by Greg Taylor
Struggling now on the ground with the strangely elastic figure, Toby knew he should have nixed the tackling part of his attack. In spite of having an arrow lodged in his neck, his opponent was impossible to pin down and incredibly strong. Toby knew he had no chance against this man.
“NO! STAY AWAY FROM HIM!”
Toby thought he heard someone yell those words. A second later, he was grabbed by powerful hands and yanked brusquely away from the Tall Man. Good thing, too. The man’s long legs were just about to clamp themselves around Toby’s neck.
Toby was startled when he saw the beautiful, delicate-looking girl who had just lifted him from the ground as though he weighed no more than a few pounds. Before he could say anything to his remarkable rescuer …
“Yo, gang.” This in a deadpan tone from Strobe. “Company on the way.”
Turning in Strobe’s direction, Toby couldn’t believe what he saw. Looking like CGI movie magic, the bushes were seemingly parting by themselves as large, misshapen footprints appeared one after the other in the moist ground. Something invisible was pounding toward the group through the woods!
At the same time, a few feet away, the Tall Man’s gasping, wheezing attempts to suck in oxygen signaled the damage that had been done by Toby’s arrow. But in spite of the fact that he could barely breath, the Tall Man was slowly rising to his feet.
Annabel had seen enough. “This way!” she commanded, starting down the path that led away from the gazebo. But Calanthe clearly had another idea. She took off in the opposite direction, toward the lake. Seeing this, Annabel immediately changed course and followed Calanthe.
“What’s that in the woods, man?” Toby asked, feeling an unpleasant lurching in his stomach.
Toby didn’t get a reply to his question. Calanthe had already dove into the lake and disappeared under the black, sparkling surface with Annabel right behind her. Strobe had fired off a series of arrows in the direction of the rukh and was on his way to the lake.
The last thing Toby observed before following his partners was the sight of the Tall Man slowly pulling the arrow from his neck. If that wasn’t enough to light a fire under him, the invisible rukh quickly closing in on him certainly was.
Taking the most direct line from where he stood to the lake, Toby charged toward the gazebo, came out on the other side, and crashed into the water, earning zero style points for his inelegant dive.
Swimming like a madman, Toby gradually closed the gap between him and his KP partners. In the water beyond, there was no sign of Calanthe. “What goin’ on here?” Toby gasped as he came abreast of Annabel. He was already laboring from power-stroking in his heavy clothes and the pack on his back. “Where’d that girl go, anyway?”
“I don’t know,” Annabel replied. She too was tiring from her nighttime swim. “She hasn’t come up for air since she hit the water.”
“Must be some kind of fish species,” Strobe offered.
Glancing over his shoulder as he took a long stroke, Toby saw the rukh churning through the water toward them. Now that the creature was in the water, it wasn’t as invisible as it had been in the woods. The water splashing around its body and rolling from its large torso gave a hint of the thing’s ghastly shape.
“What I want to know is what kind of species that thing is behind us,” Toby managed to sputter between quick intakes of breath.
It was obvious to the trio that they were in an extremely dire situation. They were rapidly losing stamina and speed with each stroke. The rukh, on the other hand, definitely wasn’t. At this rate it could be on them within …
SPLASH!!!
Toby took in a mouthful of water as he lurched away from the figure that had just surfaced next to him. Relief replaced alarm when he saw that it wasn’t the invisible rukh, but rather Calanthe.
“Keep going,” Calanthe instructed, swimming effortlessly next to Toby. “I will try to drown the rukh.”
“Calanthe, no,” Annabel urged.
But Calanthe had already disappeared back underwater, her submerged, shimmering shape on a direct collision course with the creature.
“Calanthe!” Annabel yelled.
“Let her go,” Strobe said, his voice strained and hoarse from the intense grind of his aquatic adventure.
