Natural Selection

by Dave Freedman

  “Yeah, yeah. Sure, sure, fine.” It was a rapid-fire reply, clearly meaningless.

  Darryl was calm. “Is your wife still checking trails out there?”

  Meyer didn’t respond.

  “Ranger, you really should try her on that walkie-talkie.”

  But Meyer didn’t touch it. It was like he was afraid to. “I haven’t been able to get her all day. She’s out there with our baby.”

  Darryl and Jason shared a look. The guy was cracking up. They grabbed for the walkie-talkie at the same time; Darryl got it first.

  Jason jutted out his hand. “Darryl, give me that, please.”

  “I can’t press a button as well as you?”

  “This is important! Give it to me!”

  Darryl shoved it at him angrily. “Same old Jason.”

  Jason didn’t care about hurt feelings now. “What’s your wife’s name, Ranger?”

  Eyes wet, Meyer turned. “Laura.”

  Jason pressed the walkie-talkie’s talk button. “Laura, are you out there?”

  He waited for a moment. One second ticked past, then another. There was no response.

  “Laura, I’m with your husband. Please pick up.”

  He waited again. Just the same soft hissing.

  Craig shook his head, eyeing the bloody tree branch. “We better find her. We better find her right now.” He turned back to Jason. “Unless you want to fly the damn helicopter, too.”

  Jason was momentarily silent, upset at the situation—and maybe at himself, too. “Let’s just find her, Craig.” He eyed the ever-darkening skies. “As fast as we can.”

  AS THE men sped off, they didn’t know they were being studied.

  CHAPTER 55

  THE BLACK eyes shifted as the hulking machine shot across the sky then dipped down and disappeared. Then the eyes blinked. The creature had just seen its first helicopter.

  From its mountaintop perch, the predator turned back to the tree branch where its kill had been. It knew instinctively what had happened. Its food had been stolen.

  It began tuning for other prey, but the interference from the now-unseen helicopter was overpowering. Then the interference cut out and it immediately detected something else. In another part of the forest. Two signals, their frequencies identical to the jogger’s. Then, it detected another two signals with the same frequency, in another area still.

  The predator looked up at the sky. It wasn’t as dark as it would have liked, but the prey was out there now. It was going to replace its stolen kill immediately.

  CHAPTER 56

  “LET’S GO, let’s go, let’s go. . . .”

  Craig Summers drummed his fingers impatiently on the chopper’s cyclic lever. They’d landed in the parking lot to split up: some to find the ranger’s wife and the others to check on Monique and Lisa. Summers was by himself now, watching the others outside. What are they doing? He drummed his fingers faster. Craig hadn’t been entirely honest with Darryl earlier. He didn’t think Monique was fine. Not necessarily. With what they’d just seen, he didn’t want to take any chances. It was getting dark fast, and he wanted to go. He pounded his fist. “Come on!”

  In the parking lot, Allen Meyer sprinted toward an SUV, Phil stood by himself wondering what was going on, and Jason and Darryl yelled at each other over the thumping noise.

  “Just let Phil do it! We need you to come with us, Darryl!”

  “Monique’s my damn wife, Jason! And I’m gonna check she’s OK! You know how that is! Not trusting someone else to do something important!”

  “Monique is safe on the boat! Sending Phil is just a precau—” He stopped yelling as an SUV sped toward them and slammed to a stop, the ranger at the wheel, tense and ready to get going.

  “Damn it, Darryl, this guy’s wife is alone in the middle of the forest with a baby! We’ve got to help him! You want me to trust you more; I want you to trust Phil more!”

  Darryl couldn’t say no to this. He nodded, and Jason ran over to Phil. “We’re all set! You sure you’re OK doing this, Phil?!”

  “I want to get back to my computer anyway!”

  Jason paused over the thumping noise, wounded anew. The sad fact was that he wasn’t sure he trusted Phil Martino anymore. The only reason he knew he’d go back to the boat was because of his goddamn precious laptop. Jason had no idea why he was so obsessed with it, but he didn’t care now. “Go, then!”

