Falling Prey

by M. C. Norris

  The thing lowered its frilled head. Craning its neck until its body was streamlined, it emitted the guttural prattle of a fighting rooster. Clawed feet slashed through the spraying sand. It fanned its lateral plumage until its width was doubled, maximizing its breadth as if to crush all hope from hapless prey that might attempt to dodge it.

  As the horror bore down on the doomed pair, the unthinkable happened. It was a sight far worse than if the monster had gnashed its serrated maw down over them, masticating their enmeshed flesh into a red paste. That would’ve been better. At the very least, that sort of an end might’ve harried Margot and Dr. Kimura together into the gilded halls of martyrdom, but to Sandy’s utter aghast, Margot instead wrenched the doctor over her hip, and shoved him right into the beast’s face.

  “No.”

  Margot spun, and fled for the safety of the sea.

  “No!” Sandy dumped her load of canned beverages. She charged up the embankment toward the campfire, where Dr. Kimura’s screams lent discordant treble to the monster’s basal growls. It wrenched its shaggy face into the sand, snorting and grunting with a sickening relish for human flesh. The muffled cries of its meal barely penetrated the damper of reeking plumage.

  “Let him go!” Sandy exploded into the ring of firelight. The monster’s head thrashed in the sand. Its sickening purrs were interrupted by the popping of bones. The stench at this proximity was intoxicating. Through the matted heap of pelage, Sandy discerned a yellow eye, round and owlish in shape, and burning with predatory malice. It disappeared back beneath the shifting mass, where the muted cries of Dr. Kimura could still be heard.

  Lunging into the campfire, Sandy seized a burning log in her bare hands. She felt no pain. “Let him go!” She swung the fiery club over her shoulder, rushed the beast, and brought it down with a hollow clunk atop its stinking head. A flume of sparks ascended. The wave of heat knocked Sandy back, as the heap of greasy feathers ignited like a pile of tinder. Before it could rear for a counterattack, its devilish head was consumed in a ball of fire. Caterwauling, screeching like an injured chick, it bounced blindly against the limestone wall as it lumbered flaming into the night.

  ###

  22-D

  The bloodcurdling howl, punctuated by a series of dull chuffs, was replaced by the tide’s rhythmic roar. Nate stood alone on the beach. His arms dangled limply at his sides. Not in a million years could he have imagined a distraction that could’ve snapped him out of his grief, but that was pretty effective. Flipping through a mental rolodex of every animal on God’s green earth, he failed to find a suitable match. What in the hell had made that noise? He attempted to rub the double-image of two moons from his eyes, and when they refused to merge into one celestial body, Nate had to consider the possibility that he might’ve lost his mind. Somewhere in the far distance, a second howl rose from the jungle in a mournful crescendo. Whatever the things were, they seemed to be communicating. Goosebumps prickled up and down his forearms. Unlike like the howl of a wolf, the eerie cries in the night did not strike him as being the least bit beautiful. This was a terrible sound.

  Shaking uncontrollably, Nate turned away from the sight of the tandem moons to the sea. When he saw the doubled reflections of a thousand moons glimmering on the crest of a thousand waves, he doubled-over, and vomited on the sand. This was it. He was sure that he’d gone insane, and now he was going to die. Retching and trembling, he dropped to all fours to lessen the impact of the fall, because he felt his consciousness waning. Dawn was gone, and he’d lost his mind.

  It was the sound of their screams that saved him, brought him back from the brink of madness. Nate swiveled his sagging head in the direction of the shrieks. He was pretty sure that it was that group of teens, but it didn’t sound like they were fooling around. Sounded serious. Something bad was happening. He rose to his feet, squinting down the pale strip between the ocean and jungle. At the farthest reaches of his visual limits, he saw something that he couldn’t explain.

