Coyote (16 page)

The others now stood again, all their weariness forgotten. They looked at one another, wondering what to do. Soon she could hear a crackling in the woods, as if something was moving through the forest—something large. It was getting louder, coming closer. The dog’s barking had increased in pace and volume, becoming almost one continuous roar, punctuated only by its need to stop for breath every few seconds. Still the noises from the forest grew louder, until they began to drown out the barking.

She turned to others, yelling “Run!” intending to head back out to the highway they had come from. But at that same moment something came crashing out of the inky dimness of the forest and across the camp road.

She couldn’t get a good picture of what it was. All she had was an overall impression of bigness. It thundered out of the forest, pushing whole trees over into the road as it went, moving across the road and ending up between the group and the highway. It was large—larger than anything she had seen before. That was all she saw as she turned away from it.

Glancing over her shoulder, she still couldn’t process what she was seeing. There was something odd about the anatomy of the thing—something off. Between the falling trees, the chaos of their flight, and the sheer strangeness of what she was seeing, her brain couldn’t make sense of what was pursuing them. It was incredibly large and thick, seeming to be the size of a small house. There were several great, thick legs propelling it along, and it was dark in color, either black or a dark brown. There was no time to study it further. There was only time to run.

“Run!” she yelled again, now turning away from the highway, and moving down the camp road, deeper into the campground. Mule had already been on that side of their camp site, and was ahead of her now. After only a few steps, Bait came tearing by them both, speeding down the road and away from whatever was behind them. Turning to look over her shoulder, she saw the rest of the group running after her, and the dog still behind them all, now standing on the camp road facing what she could only call a beast, as it lumbered in his direction.

“Dog, come!” she yelled, but the dog only glanced back at her, then turned again to face the beast. Anyone could see it was a hopeless challenge. The dog was no bigger than one of the many feet that propelled the beast, and that would soon crush the dog if it didn’t move.

“Come!” she yelled again. “Dog! Run!” then with a sense of inspiration, “Ke mně!” At that the dog turned tail instantly, running back towards her and catching the group quickly. Soon it was jogging at her side, casting worried looks back at the beast as it lumbered after them.

“Běž!” she yelled then, and the dog tucked its ears back, lowering itself and lengthening its stride, passing them all and disappearing down the camp road. Good enough, she thought.

They all ran pell-mell down the camp road. Coming to the other side of the campground, she saw Bait, bouncing nervously up and down at the edge of the road. The dog stood beside him, and both were looking back to her as if for directions. From there the road curved back toward where they had entered the campground. Bait pointed off to his right.

“There’s a trail here!” he yelled. “The trail or the road? The trail or the road?”

“The trail!” she yelled. The beast seemed to be gaining on them a bit on the open road. Perhaps the forest would slow it some.

Bait took off down the trail, with the dog loping at his heels. She had just come to the start of the trail herself, when she saw Bait skid to a stop ahead of her, and turn back.

“Not a trail!” he yelled. “Just an outhouse!”

“Don’t go back!” she yelled back, not stopping her own progress. In a few steps she was running past him, then past the dog, who turned to follow her again. “Run! Into the forest! See if it slows this thing down.”

By now the whole group was on the trail, and as she reached the end, seeing that there was indeed an outhouse and an end to the trail, she jumped over a fern and plunged into the woods, weaving around trees, under branches, tripping through ditches but stumbling onward, keeping her feet through luck more than grace.

The others followed, and they began to bunch up in the undergrowth. Behind her, she soon heard a different sort of splintering, which must have been the beast crashing through the outhouse and then pushing into the forest behind them.

They were too noisy, too slow. It was going to catch them, she realized.

---

“Scatter!” she yelled. “Scatter and hide!”

Unquestioning, they peeled off in different directions, each pushing and dodging through the forest’s undergrowth. She quickly lost sight of all but the few closest to her. She could see Mule off to her right. There was another shadow past him, but she was not sure who it was. Already in the lead, Bait had taken off straight ahead and was quickly out of sight.

The dog had come back to run at her heels. Together they veered to the left. Thirty quick steps and she took her own advice, diving into a think bush and hunkering down.

“Lehni. Kryj se,” she told the dog, who had followed her into the bush. The dog turned to face where they had come, and where the noises of the beast could still be heard, then laid on its belly, ears flat. Still it rumbled its low warning growl, deep in its chest.

“Ticho,” she said, and the dog was quiet.

She scooted forward a bit on her belly, peeking through the leaves of the bush, looking for the others. She saw nobody, which was good. They had all either escaped or gone into hiding, like her. The beast, a huge shadow in the darkness, was easy to spot, though. It was blundering about in the forest, perhaps forty yards from her hiding place.

Now she had the time to get a good look at the thing, but the darkness and the undergrowth between her and the beast combined to ensure that she could make out even fewer details than she had in her first, hurried glances back at the campground. All she could discern was its vast, dark bulk crashing through the trees.

It swished its enormous bulk back and forth, searching for the people it had just been chasing, but who had now disappeared. It didn’t seem to be using a sense of smell, which was a relief, and it didn’t seem to have any plan to its search. Perhaps it wasn’t very smart. It was just meandering about, thrashing through bushes and smaller trees as if they weren’t there, rumbling over and through boulders and deadfalls, and only stopping to change direction when some of the largest trees proved too tough for even its mass.

She was afraid, though, that even without a thought or a plan, the thing would stumble across somebody soon enough. They couldn’t have gone far—there hadn’t been time.

This thought soon proved prophetic. As the thing blundered through one particular patch of shrubbery, she heard scream rise briefly over the sound of snapping branches, only to be abruptly cut off. It was a woman’s scream.

