Natural Selection

by Dave Freedman

  Darryl glanced down. “It’s gotta be inside one. We’re gonna have to go in after it.”

  Lisa swallowed nervously.

  In the back and ignoring this conversation, Jason saw they were rapidly approaching a familiar cornfield.

  “Look at how much bigger the caves are getting, Jason,” Lisa advised from the front.

  Jason peered out the other side. The caves were getting big indeed, some the size of one-car garages, others much larger. Regardless of size, the mountain was dotted with them.

  Darryl sneered down. “That thing’s here somewhere; I can smell it.” He spotted a plateau the size of a soccer field and descended toward it.

  Caves, Jason thought anew. Caves had no light at all and were the closest thing on land to the depths. As they touched down, he decided Darryl had to be right. The predator was here.

  “NO DAMN flares in this thing?” Stomping around in the back of the chopper, Darryl was frustrated. Their mission here was pointless if they couldn’t see. He needed flares. He ripped open another compartment. Nothing.

  Outside on the sunny black rock, Jason and Lisa searched the chopper’s outer compartments, opening and closing one little door after another.

  Lisa moved with particular speed. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. “Oh, here we go.”

  Near the rear propeller, the compartment was the size of a car’s trunk, holding half a dozen boxes of flares. Opening one, Lisa saw they were gold sticks the size of large hot dogs.

  “Perfect.” Darryl grabbed one from behind her. “These are long-burning ones, too.” The standard safety flare burned bright red and lasted half an hour, but these burned gold and lasted for ninety minutes. Darryl grabbed a few boxes. He’d started to close the door when he noticed something else. Another box labeled NITROGLYCERIN-BASED DYNAMITE. He opened it. Inside were a dozen brick-size objects encased in black plastic. Darryl turned one over, and slid open a small compartment, revealing six tiny red switches, like a mini–fuse box.

  “What do you have there?” Jason walked over.

  “Explosives. Used the same type in the army. I think the loggers around here must use ‘em to loosen up jams on the rivers.” The explosives’ active ingredient was ammonia gelatin dynamite, often used for blasts in quarries and mines. Ammonia gelatin has many beneficial features, like excellent water resistance and high blasting efficiency; also, unlike most nitroglycerin-based explosives, it can be detonated by remote control. But where were the remotes? Darryl quickly found them, two little silver things, each with a single red button that read USE ONLY WITH EXTREME CAUTION.

  Jason shook his head. “Bad idea, Darryl.”

  “Why?”

  “You said these caves are unstable.”

  “Exactly why these could be very useful.” He eyed the surrounding bluffs, dotted with holes everywhere. “This mountain’s one big piece of Swiss cheese, Jason. There could be tunnels everywhere in there.”

  “So?”

  “So tunnels mean escape routes. That thing could go anywhere.” He raised a black brick. “But with these, we can cut off every avenue. So it won’t have a goddamn place to hide.”

  Jason turned to Lisa. This logic was hard to fight.

  Darryl started grabbing things. “We gotta move before that thing finds its way out of there. . . .”

  They quickly grabbed explosives, remotes, flares, and weapons. They’d started to walk when Darryl paused and looked around. “One way or another, this thing’s gonna end here.”

  From a pocket, Lisa removed the once-beeping transmitter, now silent. “Which way do you want to start?”

  Darryl gave the device a dirty look. Then he turned north. “The biggest caves were this way.”

  AT THE end of the plateau, they reached a towering sheer rock face that offered only one way to continue: through an extremely narrow crevice, barely the width of a human body. They squeezed in, leaving the hot sun, and became enshrouded in crisp, cool shadows. They began climbing an incline steeper than a San Francisco street. After several hundred feet, the terrain abruptly leveled, and they emerged into an open stretch of black rock, brightly lit by the sun, as long as a highway and dotted with caves.

  They walked to the first cave, about three stories high and as wide as a one-car garage.

  Darryl peered in suspiciously. “What do you think?”

  Jason eyed the perimeter. “I think it couldn’t fit.”

  “Maybe it’s stuck, then.”

