CHAPTER FIFTEEN:   CHIRKAH!

 

An ice-cold dagger of steel ripped a jagged course through Nate’s guts. His eyes spread wide as he struggled to deal with the roiling of his insides.  He felt his hands shaking and the trembling seemed to travel from the tips his fingers, coursing up his veins and through his veins until it burst out onto the surface of his skin.  Slowly he sank back against the trunk of the tree. Knitting his brows, he looked back at the beast and tried to comprehend what it had just told him.

“What in the hell do you mean by ‘breeding stock’? If one of you hairy bastards has hurt her –” His voice choked with emotion and he fell silent. His loathing of the creatures had just reached a new level, far surpassing anything he’d ever thought himself capable. The hatred threatened to overtake him completely and he felt his face warming from its effect. Just what he planned to do in retaliation, he hadn’t the vaguest notion, but the thought of one of these things touching her –that way– made him furious. So angry was he, if pressed, he would probably attempt taking on the whole pack bare-handed, despite the overwhelming odds. His eyes blazed back into Chirkah’s red glare.

“Just tell me where she is”, he demanded.

It would do you no good to know her whereabouts, Nate Malone. The voice insinuated itself inside his head, and Chirkah’s eyes narrowed perceptibly as he “spoke”.  I assure you there would be no chance of succor. Should you come down from your haven among the branches, you would be overpowered in seconds. But perhaps this would be for the better. After all, you can’t remain up there indefinitely. You must come down sometime, so why not do it now and avoid all the suffering? Before long, thirst will set your tongue ablaze and then, together with hunger, it will drive you down to us. When this happens, we will NOT be kind. The Kophet-kut are nothing if not patient. We will wait. However, we do not enjoy being toyed with; nor do we take kindly to anyone reducing our ranks by three of our fellows.

He gazed slowly about at the grisly-looking group.  There are many of my followers who would gladly exact vengeance upon you, and believe me, we know ways of inflicting injuries that kill slowly and with great pain.

Nate looked too. The horrid creatures sat around in various positions of repose. He shivered at the thought of those cruel mouths stripping his flesh from his bones. He had witnessed first-hand their capacity for ferocity as they mercilessly punished one of their own for a minor infraction of the pecking order. He could only imagine how they would deal with someone they hated.

On the other hand, should you come down now, I promise to do my best to see that your death is a quick and –relatively– painless one. Chirkah grinned again, showing teeth. The uniquely human gesture looked oddly out of place upon his savage countenance.

Nate shook his head and passed his hand over his tired eyes. His head felt stuffed with cotton, and he wanted to vomit. Listening to Chirkah’s insolent voice droning on was somehow repugnant to his very core. It gave him an odd, repulsive feeling that was the mental equivalent of having a dry wooden tongue depressor shoved to the back of your mouth, or maybe, to chewing tinfoil. He shuddered and looked back down.

“Explain to me what you mean when you say Zelda’s being held as breeding stock.” he said, striving to make his voice sound calm.”

That bothers you, does it Nate Malone? Chirkah’s tongue reached out casually and gathered in a lady-bug beetle which was trundling slowly across his cheek. Munching thoughtfully, he let his gaze meander, in a lazy arc, across the bean field beyond the edge of the woods.

Out there, the sun was blazing down, drying the plants and hurrying them along toward harvest.  Here, beneath a canopy of leaves, the shade was cool and, under different circumstances, Nate would have found it soothing. He settled back down on the tree branch, waiting impatiently for Chirkah to resume.

At last, the chieftain of the Kophet-kur looked back up at him.

In your human folk-lore, there are many things which you fear. Each generation passes along stories of beasts and goblins which await the unsuspecting victim somewhere… out there. Even you, Nate Malone must be intelligent enough to realize that these legends must have some basis in fact. Somewhere along the line, someone saw SOMETHING that inspired the telling of the tale. That tale is, in turn, twisted and exaggerated a bit more by each teller until it reaches mythic proportions. Is this not true?

“Make your point, dog breath.” Nate snarled.

Chirkah paused, glaring maliciously. When this failed to have an effect, however, he continued. My… POINT, as you put it, is simply this: Have you ever heard of werewolves, Nate Malone? Shapeshifters? Lycanthropes? Of course, you have, and you’ve always considered them to be fiction — fabrications of active imaginations, is this so?

Nate refused to answer, staring icily into the deep caverns that were Chirkah’s eyes.

Well, as I’ve said, there is some basis for truth in these stories, which have been handed down for centuries. Yes, Nate, there ARE werewolves living among you. They are the spies for the Kophet-kur. They circulate among the humans, leading outwardly normal little human lives, working and playing along with the rest of the stupid, unsuspecting creatures. They hold respectable positions in your society, working as bankers and doctors and lawyers and so forth, and never once do they give any sign of being anything other than typical human trash… Except during the full of the moon.

Chirkah turned his muzzle to the sky, his eyes clamped shut, and, after a short time, Nate began to feel dizzy. It came upon him gradually, as a ship, slowly gliding into a dock to tie up. He sandwiched his head in his hands, pressing so hard his face began to distort. Chirkah’s telepathic hold was increasing. Nate felt his own will fall away, and he had the disquieting feeling that something huge and filthy was peering into the farther-most intimate corners of his mind. The voice inside Nate’s head rang like a bell, resounding in echoes that grew and grew, threatening to split his skull, as Chirkah launched into a singsong chant. The sound rose and fell like waves thundering on a desolate, rock-strewn shore.

 

“THE MOON IS OUR BEACON,

IT GUIDES THE KOPHET-KUR.

(We sing, for the moon is our pilot.)

SING US HOME, OUR FATHERS!

WE AWAIT YOUR COMING

(We sing, for the moon is the way.)

THE FATHERS GAVE US LIFE

AND NOW THEY GIVE US HOPE

(We sing, for the moon is our comfort.)

YOU COME, OH BELOVED!

WE WAIT… WE HEAR… WE FOLLOW.”

(We sing.)

 

Along with the ringing voice of Chirkah, Nate could discern a chorus of other voices overlapping each other in a hideous chaotic, mélange of sound, layered one atop another, in similar repetitive chants. The chorus built inside him, reverberating from the sides of his skull until it spilled out in an incredible crescendo of sound. It seemed to surround him, carrying him aloft and hurling him among the uppermost branches of the trees. In his mind, he looked down from a great height and all he could see was forest below. Frantically searching for some kind of stability, he looked to the horizon where sat an enormous glowing ball of fire. At first Nate’s bewildered mind associated it with the sunset, but in a second he could see that it was something entirely different.

The vocal chorus became a drumming, low pitched buzz which emanated from the glowing orb, and it began to rotate slowly, casting brilliant white-hot shafts of light haphazardly around it. These beams of light reflected off of everything they touched, doubling and trebling in quantity and intensity as they bounced and played across the scenery. Suddenly the ball of light rose into the air and shot off into the sky. Nate could feel the heat from it baking his face, singeing the hair of his brows. As it hurtled past him, he thought he could see faces – smooth, lightly glowing faces with barely discernible features – staring out at him from various places about the sphere. The faces left him cold and empty inside, and he felt a longing to cry out to them to come back. His hands reached out involuntarily, and his mind screamed “We need you! Don’t leave!” In that instant, he felt an intense, aching loneliness that threatened to consume him from the inside, leaving nothing but a dried husk to blow lightly before the wind. The sense of loss was overwhelming.

As he stared after the departing sphere, the sky became darker and darker, until it reached the ebony blackness of midnight. The sphere continued to recede into this blackness until he became aware that he was looking at the moon, shining at him from a blank, starless nigh-time sky. The moon was comforting to him, easing the hollow void within, and he found he couldn’t pull his eyes away. He needed — was absolutely compelled to keep his mind trained upon it, because it was sending him signals — some kind of message. He couldn’t make out what the message was. It didn’t seem to be coming at him in the form of words, but rather in feelings — emotions. It was telling him something he absolutely needed to know to survive, and it was oh, so soothing! The message was filled with hope and promise and triumphant, exhilarating, lustful faith. He wanted to slobber at the mouth. He wanted to strip off all his clothing and go running naked through the woods. He wanted to howl. His throat fairly burst with the desire to open up and let all of his exuberance come rushing out in a long, loud, soul-quenching bellow of lusty defiance. Laughing out loud, he opened his mouth and howled. Again he let the sound rush from his gaping throat. And then again. Each howl was louder than the one preceding it and it felt wonderful. It was a totally liberating rush of confidence and a sense of well-being he had never before experienced. He continued to wail, letting the sound of his own voice buoy him up and cleanse his spirit.

When he opened his eyes, the sun was shining and the branch was again beneath him. Looking below, he saw that all the creatures were gathered around the base of the tree, and, like Chirkah, they were watching him closely.

The moon is our pilot, Chirkah was softly saying. He sounded tired, like someone who had just quit a trance state and was not yet in full possession of his faculties. It guides us through the night. When we hunt, the moon is by our side, helping us to keep our feet on the track. When we kill, it gives us strength, and when we hide, the moon tells us where to go and what to do.

Suddenly he snapped out of it and became focused once again.

The Fathers, when they left, gave us the moon as a guidepost, it is their means of staying in touch. The telepathic ability exists in all species bearing their seed, which includes most of the remaining creatures on this earth. There had to be a way to monitor their progress here, and so, from somewhere… out there, they send a constant signal, guiding us in all that we do. The Kophet-kur retain the greatest capacity to perceive these signals, and in turn, we attempt to return our thoughts to them. The moon is the ‘transmitter’ — the mirror upon whose reflective surface the signals are bounced and magnified. And these signals have a profound effect over all the earth: birds migrate from one pole to another, navigating in blind ignorance, in response to the effect of the moon’s influence. Dogs howl, insects, responding to the call of instinct, hurl themselves into any light that resembles the moon. The animals of the sea are drawn to the surface when the moon casts its illumination upon the waters. Indeed the very tides of the ocean are influenced by the pull of the moon. Even your own human race exhibits very erratic behavior during the times of its fullness when its power is greatest. All of these things, your scientists have searched for explanations to, but the secret is there — shining in the night sky!

Nate sensed an amount of sincerity in what Chirkah was telling him. For the first time since he’d begun this conference with the devil, Nate began to believe what he was being told. It was incredible and more than a little unsettling to think that the human race, indeed, nearly every manner of creature on earth was the product of some bizarre genetic experiment by alien creatures from another planet. It undermined all that he had ever believed in and left him feeling unstable and somehow up-rooted. His mind seemed to be floating in a deep void where everything was backward and opposite. He struggled to gain control — to shrug it off as impossible. However, the evidence that something highly unusual had occurred sat below him staring hungrily up into the tree. And, what Chirkah was saying explained many things, among them the strange effect the moon had upon the earth and its inhabitants. Here also was a possible explanation for the reports of such strange creatures as Bigfoot and the Yeti of the Himalayas; perhaps even the Loch-Ness monster sightings.

And now, Chirkah was offering an explanation to the centuries-old myths about werewolves. Could there be actual creatures who were able to assume human form part of the time, and then become something similar to these misshapen horrors when the moon was exerting its mysterious influence upon them? How could he exercise logic and reason when for the past few hours he’d been having a conversation with a monster? Everything he’d ever believed to be true in a rational, sane world was now put to question. WERE there such things as monsters? Did humans evolve naturally from apes — or were we the product of creation by a divine being? Perhaps all the stories of creation in the Bible were the result of simple, uncivilized minds attempting to explain the unexplainable. Is there a God in heaven, or does our creator traverse the skies in a miraculous ship built of strange, alien metals from another planet — another galaxy, far from our own?

