The Shadowkiller (40 page)

A
fter half an hour of inching down the cliff, Ty and Mac reached what appeared to be an impasse. The slope actually got steeper and now they reached the top of a rampart that was going to require either ropes or wings to continue down. Ty heard Mac's anguished grunts as each little bump and slide produced breathtaking pain. Ty surveyed the drop and knew he courted serious injury even without the impossible burden of a wounded comrade. He measured the slope above and dismissed returning to the ridge. Lying on their backs, they clung to the rocks, trying to keep gravity from pulling them any farther.

Mac saw the same thing Ty did. “We're stuck.”

“I'm going ahead,” Ty said.

“Okay, then I can do it,” said Mac, his desperation palpable. “I've got to.”

“Look, you're hurt, you can't walk. This section is a very tough climb down even in the best of conditions. You stay. It won't come back.”

“I'm not taking that chance,” Mac said. He saw what lay below and knew he wouldn't make it, but he wasn't going to stay on the mountain, a vulnerable morsel waiting for that thing to come down and get him.

Ty tried a different tack. “What if it's circling around? It's certainly smart enough to figure that out. What if we get to the bottom and it's waiting for us?”

“Then I'll distract it and you'll run,” Mac said wryly.

Ty put his hand on Mac's chest. “Stay here, I'll be back in a few hours with a chopper.”

Before Mac could object, Ty went over the edge, sliding as best he could. Mac's pain was coming on strong, now that he was past that first half hour, the golden time when the body in shock doesn't let on how much damage there is. He watched Ty sliding away, and the sudden mental image of that thing above them overcame his nauseating hurt.

Gingerly pushing off, Mac began a controlled slide to the edge of the precipice, then went over. For the first ten feet he was fine but then he started rolling sideways. He tried to compensate, his shattered leg firing beams of pain into his brain, giving him instant tunnel vision. Then he lost control and began tumbling.

He flew by Ty, almost taking him with him, then continued down, his arms flailing in vain to find a purchase. Ty was sliding but had some semblance of control, despite the rocks shredding the seat of his pants. He braked and watched helplessly as his comrade brutally caromed off all the obstacles in his path, making his descent the fast and hard way.

When Mac disappeared over a lip, the crackle of loose rock below indicated he was still plunging, so Ty didn't have much hope for him. He sadly resolved to locate the body when he got to the bottom and return with a crew to fetch it. He closed his eyes and said a prayer for Mac—whatever was left of him.

The light in the old one went out just before he caught him, and that frustrated him. He angrily tore the body to pieces, throwing the limbs and torso into the forest. Then he thought of the other two, climbing down away from him, and his rage flared.

They would go to the water. He knew where their black trail was, the one which they probably traveled to get here. It was far from the river. He thought of a route that would put him between them and their hardshell.

He wanted to kill the two, particularly the hating one, the one who did not fear him. He moved away quickly. He would find that small twoleg and make him feel fear.

When Ty eventually slid down and reached Mac, he found the detective's body wedged against a large outcropping three hundred feet above the river's rocky shore. Ty knew he was dead. Savaged by the hillside, Mac's face was an almost unrecognizable pulp. His right eye was smashed shut, his nose was broken, and his face had numerous cuts and scrapes. The compound leg fracture had escalated, the bloody bone spear now poking several inches out of the hole in his pants, and one of his arms had been twisted impossibly. That's why Ty was shocked to find a weak pulse.

Not giving Mac much more than an hour or two to live, Ty had no choice but to somehow get him out. Getting a grip on Mac's coat, he pulled his limp form off the rock shelf and plotted his path as he went. Ty saw that the final obstruction between them and the river a hundred yards below was another outcropping, seeming to offer no avenues around its jagged projections. As they gingerly descended, he desperately looked for a course around it.

Pulling and sliding the deadweight of his companion, Ty managed to move around the rock. Twenty minutes later—and more than an hour after their initial plunge—Ty's feet hit flat ground. Shouldering Mac in a fireman's carry, he set off toward what he hoped was salvation.

If he moved across the open ground during the light time, he knew that other small two-legs might see him, but right now stealth was unimportant. Revenge was.

He knew where the river flowed and headed toward the place where the black trail and the water met. He was certain that was where the two were going.

The red had stopped flowing but the sting of the thunder was in his mind. His hatred grew as he raced over the terrain, moving as fast as a hardshell on the black trail. When he found them, they would suffer.

Ty staggered with Mac's one hundred eighty-some pounds on his back for nearly a mile down the rocky river bank until it narrowed into a small, bankless gorge. He knew there was only one way through and that was the water. The river was swollen with snow runoff. Ty put a hand in to test the temperature. Ice water. He thought of the least lucky of the passengers on the Titanic and gave himself maybe fifteen minutes in the river before he would be too cold to continue. At that point they'd both drown.

Ty set Mac down and reconnoitered, determining that the gorge opened into a wide gravel bar after another fifty yards or so. After wolfing a power bar and slugging a few gulps of water, Ty hefted Mac and waded in. When the frigid water poured into his shoes, it jolted his eyes wider. When it hit waist level, it took his breath away. He managed to hug the shallow shore for a while, but then the gorge steepened and his footing began to go deeper and deeper, until he was chest deep in the freezing water. The only positive was that Mac's limp mass now felt more manageable because he was partly floating.

