And the colonel had to be looking for a sign.
Any sign.
Nakai turned away from the creature’s camp and, staying low, headed back the way he had come. He moved faster than he thought he could. He had to get out of these trees. At least on the lava flow, he could face the creature in the open. In this brush, it could come up behind him and he wouldn’t even know it.
Or come down on top of him.
A drop of green blood hit him squarely in the face an instant before the world exploded around him.
From above the rifle was yanked out of Nakai’s hand, the strap broken like it was nothing more than a piece of cooked pasta.
The pain from his shoulder coursed though his entire body as Nakai tumbled and then managed to come up in a staggering run. Behind him the creature took the rifle and smashed it against a tree limb like a child angry at a broken toy. Then with a mighty leap, the creature sprang through the tops of the thin trees, landing on a large branch in a tree five paces in front of Nakai.
But the tree was old, and the huge limb rotten from too many hot summer days and swamplike winters. The creature hit it squarely with both feet, and the limb snapped with a riflelike report that echoed over the forest.
The creature was caught by surprise, its feet flying into the air as it dropped toward the trail.
Nakai didn’t even slow down.
The creature landed on its back with a smacking sound and the air rushed from its chest as green blood sprayed in all directions.
Nakai wasn’t about to stop to see if it was alive. At the moment he didn’t figure a fall like that could kill a creature that thirty men with rifles couldn’t hurt.
Nakai vaulted past the creature at the moment it hit the ground, running at his full speed toward the lava flow ahead, every step jarring pain through his shoulder.
Behind him, the creature pushed itself to its feet, a thick wheezing coming from its mouth.
Nakai glanced over his shoulder. The creature had turned around and was limping back toward its camp, letting Nakai go.
Alive!
Nakai couldn’t believe his luck, but he didn’t slow until he was back near the top of the nearest caved-in lava dome. Then he stopped and turned around to stare back into the trees below. He could clearly see the creature moving around its camp. Then, after a moment, it lay down next to the head of Sheriff Bogle, as if it were simply taking a nap.
“Well, I’ll be goddamned,” Nakai said, finally taking a deep breath, then wincing at the pain. “The creature hurt itself with the fall.”
He stood there for a moment, doing his best to catch his breath, thinking about how lucky he was. He didn’t have the gun; he couldn’t warn the colonel in the way he had planned, but he had escaped with his life. That counted for something.
Then, slowly, Nakai turned around and stared down into the volcanic hole behind him. And that quickly, he had a plan.
A stupid plan, he knew. He should just head back to the colonel and report the creature’s position. But the creature must be prepared for that. It had to know that the army wouldn’t give up so easily. It had known too many other things.
Maybe the monster’s defeat wasn’t going to be in a hail of bullets. Maybe the fall from the tree had been a sign. If a fall from a tree could hurt it that much, what would a sixty-foot drop onto lava rocks do for it?
The problem was how to get the creature out of his camp and into one of these holes. And that was where Nakai came in. He quickly checked his watch. The colonel would be sending in tanks and more gunships in less than an hour.
There was time.
28
Grandfather has told me my time is coming. I must watch closely, then do what I can to help my twin in his battle to slay the monster. Yet I am only a spirit, unable to touch anything on the earthly plane of existence. What can I possibly do to help my brother? Grandfather has told me I will know. He is a powerful medicine man. I must believe him.
The morning was starting to turn hot over the lava beds. Nakai finished forming his shirt into a bandage and sling for his useless right arm. Once he got the arm braced, the pain subsided to a point where he could live with it for the moment. His biggest fear was that he would hit the arm and pass out. Even willpower couldn’t prevent that.
With luck, he’d have to live with the pain for the rest of the day. Without some luck, he’d be alive only another twenty minutes or so anyway.
Once he finished with the sling, he stood and checked what supplies he had left. He had a knife, binoculars, and his army-issue pistol, still in its holster on his hip. He’d lost the extra ammunition on the belt with the rifle, but there were at least seven shots left in the clip of the pistol. He also had his survival supplies, which included the most important element for his plan: matches.
Using the binoculars, he checked on the creature. The thing was still flat on its back in the forest. A dozen vultures worked on the human flesh that surrounded the monster, eating and fighting over the bits, all without seeming to wake it.
“That fall must have really hurt, huh, big fella?” Nakai said.
He put the glasses away, then went quickly to work, scavenging brush and a few sticks from the edge of the trees. He took the brush back up the hill, placing it carefully around and over the opening in the lava dome. It took him three trips down the side of the hill and back before he finally had the hole covered in such a way that it looked like a natural brush growth in the lava. He had fashioned the oldest trap in the world: a pit.
Now he had the oldest problem in the world: how to get his game to fall into his pit.
With another quick check to make sure the creature was still where he wanted it to be, Nakai walked quickly toward the right, around the forested valley. He stayed up near the dome crests so he could keep an eye on the monster as much as possible.