Below him, Chirkah, savage, brutal king of the monsters, sat staring up at Nate as though he were aware of the conflict troubling his mind, and was waiting to regain his attention. Nate swallowed hard and felt something click in his throat. Dimly, he became aware of the first stirrings of thirst. Chirkah had been right about this, he COULD use something to drink. But more importantly, at this point, he still wanted to know about Zelda.

“So what has all this got to do with my wife?” he asked, cautiously. Slowly, Chirkah nodded, in a sage-like manner.

When the fathers left us, they made a promise to return someday; and when they do, they will select the most successful of their progeny to continue the experiments. They will teach the winning species the ways of their planet and give them absolute domain over all the remaining creatures on this one. Eventually, the chosen species will evolve into beings closely approximating the fathers. This is the way their genetic code works. After millennia, the Kophet-kur are beginning to look less like our lupine ancestors, and more like the fathers — just as humans are distancing themselves more and more from the apes which bore them. At the time of their return, the fathers will further advance this process, so that their favorites can only be guessed at, but one thing is certain: the Kophet-kur do not wish to come in second. For you see, it is a race — the Kophet-kur MUST gain the technology which has so advanced your species, thus making us the most successful. At the same time, humans are beginning to become aware of their own latent telepathic abilities, and may someday soon stumble over the secrets which, until now, are possessed only by the Kophet-kur. We CANNOT allow this to happen. To do so would be to lose all that we have dreamed of and waited so patiently for since the dark beginnings of time.

 Chirkah paused for a moment, seemingly gathering his thoughts before continuing.

This is why we take prisoners. The women of your species carry the recessive gene needed to serve our purposes. Therefore, we capture only females. Besides, the male of your species could not be forced to copulate. The bitches, however… his narrative trailed off and he nodded to one of his rank and file — an apparently pre-arranged gesture that sent this lieutenant bounding off into the brush. In a moment, however, he returned to the clearing with something that made Nate’s hair rise on his scalp and he snapped to attention, every nerve twitching.

Walking docilely before the beast, head hanging and shoulders sagging, was a human female — at least what was left of one. The woman was of indeterminate age — she could have been fourteen of forty – with matted, bedraggled brown hair hanging in her face. Mud and blood smeared every square inch of skin that was exposed, and the ragged shift she wore was so filthy he could not make out the color, even on a sunny day such as this. The woman walked, barefoot, with the air of someone who had grown accustomed to constant torture and abuse, long since abandoning all attempts at escape or hope of rescue.

She stumbled once, and the creature escorting her nipped savagely at her heel, opening up yet another wound, and bringing Nate to his feet on the branch once more. His heart went out to the poor wretch and he called to her.

“Hey!” he cried. “Hey, you! Up here… in the tree. I’m up here!” But the prisoner paid him no attention. Nate couldn’t tell whether it was because she was in a state of shock and simply beyond hearing or because she was afraid of the retribution such insolent behavior might bring from her captors. Still, he felt he should try to offer some comfort. “Don’t worry, I’ll find a way to get you out of here!” This sounded silly, considering the circumstances, even to him. Apparently, his audience agreed; for suddenly, in his mind, he heard gales of malicious laughter and, looking at the creatures sprawled about the clearing, he saw several with their tongues hanging out and their black mouths split in wide canine grins. Even Chirkah guffawed heartily at this, before giving another telepathic signal to the creature acting as guard to the helpless prisoner.

Without warning, the beast raised up and slapped the woman brutally on the side of the head, sending her sprawling. She lay on the ground, obviously stunned for a moment and then staggered to her hands and knees, where she did a most peculiar thing. Reaching stiffly around behind, she gathered up the hem of her skirt and pulled it up, exposing her bruised and battered buttocks to the air. There she waited patiently while the brute came up behind her and slowly sniffed. Nate felt his gorge rising and tried, unsuccessfully, to pull his eyes away.

The creature rose and placed his forepaws on the back of the poor wretch, digging his claws in carelessly as he went, apparently unconcerned about what damage they may do to her. From his belly protruded an enormous, pink-tipped erection which dipped and swayed as he shifted from foot to foot. The monster absolutely dwarfed the poor woman, and Nate was sure she would die should the beast carry out its obvious intentions.

As the huge, hairy creature entered her, she turned her head slowly around to look at Nate, and her hair fell from her eyes. There was horror in those eyes — a livid, unspeakable, screaming horror that would haunt Nate’s dreams forever. She made not a sound, and her face remained a stone mask of expressionless sorrow. But there was one thing more in her eyes, and when Nate saw it he wished her dead. At that moment he knew that, if he had his gun back, he would spend his last bullet not in defense of his own life, but in the merciful cessation of hers. For glistening in her eyes he saw tears — silent tears — which spilled over and coursed down her grimy cheeks and told him that she was not in shock, but rather in full possession of her senses. She was experiencing the dreadful pain and humiliating degradation of this rape by a beast so despicably evil as to defy logic.

With her gaze, she begged him to end her suffering. Her eyes pleaded with him to put an end to this nightmare — if rescue were impossible, then killing her would suffice to remove the agony she was enduring. His hand came to his mouth and he gnawed helplessly on one knuckle as he watched the monster ruthlessly battering the woman and occasionally reaching down with its dripping snout and nipping her cruelly on the neck and shoulders, sending rivulets of blood coursing down her back.

A trickle of drool inched its way down Nate’s wrist and his eyes bulged in desperation. There was nothing he could do. Obviously, this was not the first time the woman had been so used, and should he try to affect her rescue, he would be torn to shreds before he ever reached her side. There would be no point in trying, of that he was as certain as he was of his own name. He must think of Zelda. Perhaps there was still a chance to rescue her, although his hopes were rapidly fading. Still, as long as there was breath left in his body, there was always hope for a miracle. There may yet be some way of reaching her — some chance, some avenue of escape that had not yet presented itself. He could not afford to throw away her only hope by wasting his life in a useless act of kamikaze-like suicide.

And yet it clawed relentlessly into his guts that he was standing here, letting this pitiful woman be victimized sadistically and was doing absolutely nothing. The wretched creature was communicating as well telepathically as Chirkah had ever done. Nate could hear her screaming in his own mind, beseeching him to act — to do something to end this nightmare. He felt his face blush beneath her imploring eyes, and at last, he averted his gaze. Live or die, he didn’t think he would ever be able to forgive himself for his own inadequacy in this situation.

You should be watching this, Nate Malone. The insidious voice of Chirkah cut into his thoughts. You see, THIS is what we capture female humans for. The bitch you see here has born many of our children. Some remain here with us, and some have been sent out into your society, to retrieve the knowledge we so desperately require. We hope to someday have enough slaves to begin building — forges to produce metal, mills to refine and shape it. We will have mining operations, staffed by our slave-children assistants to stock us with the materials we need to make gunpowder and other weapons which we may use to overthrow the humans from their oh-so-precarious perch of power.

The woman cried out softly and Nate looked back just long enough to see fresh blood speckling the insides of her thighs.

I’m sure you have wondered, Nate Malone, how we have come to know so much about you and your civilization. The answer is simple: our spies bring us the information. In our lairs, deep beneath the ground, we have set up schools where the Kophet-kur and their half-breed ‘werewolf’ children are taught what we will need to know to conquer the world and make it our own.

Chirkah turned to look over his shoulder at the rapist. At long last, he had become still, but he remained mounted above the woman and Nate was forced to recall seeing dogs that became stuck together after mating, due to a swelling that occurs in the male’s organ. As children, this had been the source of many humorous stories and jokes. Now, however, there was nothing funny about it at all.

This is why human females are so important to us, Chirkah continued. And so valuable. It is not that we ENJOY mating with humans more than our own kind – well, perhaps there are SOME of us who do… Chirkah indicated with a nod the creature who had just performed the exhibition, and his little jibe was greeted with more cruel laughter from his constituents. They sounded to Nate like a bunch of dirty old men at a club smoker where strippers had been brought in to perform. Only these dirty old men had fangs. The rapist now sat beside the prostrate body of the woman, one leg in the air, grooming himself. The woman’s dress was still hiked up around her waist and she made no effort to correct this immodesty.

For most of us, it is a means toward an end — an end to your domination of the earth and a beginning of ours.

Nate refused to acknowledge his little play on words.

Occasionally, we capture female children and we raise them and nourish them carefully, taking as many children as possible from them until they are used-up and worthless to us.  He nodded to the woman again. This one is old and will probably bear no more children. Therefore, she is no longer of any value.

He paused long enough to pass a silent command to the rapist who reached out with a stiffened paw and flipped the exhausted woman over on her back. With one of its hooked talons it opened her abdomen from breastbone to pubic mound in a movement so swift and yet so casual as to take Nate quite by surprise. The woman was surprised too as she jerked to a sitting position and looked down to see her entrails spilling out onto the ground between her legs. She looked up, startled, and found Nate’s eyes. Just before she died, he saw a flicker of relief sweep across her face and then she collapsed, with a thud, to the trampled grass on the forest floor.

“You son-of-a—-” Nate’s curse was drowned out by the sound of trampling feet as the entire pack jumped up and rushed to throw themselves on the woman’s body. Snarling and quarreling viciously, they tore off great chunks of flesh while each vied for the best positions around the feast. Here and there, one would try to sneak off with an entire limb, but this would only result in attracting the attention of others who would then break off from the main group to investigate. Soon, there were three or four small groups of grunting, choking, slobbering beasts gorging themselves on the fresh bloody remains.

Chirkah sat, observing these proceedings, and then, almost as an afterthought, rose and slowly walked over to the scene of the carnage. As he approached, his stance became stiff-legged, and the hair on his back and shoulders stood up straight. The others made way whenever he came near, and a little path was opened for him as he neared the body. Straddling the bloody mass, he glared back at Nate, and his red-rimmed little pig eyes blazed with malevolence. With haughty grandeur, he claimed the prize as his own, and none dared defy his authority. His lips curled back to expose yellow, crooked teeth. Three-inch-long fangs flanked his chin. Each was as sharp as a dagger and curved slightly between the tip and the brown-stained base. His gums flashed a brilliant pink as he opened wide his mouth and plunged it into the corpse. With a deep, satisfied grunt he buried his muzzle and began to feed slowly and deliberately. Chirkah’s crooked spine bent and the muscles in his back bunched as he hunkered down over his royal dinner. The others either stood or squatted near-by, licking their paws, or moved over to join one of the other groups. Chirkah was left to his own.

Nate didn’t observe much of this. From the time Chirkah put his head down to feed, he averted his eyes. The woman had died bravely, and with as much dignity as her situation would allow, and Nate was determined to exact revenge upon her persecutors. Chirkah had been wrong about one thing, of that Nate was certain. This was not a race, it was a war. There wasn’t room on this planet for both human beings and Kophet-kur — one of them must go.

Nate was emotionally exhausted. His mind reeled with conflicting passions. Fear, revulsion, hatred, worry, his thoughts ran the gamut, and he was certain he couldn’t take much more. Soon the excitement swirling around inside him would overwhelm him completely and he would fly into a fit of hysteria. Or, perhaps he would just swell up and burst, exploding in a dozen different directions. He would splatter the foliage about with himself, leaving a bloody lump on the branch to mark his passing. He struggled to regain control, concentrating upon his breathing, willing it to slow down. At last his frazzled nerves began to calm, and he was able to think again. It scared him, though to think how close he had been to total collapse — shut down all systems and say good-night, Natey Boy’s had enough. With a trembling sigh, he shook these thoughts aside and began looking about the branches, searching for a way out.

