Dark Of The Woods

by Dean Koontz

  He swung the car in front of the steps of the main promenade before the huge double doors of the Sanctuary. He got out, rushed up the steps, through the portals and into a well-lighted lobby.

  Proteus hurried behind.

  Davis crossed the carpeted floor to where a woman sat behind a reception desk, a gray-haired matron with enormous fallen breasts. "I'm looking for Matron Salsbury," he said, panting.

  "You've found her, then," she said, smiling. "I'm Matron Salsbury. And you must be Mr. Stauffer Davis." She rose, trembling visibly with excitement.

  Before his encounter with the League rep at Alice Bunter's house, he would have held Matron Salsbury's hand, talked of his books, charmed her with his tales of writing and publishing. Now, all of that was behind him. To engage in any of it would have driven him quite mad. Instead, he snapped, "The girl. Leah. The one who was my guide. Could I see her, please?"

  "I'm sorry, but she's not here at the moment."

  The alcohol was gone, but he was drunk with fear, fear that she had gone off for an idyllic holiday with her smooth-skinned young angel and that even now they were tangled in love.

  "Her husband," Davis said. "Could I speak to him?"

  She looked at him blankly. "What?"

  He was enraged by her inability to understand so simple a request at so urgent a moment. "Her husband, woman! I want to speak to her husband!"

  "I don't understand," she said, looking a bit frightened. "She has no husband. There are only sixteen winged people left. They are all women."

  He felt his mouth unhinge.

  Exterminated…

  He closed his mouth, licked his lips with a tongue that felt swollen and dry. She had known what he felt! And to save him the pain and the loss of public respect, she had cunningly offered him this out. If they were married, they were better apart. And each had been lying to the other. She had known it, but he had been ignorant. She had taken steps to insure his career and his ego. To hell with those! he thought.

  "Where has she gone?"

  Matron Salsbury looked flustered. "I don't know. She sat here in the lobby for two days. She even took her meals here, slept here. She watched those doors as if she were waiting for someone or—" She stopped as if understanding had struck like lightning inside her head. "And then, just an hour ago or so ago, she left without saying where she was going."

  She was still talking as he ran across the lounge, out the doors and down the steps. Proteus came after him, barely bobbling inside before he slammed on the grav car's stress power, kicked at the accelerator and shot across the field between the two hills, not bothering to use the much longer road that connected them. A hundred feet from the temple, the grav plates gave up trying to adjust to the varying distances to the ground and blew on him. The car jolted up the base of the second hill and came to a noisy halt, settling ruggedly to the ground where the rubber rim was sheared away. He opened the door and ran.

  Just as he entered the main hall of the great cathedral there was a flapping of wings. Leah departed from one of the teardrop portals high in the walls. The base of the Face of God was open, the chin now a door. She had been into the corridors of the idol's mind, looking out through its eyes, waiting for Stauffer Davis, the famous novelist, the love-seeker, the—he cursed himself—stupidest man in the Alliance! But he had come in just a moment too late, and she had left without seeing him.

  He turned, ran down the echo-sharp hall and out onto the rounded dome of the snowy breast, leaving his footprints in its white skin. He looked for her, searched the sky.

  She was flitting off toward the yellow mountains.

  He called to her, but she was too far away. She could not hear him.

  And the car was useless. He could only run.

  He ran.

  She flew.

  The distance between them grew.

  She settled before the trees, stepped into the dark of the woods and was gone from sight.

  He screamed, but she was too far away to hear.

  He ran.

  His chest ached. A fire had been set to flashing life in his lungs. He sucked in cool air and blew out steam. Still, he ran, faster and faster—but not as fast as he thought he had to. He was over the edge of the temple hill, streaking along the fields toward the trees. Minutes passed before he reached them.

  He called her name.

  She was too far ahead. The thickness of the trees soaked up his words. There was no echo. The snow drifted down around him, filtered through the tight web of branches and sifted the forest floor.

