Natural Selection

by Dave Freedman

  Pleased by the reaction, Phil looked up. “You like it?”

  “Very cool.” Jason leaned in. It was an animated simulation. A massive winged creature flying toward a redwood forest from the ocean. Flapping in slow, mechanized movements, the animal looked shockingly real. It almost appeared to be flying right off the screen.

  “How’d you do this?”

  Phil smirked cunningly. “That’s my secret, pal.”

  “Pretty damn frightening.”

  “It would make a great video game, wouldn’t it?”

  Jason stared again. “It really would.”

  Phil went back to his camera. “Maybe I’ll work on that next.”

  Jason smiled. Phil Martino was into his own thing, wasn’t he? And clearly still angry that Jason hadn’t made him a researcher on his report to the Species Council. Was that why he’d snipped at Craig earlier? Jason decided he didn’t care. He typed his notes then joined the triumvirate and Lisa in the galley when Lisa surreptitiously slipped past him.

  “You got a sec?”

  He followed her up on deck and . . . was amazed to see a full moon. The sky had been completely socked in with clouds only half an hour ago. The weather patterns in Northern California were bizarre.

  “You want to howl at the moon or talk to me?”

  He turned. “Can we do both?”

  She smiled. “Maybe later.”

  “I didn’t mean to scare you with the rifle stuff.”

  “I know. And I shouldn’t have jumped down your throat like that. Guns just really scare me.”

  “I got that. Like I said, they scare me, too.”

  “But I was thinking. . . . If you really think I should learn how to fire one . . . I will.”

  “I don’t want you to do it if you’re not comfortable with it.”

  “I’m not comfortable with it!” She exhaled. “Sorry.” Then added softly, “But maybe it is . . . prudent.”

  “That’s how I meant it, to be prudent.”

  “All right, I’m gonna help with dinner.”

  She disappeared, and he looked up at the moon once more, then at the dimly lit redwoods. With Phil’s computer simulation fresh in his mind, he tried imagining one of the creatures flying among the trees and to his surprise, the vision came quickly. Just like the simulation, it was incredibly lifelike.

  “You look like I feel.” Darryl Hollis walked up on deck.

  “What’s up, Darryl?”

  Darryl eyed the distant creek, glistening in the moonlight. “That bear-cub skeleton’s stayed with me, Jason—makes me nervous. Makes me wonder if maybe one of those rays really would come to land.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “We should double-check the creek. Make damn sure no people are on it.”

  “We already did that, and we didn’t see a soul. Monique thinks there could be a better conduit further up the coast anyway.”

  Darryl gave him a stern look. “We should check it again, Jason.”

  There was something ominous in his tone. “OK, we’ll check it again.” Jason paused, looking up at the moon. “You don’t think anyone would go near that creek at night, do you?”

  “Nah, the park doesn’t have overnight campgrounds, and it’s probably closed anyway. I just want to be conservative.” But just as he said the words, Darryl Hollis reconsidered. Would anyone go out at night? But no, that was ridiculous. Who on earth would do that?

  CHAPTER 50

  WAYNE ABBOTT was a big guy, six-three and a rock-hard 235 pounds. A former tight end for UCLA, Wayne had been out of school for a little more than a year and liked to stay in shape. He had big strong thighs from squatting up to four hundred pounds, a ripped, muscular chest from benching nearly as much, and healthy lungs from runs like this one. Wayne hadn’t made the cut in the NFL and didn’t have a job, so he lived with his mother in a desolate area near the outskirts of Leonard State Park. The park was closed for maintenance and almost entirely empty, but Wayne didn’t care. He snuck in regularly. The paths here were nice and flat. After two hundred push-ups and four hundred sit-ups, he ran them almost every night.

  Screw the NFL, Wayne thought, pumped up and running hard, thinking about what awesome shape he was in. Wearing sky-blue UCLA mesh shorts and a white T-shirt drenched with sweat, he was two miles into a seven-mile run. Redwood Inlet Trail was his favorite, a runner’s dream: perfectly flat, as wide as a two-lane road, and topped with black soil that was easy on the knees but still allowed good traction. The scenery was great too. Wayne had already passed the prettiest part, the creek itself, but here, much deeper in the forest, wasn’t bad either. There were towering redwoods everywhere, as far as the eye could see.

