Natural Selection

by Dave Freedman

  “Mrs. Abbott, I’m a ranger here. My wife and I were just about to leave ourselves, so believe me, the park is closed. Right, for prescribed burns . . . Of course they’re controlled by experts. . . . No, just scheduling difficulties . . . Huh? . . . No, no one. Literally, just my wife and me and our baby. We’re the only ones in the entire park . . . What? Honestly, I’m amazed your call went through at all. The co-location switch has been having problems for a week. . . . That’s right, cell calls too, once they hit the ground from the towers. I know we should get it fixed; it’s on the list . . . Sorry? . . .” Allen Meyer suddenly gave his wife a deadly serious look. “What do you mean your son didn’t come home last night?”

  He paused. “He was jogging in the park? At night? . . . He snuck in?”

  “THAT’S WHY there’s no one here.”

  Well off the embankment and draped in shadows, Phil Martino photographed a yellow diamond-shaped sign: PARK CLOSED FOR PRESCRIBED BURNS.

  “Didn’t you used to do prescribed burns, Phil?”

  Phil glanced back at Jason. “Good memory, genius.”

  What the hell’s your problem? Jason thought. He knew that “assistant fire ranger” in Lake Arrowhead near L.A. had been one of the many jobs Phil Martino had held during his hopscotch career. If Jason’s memory served, Phil had actually stuck to that one for some time and even gotten good at it. Jason didn’t know what a prescribed burn was exactly, but he thought it had something to do with intentionally starting small fires so a major one didn’t burn later.

  Without another word between them, the two men returned to the sunny riverbank and joined the others. Jason caught up with Darryl and right away saw he was extremely ill at ease.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Darryl didn’t answer at first. He glanced at Lisa, trailing them by just ten or twenty feet. He didn’t want to frighten her unnecessarily. “Walk with me, and I’ll tell you.”

  “HE PROBABLY just twisted an ankle, honey.”

  Allen Meyer had just hung up the phone. He wasn’t sure what could have happened to the woman’s son. “You think so?”

  Laura Meyer nodded confidently. “Jogging at night? He probably didn’t see something, stepped wrong, and twisted it really bad.”

  “Well, we got to find him. Forget clearing out of here, Laura; we got to find him right now.” Tense, Allen glanced out a tiny window. “There’s probably not more than four hours of light left out there.”

  Laura was perfectly calm. “No problem. We’ll search the appropriate trails, find this guy, and just leave a little later than we thought.”

  Allen rapidly opened a park map. They talked it over, quickly decided where the jogger must have entered the park, then divvied up trails to search. As Allen went outside, Laura put Samuel in a chest Snugli, grabbed his chair, joined her husband, and headed toward a massive parking lot within the trees.

  “Taking the chair?”

  “Just in case, Allen. You know how crabby he can get.” Samuel was prone to screaming fits, and the swinging chair could calm him down like nothing else.

  “You’re still charging your walkie-talkie?”

  She nodded. “It’s in the truck.” Neither bothered mentioning cell phones. Even under normal circumstances, coverage here was spotty, but with the recent problems with the co-location switch, fewer than one in ten calls went through.

  As they entered the parking lot, they passed a pair of helicopters, one enormous, one small, gifts to the park after the Gulf War to assist in fighting forest fires. They passed their own jam-packed Honda Civic and walked toward a pair of ancient white Chevy Blazer SUVs with green park emblems on every door.

  Laura strapped Samuel into the back of one, confirmed the walkie-talkie was still charging, then waved to her husband and drove off.

  Allen Meyer turned in the opposite direction on a double-yellow-lined road, then sped away amid the trees. Where the hell’s that jogger?

  THE GREAT body twitched. Once, then again and again.

  Unseen in the depths of the blackened central cavern, the predator was asleep. Its entire body, from the tips of its horns to the end of its torso, twitched repeatedly, an enormous sleeping dog.

  In its semiconscious state none of the animal’s sensory organs was tuning per se, but just like any animal, it would awaken if it heard, smelled, or otherwise sensed something.