  “Let’s see. . . .” Lisa raised the transmitter.

  She waited for a moment.

  The tiny device was silent.

  Darryl ignored the little contraption and stared into the darkness. “I don’t think it’s here.”

  They continued. A dozen more caves in twenty minutes. All were too small or produced nothing from the transmitter.

  As they walked to the next one, Jason again marveled at the redwood forest beyond the cornfield. What a view.

  Then he felt the dank chill on his back. He turned. “Now, this is big enough.” Jason couldn’t believe the size of it. The hole was monstrous, eight or ten stories high and wider than a three-lane tunnel.

  Lisa didn’t know why, but the space made her nervous.

  They walked toward it when the mountains above blocked out the sun, swallowing them in deep dark shadows.

  Darryl just studied the space, saying nothing.

  Lisa raised the transmitter.

  The device was silent, no sound at all over the light wind. She shrugged at Jason. “Go to the next one?”

  Jason nodded, and the two of them continued.

  Darryl didn’t budge. “It’s here.”

  Lisa and Jason returned. She raised the transmitter again and again, it didn’t make a sound. But then she took a single step forward, and it beeped. One time. Then went silent again.

  Darryl turned to it curiously. “How do ya like that.”

  Jason eyed the darkened space nervously. How do you like that indeed.

  “I’LL GO.”

  Jason shook his head at Darryl. “No, we all go.”

  “We can’t all go.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s putting all our eggs in one basket. You see how many tunnels there are here, so there could be fifty ways out of this rock. If all of us go in here and it comes out somewhere else . . .” Darryl shook his head. “And even if this is the only way out, if it gets past whoever goes in . . . Someone’s gotta stay out here to guard against that. I nominate you two. Unless you want to go in instead of me.”

  Jason and Lisa suddenly looked pale.

  “Didn’t think so.”

  Jason cleared his throat. “Darryl, if you go in by yourself, and it really does get past you, we’re supposed to stop it with this?” He raised his rifle.

  “No.” Darryl raised a black brick. “With this.”

  Jason eyed him skeptically. “What do you mean?”

  “If these caves are as unstable as they say . . .” Darryl studied the ceiling and walls. “A few of these will take this tunnel right down. Here, I’ll set ‘em up. . . .” Darryl put his bow on the rock and trotted right in, removing five black bricks. He flipped a series of switches, then carefully placed them in strategic locations: on jagged shelves in the walls and two in the middle of the rock floor. Then he trotted back out and handed the remote to Lisa. “Just press the red button.”

  Jason shook his head. “Some plan.”

  “It’s a backup, and we won’t have to use it. On Monique and Craig’s lives, that thing’s not coming outta here.” Darryl eyed the remote in Lisa’s hand. “And if you press that button, neither will I.”

  Lisa swallowed, then flipped a cover over the button and carefully pocketed the remote.

  Darryl started to walk in. “OK, I’ll see ya—” He stopped, noticing the walkie-talkie in Jason’s hand. “Let me borrow that. I’ll call you when it’s done.”

  Jason handed it to him, and Lisa raised the transmitter. “Want this, too?”


  Darryl gave the device a dirty look. He rarely discussed it, but he was superstitious. The transmitter had beeped a moment before and he was worried it was a sign. “All right, give it to me.” He grabbed it angrily, felt for the arrows in the rear pouch of his hunting vest, then slowly entered the dark space. “See ya soon.”

  Watching him go, neither said it, but Jason and Lisa both wondered if they’d ever see Darryl Hollis again.

  CHAPTER 91

  THE LIGHT disappeared and so did the wind. In less than a minute, Darryl Hollis was enshrouded in a silent, blackened void. Walking forward, he strained his eyes, trying to see something, anything. But the darkness was absolute. He wondered what his own senses would have been like if he had evolved in a place like this. Would he be able to see now? Could anything? Could the creature?

