by Ike Hamill
Before climbing down from the pine tree, Crooked Tree spun around its trunk, looking each direction to plot his strategy. With their ability to move through the sky, he needed to stay well ahead of his pursuers and that would mean moving in an unexpected direction. Back west, and to the north, he spotted a set of bald mountains, which would mean rough terrain, but exposure from above. To the right of those mountains the glow on the horizon meant another large village, perhaps even bigger than the one he had just left. To his south he saw a black hole in the landscape signaling a large body of water. He made his decision—he would move south until he found that lake, and then head east if he could.
When he had climbed halfway down the tall tree, Crooked Tree jumped to the next tree and made his way halfway down the hill without leaving the branches. His descent made a crashing racket, but he wanted to shake them off his scent. With that in mind, Crooked Tree took a route that led him up and down smaller hills where he could spring from the forest floor up to a rock ledge, or down from a ridge to a tree below. He suffered scrapes and bruises, bouncing off the terrain, but they healed almost instantly.
Once he descended to the foothills, Crooked Tree was unprepared for the thick, scrubby swamp he found. To stay clear of the hard-packed road to his left, he had to circle to the right, bringing him closer to the hunt. He could hear them, still several hills away, but closing the distance. To his dismay, he could also sense a mounting pursuit gearing up to the west. They focused on where they believed he would emerge from the woods.
Just west of the swamp he found an open forest of tall, protective trees. Crooked Tree ran at full tilt, as fast as he could towards the smell of the lake to his south. He ran alongside a small creek that joined forces with another, tributaries of the water ahead. He jumped across the waterway, clearing an amazing distance downstream.
As he neared the lake, Crooked Tree discovered a row of houses lining the edge of the body of water. The wind changed and he smelled their campfires and roasting meat. He kept his distance and skirted the swamp. Soon he found himself back in the proximity of the paved road, and men streaking north to try to cut off his escape. He crouched in the brush and waited for an opportunity to cross.
One more set of men passed, packed into their conveyance, and Crooked Tree crept out from the brush to cross. Red lights flashed from his left and he felt that someone had perceived his presence. He melted back into the tall grass and waited. The men continued their movement north, but Crooked Tree knew he had just been very lucky. A very intuitive tracker had passed by and almost detected him. As he sprinted across the road, he resolved to increase his prudence even further and not underestimate these hunters again.
Crooked Tree maintained a fast pace for most of the night, stopping only to drink from springs and climb the occasional tree to spot the chase. Before dawn he ascended another hill and reached out with every sense to find a trace of the men on his trail. He couldn’t find any evidence of their pursuit in the distance. He rested on a rocky ledge and considered next move.
Through the night, his exertion had brought several realizations. He seemed to be learning about this world at a faster pace than experience could justify. With very little interaction with its inhabitants, other than killing or being chased, he had acquired details about their language, society, and culture. Crooked Tree supposed that he had gained some of this knowledge just from sensing the thoughts of the sleeping people around him, but guessed that most of it had been from ingesting the organs of his prey. He thought about that first night after plunging off the cliff—it had seemed natural to learn and grow from his relatives, but somehow the idea of learning from these soft, mysterious denizens of this foreign world felt unlikely and distasteful. Nonetheless, he couldn’t deny the new facts swirling around in his consciousness.
The roads he had used the first few nights were dangerous to him now, because they also carried cars with police who were looking for him.
Crooked tree rolled these words around on his tongue—“Khaaaars,” he pronounced slowly.
“Pole-eesssss,” he continued.
He rose to his feet and climbed halfway down the rocks before continuing laterally, to make his scent harder to track. He sprung over a gap and clutched the wall on the other side of the drop. Pausing to look at the sky, he realized that dawn would be on him before long. He had run most of the night and would need cover soon. It seemed unlikely he would find another empty house in this sparsely populated area, and caves were few and far between. The mountains in this region seemed older—more overgrown and eroded—and not likely to have good cover.
Climbing down from his low ridge, Crooked Tree took to the forest floor and set off to seek shelter. With dawn approaching, he doubled back to a familiar smell and found the remnants of a bear den dug into the hillside. The interior barely accommodated his bulk, but he bent and twisted until he fit. Pulling a long, flat rock across the entrance, he sealed himself in and closed his eyes. A pair of frightened mice scurried across his arm, fleeing their hideout’s new occupant.
Against his eyelids, Crooked Tree pictured the chase of the night before. The memories he had stolen from his victim’s brains together with the behavior of the police forced Crooked Tree to realize the real strengths of his pursuers. They had firepower, speed on roads and in the air, and instant communication. What they lacked was courage, confidence, and instinct. Self-preservation weakened these warriors.
As dawn broke outside, Crooked Tree drifted off to sleep, packed into his underground hole.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
Davey
“HEY KID, THAT WAS a pretty good catch back there,” said the girl, catching up to Davey as he walked towards the building.
“Thanks,” said Davey.