  Wayne glanced at a little green metal sign staked in along the side, a trail marker that told him he’d run two and a half miles. He was feeling good and had a good sweat going. Wayne liked it when he sweated. It made him feel like he was working hard, like he was young and strong. And like he would live forever.

  THE PREDATOR surged out of the towering mountaintop cave. Easing into the moonlit air, it surveyed the surroundings. To the west, the sea, quietly rumbling, a place it no longer belonged. To the south and north, more mountains. And farther inland, the cornstalk field, blowing slightly in the wind, with the redwood forest beyond.

  As the creature banked into a wide, sweeping glide, it focused on the trees, their silhouettes looming in the pale white light. Then it dove toward them.

  Rocketing through the air, momentum carried it to the end of the mountain range in seconds. It banked, smashing a patch of stalks, then sped toward the forest. Moonlight guided the way when the white orb was blocked out, and the forest rushed up. . . .

  The animal hurtled in, and suddenly shadowy redwoods were everywhere. Speeding like a flying freight train, it banked sharply, nearly crashing into a grove of two dozen trees growing much too close together to squeeze through. It began tuning its sonar, only now it was radar, the echo-location organs seamlessly adapting to the air. Navigating with great precision, it immediately located clearings that could accommodate its massive form. Tearing through the trees, it focused on one particularly large one, studying everything about it: the deeply grooved bark, the perfectly straight, branchless trunk, the crown, the powerful evergreen scent. It ripped past it and continued.

  Then, for no reason at all, the creature made a sound. It was the same sound it had once made at sea, only now it was considerably more chilling, a deep, bass rumble, rolling over itself like an idling cruise-ship engine. It continued for a moment, then stopped.

  The predator flew on in utter silence, its eyes studying leafy ferns, rhododendrons, flowers, and evergreen after evergreen. Then it began flapping, first rising gradually, then very sharply. Climbing to just below the treetops, it leveled off and began tuning for prey.

  Suddenly its head jerked downward. Several hundred feet below was a foraging raccoon, sluffing among the ferns. Its black eyes studied the rodent briefly, then the animal flew forward. Up ahead, through the trees, was a very large clearing. . . . Hurtling into it, the creature looked down, and its own speeding reflection looked right back at it. It was flying over a familiar creek. The reflection disappeared and it entered the forest on the other side.

  That’s when it picked him up. Wayne Abbott was more than five miles away, and he hadn’t been seen, smelled, or heard. His heartbeat had been detected. The predator locked onto it and flew forward.

  SPEEDING THROUGH the shadows, Wayne Abbott sprinted toward a small footbridge. Wearing size thirteen New Balance sneakers that sprayed black dirt behind him, he focused on the bridge’s wooden lip. He’d tripped over it once before and wanted to be careful. . . .

  He took the entire structure in three big strides. On the soil again, he eased into a jog, just as the moon came into view over his right shoulder.

  THE CREATURE turned. For a moment, it had lost the signal. But then it heard the pounding on the bridge, a very distinctive sound. The resulting dir
ectional change was slight, but significant. The range was narrowing.

  WAYNE SUDDENLY felt bored. The sprint to the bridge was the last big test of the jog. He still had a few miles to go, but the rest was routine. He looked up. Damn, those are some big trees. Wayne was a physically large man and not accustomed to feeling small. But every time he jogged through a redwood forest, he felt tiny. Minuscule even. Like an ant next to a blade of a grass.

  IT SMELLED him. His sweat. Speeding hundreds of feet above the forest floor, the predator continued, the tiny nostrils on its underbelly pulsing. Suddenly a narrow tract of straight, treeless land appeared. A trail. The same trail Wayne Abbott was jogging on. The great body sped into it.

  WAYNE STARTED picking up the pace.

  SUDDENLY A massive shadow sped past the green metal sign. . . . Then the footbridge . . .