His escape had now become a more important issue than just his own survival. The survival of the entire human race might well depend on his returning to tell the authorities what he’d seen here. He couldn’t be certain that Zelda was still alive. Chirkah could just be leading him to attempt a rescue. But, until he had proof to the contrary, he was going to have to play along. He had to assume she was being held somewhere near here — probably in one of the underground lairs, Chirkah had spoken of. His eyes searched for a branch near enough to allow him to move to another tree. If he could work his way from tree to tree, he might be able to search the woods for an entrance to this lair. He couldn’t imagine how he was to affect a rescue once he’d found it, but at least searching was better than just sitting here watching these bastards enjoying their blood-bath. Perhaps, after gorging themselves, the creatures would become sleepy and he could slip away into the forest. Or maybe he could come down from the tree and make his way back home for help. The only trouble with this second plan was that he knew he could never leave without taking Zelda with him.

“Well,” he muttered aloud, his eyes searching the foliage around him. “We’ll just have to come up with a plan when the time comes. One step at a time, Natey Boy, one step at a time.”

A branch the size of his forearm passed within a yard or so from the one just above his head. It appeared to be just what he was looking for, an avenue into the neighboring tree. It would be a bit dicey, but he had to try for it. He cast an apprehensive glance back at the creatures. They were too caught up in their grisly repast to notice his absence. Slowly he inched farther out on his supporting branch, easing his way along while clinging to the branch over his head. As he moved away from the trunk, the limb below his feet began to grow smaller and to sag a bit with his weight. This was not going to be easy. Nate silently wished he’d spent more time in the park as a child, climbing trees.

Now both branches were sagging and swaying in the breeze and sweat stood out on his brow. His intended, however, was growing nearer and soon he would reach a place where he might feasibly make an attempt. As he gazed longingly at the branch, trying to gauge its size and how much weight it might support, a white hot pain shot up from his right hand. Looking up, he saw a large black ant, nearly an inch long clinging to the knuckle of his index finger. The thing thrashed and wiggled as it buried its needle-like pincers in his tender flesh. With a sharp exclamation, he drew his hand from the branch and smashed it against his side, simultaneously obliterating his attacker and sending the branches providing his precarious support pitching wildly in opposite directions. In seconds he lost his footing entirely and was left hanging breathlessly by one hand, from the overhead branch. The branch yawed and swayed, sending a loud cra-a-ack! reverberating through the woods. Smaller, dead branches around him were shaken loose and fell noisily to the ground below.

Nate breathed a silent prayer that the branch wouldn’t break, as he swung there, scrabbling frantically to regain his hold with the other hand. He caught on just as another, somewhat louder crack tingled its way along the branch. Looking down, he found himself staring directly into the blood-splattered face of Chirkah, chief of the Kophet-kur, who was licking his lips and grinning broadly. Nate gasped great gulps of air as his fingers burrowed into the bark, and his legs kicked wildly in mid-air. Again Chirkah’s Machiavellian voice rang in Nate’s mind: Why don’t you just let go and COME DOWN, NATE MALONE, COME ON DOWN!

Once more, Chirkah was trying to use his telepathic powers to shock Nate into letting go. Nate closed his eyes and held on, trying to concentrate on how stupid Chirkah sounded. Like Bob Barker on ‘The Price is Right’, he thought. He smiled at this and felt himself relax a little. If the limb in his hands would hold on for just a little longer, he would be able to regain his footing and move back to safety. But his thoughts were cut short as another resounding crack rent the air and he felt the branch he was clutching let go.

 

 

 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:  THE KOPHET-KUR

 

Perhaps a dozen of the creatures were arrayed around the base of the tree as Nate looked for the owner of the dream-voice.  He was struck by their resemblance to large, extremely ugly dogs.  They lounged around casually; some sitting on their haunches, others sprawled on the ground, their tongues lolling out as their sides bounced rapidly with their panting.  A couple of them even threw their legs up and bent to groom themselves with long pink tongues.  But as Nate watched, they scrambled to their feet and an air of excitement swept the pack. Nate strained to see what was stirring them up so.

A massive, sway-backed creature was making his way amongst them.  Nate couldn’t help but notice that this particular creature seemed much older than those around him.  His face was even more grotesquely wrinkled, and the bags beneath his eyes drooped low, exposing large red crescents under each. The muzzle area, ebony black in the rest of the tribe, was liberally sprinkled with bright gray and white whiskers, as was the sparse hair sprouting in patches from his scaly skin.

Each of the pack members, in turn, trotted up to him and simpered alongside, cowering and whining. The creature seemed oblivious to these acts of homage. His attention was focused on Nate as he approached the tree.

In spite of the creature’s age, Nate was forced to admire the regal bearing with which he carried himself.   The others he had seen, snarled and pranced around frothing like lunatics — this one seemed to project patience and a cool, calculated intelligence that was nonetheless laced with a dark malice. Hatred burned from the core of his eyes, and an evil seething haughtiness that made Nate realize that he had more to fear from this one than all the others combined.

As it approached the tree, the ancient one’s path was inadvertently blocked by one of the creatures.  He had been so involved with grooming himself that he apparently hadn’t noticed the other’s approach. The gray one stopped a foot or two shy of the poor fool and stood waiting, never taking his eyes from Nate. Without warning three of the big fellow’s lackeys pounced upon the unsuspecting beast and ripped at it mercilessly with their horrid fangs.

Nate had never seen such abject brutality. It was chilling to see these beasts roaring and screaming viciously as the victim tried to defend himself against their savage attacks. The here-to-fore quiet clearing erupted in a violent explosion of movement and sound.  Splashes of blood and patches of hair joined pieces of skin and tissue flying through the air and staining the ground around them. Their sharp claws tore open the earth and tossed up great clots of soil and grass.

Two of the attackers challenged the offender face to face while a third circled around to flank attack at its rear. While he was busy warding off the snapping teeth of the two in front, he was unable to avoid the assault from behind. Soon he was born to the ground by the third which clung to his back, locking its jaws on the nape of his neck and clawing savagely with his hind legs.

The other two were on him, swarming like a pride of lions at a kill. The fight was over in seconds. There was no chance of running away in defeat, the creature could only lie motionless, meekly surrendering and offering no resistance as they punished him cruelly and left him bleeding in a heap. As the big gray stood serenely taking this all in, the vanquished crawled painfully over to him and licked his muzzle before dragging himself out of the way.

After the bizarre ritual was completed, the big one crossed over to the base of the tree.  Now directly below Nate’s perch, he rested on his haunches and peered up at him, cocking his head in a quizzical sort of way.

“Come down.” He commanded — the voice was straight from Nate’s nightmare. “Come down, Nate Malone. We want to be done with this.”

Nate was thunderstruck. This… thing was speaking to him. Or was it? He couldn’t be sure — his head felt strangely light, his thoughts fuzzy, as though his brain had suddenly turned to cotton.  He focused his eyes on the creature’s yellow-fanged mouth.

“Say that again?” he asked aloud.

A sly, sinister chuckle slithered its way through his mind, like dry leaves blowing across a grave.

“I said, come DOWN!”

Nate grasped the branch on both sides of himself and prepared to leap to a clear patch of ground. Why was I in this damn tree in the first place? After all, I am not a bird?  I belong on the ground with… with…

At the last second, he stopped himself, scrambling back against the trunk in a panic. Below him, a barely audible sigh of disappointment could be heard from the pack of brutes.  Again that snide, humorless laugh echoed in his head, leaving muddy footprints across his thoughts.

“That was close, wasn’t it Nate? This shouldn’t take long after all.” The creature was definitely speaking to him, but…

“Your mouth doesn’t move,” Nate said in a daze. “You’re talking to me, I swear I can hear it but –”

The voice interrupted in a mocking tone. “But my mouth doesn’t move. That’s right! Oh, if you only knew how stupid you look saying that!”

Nate FELT stupid. In fact, he had never been so moronically ignorant in his entire life.   Blood rushed into his cheeks as he blushed over his utter stupidity.  How could he possibly have said such an asinine thing?

The beast studied him for a moment longer and then, with the tone one reserves for the slowest of learners, he said, “Telepathy. Surely you’ve at least HEARD of it. Do you even partially understand the concept? I… CAN… SPEAK… DIRECTLY… TO… YOUR… MIND… WITHOUT… MOVING… MY… LIPS… OR… MAKING… A… SOUND… Get it?”

Nate’s lower lip trembled with humiliation and fear. “Are you some kind of… of devil?” He asked quietly.

This time the laughter literally roared through his mind. Staring at the creature’s mouth, he detected a trace of a grin tugging at its corners, but it quickly faded and a hard cold light appeared within the beast’s eyes.

When he spoke again, the voice was formal and defiant. “We are the Kophet-kur!   A race as old and powerful as your own and, as you have abundantly proven, just as mortal. We have lived alongside you for lo these many ages and we will be long after your cursed kind has been wiped from the face of the earth.” This last remark brought a chorus of grunts and excited snarls from the creatures around him.

He continued, reciting his litany like a politician stumping for office.  The beast was no longer talking to him, but to the group of followers gathered round about the tree. “Many eons have passed since the seed of the sky were born, and WE have not bastardized ourselves like the tiny humans. WE have kept ourselves pure, waiting for the return, when we will shine! And no mere human will stop us. Oh, it is true that for now, we hide, but someday soon, we will return to the greatness our Fathers promised. On that day, all other seed will become MEAT! That is the promise of Chirkah! THAT is the destiny of the Kophet–kur!”

Without the beast’s telepathic powers totally concentrated on him, Nate regained more of his old self — more in control. He would be more careful in the future not to let himself be mesmerized by this creature, whatever it was.

“I hate to interrupt when you’re on a roll,” he taunted, “But could you explain what all that means to me? Why that’s important?  Remember, I’m kinda slow.”

After a pause, in which the creature glared at him fiercely for his interruption and then seemed to relax somewhat, containing its rage with difficulty, it continued on in a more conversational tone. “Certainly. Ask any question, I will be glad to oblige with an answer. Since you obviously won’t be leaving here alive, I feel free to withhold nothing you might wish to know.” The voice was filled with a terrible coldness that threatened to leave Nate shivering.

“All right.” Nate leaned forward. “To begin with, what the hell are you… things? And where did you come from?”

The creature’s voice took on that air of “patient suffering while dealing with a lower intelligence” again.  “As I stated before, we are the Kophet-kur. I am the leader, the one you might call the ‘alpha male’. I am called Chirkah. We live here in the forest and in your fields. Mostly we hunt deer and other animals, but occasionally, as you have seen, our lust for the hunt becomes such that we cannot resist the sweetest meat of all.” Nate noticed a bit of drool forming on the creature’s lips.

“You sicken me.” he challenged it, only slightly aware of the temptation to fall into the odd, archaic speech patterns of his tormentor.

“Now, now! Is that any way to talk to your cousin? We are closer than you think, my dear friend. And you are not so far removed from cannibalism yourself.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You ask where we come from, the Kophet-kur. I will tell you, but you may find it hard to believe. Eons ago the world was filled with many species, but this was before the Kophet-kur and before humans… and before others, too.

