Voracious (21 page)

Coming out of his daze, the creature snapped his head to the road and then turned back to her, his now-human hands gripping her shoulders. She twisted beneath him, trying to get out. A bright flash lit up the sky, followed by a deafening explosion. A concussive blast knocked him off her. She threw her hands up over her head as a rain of debris came down: bits of colored lenses, seat springs, a spark plug. When it stopped, she peered out. The creature lay a few feet away, groaning. Blood dripped from a head wound. Quiet crackling followed the cacophony. She looked back at the car. Flames shot from it, alighting on more of the meadow. The summer had been hot and dry, and the grass went up amazingly fast.

For a second she was five again, watching immobilized as a golden fire roared toward her. She had been on a picnic with her family in the woods, and a hot piece of metal had fallen from the exhaust pipe of their car and set the woods on fire. Her father had jumped up, grabbed a metal rake out of the car, and tried to control the flames by raking leaves and pine needles away, exposing earth. She’d stared on in horror, the flames dancing closer and closer while her father screamed at her to get back. She had, while her mother raced forward to stamp at flames. They’d put it out then. Everything had been okay.

But now flames crawled and spat, drawing ever closer. She got to her feet. The entire expanse of the meadow was ablaze, reaching from one granite cliff clear across to the other.

Blocked from the road, her only choice was to run farther into the meadow. The creature still lay injured, groaning, trying to rise. She ran a little way before stopping in front of a thick branch. If she hit him now, while he was down, maybe she could knock him unconscious. Since she couldn’t kill him, it was her best bet. Quickly she ran to the branch and picked it up. It was heavier than she expected, but she carried it to where the creature lay and then hefted it over her head. He rolled over on his back, and his eyes went wide when her saw her standing over him. She brought the branch down hard, aiming for his head. Reflexively he brought his arm up to shield himself, and the branch connected with a sickening smack. The creature howled in pain, and she raised the branch again for a second blow. She struck violently as he tried to roll away. The end of the wood crashed down on the back of his head.

He went limp.

She dropped the branch and ran.

The meadow stretched on a little farther, and she bounded over rocks and logs, her dark, flickering shadow from the firelight making progress difficult.

And then, with a horror, she saw a granite wall loom up before her.

She was trapped. The two cliffs on both sides met here at a tremendous granite outcropping that curled around, meeting the road at both of its ends. She was trapped in a half moon of tall grass and wildfire. Desperately she tried to climb up the wall. It was sheer—no handholds or footholds—and it leaned out toward her, so she couldn’t even leap up and cling to the sheer rock itself. She groped along the cold stone wall, smoke reaching her and forcing her to cough. Her eyes teared, blurring her vision. With frantic hands, she felt the rough surface for any nook and cranny, and each time she found purchase she tried to raise herself up, only to fall to the ground again.

It was no use. She couldn’t climb it.

Hands bleeding and fingernails torn, she turned to face the fire.

BEFORE
her, fire raced forward, devouring grass and dead-fall in its wake.

Madeline ran along the granite perimeter, trying to find a break. Acrid smoke filled her lungs. It was no use. The cliff was uncompromising, smooth, tall, and hopeless. Still the fire advanced. She was trapped.

She looked to where she’d clubbed the creature and saw that fire had already consumed that part of the meadow. She only had maybe two minutes before it would sweep over where she stood and then burn itself out against the cliff face.

She leapt at the wall, clawed it, tried to run up it, grab it. Nothing. The angle at which it leaned in toward her made it impossibly steep. She fell flat on her back. It was too late. The fire was coming.

Scorching smoke seared her lungs, and she couldn’t get a breath. She spun all the way around, not seeing a single escape route. Panting, she stood there, ready to bolt in any direction, not knowing where to go, her mind reeling and eyes streaming.

And then she heard her father’s words, clear and loud, as if he were standing right next to her, just like he was that day when she was five.

“If you’re caught in a wildfire, there are three things you can do. Look for a natural firebreak, like a ridge of rocks or water, and get on the other side of it.”

She looked at the unforgiving granite cliff and bit her lip.

