Eden, p.17
Eden, page 17
Cove backed beneath the overhang, stick held out before him. Dylan grabbed him by the shoulders and held him still. He faced the darkness with the staff held up, and Jenn could see it shaking in his hands. Lucy came close as well, no longer carrying her stick. Her eyes were wide and wet, and she had something dark splashed on her face. Blood, spreading in the rain.
“What happened to Aaron?” Jenn shouted.
“Taken,” Cove said. “It took him.”
“What took him?” she asked. “Cove, what the fuck—?”
“The darkness,” Lucy said.
“Make sense!”
“There was something out there, in the dark, coming towards us, and when we shone lights or the lightning came it wasn’t there anymore.”
Bullshit! Jenn thought. I saw it, whatever it was, and…
And she had no idea what she had seen.
She ran.
“Jenn!” someone shouted behind her. She fumbled in her waist bag for her head torch and clicked it on, slipping it onto her forehead. She sprinted towards where she had last seen Aaron. The rain seemed almost solid, glimmering curtains in the light. Lightning flashed again, and she paused to try and make sense of her surroundings. She was out in the centre of the canyon, close to the narrow stream that trickled down towards the river. It was running fuller than it had been only hours before.
“Aaron!” she shouted into the darkness. Thunder was her answer. She tried to forget his screams, his agony. The crunch.
“Wait!” someone shouted, and she heard footsteps following. She could not wait. Aaron was out there somewhere, and she had to help him.
The unbearable weight of rain and darkness pressed in, nightmares leaking into this waking nightmare. The world beyond her weak beam of light was infinite, and dark.
She headed downstream at a run, aware that she should be taking more care across this uneven ground.
I didn’t hear his scream, she thought. I didn’t hear that crunch. Each time she tried to convince herself, the memories of both were so close and solid that she could feel them in her ears.
“Aaron!” she tried to shout again, but her voice broke with terror. She looked for his light. She looked for him.
23
“We know they call us the Zeds, and there’s an implication now carried by that word—that we’re a militia, mercenaries, here more because we’re trigger-happy killers than to look after the Zones. And yeah, there are some guards who are like that, unfortunately. But every one of the twenty-eight men and women I’ve shot dead coming out of the Plains needed killing. They were changed. Damaged. Something happens to some of the idiots who manage to infiltrate, and if they ever make it out, some of them aren’t really human anymore.”
Extract stolen from a Husky Plains border guard’s log
Dylan had dreamed of the dead boy again. Waking to shouting and chaos, and the sense that the edges could not hold, he’d shaken off the nightmare and risen into a new one.
After Jenn ran off into the darkness and Gee sprinted after her, Dylan said, “We all go after them, now!” He glanced down at Cove’s heavy stick. Its end was splintered and torn. “What was it?”
“Don’t know,” Cove said. His eyes were wide.
Selina was shrugging on her rucksack. Lucy stood close to Cove, looking around at her feet.
“Lucy!” Dylan said as he started away from the fire.
“Dropped my stick.”
“Lucy, what was it?”
“Big cat. Wolf. Bear. I dunno.” She was blinking rapidly, breathing hard. Terrified.
“We’ve got to—” Dylan began, but then something growled close by. Behind the torrential rain, a wet throat rolled like distant thunder.
Cove stepped forward, shining his light into the darkness beyond the small cave, stick held out before him.
Dylan felt afraid, but it was vague, like fear remembered. It was not immediate. All he could think of was Jenn out there in the dark storm, she and Gee running blind into dangers none of them understood.
“All of us, we go after them and stick together,” Dylan said, and the four of them headed away from the camp.
The growl came closer, and only at the last second did Dylan understand that it came from above, not ahead. He stepped away from the rock face and looked up, just as a shadow fell on them. Snarling, spitting, thrashing, it knocked Lucy from her feet. She shouted and rolled, her head torch describing a full circle—ground, rock, rain-filled sky.