  As Phil climbed into the chopper, Jason realized the SUV’s driver’s seat was empty now, Allen Meyer in back and waiting to go. “You want to drive, Darryl?!”

  “Can you trust me to!”

  “I’m sorry, Darryl, all right? I’m sorry! Let’s just go!”

  Darryl rushed into the driver’s seat, Jason into the passenger’s, and they sped off.

  As the trees started to blur by, Jason put on his seat belt.

  CHAPTER 57

  “THERE IT is!”

  From an open window, Phil pointed to the Expedition, docked farther up Redwood Inlet.

  Craig rocketed the big bird toward it, reaching it in an instant, then they started to descend. “Open the door, Phil! I’ll take care of the ladder!”

  Phil swung the door open, stood strong against the rush of wind, and started climbing. He hopped onto the deck just as Monique ran up.

  “What’s going on, Phil?!”

  Phil waved to Craig. “Come on! I’ll tell you inside!”

  Below deck, Phil walked quickly to his bedroom. He saw it immediately. His laptop was just as he’d left it on the little desk.

  “What the hell’s happening, Phil?” Monique was behind him. “What are you doing?”

  He eyed his machine for a moment and turned, saying nothing.

  “Where’s Darryl? Where’s everybody else?”

  “They’re . . . outside.”

  “What are we supposed to do?”

  Phil didn’t answer for a moment. His mind seemed to be working, almost like he couldn’t remember. “You’re supposed to meet them at the rangers’ station.”

  “Really?”

  As Lisa walked up, Phil nodded. “Right away. You know how to get there?”

  LAURA MEYER walked rapidly down the trail. With Samuel and his portable chair in tow, she wondered if her husband had found the jogger. She’d tried him earlier on her now-charged walkie-talkie, but strangely, he hadn’t picked up. It wasn’t like her super-anal husband not to have his walkie-talkie on. Could he have gone out of range? Earlier, Laura had sworn she’d heard a helicopter and wondered if he’d been inside it. But that was impossible; Allen didn’t know how to fly.

  The walkie-talkie was off now. It produced tremendous static, which always made Samuel cry. The baby was prickly already, and Laura didn’t want to push him over the edge—she just couldn’t deal with that right now. On a wide trail surrounded by towering redwoods, she looked up. Probably not more than twenty minutes of light, she thought. Then Samuel made a sound, and she glanced down at him. Son of a bitch. A crabby look. Such looks typically preceded legendary crying fits. “Come on, Samuel; please don’t be like that.”

  She couldn’t worry about it now. She had to find the jogger. She walked forward tensely.

  THE PREDATOR sped into the forest just below the treetops. The animal couldn’t smell them yet, but it was locked onto their heartbeats. It banked around a grove of redwoods and hurtled forward.

  “YOU THINK you’re going a little fast?”

  Darryl didn’t answer Jason. The SUV was doing ninety, rattling a little, and he was focused on the road. He didn’t notice a 25-mph speed-limit sign as they flew past it. A curve was up ahead, a pretty sharp one. He rocketed into it, barely depressing the brakes, and Jason felt a powerful pull toward the trees. He imagined his life ending in a brief violent instant. It didn’t happen. The insides of his stomach shifted as they entered a straightaway.

  Darryl glanced back at Allen Meyer. “She’s gonna be fine, Ranger.”

  Holding a handle with white knuckles, Meyer no
dded but was too afraid to say anything. Then he braced himself. Another bend was up ahead.

  “Please be quiet, Samuel.”

  Laura halted in the middle of the trail. The kid was screaming his lungs out now. She gently rocked him in the Snugli, trying to quiet him. It was useless. He continued to howl. Growing more tense, Laura pushed forward.

  ON A branch three hundred feet high, an owl ate voraciously, tearing chunks of meat from a dead squirrel, when it suddenly stopped.

  The pupils of its bright orange eyes widened, and it looked around. Every direction: left, right, down, a hundred and eighty degrees behind it. It saw nothing in the fading light, just redwoods and shrubbery.

  Then it looked up. Suddenly a speeding white underbelly tore above the treetops then disappeared.