“Away up in the skies… far off in the blackness that lies like an eternal night away beyond the moon, there lived a race of beings such as you or I have never seen.” His voice had become dream-like, and a certain reverence set in.

“These beings were vastly intelligent. Their intellect, in fact, knew no bounds — it was far beyond anything you could ever begin to comprehend. They were superb. Their civilization and the wonders they could perform far outstripped the puny technological advances you humans have achieved. For in addition to technology, they also possessed wisdom, the one thing your race is most noticeably lacking. Not only did The Fathers, which is the only name we know them by, control their world, they also cherished, and lovingly nurtured it.”

His voice grew harsh with scorn.

“You stupid humans take and take and take from our world, stripping away the land and the forests. You defile the water and the air without a single consideration as to what damage will be done to the hunting grounds of the animals that share this planet with you. The vast herds which flourished before you came to be, you wiped out in the space of a single day. The mighty forests, home to countless myriads of creatures, you devastated and trampled to the ground. You have RAPED and SODOMIZED our land till there is nothing left to be proud of, nothing to be inspired by.” He leveled Nate with a fiery glare, dripping with contempt. “For this we HATE you.”

Nate shifted uncomfortably beneath his condemning gaze. After what seemed minutes, Chirkah took a breath and continued his narrative.

“The Fathers, in light of their triumphs, soon began looking to spread themselves to other worlds, illuminating the darkness wherever they might find it. To that end, they built enormous ships that could carry them swiftly about the skies, and return them safely to their own world. Eventually, their quest for other worlds to conquer brought them here, where they found a world of vast beauty and unbelievable wealth. They resolved to have it and to build a utopia that would outshine even their own golden planet.”

“But when they attempted to colonize this lovely new world, they were saddened to discover it held an atmosphere that was poisonous to their kind.  Alas, they could never set foot upon it. Determined, however, to have this jewel of their own, they hit upon a plan of extended colonization. Perhaps they could never live here — but their children would. Through a means we do not yet understand, they began taking species from the earth to inseminate. These creatures were brought, in pairs to the ship, to determine their mating procedures. Then our Fathers simply substituted their own seed, creating every conceivable variety of hybrid. Their hope was that one of these species would flourish, carrying enough of their genetic material to assume a similar form to theirs. Someday then, after this species had established itself, they would return to further increase their genetic strain, thereby breeding themselves into compatibility with the hostile environment.”

Nate was, of course, skeptical but, as Chirkah spoke, he found himself remembering Sunday-school stories of Noah and his ark. “In pairs, they were brought unto the ark… and a new world was born unto the earth.” A cold, hollow feeling was growing in the pit of his stomach.

“Most of the experiments failed miserably, as was to be expected,” Chirkah’s harsh voice was saying. “But some were resounding successes. The large mammals were, of a certainty closer to the fathers in intelligence, and as you might think, it was among these that the greatest achievements were made. Today few of these hybrid lines exist. Some were lost to natural extinction, others were obliterated by the most widely flourishing of these experiments, the hybrid created from the seeding of the great apes — man.

“However, an equally intelligent, if not so prosperous race of creatures was the result of the Father’s combining with wolves. The Kophet-kur which means in our tongue, Children of the Sky, received the telepathic abilities and intelligence of The Fathers, but we were cheated of the one thing that might have assured our dominance of this world. We lacked opposable thumbs.

“Without the dexterity required, we couldn’t build things the way you humans have. We were unable to harness the power of nature or build tools and machines and vast cities, crowding out the wild places. Thus we have been forced to hide in our caves, scavenging off the land left over after you humans, in your blind ignorance have trampled over it. We have been relegated to the wild, forgotten places of the world, living on the edge of human society — hiding in your shadow.”

Chirkah took a shuddering breath and shifted positions. His black tongue dangled from his mouth as he yawned broadly. Nate noticed that many of his fellow creatures were dozing peacefully in the warm afternoon sun.

“There are others that remain, but mankind has driven them to the remotest of places where they dwell, as secretive and unobtrusive as the Kophet-kur. Trust me when I tell you that there are things hiding deep within your forests, oceans, and lakes that you would rather not know about.”

Nate finally interrupted. “Do you feel better?  You had a lot to get off your chest there.  However, I’m curious. If your race is so goddammed intelligent, why haven’t any of these other beasts spoken to me? So far, all they’ve tried to do is rip me to shreds. Why not establish some lines of communication here?”

“Although we all possess the gift of telepathy, there are those, such as myself who are more proficient in its use than others, just as there are those of your kind who are more adept in the use of language. But this is not the reason for our silence up to this point. The Kophet-kur are a very secretive species. We find this necessary to ensure our survival in a world dominated by your kind. The original humans were very much aware of our presence. You will find references to our kind in the folklore of many primitive species, including the ones you refer to as ‘Indians’. Long ago, we watched your kind systematically obliterate this group of humans, and it was then we decided to withdraw even deeper into hiding. For we realized that, if you could bring this kind of mass destruction upon those of your own kind, there could be no room on this planet for the two of us. The ‘Indians’ were willing to share the forests and live peacefully alongside the Kophet-kur. We shared a mutual respect and a working understanding of each other’s ways.

But with them went the knowledge of our existence, and any attempts to co-exist with humans. We have worked very hard over the years to remain an enigma. Our most sacred of laws concern the preservation of our status as unknown entities in your world. To break the code of silence and communicate with a human being is strictly forbidden except under the most extreme of circumstances. A hunter is allowed to partake of human game only when he is certain that doing so will not endanger our continued seclusion.

When my son, Dzhankah, confronted you, he knew he was breaking our most holy of ordinances. He also knew he could not let you escape, bringing others of your kind to rain death and destruction down upon our heads. He acted bravely, if somewhat fool-heartedly, and as a result, he is dead.”

“For THAT, you will pay the ultimate price. But there will be time for that later. The reason I have broken our silence is that I wished to converse with one who has managed to cut down so many of our brothers. But now I see that you have used up all your weapons. We have pulled the teeth of the serpent, and we have him up a tree, both literally and figuratively, do we not?” He sounded very pleased with himself.

Nate ignored his jibes. “I don’t believe you could hide out all these years without being discovered.”

“How do the deer hide from the hunter? Humans are not that difficult to fool, you know. Nor are you very observant. A human, in the wild, can practically trip over a fawn, camouflaged by its dappled coat, hiding in plain sight amidst a patch of sunlight. When was the last time you saw a fox, Nate Malone?”

Nate reflected. “I guess I can’t recall ever seeing one in the wild.”

“And would you be surprised to learn there are dozens of them living and breeding in the immediate vicinity? Besides, when humans see a fox it runs. But when a human sees one of us… THEY run.  Or they at least try.” Chirkah paused to let this sink in.

“These creatures I speak of are just dumb animals, barely possessing the intelligence needed to procure food, secure housing and pro-create. The Kophet-kur, on the other hand, command an intelligence SUPERIOR to your own. Do you really think it would be that difficult to conceal ourselves from you? Our telepathic abilities allow us to sense whenever a human is near, and take evasive action. We cannot read your minds, as we do each others’, to do so requires advanced telepathic powers in both parties; and, while humans do possess small vestiges of this ability, it is poorly developed. You experience ‘deja-vu’ and ‘extra sensory perception’ and so forth. Humans have no idea of the vast power that could be theirs, if only they knew how to harness it.”

“So you’re telling me that, overall these centuries, I am the only man who has ever seen you?” Nate shook his head skeptically.

Chirkah snorted with disdain. “Of course not! MANY have seen, few have lived to tell… and none have been believed. Do not deceive yourself, Nate Malone, your fate is sealed as is that of your woman.”

Nate’s heart leaped into his throat. He jumped to his feet on the branch, nearly toppling from his perch in the process. A couple of the beasts looked up and one actually rose to all-fours.

“Zelda!” he gasped. “You know where Zelda is? She’s alive?” Nate had just about abandoned all hope of this possibility.

Chirkah stretched languidly and sprawled out in the tall grass, his right paw crossed casually over his left. For the first time since engaging in this conversation, his gaze left Nate and wandered off into the distance. “Certainly. We don’t often KILL women. Although you’re lucky to have killed Pulkah.” With a nod, he indicated the corpse lying at the base of the tree. The ax still jutted from its skull, and it swarmed with large, iridescent green flies. “He would most definitely have taken out the death of his mate, Dirdrah on your woman.”

Nate began to tremble. Anxiously, he shifted back and forth on the branch, wanting very much to take some kind of action, but uncertain just what he could do. He looked somewhat like a child, straining to control his bladder while he waited for the bell to signal recess.

Chirkah looked back up at him. “Don’t carry on so, Nate. There’s really nothing you can do to help her. Her fate is as sealed as your own. You really should learn to accept things over which you have no control.”

“What have you done with her, you son-of-a-BITCH?” Nate screamed.

“I myself have done nothing with her. But she is being kept for a purpose. You see, we, meaning the Kophet-kur, learned very well from The Fathers. Their techniques of conquering through breeding programs seemed to make sense.

“Therefore, long ago we launched a campaign to gain the technology that keeps you humans in control of this planet. Obviously, we could not develop it ourselves and were we to gain knowledge of its intricacies, we would not be able to avail ourselves of it due to our lack of manual dexterity, as I pointed out earlier. So, our only chance lies in espionage – spies, if you will. We needed someone sympathetic to our cause to steal your secrets and put them to work for us. This symbiotic relationship could only be achieved by a cross-pollenization of our two species. This hybrid would be a go-between — able to travel freely in your society, and gather the information we need, then bringing that information back to us and physically helping us implement it within our own society. Clever, don’t you think?”

Nate shook his head slowly. “I don’t understand…”

Wry amusement edged Chirkah’s voice as it echoed deep within Nate’s mind. He sounded like a teenager divulging the facts of life to a younger brother.

“You ARE thick! Don’t you see what I’m telling you? Your woman is being held as breeding stock.  She will be saved for my seed.”  That menacing, icy laughter roared and filled his mind once again.

 

 

 

CHAPTER TWELVE:  IN THE HOLE

The limestone was cold and damp to the touch.  Zelda shivered as she groped her way around the pitch-black room. It was as if she was the subject of a sensory-deprivation experiment. Total darkness was drawn across her eyes like a thick, black curtain.  Except for the dismal, echoey plinking of water somewhere far-off in the cavern, there was no sound at all.

The one sense that was alive, brilliantly functioning and totally aware, was her sense of touch. Her fingertips traced the damp, crumbly surface of the floor around her, and the low ceiling above. In spite of the thick crust of dirt and limestone dust coating them, they sent back information about every nuance, each irregularity of the stone.  She had been hesitant, at first, tentatively sending her hand out to scout before her; but, as she progressed, she moved with ever-growing sureness, searching out the perimeters of her confinement.

She and Susie had sat and talked for hours it seemed. Susie told her about the Monsters, then about the bridge and the path in the woods. She even spoke of “The Fort”, although she hadn’t mentioned what went on there. Susie was well on the way to blotting the memories of the abuse from her mind.

Susie wouldn’t discuss her abuse with Zelda or even allow herself to think about them. For the past few weeks, she had been alone, dealing with circumstances as they arose. The limited contact she’d had with other prisoners had not been very productive. Most of them seemed under a spell of some kind. They wandered around, rather listless and slow — like zombies from one of those old horror films.