  It continued to sleep.

  DARRYL WALKED faster. “What’s wrong is this trail we’re walking on.” Earlier, the trail had been in the woods, near a campground, but now it had twisted.

  Jason looked down, realizing they weren’t walking through untamed tall grass anymore but on tilled black soil. Still, he didn’t understand why Darryl was so agitated. “So you’re saying . . .”

  “This trail’s on the water, Jason. So people could be on the water. And if someone was on this trail at exactly the wrong time . . . I don’t know if one of those things would know to distinguish between a person and a bear cub.”

  Jason scanned ahead with renewed unease. “I get your point.”

  Darryl tightened the grip on his rifle, and they all walked forward quickly.

  CHAPTER 52

  LAURA MEYER pulled over. Moving very quickly, she got out, put Samuel in the Snugli, slung his chair over her shoulder, and started walking. When she entered the first trail, she immediately noticed. It was quiet here, more so than normal.

  Tough. She walked forward, the only sound from the occasional twig snapping under her boots.

  She continued for a few minutes when she heard something off the trail. She froze, staring toward it.

  The sound had come from near a huge patch of redwoods. But now there was no movement of kind, no sign of life.

  She focused on three massive trunks lined up next to one another. Was something behind them? She stepped off the trail and walked closer. Then . . . A rifle appeared, pointed right at her.

  “Oh my God,” she stammered.

  Standing before her were three very large men in red-and-black checked shirts, hunters.

  “Son of a bitch.” The one with the rifle looked devastated. “I am so sorry, miss.”

  Ranger Laura Meyer exhaled. “You scared the hell out of me!”

  The guy noticed the baby. “I am very, very sorry.”

  She gave the guy a filthy look. “We have signs everywhere that the park’s closed. I should probably ticket you, you know.”

  “Ranger, I wouldn’t blame you if you did, but is there any way you can let us off this time? We are so sorry; we really are.”

  Laura looked up at the guy. He was fiftysomething, balding, bearded, and enormous—six-five with a big belly. Went by the name Big Tim. The two other guys were in their early twenties; one, the spitting image of the older one, clearly his son, and the other his son’s friend.

  “We’re good citizens, really. I’m Tim Jameson. This here is my son, Timmy. And this runty guy is Tim’s buddy Greg.”

  Laura chuckled. Greg was six feet and didn’t have the belly that father and son had. She looked them up and down. They didn’t look like criminals, and she didn’t even have her ticket book with her. She considered calling the police, but they were seventy miles away, and with the phone problems . . . She had more important things to worry about.

  “How’d you get here?”

  “We drove, ma’am.” Big Tim waved. “Truck’s back there.”

  “Leave immediately.”

  “Yes, ma’am; thank you. Have a good night.”

  As they walked off, Laura considered asking if they’d seen the missing jogger. But no. If they had, they would have mentioned it. They disappeared behind some trees, and it became perfectly silent again. Laura glanced at her baby, then continued down the trail.

  ON THE riverbank, Darryl halted.

  So did everyone else—quizzically.

  “What is it?” Jason said, looking around.

  Darryl stared into the forest, dark and shadowy. “Something’s in there.”


  Craig shook his head. “Gimme a break.”

  Darryl said nothing. Rifle in hand, he walked to the edge of the trees. Then slowly entered.

  “OH, WILL ya look at that.”

  Crammed in next to Timmy and Greg in his red Chevy pickup, Big Tim shook his head. Right in front of their speeding truck, six deer, one a big-horned buck, dashed across the road, then disappeared into the forest on the other side.

  His son turned excitedly. “We gonna go get ‘em, Dad?”

  “Ah, you heard what that ranger said, Timmy.”

  “Gimme a break; what’s she gonna do? Ticket ya? I thought you were gonna teach me to hunt.”

  Big Tim shook his head. Something didn’t feel right. What was that ranger doing out there anyway?

  “Oh come on, Dad!”

  Big Tim suddenly jammed on the brakes. “You’re right. What’s she gonna do?” They parked and quickly got out of the truck. “Come on, boys. Big Tim’s gonna show you how to do it right.”

