Natural Selection

by Dave Freedman

Still looking up, Monique ran straight for it. . . . Running and spinning, running and spinning.

  The creature didn’t move.

  She saw the approaching mass in her periphery. She planned on climbing over it and simply ran closer.

  The eyes shifted, no other body part moving.

  She ran closer still, turning away from it.

  Suddenly and silently, the great form rose up like a snake. Then it didn’t move. It just held there, its front half in the air, standing slightly more than six feet tall.

  As she started to turn, it rumbled.

  Monique froze, dropping her walkie-talkie. The sound was astonishingly close.

  Facing the wrong way, she turned slightly and saw the Demonray out of the corner of her eye, something huge and white, looming over her. She knew instantly that the creature must have been there all along. But it wasn’t attacking. It was just standing there, coiled and watching her. She could actually feel its eyes.

  Ever so slowly, she turned and looked up at it.

  The deathly cold eyes looked right back at her.

  She didn’t move a muscle. She simply looked at it.

  Then, never losing eye contact, she gently repositioned her fingers on the rifle.

  Monique moved first. With lightning quickness, she slammed her back against the dirt and fired twice. Two small red holes appeared in the massive underside. The animal didn’t seem to feel them. The head snapped downward with phenomenal quickness. A mouthful of the giant teeth rushed toward Monique, and she closed her eyes, firing three more times.

  Suddenly the creature was gone.

  Monique jumped to her feet, no idea where it was. Then she saw it flying away rapidly, just above the forest floor. She fired twice.

  As if seeing the bullets, the pumping form suddenly darted straight up, climbing vertically along a redwood.

  Monique sprinted to the base, aimed, and . . .

  The creature smashed through the canopy above, disappearing into the sky.

  Monique frantically scanned the patches of blue, catching little pieces of the Demonray, apparently on a towering trajectory above the trees. . . . She lost sight of it as it continued higher.

  Then, a hundred yards away, something enormous and black plunged down like an elevator. Monique jerked her rifle down. The winged form knifed lower then banked violently above the soil, rocketing straight for her with the speed of a flying roller coaster.

  She fired four times.

  The body rose before the shots had even been taken. Every bullet missed.

  She fired again. A bullet plunged into the creature’s face, a few inches from the right eye. It had no effect. She fired again but missed badly. Her hands were shaking. She fired once more, but again, couldn’t control her hands.

  The great body roared closer, a hundred feet away . . . then fifty feet . . .

  She fired three more times, but again her hands shook. She threw the rifle down, ripped the dagger from her pant leg, and sprinted toward it.

  The creature let out a shattering roar.

  Monique screamed back, her eyes filled with rage, raising the knife above her head with both hands.

  The mouth rushed in, the great teeth rapidly growing larger.

  She screamed again, running as hard as she could.

  Suddenly her direction was violently reversed. Flying backward and shrieking in pain, she stabbed down on top of the head, four, five, six, seven times. Then the knife slipped from her hands, and she didn’t know where she was. She wiped the blood from her face and wondered if she’d gotten free. She realized her eyes were closed. Why were her eyes closed? She opened them.

  She was up to her chest in the creature’s mouth, a doll in the jaws of a curious dog. Feeling down, she realized her legs were gone. Strangely, there was no pain. She looked up at the animal’s eyes. They were so close now, less than a foot away, black, deathly calm, and staring right at her. Why wasn’t it biting down? What was it waiting for?

  The Demonray was flat on the soil; she could actually feel it breathing. It seemed to be playing with her, waiting to see if she’d try to escape.

  But Monique didn’t try to escape. She simply thought of her husband and the family they’d always wanted.

  The creature bit down. Monique Hollis was gone.

  THE BODY had been moved by the time the others arrived. All that remained were the walkie-talkie, rifle, and a pool of dark blood on the soil.

  “Oh my God,” Lisa said, weeping uncontrollably. She stepped back as Darryl walked closer. He was unable to hold back his tears.

  Jason glanced at Craig, eyeing bloodstains with a look that could cut glass.