  The kids were all out in the water. Silhouetted by the hammered brilliance of moonlight glittering on the sea, their dark forms could be seen rushing out into the waves, but there was something else. Something else was chasing them, and whatever it was, it didn’t make any sense to his eyes. The thing was enormous. It was impossibly huge, yet formless. It looked like a dark thunderhead floating over the beach, but this was no cloud. It had one of them.

  “Oh my God.”

  Nate ran. As though life had given him a second chance at saving Dawn, at saving the man on the beach, he squeezed every ounce of speed from his pounding legs. Not another. Not one more life would be lost on his watch, or on his account. Evidently finished with the kid in the sand, the shaggy abomination turned its attention to the other teens, who’d already swam to a considerable distance offshore. In an instant, the thing was back in pursuit. It charged right into the sea like a gigantic grizzly bear. Dazzling sprays sparkled in the moonlight as the monster smashed through waves, closing the distance between itself and the screaming cluster of teens. Just as the creature drew close enough to ensure their demise, Nate beheld something inexplicable. One of the three kids abandoned the group. One dark silhouette swam back to face the monster, all alone.

  ###

  21-F

  “Alex! What the hell are you doing?” Peanut knew exactly what his best friend was doing. He was just being Alex, the most selfless human being he’d ever had the honor and pleasure of knowing. There went Alex, his other half, swimming right out of his life.

  What was the point of it? Their whole life, and it had always been one shared, seemed suddenly so random, and so meaningless. If Alex’s whole purpose for being born into this world was this moment, where he would spare the lives of two people by sacrificing his own, then Peanut would have no other choice but to scream.

  Peanut might’ve started screaming because he knew he couldn’t afford a massive debt that couldn’t ever be repaid, but this wasn’t completely true. Peanut screamed because the truth was that there was no debt at all. This was Alex, and his death, much like his life, was just a gift to those around them. The trouble was that both were gifts so amazing that Peanut felt unworthy to have ever received them. He was just the damned clown, the fool of their lifelong act, where Alex always took the role of the hero, while Peanut handled the comedy relief. It was a flawless presentation to the world around them, one they’d mastered, but in the end, the hero shouldn’t lay down his life for the fool. That made no sense. It should be the other way around, but then, heroes will be heroes, and fools will be fools, and in the end, the fool will always live to tell his fallen hero’s tale.

  He wouldn’t watch. Peanut turned his head, and closed his eyes when the howler lunged. He heard the sound, and he knew that he’d just heard his best friend’s life ending. That was the worst sound he’d ever heard. It was the worst sound that ever was.

  “Fucking swim, Tara!”

  At the very least, his death would not be in vain. He’d not allow it. That monster was not going to eat either one of them. Peanut threshed his legs against the water, dragging Tara Riley further out into the sea. He’d swim across the whole goddamned ocean if that’s what it took, but the howler was not going to eat them. Peanut pulled at the water, pulling her, kicking against the heavy fluid. He growled with every stroke, but the monster was still coming. He could hear the blasts of air from its nostrils, the sluice of water through its dagger teeth. It was gaining on them. It wouldn’t give up. Peanut understood that now. He could maybe swim across an ocean, but so would the howler. It wouldn’t quit until they were all dead.

  ###

  22-D

  It was like watching a terrible accident in slow motion. The kids weren’t going to make it. Whatever it was, it could definitely swim. The distance between the shaggy hulk and the remaining teens was shrinking by a meter almost every second. Whatever the kids had done to run afoul with this monster, Nate couldn’t even imagine, but it was after them like they owed it mo
ney. The problem was that once it was finished with them, it would probably be looking for its next target, if it hadn’t slated him into its queue already. Nate knew that he ought to be contemplating a route of escape, but he couldn’t bring himself to look away from the horror. Some morbid part of the human mind always demanded that the eyes bear witness to that which could befall less fortunate people, even when a gruesome sight had no practical application.