  ALLEN MEYER saw the footprints immediately. In dark soil in the dead center of the trail. They were widely spaced, clearly from someone who’d been jogging. He removed his hat and studied one closely. In the middle of it was a fat letter N. New Balance running shoes. He removed his walkie-talkie.

  “Laura?”

  He waited for a moment, but there was only static.

  “Laura, you out there? Laura?”

  He waited again. Still nothing. His wife was no doubt still charging.

  He holstered the walkie-talkie and followed the prints.

  The trail was eerily quiet, but the prints continued, right down the middle of it. He followed them for a few hundred yards, passing a two-and-a-half-mile marker, a small footbridge, and then . . . The prints went off the trail.

  Allen Meyer paused. Was he seeing things?

  But no, plain as day, the prints went straight into the woods. His blue eyes began darting. Why the hell would the guy have left the trail? Only one way to find out.

  He entered the trees.

  IN THE forest, the prints continued . . . past redwoods, fern patches, a field of tiny white flowers, a trickling stream . . . right into the middle of a wide clearing.

  And then they stopped. Just disappeared.

  The ranger looked around. Where the hell did they go?

  Confused, he walked forward. They had to be around here somewhere.

  “TOLD YOU there was nothing here. Let’s get back to the water.”

  They were in the woods now, fifty feet from Redwood Inlet.

  Listening to his own advice, Craig Summers started to turn. Darryl Hollis didn’t move.

  Then there was a snapping sound from the direction he was facing.

  Craig turned back nervously. “What was that?”

  No one answered. They just studied the shadowy trunks and ferns, all perfectly silent now.

  There was another snap.

  Then a man in a tan ranger outfit appeared. “Are any of you Wayne Abbott?”

  Darryl looked at him. “Sorry?”

  “Wayne Abbott!” Ranger Allen Meyer was annoyed, realizing these people were wearing jeans and not joggers at all. “The park is closed; you know, you’re not supposed to be here.”

  Jason just stared at the man, a ranger. A ranger looking for someone. “Who’s . . . Wayne Abbott?”

  “A missing jogger. You didn’t see him, did you?”

  Jason couldn’t believe it. “We haven’t seen anybody.” Then he noticed Lisa, visibly terrified, her face as tight as a drum. He forgot about the ranger. “Are you OK?”

  Lisa didn’t answer—just shook her head.

  Monique turned. “Hey, girlfriend. You want to go back to the boat?”

  “Yeah, I think I do.”

  “Thank you very much, Monique.” Jason patted her on the back.

  “No problem; everything’s cool.” She put her arm over Lisa’s shoulder. “Guys, we’ll see you back there.”

  As the women walked off, Allen Meyer was even more annoyed. Who the hell are these people? And how am I going to find this jogger? The park was enormous, more light was disappearing every second, it was just him and his wife and . . . “Damn it!”

  Jason turned to him. “Anything we can do to help?”

  Meyer didn’t respond. He worried he and Laura had miscalculated badly, that the jogger was nowhere near here. Four years ago they’d dealt with a similar situation. A teenager had gotten lost and gone missing for three entire days, finally turning up in the cornfields at the northern tip of the forest. Could the jogger have reached the same spot? Meyer wanted to check that next, but it was getting late, the fields stretched for miles, and there was only one way to search that kind of terrain. He turned to his unwanted guests—

  “I don’t suppose any of you know how to fly a helicopter.”

  Darryl and Craig shared a look. “Actually, we both do.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah.”

  “All right . . . You’re going to help me. Right now.” He removed his hat and started sprinting. “Come on. . . .”

  They all ran after him.

  CHAPTER 53

  “LAURA, YOU out there? Laura, come in. Laura?”

  Allen Meyer drummed his fingers impatiently, waiting for a response.

  But the walkie-talkie was silent, nothing but static.

  He put it down on his now-moving SUV’s dash and turned to Jason, in the passenger seat next to him. “My wife. She must still be charging hers.”