  Then, out of the corner of his eye, Jason noticed the fawn, struggling to get up. He gently lifted it into his arms, eyeing its broken leg. This time he knew he’d have to splint it by himself.

  CHAPTER 81

  “MAYBE WE should end this—pack it in.”

  Jason’s words hung in the air. They were seated around the living room. Out of respect for Monique Hollis, they’d done nothing at all for the past twenty-four hours. Darryl’s mourning period had been powerful, intense, and was far from over. Seated on the hearth, he still looked numb, gazing down at the shiny wood floor. No one responded, and Jason nodded morosely. “I guess that’s a yes.”

  Darryl turned to him, his eyes ice. “No, it’s not.”

  “Darryl, we shouldn’t make emotional decisions right now.”

  “Do I look emotional to you?”

  A pause. “No, actually. You don’t.”

  “Monique died for one reason: because that thing outsmarted us. Because we were stupid. Now we’re gonna have to outsmart it. You mark my words, Jason. I’m still gonna kill that thing. So, no, I’m not packing anything in.”

  “Neither am I,” Craig said.

  Jason turned to him. The Hollises were Craig’s best friends on the entire planet, people he’d literally waged war with. If Darryl wanted to fight, then so did Craig Summers. His eyes were steel. But then they turned quizzical. “Do you want to pack it in, Jason?”

  “Monique was my friend, too, Craig.” Even now, Jason’s eyes were a little wet. “No, I don’t.”

  Phil cleared his throat. “For what it’s worth, neither do I.”

  On a couch next to Jason, Lisa was astounded by what she was hearing. “I don’t believe this. Darryl, your wife is dead.”

  “Thanks for the reminder.”

  “I’m sorry, it’s just . . . you’re not reacting to this the way I would. If we really want to kill this thing, let’s call in the National Guard.”

  “That would be useless.”

  “What are you talking about? They’re professional soldiers.”

  “You sure about that, Soccer Mom?”

  “Well . . . yeah.”

  Craig shook his head. “They’re not even close to professional soldiers, Lisa. More like accountants and auto mechanics who do weekend drills at the local armory. You get a bunch of those guys running around here . . . the deaths will really start piling up.”

  Darryl nodded. “Not to mention they don’t know a goddamn thing about hunting.”

  “They can fire guns; they can help us. Right, Jason?”

  Jason paused. “With all due respect, Lisa, I’ll defer to Darryl and Craig’s judgment on this. Just like I said I would. But from what little I know of the National Guard, I’m inclined to agree with them.”

  “Then forget the National Guard. What about the SEALs, the police, the FBI?”

  “The FBI?” Craig was genuinely amused, “What are they gonna do? Flash their badges and tell that thing to come out with its hands up? And what makes you think the FBI or anybody else would even believe us, Lisa? Do you realize what we’d sound like? Even if the phones did work, if we made that call . . . forget the National Guard, they’d be more likely to send the National Enquirer.”

  “We’d have to show it to them.”

  “How would we do that exactly?”

 
; “Well . . . we’d have to take them out there.”

  “You think that thing’s gonna pose for a picture?”

  “Craig’s right,” Jason said. “No one would believe us, and with all of the back-and-forth explaining, it could take months to convince them.”

  “Which we don’t have.” Darryl eyed Lisa soberly. “That thing’s out there now. If we wait just days, it could go anywhere.”

  Lisa stood, glaring at Jason. “Then stay and fight it. I’ve had enough.” She walked out.

  “IF YOU’RE leaving, so am I.”

  Alone on her bed, Lisa looked up. Jason was standing at the doorway. “Jason, I don’t want you to leave. I know how important this is to you.”

  He entered. “If you’re leaving, so am I.”

  “That’s ridiculous, you’ve been waiting your whole life for something like this.”

  He got in her face, softly. “If you’re leaving, so am I.”

  “You’d do that for me?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  She exhaled. “Then I want to stay.”

  “You’d do that for me?”

  “As long as you don’t get us killed.”

  “You and I will be fine. Remember?”