  The owl stared after it. Then it returned to its squirrel.

  THE SCREAMS from the baby. The predator had heard them. It hurtled closer when the treetops beneath it abruptly parted and a double-yellow-lined road appeared below. As it followed the road, the sounds abruptly grew louder.

  Their source was seconds away.

  CHAPTER 58

  “SAMUEL, PLEASE be quiet!”

  Speed-walking in the fading light, Laura looked down at the screaming baby. “Please, Samuel, I’m beg—”

  She abruptly stopped talking. It had just gotten dark. Suddenly. Almost as if something had blocked out the light from above. Then she heard something from above as well. A rustling or a flapping? She looked up.

  “Oh.” The fog was rolling in.

  Thick, treetop-only fogs were common in coastal redwood forests, often occurring every day. This is a big one, Laura thought. Great. The fog could thicken fast and would shorten her search time even further. Samuel abruptly screamed even louder, and suddenly she couldn’t take it anymore. “You want your chair, is that it?”

  She set it up on the soil, put him in, and . . . He stopped crying. She shook her head. “It’s a miracle.”

  The baby swung silently.

  She waited for a moment and picked him up again. He immediately began crying. She shook her head, put him back in, and again, silence.

  She scanned the trail ahead. She was near the end of it and just wanted to finish the last small portion then call it a day. She’d done all she could to find the missing jogger. She looked up. It was incredible, in just seconds the fog had thickened considerably. And it was getting even darker as a result. She had to go now.

  She glanced at her swinging baby and wondered if for just a moment she could leave him here. But no, that was beyond stupid, especially with the squirrels and other rodents running around. But then she noticed an enormous burned-out redwood on the side of the trail. Inside it was a cave the size of a Porta Potti, and she got an idea. “Samuel, I’m just going to put you in there for one minute, OK? One minute.”

  The baby smiled, but Laura didn’t. She was nervous as hell about doing this. Did leaving her child alone for a couple of minutes make her a bad mother? Under the circumstances, she didn’t think so. . . . She lifted him, chair and all, and put him in the cave. He swung happily, and she quickly knelt to check it was safe. There was a strong charcoal smell from the burned wood, but no spiders, mites, squirrels, raccoons, or anything else. She stood.

  “I won’t take my eyes off you. I just want to see what’s a little further up here.”

  She walked forward quickly. She didn’t notice that the fog had thickened even more.

  THE TWO heartbeats were very close now. Following the twisting double-yellow line, the creature rocketed toward them.

  But then the animal saw something peculiar. A hanging white mass straight ahead. The great body immediately slowed down and began tuning. Strangely, despite what its eyes saw, the creature’s other sensory organs indicated nothing was there.

  The animal glided closer and the whiteness leaked toward it . . . then gradually enveloped it. It looked down, but the double-yellow line was gone now. So was the road. Unable to see, the creature instinctively navigated with its radar. It continued for several seconds when it glanced below and saw the line. Saw it through the fog. Its powerful eyes had taken just a moment to adjust. Up ahead, it spotted an owl. The little animal was just below the mist, on top of a massive branch jutting out over the road, apparently unaware it was coming. Speeding closer, the creature rumbled, and the owl suddenly looked up, turning in every direction. It couldn’t see the creature, it couldn’t see through the fog.

  The predator sped up. Rushing through the whiteness, it came upon the tattered roof of Laura Meyer’s SUV. It slowed slightly. The human heartbeats were just yards away now, but . . . the black eyes focused on the car. The animal immediately dipped down toward it.

  CHAPTER 59

  “IS THAT your wife’s?”

  Allen Meyer whipped his head around as they accelerated past a dusty red pickup on the side of the road. “I have no idea whose that is.” He turned to Jason. “There shouldn’t be anyone else here.”

  Darryl concentrated on the road ahead. “Forget it then. Let’s just find her.”

  Meyer nodded. As they headed into the next turn, he noticed the speedometer. They were doing ninety-two.