  So was she outside too? Jason tried to appear casual. “She’s also looking for the jogger?”

  A nod. “Since it’s just the two of us, we had to split up.” They pulled into the massive empty parking lot amid the trees. “You guys fly either of those?”

  From the backseat, Darryl and Craig peered out at two helicopters, a huge jungle-green, twin-engine Vertol designed to carry thirty men and a smaller bright yellow Sikorsky. Craig nodded. “We fly both.”

  “Let’s get going, then.”

  Seconds later, the Vertol shot into the sky, Craig at the controls, Darryl at copilot, Jason, the ranger, and Phil on a mounted bench in back. Before Craig could even ask, Meyer pointed. “That way.”

  THE EYES snapped open.

  Deep in the central cavern, the creature had just been awakened. Not by a sound nor by a smell. By an electrical signal. An extraordinarily powerful one. The animal tuned in the darkness, trying to locate its source. It quickly realized it was from something outside the cave.

  It flew toward it.

  “DAMN IT! Son of a bitch!”

  Darryl and Craig shared a look. Ranger Allen Meyer wasn’t built for a crisis. They’d just searched the entire perimeter of cornstalks at the forest’s edge and hadn’t seen any sign of the jogger. Craig tried to ignore the ranger. It was getting darker every second, and they had to stay cool. “What do we do here, Darryl?”

  In the copilot’s seat, Darryl raised binoculars to his face. “Take her up slowly. I might be able to see that one trail from here.”

  The chopper began rising. “See anything?”

  Darryl shifted the binoculars. “Veer right a little.”

  Summers moved the chopper’s levers. “This any better?”

  “It’s fine, but these trees really are—” He stopped talking.

  “Really are . . . what?”

  Darryl didn’t answer. He just stared through the binoculars.

  “Darryl?”

  Darryl still didn’t respond. He just removed the binoculars and looked outside with naked eyes.

  Craig turned. “Did you see some—” Then he stopped talking too.

  Phil looked out, and his mouth fell open.

  Then the ranger looked out. “Oh my God.”

  What’s everyone looking at? Why’d we stop rising? At the far side of the chopper, Jason couldn’t see anything. He leaned forward. “Guys, are we—”

  Then Jason saw what everyone else did. On top of a massive branch was a
body in sky-blue mesh shorts, a white T-shirt, and New Balance sneakers.

  They’d found the missing jogger.

  CHAPTER 54

  NO ONE spoke.

  Darryl’s eyes darted, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. He didn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe it. “Something else must have done this.”

  Craig Summers couldn’t even begin to process it. “You want to get the body down?”

  Darryl nodded, and before Jason realized, the chopper repositioned, Darryl climbed out on a ladder, and the body was put in back, wrapped in a black fleece blanket.

  Still, no one spoke. They were too stunned.

  Then Craig turned. “Darryl . . . are Monique and Lisa OK?”

  “Son of a bitch.” Darryl rapidly removed his cell.

  Don’t bother, Allen Meyer thought absently. But then he glanced at the branch and remembered his own wife. Where the hell was Laura? He reached for his walkie-talkie. It wasn’t there. He frantically squirmed, trying to find it. Where was it?!

  “Monique?” Darryl had heard her voice, but the call instantly dropped. “Monique, you there? Son of a bitch . . .” He redialed but got a fast busy. He redialed again. Nothing. He swallowed nervously, looking out at the tree, then turned to Craig. “You think she’s OK?”

  Summers was ice. “She is fine, Darryl. She is on the boat with Lisa.”

  Darryl swallowed again. “But she doesn’t know about this. What if she decided to go for a walk or something?”

  “Darryl, she is on the boat. She didn’t go anywhere.”

  Darryl hesitated. This was logical and probably true. Then Phil leaned forward, snapping pictures of the bloodied tree branch with boyish enthusiasm. “Boy, these are some amazing shots.”

  Darryl suddenly wanted to strangle Phil. But then he noticed the ranger. Allen Meyer had found his walkie-talkie—it was on his lap now—but strangely, he wasn’t using it. “You OK, Ranger?”