Whenever she tried speaking with one of them, they either ignored her completely or grunted out one-word answers and brushed her aside. In some ways, they had been more terrifying than the creatures.

But Zelda was different — she was alert and active.  Now that there was an adult in the picture, Susie would let her take over and she would follow. It was a great relief to her, knowing that whatever situation occurred, she could let her make the decision as to what their response was to be. It wasn’t a question of trust. Other than exhibiting sympathy for her plight, Zelda had done nothing to actually earn her trust. Susie was tired, on the verge of complete exhaustion.

Life had thrown her a lot of curves lately and her entire being had grown weary of coping. Her heart felt like an old and worn shoe. She ached to let someone else decide what to do and when to do it. In the meantime, she would drift along with the flow, content to allow events to take care of themselves.

Zelda, on the other hand, had benefited somewhat from her ordeal. For so long now she had let other people run her life. Her mother had made all the major decisions of her childhood: Which school to attend, what to pursue as a career, where to live. These and dozens of others in a long chain stretched back as far as she could remember. And then, after she married Nate, she had allowed him to take over, even going so far as to let him tell her what kind of car they should drive and where they should buy a house. All her life she had been a follower. But now, she was totally on her own with nobody to decide for her. In addition, she had little Susie depending on her. Suddenly, she was thrust into the role of leadership, and it suited her well. Having realized this, with some small feeling of satisfaction, she resolved to see them out of this conflict and to return the child to her mother safe and sound. She sat in the dark, trying to decide on a course of action.

Obviously, there was no way they could fight their way out. Susie said there were many of these brutes and they had no weapons. It was also apparent that they couldn’t sneak out past them if, as the child informed her, they could see in the dark. She turned her head, blindly scanning the darkness, and listened to the water dripping somewhere, far-off. Perhaps there was a way out of this cave that wouldn’t bring them in direct contact with their captors.

She asked herself what Nate would do in a similar situation, and she was struck by the realization of just how much she’d admired him. Why couldn’t I have told him that once when he was still alive?

Cold, heartless grief threatened to flood her mind, driving out all productive reasoning. She felt the need to break down, letting her thoughts drown in tears — to bathe in their cleansing depths like a weary traveler at a cool oasis pool. Perhaps, if she simply closed her eyes and cried herself to sleep, she might awaken to find this had all been a horrible nightmare. Bitterly, she cast these thoughts aside.

But Susie needs me… A voice inside  — that hidden voice of power which she had started taping into — spoke to her.

No time for self-pity, she admonished herself. She had to get a grip on herself and keep it together if they were ever going to escape.

“Susie, have you got any idea how big this cave is?” Her voice, although a mere whisper, echoed softly, doubling back to swirl like wraiths in the darkness about them.

“I don’t know exactly.” Susie sounded tired, sleepy. “That room out there is big… real big. That’s where they sleep. It’s kind of like the main hall or something. And there are tunnels going all over.  When they first brought me in kept me penned up in rooms all over the place. But, after a while I guess they realized I couldn’t really get away, so I’ve pretty much been able to go wherever I wanted and they more or less leave me alone.”

Zelda was hopeful. “That’s good. Maybe we can use that to our advantage.”

“Problem is, though, it’s so darn dark down here I can’t really see anything. It doesn’t much matter where I go, it all looks the same.”

“I see. Well, you and I are getting out of here, kid! To start with, let’s see if we can’t get an idea how big this room we’re in is. We know it’s not very tall…” Zelda said as she gingerly touched the knot on her head.  “Tell you what: You work THIS side of the doorway…”

Taking Susie’s hand, she guided it to the wall in front of them, groping around until she felt the opening. She slapped the crumbly limestone and positioned Susie in front of it, facing the wall. Running her own hand along the top of the doorway, she crawled on hands and knees over to the opposite side.

“And I’ll go… this way.” So saying, she began sliding her hands along the wall in front of her, advancing to the left and moving up and down the wall so as to judge its height. She felt her spirits lifting a bit.  It was good to be moving. As long as she kept doing something or taking action, she stayed ahead of those poisonous thoughts — the ones that threatened to wash over her and pull her down in a whirlpool of self-doubt and utterly black grief, much darker even than the lightless void she now explored. With every step she crawled, she made a mental note. She could hear Susie, sidling along opposite her and quietly making little slapping sounds as her tiny hands connected with the hard surface of the cave wall. Apparently, it was larger than she would have guessed as her steps added up and the sounds Susie made began retreating from her.

Suddenly, her world was illuminated in a blinding flash and she sat back hard on her haunches. Her first response was startled, unreasoning anger; and then it slowly sank into her consciousness that she had collided with another wall, running at right angles to the one she had been following. Something warm slithered down her face and she reached up to feel blood, slick and moist, between her fingers. She hissed softly through clenched teeth.

Pulling herself back up to a crawling position, she quietly called across to Susie to be careful. “Okay.” Whispered the child, her voice sounding tiny and lost in the pitch black.

Following the new wall, she continued on, noticing that the ceiling was getting a bit higher as she went. Soon she was able to rise up into a crouching position, giving her protesting knees a break. But, as she moved on, it started to go back down again and she was forced to resume crawling. To her, this indicated that the room must have a slightly domed ceiling, tapering down to the floor in the back. Her theory was soon proven by her searching hands. If she were any judge, the room seemed to be about twenty feet across, and maybe five feet high at its peak.

A sudden, cold ball of apprehension erupted in the pit of her stomach as Zelda became aware of the silence around her. Susie was no longer slapping the wall. This thought barely had time to sink in before a sharp cry, emanating from somewhere across the room let her know her little friend was in trouble. The cry was followed by a scuffling noise and what sounded like rocks sliding and falling in a well.

“Susie!” She called, afraid to raise her voice too much, lest she call attention to herself. There was no answer at first, and then the child’s quavering voice drifted eerily out of the darkness: “Uhh-Zelda!… Helllp!… UH!… Mph!… I’m gonna fall!” She sounded like she was calling from the bottom of a barrel.

Her heart hammered. “Hold on, kiddo! I’m coming. Damn!” she cursed the dark. Throwing her hands straight out before her, she waved them frantically around, feeling her way across the middle of the room. She tried to direct herself to the point where she had heard Susie’s voice, but it had been so distant — so strangely muffled. Scrambling as quickly as she could, she charged across the chamber until, unexpectedly, the floor disappeared beneath her. A startled bleat escaped her throat as she pitched headfirst into thin air. Then, with a bone-jarring force, her out-stretched arms struck another wall and stopped her fall.

Gasping and panting heavily, she took stock of her situation for a moment. Apparently, there was a hole in the floor, a sort of rock cistern into which her upper body had fallen. Undoubtedly, the rest of her would have followed, had her hands not connected with a small outcropping on the other side. So now she lay, with her hands on one side of the well and her lower thighs, right above the knees resting on the opposite rim. Her head was about a foot lower than her legs. This was an extremely uncomfortable, if not dangerous position to be in. But, at that moment, Zelda wasn’t so much worried about her own safety as that of her new friend. After a moment she took a deep breath and called.

“Susie!” she grunted into the hole below her. “Are you down there?”

The child’s voice floated up to her from somewhere below. “I — I’m here… unh… down here! I’m scared, Zelda. I think I’m gonna fall some more.”

The child sounded like she was going to cry, and right now, Zelda needed her to be brave. “Sh-h-h! Honey, don’t cry. I’m going to get you. Just hold on now.” She tried to sound calm and confident, hoping it would rub off on Susie. In truth, she hadn’t the slightest idea how she was going to reach her. Susie sounded like she was about six feet below Zelda’s current position, as she was becoming pretty good at judging distances in the dark.

Perhaps there was a way to reach her, but the first obstacle she had to overcome was her awkward position at the lip of the well. She tried to take her left hand loose to reach up and pull herself from the well, but her remaining hand couldn’t find a secure enough purchase to hold her weight.  She began to slip into the hole. Frantically she spread her legs farther apart and shoved her hand back into the rough limestone wall, cutting it a bit, but stopping her fall. So, it was painfully apparent that she couldn’t move her hands.

As if proving the point, Zelda felt a huge insect, probably a millipede, crawling endlessly up her bare leg. She didn’t dare thrash around to shake it off, for fear she would lose her grip and plummet, head-first into the chasm. All she could do was grit her teeth and wait for it to traverse her body and move on. The thing was only about four inches long, but, in her helpless position there in the depths of the darkened cave, it loomed much, much larger. She could feel its tiny legs, tickling their way with agonizing slowness across the surface of her skin.  An image of its slick, shiny, segmented body played with cruel clarity upon her mind’s eye.

She knew that there were creatures that lived in caves that, deprived of light for their entire lives developed differently from normal species. Their bodies were pale and colorless, and they grubbed around, sightless, feeling their way with long, hair-like antennae, waving in the eternal darkness. God only knew what weird variety of creepy-crawly thing had been hiding in this hole and was even now slithering its way along the length of her bare calf. Beads of sweat broke out upon her upper lip, and her muscles locked in rigid tension. Her mind reeled with revulsion, and she fought back the giddiness that threatened to overcome her.

When it and the insect had passed, she began to slowly and carefully ease her way, one inch at a time, alternating hands, up the wall. She could hear Susie sobbing beneath her; and when she could get her breath, she sent encouragement down to her. But the process was agonizingly slow, and she began to pray that her strength would hold out. The skin on the palms of her hands burned and stung from being scraped and ground into the rough stone, and her arms trembled with exertion. A warm, numbing sensation began slowly creeping up from her wrists, and Zelda was sure that when it reached her shoulders she would just buckle and plunge into the pit below. Her teeth clamped down hard on her lower lip, and small, mewling squeaks squeezed their way out of her throat.

At last, just when she felt her arms were going to break off at the elbow, she reached an angle where she was able to push herself back out of the hole and roll over onto the flat surface of the cave floor. She lay in the dark, panting for a moment and then she returned to her rescue efforts, realizing there was no time to waste. Scooting back over to the hole, she called down, “Honey, are you still with me?”

“I’m h-here.” came the tremulous voice.

“Sweetie, tell me about your position… Where are you? Can you stand up?” Blood had rushed to Zelda’s head, making her ears sing, but some feeling was rapidly returning to her arms.  Her skin prickled with pins and needles.

“I’m up against the wall, and there’s like a… a ledge, or whatever.  I’m standing on it. But Zelda, I’m scared! How’re you gonna get me?”

There was a note of quiet desperation in Susie’s small voice, and she didn’t like it. What it said was, “I’m scared, yes… but, more than that, I’m on the verge of panic. At any moment, I may try something desperate and stupid that will send me sprawling into space with a shrill cry that will haunt you until the day you die. As long as you live, you will hear it in your dreams and it will drag you screaming and sweating from your sleep to ponder why you couldn’t have done something — ANYTHING to save me!” She had time to consider this for just a moment and then she shook it off.

“Okay, now be a brave girl. Susie, don’t look up, I’m going to drop a rock into the hole so we can see how deep it is. Hang on now and flatten yourself against the wall, okay? Okay!”

She dropped a small pebble into the void and waited for the sound of its fall to come echoing up to her. After a few seconds of silence, all she heard was Susie’s voice. “I don’t think there IS any bottom. This one’s just like the one they throw the bones in, only it’s out by the entrance where there’s enough light to see it. Don’t fall, Zelda.”

