Chapter 17
Pursuit
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The kids picked up the pace as best they could, believing that the flash of lightning meant that more Lural were in the vicinity. If Tom and Luke hadn’t been carrying the wounded man, the group would have been setting the path on fire with a scorching run, but the speed was dictated by how fast the boys could move the stretcher. Abby wondered if they could just stow Mr. Neudel in some cache in the forest, but she felt ashamed for wishing, even for a moment, that they weren’t encumbered by Mr. Neudel. The Lural were terrifying; those firelit eyes would haunt her dreams. How could she or any of them have left someone behind to face that kind of nightmare all by himself? At a deep level, Abby came to the realization that guilt could be even worse than fear. Maybe being brave didn’t mean not being afraid; maybe it meant not letting the fear make choices for you.
Tom’s arms were killing him, and the scrape on his knuckles had re-opened, adding blood to his sweaty grip on the travois handles. Luke was doing better; he wore leather bicycling gloves, and the leather helped him keep his grip strong.
Luis ran ahead of the procession, trying to bend back branches and get some of the stones off the path to make the way easier.
Tom’s grip gave out, and he dropped his end of the stretcher. “Sorry.” He wiped his hands on his pant legs and prepared to lift again. Sara ran around Luke to the back of the stretcher and took one of the handles.
“Here. I can get one side,” she said.
“I can get the other,” Abby said.
“No, that’s okay,” Tom said. “I can get one side.”
He and Sara lifted the end of the stretcher, and both managed to keep their grips even when a new, ululating shriek shattered the air. It seemed that the new Lural arrivals had found their fallen comrade. Impossibly, the group of Humans went faster, propelled by a rocket blast of fear, Luis still in the lead, Abby at the rear. No one suggested that they find a place to hide from the Lural; instinctively, the Humans knew that action has a comfort that hiding does not. And Mr. Neudel needed help.
A second scream, higher and shriller, followed the group down the path. Abby lifted her head, trying to guess if the Lural were getting closer. Her moment of inattention to her footing cost her dearly. Abby’s toe caught under an exposed root, and her body hit the ground hard, a whoosh of air escaping her lungs. For a crucial moment, she couldn’t draw breath and was left alone as the rest of the group hurtled down the rocky trail.
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Another shriek, this one a soft, hissing scream like a teapot on the verge of breaking out into full steam. This one was very close behind, and Abby scrambled to her feet, distantly aware that her hands were on fire, skinned from the fall. Now she didn’t dare call to her friends, didn’t dare catch the attention of what was stalking them.
Then she saw it. A Lural was on the trail behind her, coming along at a fast lope with its eyes like spotlights focused on her. Abby thought how silly they’d been to think they could outrun a creature like this one. The Lural was down on all fours, loping along at a swift, predatory pace. It saw Abby and stopped short.
The Lural’s lips pulled back from its teeth, and it emitted another of the hissing screams, very low now, and launched itself towards the terrified girl.
Terrified, but not petrified. Abby didn’t think; there was no time for a plan, no time to pick up a weapon or run away. Acting on pure instinct, she turned slightly so her left side was closest to the loping Lural. Her hands clenched into hard fists, and in her mind, Abby saw her arms as clubs. As the fiery orange eyes locked onto hers, Abby could feel her own involuntary snarl answering the attacker. The Lural closed the last ten feet, and Abby brought an uppercut from somewhere down around her knees, up through the air, following with all the force she could muster.
Her fist caught the attacking Lural precisely on the point of its hairy chin, and the head snapped back like it had hit a metal bar. A string of saliva came whipping out of its mouth; Abby watched with detachment as time slowed down, her fist continuing to arc along its passage, as the Lural’s eyes rolled back and it hit the ground. Abby had scored her first knockout. Macready would be proud.
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The others finally noticed that Abby was no longer behind them.
“Ab? Abby?” Tom turned around and couldn’t see his sister, but he did hear a hissing, squealing sort of noise, not too far back.
“Stop! Hey you guys, Abby’s gone!” Tom shouted.
Tom and Sara set down their end of the stretcher quite abruptly, Luke more slowly. Tom ran back down the path and was the first to reach Abby. She was cradling her right arm to her body and staring down at the Lural body that lay at her feet.
“Holy cow! Abby, what did you do?” Tom exclaimed.
Abby looked up and recognition of her brother came into her eyes. “I hit it. I hit it, just like Macready said to do. You have to follow through with your fist,” she explained.
The others caught up, breathing hard.
“Is it dead?” Luke asked, staring in amazement at the inert Lural.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so,” Abby said.
“What happened?” asked Sara.
“Abby clocked it, knocked it cold,” Tom said.