Cove leapt forward and swung his stick, connecting with something, jarring his arms. He grunted. Lucy stopped rolling and the shadow fell from her, giving Dylan the chance to shine his light directly at their attacker. He saw wet hair, bared teeth, eyes that reflected the light as red, piercing points.
The thing opened its mouth and roared, and then Selina heaved a rock at it. Her missile struck something soft and then the shape was gone, lost to the darkness. Dylan stepped in front of Lucy and swept his torch back and forth. He caught a glimpse of something moving away, or it might have been a shift in the falling rain as a heavy breath of wind washed down the canyon.
More lightning, this time revealing only darkness.
“What the fuck?” Cove shouted.
Dylan crouched beside Lucy but Selina was already there, checking her over for injuries. Lucy waved her arms, trying to push them aside, her eyes wide with terror. Blood flowed across her face from a gash in her forehead.
“Selina?” Dylan asked.
“Don’t know,” she said. “Lucy! Keep still!” Lucy calmed, breathing hard. Her head torch was smashed, and perhaps the glass had cut her.
“Just what the hell was that?” Cove asked.
“Wild dog or lynx,” Dylan said, though he wasn’t sure himself. He’d seen hair or fur, teeth, had heard growling. He imagined that he’d smelled the thing’s breath—meaty and raw, warm with fresh blood, stale with dead things—but it might have been his own fear.
Cove helped Lucy to her feet, and she slung her arm over his shoulder and held on tight.
“Keep it away from me,” she said, her voice a low growl.
“It’s gone after Jenn,” Dylan said. “Come on!” He led the way and the others followed. He was aware that they were leaving behind their sleeping bags and other equipment, including food and water, but Jenn was out there, somewhere in the storm, and he couldn’t lose her too. Not like this, and not now.
Selina ran by his side, so close that he could hear her breathing. Cove and Lucy followed behind. He searched the darkness for Jenn’s or Gee’s torches, but his own light reflected back at him from the rain, pulling the night in close.
Wolf? he thought. Lynx? Wild dog? He didn’t know. He thought it might have been something else. In Zona Smerti he and his team had fought off a wild boar, a monstrous creature that had come at them when they’d trespassed too close to its young. Vicious, huge, they’d seen it away with burning brands from their camp fire, then fled before it grew brave and returned. This was too small to be a boar, but it seemed just as dangerous.
And what the fuck could carry Aaron away like that?
“Dylan!” Selina shouted. “Ahead!”
The four of them swept their head torches up from the ground and probed the night before them. Eyes glimmered back. Deep red, hellish. Two sets, then three, at different heights and different distances.
“We’ve got to head back, up the canyon!” Lucy said.
“No! Jenn’s that way, past them, so we’ve got to—”
“They’ll tear us to pieces!”
The eyes vanished. Shadows darted closer, and then with a roar something leapt at them again. Dylan saw it clearer this time—a big cat with wet fur, strong limbs, its teeth catching the light and reflecting a promise of pain.
Cove drove his stick into the creature’s mouth, its own momentum shoving it forward. It thrashed and fell, squirming on the ground, twisting its head and ripping the stick from Cove’s hands. It slinked away, disappearing into the rain.
Another shape emerged from their right and came at Cove, knocking him over sideways. He fell, cried out, and Selina snatched up a rock and jumped across him, swinging the makeshift weapon as she went. A howl, a whine, and the creature flitted away into the night.
They heard its voice, and others joined in.
Dylan moved forward, but Lucy grabbed his arm.
“They’ll attack again,” she said.
“That’s Jenn out there! We’ll get rocks, sticks, and—”
“We can’t fight those things off! Not forever.”
“Why the hell are they attacking in a group?” Selina said. “They don’t do that. And coming at four humans—never. We’re too threatening.”
“Don’t feel threatening,” Cove said, standing. “And don’t care right now. Lucy’s right.”
Dylan knew that she was right, but he couldn’t just leave Jenn.