  He removed a flare. A brief snapping sound echoed everywhere. And then there was light. The flare shot out a long stream of sparkling yellow, and Darryl held it in front of him, astonished at how long the tunnel was. He couldn’t see the end of it. He glanced up, barely able to see the dirt-brown ceiling, the same ugly rock as the walls. It wasn’t a romantic place to die, was it? He tossed the flare on the rock and saw that it created a small halo. Maybe I’m an angel, Darryl thought cruelly.

  He walked forward, snapped another flare, and dropped it. He repeated this every hundred feet. He walked for nearly a quarter mile when the transmitter beeped again. Not a single pulse, but a series of them, slow and steady, separated by three-second gaps.

  He paused, looking around. He saw nothing unusual. Without snapping another flare, he walked forward, and the darkness slowly returned. He continued for a hundred feet when the air abruptly cooled and the pulses’ echoes changed. He knew he’d entered a larger space. He snapped the next flare.

  “My God.”

  The cavern was gargantuan, the size of a football stadium. Darryl squinted in the dim light, wondering if his eyes were fooling him. But no. He whipped a flare straight up. Gold sparks flying, the flare toppled end over end. It rose a hundred feet, not even close to the ceiling, before falling back down. He snapped a dozen more flares and whipped them in every direction.

  With more light, he studied the space anew. The cavern was an enormous circle, lined with twenty other tunnel mouths, all apparently identical to the one he’d just entered through. He dropped five flares at his feet, a marker to find the right tunnel on the way out.

  His awe of the vast arena evaporated. The beeping continued. The Demonray was close. He walked to the nearest tunnel, to his left left, and peered in. The tunnel was long, dark, and cavernous. He considered smashing the transmitter in his hand. Instead, he raised it to the tunnel and listened. The beeping didn’t change. One pulse, three seconds of silence, a small echo, then the next pulse. He walked to the next tunnel, and again, the beeping continued as before. Five more tunnels responded identically.

  But at the tunnel directly across from where he’d first entered, the beeping picked up by a half second. He gazed into the void. “Fee, fi, fo, fum.”

  Then, feeling for his bow, he entered it.

  LIKE THE others, this tunnel was dark, dank, and seemingly endless. Dropping one flare after another, Darryl descended deeper and deeper, the beeping maintaining its slow, steady pace. He wondered if this very passage was where the creature had first entered from the sea. He froze. Or was it that one? He stood at the mouth of yet another tunnel, an offshoot. He raised the transmitter, and the beeping was unchanged, slow and steady. He ignored the offshoot and walked on, faster now, dropping flares every hundred feet. Then he reached a fork, and the tunnel split in two.

  He went to the left side, and the beeping increased ever so slightly. He eyed the looming dark void. This was where the predator was hiding.

  He walked to the right side and the beeping slowed. Then he heard another sound. The ocean, ever so faintly. This side was an escape route. Not if Darryl could help it. He removed several explosives and carefully positioned them in the walls and floor. He checked and rechecked that they were properly set, then trotted away and removed the remote.

  He eyed the little red button for a moment, then pressed it.

  The explosion was like an earthquake. The ground literally shook, and suddenly boulders the size of swimming pools were falling everywhere, from the walls, the ceiling . . . In seconds, there was silence except for the faint trickling of falling pebbles.

  Darryl lifted himself off the rock floor. Through thick plumes of dust he saw it, the passageway, completely caved in now, the sounds of the sea gone. He returned to the left fork, and again, the transmitter picked up its pace, the beeps now a second and a half apart. He removed two more explosives and placed them on the center of the floor. Another precaution, just in case. He snapped the next flare and walked forward.

  Ten flares later, the beeping increased.

  He stopped, studying the tunnel, looking for any sign of the creature.

  There was nothing, just a long dank hole.

  He continued walking, faster now.

  The beeping increased again, markedly so.

  He still didn’t see the predator.

  He walked even faster.

  The beeping increased further.

  He looked around, twisting in every direction. He didn’t see the animal anywhere.

  He walked faster still.

  The beeping increased further, the pulses separated by milliseconds.

  He jogged.

  Suddenly he froze. It was directly in front of him, something huge and looming.

  He couldn’t make it out entirely. He threw a flare at it.

  The flare bounced backward.