Fortunately, Calanthe’s intervention with the rukh turned out to be pivotal in the trio’s ability to reach shore before being overtaken by the beast. One by one, they staggered from the water, then stood side by side to watch the battle that was raging under the surface of the lake. The site of the struggle was indicated by broiling, bursting bubbles on the surface of the water. Suddenly, the bubbles were obliterated by several massively violent percussive splashes. Then …
Nothing. The lake became eerily calm, a couple of circular, widening ripples the only indication that anything had occurred out there in dark depths.
“I can’t see her, can you?” Toby asked.
Just then, there was a huge geyser-like eruption of water where the fight had taken place. Emerging from the watery blast were the telltale splashing strokes of the invisible rukh, once again heading toward the trio.
“No,” Annabel said in disbelief. “She can’t be…” Annabel’s voice trailed off before she finished her sentence.
“Wait, no … look. There she is!” Toby pointed at a rippling underwater shape that had appeared a few yards from shore. Seconds later, Calanthe emerged from the lake.
Gasping at the sight of a savage gash on Calanthe’s shoulder, Annabel splashed into the water to meet the girl as she walked to the shore. In spite of the fact that the cut was bleeding profusely down her arm, Calanthe barely acknowledged the injury. “I injured the rukh’s leg. Which should have the effect of slowing it down.”
Toby stared in wonder at Calanthe. Who was this girl who could lift him up like a sack of feathers, swim almost two football lengths underwater without taking a breath, and then do battle with some kind of invisible demon?
But then, Toby was no longer looking at Calanthe. That’s because he had bent over and was violently throwing up. Strobe winced in disgust when he saw the remains of several barely digested hot dogs splattered at Toby’s feet. Toby spit a couple of times, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and straightened up with a grimace. “Whew!”
Just then a distinctive and rather unladylike bellow erupted from Calanthe. The dekayi teen had apparently found Toby’s hot dog mishap to be funny! But when the trio looked at her in surprise, Calanthe’s mirth had already disappeared. “We must go,” she said, her determined expression firmly back in place.
“Wait a second,” Strobe said. “Why not stay here and have it out with that thing?”
The rukh was steadily approaching the shore, but now at a slower pace. Either the creature was tiring or the injury inflicted by Calanthe had made an impact.
“Have it out. What does this mean?” Calanthe asked.
“Fight the thing. Kill it. Let’s finish what you started.”
“I do not recommend that. In the water, the rukh was not as powerful. That is why I lured it into the lake. But once it emerges onto land, it will be very difficult to kill.” Calanthe was already heading into the woods as she spoke.
“There’s your answer,” Annabel said. “Let’s go, you two.”
Strobe and Toby hesitated before joining Annabel and Calanthe. A group of people stood on the far shore of the lake, shouting and pointing in their direction. The group’s nocturnal swim and Calanthe’s altercation with the invisible rukh had not gone unnoticed.
But it wasn’t the people on the shore that Toby and Strobe were concerned about. The thing that held their attention was the sight of the Tall Man on the other side of the lake. Standing perfectly still inside the dark gazebo, he was staring out across the water in their direction.
“Okay, that guy’s creepy,” Strobe said.
“Yeah,” Toby replied.
“I’d say we have a little adventure on our hands, Tobe.”
Toby
turned and double-timed it into the woods with Strobe. The rukh was now less than fifty yards from shore, eating up the distance with each massive stroke of its invisible limbs. On the other side of the lake, the Tall Man hadn’t moved. He stood in the darkness of the gazebo, staring at the woods where Toby and Strobe had just disappeared.
Silent …
Still …
It was as though Calanthe’s master was waiting for his monstrous sidekick to do the dirty work before making his final, chilling appearance.
5
“Harvey. SOS.”
Following Calanthe through the woods, Annabel was on her cell to her KP boss. “I have no idea. Somewhere in Central Park … I will. Bye.”
“Harvey sending the troops?” Strobe asked from somewhere in the pitch-black darkness behind Annabel.
“There are no troops to send, remember? But Harvey’s on his way. I’ll give him a call when I know where we are.”
