Hunted, p.7
Hunted, page 7
Strange animals called to each other from the boughs above. He thought some might be bats, but it was hard to be certain. They got close, sometimes, chattering right over his head. They fell silent when he pointed his torch towards them.
He kept reminding himself Eileen was suffering through the same night alongside him. Once he found her and carried her back to town, they would be able to talk about the experience. It would be a chance for them to bond, finally, and perhaps grow closer than friends. After all, he’d walked into a living nightmare to save her. She would be grateful. Maybe even enamoured. Wouldn’t that be hilarious? For once, she might be chasing him.
Something scraped against a tree to Todd’s left. He twisted, looking around the trunk he’d leaned against, but his light couldn’t pick anything out of the gloom. He settled back down. There was too much life in the forest. He was a fan of nature, sure, but only when he could see it. Being surrounded by countless busy animals while he was blind left him feeling vulnerable.
At least now no one would call him a coward. He might not have Flint’s stupid muscles, but if anyone tried to compare them again, he could always say, “Did Flint spend two days in the wilderness with nothing to survive on except his wits? No? Then shut the hell up.”
The thought made him laugh. He could only imagine the look on their faces.
The scraping noise sounded closer. Again, Todd leaned around the tree. He panned his torch’s light across the area. It picked out the same shapes he’d been seeing all day: tree, tree, shrub, tree, vine, tree. Still, he felt uneasy. The scraping sound didn’t seem natural. “Hello?” He waited then cleared his throat. “Eileen?” he called out more loudly.
Seconds ticked by. Frustrated, he huddled back against the tree and pulled his mobile out of his pocket. The screen flashed to life at the click of a button. His battery was down to thirty percent. Hidden in the folds of his backpack, it had been protected from water damage, and he had been trying to call for backup since he’d escaped the river’s grip. His cell phone wasn’t picking up any reception, though, which was ridiculous. In this modern day and age, how is there any place on earth that doesn’t get reception? He’d toyed with the idea of climbing a tree to see if that helped, but he’d been too cold and sore. And in the dark, he would have no idea what he was putting his hands on.
The scraping noise sounded like it was almost on top of him. Todd stood, torch held ahead of himself with shaking hands. “Hey, is anyone else out there? If you’re an animal, you can screw right off.”
The scraping sound came from behind a tree with an immense trunk easily large enough for three men to hide behind. Todd wet his lips and circled it, keeping as much distance between himself and the trunk as possible. If someone was on the other side, they were mimicking his motions, circling the tree to remain hidden.
“Hey, you ass! Answer me!”
His throat was growing raw. Maybe he’d gotten sick when he fell into the water. They said all sorts of germs could live in there. If he couldn’t find Eileen the following morning, he might have to make his way back to town just to get checked out by a doctor.
Todd had circled the tree completely. He could neither see nor hear anything unnatural. Disgusted, he spat on the ground and moved towards the nook he’d planned to sleep in. As he stepped around the tree, he was confronted by something that seemed to have crawled out of his nightmares.
It was immense. Seven feet at least. Clumped fur hung from broad shoulders to graze the ground. Luminous eyes glittered out from a twisted, shadowed, inhuman face. A long, clawlike appendage extended from its arm and shone in the torchlight. The creature reached out and scraped the claws against the tree’s trunk.
Todd ran. A scream tore its way out of his raw throat as he dashed through the forest. He could hear the creature coming after him, crashing through dead leaves and snapping branches. His torch’s light flashed up and down in erratic arcs as he pumped his arms, and each step was a gamble. He hit a tree, bounced off, felt blood flowing down his face, and kept running. The ground dropped away, and he stumbled as he fell. He caught himself on a fallen tree and clung to it as he gasped in terrified breaths.
Everything hurt. His head throbbed. Still clutching the torch in his shaking fist, he directed its light over his shoulder, towards the slope he’d just stumbled down.
The figure loomed out of the darkness—coming straight for him.
15
Friday, 3:30 a.m.
Kogarah Road, heading towards Cobb Mountain Range
“Chris. Chris. Wake up.”
He groaned, grunted, and lifted his head off the van’s door. The vehicle might have been an upper-market model, but its shock absorbers couldn’t stop the whole thing from rattling as it bounced over the rural road. Even with his jacket balled up as a pillow, it had made for an unpleasant, uncomfortable sleep.
Anna had turned on her light, and Chris blinked against the glow. She sat pin straight, still wearing her glasses, with the photos and maps scattered on the seat between them. She was looking at him strangely.
“What?” he mumbled. “Did I snore?”
“No. I need you to look at this. I need to be sure I’m not going crazy.”
He sat, stretched, and felt his back pop. Hailey was asleep in the passenger seat, her perfectly curled hair getting mussed every time she shifted. Flint was driving, but he was starting to look tired. They would need to switch duties soon.
“Did you sleep at all?” he asked Anna.
“I tried, but I can’t.”
“You’ll be tired tomorrow.”
“I know. Now look at this. I honestly can’t tell if I’m onto something or if I’m becoming delusional.” She held out a page to him. It was one of the pictures Eileen had taken at night. As far as Chris could tell, there was nothing different about it compared to the other twenty.