  Proteus came behind.

  Which way? Would she go straight ahead or slant to the left? To the right? He sobbed, moved straight on, leaping over fallen logs, kicking piles of leaves up around him as he went. He skidded on the snow once, sprawled onto his face, skinning his cheek. He lay for a moment, tasting dirt and blood. Then he shoved up and went on, aware that a moment's delay might mean the difference between success or failure.

  He called her name again.

  Silence.

  He hurried on.

  Then a cry and the howl of wolves. A scream!

  He stopped and listened, head cocked to catch the exact direction of the noise. There was a second scream, one that trailed off like a dying siren. It was to his left. He started in that direction. In a moment, a baying of savage hounds moaned through the cold air and snow slithered like thick, cold oil between the trees.

  Proteus moved up beside him.

  In the darkness ahead, two glimmering red eyes the size of walnuts peered at Davis between the thick trunks of the yellow-leafed trees. A wolf loped closer, skidded to a stop and stared at what it evidently hoped might be its supper. Its jaws hung open, dripping saliva onto the frosted ground. It growled deep in its thick throat, spat, blew snot from its nose.

  Proteus opened with his vibra-beam weapon, blasted the darkness with blue flames.

  The wolf danced onto two legs, twirled, collapsed onto the snow. Blood spattered outward from the charred body and patterned the whiteness.

  Davis stepped over the corpse and moved on. Please, he thought, don't let her be dead…

  Chapter Four

  Snow was falling more heavily now, drifting through the trees where the leaves had been worn away by the tireless hands of autumn, matting Davis's eyelashes so that he had to keep brushing them to see.

  There was more howling ahead, deep and gutteral, a brother to the sigh of the wind itself.

  He scrambled over a formation of rocks, stumbled on a small log concealed by snow and leaves, and came to the clearing where she was stretched out on the ground, head raised slightly against a yil tree base. There was a wolf circling her, its teeth bared, a snarl held deep in its throat where it was releasing it only a note at a time.

  There were teeth marks above her wrist where ft had nipped her experimentally, and blood dribbled down over her hand.

  Davis screamed to draw the wolfs attention. It turned from her, staring at him with hot coal eyes, its jowls quivering and slopped with crimson. He shouted at it again, screaming nonsense syllables. It looked at him, snarled, bared teeth that were jagged and strong. It turned back to her and started to move in toward her neck.

  Davis grabbed a fistful of leaves and snow, packed them together and threw the ball at the beast. It bounced off its flank, and the wolf turned to Davis again, padded away from the girl. It leaped—

  Proteus shot the animal, flicked on the vibra-beam and fried its body while it was still in flight. The charred corpse crashed at Davis's feet, its yellow teeth bared in a crisped snarl.

  "Go away!" she said, making as if to get up and run.

  "I'm not married," he said. "Anyway, not to anyone but you."

  She stopped trying to get up and collapsed back onto the snowy earth, looked up at him strangely for a moment, then started to cry, though he knew she was not crying in sadness.

  Proteus hummed around the trees, alert, searching, its sensors seeking heat and sound and sight and even olfa
ctory stimulation.

  He went to her, knelt, took her wounded arm. It was not a serious bite, though it was swollen and blue. Clots had formed, but it should be cleaned and sterilized and lathered with speedheal ointment and a speedheal bandage. He tried to get his arms under her, but she fought him.

  "What are you trying to do?" he asked, angrily trying to make her hold still.

  "They'll put you in jail," she said.

  "I've got the money to fight it."

  "But you'll lose everything." She bit him on the hand.

  "Goddamned little she-wolf!" he said, laughing.

  "You'll lose everything!" she repeated.

  "Look," he said, pointing to dark shapes moving toward them through the yil trees. "See those?"

  "Wolves."