  She paused. “That’s something I’ll never forget.”

  He sat, and they hugged on the little bed.

  “JASON, BRACE yourself. Phil might actually know how we can kill this thing.”

  Jason paused as he and Lisa entered the living room. Darryl was serious. “How?”

  On the easy chair, Phil leaned forward. “We need to get it out of the forest, right?”

  Jason eyed him hatefully. “That’s Darryl’s call.”

  Darryl nodded. “We do. Out of the forest, shooting it becomes a whole different ball game. Tell him your idea, Phil.”

  Phil turned. “How do you think this thing likes heat, Jason?”

  “Heat? Physical heat?”

  “Yes.”

  “It probably hates it. Cold as it is in the depths . . . It might not have evolved to deal with it.” He paused, his revulsion for Phil Martino buried by his curiosity. “What’s your idea?”

  “To smoke it out. Literally.”

  “How would we do that?”

  “With a prescribed burn. What the rangers were planning to do here anyway.”

  Jason’s eyes narrowed. “Hmm. How would that work, exactly?”

  CHAPTER 82

  “FIRST, I’LL show you what a prescribed burn is. . . .” As Darryl, Jason, and Lisa watched, Phil removed the black mesh screen in front of the fireplace. “Now, all fires, whether they’re in a fireplace, a forest, whatever, need what we call ‘start-up fuel’ to ignite.”

  He pointed to what was inside the fireplace, logs on top of kindling and crumpled newspaper. “Here, the start-up fuel is the newspaper and kindling. We burn the paper first, which in turn burns the kindling, which in turn burns the logs. All together, that gives us a big blaze. Simple, right? But what would happen if we removed the paper and kindling and just tried to light the logs directly? It would never burn, right? The match would burn out, and we wouldn’t get anything close to a fire.” He looked around the room. “Everybody follow?”

  There were nods.

  “Just like in a fireplace, forest fires start burning after the forest’s version of kindling—dried grass, dead shrubs, fallen branches—burns first. Then the trees start burning. But. If that kindling’s already been burned, then a major fire can’t even get the chance to start. That’s what a prescribed burn is, literally ‘prescribing’ a series of small fires so big, out-of-control ones don’t burn later. To put this in perspective, a lot of national and state parks started doing prescribed burns after the big Yellowstone blazes in ‘88.”

  Lisa nodded. “Pretty cool.”

  Phil returned the mesh screen. “And pretty easy. They’ve been doing prescribed burns at this park for years, so they were prepped for another one anyway.”

  “How do you know that?” Jason asked.

  “I found some of their old files. It’s basically ready to go.”

  “You know how to oversee these burns?”

  “I’ve done it before.”

  “We won’t burn the entire forest down? You’re absolutely sure of that?”

  Craig cleared his throat. “Jason, it looks safe to me. According to their records, there’s actually not that much fuel out there. Coincidentally, the part of the forest where this thing’s been repeatedly returning to has fantastic natural fire barriers.”

  Phil pointed to a map. “Look. Ocean to the west, a double-lane paved road to the south, and the creek to the north and east. Basically, it’s a prescribed burn’s dream.”

  “You really think it’s safe, Craig?” Jason asked tenuously.

  A confident nod.

  “And this makes sense to you, Darryl?”

  “Perfect sense. We gotta get that thing outta the woods, and this seems like a great way to do that.”

  Jason reluctantly turned to Phil. “When would we do it?”

  “First thing in the morning’s best, when there’s lots of cold air to help contain the fire.”

  Jason’s eyes shifted, mindful of whom he was talking to. “What are the other risks?”

  “We’ll get some high, superficial flames from the rhododendrons, but nothing lasting, nothing really dangerous. We should be fine.”

  “We won’t need to put it out somehow?”

  “The beauty of these types of fires is that they pretty much burn themselves out. They just run out of fuel. We’ll need to check for burning embers and things. . . .” Embers could burn for days if not properly extinguished. “But that’s about it. Other than that, there shouldn’t be any problems.”