About a hundred paces from his trap, he dropped down to the edge of the forest, ripped a piece of cloth off his pants leg. Nakai wrapped the cloth tightly around a thick branch. He lit a match with his thumb and forefinger, then touched the flame to the edge of the fabric. He let the cloth burn for a moment before sticking it into some thick brush.
The day was already hot, and the summer had been even hotter. The brush was dry and instantly caught, almost roaring up too fast in his face.
Sweat was pouring off his body. That last was too close for comfort. He had to be extremely careful.
Now he was on a timeline, and he felt the pressure of each second. He jogged to the edge of the lava field, lighting every pile of brush he came to. It took him less than ten minutes to completely circle the valley, lighting the edges as he went, leaving only the area below his trap open and fire-free.
Then, tossing his torch into the trees, he moved back to a position right below his pit and waited.
The creature was still asleep in its camp and the vultures were still fighting over the human heads. One of them had pecked off Sheriff Bogle’s sunglasses, leaving one eye socket empty, a black hole big enough to hold a golf ball.
Around the valley, the fires were raging, crackling, sending smoke and flames shooting into the air. Even if his plan didn’t succeed, and the creature escaped, Nakai had managed to let the colonel know what area it had been in.
The plan worked in two ways. That was the beauty of it.
Nakai looked at the flames. They couldn’t burn across the lava rock. They needed fuel. And the only place they would find fuel was in the valley. The fires had to go inward, toward the monster and its camp of rotting death.
“Better wake up there, big fella,” Nakai said, staring at the creature through the binoculars. “You’re going to get a hotfoot real quick if you don’t.”
With a squawk, the vultures flew off. They circled a few times, angry that they had lost their feast, and then the smoke drove them away.
The colonel had to be seeing this.
The fire was racing toward the creature, crackling and roaring. Heat rose and engulfed Nakai. He
wiped sweat off his face. The air wavered around him as little heat pockets formed.
“Come on,” Nakai whispered. “No one can sleep through this.”
But it would have been wonderful if the monster could. Nakai would have burned it to death.
Of course, the instant Nakai had that thought, things changed. Finally the noise of the fire caused the creature to stir. It sat up and looked around as if it were stunned. Then it went up a tree quickly, then with a quick glance around, quickly figured out what had happened. Nakai kept an eye on it through the binoculars.
“I bet you’re not a happy camper,” he said.
In the tree the creature turned and looked directly at him, fixing him with those disturbing eyes.
Nakai could feel the chill of evil run through his entire body, making him shiver despite the heat of the day and the roaring fires below. He took a deep breath and then did the only thing he could think to do.
He waved.
“I’m up here, you ugly mother. Better come and get me before you become a fried piece of shit.”
Through the binoculars, Nakai could see the creature square up its shoulders so that it was facing directly at him.
“Shit!” Nakai said, jumping to the right behind a large outcropping of lava rock, jarring his shoulder as he went.
The blue flame exploded where he’d been standing, sending rock into the air like a black rain.
“Pissed off, huh?” Nakai said through gritted teeth. “Good. So am I.”
Carefully, he glanced over the rock. The creature was out of the tree and out of sight in the smoke and flames that now filled the small valley.
Nakai scrambled for his next position. Keeping the pit between himself and the valley, he stood up on a rock and looked down at the edge of the forest, ready to leap to a safe place at an instant’s warning.
“Come on, you fat, ugly lizard,” Nakai said, staring into the smoke and flames. “Show yourself.”
His command was instantly answered as the creature vaulted out of the trees and started up the face of the lava, directly at Nakai.
“Now we’re talking,” Nakai said.
He stood his ground for a moment to make sure the creature saw him clearly, then before it could get off a shot of blue death, he dropped out of sight behind some rocks.
The creature came up the hill just as Nakai had figured it would, leaping the last twenty feet to the top.
The creature landed exactly where Nakai had hoped, smack in the middle of the branches Nakai had fixed over the hole in the lava-dome roof.
With a huge crack, the monster disappeared out of sight, the look of surprise on its ugly face worth every ache and pain Nakai had at that moment.
“That’ll teach you to look before you leap,” he said, laughing to himself.
With his pistol in his left hand, Nakai moved slowly toward the edge of the pit. Not a sound came from the hole. Only the crackling fire filled the air.
Moving carefully, he inched toward the hole until he was just about to look down, hoping to see the crumpled body of the creature on the rocks below.
Instead, it came up out of the hole with a low growl, pulling itself over the edge directly in front of Nakai. Before he could move, it grabbed his leg, spilling him over backward onto the hard rock.
The creature climbed the rest of the way out of the hole and now stood above him.
Nakai could only stare into the face of death. The stench of rotting flesh covered him as the monster leaned forward, drooling. In all his life, Nakai had never been so scared.
And so ready to die.
29
My brother is about to join me in this plane. We have failed to kill the monster. I can think of no way to step into the real world and distract the evil from killing my twin. Our grandfather stands beside me, smiling. I do not understand his pleasure.