  "Right. Very good. Now let me tell you something. I am going to stay right here if you won't let me take you out of the woods. I'm going to wait for those wolves and kill them one at a time, with Proteus, until there are too many for the robot to handle. Then I'll let them kill both of us if I can't stop them with my hands. Proteus can only do so much, you know. He wasn't designed to work at optimum efficiency in some exotic situation like this."

  As if in confirmation of all Davis had said, the robot's plasti-plasma began gurgling loudly. It could, of course, handle these wolves long enough to scare them off, but there was no sense telling her that.

  "But you'll lose everything!"

  "Money. Some fans. We'll fight it, and we'll win it."

  She looked at him, seemed to wilt, as if she had been holding herself stiff and alert through sheer willpower. As she sagged and whimpered that the bite on her arm hurt very badly, he lifted her in his arms much as he might have carried a child, careful that her wings were folded and would not get torn or bent by his rough handling. As he turned to find their way back to the fields, the wolves moved in even closer.

  To his right, one of the hefty, slavering monsters hunched its shoulders and hung its neck low to the ground, pawed at the earth. Its hind legs tensed, all the muscles standing out even through the thick coat of hair.

  "Gun right!" he ordered Porteus.

  The machine turned.

  The wolf bounded two steps, soared into the air…

  … erupted like a match head in the searing brilliance of the vibra-beam, died howling like a banshee.

  The other beasts backstepped a bit, lowered their heads and made deep moaning noises that the wind snatched and carried away, changed into the crying of children, then the buzzing of bees, then nothingness.

  Davis carried her back over the leaf-covered log, worked around the thrusting teeth of the rock formation, snagging her toga several times and looking up anxiously at each halt to make certain Proteus was still watchful. The wolves paralleled their exit, staying behind the trunks of the yil trees, their scarlet eyes flashing now and again in the dense gloom—the only signs of their presence outside of an occasional brutish mutter.

  At last, the edge of the woods loomed ahead; the snow-blanketed fields visible and—despite their icy dress—warmly welcome beyond. He shifted her slightly, directed her to hang onto his neck with her good arm, and looked around at the pairs of gleaming bloodspots that indicated the positions of the wolves. There were eight of them that he could locate, all too close for comfort. But there was nothing to do but go ahead and rely on Proteus. He stepped away from the yil bole against which he had been leaning, hugged Leah's body to his chest, and walked briskly toward the light and the open spaces.

  There was a rustle of movement behind him, and he was conscious of Proteus arcing above his head, training his guns downward. There was a crackle of vibra weapon, the smell of burning fur and roasting meat Davis did not stop to look back but maintained the pace he had set for himself.

  To their left, two of the wolves charged, covering great lengths of ground with each powerful bounding stride. Proteus sprayed both of them with the deadly weapon's bluish light and caught them before they were even off the ground. Around them, dried leaves, under the thin blanket of snow, flashed and burned in an instant, left only a pall of smoke and no coals.

  Then Davis was through the trees and into the field where he could not be approached on the sly. The wolves, the five that were left, raced out after him, passed him, started coming back in, trying to corner him between the woods and themselves. They were great, slavering demons, cancerous growths against the white purity of the snow, but he knew that—though they might look mythological, unreal—their bite and their clawing would be perfectly solid, painful, and murderous.

  Proteus met this challenge as he had met all the others. He brought down two of the wolves with the vibra weapon, sent them rolling and kicking backwards until they were coated with snow and ice and looked like plaster of Paris figures. The remaining three beasts decided that enough was more than plenty, turned to the left, toward a projection of the yil trees, tails between their legs, and raced through the snow, kicking clouds of the fine particles up in their wake.

  Davis slowed down, caught his breath for a moment. The car was useless now that its grav plates had been destroyed. He could see it, alongside the temple hill, canted to one side, the rubber rim twisted up the side of it like a snake. He looked toward the Sanctuary. Matron Salsbury should have another grav car, surely, which he could use to get the girl back to the aviary where his speedheal medical kit lay.