“What am I looking at?”
“This shape, right here.” She jabbed at a bunch of leaves that had caught the camera’s flash. They were buried between two trunks and not as well illuminated as other parts of the scene.
Chris looked at the blur carefully then nodded. “A branch. Okay.”
“That’s what I thought at first too. But look at this.” She placed another image over the first. The blur was no longer visible.
“Okay, I’ll need you to walk me through this.” Chris rubbed his face. “The branch… is gone?”
“That’s just it. I don’t think this is a branch.” She shuffled around in her seat to face him and held out another photo. “At first I thought the flash didn’t reach far enough to show it. But look here.”
Chris took the page. The splotch had returned… but in a different place.
He held the two pictures side by side. They both showed the shape between two tree trunks, but in the first, it was close to the right-hand tree, and in the second, it was close to the left.
“And then there’s this.” She passed him a fourth picture, where the shape appeared in the upper-left corner. It was unmistakable, yet it had somehow moved five feet to the left. “Those are the only three pictures I can find it in.”
He clutched the pages until the paper crinkled. “What is it?”
“I’m not certain, but look closely. Doesn’t it look a bit like a face? Those parts would be the eyes…”
“Yeah, I think I see it. But it’s not like any face I’ve seen before.”
“Hey,” Flint said from the driver’s seat. “Let me see.”
Chris held out the pages, but Anna pushed them back into his chest.
“Not while you’re driving.”
Flint groaned. “But Ahh-naa…”
“No. We’ll show you and Hailey when we park.” She turned back to Chris. “If I’m not drastically misreading this, it means there was something in the forest with Eileen.”
“Something?”
“Or someone.” She leaned closer to look at the pictures again. “Though you’re right, it really doesn’t look human.”
“Animal? It looks a bit like a wolf in this one…”
“No wolves in Ashlough Forest. And besides, it’s too high. Look, the pine leaves here give a bit of context. A wolf wouldn’t be more than three feet off the ground. This is…”
“At least six feet,” Chris breathed.
“Try seven. It’s massive.”
“Bear?”
“No bears, either.”
“What the hell is it, then?” Chris was reminded of who was behind the camera, and he felt like he might throw up. “What did it do to Eileen?”
Anna looked just as helpless as he felt.
“Seriously, guys.” A whine had entered Flint’s voice. “You’re killing me here.”
“When we park,” Anna snapped. “I’m not letting your ADD-ass crash and kill us all.”
Chris had never heard her snap at her friends like that before. The pictures must have unnerved her more than he’d thought.
Anna let him sit in silence for several minutes. He slowly leafed through each picture, hunting for the strange blotch of white, but it only appeared in those three pages. He blew out his breath, put the papers aside, and ran his hands through his hair. “Okay. We don’t tell my parents about this. They’re upset enough right now. But when we get to town, we take this to the police.”
“Ooh, look at Mr. The police are incompetent, we can’t trust them,” Flint cooed.
Chris kicked the back of his seat. “Cut it. I don’t like the police, but if we can get them to see what we see, they can mobilise a force ten times larger than us. It would be wrong not to try.”
“He’s right.” Anna nodded, looking excited. “They might not care about just one tourist going missing, but if there’s something in the forest that could be a threat to other hikers, they’re much more likely to take action.”
“We’re certain it’s a thing?” Chris asked. At Anna’s look, he shrugged. “It doesn’t look human. But it’s not like any animal we know of, either.”
“Maybe the police will know. Maybe there will be reports of—I don’t know—people playing pranks in the forest. Maybe that’s all it is? Some big joke.”
Chris pushed his balled-up jacket up under his head and rested against the door. He pretended to go back to sleep, but his mind was buzzing. He wished he could believe it was a prank, but that was impossible. Eileen had taken the photos alone, at night, off trail. Whatever was between the trees had lingered there for a while. The time stamps between the first and third pictures of it were nearly twelve minutes apart. He suspected it had been stalking Eileen in the other photos, too… hidden behind trees, out of sight, being warded off by camera flashes.
A horrible, sinking feeling flooded his stomach. Chances were, by that point, they weren’t on a rescue mission. They were on a revenge mission.
16
Friday, 4:45 a.m.
Todd staggered, stumbled, and fell to the ground. He was bringing air into his lungs in hurried, desperate gasps, but the oxygen wasn’t moving through his body quickly enough. His head ached. His throat was raw. He was half-blind, and his torch batteries were nearly drained. It offered less light than a glowstick.
He felt like he might drop dead of exhaustion. He didn’t know how long he’d been running. He only knew that every time he tried to stop, the creature would find him. He didn't know how. He was blind in the dark, but the monster, whatever it was, never failed to track him down.
He had lost his backpack. Several times, he’d tried to circle around to find it. But the forest was like a maze. He had lost both his sense of time and his sense of direction. Without his backpack, he had no water or supplies.