Private Tilden could see the fire ahead, the smoke filling the sky with a single black cloud. From where he stood, it looked as if the lava fields themselves were on fire, yet he knew that wasn’t possible. There were some small valleys filled with brush and trees in these types of lava beds. More than likely one of those valleys had caught fire. How, Tilden had no idea, but he would wager his next month’s pay it had to do with the creature.
For over thirty minutes he had been following the creature’s green blood trail, never once seeing Corporal Nakai’s boot print. He had also spent a short time making sure the corporal wasn’t at the bottom of a caved-in lava dome. The trail had gone right over the hole, and the scattered rock looked fresh. Either the creature or Corporal Nakai had caused the cave-in, that was for sure. But neither of them was at the bottom.
Tilden stopped and studied the plumes of smoke ahead. The sun was up enough to make the black lava more like the inside of a frying pan. He could feel the heat coming up through his boots with each step he took. There was no way he, Corporal Nakai, or any other soldier could be out on this black rock during the intense heat of the afternoon. Tilden just hoped the colonel understood that fact in the coming attack.
From what Tilden could tell, the fires weren’t very far away. If he could jog, he might be there within a few minutes. But jogging over this terrain was impossible. Instead he just strode out, taking long paces, forcing himself to breathe deeply, picking his footfalls, making no sound.
He was worried about Nakai. Tilden should have seen him on the way back long before this. There wasn’t much time before the colonel started the next attack.
Nakai was a survivor. If he could get back, he would have.
Tilden was afraid Nakai was dead.
The fire, though, the fire gave him hope. Even if the creature had started the fire, it wouldn’t have done so on purpose. It would have done so in response to something.
Something Nakai had done.
The fires were a signal of the monster’s location.
And maybe, just maybe, of Nakai’s location. Nakai was probably dead, but he might have been injured. He had shown an uncanny ability to survive anything that creature had thrown at him.
Tilden had to see. He had to make sure Nakai wasn’t on the lava rock, crawling toward help.
Six minutes later he cleared the top of a small ridge and could see for a few miles ahead. The smoke rose upward, obscuring much of the area.
But he could see two distant figures on a dome just this side of the fire. One stood on top while the other came quickly up the side of the rock.
Too quickly.
The one climbing had to be the creature. That meant that the figure on top, more than likely, was Corporal Nakai.
Tilden stopped and pulled out his binoculars, focusing down on the two figures on the dome. As he did, the one climbing took a huge bound and then disappeared as it landed at the top of the dome.
Instantly, Tilden knew what Nakai had done. He had lured the creature into a pit, sending him to his death at the bottom of a lava dome. Nakai had somehow made the monster angry, then used himself as bait in one of the oldest hunting tricks in the book.
“Brilliant,” Tilden said, laughing. “Just totally and completely brilliant!”
As he watched through the binoculars, Nakai stepped toward the pit’s edge, slowly, pistol in hand. His rifle was nowhere to be seen, and even from a distance, it was clear that he was badly injured. His shirt was missing and his right arm was in a bloodstained sling. This evidently wasn’t the first battle he and the creature had fought this morning.
Nakai took another step to look over the edge of the pit.
“Careful there,” Tilden said to him, even though the corporal couldn’t hear him from such a distance. “Don’t go falling in with it.”
As he finished speaking, the creature came up suddenly, like a fish taking a fly fisherman’s lure out of the water. The thing must have caught the edge of the pit and pulled itself out.
Tilden didn’t want to think that it was capable of jumping from the bottom of one of those pits.
The creature grabbed
Nakai’s ankle, sending him tumbling over backward. Then it finished climbing out of the lava dome hole.
“Shit!” Tilden screamed, yanking his rifle off his shoulder and dropping into a firing position on the ground. He was far, far too distant for any real hope at a good shot, but maybe he could distract the creature enough to force him to leave Nakai. Maybe he might even get lucky and score a hit.
But by the time he had gotten his rifle into position on a rock for the impossible long shot, he was too late.
He was too late by seconds, only seconds. But in a life-and-death battle, seconds were all that mattered.
30
It is my job as his hero twin to distract the monster long enough for Nayenezgani to fulfill the teachings of our ancestors. He has fought the battle of a warrior, yet I am only a spirit, dead at birth to the real world. Grandfather says we are linked forever. Always twins. He says that through my brother and his things, I will find a way to distract the monster. But there is nothing of my brother’s close enough to make a difference except his broken weapon and his ammunition belt.
I stare at them for a moment. The ammunition belt hangs off a tree limb. The broken gun is wedged between the branches.
I stare, and then I understand.
A fresh wind breathes life into the fire, and the flames reach up toward the ammunition belt like a grasping hand.
* * * * *
Corporal Enoch Nakai, lying on his back on the hard lava rock, stared up into the creature’s eyes as time moved in slow motion.
The evil in those eyes was greater than he had ever imagined. The eyes narrowed. They were bright, and in their darkness, he could see his own reflection.
Tiny, small, insignificant.
The monster stared at him, and Nakai stared back. He didn’t blink.
He knew he was going to die.
He knew his head was going to end up in the creature’s next camp.
A trophy. He would be nothing more than a trophy.
Predator - Big Game Page 16