He glanced over at her and recognized her from the adjacent field. She had been doing fielding drills while he was training to catch foul pop ups. His coach hadn’t even begun their lesson on foul pops, but when the ball had popped off the coach’s bat and disappeared above his head, he had reacted instinctively. Head tilted back, he saw the ball even before he shed his mask. Jogging evenly, Davey tracked the ball towards the fence.
With one hand out, Davey saw the ball land in his glove and then begin to quickly skitter away. His hand closed fast, but the ball was faster, it rolled off the end of his glove and fell towards the dirt. Davey saw everything in slow motion: the wicked backspin of the ball, the dust kicking from his glove, the arc of the descent. His legs triggered, dropping his body at the same rate as the ball. When he saw that he couldn’t catch up to the speed of the ball, he thrust his arm out and down, picking up the extra speed he needed. He scooped the ball before it even travelled half the distance to the ground and this time he clamped his fingers tight around the spinning baseball, and slapped it still with his right hand.
“Nice one,” the coach called, clapping his approval with the bat tucked tucked under his arm. “Now, John,” the coach addressed the pitcher, “when that ball pops up you need to yell ‘Up!’ Got it?”
“So what’s your name?” asked the girl, snapping Davey back to their conversation.
“Davey,” he said. “What’s yours?” He squinted into the sun as he looked up at her.
“Charlotte,” she said, taking off her cap and running her fingers through her hair. “Hey! Watch out!” she barked.
Davey didn’t heed her warning quick enough. He tried to stop his feet, but they kept moving as he spun his head down to see the big sprinkler head sticking up from the field. This time nothing moved in slow motion, and he didn’t have supernatural control over his actions. His shoe bounced off the side of the sprinkler and his ankle crashed into the sharp metal of the head, scraping his skin away.
“Oh,” Davey said, sucking in his breath as he tumbled to the ground. He pulled his knee up to his chest, gripping his shin on either side of the cut.
“Jeez, that must hurt,” said Charlotte. “Are you okay? You want me to get your coach?”
“No,” said Davey. “I’m okay. Is it bleeding much?”
“Yeah,” commented Charlotte as she stood over him. “You’re bleeding like a stuck pig.”
“Thanks.” Davey squinted up at her.
“You’ll be okay,” she giggled. “It actually doesn’t look that bad. Here,” she said as she pulled a tissue from her pocket and folded it carefully, trying to find a clean side. “Hold your breath,” she instructed Davey. “Really hold it.”
When Davey puffed out his cheeks, Charlotte knelt next to him and grabbed the bottom of his calf. She squeezed her lips together with concentration as she pressed the tissue firmly against his wound. Davey’s breath exploded from between his teeth.
“Thanks for the shower,” said Charlotte. She wiped his spittle from her face with her shoulder without removing the pressure from his leg. “Does it hurt?”
“A little,” said Davey. “Not much.”
“I gotta go,” said Charlotte, removing her hand from the tissue and pulling one of Davey’s hands over to cover the spot. “Just hold that for another minute and it will stop.” She wiped Davey’s blood from her palm onto her bare knee.
“Thanks,” said Davey.
“No problem,” said Charlotte. She stood up and surveyed him one more time. She pulled her hat from her waistband and tucked her hair underneath as she put it back on. “See you later,” she said.
Davey watched as she bounced away towards the field house for her water break.
Charlotte washed her hands carefully at the end of practice that day, her right still sticky from Davey’s blood. From a hygiene perspective, she need not have bothered. The instant Davey’s blood had touched her sweaty palm, his aggressive white blood cells attacked her skin, burrowing through fifteen layers of dead skin cells until they reached live cells to penetrate and inject his mutated genes.
By dinner that night, genetic information from Davey would course through every part of Charlotte’s young body, setting up the machinery required for Charlotte to infect others. At first, she barely noticed the effect on her physiology. The next morning she was a little more tired than usual, but then her energy exploded and Charlotte felt like she could run all day. Later that week, her coach commented on how much her fielding had improved.
Two weeks after meeting Davey and touching his blood, the transformation of Charlotte’s body was complete. She progressed beyond infected and became infectious—able to pass the mutation through her blood and saliva.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
Mike
“HI MORRIS, I’M MIKE,” he said, extending his hand to the expressionless man sitting in the booth.
Morris’s voice rumbled low as he spoke. “I don’t know what Roland told you, but I don’t support poaching,” he said, ignoring Mike’s outstretched hand.
“No, I know,” said Mike, sliding onto the other bench-seat of the booth. “I told him, it’s not like that.”
“That’s what he said,” said Morris. “Roland says a lot of things. He does a lot of poaching too.”
Mike reached out and moved the maple syrup jar. Each time Morris spoke, his resounding voice rattled it against the salt shaker.
“I’m not after an animal,” explained Mike. “And I’m not going to kill it. I just want to catch it.”
“And Roland said he owed you for what you did with the Loogaroo, but I don’t owe you. Just so long as we’re clear,” said Morris.
“Perfectly clear,” said Mike. “Just hear me out, and then tell me what you think.”
Morris nodded.
