by Greg Taylor
Another impression in the ground, this one sharper, the heel of someone’s bare foot, indicating run … not stroll.
Toby suddenly stopped. He was standing at the juncture of two streams. The brook he had been following ran into a larger one, which curved off between the trees and disappeared into the darkness. Staring at the stream with a thoughtful frown, Toby activated his cell and pulled down his mouthpiece.
“Annabel. I think I know where Calanthe went.”
* * *
It took them almost half an hour to reach the railroad bridge. They followed the stream the entire way and approached the bridge from the opposite direction that Toby and Calanthe had come the previous night. There was a bend in the stream just before the bridge. As soon as the trestle came into sight, Toby stopped Annabel and indicated they should head away from the stream and approach the bridge from another angle.
Annabel nodded. She followed Toby into the woods and up a steep hill, toward the train tracks that bridged the stream. When the two emerged from the woods and were standing on the tracks, Toby conveyed to Annabel that he would approach the tunnel under the bridge from the left, she from the right.
He waited until Annabel had disappeared into the woods before making his approach. He went slowly, scouring the trees and underbrush, looking for any movement, any sign of Calanthe. Halfway down the hill, Toby stopped. He closed his eyes and allowed the forest sounds to sink in.
Crickets …
The distant hum of something electric …
The leaves above, whispering and rustling in the nighttime breeze …
Hearing nothing to indicate that Calanthe was anywhere nearby, Toby continued down the steep hill, walking sideways for traction and balance. He stopped just before the opening of the tunnel and pressed his back up against the stone base of the bridge. He listened for a moment, then took a quick peek around the corner.
Nothing.
The gurgles of the stream echoed off the sides of the tunnel, an oddly peaceful, reassuring sound. When Toby saw Annabel appear on the other side of the tunnel, the two walked toward each other and met at just about the same spot Toby had been with Calanthe.
“Anything?” Toby asked in a whisper.
Annabel shook her head.
“Looks like I was wrong.”
“Not necessarily. She might have heard us. Taken off.”
And just like that, there was Calanthe, right in front of Toby’s and Annabel’s faces, freezing them in place.
The duo’s statue-like reaction was provoked by the fact that they weren’t looking at Calanthe, but rather her monstrous alter ego, hanging by a long tail from a girder overhead!
The creature’s reptilian head, easily twice the size of Calanthe’s human head, moved slowly back and forth in front of Annabel and Toby. Its leathery eyelids blinked up and down over its piercing, emotionless black eyes.
Toby and Annabel were so freaked, it wasn’t difficult for them to stand completely still. They didn’t want to chance so much as taking a breath. Any movement and who knew how the creature Calanthe had become might react?
The ghastly, diamond-shaped head suddenly focused on Annabel. The creature’s reptilian tongue darted in and out, looking as though it couldn’t wait to taste something. The lethal teeth glinted in the darkness. The head moved toward Annabel and stopped a mere inch from her face.
The serpent sniffed audibly, checking Annabel out, then started to move slowly down the length of her body. Its oily, leathery skin issued a strange creaking sound as it stretched farther out from the girder above. In spite of the cold night, Annabel could feel herself sweating. She wasn’t sure how much of this she could take!
The creature’s head was now at Annabel’s feet. After a moment, it traveled back up her body and once again stopped a whisper away from her face. This time Annabel looked the serpent right in the eye. If there was any vestige of Calanthe left in her hideous alter ego, Annabel wanted to communicate with her. Silently, with just her eyes. Telling Calanthe to please come back to them.
Suddenly, the horrendous thing moved away from Annabel. It was Toby’s turn. Like Annabel, it wasn’t long before Toby started to sweat from the incredible tension of being given an intimate once-over from a ten-foot-long serpent. He could feel the sweat running down the back of his neck, causing an itch that took every ounce of willpower not to scratch.
Unlike Annabel, Toby couldn’t bring himself to look the thing in the eye. It was difficult for him to believe there was any part of Calanthe left in such an astoundingly ugly creature.