The beast stopped, as if to wonder what the noise had been. She saw a shape break cover and flee from the carnage. Soon the beast noticed, too, and turned to pursue its quarry. She couldn’t see who it was in the darkness, but judging by the scream it must be Medic. She was being smart about it, dodging and weaving, turning, and moving behind obstacles, obviously looking to hide again. Medic moved surprisingly quickly. She had not thought Medic could move like that, but there were several tons of motivation on her tail.

Chasing the fleeing shadow, the beast crashed off, getting further away from where she and the dog still hid. The shape was soon lost to her sight, but it seemed the beast had lost the trail too, as she heard it once again began its aimless casting about, hoping to flush its prey again.

She was frustrated, just hiding and watching, and she began to consider what other options she had. Suddenly, a voice spoke behind her “This isn’t going to work.”

Startled, she rolled onto her back to look behind her, scrambling, off balance, trying to rise into a crouch and draw her knife at the same time. The dog was equally startled, spinning and snarling at the darkness further beneath the bushes.

“Who’s there?” she asked.

In the darkness, a shape moved—a person, crouched low beneath the bushes. Had one of her group chosen the same bushes to hide in? But no, as the person moved forward she saw a stranger. She saw his eyes and teeth first, almost glowing in the dim light against his black skin. It was a man, tall and wide, wearing some kind of vest, with his arms bare. Those arms were enormous things, corded with muscle and covered with swirling shapes that she could not make out on his dark skin in the dim light. The arms led to broad shoulders and a thick neck, topped by a bald head.

She noticed that his ears were pierced, as was one eyebrow and his lower lip as well. The man seemed to like decorating himself, as he wore several stringy necklaces, looking raggedy and home-made in the darkness. She could see he had various things sewn onto or otherwise attached to his vest, as well, and thick leather bracelets around each wrist.

As she recovered from her surprise, the man spread his hands, showing that they were empty. She guessed it was meant to be reassuring, but it just made him larger.

“Who are you?” It came out as a cross between a whisper and a yell. She wanted to yell, angry at being surprised, but needed to whisper with the beast roaming the forest.

He crouched down, massive arms still spread. He did not respond directly to her question. Instead, he repeated himself.

“This isn’t going to work.”

“What isn’t going to work?” she asked, now gaining her feet and settling herself into a low stance, feeling better now that she was on her feet and had her knife in her hand.

He made no reaction to her movements. “This. Hiding. It will find you, in time. It won’t give up.”

She pondered this. “How do you know?”

“I’ve been tracking it for a day and a half. Or maybe it’s been tracking me. Either way. We came across each other yesterday in that same campground it just jumped you out of, and we’ve been playing cat and mouse ever since.

“And so I repeat myself. This isn’t going to work. It won’t give up and let you all sneak away. It will find you.”

It was curious how what this stranger was saying mirrored her own thoughts. “So what do you suggest?”

Still in his crouch, he pivoted at the waist, reaching behind him with his right hand, and coming back with a long spear, whittled from a young sapling. The point on the end was dark, looking like it had been hardened in a fire. He did not point the spear at her or the dog, but did not point it away from them either.

Next he reached to the small of his back with his left hand. There was a sound, the sound made only by a blade on leather, and his hand came back into view, now holding a hunting knife that must have been a full foot long.

His eyes grew wide and he smiled at her. It was a grin with no humor in it, no friendliness—only anticipation. The ghostly glow of his teeth and the whites of his eyes in the darkness matched the glint of his knife as he turned it in his hand.

“Let’s kill it,” he said.

In a flash, it came to her—what she had been looking for as she wandered, ever since those first terrible days of the Fall. She hadn’t known it, but she had been looking for a purpose, a meaning. What did you do when monsters invaded your world?

And here, hidden in some bushes, confronted by a man she should be terrified of but somehow wasn’t, she found that purpose. What do you do when monsters invade your world? You kill them.

She looked him in the eyes, nodding, wondering when he had found his own purpose, wondering how she had missed it for so long.

“Yes,” was all she said. “Kill it.”

By unspoken agreement, they moved out of their place of concealment, stealthily working their way towards the patch of bushes she had watched Medic duck into a few minutes ago.  He walked on her left, and the dog on her right. They looked out at the forest, at the still-lumbering beast they could now see some sixty yards away. As they stepped carefully towards the bushes, trying to remain out of sight of the beast, he whispered to her what he had learned about it.

His knowledge was scattered, but interesting. The thing had no head, just a body and eight legs. He told her that the thing didn’t make any noises, and may well not have a mouth to make noises with—at least none that he had been able to see. The thing’s hide was tough—too tough to be pierced by knife or spear. It had a series of what he guessed were eyes all around it. These were softer than the hide and could be stabbed—he had stabbed his spear into one earlier. Having eyes on all sides meant it could see pretty well in all directions and it was impossible to sneak up on. Even though the eyes went all around the beast, it did have a definite front and back, as far as moving went. It moved in one direction and turned when chasing something, keeping the same part of it to the front. Though its vision was good, it didn’t seem to hear well at all, and it seemed like it didn’t have very good distance vision, because if you got far enough away, it tended to lose you. It would stop moving and settle onto the ground if it hadn’t seen its prey for a long time, but stood back up instantly if it saw something.

These facts, poured into her as they crept towards the stand of bushes, gave her a bit more of a sense of what they faced. It was huge and tough, but also might have vulnerable points.

As the trio arrived at the bushes, man, girl, and dog, they saw the outline of somebody hiding inside, but were surprised to hear Bait’s voice come from that outline.