The cavern room felt suddenly claustrophobic. What a horrible way that would be to die, falling endlessly until the air ran out and you suffocated, or until you picked up enough speed that a brush against the wall shattered your skull… She pictured herself tumbling over and over, plummeting toward the center of the earth. The walls were whizzing by at enormous speed and abrading pieces of her body away bit by bit as she fell until there was nothing left but an irregular-shaped bloody chunk.

Vertigo gripped her and she shook her head, trying to clear out the nightmarish images. Sucking in a deep gulp of the cool air, she called again: “Susie, are you wearing a belt?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Good. Take it off, and toss it as hard as you can straight up in the air.” She waited, listening closely to the sound of Susie’s movements in the dark.

“Here it comes.”

The belt flew through the air and hit Zelda.  The metal buckle raising a small welt where it struck the corner of her eye. She was able to snatch at it before it tumbled back into the hole.  She rolled over and worked on her back, connecting it with her own belt, which she had removed while waiting for Susie. This gave her about a six-foot extension on her arm-span. She lowered the belt into the hole and leaned in as far as she dared.

“Susie,” she whispered. “I’m lowering the belt to you, do you  feel it?” Nothing. She must be lower than Zelda had thought. Removing her sweat-shirt, she tied one sleeve through one of the belt buckles and lowered her “rope” back into the hole.  Still, it came up short.

“Sweetheart, take off your shirt.”

There was no movement below her.

“Honey, are you still there?” she asked, anxiously. Panic gripped her voice and made it squeak.

Susie didn’t answer, she was hearing voices in her head: “TAKE YOUR SHIRT OFF, SUZE… C’MON… TAKE IT OFF… WILL YOU DO ME NEXT?  WILL YA… TAKE YOUR CLOTHES OFF FIRST!” The voices swarmed around her like little demons, echoing and resounding, bouncing off the walls and piercing her skull to float achingly inside. They dug their claws into her brain and scratched at the back of her eyeballs. She felt as though she were going to vomit, and she shut her eyes tightly, forcing the demons to go away.

Snatching off her tee-shirt, she tossed it high into the air. “Here comes!”

Zelda breathed a sigh of relief and joined the shirt with the other. This time when she swung the flimsy ladder into the hole she was rewarded with an answering tug on the other end. Bracing herself, she coaxed Susie off the ledge and began slowly drawing her up to safety.

Then, just as she was about to reach down and grab the little girl’s arm, Susie stopped. “Zelda,” she whispered. “There’s a tunnel here.”

She leaned down into the hole once more, and this time she connected with Susie. Grabbing her beneath the arms, she hauled her on out, where she held the shivering child tightly in her arms. After a few moments, the trembling abated, and she could tell the child was overcoming her fright.

“Here,” Zelda said, untying the tee-shirts and belts. “Put this back on before you catch your death.”

When they were dressed again and had rested a minute, Susie showed her the tunnel, running horizontally away from the shaft of the well, which it joined at a spot about three feet beneath the floor they were lying on. The two of them were reaching into the hole, flailing their arms in the darkness.

Facing Susie, she said, “Sweetheart, this could be a way out. Are you up to risking it?”

Silently in the dark, Susie nodded, and Zelda sensed it.

“Atta girl. What’ve we got to lose? We’ve pretty much outgrown this room anyway, right?”

With a reluctant sigh, she turned to the task of lowering them both safely into the tunnel.

Above them, in the doorway to the room they were quitting, a large bristle-haired creature sat watching them with eyes that pierced the cave’s eternal night. After a moment, it grunted once, low and menacingly.  It shuffled into the room where it poked its head in the hole and stared after them down the tunnel.

 

CHAPTER NINE:   SUSIE

The abuse began when she was seven. Doug called it playing “Something”. That way he could ask her in front of their parents: “What d’ya want to do this afternoon, Suze?… Wanna play Something?”

Only she and her older brother knew what he meant by this. She didn’t really like it but she accepted it. Doug was six years her senior, and she was used to doing pretty much whatever he wanted. It wasn’t like he beat her or anything. He never forced her to do it — not physically, at any rate — but Doug had a way of playing on her emotions. If she refused, he would actually cry. It so amazed and frightened her to see her big brother crying that she would eventually give in. She felt sorry for him. After all, she loved Doug, as only an admiring little sister can. She wanted him to be happy, and playing “Something” always seemed to make Doug happy.

The first time they did it was in the big barn. It was a hot summer day and Doug said he had a new game to play, up in the loft. Being farm children, with the nearest neighbors two miles down the road, it wasn’t unusual for thirteen-year-old Doug to be playing with seven-year-old Susie all afternoon. In fact, their parents encouraged it and were pleased with Doug for “watching out” for his little sister the way he did. The way they saw it, most boys his age wouldn’t want anything to do with a younger child, but Doug seemed to dote on little Susie, spending hours a day with her. And she obviously loved and admired her older brother, catering happily to his every whim. Yes, her parents agreed that they were closer than any two children they ever saw.

In the beginning, it was just touching and feeling. They took turns — first he would be the patient and she would be the nurse. Then she would be the patient and Doctor Doug would have a look. It was fun! But it did make her feel funny inside. However, she didn’t like the way Doug made such a big deal about not telling their parents. Why would their parents care about some dumb game they’d play? But Doug insisted, and after she thought about it, she was impressed by the idea that he trusted her with a secret that only the two of them shared.

So she kept quiet…

And as time went on and they grew older, Doug kept asking to do more and more. And Susie grew to dislike his little games. They made her feel… dirty, like something that washed up on the beach. By now, though, she knew she was a co-conspirator in their little secret. If their parents found out, surely she would be punished as much as Doug for what they were doing.

Susie began to despise her brother.  He no longer made her feel “special” and loved when he touched her.  She had made up her mind this was going to have to stop.  Some way, some how, she was going to escape this situation.

And that’s how her life transitioned from a nightmare to a horror story.

About a month ago, she and Doug were down at “The Fort”. That’s what Doug called the new playhouse shack he’d built out of scrap lumber down by the river. Susie had been excited when he had started building it, envisioning a place where she could take her dolls and have tea parties and other such little-girl fascinations.  It was to be their special clubhouse.

But that wasn’t what big brother had in mind. He had been growing more and more worried that they would be discovered in the loft or in his bedroom late at night where they sometimes played “Something”. And their parents couldn’t always be counted on to be away from home when he was in the mood for games. What they needed was yet another secret… a secret place where they could go and their parents wouldn’t know.

There was a clearing on the bank of the river, just below the bridge, and Doug could hide the building amid the poison sumac and small scrub trees which grew there. He made a path which ran a circuitous route through the woods and down along the river, bending back at an angle, to come in from behind the shack so nobody would be likely to see it from the road and discover their little hideout.

They would ride their bikes down to the bridge, hiding them in the Queen Anne’s Lace growing thickly by the roadside. Then they followed the path from the west side of the bridge, out through the woods until they wound around and came out on the east side, just twenty or thirty yards from where they’d started. The idea was to throw off anybody that might be following them. Doug wanted to be completely and safely alone with his secrets.

They’d followed this trail dozens of times during the construction of “The Fort”.  One of Doug’s favorite things to talk about while they hiked through the murky wood was the Monster that lived beneath the bridge. It lurked there in the deepest shadows, drawn back against the wall so nobody could see it. But if you got up real close and peered way back in the darkest corner, you might just see two eyes, glowing pallidly from its grotesque face. The Monster’s favorite food was, of course, little girls.  And he was always hungry.

Susie didn’t like Doug anymore, but she did believe him. It never occurred to her this might be just another of his little mind games — that he might be playing on her childish naivete to get his jollies. She had no way of knowing that Doug, like most pedophiles, received his pleasure not only by physically abusing his victim but by emotionally dominating her as well.

There was a monster, all right, but it didn’t hide in the shadows beneath the bridge. It walked the path with her and forced her to do terrible things — things that would haunt her subconscious for the rest of her life.

On this particular day, August third, the story of the Monster had really gotten to her. She listened with rapt attention as Doug masterfully described the creature’s glowing red eyes and shaggy, blood-stained coat. He lowered his voice and growled in a chilling voice that verbally painted vivid pictures of the horror that lurked there in the shadows. He carried a stick with him, and his hands would wrap tightly around the shaft as, occasionally, he would pause and elaborate on some finer detail of his story. As Susie listened, the sounds of the forest seemed to come alive, and the shadows beside the path hid evil, hulking creatures that glared hungrily form their depths.

By the time they reached “The Fort”, she was happy to get there, and she sighed with relief when Doug slid the deadbolt over, locking them safely inside. The shack was sparse with a dirt floor, a stained mattress and a crate turned over to act as a table with a small porcelain lamp.

Doug immediately walked over and pulled out the pack of cigarettes he kept stashed beneath the mattress lying on the floor. Flopping down on his back, he propped his head and shoulders against the wall and lit up. He inhaled deeply, shaking out the match and tossing it into the corner. He tucked the cigarette into the corner of his mouth and squinted up at her through the smoke curling around his head.

He spoke around the butt of his cigarette. “Take your clothes off.”

This surprised her. Doug had never taken off all her clothes or even his.  He was too paranoid and in case his parents came home unexpectedly, they could easily hide their activities.  Now that Doug was growing older, they no longer bothered with pretending or roleplaying.  Doctor Doug no longer came to see his patient, only her nasty older brother, with the hair sprouting on his chin and various other places.

The closest they ever came these days to make-believe was when Doug made her say things to him that turned him on. Sometimes, she didn’t even know what the words meant, but she had learned not to ask questions because he liked to explain by showing her. Later she would try to convince herself she hadn’t said such things, pushing the knowledge and the words far down in her mind.  She buried a lot these days — nasty, shameful secrets buried deep like so many rotting corpses. And God help her if they ever rose from the dead to walk the hallowed ground of her consciousness.

“No!  It’s too dirty in here.”  She complained weakly.  The walls of their clubhouse suddenly moved in around her, tight and choking.

He ground out the cigarette in a silver ashtray on the crate.  With a louder command, he said, “I said take off your clothes!  Get on the mattress if you want to stay off the dirt.”

“Doug, no–“

Doug sprang to his feet and lunged at her.  He slammed one hand upon the wall above her head as he leaned in, towering over her in a threatening manner and stood so close she could smell the stale cigarette and feel the heat of his breath.  He growled in that Monster voice again, “In The Fort, you do exactly as I say, when I say and how I say it.  Susie, do you understand me?”

She sniffed and tears started to well up in her eyes.  “Dougie… you are sca–“

He slammed his open palm into the wall again over her making the shack shake and screamed this time in her face, “Do you understand the rules of The Fort?  Or do you want me to lock you outside for the Monster to eat you?  Take off your goddamn clothes now!”

Susie could only stare back at him, dumbfounded at the rage in his voice and the lust in his eyes.  When he raised his open hand intending to slap her, she nodded profusely and started unbuttoning her shirt.

He doesn’t mean it.  He wouldn’t let the Monster eat me… he wouldn’t.  She struggled to hold onto that thought and not burst out in tears of shame and fear as she still undressed as he demanded.

“We are going to add to our game today.  A little something to Something.”  He then chuckled at an internal thought, a joke at her expense.

He studied every minute movement she made.  She felt like an insect under a magnifying glass.  And the malicious tone of his voice chilled her.  Susie shivered standing in her undies.

“Take’em off and lay down.”

Turning red with embarrassment, she obeyed.  This would be the first time that he had seen her fully naked.  Something was…wrong.  Something unknown and something more to his intentions… And being struck had never been a part of “Something” before.