And then, just like that, the creature disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared. One second it was so close to Toby he could feel a breeze from the flickering tongue, then it was gone, up into the pitch darkness under the train trestle.
Even then, Toby and Annabel didn’t dare move. They stayed right where they were, listening to the sound of the serpent’s huge, muscular body as it slithered in and out of the girders overhead, up and around to the top of the bridge, then finally into the underbrush that lined the tracks.
Only when he could no longer hear Calanthe did Toby allow himself to move. He breathed in deeply and slowly stretched his neck from side to side, trying to unlock it from its frozen state. Annabel had slid down the rock wall next to him and was sitting on her haunches.
Moments passed in silence. Neither said anything. Toby wasn’t sure what to say anyway, how he could even begin to express how he felt about what had just happened.
Annabel didn’t have to say anything. Everything she was feeling was right there, in her eyes. When Toby looked down at Annabel …
He could see the tears, sparkling in the darkness, threatening to overflow and fall down her cheeks.
23
Staring grimly out of the Cessna’s window as it taxied along the runway, Strobe saw Harvey standing on the tarmac when the plane took a sudden turn and headed toward the terminal. Harvey’s expression mirrored Strobe’s. He stood very still, waiting for the plane to come to a stop. When it did, he boarded immediately.
Strobe stayed seated as Harvey entered the plane, walked down the aisle, and sat across from him. Harvey had a laptop with him, which he now opened. He took out a small digital recorder, turned it on, and placed it on the floor between them. No words were spoken during all this. Strobe knew what was about to take place. An intensive debriefing of the events that had occurred in the dekayi village.
When Harvey was ready, he looked at Strobe and nodded. Strobe collected his thoughts, then began his story.
It took over an hour. After telling the basic facts, Strobe was subjected to one question after another from Harvey, until the head of Killer Pizza’s MCO operations was satisfied that he had all the information he needed.
Strobe’s initial euphoria after escaping from the dekayi village had quickly given way to depression, the images of the helpless MCOs hovering in his mind’s eye the entire way back to Montreal. Strobe felt he should have done more to help them. But what else could he have done? After the debriefing, he waited for Harvey to weigh in with his opinion.
“Since there are no other parties to interview about this situation, no one to corroborate your story, I have to take what you just told me at face value. And I do. All considered, I believe that if you had tried to help Holt, Dixon, or Harris, the result would have been me losing four of my crew instead of three.”
An inward sigh of relief from Strobe. It’s what he had wanted to hear. It didn’t make it any less of a burden, leaving Holt and Dixon and Harris behind, but at least he hadn’t been branded a deserter by Harvey.
“Are you sending a crew up there?”
“Yes. This is priority now.”
“Can I—”
“No. You need to get back to Hidden Hills. Chances are the dekayi will be even more determined to track down Calanthe, considering what’s happened.”
Strobe nodded, started to collect his things. He needed to go to the main terminal, where he would book a comm
ercial flight back to Ohio.
“Chief?”
“Yes.”
“Something I can’t get out of my head. I just have this weird feeling about it.”
“What?”
“It seems to me they could have had me, as well. If they’d wanted to.”
That got Harvey’s attention.
“Think about it. Holt, Dixon, Harris. All more experienced than me. I didn’t hear anything in the village while I was keeping lookout. Not one of them managed to get a shot off. Which means they had to have been taken completely by surprise. Why not me? The dekayi had their chances. Out in the woods. When I stopped to help Dixon.”
“What could be the reason for that?”
“Like you say, they’re bent on tracking down Calanthe. I’m thinking the tall dude was part of that group. He recognizes me from New York, figures there’s a chance I might lead him to Calanthe.”
Harvey was thinking about this when Strobe added, “I’m not sure how they’d be able to follow me, though. No computers, cars, electricity, phones. I doubt they have a GPS system.”