  A RACCOON foraging near Laura Meyer’s parked SUV abruptly looked up. Suddenly, from deep within the fog, something enormous and black appeared, dropping like an elevator. As the raccoon ran off, the predator hovered out of the whiteness, wings flapping furiously. It descended quickly, then, five feet from the dirt, ceased pumping and landed with a thud on the road and dirt.

  It didn’t move. A few feet behind the car, it just stared at the machine, the baseball-size eyes shifting, studying everything about it.

  Seconds passed. The car didn’t move, didn’t make a sound.

  The engine popped.

  Startled, the creature coiled its front half into the air and opened its mouth.

  But the car still didn’t move.

  In the upright position, slightly more than six feet tall, the animal just watched it.

  More time passed. The car remained perfectly still.

  After a moment, the mouth eased closed. The eyes studied the machine more carefully, looking through the glass . . . at the seats, headrests, steering wheel, and dashboard. They were all frozen, inanimate. The engine popped again. This time, the animal didn’t flinch.

  The eyes swiveled up to the fog. The two human signals were just beyond the trees. The predator would use the mist to hunt them.

  SWINGING IN his little tree cave, Samuel Meyer watched his mother walk down the trail. Then he looked up at the fog as a large dark outline surged past his tree and headed toward Laura’s back.

  LAURA WALKED forward, the forest as silent as a tomb. Suddenly, she heard a snap.

  From above the trail.

  She looked up as a branch the size of a pencil fell out of the whiteness.

  It bounced on the soil and settled.

  Laura stared at it for a long moment. Then looked up again.

  Nothing was there, just the shapeless mass of silent white. She wondered if an owl was up there somewhere. They often ate things up on the branches.

  She glanced back at Samuel. He looked fine, and she was far enough away from him that she could use the walkie-talkie without him hearing. She turned the device on and—

  “Laura, you there? Hello; please come in, Laura. Laura?”

  Her husband sounded even more tense than usual. “What is it, Allen?”

  “Jesus. Where the hell are you?”

  “Where do you think? Searching trails.”

  “Which trail?”

  She continued walking. “Smuggler’s Gulch.”

  “Where in Smuggler’s Gulch?”

  She eyed a tiny metal sign poking out of the dirt. “The seven-hundred-yard marker.”

  “Near that burned-out tree?”

  She glanced back at Samuel. “Exactly.”

  “Do me a favor, Laura. Get in the tree.”

  She halted. “What?�
�

  “I can’t get into it now; just do it. We’re coming to get you.”

  “We?”

  “Laura, just get in the tree.” A pause. “You don’t see anything there now, do you?”

  She looked around. “No, nothing.”

  “You sure?”

  A quick glance. “Positive.”

  “All right. I’ll see you in a few seconds.”

  She clipped the walkie-talkie to her belt, then walked quickly toward the tree.

  Then she jogged. Why the hell had Allen told her to get inside it?

  She jogged faster, looking in every direction.

  She sprinted. The tree was forty feet away, then thirty. Why did she feel like something was following her? She ran harder, twenty feet away, ten . . .

  She suddenly froze. What am I doing? Letting Allen freak me out? She ordered herself to get a grip. She calmly walked to the tree and peered in at Samuel. The baby looked fine.

  The walkie-talkie sounded again. “Laura? Laura?”

  Samuel started scowling, and she jolted to the opposite side of the trail. “Yes, Allen.”

  “You OK?”

  She was annoyed now. “I said I’m fine. See you when you get here.”

  But just as she returned the walkie-talkie to her belt she heard something off the trail. A rustling. She looked out but saw nothing, just silent forest.

  She didn’t know why, but she wanted to look up. . . . Huh. The fog seemed to be swirling ever so slightly.

  Something rustled again. Something behind the trees.

  An animal? Her husband was nervous about something. If an animal was nearby, she didn’t want it getting anywhere near her baby. She considered grabbing Samuel, putting him in the Snugli, but if whatever was out there jumped on her . . . Once, a playful dog had done just that, and Samuel had required stitches. The baby was safe in the cave where he was. She removed a pocketknife and quickly walked toward the trees.