Mike started at the beginning and told his story. He didn’t leave out a single detail, from the ghost of the drowned woman through to his brief incarceration. Mike ended with telling Morris the revelation he’d had in the interrogation room—that the creature was headed for where Mike and Gary had first used the paranormal amplifier at the river.
Morris simply watched him talk. Mike finished, sipped his coffee, and waited for a response.
Morris slid halfway out of the booth before addressing Mike. “I’ve got to be up that way on Thursday,” he said. “I know where that trail is. I’ll meet you where The Ledges trail splits off.”
“Thank you,” Mike said to Morris’s back.
* * * * *
AS HE ASCENDED THE HILL, Mike began to suspect that Morris was no longer following him. He paused at the big rock to look back. He grabbed his chest, surprised to find the tall man directly behind him.
“You scared me,” he said, panting.
Morris stared at him, still emotionless.
“I forgot to show you this the other day.” Mike pulled out his phone and pulled up the picture of the print he had taken at the crime-scene house. “There’s no way to see the scale of the thing, but it’s a pretty good picture of the footprint. I guess it doesn’t tell you very much,” he babbled, waiting for Morris to reply.
“No shoes,” said Morris finally.
“Yeah, well sure, he’s barefoot.” Mike was puzzled.
“I mean he’s never worn shoes with a toe box,” Morris said.
“Oh? How can you tell?”
“Toes spread too wide. You might see that in a third world country, but not around here,” said Morris.
“I was just thinking,” said Mike. “If the man came down this way, I’m probably stomping all over his trial.”
“Nothing has been down this way,” said Morris. “Except you.”
Mike tried to keep his doubt from his face. His last hike on this trail had been more than a week before, and he seriously doubted that any tracker could speak definitively about activity on a rocky, gravel trail.
“Okay,” said Mike. He caught his breath to the best of his ability and scaled the rock that blocked the clearing. Dropping down on the other side, he was quickly followed by the large man.
“Stop,” said Morris. He blocked Mike with his arm.
Mike thought back to the explanation he had given Morris in the diner. He wondered if his description could possibly have informed Morris well enough for him to guess that this was the clearing.
Morris skirted the clearing, placing each foot carefully, and bent close to the ground several times. Finally, with Mike watching in awe, Morris approached the small opening to the cave. When he knelt to examine the entrance, he dropped behind a rock. Mike began to creep forward to try to see what Morris was doing. He stopped himself when he remembered Morris’s last order.
“It’s okay,” said Morris, still behind the rock.
Mike approached and found the tracker studying the bodies of the decapitated bats.
“I thought those would be gone by now,” said Mike, “carried off or something.”
“Nothing’s going to touch these,” said Morris, his voice echoing slightly in the cave’s depths.
“How come?”
“I don’t know,” said Morris. “But I don’t even want to touch them.”
Neither man spoke for a few minutes while Morris shielded his eyes and tried to look into the darkness of the cave.
“Are you going in there?” asked Mike.
“Nope,” said Morris. “Nothing to see.”
“So what do you make of this?” asked Mike.
“Something strange,” said Morris. “Don’t know what yet.”
“Can you tell anything from all this? Any ideas at all?”
Morris turned his gaze to the horizon and then glanced back down to the ground, as if he were watching something move across the landscape. When his eyes touched the edge of the forest, he looked back to Mike. “Your man’s big,” he said.
“Yeah, I thought so. I told you about the footprint, right? It was right over here." Mike crossed to the sandy place and pointed down, but when he looked up, Morris was already headed back for the big rock and the trail back to his truck.
Mike scurried behind him to catch up.
“So, are you going to help me track him?” he asked.
Morris kept walking, but turned his head briefly
for his monosyllabic answer. “Yup.”
* * * * *
THEY TOOK SEPARATE CARS all the way to Montville, where they joined up in the parking lot of a shopping mall near the highway. Morris studied several USGS maps in silence for the better part of twenty minutes while he traced his finger between the points of the murders.
“You have a street address on the latest?” he asked Mike.
“No,” said Mike. “They just said Sandham Depot, which is a little suburb north of town here." He pointed to a tight grid of roads edged by railroad tracks. Tight contour lines described the tall hills encompassing the neighborhood.
“We need to go there,” said Morris.
“Let’s go,” said Mike.
Those were the last words either man would speak for an hour. Each time Mike would open his mouth to say something, he would glance at Morris and get the distinct feeling that his conversation would fall on deaf ears. He thought that Morris’s feelings for him were something less than contempt, but perhaps bordered on apathy.
When they reached Sandham Depot, Morris drove his truck up and down several side streets. Mike finally found his tongue.
“What are we looking for?” he asked.
“That,” said Morris.
He parked across the street from a slightly rundown old house with a realtor’s sign in the yard. Mike almost missed the thin strip of yellow tape sealing the front door, but saw it once Morris pointed it out. Pulling down the street a few more car-lengths, they both saw the yellow markers set up in the back yard.
Morris located their position on the map and then repeated his silent finger-tracing until he landed on a point north of their location. He pulled away from the curb and moved through, heading towards the northern ridgeline.