  He looked down at Leah to tell her what he had planned, but found she was unconscious. Her head hung limply against her bosom, and her breath was coming raggedly. He looked at the wolf bite, saw that it was more swollen than before, and that the vein leading away from it was puffed and black. Either the bite had given her natural blood poisoning, or the fangs of the wolves contained some noxious chemical that might be—no, very clearly was—of a deadly nature.

  He looked frantically in all directions, as if someone might be about who could help, then turned toward the Sanctuary and, holding her more tightly than ever, he began running through the inch of snow that had fallen, his feet slipping and sliding, but somehow managing to maintain his balance. His ears were so cold they ached, and he imagined the girl must be freezing with nothing more on than the heavyweight toga. Her bare legs dangled over his arm where the garment had ridden up, and he almost stopped to tuck it properly around her to keep her warm, then realized any waste of time was also a waste of the droplets of life she still possessed.

  He ran faster, fell on his back once, numbing himself though he managed to hold her and cushion her from being injured. It was a struggle getting to his feet without laying her in the snow, but he did not want to let her out of his arms.

  In minutes, he reached the Sanctuary, staggered up the steps with her, his throat afire and dry, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. He raced for the door, was about to slow to push it open when it opened of its own accord, giving him entrance. He went through, stopped in the foyer, puffing and unable to speak. He looked up, expecting to see Matron Salsbury, but was confronted with the face of the Alliance rep instead.

  The rep drew on his mustache with one hand, looked at the girl, then up into Davis's face. In his other hand, he held a pistol.

  "She's been bitten by a wolf," Davis said, the words harsh and wheezed, an octave too high.

  "Drop her," the rep said.

  "Get help for her quickly," Davis pleaded.

  "Drop her," the rep said, pointing at her with the pistol. "I must warn you that I was an Alliance soldier before entering the diplomatic corps. With my training, I have no inhibitions about violence. I'm capable of—well, of anything, really. Drop her."

  Proteus made grumbling sounds.

  "And a protection robot isn't designed to strike out at any other human being, Davis. So forget that."

  He started to bend over with Leah, to place her on the carpet.

  "I did not tell you to lay her down. I told you to drop her. Just let her go."

  He ignored the rep and placed her gently on the floor.
>
  "That was a bad move," the ex-soldier said. "Another strike against you: disobeying an officer of the Alliance. That carries two years in itself. I think you had best be more courteous."

  "How did you get here so quickly?" Davis asked.

  "I came around to visit Matron Salsbury to discuss you, to see if she knew of any misdemeanor—violating the preserve laws or anything—we might harass you with. She had just told me what she discovered about you and the animal there when you obliged us by charging right in with your little beast." He smiled.

  Davis looked down at the girl. "Will you get help for her? She's dying. A simple speedheal unit would—"

  "Let her die," the rep said, still smiling.

  Davis looked astonished.

  "Davis, what you forgot is that no matter how intelligent an alien may seem to be, no matter how clever, it is inferior. It is not a man. Man is the highest order of life. Why do you think, in all these years of exploration into space, we've never met a race that could compete with us? We were meant to be the dominant species, man. And in the million years to come, we're not going to run across anything we can't handle. You tainted yourself by touching this little animal. You should have known better. And because you made a fool out of me and set my chances of promotion back five years by your little ruse about the sort of book you were going to write, I think I should have an opportunity to pay you back, in some small way, for your brutality. And, perhaps, if you watch her die, you'll realize that she was nothing more than an animal, a beast, a thing. She'll die, and there won't be choruses of angels singing her to her final resting place."

  "You're insane."

  "No," the rep said. "It's you who are insane." He stepped forward and pushed a toe of his boot against the girl's side, shoved her hard enough to flop her over on her belly. "See, Davis, insanity is judged, in part, by what is standard for society. Someone who breaks the greatest taboos with the least regard for his own being is often labeled as a lunatic. Loving an alien is very abnormal. So you will surely be judged mad as well as a traitor."