Harvey nodded. “Just the same, take a roundabout way back to Hidden Hills. Make it as difficult as possible for them to track you. If you have any sense they’re on to you when you get close to Hidden Hills…”
“I’ll pull out,” Strobe said, finishing Harvey’s sentence for him. Just then Strobe’s cell sounded inside his pocket, an old-fashioned ring like the one from a 1950s cradle phone. Strobe took out the cell, had a brief conversation, then signed off.
“Annabel. It appears Calanthe’s a big girl now. She went through her Altering a couple of hours ago. Annabel and Toby have no idea where she is. She just took off. But not before almost killing Annabel.”
Harvey was silent. He sat still for a moment, then said, “I trust Calanthe is not lost for good. Do what you can on your end. I’ll do the same on mine.”
“You got it.”
“Good luck.”
“You, too.”
When Strobe descended the short ladder to the tarmac, he walked to the terminal, turned, and watched the Cessna taxi back out onto the runway. As the plane moved farther away from him, Strobe found himself wishing the dekayi would follow him home. After his disastrous trip to the Canadian wilds, there were people to avenge now.
But there was also a life to protect, assuming that Calanthe wasn’t lost to them forever. With that important assignment to tend to, Strobe now had to figure out how he was going to get back to Hidden Hills.
Without leaving any tracks.
24
After his harrowing late-night adventure, Toby certainly didn’t feel like doing the weekly brunch with his dad. He especially wanted to cancel after he and Annabel had come back empty-handed from an early morning search for Calanthe. Wherever Calanthe was, she apparently wanted to stay hidden.
Toby couldn’t believe how quickly everything had fallen apart over the past twelve hours. Calanthe’s Altering and its violent and still-unfolding aftermath. Strobe’s horrible trip to the dekayi village, which Annabel had told Toby about after she received a call from their MCO partner first thing in the morning.
In spite of these worries, Toby decided to go ahead with the brunch. There wasn’t anything he and Annabel could do at this point, anyway, as far as Calanthe and Strobe were concerned. Strobe would eventually arrive back in Hidden Hills. Calanthe would either come back to them, or she wouldn’t. All they could do in the meantime was wait. Helplessly.
So Toby was in the kitchen when his dad came pattering in shortly after noon, still in his pajamas. Mr. Magill sat down at the table, opened the Sunday paper, then took a sip of coffee from his favorite mug, which Toby had placed in his hand as he walked past on the way to his chair. Mr. Magill was the picture of contentment as he waited for brunch to be served.
Not so, Toby. Moving quickly about the kitchen, juggling three dishes at once, he was intense and focused. For today’s brunch, Toby was having another go at his Sweet Tooth Pizza. The first version, which he had served up a two Sundays before, had fallen short of his usual high standards. So the chef had gone back under the hood, made a few radical adjustments, and was about to present his latest—and hopefully, much improved—version of STP.
Pulling the pizza out of the oven after the timing bell went off, Toby placed it on the counter. He felt the familiar quiver of excitement as he took off his oven mitt. Taste testing one of his latest recipes just never got old. After ceremoniously cutting the pizza precisely into eight slices, Toby picked out a slice and tasted it.
“Well?”
Toby jumped when his dad asked the all-important question.
“Dad! Don’t do that.”
“What’d I do?”
“I didn’t know you were watching me, that’s all.”
“Well, I was. What’s the verdict?”
“I need another taste before I render a verdict.” Toby closed his eyes in order to better concentrate on what his taste buds conveyed about the various nuances of the dish. He took a second bite of the pizza. When he finally opened his eyes …
“And?” Mr. Magill asked urgently.
“And…” Toby put several slices of pizza onto a plate, added grits and a half dozen turkey-and-cranberry sausages, another Toby Magill original, and delivered the savory dish to his father. “This is a very … tasty … dish!”
Mr. Magill’s eyes lit up at Toby’s assessment of the Sweet Tooth Pizza. For his son to give one of his own creations the okay meant that it had to be something really special.
Toby stood back and waited for his dad’s reaction. He didn’t have to wait long. “Oh … oh! This is absolutely wonderful, Toby. Wow! This is your best so far. Hands down!”