He yanked at his grey sweatshirt and threw it to the side of the mattress.  As he unfastened his belt and broke from leering at her, she ventured, “What did you mean by adding to the game?”

Doug ignored her as he continued undressing.  He turned his back to her as he fumbled with his jeans.  He then lit another cigarette.  When he faced her again, she saw he had the black leather belt wrapped around his fists.

“It’s time to make you a woman, Suze.”

The world around Susie shut down, frozen in the span between two heartbeats and then shattered like glass.  She finally realized what he meant and what he meant to do.  He was crossing a line, dragging her over it against her will and ending her life as she knew it.  She was too young to fully understand the ramifications of rape; she just understood on instinct that he was bent on destroying a part of her forever.  It was “Something” beyond hurt and innocence.  It was a step that could never be taken back.  She would not give him that.  He had taken too much from her.  Too much!

An animal-like instinct took control of her.  Maybe self-preservation or something else; whatever it was, it steeled her for him.  She would not react until she was ready although her body trembled in terror.  As Nate had discovered, there were some people in times of crisis that would flee or panic, others would lock up and freeze where they stood or some people that refused to be victims and fought back.  Susie Dawn Chamness was a fighter!

He placed her between his legs and stood over her, straddling her body on the mattress.

“Going to make you my little woman today.  Mine!”  Doug snarled down at her.  Then he squatted and snatched her left hand, making to tie it in the belt.

That was his mistake.  With her right hand, she lunged forward and snatched the lamp off the crate and shattered it upon his jaw.  He flew backward, knocked off balance by the strike and smashed his head on a stud in one of The Fort’s walls.

Susie didn’t wait to see the outcome.  She bolted to her feet, grabbed her pile of clothes and flung herself toward the door.

She didn’t even feel the knob of the deadbolt in her hand as she jerked it open and escaped down the path into the woods.  Numb from the terror, she felt nothing.  Her only thought was to get out — had to… had to… had to…

If Doug caught her now, he would really hurt her.  He might not even stop hurting her this time!

Seconds down the path, she heard The Fort’s door explode open and heard her brother calling after her.  His voice chased after her as she ran, running its icy fingers along her spine and snatching at the long strands of blonde hair trailing behind her.

Doug followed after her, calling her name and demanding for her to stop. Susie had one shot at losing him — she left the dirt path, plunging into the thick undergrowth of the forest and forging her way through the thicket down to the river’s edge.   She desperately pulled on her clothes and shoes before she waded on out into the river, which was no more than waist-deep at any point, this being the dry season.

It would take Doug some time to traverse the path and catch up with her.  She decided to follow the river under the bridge until she came to the other side. Once there, it would be a simple task to retrieve her bicycle and ride away.  She had no idea where to go, but she knew she didn’t ever want to see her brother again. Hot tears boiled down her cheeks, making everything she looked at swim and wriggle as she splashed her way along the river. Her face was flushed with shame and anger and her breath came in great hitching sobs.

This was a girl whose whole life was in turmoil. She couldn’t go on with things the way they were, and yet she had no idea where to turn to affect any change. With an unknown strength, she was taking the only action she could, she was running away. She intended, in fact, to keep right on running until something made sense — until she found a place where her life could be as it was in her fantasies.

The water was extremely cold, and her legs were beginning to ache. Occasionally, she would slip on the smooth gravel lining the bottom of the river, but she managed to maintain her footing, flailing her arms and stutter-stepping to regain her balance. At last, she reached a sandbar and she was able to step out of the water, warming her legs in the August sun.

The sandbar continued on under the bridge, but as she stood there, gazing into the darkness beneath it, her brother’s words came back to her and she locked up with dread. The Monster lived under the bridge and his favorite food was little girls. If she went under there, she would see its glowing eyes and it would come snarling and snapping out of the shadows.  The last thing she would do in life would be to soil herself before it clamped down with its yellow teeth.

She had had enough humiliation for one day.  So there lay her only means of escape, on the other side of the bridge on the other side of the Monster hidden in a patch of weeds by the side of the road. In a quandary over what to do, she collapsed to her knees sitting upon her haunches down in the middle of the sandbar, folded her bare arms across her chest and wept.

All the degradation and torment of the last four years of her life came out in a heart-rending rush of self-deprecation.

How could I be so stupid as to let myself be used like that? How am I ever gonna wash away his… grime?  Wash away what he has done to me?  The sins unfolded in her mind and all the buried feelings of disgust burst forth.  These were feelings and emotions a little girl her age should not be forced to deal with.

Her cries were heard.

Susie reached out and gathered a handful of water, which she brought up and splashed into her face.  As her life replayed for her, she began to feel anger.  She allowed the anger to build, leaning on the strength it brought with it. She kindled and nursed it, like a small fire, and her soul began to warm itself beside it.

She began to think along the lines of what her next move would be… should she go forward, or should she go back? Where was she to go now, home to her parents? Could she ever hope to make them understand what she’d been through? A small wisp of hope sprouted somewhere inside her. Maybe if she told her mother everything, she would not be punished too harshly, maybe her mother would understand. She would never be able to tell her father, of that she was certain.

But maybe, just maybe if I could convince Mother to forgive —

“Suze!”

She looked up startled to see Doug silhouetted against the sky atop the bridge. He was leaning over the side with his hands on the rail, looking down on her in the water.  Blood flowed from two lacerations along his jaw and cheek.  She jumped to her feet and splashed over to the bank, where she climbed out and charged off into the woods again.

“Wait, Susie, wait right there!” he called in vain.

“Leave me alone!” she screamed over her shoulder, “I’m running away — far away, where you’ll never touch me again!”

The briars cut into her legs and snagged her clothes as she crashed through the undergrowth, but she continued on until she connected with the path again. Here she hesitated, undecided as to which way to turn. Her brother would be coming back from the bridge. She groaned a bit and then charged off into the undergrowth once again.

She had gone maybe forty feet into the woods and was just about to pause for a rest when something hit her in the back and sent her sprawling amidst a patch of may-apples. Rolling over and sitting up, she looked to see who had struck her, but to her amazement, there was no one there. She remained on the ground for a moment and listened, but not a sound could she hear, save for the calling of birds in the trees and the sound of Peepers calling brightly from the water’s edge.

Then she heard Doug’s footsteps, padding down the path and continuing on toward the shack. He was panting heavily, and he swore when he stumbled across a root. She waited for him to go past, and then rose insecurely, figuring to try the path once more, now that the way was clear.

When she turned, she was face to face with the Monster. It must have followed her from under the bridge. The poor girl hadn’t the strength to run and she hadn’t the breath to scream.  She was struck dumb, and all she could do was stand there and wait for it to eat her. Doug for once had not been lying to her.  Her life had never been a happy one and now she was to die a violent death at the hands of a horrific fiend.

The shaggy beast swayed slowly back and forth on its four legs, sizing her up.  Slowly, she reached behind her hoping to find a stick to defend herself, but before she could do anything it attacked. In two swift bounds, it was upon her, its forepaws on either side of her head and its ghoulish face snarling fiercely into hers. She whimpered pitifully and buried her face in the leaves which littered the forest floor.

Her cries were cut off and she fought for breath as it flipped her over and grabbed a mouthful of her shirt collar, carrying her by the scruff of her neck as a mother wolf would transport her cubs. It bounded off, noiselessly, into the woods; and the last time Susie ever heard her brother’s voice, it was echoing through the trees: “I’m sorry, Susie! I’m sorry! Susie, come back… If you tell anyone, you will be SOR-R-R-EEEE!!!”

Susie thought wildly of the story of Little Red Riding hood, alone in the forest with the Big Bad Wolf.  She closed her eyes and wondered how bad it hurt to be eaten.

 

CHAPTER EIGHT:  TRAPPED!

The clearing was undisturbed, dead-silent. Zelda’s sleeping bag and blanket lay where they had been the night before. The tent and campfire were as they should be, and cooking utensils and coolers hadn’t been touched. There were no signs of a struggle, not even any tracks. Everything was where it was supposed to be except for his sleeping wife.

A cold blanket of dew drenched everything and a fine mist hung low over the fields, shrouding the plants like a veil. Nate leaped to his feet and his head swam. He ground his fists into his temples and waited for the grogginess to ease. When it cleared, he stepped over to the tent and looked inside. The tent was empty. Sunlight streamed in through the nylon mesh window and puddled in a square on the floor.

Straightening up, he called her name loudly and waited. The only sounds were those of the crickets and the ever-present rustling of the corn. He wasted no time chiding himself for falling asleep, there would be time for self-recrimination later. His first concern was finding Zelda and keeping her safe.

Struggling to remain calm and think clearly, Nate bent over and picked up the hand ax, where it had fallen from his belt while he slept. Scanning the horizon, he tried to decide in which direction to search. There was no sign of the creatures from the night before, and when he thought of them, it was hard not to believe it had all been just a dream. But if the events of the previous night were a figment of his imagination, then where was Zelda and what was he doing out here in the middle of nowhere, toting a sidearm and an ax?

No, Natey-boy, they were real, all right, and what’s worse, they took Zelda right from under my nose while I slept!  His inner thoughts bore into him.

Still, he couldn’t let himself believe she was dead…or eaten.  He had to try to find her — but where to start?

His backpack lay near the smoldering remains of the campfire. He picked it up and then, deciding it would be better to travel light, tossed it up into the lower branches of a small sycamore tree. There it would be safe to retrieve later, and it could dry in the sun.  He took a few steps toward the cornfield and hesitated. If they were out there, Nate wouldn’t stand a chance in hell against them.  Better to stay out in the open as much as possible.

He started toward the woods, staying close to the fence row. All the while, he scanned the area for tracks or some sign that they’d passed this way. The thought of going for help occurred to him, but he rejected it for two reasons: How would he get back and how would he convince the authorities of his story? It was obvious that he and Zelda were in this on their own, and he was determined not to let her down.

His muscles ached from spending the night on the hard, cold ground, but he didn’t spend much time concerning himself about it. Foremost in his mind were thoughts of his wife and her safety. Nate didn’t want to even think about what life would be like without her.

It was strange, really, when you thought about it. Nate had come close to losing her emotionally in the city, and they had come way out here to find each other again. Now that he’d regained her love, he’d lost her physically. In a real sense, he felt the pain of her absence more now than he would have at any other time before this day. Squaring his shoulders and thrusting out his chin, he marched, squinting into the morning sun.

I am not going to lose you like this!

The soft call of a dove murmured through the morning air, lending a sad, haunted feeling to the day. Out in the field, a flock of crows flew up, beating their dark wings and croaking harsh epithets at each other. They seemed exasperated at his intrusion.

About half-way to the edge of the woods, he noticed something in the bean field. He was unable to quite make out what it was, but something dark was sticking up just enough to be seen above the plants. Nate blinked his eyes, rapidly, and tried to bring it into focus. But it was no use. He would have to get closer.  Which meant abandoning the fence row and the small amount of cover it afforded, but he couldn’t pass up any leads that might help him find Zelda.

The dew-covered plants soon had his pants soaked up past his knees, but his boots kept his feet warm and dry.

When he had gotten to within a few feet of the thing, he began to slow down, partly due to caution and the fear he had of discovering Zelda’s partially clad, savaged body.

