The Valley

by Rick Jones

  Albright raised his Smith & Wesson, took aim, and pulled the trigger. The bullet ejected from the barrel and impacted with the creature’s snout, tearing its nasal passage and destroying cartilage and bone. The second shot was true, the bullet decimating its eye, the contact so brutal that its head snapped violently back and up, exposing the underside of its chin. The third shot hit home, going through its chin and into its brainpan, killing it.

  That left one raptor.

  Ben was joined by Sommers, who held his machete steady.

  Albright delighted in the fact that their confrontation had turned to sport, two armed men against a raptor, and lowered his weapon and became a spectator as he drew back into the brush.

  “What the hell are you doing?!” Ben hollered. “Shoot it!”

  Albright, though he still held his weapon, refused to point it.

  “Albright!”

  The raptor began to pace from left to right, and then it honked to its mates who lay on the ground unmoving. When it received no response, the raptor turned tail and disappeared into the jungle, the brush closing behind it, the leaves swinging into place.

  Ben now held the machete in a two-handed grip, as did Sommers. Their chests pounded, their hearts racing.

  Then Sommers fell to his knees. “It’s gone,” he said, taking in huge gulps of air. “Can anybody tell me what the hell that was? Anyone?”

  Nobody knew. So nobody spoke.

  Flies began to buzz and alight on the remains of Michelle and Daniella Fergusson, as the stench of fecal matter, blood and copper filled the air.

  Others, who sought refuge in the brush, began to emerge, finally finding enough courage to do so. “Are you all right?” Cheryl asked Ben, laying a hand upon his shoulder.

  He nodded, then asked for water, which he was granted because it was duly earned.

  When he got to his feet, he pinned Albright with a hard stare, then began to approach him in a manner that could have been considered as one of hostile intent.

  Albright pointed the firearm at Ben. “Really?” he said.

  Ben stopped in his tracks. “Why didn’t you shoot?”

  “Didn’t think it was all that necessary to waste ammo.”

  “You’re a son of a bitch,” he told him.

  Albright didn’t respond. Nor did he seem to care. Instead, he put his weapon between the small of his back and the waistband of his pants, and turned away. The discussion was over.

  Ben boiled over and dug the point of the machete deep in the soil, his rage yet to subside.

  “Let it go,” Sommers said from his sitting position, the machete laying across his lap. “I don’t think you want to challenge that nut.”

  “What is wrong with people like that?”

  Sommers looked over at Ben. “Are you kidding?” he asked. “It’s people like Albright that makes for good TV.”

  And Ben considered this and realized that Sommers was right. People like Albright do make for good TV.

  Ben then looked at the surrounding trees and noted the cameras high against the trunks. Then he heard the whirring of lenses as they zoomed in.

  Then he looked at the surrounding faces already shining with the sweat of their brows, at faces that had lost hope with a single incident.

  Not even a mile in and they lost two of their own.

  Ben looked at Pam, then at Cheryl, noting long faces. Then he looked at Yakamoto, who refused to betray his emotions. Then at Hughes and Amici and Sommers, who appeared drained. And then there was Darius Albright who stood with his arms folded defensively across his chest, and eyes that were as hard and emotionless as a snake’s.

  “And what do we do about them?” Cheryl asked, pointing to the bodies of the Fergusson sisters.

  Ben shrugged. What could they do? They needed to move on.

  Ben Peyton closed his eyes as sweat coursed lazily down his face. “We need to go on,” he said. “Nature will take its course.”

  “In other words,” said Albright, “leave them just the way they are.”

  Peyton faced off with Albright with a harsh stare. Then: “Yeah. Leave them just the way they are. We need to get across this valley.”

  Everyone looked down at the sisters, two beautiful girls with seemingly beautiful souls, who had been cut down in the prime of their life.

  Cheryl Dalton gave the sign of the cross. And Pam, who was never at a loss for words, said a very kind speech in eulogy.

  Everyone listened.

  And tears were shed by some.

  But when the fleeting time to mourn was over, they hoisted their backpacks and pressed forward to the east.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Peter Haynes couldn’t have been more pleased at the results that just played live on screen. Against less superior opponents, two of the three apex predators had been taken down, but not before they had taken out two cast members. The evisceration, the gore, the cinematic splashes of blood were all pleasing to his appreciative eye. The masses were going crazy in the stands. The action superb. Everyone loved it when the underdog became top dog because it set the stage for a Cinderella story.

  Two young women, dead. The way their lives ended, by evisceration. The action was fast, the battle of prey fighting off a much stronger predator showed absolute courage in the eye of danger. And the growing tension between Albright and Peyton was masterful.

  Haynes played the quick kills of the Fergusson sisters over and over again, from different angles, deciding which viewpoints would serve best on TV after editing. He played the raptor in leaping flight in slow motion, zooming in on the focal point of its primary claw, the talon, and followed it all the way through until the talon’s point sliced cleanly through flesh, and then the subsequent uncoiling of innards.

  He then played the overhead view from the helicopter, which caught the raptors closing in, the team aware that something was out there. But what? And then the attack from all points, the battle commencing.