“Jenn and Gee are fast,” Selina said. “We’ll meet up with them—”
“Aaron’s out there too,” Dylan said.
“I think Aaron’s gone,” Cove said.
“We’re not turning back. We stay together, move fast, arm ourselves with rocks or sticks.” They were shadows in the rain, cast by downturned head torches. They were friends, people he loved. The way for them to survive would be to stay together.
“Okay,” Selina said. “But stay very close, touching distance. One stops, we all stop.”
“Great,” Cove said. “Dog meat.”
“Head for higher ground!” Dylan shouted into the night, hoping Jenn and Gee would hear. His only answer was a growl, and then a roar.
* * *
The landscape opened up around them. When lightning crashed again in a flickering sheet, Jenn glanced to the north and saw rolling hills, and realised that she and Gee had made it out of the canyon. She’d felt a rush of relief when Gee emerged out of the darkness, but there was no sign of Aaron. The storm rumbled on, and catching that brief glimpse of the expansive land around them brought Jenn’s nightmare close again, so close that she wondered whether she was still asleep. But she had never felt so cold and wet in her sleep, or so terrified.
“There!” Gee said. He grabbed her shoulder and pulled her close, so that she could see where he was pointing. His false hand gleamed in their torch light, reminding her of luminous stars she’d had on her ceiling as a child. She’d stared up at them for hours.
A light flickered in the distance. Off, on, off again. It was unmoving. It cast a glow in the rain around it but illuminated nothing.
“Aaron’s torch!” she said. She started running, even though her inner voice was struggling to remind her about his screams, the crunching sound, the sight of him being lifted and lowered again, as if something big was smashing him into the ground. Gee ran with her.
A roar came from nearby, a guttural, unknowable sound.
Jenn stepped in something that sent her feet skidding out from beneath her. Even though she knew she should let her behind take the impact, instinct took over and she held out her left hand to break her fall. She hit hard, landing in something that shouldn’t be warm, but was. The breath was knocked from her. She slid to a halt on her side, turning to look at what she had landed in even as a shout from Gee turned into a scream.
Their torches touched something that belonged inside a body. Her hand clawed, fingers trying to withdraw from the mess like independent creatures, and they gathered a coil of something wet and meaty against her palm. It steamed as the rain hit it.
Jenn drew in a breath to scream, smelling the insides, feeling them slick and warm against her hand, and she knew what was beneath her, under her hand and smeared across her left hip and thigh. It was Aaron.
Gee grabbed her by the arm and pulled, dragging her back and away from the mess. It caught on her clothing.
Jenn’s scream emerged, but it was silent. It burned at her throat as if she were exhaling fire.
She stared at the mess around her, trying to see something she recognised and hoping she would not. There was nothing. It was insides turned out, and though she had hugged and loved this body, she should have never known these parts.
“We’ve got to get the fuck away!” Gee hissed into her ear, leaning down as he tried to haul her upright. “Whatever did this—”
It came out of the darkness, leaping across the bloody mess with teeth bared, limbs splayed, blood around its mouth.
Gee fell across Jenn, crushing her back to the ground as he slammed his hand forward into the creature’s gaping maw. It gagged and growled, and Jenn struggled to squirm out from beneath him. She had to help.
Then she was up and running and Gee was with her, his now shortened left arm held out in front as he examined the damage. His long-sleeved running top was tattered, and the stump of his arm just beneath the elbow was scratched and dribbling blood. He barked something that might have been a laugh.
Jenn slapped at her left leg as they ran, feeling slick, sticky parts attached to her that came from the man she loved. She puked as she kept moving forward. Wiping her mouth with her sleeve, she didn’t let it slow her down.
Soon the rain lessened to a fine drizzle, and their lights diffused further ahead and around them. With each breath, Jenn expected to be attacked. She jumped at every shadow that moved, strained to hear any strange noises. They ran without talking, and she followed Gee across the rough landscape, not caring where they were heading. They were back in the forest now, and the air smelled of rain.