  ARMS PUMPING, legs kicking, Wayne didn’t notice the moon. It was directly behind him now, casting a halo on his bobbing head. He also didn’t notice the squirrel. In front of a huge fallen redwood on the side of the trail, the furry rodent stood on its haunches. If Wayne had seen it, he would have thought it looked scared. He also would have thought it was looking right at him.

  It wasn’t. It was looking above him. At the gargantuan gliding form near the treetops.

  WAYNE’S SENSES were poor. The predator saw that immediately. He didn’t seem to hear, smell, or otherwise detect anything. His eyesight was weak as well. He’d run right past a host of birds, squirrels, and raccoons without so much as a head turn.

  THE FOREST became quiet. The birds stopped chirping, the squirrels disappeared, even the wind seemed to die. Nothing stirred. Except Wayne Abbott. In his light blue shorts and soaked T-shirt, he bounded down the trail.

  SUDDENLY AND silently, the shadow rushed toward his back. . . .

  WAYNE SUDDENLY stopped dead in his tracks. He didn’t know why, but he thought something was behind him. He spun around.

  Nothing was there, just an empty path, towering redwoods, and the moon.

  He chuckled, a deep manly laugh. Wayne was a tough guy and had never been afraid of the dark. That was why he ran at night—because he was tough. Calm the hell down, he ordered himself. He started jogging again.

  The shadow returned immediately, speeding toward him. . . .

  Wayne ran forward, growing nervous, though he didn’t know why.

  THE SHADOW rushed closer, a hundred feet away, then fifty, ten . . . then it froze a yard from Wayne’s back.

  A CURIOUS look formed on Wayne’s face. He heard something. A flapping sound. It was coming from behind him, and he knew he wasn’t imagining it.

  He turned around.

  THE CREATURE was just hovering there, flapping like an enormous seagull, ten feet above the trail and staring right at him.

  Strangely, Wayne Abbott’s sweating, chiseled face was a perfect blank. He literally didn’t believe what was in front of him. The animal was the coolest thing he’d ever seen, the size and shape of a hang glider, only alive, flapping very rapidly. His first thought, which lasted for three confused seconds, was that he was the victim of a practical joke. That somehow his football buddies from L.A. were playing a gag on him.

  But what he was seeing couldn’t possibly be a gag. He calmly surveyed the massive form. The milky-white underside. The nearly five-foot-thick torso. The fast-pumping wings. The enormous head. The partially open mouth—he’d never seen a mouth that large in his life. The enormous puffs of breath coming from it and condensing in the cold air. The horns, bigger than his biceps and jutting from the head. And the eyes—the coldest, blackest, most deadly calm eyes Wayne Abbott had ever seen.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said in a surprisingly clear, unpanicked voice.

  He still didn’t know if the animal was real.

  Then, real or not, it moved. Like an enormous bat, it pumped its wings and passed directly over Wayne’s head. He didn’t flinch. He simply stared up at it, scanning its rippling milky-white underside as it blotted out the moon, its backdraft blowing back his hair. Then it dipped lower and faced him, now hovering on the other side of the trail.

  Why’d it do that? Wayne wondered. Why did it move?

  It still hadn’t occurred to him that his life was in danger. But then he noticed the eyes again. Black. Enormous. And staring at him with chilling intention. Suddenly something clicked. “Oh my God,” Wayne said quietly.

  The predator made a sound then, a rumble, deep and chilling. Then a series of rumbles, rolling on top of one another.

  Wayne stepped backward. He’d never heard such sounds coming from an animal before. They reminded him of something from a church organ.

  Suddenly the rumbles erupted into a shattering roar.

  Wayne fell on his back, shocked by the power of it. And the mouth producing it . . . It was wide open now, big enough to swallow two of him and filled with rows and rows of curvy teeth as fat as his forearms.

  He just watched the ferocious gaping form . . . the mouth, the teeth, the breath condensing in the air.

  He got up.

  It was like a switch. The mouth closed and the roaring ceased.

  Suddenly it was silent, the only sound from the steadily flapping wings.

  Nothing else moved.

  Then the eyes shifted and looked directly into Wayne’s. They almost seemed to be asking him a question. Don’t you know what’s happening here?

  And suddenly Wayne did. Then he did what he’d been doing all night. He ran.