Bringing up the rear, Toby caught a glimpse of streetlights to his left through the dark thicket of trees. So had Calanthe, who immediately changed direction toward the lights, leading the trio on a brisk jog through the underbrush. There was no path to follow, which meant Toby had to duck and weave his way through the tangle of bushes and trees, his reward being several whacks in the face from branches Strobe released with a snap in front of him.
Toby was happy to see the streetlights getting steadily brighter. He had just heard the rukh behind him, crashing heavily through the woods in the group’s direction. The creature was back in its natural habitat, and closing fast.
* * *
Even in a city where the unusual and bizarre often rated barely a raised eyebrow, Toby and his companions would have surely attracted some attention as they hopped over a stone wall that separated the sidewalk from the park, had there been people around to see them. But the area where they exited the park was light on pedestrian traffic. Even traffic of the vehicular kind was sparse.
Spotting a street sign on the other side of the avenue, Annabel headed toward it, running diagonally across the street. The rest of the group followed, dodging a couple of cars that honked loudly at the group as they sped by.
“Where’s a cab when you need one?” Toby asked, huffing in his wet clothes and heavy backpack as he ran behind Strobe.
“I’d like to see you try that,” Strobe shot back.
“If this isn’t an emergency I don’t know what is. Maybe we can hitch a ride outta here.”
“Let me know when you flag something down.”
Annabel was already on her cell to Harvey again when Strobe and Toby reached the sidewalk. “Seventy-fifth and Central Park West … Right. We’ll be there.”
“What’s up?” Strobe asked.
“Harvey said to keep moving. We don’t want to wait here and be bait for that thing. Harvey’ll call when he gets in the area.”
“How long’s that gonna take?”
“Not too long. He’s already halfway up here.”
Breathing deeply, Toby, Strobe, and Annabel looked like they could use a break before moving on. Calanthe, however, didn’t appear to be even winded by her swim and jog through the woods. Staring intently across the street at the park, she held her body tightly coiled, like an athlete does just before blasting into action.
“All right. Let’s go,” Strobe said as he turned and started down Seventy-fifth Street. The foursome’s quick footsteps echoed back at them from the brownstone buildings that lined both sides of the eerily dark and deserted street. Keeping a wary watch for the rukh as they ran, the group managed to reach the end of the quiet block without incident.
Seventy-fifth intersected with a much livelier thoroughfare, identified by an overhead street sign as COLUMBUS AVENUE. Clusters of people stood outside a number of restaurants as they waited to be seated. A nearby sidewalk café was crowded with diners. As the group half-jogged past the café, Calanthe suddenly reached out, grabbed a steak from a diner’s plate, and gobbled it down without breaking stride.
“Hey! What the…” The startled diner whose dinner had just been poached jumped from his seat, looked around for his waiter, then started after Calanthe. But when he got a good look at the girl—with her ripped T-shirt, bloody arm, and three companions with water dripping from their black backpacks—the man decided to abandon that idea.
Jogging next to Toby, Strobe couldn’t help but chuckle at Calanthe’s sneaky cuisine attack. “This girl’s a live one, man.”
Just then Toby noticed something odd across the street. A man was staring with a perplexed frown up and down the street. “Hey! Everyone! Other sidewalk. Eight o’clock. The guy in the black hoodie. It looked like he was just shoved by something. Something invisible.” The man was about twenty yards behind the group, which meant the rukh could already be directly opposite them.
The group was still checking out the man in the black hoodie when a startling sight erupted on the street nearby. A taxi slammed into something undetectable in the middle of the avenue and shuddered to an abrupt halt. The front of the vehicle crumpled inward, the hood flew up, and steam burst from the radiator.
For a brief, stunning moment, Toby thought he caught a glimpse of the monstrous rukh. It was as though the collision had caused the thing’s chameleon-like ability to temporarily short-circuit. But then it was gone. Just like that, the rukh was once again unnoticeable in the thoroughfare.