“If it’s not dead, we’d better tie it up. Quickly,” Luke said. He looked around. “What can we use?”
“Geez, let’s just get going,” Luis said. “Abby can hit any more that come along.”
Sara shot Luis a look. But he was right insofar as there might be more at any moment, and she didn’t relish the idea of facing a pack of Lural. “Yeah, let’s go. We could drag the thing to the side.”
“Okay. But leave it out. Maybe they’ll be slowed down by the body in the trail, anyway,” Luke said. They ran back down the path to the stretcher. Mr. Neudel didn’t seem any the worse for having been set down very abruptly.
As he picked up the head of the stretcher, Luke found himself wondering about Mr. Neudel. He wasn’t exactly the mild-mannered neighbor that Luke had taken for granted. In some ways, adjusting to Gracchia had been so easy that Luke made the unconscious assumption that he knew all about life on this planet, that it was just like Earth but with an exotic cast of colorful aliens. But really, what did he or his parents know about the Gracchus and Gracchia other than what had been presented to them? Luke was becoming aware that perhaps there were depths and layers here that most Humans didn’t know about, and Mr. Neudel might very well be a part of that other world. Just what was in that box that Abby was carrying?
If they survived this, Luke meant to find out more.
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At the Split River checkpoint, the Middle-Aged Fat Men were ready to call it a day and head for the finish line to await the tally of points and enjoy the Grand Finale Party out at the Blue Pearl Sea.
Oliver wondered how the kids were faring. They were probably having a whale of a time, riding around on their bikes, seeing the spectacles. He wouldn’t be surprised if they’d already made it to the finish for the celebrations.
The sky to the southwest was dark and heavy, and a veil of rain was hiding Pelerin Mountain. At least the kids had the common sense not to get caught in that.
The Split River checkpoint, the place where the Scopos River broke away from the Vespa, was crowded with members from three different teams. Members of Velvet Kitten, the MAFM, and Surprise From Above (named after a tree snake) had all passed through the archway for points and now all three teams were clustered around the bonus table. This was the most peculiar bonus situation yet. Extra points could be earned by eating small pink squares. Each team could choose just one eater, and the more he or she ate, the more points. Deductions were made for gagging.
The Gracchus in charge of the bonus table at this checkpoint assured the participants that the pink squares, each about an inch on a side, were completely edible by a
ll of the species.
“So, step right up!” the Gracchus barked. “One eater per team. Who’s hungry?!”
No one on the MAFM team came forward to volunteer. Oliver Ellsworth took a closer look at the slightly wobbly pink squares. He caught a whiff of…..ham? No quite, but close. Spam. The little squares were Spam.
The team of Surprise From Above were Nawaks, which meant that they were vegetarians. This was not going to make them happy.
Oliver wondered if it was too late to declare himself a vegetarian, too.
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After a weary interval of hiking, taking turns carrying the travois and getting steadily damper, the five Humans and their burden arrived at the Bridge of Stars. There had been no further pursuit by the Lural, and the kids needed to take a rest. Luke, Tom and Luis set down the stretcher and flexed their tired hands. Sara and Abby slumped to the ground, too tired to care about the mud.
Either the Lural had given up, Abby thought as she looked around at the dripping foliage, or if there was pursuit, the Lural now had the brains to be quiet about it. The knuckles on her right hand were puffy and swollen. When she straightened her fingers, Abby couldn’t even make out the bones and tendons on the back of her hand. The puffiness made it look like she was wearing a thick, flesh-colored glove.
Sara looked up at the sky. “I think the rain’s going to be stopping soon.”
“How can you tell?” Luis asked. He couldn’t remember ever being this tired before.
“The sky is lifting. See? The clouds aren’t as low as they were,” Sara said.
“That’s dumb,” Luis said. “The sky is always the same height, it can’t lift.”
Sara ignored him. Luis always got cranky when he was tired.
“Where are we going to go next?” Tom asked. “We have to find help for Mr. Neudel, but everyone’s at the Bonebreaker.”
Luke withdrew the map cube from a pocket and projected the map of the race. “I think the closest checkpoint is back at Eck’s Cave. There’ll still be people there. I think.”
“Unless everyone is heading to the finish line,” Tom noted.
Luke shrugged. “Maybe. But we need to find help as soon as we can, and that’s the first place we should check.”
“Okay. Let’s go, then,” said Tom.
Everyone got back on their feet. Sara was right. The rain was letting up.
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When the Humans were almost across the bridge, three Lural emerged from the woodland path. Upon sighting their prey, one of the creatures couldn’t resist a shriek of triumph, breaking the silence that had served them well.
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Far Travels, The Gracchian Adventures, Book One Page 17