Gee led them up a small slope and they climbed a low bluff, scrambling up the uneven rock face without pause. Adrenalin drove them. On top of the rock they rested at last, just as the cloud cover parted and low moonlight shone through.
Jenn started to shiver. She was hot, not cold. As soon as a gentle breeze hit her sweat-soaked clothing the shakes set in, but it was more than temperature. She recognised the signs of shock. Her teeth chattered, jaw vibrated, and Gee pulled her in close, sharing his body warmth.
“Gee, he was… he was…”
“I know,” he said. “But we’re alive, Jenn. We’ve got to get back to your dad and the others.”
“Where? We have no idea where they are.”
“We’re on the ridge between canyons. We’ll go up, along the high ground, see if we can meet them or see signs of them.”
“But if that thing got them… if there was more than one…”
She could feel blood and other fluids drying to a stiff mess on her hands. She could smell parts of Aaron on her. The stench of a butcher’s shop. She curled herself in against Gee, and they sat together in the moonlight, knowing there was little defence against anything that came at them out of the shadows.
A little while later, a splash of morning colours seeped across the eastern horizon. Mostly red.
24
Cease and desist, they told me. So I moved on, cos they don’t like my podcast, don’t like my roving net broadcasting. And why? Cos I’m telling the truth. I have contacts, I’ve seen things, I know things. The Zeds murder people. Not in every Zone, but most. And what confuses me the most is… why this is so difficult to believe?
@PottyBonkkers
“What the fuck would have done this?” Cove said. “Animals? Really?”
“I thought Gee put the fire out,” Selina said.
“I thought so too,” Dylan said.
After climbing a slope they were up on the ridge, above the small cave where they’d spent a couple of hours of that long night. Down below the camp fire raged again, and they could smell the toxic tang of artificial material on fire. Dylan agreed that none of them should go back to the camp, but Cove edged out far enough to see. Sleeping bags were blazing, rucksacks popping and spitting as gels and water containers burst inside. The smoke was rank, permeating the rain and stinging their nostrils.
Dylan’s map was in his rucksack. Lucy’s compass. Their water bladders, spare clothing and most of their food. Only Selina had shrugged on her pack before running, and carried the first aid bag on her belt, and her meagre supplies would not keep them going for long.
“No animal did that,” Selina said.
“But it’s an animal attacking us,” Lucy said. “Isn’t it? Just an animal.”
Dylan’s mind was adrift, and the more he tried grabbing hold of it, the more elusive it became. He could not concentrate on any one thing. Aaron ripped into the darkness, Jenn disappearing after him, Kat sick or dying somewhere out there, their camp attacked, those things with teeth and fur, bloody and raw. It was all too much.
“We’ve got to find Jenn and Gee and regroup,” Dylan said. “It might be more than animals out there.” The four of them huddled close, finding some comfort in each other. Dylan guessed they were all thinking the same thing—If it’s not just animals, then what or who is it?
Now was not the time for discussion. That would come. Now was the time for survival.
The rain had eased to a light mist, and off to the east they could see the fiery smear of dawn painting the horizon. Higher points of land were catching the early morning light. Behind them, the canyon was a dark scar in the landscape. Whatever haunted that place remained unseen.
“We need something to protect ourselves,” Cove said. “Then we carry on looking.” At the edge of a nearby stand of trees they searched for fallen sticks and branches they might be able to use. It was still too dark to move beneath the trees; anything could have been watching them from in there. A dawn chorus of birdsong filled the air, and it sounded dismissive and indifferent, a story that would continue every day whether they survived or not. It took five minutes to arm them all.
“It’s not much,” Lucy said, hefting her stick.
“Mine saved us back down in the canyon,” Cove said. He’d found a branch, easily two inches thick and two metres long. He’d have to use it as a staff or carry it in two hands, but it was heavy and solid.
Dylan rested his own stick over his shoulder. Its weight provided small comfort.