  In a roar of brine pulverized to foam, a new form appeared, streaked in moonlight, breaching the sea with all the power of Poseidon’s Kraken. Twisting its body in a magnificent pirouette, the fantastic animal seemed to hover in midair as it unhinged its crocodilian jaws, tilted its massive head, and toppled toward its prey. There was no denying that this was the same sort of creature that had taken Dawn, nor was there any room left to deny what sort of monster it was. Nate was looking at a mosasaur.

  It dropped toward the howler with the lethal precision of a deadfall trap. There was no escaping the acute angle of those jaws, and the shaggy beast seemed to sense it. It ceased paddling after the teens to gawp up at its destroyer in quiet wonderment, as though dumbstruck by the sight of a monster so much larger than itself. The yawning maw slammed shut over the howler’s head, and in an instant both creatures were gone, returned to the lightless depths with a thunderclap, and sparkling jettisons.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  28-D

  They were inside of him. Thousands of them, squirming all around in his body. He could feel them in his mouth, in his skull, peering out at the world from behind his eyes. The insect eggs had hatched so quickly. All through the night, he felt the larvae churning purposefully in his bullet wounds, but they weren’t devouring his flesh. They were doing something else entirely. Something good. By the time dawn’s light gilded the overhanging foliage, Hart realized that his injuries had ceased to pain him. He was still swollen, but the throbbing agony had mysteriously abated. Some degree of natural feeling had even begun to return to his left arm. He was full of worms, but they were good worms. They were like his little helpers. That’s how it seemed. Hart wiggled his fingers.

  It was the strangest night he’d ever experienced. Prone on the jungle floor, unable to move, he’d been visited by things. Nameless admirers had come to lower their nightmarish heads, and sniff him, before eventually lumbering on. It was as though some angelic force was protecting him with crossed swords, keeping every beast of the night at bay. He was Daniel in the lions’ den, filled with a Holy Spirit that he could actually feel squirming in his innards, and wriggling occasionally up his throat to deposit clusters of eggs on his lips. He and his worms were one. They were his protectors, and he was something of their mighty vehicle. Hart could sense that they were in the mood to travel, but where would a bunch of worms want to go, and could he even move?

  Starting by wiggling his fingertips, Hart lifted his wrists from the leaf litter. He rotated his hands, and raised them up before his eyes, where masses of worms were probably gathered, peering out at their new body in amazement. But they hadn’t seen anything yet. Hart groaned as he sat up slowly, blinking his eyes, gazing around at the surrounding jungle with a sort of bemused complacence. Where before the forest was a vast and terrifying place filled with enormous horrors that roared and howled all through the night, the morning light made things seem so much smaller, and more manageable. The nightmare was over. A fresh, sunny day awaited.

  There was a sour taste in his mouth, kind of like spoiled milk. He could even smell it on his breath. He smacked his lips, which were coated with worm eggs. They felt pretty disgusting, but he knew better than to wipe them away. The worms had put them there for a reason, and he was supposed to leave them alone. Kind of annoying, but he guessed things could sure be worse.

  Hart looked down at his leg. Yesterday’s ragged bullet hole had been totally transformed. It wasn’t exactly healed. Just patched. It was all glazed over with a glob of amber gelatin. He could see the worms hard at work beneath it, roiling around in the damaged tissue. They were weird, but they sure seemed to know what they were doing. He was blessed to have stumbled right into a nest of helpful worms. Yesterday’s terrible anfractuosities would have snuffed the life from an ordinary human being, but he was no longer ordinary, and technically, he wasn’t even sure that he was still a human being.

  All his days, he’d walked the world alone. Sometimes he’d felt like an insect trapped inside a window pane, doomed to forever watch other lives passing by, but forever denied access. It didn’t seem fair. What had he ever done so wrong that the whole world rejected him? He hadn’t done anything. The truth was that he was just too sensitive for the world. Lots of people endured worse lots in life than he’d been given, and they still turned out to be very successful people who were admired for their perseverance. Hart had always been strong. He’d persevered through so many terrible accidents, surgeries, and trips to the burn unit, but no one admired him. No one cared. Life was just more complicated for him than it seemed to be for most people. He never could figure it out—people, that is—and why someone as big and strong as him should be made so easily broken.