  Machetes swung, a firearm went off, and the conflict real, tense and full of pure action.

  He then viewed the action from other angles as well, finding some scenes obscured by brush.

  But what drew him in was the confrontation between Ben Peyton and Darius Albright. A classic tale of good versus evil, the tension mounting between them that would ensure a vicious and brutal clash at tale’s end. A story within a story, a living subplot.

  It was glorious.

  And Peter Haynes thought it all to be magnificent.

  He brought up the facial images of Albright and Peyton, both lions, and zoomed in. Ben Peyton was becoming a star, he thought, tracing his fingertips over the screen, over the picture. Then he traced the screen image of Albright, another rising star.

  If Peter Haynes wasn’t a superstar executive before, these two would certainly assure that he would become one as their journey across the valley continued.

  Peter Haynes smiled.

  He looked at the stilled photos on screen. Ben Peyton and Darius Albright, two men from different walks of like.

  And they were about to catapult Haynes with a meteoric rise to global fame, making The Valley a phenomenal hit worldwide. Even greater than what it already was.

  Haynes would become the next Norman Lear of his time, a giant, and he held aspirations of becoming the next cinematic king like Cecil B. De Mille or Irwin Allen, or a studio elitist like Warner.

  This was his dream.

  This was his focus and ultimate ambition.

  And he would do it by broadcasting the deaths of others on Prime Time . . . And feel no remorse in doing so.

  When Peter Haynes smiled, his perfect rows of teeth gleamed with spangles of light.

  It was good to be king, he thought. In fact, there was no greater feeling.

  Alone in his office, Peter Haynes laughed at his good fortune.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The journey through the jungle was a solemn one, quiet, each mulling over the deaths of four people, a quarter of their staff
, before they even reached a mile inside the valley. Spirits were low, the feeling of hope shallow and dwindling as the white-hot sun sapped their energy.

  Ben and Sommers took turns cutting a path toward a clearing that was on Amici's map, and hopefully this would allow for easy maneuvering to a river in the northeast where they could set up a base camp for the night. But it was a few miles away, maybe seven. And with the humidity as stifling as it was, seven might as well have been seventy.

  “They were so young,” said Cheryl. “So pretty.”

  “Let it go,” said Yakamoto. “It is what it is. Nothing’s going to bring them back. Think of the future. Our lives depend on it.”

  Cheryl knew he was right. Their lives did depend on how they shaped the future—the future was theirs to mold. She turned to him. “You’re right,” she told him.

  He looked at her in return. “Of course, I’m right.”

  Yakamoto had his shirt off, wearing only a tank top that exposed his myriad of tattoos. They were symbolic, this much she knew, having seen them before in electronic texts about the subcultures of criminal organizations, how certain tats meant different levels of status within an organization. According to Yakamoto’s, he was apparently high in the hierarchy.

  “You’re yakuza, aren’t you?” she asked him.

  He sighed, then drew a forearm across his brow. “What’s it to you?”

  “You were listed on the stadium board as having killed people, a murderer.”

  “Again, what’s it to you?”

  “I’d like to know who I’m standing beside,” she answered squarely.

  He looked at her, chortled, the man admiring her spirit.

  “We’re all in this together,” she added. “And we may all die together.”

  That last statement struck a chord with Yakamoto. She was driving home a point: despite how different they were, they were nevertheless becoming brethren inside a hostile land.

  “Yes,” he said. “I am yakuza.”

  “You’re an assassin for the organization.” This was not a question, but affirmation.

  “Yes.”

  “And that’s why you’re here.” Another affirmation.

  “Yes.”

  There was a pregnant pause between them before she spoke. Then: “I just want you to know, Mr. Yakamoto, that here, inside this valley, I have your back. I hope you’ll have mine.”

  Yakamoto remained stoic. “Ms. . . .”

  “Cheryl Dalton.”

  “Ms. Dalton—”

  “Please call me Cheryl,” she said.

  “OK . . . Cheryl,” he smiled, but looked ahead at the newly cut path. “My only allegiance is to the yakuza, nobody else. That’s the code of the yakuza. But here, in this environment, you have nothing to fear from me. I won’t hurt you . . . But I won’t help you, either. It’s just the way it is. I’m sorry.”

  Cheryl sighed. Uniting the group into a singular whole was not going to be easy. “Maybe, Mr. Yakamoto, when you see what’s out there, what we’re up against, maybe you’ll see things differently. And when your time comes and you need aid and support, rather you choose to help me or not in a time of my need, I will certainly be there for you during yours.”

  Yakamoto looked at her, his eyes warring between tradition and conformity. And then he gave her a nod, one of admiration.

  Turning away, she edged up to Ben as he stood behind Sommers, whose turn it was to cut a path through the jungle. “How far?” she asked him.

  “To the clearing? About a half mile, maybe less. To the river, seven miles . . . Maybe.” Then: “I heard you talking to Yakamoto,” he said.

  “When the time comes, he’ll change his mind. He’ll have to. Sometimes when things are at their worst, that’s when man can be at his best.”

  “Tell that to Albright,” he said. “There’s just no reaching some people.”