“This way!” Annabel called out, instantly changing direction and running down an alley between two buildings. The alley was narrow and littered with trash, which forced the group to run in single file. Halfway down the alley, Toby heard a commotion behind him. Shooting a look over his shoulder, he witnessed the bizarre sight of trash cans flying every which way, as if they had just taken on a life of their own. A large wooden pallet lying in the middle of the alley was suddenly punctured, then magically jumped and flew down the alley, looking like some kind of zany Disney animated object. The sight would have been comical if the foursome’s situation hadn’t been so desperate. Stuck on the rukh’s invisible foot, the pallet was quickly smashed to pieces by the creature’s relentless charge.
By this time Annabel had reached a wider back alley that ran behind the Columbus Avenue buildings. Leading the group to her right, she skidded to a stop when she saw what was waiting for them at the entrance to the alley about fifty yards away.
The Tall Man.
“Fire escape!” Strobe called out, then he was running for it, and Annabel was right behind him; Calanthe and Toby were right behind Annabel.
Strobe leaped up, grabbed on to the bottom rung of the fire escape’s hanging ladder, and pulled himself up and onto it. As he climbed upward, Annabel jumped and grasped the bottom rung and quickly followed him.
As she had already demonstrated, Calanthe was an astonishingly athletic girl. So Toby was not surprised to see her jump, grab the ladder, and follow Annabel and Strobe nimbly up the side of the brick building toward the first-floor landing.
Attempting to repeat Calanthe’s actions, Toby leaped for the ladder. His hand brushed against the bottom ladder rung, but a firm grip eluded him. After losing contact with the ladder, Toby fell almost horizontally to the concrete alley below and hit the ground hard. Dazed by the jarring impact, he took a moment before getting to his feet.
The Tall Man was now walking toward Toby with a slow but spookily steady, assured gait. The rukh was somewhere behind him and closing fast. With no time to go back down the alley for another run at the ladder, Toby was trapped in a pincer-like attack.
A sudden crash behind Toby caused him to turn just in time to see a large overflowing trash bin rise from the ground to a height of about ten feet. Oh, no! Toby thought, his eyes darting around the alley for a possible escape route. That thing’s gonna squash me under a ton of trash!
“Take my hand!”
Toby looked up to see Calanthe reaching down for him. Taking a quick mental count of how many times this girl had come to his rescue within the last h
alf hour, Toby leaped for her outstretched hand. In a flash Calanthe had grabbed him by the wrist, pulled him up and onto the ladder, and continued her climb up toward the first-floor landing.
Toby scrambled up the ladder behind Calanthe, at the same time keeping a concerned eye on the magically suspended-in-air trash bin below. He had no idea how far up the ladder he had to go to be out of the crazed creature’s range. The first-floor landing, maybe? Hopefully, no farther than that.
Toby was almost to the landing when the bin—looking like a huge missile shot from an invisible cannon—blasted toward the fire escape and smashed into the ladder with a resounding crash! The jarring impact vibrated through the ladder and hit Toby’s body like a massive electrical charge.
Somehow managing to hold on to the wildly swaying, screeching ladder, Toby desperately launched himself toward the first-floor landing just before the ladder ripped away from its mooring.
Fingertips on metal …
This time Toby’s grip held. Dangling precariously from the metal platform, Toby mustered the energy to pull himself to safety.
“Toby!” Annabel yelled with concern from above.
Toby gave Annabel a thumbs-up, took a quick moment to catch his breath, then renewed his climb up the ladder. As he thumped heavily up the side of the building, he had to fight back the impulse to lose his backpack. The pack felt like a ton of bricks; the straps causing an intense, throbbing pain in Toby’s shoulders. But Toby muscled through the pain and finally reached the tenth and final ladder.
Before joining his companions on the roof, Toby looked to the alley below. He had heard more and more voices as he climbed up the side of the building. There was a group of people mingling around the crumpled trash bin and twisted ladder. Some stared up at Toby with perplexed expressions. The rukh and Tall Man were nowhere to be seen. Which should have been reassuring, Toby thought, but actually only added to the tension.