In less than two minutes Ty couldn't feel his feet anymore. If he slipped on slime-covered rocks, Mac would go under and he himself would drown as well trying to save him. This thought panicked him but he steadied himself, putting that ugly vision out of his mind. He hung on, setting his mind on one step at a time—just as with quitting drinking or pills.

Suddenly they plunged underwater, betrayed by a loose rock.

Ty scrambled to save his unconscious cargo while struggling to get his own head above water. The lazy current grabbed them and twisted Mac out of his hands. Fully submerged, Ty fought back, trying to find Mac but losing him, digging his numb feet and legs into what seemed like solid bottom. In a moment Ty's head broke the surface and he gasped for air, fighting to reach Mac, who was floating away, face down.

He lunged for Mac's limp arm, and his fingertips grasped an area of fabric the size of a postage stamp. Tweaking hard, he moved Mac a few inches closer. Then he grabbed for a firmer hold and flipped Mac over, getting his face out of the water.

A very long five minutes later they reached the other side of the rock and Ty dragged them out of the water. They were soaked and cold; incipient hypothermia started a new clock of doom ticking. Ty laid Mac down for a moment to gather his strength. The moment their body contact was unlinked, he felt the rush of cold on his back and shoulders and started to shiver. He took out his cell phone, hoping the water hadn't done it in and that he was within range. Amazingly it was still functioning, but still no signal. Packing Mac onto his back, he set out again, this time feeling like he would run out of energy very quickly, his body heat dramatically more depleted than just a moment before.

For the next fifteen minutes, Ty reached deep inside and hauled his burden, stopping more and more often as his strength waned, but spurred on by a creeping anxiety. He imagined it coming out of the bushes at every bend, and his emotions played tricks on him. Every wind-rustled leaf was the harbinger of their deaths, every thicket veiled a giant subhuman assassin.

After a seeming eternity Ty spotted a small bridge a few hundred yards away. At exactly that same moment he felt something behind him, an eerie sensation that crawled down his back. Afraid to turn but knowing he had to, Ty wheeled far enough around to get a view of the forest and hillside above. The naked ridge a half mile above was where they had had their encounter. They had taken the most direct route right down the steep face, but the ridgeline and slope to his right could also deliver you to their current location if you were willing to go the extra distance. It was tough terrain but he knew the thing would have no trouble traversing it.

That was when he glimpsed a dark streak passing through a small clearing, heading down toward them. He was astonished how fast it was. Despite the soaking wet weight on his shoulders, Ty was newly motivated, widening his steps, heading for the bridge, its road their only hope. During the next few moments Ty visualized the huge strides the thing was making as it descended. He focused on his goal, trying not to think that it might be upon them before they even reached the bridge.

He had once wondered what it did to its victims but had put the thought out of his mind. Now that particular horror bloomed in his imagination with scenarios of death most foul. Then rage pushed his fear aside, as once again he was running for his life and one of these things was the cause. If he could have killed it with his bare hands, he would have. He thought of Mac's big pistol and how he would happily give his entire fortune for it right now.

Less than twenty yards to the bridge he looked back. Nothing.

He estimated the river to be a hundred feet wide but knew that thing wouldn't even break stride, taking it like a ditch. He reached the bank supporting the bridge and climbed it, using every bit of his strength. He hadn't checked Mac lately and wasn't even sure he was still alive.

Ty felt the thing again, behind them, coming…somewhere…

Reaching the cracked asphalt roadbed, Ty felt his heart sink as he saw it for what it really was, just a lonely road miles from anything. It probably didn't see a car a day. He looked several hundred yards down the river, and his knees nearly buckled as the creature blew out of the trees and crossed the river in a few huge splashes. It saw them and moved like a freight train. Ty knew they were dead men. He was completely exhausted and couldn't move another yard.

And then Ty learned what a miracle looks like. It came in the form of a rusted '71 GMC pickup, sporting a rifle rack laden with fishing rods and driven by a grizzled old angel named Roland Simms. Roland was scouting for a good piece of white water to haul out some rainbows for Christmas and instead found two guys on a bridge, one carrying the other, something he hadn't seen since he was an eighteen-year-old kid on Guadalcanal.

Ty waved, trying to look distressed but not hysterical.

Simms pulled up, unequivocally confirming to Ty the existence of God.

“Jumpin' Jehoshaphat, what happened to you fellas?” asked Roland.

“He's badly hurt. Had a fall hiking, need to get him to the hospital,” Ty said, assuming the sale by laying Mac onto the truck bed. Simms was surprised by the way that Ty took over and hesitated becoming a taxi. “Well, I guess I could go call—”

“Sir, the man's hurt. I'll pay whatever you want, but we need to go. Now.”

Ty opened the passenger door, and newspapers, a smelly creel, a few crushed Burger King bags, and used Styrofoam cups cascaded from the seat as he slid into Simms's old truck.

“I'm Ty Greenwood, this is Mac Schneider. He's a Snohomish Sheriff's detective.”

Ty knew if he told the guy what was closing on them, the old man would make them leave or, maybe worse, stop to look.

As Simms dutifully—and methodically—put the truck in reverse, Ty glanced behind, down the bank, saw a flash of movement below, and guessed they had less than ten seconds. Simms got the truck moving and gave it a little gas—not enough—and they idled slowly away.