  Hart smiled down at the glob of amber stuff on his thigh. It was like a little window. They were trapped behind the pane, but they were on the same side of the window as him. They cared about him. He could sense that. His worms loved him for who he was, and they wanted the best for him. At last, he had friends, lots and lots of them, and he could carry them with him wherever he went.

  Now, the only question was where to go? Hart looked around the dense reefs of undergrowth. He noticed the two sets of human tracks in the mud left behind by Lonny and that Marine. Hart licked his caked lips and teeth, careful not to swallow any of the precious eggs. He decided that he would follow those footprints, because he guessed that what he felt most like doing today was biting people.

  ###

  22-D

  Like a rabble of zombies, they shuffled along the endless strip of sand. The kids collected bags of peanuts and cans of soda, as they happened upon them. The beach was littered with debris. Every few steps there were seat cushions, parts of the plane, and parts of people. Nate caught himself wondering if they were the only ones who’d managed to survive the terrible night. The jungle was quieter by day. He guessed that the howlers were nocturnal hunters, but where was all of the other life on this island? Where were all of the keening seagulls that should’ve been picking through the grisly remains? What sort of animals did howlers eat when they weren’t feeding on human beings?

  They hadn’t spoken much in the last hour. They were exhausted from lack of sleep, crushed by loss. They all had grief in common. The boy called Peanut had cried all through the night, his head buried between his knees. One of the two kids killed had been his best friend. They’d grown up together, across the street from one another. Sounded like they were practically brothers. Nate once had friends like that, long ago, back when he was their age. As kids approached young adulthood, they traded their childhood dependence on their families for stronger bonds with their peers. Once they got a little older, the intensity of those bonds with friends would dissipate, as they reconnected with their families in new ways, and used the skills they’d developed through adolescence to foster the greatest and most challenging bond of all—the bond with a spouse.

  It had taken them both a couple of failed efforts in marriages before they found one another. He and Dawn were both re-treads. Their nomadic spirits had proved unconducive to previous relationships, where their exes were made anxious by their wandering, their dissatisfaction with an ordinary life of pink houses and picket fences. Their true love had always been, and always would be the sea. Together, they shared that understanding.

  She was something of a scientific icon, particularly in the eyes of females. Dawn had played a significant role in breaking down the old patriarchal barriers that had long kept women out of marine biology. Nate was awed by her drive and determination, and enamored by her almost childlike fascinat
ion with all living things. Her passion for life and the living sea was perhaps what made her tragic end so bittersweet. Dawn’s true love had turned on her.

  Being eaten … there was something so repulsive about being regarded by a larger animal as nothing more than flesh to fill its gullet. It was the most primal fear of all, passed down through our genes from those ancient ancestors who learned to fear snakes, spiders, and shaggy beasts. It was why kids were afraid of the dark. It was why people screamed. So much basic human behavior was nothing more than the genetic memory of a monkey.

  Before the sun set, they had to find some shelter. Their lives depended on it. They could not survive another night like the last one. They needed a cave, a crevice, a damned hole in the ground. If they hadn’t found a place to hide by the time those awful howls resounded from the darkened jungle, then it would already be too late.

  “Do you think we went back in time?” Peanut asked.

  It was the first time the kid had spoken since midnight, but Nate didn’t have an answer. He’d have loved be able to explain what had happened, to offer an educated guess as to where they were, and why they were here, but he didn’t have either. It would’ve been nice to have been able to cling to the hope that they’d discovered some lost island that time had forgotten, where creatures existed that could be found nowhere else on earth. The problem was the two moons floating up in the night sky.

  “Alex and I were talking about it. He thought that maybe we’d gone back in time, like through a portal or something. I told him that I didn’t think that was possible because of paradoxes, but now I don’t even know about that anymore.”