  AS HE sprinted into the forest, Wayne’s once-even breathing and smooth strides deserted him, replaced by wild, desperate motions. He had no idea where he was going, he simply had to get away. He stomped over everything, soil, fern patches, fallen redwoods, a field of tiny white flowers, a trickling stream. After ten minutes, he realized he was alone. Gasping for air, he leaned against an enormous, moss-covered tree.

  “My God, what the hell was th—” He held his breath. Was it up there? With shafts of moonlight shining into his eyes, he scanned the forest canopy above, his head quickly turning.

  No, nothing was there, just trees and broken moonlight. He breathed again. He had to find his way back to the trail. He knew the way, he was sure of it. . . .

  Ten minutes later, he was lost.

  Trying to get his bearings, he entered a small clearing. His head turning in every direction, he didn’t notice the moonlight directly above him disappear.

  But then he sensed it. He looked up and saw the animal in silhouette, a massive gliding form near the treetops. He could actually feel its eyes watching him. He didn’t think. He just ran.

  The silhouette suddenly changed shape. The wings pulled tight, and the creature dropped like a stone.

  Speeding toward the moon-speckled soil, the great body banked and hurtled toward Wayne’s back.

  He didn’t turn around. He just ran as hard as he could, chest heaving, legs pumping. He picked up speed rapidly, sneakers rising and falling, rising and falling, when suddenly . . . the sneakers didn’t come back down. Like a feather in the breeze, they were swept up and away.

  “Jesus Christ,” Wayne said, as if startled.

  He realized he was inside the creature’s mouth, wedged in its teeth.

  “Jesus Christ!” His scream was suddenly guttural and desperate.

  He tried moving his arms, his legs, but everything was pinned.

  “Come on.” He strained his powerful upper body, trying to twist free but not moving a millimeter. “Come on!”

  The animal rose quickly, the cries growing louder and more desperate. Then there was a sickly crunching sound and Wayne Abbott went silent.

  The creature burst through the canopy and emerged into the moonlit sky. Without the screaming, it was much quieter now, the only sounds from the wind and distant ocean.

  Physically exhausted, the predator found a place to store its dangling kill, then ascended back into the night air. It would return here very soon; but for the moment, it was finished. It focused on t
he mountains in the distance and flew toward them. It gradually grew smaller . . . until it blended into the black rock and disappeared. All that remained were the moon and the gently blowing wind.

  CHAPTER 51

  THE RIVERBANK felt different today. Darryl Hollis didn’t know why exactly, but there was no mistaking it. Last time it had been peaceful and calm here, but now . . .

  The sun was already quite high. They’d docked, and the six of them were walking on the creek’s north side. In jeans and a red-and-blue checked shirt, Darryl felt his rifle’s heft, glad he had it. Craig was carrying as well.

  Stomping over tall grass, Darryl suddenly turned to the woods. “What is that?”

  Before anyone could answer, he walked in. “Oh.” It was a campground: a dozen wood picnic tables, steel trash drums, barbecue pits, Porta Pottis . . . But no people, not even rangers, like a summer camp without the campers. Was the park closed? Beyond the campground, he noticed a wide walking trail. He glanced at it for a curious moment, then joined the others. As they continued up the embankment, Darryl didn’t know why, but he felt even more nervous.

  THE RANGER station was miles away and nearly empty. In pressed khaki pants, matching long-sleeved shirt, and a hard-rimmed hat, fortysomething Ranger Allen Meyer was seated at a steel desk that looked like it belonged in a DMV. With darting, beady blue eyes, Meyer was an uptight guy by nature, and this phone call was making him even more so.

  His calmer blond wife, Laura, also a ranger and wearing an identical outfit, was at another desk, watching their eleven-month-old, Samuel. The baby was swinging happily in his favorite chair, a battery-operated portable with a blue seat covered with tiny bears. Laura smiled at the baby’s outfit. She especially loved the navy sweater with the little sailboat on the chest. Allen had barely noticed it. Whoever he was on the phone with was making him even more agitated than normal. The two rangers had been doing paperwork all morning, and it was now early afternoon. Time to go. They’d been just about to do that when the phone rang.