At first, it appeared to be a wet grocery bag, but then he saw that it was pink and wrinkled, with tufts of hair protruding from it. He heard the buzzing of flies, and his mind pictured the corpse of his wife, her scalp ripped from her head, lying in a heap among the rows of beans. Remembering the severed head in the tree, he wavered, unable to approach any nearer. Indecision pulled at him. He couldn’t just ignore it and continue his search, knowing she might be lying out here in the sun.  He had no choice but to look.

Resigning himself to the task, he took another cautious step.  The hair on his own scalp raised when the clump of flesh moved and an unholy roar sliced through the air. Before his startled eyes, a creature like the one from the day before rose up from its hiding place in the beans and charged him. Its mouth was split wide in a hellish snarl, and it lurched forward on two legs, wielding its claws, menacingly.

Nate snatched the gun from its holster and then remembered how low he was on ammunition. He had only the four bullets remaining, and he may need them before this ordeal was over.

If I can make it to the trees on the fence row, I may be able to avoid wasting any shots!

During the siege of their camp the night before, his thoughts had turned to the partial corpse, rotting in the tree above them, and it had dawned on him that these creatures must not be able to climb. Whoever the poor unfortunate whose head had been left behind must have tried, not quite successfully, to escape using that route.

This was why Nate had been following the fence row — in hopes that, were he attacked, his theory would prove correct.  Now he was going to have a chance to find out, provided, of course, he could outrun this horrific beast.

As he spun around, however, he heard yet another growl and saw a second beast rushing at him from the direction of the fence row, effectively cutting off his escape!  This one, apparently, had been hiding in the beans as well, and Nate must have walked right past it.

Damn things were stalking me!

These were obviously more clever creatures than Nate would have guessed.  Coming at him this way, it would be difficult for him to kill both of them. By the time he got a shot off at one, the other would be on him.  It was rather like chasing down and tagging a baseball runner caught between first and second base.

This second creature galloped on all fours and moved much quicker than the first. In fact, Nate could see that, given its present speed, it would overtake him in just a few more bounds.

It was time.  He had no choice but to spend some ammunition now. Surely things couldn’t get much more desperate than this. He whirled and fired a round at the first creature. Not waiting to see the effect of his shot, he dove, headlong and attempted a clumsy somersault into the beans, kicking up a cloud of dust as he fell. His dive was at right angles to the path of the second beast, whose claws raked the side of Nate’s boot as it charged through the spot where he’d been standing. By the time it halted its rush and doubled back for another pass, Nate was already running.  The creature let out a roar of rage and gave chase.

Nate had badly underestimated the speed of these creatures. Although he believed he killed the first, placing a hollow-nosed .357 slug right through its chest, there was no way he could outrun this second creature.  It would be on him before he made half the distance to safety. And placing another such shot while on the run for his life would be beyond luck and closer to a miracle. There was no time to stop and plant himself to fire.  All he could do was redouble his efforts and run like he had never run before.

He heard a vicious scream from behind and put his head down, concentrating on which branch he would leap for if he did, through some marvel, happen to make the trees.

***

 

Zelda awoke to a nightmare. A hard, scaly paw was shoved down hard upon her mouth, covering nearly half her face and making it almost impossible to breathe. She could feel the sharp claws digging into the side of her neck, and she saw the silhouette of the creature’s face leaning over her.

She tried to struggle, but the beast was much too powerful. She was a tiny rag doll in its grasp. Straining her eyes to the left, she could make out Nate’s body lying motionless by the fire. Zelda cried out against the filthy pads of the creature’s paw, but her voice was muffled to practically nothing.

In terror, she realized that the creature had come back and killed Nate. And now it had her in its grasp. She prayed the end would be mercifully quick.

Silently it picked her up and smashed her against its chest. The dry, wrinkled skin and the tufts of matted hair ground hard and rough against her cheek.  Its pungent, animal odor revolted her and made her retch.  Rising up on powerful hind legs, the creature shuffled away from the campfire and out into the night, dragging her along like a child carrying a stuffed toy.

Out into the beanfield, it carried her, the wet plants slapped coldly against her bare legs. Tears blinded her vision as she watched the campfire growing smaller and smaller, swallowed by the darkness. Suddenly, it stopped and dropped her roughly upon the ground, removing the gagging paw from her mouth. Her jaw ached from the pressure it had exerted on it and her lip had been cut by one of its pads.

She cried pitifully for it to stop, to leave her alone, but the creature stood there in silence, staring at her from the blackness of the night. Finally, it brought its cruel face to within inches of hers and glared hungrily into her eyes. The smell or its breath nearly gagged her and she turned her face.  It reached out and, hooking one of its claws through the sleeve of her sweat-shirt and guided her arm down toward its belly where her hand came to rest on a huge throbbing lump of turgid flesh.

She lashed her arm back from it as though she’d laid her hand on a hot poker, ripping her sleeve in the process. She opened her mouth to scream but her captor brought a paw hard across her face and the night erupted in a blinding flash. The last thing she remembered before she lost her grip on consciousness was being rolled over on her belly and feeling the creature’s hot breath on the back on her neck as it grabbed a mouthful of her collar.

Sometime later, she awoke in complete darkness.  There was cold, damp stone beneath her cheek and her body ached with the aftermath of spending a long time unconscious upon a hard surface. She tried to remember where she was and what had happened to her, but she was completely disoriented. And, being in total darkness, there was nothing for her eyes to fall on to help her adjust.

Slowly, she pulled herself back from the world of the dead. She moved around, gingerly, flexing first one limb and then another. Everything seemed to be working, but where was she? And how did she get here? Suddenly, she remembered. It came back to her in a rush — the path, the monster, the clearing, Nate’s death, the abduction and the attack in the field… everything!

She sat bolt upright and hit her head on something hard. Sparks flew across the backs of her eyes and she slumped to the floor again.

With mounting horror, she realized she was in a hole of some kind.

Oh my god! The damned thing buried me alive!

Her heart hammered in her chest and a sharp metallic taste came to the back of her mouth, threatening to choke her. She reached out her hand and waved it around panicking in the darkness until she came upon a wall. Following it, she groped her way until it met another wall, about four feet along.  Continuing along this wall, she came to an open space where this chamber apparently let out into another one. On her hands and knees, she stretched her arm out into this open space, leaning out as far as she dared. In her mind, she got the feeling she was in a cave of some kind, the walls being made of hard stone, and not in a hole in the dirt, as she had first imagined. Crawling past the “doorway”, she continued to feel her way blindly in the dark.

Suddenly she touched something soft and warm — and alive! And then she felt a hand grasp her arm and hold it firmly. She cried out and tried to pull away, but the grip held fast.

“Sh-h-h-h! Quiet… it’s all right.” The voice was small and soft, like that of a child. “I’m not gonna hurt you… Shh-h-h!”

Zelda stopped struggling and listened. She could hear breathing and the rustling of clothing.

“Please?… Please?” the tiny voice whimpered. Whoever it was, drew nearer to her and folded their arms about her. She was surprised to realize, it WAS a child. Even in the dark, she could tell it was a little girl, a frightened little girl, that was clinging to her desperately, and crying. Her hands came up instinctively and stroked the child’s soft hair. It was matted and tangled, but it still held the softness of a little girl’s tresses.

“Okay… okay.” she soothed. “Don’t cry now, baby, don’t cry.” She held the little girl for a while, letting her cry. In truth, after all that she’d been through, it felt good to have someone to hug.  She rocked the child back and forth in her arms, patting her back and stroking her hair some more.  Finally, the sobs eased and the child’s stiff body relaxed a bit.

Pulling back a little, she asked, “Who are you, baby?  Do you know where we are?”

The child stopped sniffling, but she still clung tightly to Zelda’s hand. “I’m… My name is Susie Chamness, and… I don’t know where this is exactly, but it’s a bad place — real bad!”

 

***

 

 

Nate saw the branch growing nearer and nearer, and to his amazement, he grew confident that he was going to make it! With every muscle, he strained to reach the tree and climb to safety. He didn’t dare take time to look back over his shoulder to see if the thing was gaining on him. He could only assume it was about to overtake him and every precious second counted in his race for survival.

The cold, damp plants felt like hands that clutched at his legs, threatening to trip him and send him tumbling among the weed-strewn rows to meet his doom. He could hear the creature’s labored breathing close on his heels — hot and moist, on the back of his neck. Any second now, a sharp blow to the middle of his back would send him sprawling and then the beast would be on him.  Its heavy body bearing him to the ground while its talons ripped at his guts and that foul slobbering maw opened wide to swallow his face.

He reached for the low-hanging branch and leaped. Primal instinct told him that the creature was already in mid-air. His hand grasped its rough surface and he swung his legs in a “skin-the-cat” maneuver over the branch and hauled himself up into the tree. As he executed these gymnastics, he expected to feel the claws of the beast, snaring his leg and dragging him back to a horrible death by dismemberment.  Once again, the thought of the rotting remains in the tree from yesterday flashed through his mind.  He wasted no time in scrambling even higher into the tree.

It wasn’t until Nate had climbed to a perch about fifteen feet up among the branches that he paused to assess the situation. Looking down at the base of the tree, he was surprised to see the creature was not there. He turned his gaze back to the beanfield he’d left in such haste, and there it stood, glaring at him from over the body of its fallen comrade.

Apparently, it hadn’t bothered to pursue him at all, only apparitions from his imagination had chased after him.  Its main concern had been the death of its mate. Bending over the bloody corpse, it pressed its muzzle gingerly against the shoulder and nudged. Drawing back, it stared intently into the lifeless face.

Nate was reminded of the nature films he’d seem where an elephant would try to rouse the fallen body of one of its herd-mates after it had been shot by poachers. Had they not been such grotesquely ugly creatures, Nate might have been moved to sympathy. As it were, he was merely curious to witness the act.

He wondered, could these two have been mates, male and female? He knew that some animals, wild geese, for instance — and wolves, mate for life.  Could this be true of these creatures as well?

The beast laid a paw on the body of the fallen one and rocked it gently back and forth. Shifting back to glare at Nate in his tree-top perch, it roared its defiance.  Nate imagined he could hear a note of grief in that challenge, that made it seem all the more terrifying and he was glad for the relative safety of his tree.

He watched as the creature looked sadly back down at the body once more and then, walked over a few feet and squatted down in the beans. There it sat, maintaining a vigil over Nate while giving an occasional glance back over its shoulder at its mate.  The beast, however, kept its distance.

Nate had a nasty, unsettling feeling that, should he climb down for one instant from the safety of his branch, the creature would be all over him, guns or no.

How long is this to last? He thought, miserably. Then his thoughts returned to Zelda, out there… somewhere.

“Could she still be alive?” He asked aloud but doubted it.  He could only pray for the best at this point.

It occurred to him that perhaps his gunshots had attracted some attention and help would soon arrive, but then he remembered that hunting was very common out here in these wooded areas.  HIs brief hope evaporated.  No one would give a second thought to a couple of reports off in the distant fields.

Suddenly, the isolation that had so attracted him to this remote farm lost its appeal and he longed for a little bit for the company of his fellow man.  Meanwhile, here he sat, helplessly up a tree, with no way to search for his wife. It was maddening!

“GO AWAY!” He yelled at the creature, but it sat like a stone and made no move. It merely continued to shift its gaze back and forth between Nate and the dead beast to its rear. “GOOD! I hope that WAS your mate I killed, you ugly bastard!”

He leaned back against the rounded bole of the tree and said to himself, “That’s a start on evening the score,”

The creature, looking unimpressed, licked one of its paws and just waited for its moment…