  He loaded an arrow and walked forward, the beeping almost droning.

  And then, amid a burst of sparkling gold light, it came into view. A solid rock wall. The end of the tunnel.

  He noticed something in front of it. In the far-right corner, just lying there. He stepped toward it and the beeping became a steady drone.

  It wasn’t the creature.

  It was a bloodied harpoon with a homing beacon inside it. Somehow the animal had pulled it out.

  “Son of a bitch!”

  Darryl hurled the transmitter to the floor, smashing it to pieces.

  In an instant, there was pure silence—almost. The only sound was from the softly hissing flares, illuminating the tunnel behind him like streetlamps on a foggy road.

  Then there was a second sound. Off in the distance. Flapping.

  It was so far away, Darryl couldn’t even see it yet. But he knew. The predator was coming for him.

  He breathed, calmly, evenly. A war was about to start. Darryl Hollis was ready for it.

  CHAPTER 92

  THE POWER of the roar was extraordinary. It erupted without warning, shattering the silence and echoing everywhere.

  Darryl didn’t flinch. He couldn’t see the Demonray yet—it was just a faint outline in the distance—but hearing its roar only made him want to kill it more. He marched forward. “Come on, you ugly mother.”

  Surging forward, the animal gradually became visible, gliding higher than Darryl had expected, halfway between the floor and ceiling. He halted and fired. Eight times. In rapid succession, the arrows exploded away at different heights.

  The creature veered down sharply. Three arrows missed, but five were direct hits to the face. They had no effect. The predator continued, ten feet high, neither slowing down nor speeding up, simply maintaining its pace.

  Darryl paused. He’d hit it, he was sure of it, numerous times, but the animal hadn’t roared, shuddered, slowed down, or sped up. Nothing. It simply hadn’t reacted. He didn’t care. He could almost make out the blacks of its eyes.

  He strode forward and fired again. Ten times.

  All ten were direct hits, plunging nearly a foot deep into the head and body.

  The Demonray continued gliding.

  Reaching back for the next arrow, Darryl noticed the flares, moving ever so slig
htly, apparently tossed by gusts of wind. The predator was no longer gliding. It flapped its wings, suddenly moving faster.

  Darryl strode forward and fired six times.

  They all missed. The flapping form suddenly climbed to the very top of the hundred-foot ceiling then plunged down, rocketing just above the floor. The increase in speed was fantastic. Moving with tremendous momentum, it hurtled straight for Darryl. . . .

  He fired twice more. On a line, two projectiles penetrated the creature’s face.

  The Demonray sped closer, three hundred feet away, two hundred . . .

  Darryl reached for something in his breast pocket.

  The creature rushed in, one hundred feet, fifty feet . . .

  Darryl didn’t budge. He just removed whatever was in his pocket. . . .

  The creature rocketed in, thirty feet, ten feet, the mouth opening, the teeth zooming in. . . .

  Suddenly Darryl dove to the rock, simultaneously thrusting a knife up with both hands. As the enormous body hurtled overhead, he dug a ten-foot, gaping slash into the white canopy. A powerful stabbing pain shot through his upper arm. As the body surged over him, he saw his shirt was suddenly soaked through with blood, his left shoulder almost gone.

  The predator glided unevenly toward the dead-end wall, a small river of blood gushing from its underside. It suddenly veered away from the wall, then banked and landed with a loud, thwacking thud.

  Darryl just looked at it, perfectly still, three dozen arrows blanketing its body like a pincushion. Its eyes were still open, looking right back at him over the sparkling golden light. Then he heard it, wheezing, struggling to breathe.

  Darryl had to finish it. He painfully raised his arm to get the next arrow. He walked toward it, halted, then . . . Voom! He fired a speeding projectile into its face, just below the left eye.

  The Demonray didn’t move. Didn’t flinch.

  “My God.” Darryl couldn’t believe it. It was like it hadn’t felt it, like the animal literally hadn’t felt the arrow enter its body. Jason had said its brain had a minuscule pain center but this . . . Darryl reached back for the next arrow. There weren’t any.