“If fire is on both sides of you, submerge yourself completely underwater, like in a river or creek, while the fire passes overhead.”

No water in sight.

“If there is no water or climbable fire break—”

Madeline gulped for air.

“Bury yourself.”

Immediately she stripped off her coat and laid it flat on the ground, then dug into the ground with her bare hands, dumping handfuls of dirt onto the coat. The lack of summer rains made the soil loose and easy to dig into. She dug handful after handful, using her fingers like scoops.

But it wasn’t enough. The fire crept closer, and the space she’d dug wasn’t nearly big enough to cover her. Nearby lay a large, flat piece of sturdy bark. Grabbing it and using it as a shovel, she piled more and more dirt on the coat. Then it suddenly hit her that the coat was made of synthetic material. If the fire swept over her, the heat would melt the coat right into her flesh. She couldn’t use it. She stripped off her long-sleeved cotton shirt, poured the dirt from the jacket onto it, and then flung the jacket away. With the shirt covered, she piled the dirt up next to the hole itself. Desperately she dug faster, sweat dripping off her body and stinging her tearing eyes. Her lungs felt on fire, mucus streaming from her nose.

When the hole was deep enough to partly cover her, she lay down in it and scooped the dirt over her legs. Then as the fire leapt and devoured leaves, closing in on her, she turned on her belly and pulled the dirt-covered shirt up over her torso and head. Quickly she cupped her hand over her mouth. The instant the fire swept over her, she knew. It sucked the oxygen right out of her little hiding hole. Heat swarmed over her body, and the unbreathable air under the shirt grew searingly hot. She cupped her hand tighter around her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut. The heat was so intense that she imagined her shirt had caught on fire and would soon burn into her back, setting her jeans and skin on fire. Desperately she clung to thoughts of her father and his words.
“Cup your hand. Try to keep the air cool in there. Wildfires pass quickly. Just keep calm. Keep calm.”
She repeated the mantra in her head over and over as the heat became intolerable.
Keep the air cool?
she wondered.
There
was
no air.
Sweat trickled over her back and dripped from her chest. Had the fire passed over yet? How long had she been lying there? She was dying for a breath. Panic set in as the air became hotter. Involuntarily her lungs gulped for air, but found none. How would she know when the fire had passed? Wait for the heat to dissipate? For the oxygen to return? The air to become cooler? She couldn’t remember.

The heat remained intense. But suddenly, a flood of cool air filled her hiding hole. She gulped the air in, her lungs grateful and her head pounding. Did this mean the fire had passed? Why was the heat still so intense? Cool air continued to seep into her. The fire must have passed.

But then the heat turned from intense to painful. Crying out, Madeline involuntarily threw the shirt off herself. Rolling over, she saw that it had caught on fire, igniting the waistband of her jeans, too. Panicking, she rolled in her little hollow, extinguishing the flames. Beyond, the fire had moved on, feasting on the grass at the cliff’s edge. Farther out, all the way to the road, the meadow lay blackened and smoldering. Getting to her feet, she checked herself over for flames again, paranoid they were licking up the back of her jeans. Heat burned through her soles, and she realized they were melting quickly. She stamped the flames out on her shirt, which lay a few feet away. Picking it up, she saw that half of it was unsalvageable. One sleeve and part of the front were completely burned, the stench of singed cotton intermingling with the smoke and smell of burnt grass.

The jacket wasn’t so lucky. It had completely melted, the sleeves now stuck together. She grabbed it and looked toward the road. To her utter relief, her VW was still there, the road having acted as a firebreak. It hadn’t exploded. There it was, covered with twisted metallic debris and charred pieces of plastic from the ranger’s car, but it was still intact. Grabbing her shirt by the unburned sleeve, she ran across the blackened meadow. When she reached her car, the melted soles of her shoes slid on the asphalt.

Mucus rattled in her lungs, and then a fit of coughing overtook her. Leaning over, she hacked and hacked, spitting out vile, black strings of phlegm.

Placing her hands on the hood of her car, she burst into a fit of hysterical laughter that ended in another coughing fit. She clutched her car, pressed her face against it, feeling the cold, friendly, familiar metal against her skin.

