"

  "Her scent is strongly intermingled with Gary and Diana's," Myth answered. "It seems that she is now with them."

  "They helped her escape somehow."

  The news was getting better and better. It required much of Dan's will to clamp down on his surging optimism. They were far from being out of the woods yet. Many, many miles to go before they could rest, as the saying went. Fortunately, his injured knee felt strong and his general sense of physical well-being was soaring.

  "We should get more of that blue goop," he said.

  "If we see another ship, we could look for more," said Myth.

  They entered the trees with heightened wariness, but the Azrene seemed to be following the program of staying well-ahead. In fact, they were moving far faster than the group. Gunnar was dragging his heels a bit rolling his bike and its weighty baskets through the uneven ground and over brush and fallen limbs, while Myth continued to pull the two-wheeled trailer. Gunnar brushed thick, sweaty grey-blond locks from his eyes, breathing hard. He caught Dan looking at him and rasped out a laugh.

  "That's what getting old is like, Dan," he said. "A bad hair day that never ends."

  "You could take a spell in the bike trailer," said Dan. "You wouldn't mind pulling him, would you, M?"

  "It would be my great honor, Dan."

  Dan wondered if she was being facetious.

  "No thanks," Gunnar grunted. "I can pull my own weight. Just need to get my second or maybe third wind. Too bad I forgot to pack my Ritalin."

  Perhaps sixty meters ahead, the Azrene stood waiting in a small clearing, a note of impatience or perhaps puzzlement in their gazes back at them. It was their first good look at their surly escorts. Dan counted eleven of them, dressed in a crazy-quilt pattern of multi-colored fabric that covered the central mass of their bodies while leaving their legs and arms unencumbered. They seemed somewhat shorter, less densely muscled, and more human-like than their male counterparts. An impression solidified by some of them standing with hands on their hips
in a classic feminine portrayal of impatience.

  "Those ladies look like they just stepped out of a fashion show from hell," Gunnar murmured. He sniffed a few times, his brow wrinkling. "Am I imagining things or do I smell perfume?"

  "The Azrene wear odor-enhancers," said Myth.

  "That's what you call it?" Dan shook his head. "Smells like kerosene mixed with Old Spice to me."

  "Chanel #666."

  Gunnar laughed and Dan chuckled with him. In the clearing ahead, the Azrenes' postures had turned wary, if not downright suspicious, Dan thought.

  "Tell them not to wait for us, Myth," he said. "We can follow them at our own pace."

  Myth called out Dan's message. The Azrene turned away and resumed their bounding lope with an air of reluctance.

  "If they were human," said Dan, "I'd guess they were acting like they don't trust us much."

  "The Azrene trust no one," Myth assured him. "Not even themselves."

  "Must be a fun group to be around," said Gunnar. "Are you reconsidering the nuclear option, Dan?"

  "Not quite yet. Also, I'm getting this idea..." Dan paused. "Maybe a bit farfetched, but I'm thinking if we play this right, we might convince the Azrene to get Donny and Sonja away from the males and then hand them over to us."

  "Huh. Interesting notion."

  "We don't know what we're walking into, Gunnar. For all we know the pack that abducted my family is joining up with some much larger unit. They've apparently joined up with at least one other pack so far. We might face a number that our weapons can't offset."

  "So we use the ape fashionistas to get the job done." Gunnar gave him a thin, skeptical smile. "And what happens when our new girlfriends don't get their guns?"

  Dan smiled back, even more thinly. "I'm guessing we'll need to send them to that cosmetic school in the sky."

  Chapter 15

  GETTING KINDA BUSY DOWN there, Gary thought, gazing down from the roof of a press building atop a football field stadium at a dozen or more campfires in the large greenbelt/park north of what Diana called "The Hub." The male monkey-things had set up there. To the south, even more fires marked the female camp.

  Until now, he hadn't seen any contact between the two camps, but as he watched, three lines of females strutted into the male camp bearing tall torches that made their fancy outfits sparkle and shine like a damn marching rainbow. They stopped and stood like a bunch of snooty fucking princesses while the males crawled up to them on all fours, heads lowered. Gary shook his head at the pathetic display. Jeez, guys, have some fucking pride! But the dumb monkeys just bowed that much lower while the princesses or whatever they were stuck their ugly pug snouts in the air.