“You say that every time I serve you something new.”
“And I always mean it.”
Smiling at his dad’s reaction, Toby went to get himself a few slices of pizza. Before he could return to the table, however, his cell buzzed on the kitchen counter.
“Hello?”
Mr. Magill was so engrossed in his pizza that he didn’t see his son’s expression when he answered the phone. Good thing, too. Whatever it was he had just heard, Toby looked shocked. He turned away from his dad, listened for a few more moments, then said—in a tone that sounded like a parody of a calm voice—“Yes, I can.”
That was the extent of the conversation. As he pocketed his cell, Toby was already heading out of the kitchen. “Gotta check something out, Dad.”
“What? What is it?”
“Oh, you know. Work. Always something goin’ on down there.”
“Is it that urgent? You haven’t even had your pizza yet.”
“Just means there’s that much more for you.”
Mr. Magill didn’t seem to mind that part of Toby having to take off. “Take a slice, at least.”
“Don’t mind if I do.”
“This is really, really excellent.”
“Thanks, Dad. You’re my number-one fan.”
“That I am. Yes, sirree, that … I definitely am.”
* * *
It was Calanthe who had called Toby, the absolute last person’s voice he was expecting to hear when he answered his cell. Toby couldn’t remember Calanthe even having a cell phone, let alone receiving any instruction on how to use one.
She was behind his house in the woods. Making a show for his dad that he was leaving for Killer Pizza, he yelled “so long” as he exited through the front door, then circled around to his backyard. But Toby didn’t enter the woods right away. Having no idea what to expect from Calanthe, he was concerned about seeing her. She had sounded very scared on the phone. And exhausted. Before signing off, she had asked Toby not to call Annabel. Not yet, anyway. She wanted to talk to him first.
So Toby entered the woods cautiously, squinting as he scanned the trees and moved deeper into the forest. A large cloud suddenly blanketed the sun overhead, plunging the woods into a convincing version of an eerie moonlit evening.
“Please, don’t come too close.”
Toby froze. A moment later, Calanthe emerged into view and stopped about ten yards away from him. She was wearing the same sleeveless tee and baggy pajama bottoms she had worn the previous night, when she had run away from the Oshiro house. She was barefoot. Her clothes were dirty and muddy, a testament to the horrendous night she had just spent out in the cold woods.
“You must be freezing, Calanthe. Here, take my jacket.”
But as Toby took a step toward Calanthe, she held up her hands. “No. Stay right there. I’m not sure if I can control this yet.”
Toby instantly took a step back. “The turning, you mean?”
Calanthe nodded. “I don’t remember much about what happened last night. But I do know the Altering occurred.”
Toby waited for Calanthe to tell him what she did remember.
“I vaguely remember when it began. Then, what I did to Annabel. I remember running away. After that, not much. When I woke up this morning, I was lying in the bushes, near that railroad bridge? I was naked. That’s when I knew—”
“We found you, Calanthe. Last night. At the railroad bridge.”
Calanthe looked startled at this news. “Had I already turned?”
Toby nodded. “Yeah. You must have been ten feet long, maybe more. Sniffed us up and down. You were this close to us.”
Calanthe looked horrified at the thought of what her monstrous alter ego must have put her friends through. “Then?”
“You left.”
Calanthe suddenly sat down on the ground. She looked like she didn’t have the strength to stand any longer. When Toby made an instinctual move toward her, Calanthe once again motioned for him to stay where he was. Her dark hair fell around her face, obscuring her features, as she stared at the ground. After what felt like an eternity of silence, Calanthe said, “Annabel must hate me.”
“What? No … no, Calanthe. Annabel doesn’t hate you. Are you kidding? The only thing on Annabel’s mind right now is getting you back. Making sure you’re safe.”
When Calanthe glanced up at Toby, her expression was one of complete and utter surprise. “Why? Why would she feel that way? I almost killed her. It’s not the proper response.”