  “And what’s your story?”

  “About what?”

  “Is what you told me true? You were convicted for Providing Welfare in the First Degree?”

  He nodded. “Apparently the government sees that providing help to a friend in need as promoting laziness and is a bane to society. Every day they take away our right to be human, and by doing so our humanity.”

  “You sound angry.”

  “I’m bitter. Not only for me but for people like you, and for others like you and me who don’t belong here. This is unjust.” He turned to her. “And your situation? Was that true? You’re here because of a Failure to Appear?”

  “I never broke a rule in my life. My parents saw to that, instilling the fear of God into me. I remember the first time I cursed I was bedside on my knees praying to God for forgiveness. I thought for sure that I was damned. Prayed for five straight hours, hoping I made my point.”

  Ben laughed.

  “The court bungled may case,” she continued, “but were unwilling to admit it. As far as they were concerned, the matter was over and that was that.”

  “So you’re serving time for a crime you didn’t admit?”

  “Yes. Just like you’re serving a crime you didn’t commit.”

  “But I did commit the crime,” he admitted. “I did give aid to a friend, which is against the law.”

  “Have you ever read Mark Twain?” she asked him.

  “I’ve heard of him.”

  “In one book, he wrote about a boy who befriended a slave, and this boy aided this slave, believed that slavery was wrong, even though it was against the written law to do so. And in this book the boy believes that he’s going to Hell because he’s knowingly breaking the law. The book begs the question if written law is always just, which it clearly isn’t. I believe you’re that boy in the book, Ben. I believe you’re that boy who questions the validity of the rule, then acts accordingly, seeing that there’s a moral difference between justice and law.”

  Ben thought about this. Helping Kane Gilmour was the humane thing to do, this he was sure of. And if given the chance, he’d do it again.

  “Mark Twain sounds like a very intelligent man,” he told her.

  “He was a good writer.”

  “And he was right.”

  Just as he said that, they were all standing at the fringe of the clearing.

  The grass was tall and green, with a number of small hills and few trees before them. Beyond that, a ring of sheer mountainous walls too high to scale.

  Amici checked the map and pinpointed their location, then circled it with the point of a pen. “We’re here,” he said, tapping the ballpoint to the map. “And we have to go . . . there.” He directed the pen to the northeast. “A straight path will lead us to the river. We can hold up there for the evening. Should be an easy hike from here on in.”

  “Thank God,” Pam Scholl commented.

  “It’s too quiet,” said Ben.

  “That’s because you’re paranoid from what happened back there,” Albright said. “There ain’t anything out there.’

  “Then be my guest,” Ben said. “Be the first to step out there. In fact, Albright, you have my absolute blessing.”

  “What’s the point of coming all this way if you’re afraid to move on?” he countered. “If you want to stay here, Peyton, then you have my blessing.” Albright walked out of the thicket and into the opening, the sun hotter than ever, as he mopped his brow with the sleeve of his show-appointed jumpsuit.

  Ben was looking at the guns sticking out the back of his jumpsuit with the waistband holding them in place. And Cheryl read Ben’s thought, could see the cogs of thought wheeling in his mind looking for opportunity. So she reached out and grabbed his hand. “Don’t,” she said to him softly. “Not here. Not now. I believe we need him.”

  “Then you believe wrong,” he whispered back. “Men like him can’t be trusted. It’s like bedding down with a snake inside your bed sack and waiting for it to strike should you roll the wrong way.”

  “We lost four people already. Some spirits are broken. Right now people need unity,
not fractured. If you engage him and lose, then you would leave the rest of us at his mercy.”

  Ben stared into eyes that were the color of newly minted pennies, a pure brown, and squeezed her hand gently. “You’re absolutely right,” he said. “It’s all about unity. Now I get why you were talking to Yakamoto. You’re trying to bring us together.”

  She nodded. “United we stand—”

  “Divided we fall.”

  She winked at him. Now you got it.

  They continued to hold hands while standing at the fringe, everyone watching Albright, who stood his ground a moment longer before moving forward.

  One by one everyone began to emerge from the thicket and into the open field, walking toward the salvation of the river in the northeast.

  Seven miles.

  That’s how far they had to walk.

  Seven . . . long . . . miles.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The sun was traversing to the west, which caused a marginal break in the heat and humidity. But the weather remained a complication nevertheless, the stifling heat forcing several to drink their rations until their bottles finally went dry, and long before they reached the river.

  Backpacks became too heavy for some as they struggled across the terrain. Faces had grown long and drawn and weary. And the sun had a long way to go since it was only noontime.

  Miles were slow to come by, but miles they made, inching closer to the spring well of life, that of the precious river.

  As they crossed the plain, cameras would pop up from the ground like periscopes, and follow their movements, catching every footfall.

  “We’re being watched,” said Jerald Hughes. As fit as he was, he sounded exhausted.

  They continued on, the team slowing as a battery of heat rose from landscape in waves.

  At one point, Pam Scholl surrendered herself and took to the ground, waving her hand in dismissal of the others, telling them to go on. But Ben and Cheryl wouldn’t hear of it, giving her their rations of water, and hoping for the best.