Ahead on the road, Steve’s vehicle sat burning and smoldering, huge plumes of black smoke spiraling into the sky. The stench of charred plastic stung her dripping nose and eyes. The last rollicking flames in the meadow demanded her attention. What of the creature? She scanned the smoking meadow. A few lumps broke its evenness, but they were old tree trunks and stumps. She didn’t see the creature’s charred remains.

A flash of hopelessness overtook her as she thought of the sheer undefeatable power of an animal that couldn’t even be killed by fire. The sense of her own mortality, so recently tested, shook her. And this creature, this
thing
, had no such concerns. It just traveled from country to country, from year to year, feeding on whomever it chose with no consequences.

And what of Steve? She remembered Noah telling her it could look like anyone it had killed. He’d been kind to her, and she had cost him his life. She thought of Steve’s sister in Missoula, and how she’d never get a visit from her brother again.

A sudden anger swelled up within as she realized the unfairness, the advantage this creature had over all its victims, past and future. They had no chance. It had been killing for at least two hundred years, and no one had stopped it yet.

Yet.

She had the ability to know where people were going before they were there, to know their motives, their thoughts. So far Noah had only been able to follow along in the aftermath of the creature’s killings, racing from country to country but always too late. He needed an advantage if he was going to catch the beast, needed to anticipate the creature’s next move.

She could be that advantage … touch things the creature had recently touched, know where it was going, whom it had chosen as its next victim. She knew then what she had to do. She had to go back.

She had to help Noah stop it.

MADELINE
sat in her car, coughing black-lined mucus out of her lungs. She rolled down the window and spat, then leaned her head against the headrest. Its familiarity was comforting, like an old friend cradling her head. For a moment she closed her burning eyes and exhaled deeply.

Immediately an image of the creature, half-burned and desperate, clawing at her window snapped her eyes open. Furtively she glanced out all the windows of the car, the sides, the back. The fire was now smoldering out at the far edges of the meadow, and the air was filled with thick, acrid smoke that drifted lazily with the faint breeze.

Though it was partially burned, she put her shirt back on and shivered in the night air.

The full moon, now risen, set the smoke aglow, giving the eerie impression of a gathering of spirits, floating and ethereal, mingling and drifting by each other, intent on taking over the world of the living.

Beyond the meadow rose the impassive granite cliff, disappearing into the darkness. On the other side of the road lay forest, dense and dark. Madeline reached down and closed her hand around the keys in the ignition. The car sprang to life. She pulled out on the road and did a U-turn. She had only driven a few feet when she saw movement in the back of her car.

Slamming on the brakes, she threw open the car door and leapt out, then ran to the back of the car to peer into the backseat and hatchback. The backseat was empty, but she had a tarp in the hatchback, and beneath it lay a large lump.

She staggered back, not sure what to do, and then remembered. It was an extra spare tire. She’d bought one before she drove up to the mountains. Once she’d been stranded on a remote road with a flat tire and a flat spare, and for this trip she’d brought along an extra.

Even still, for several minutes she started at it intently, waiting for it to twitch or breathe. No movement occurred. Gingerly she approached the car and removed her keys from the ignition. Crept around to the back of the car. Inserted the key in the trunk lock. Pressed the button. Raised the hatchback. Again she stared at it for several minutes. When it still didn’t move, she ripped the tarp away. The spare tire lay beneath, along with jumper cables and an oil funnel.

The wind from the open window must have ruffled the tarp. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d imagined things in the back of her car. The way the glass of the hatchback slanted, when streetlights played over it, often gave the illusion of something rushing forward from the backseat.

Madeline lowered the tarp over the tire. Mucus rattled in her lungs, and she coughed for several long minutes until her throat was sore. Leaning over, she spat up long strings of black, ropy phlegm. She wiped her mouth on her burned sleeve and looked around.

All of a sudden the road seemed very empty, the shadows deeper, each tiny sound louder. She glanced off the road into the darkened forest, then back to the asphalt itself, scanning up and down the desolate highway. The only sound was the idling engine, huge and cacophonous in the quiet.