He’d spent the first few hours panicking. Now, he was just trying to survive. If he could find the path and find his way out, he would gladly leave and never return. Not even for Eileen. It wasn’t like he was abandoning her; he’d as good as confirmed she was no longer alive. She was a smart girl, capable enough to live in the forest for days or even weeks if it came to that, but she wouldn’t have been able to outsmart this monster.
That was what was following him; he was certain. A monster. He’d seen its poison-green eyes. He’d stared into its twisted, demented face—the face of something that had risen out of hell. It moved nearly silently. And it found him, time and time again, no matter how far he ran.
Todd staggered a few more steps. His muscles were spent. There was a small hollow between two trees. The way the vines grew over it created a small hidey-hole. He dropped to his knees and crawled into the gap, eyes closed and lips squeezed together to protect against the ichor and grime that showered him. The space wasn’t big, but he could curl into a ball and be completely surrounded by plant matter. He turned off the torch.
Vine leaves scratched at his exposed skin. He dragged in gasping, painful breaths and waited for the burning to leave his legs. Now that he wasn’t moving, he was starting to feel the cold. Something moved across his cheek, and Todd swatted at it. Spider or insect, he couldn’t tell, but it left a smear of goo on him.
The heavy scraping noise echoed between the trees. Todd opened his mouth and tried to breathe as slowly and silently as he could. His body was begging for oxygen, but he knew he could survive that. He didn’t know if he could survive being found.
The sound was drawing closer, as it always did. That was how it started—just quiet, distant scrapes that gradually drew closer and homed in on his position like a missile. The creature always let Todd run. It was so immense that he felt sure it could chase him down and catch him if it wanted to, but it didn’t. It only approached in steady, unerring steps.
He hadn’t dared to find out what would happen if he let it catch him.
Now, the scrape came from less than twenty feet away. From his position, Todd could see a patch of ground ahead of his hidey-hole. There was very little light anywhere, but without his torch, his eyes were starting to adjust.
The creature stepped into view. There was very little of it to see. Its head was covered with long matted fur. Its body was tall and wide, but it held a human-like posture, head lifted towards the sky. Its body was covered in the same fur; it flowed down to its feet like a thick cloak and masked the monster’s true shape. The claws caught the thin light. They protruded from where the creature’s arms should have been and extended nearly to the ground. The monster lifted one of its appendages and ran the claws across the bark of a tree. They created the sharp scraping noise that had plagued Todd all night.
He pressed his hand over his mouth and nose to muffle his breathing. Terror made him shake uncontrollably. If the creature came towards him, he didn’t think he could get to his feet in time to escape it. His legs had locked into place and refused to move, no matter how ferociously his heart pumped.
The creature continued walking. Its movements were so smooth that it almost seemed to float. It was moving parallel to his hiding place, though, and in a minute, it would pass him.
Todd’s heart was so loud that he was sure everyone within ten miles would hear it. Another insect dropped onto his neck and began crawling down to his collarbone, but he made no moves to squash it. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the inhuman being stalking through the clearing. A little farther—just a little more—and it would have passed him. He could hide in the cubbyhole, safe, until morning.
It stopped. Its head rotated slowly, smoothly, to look straight at him. The glint of green eyes, almost luminous, flashed out of the bedraggled locks hiding its face.
Todd tried to scream. No sound left him. They met each other’s stares, unblinking and unmoving. Then the creature threw back its head, as though in feint of laughter, and slunk between the trees. Todd tried to follow its movements, but it had vanished within seconds.
He didn’t understand. His light had been turned off. He’d kept silent. The plant cover was thick enough to almost fully conceal him. He couldn’t imagine the monster could smell him amongst the thick odours of organic decay.
But it had found him nonetheless. And… left?
He didn’t dare move in case it broke whatever spell seemed to have fallen over the forest. The area seemed almost unnaturally quiet. Except for the insect crawling across his neck, he couldn’t sense any movement.
He couldn’t believe the monster had just left him. It had been following him for hours. It should have finished him off then and there.
The answer came easily enough. It hadn’t really left; it was just waiting, hidden between the trees, perhaps. Or maybe it had already circled around to lurk at his back. It was toying with him. Enjoying his terror. Waiting for him to make the first move before it pounced and brought him down with a swipe of those terrifying claws.
Todd closed his eyes and pressed his hands over his head. A sob struggled out of his throat. He was as good as a sitting duck. And he would have to move eventually.
17
Friday, 9:00 a.m.
Chris pulled his best jacket out of his duffel bag and shook it out. It had become creased during the drive, but there was nothing he could do for it now. He put it on.
They had pulled into a parking lot for the grocery store opposite Helmer’s police station. The station hadn’t been easy to spot, despite the sign above its doorway. It was a strange, narrow brick building with two floors. Bars lined the windows, and the only door that could possibly be the front entrance looked like it was for a closet.
The building might not have wowed them, but Anna had emphasised the importance that they, at least, make a good first impression. They were young adults between the ages of twenty and twenty-three, a demographic not especially known for commanding respect. Looking like they’d slept in a car and spilt fast food sauce down their shirts—which Chris had—would only get them dismissed much more easily.
“How do I look?” He fluffed his jacket’s collar then held his arms out for their approval.