  Jason turned to Darryl. “Say we do this. And say it actually works. If we drive that thing out of the trees, it could go anywhere, right?”

  “We’d have to shepherd it.”

  “How would we do that?”

  “With the helicopters. Craig and I already went over it. With all of the noise and electrical activity they generate they should scare the hell out of that thing. If it does pop out of the treetops, we’ll have it.”

  “Where would we shepherd it to exactly?”

  “Where it won’t have anywhere to hide. Over the ocean.”

  Jason hesitated. “What if it decides to go for a swim?”

  “Then it drowns. Its gills have long since dried out.”

  “That’s right, they have. Hmm.” Jason went over all of it in his head. At least on paper, it worked. He turned to Phil, despising him, distrusting him, and yet . . . “When do you want to do this?”

  “Like I said, the air will be nice and cool first thing in the morning.”

  Jason nodded. “First thing in the morning, then.”

  CHAPTER 83

  “IT’S EXACTLY where we thought it would be.” Craig nodded confidently to Jason as a blinking dot shot across the radar sweep.

  “Good.” Jason stood. “I’ll go see where Darryl is.” Jason marched outside and reached the parking lot just as Darryl hopped out of the Vertol. “You set it up?”

  Darryl nodded. “It’s ready to go.” He’d just removed the Expedition’s seldom-used deck-mounted harpoon gun, then anchored it to the floor of the mammoth Vertol. Jason peered in at the weapon. Though technically a harpoon gun, it looked like something off a battleship: a six-foot-tall piece of curved steel the size of a harp that fired harpoons with speeds just shy of guided missiles. Darryl would use it when the moment was right.

  Jason pointed. “Looks like they’re ready too.”

  Craig, Lisa, and Phil walked toward them, each carrying two “drip torches,” devices with big black handles and long spouts that look like enormous metal coffee thermoses. They don’t carry coffee. They are heavy-duty, fifteen-gauge aluminum canisters that transport a diesel/gasoline mixture that tiny igniters light to literally “drip” a fire. They are standard issue for fire rangers.

  As
the three walked closer, Phil eyed the man who refused to even look at him. “Jason, you’ll come with me?” The plan was to drive to different locations, then set multiple fires simultaneously and surround the creature with flames.

  “No. I’ll go with Darryl and Lisa. Craig will go with you.”

  “Oh, OK.” Phil couldn’t fight the quiet rage in Jason’s eyes. He checked his watch. “We’ll light up in exactly . . . fifteen minutes.”

  Then they entered the SUVs and drove off.

  “JASON AND Lisa are sure getting along, huh, Craig?”

  Walking rapidly in the forest, Craig didn’t answer Phil Martino. As much as Phil seemed to be trying legitimately to help out now, his betrayal was repugnant and unforgivable. “Where do we set the first fire, Phil?”

  “You go to that dried-up fern patch over there.” The area was the size of a typical front lawn, waist height. “I’ll start with these dead rhododendrons.” It was a massive growth, all brown.

  Drip torches in hand, they walked in separate directions, then began spilling fiery little drops of fuel. Small flames ignited and grew shockingly fast, from a few inches, to one foot, to ten feet. Craig worried they were in the process of starting a wildfire, but Phil Martino remained calm. He’d done it all a million times before—or a dozen times anyway—and this was perfect. They moved quickly, lighting up everything.

  They didn’t notice what was in the trees.

  SEVERAL HUNDRED feet high, the creature watched them. On top of a branch as big around as a boardroom table, its wings draping over the sides, the Demonray suddenly smelled scents it never had before. It felt something too, just the slightest tinge of it: heat.

  The predator focused on Craig, trying to understand what he was doing.

  HEAD DOWN, Craig Summers continued to drop little fireballs everywhere. In minutes, he ignited 1,200 feet of terrain. The fire was already ferociously hot, many flames taller than three stories. Suddenly Craig spotted movement out of the corner of his eye. Something big and white near the treetops. A cloud of smoke? He didn’t have time to dawdle. They had to start the next fire. They sealed up the torches and hustled back to the SUV.