Crow - The Awakening (25 page)

Migalo stood directly in Steven's path. He was familiar with this game. When hunting, he would often place himself in the path of the target. Normally the prey would stop, reverse course, and he would block their dopamine until they were nearly paralyzed as they tried to run away. Except, Steven wasn't slowing down to run away, but speeding up as he ran toward him, lifting his stick. Caught by surprise, Migalo blocked the strike as the boy sailed overhead into the canopy and he tripped and fell to the ground, completely taken off guard. Roots shot out of the ground and wrapped around his legs as his quarry sped away through the forest. Migalo's struggle became more desperate as more roots encircled his neck, pulled him to the ground, and tried to pull him into the soil below. He pulled out one of his knives and started hacking at the roots, to little avail. The constriction of the vines was cutting off his circulation and he was rapidly losing consciousness as more roots shot out and encircled him. Lohet was suddenly there, grabbing the roots and ripping them out by the handful. Migalo squirmed free and they both retreated back into the meadow. Migalo fell to his knees, trying to clear the cobwebs from his head.

"This is all wrong," Lohet said calmly, following Steven's progress through the forest with his eyes as Penipe stumbled out of the underbrush, obviously in pain and no longer as graceful as she normally was. The brush and trees no longer caressed her as she emerged through them, but seemed to try to grab and restrain her and she struggled past them and fell into the meadow with a cry of pain. Getting up, she limped over to Lohet and leaned against him gasping for air while he scanned the forest for his target. He put an arm around her and could tell she had fractured ribs and her fur was matted with blood. He focused briefly and Penipe sighed and fell limp as she felt her pain ease and racing heart calm. She looked up at him and he met her gaze. There was more than pain in her eyes, though. There was terror. Something dreadful had happened and she was shaking, unable to express herself to him. Lohet lowered her to the grass and found a strategic position to intercept Steven as the boy rapidly made his way through the canopy around the edge of the meadow. It was time to bring this to an end.

Laurence heard the conflict before he could see it. There were flashes of light illuminating the forest and explosive reports that were unlike any weapon's fire he had ever heard. He found a large boulder and crawled on it to get a better vantage point while still maintaining cover. He turned on the night scope on his rifle and scanned the forest in the direction of the activity until he saw a boy running on the ground. A bright flash of light momentarily blinded him and a second later a loud clap of thunder rolled across the forest. He aimed his scope up to see the top of a tree break and fall to the ground. Next to it someone floated in the air briefly, then shot up above the forest rapidly. She appeared to be a little girl and she was glowing brightly.

He blinked and scanned the ground again. Someone else was running behind the boy, a woman who was holding her ribs in pain. She looked different, however. Laurence realized her skin was covered in fine fur and remembered the drawings Steven had made of Asherah. He pointed his rifle at the boy who had lifted his staff up and looked like he was charging. Laurence looked a little ahead of the boy and saw a large man blocking the boy's path. He was a very furry man, more so than the woman, and Laurence could swear he had huge canines as he crouched, attempting to intercept the boy. The boy suddenly jumped, whacking the man with his staff as he grabbed a branch and disappeared up into the canopy. The man fell back and tried to get up to follow when what looked like vines erupted from the ground and started wrapping around him. Another man joined him who ripped the vines off and they both disappeared from view. He couldn't get a clear view of the other man, but he had ripped out the vines in great chunks, slinging vine and earth away as he extricated his friend from them.

Laurence's heart was pounding. Right in front of him were most certainly aliens and he was there to see them first hand. Not videos of them and not scorched carcasses. He tried to track the boy again. It was safe to assume that was Steven, and Laurence wasn't the only one hunting him. What did the aliens want with him? He apparently wasn't working for them and he obviously had something they wanted badly. Laurence chambered a round in the rifle and cocked the trigger. The aliens were not going to get away with his prize, and if he couldn't capture the boy himself, the most they'd get would be a cooling body.

As he scanned the forest again, looking for Steven, something blocked his view. He slowly took his eye away from the scope and found himself face to face with a massive gray wolf baring its teeth. Laurence's heart jumped. He wasn't new to predators and had had extensive training with them, but he had never faced one just inches away. He very slowly backed up, getting to his hands and knees and finally to his feet, making sure he focused his gaze on a spot on the ground just in front of the wolf. It followed him as he backed up. He kept the rifle between him and the wolf, but knew if he tried to aim and fire the wolf would be on him in an instant.

Instead, Laurence slowly backed up off the rock while reaching for his belt pack and pulled out a can of pepper spray. Very slowly he aimed the spray from his hip and then suddenly let off a volley into the face of the wolf. With a loud yelp the wolf turned and started pawing at its face. Laurence took aim with the rifle and was about to shoot when he saw several more wolves stepping up over the rock. It was then that he decided it was time to vacate the forest and take up the hunt for Steven another day.

As he shouldered his rifle, Laurence grabbed a flash-bang grenade and lobbed it at the wolves and then took off running as fast as he could. The pop of the grenade and the sudden flash caused several yelps but he knew he'd only bought himself a few moments. He hoped desperately that he could get far enough away that they would divert their attention on easier prey, like the wounded lady.

Steven nearly tripped as he ran as fast as he could. The ground was going by faster than his feet could catch up. He considered going into the meadow and crossing to the other side, but his nightmare kept coming to mind. That was where he was trapped in every single nightmare. So he skirted around the meadow instead, sticking to the denser forest. The trees and underbrush seemed to almost help him along as he ran and his path was always clear as he barreled through even the densest of underbrush.

Then he saw it - a massive black figure right in front of him, one that he had seen many times before in his nightmares. The wolf monster of his dreams stood in his way, fangs bared and arms spread out wide, ready to pounce on him. Fear gripped him as the dreams came back to him. Then he recalled his therapy sessions. Steven remembered the advice James gave him, to confront his dreams rather than run from them as a method of dominating his nightmares. Gritting his teeth in determination and pushing his fear aside, Steven started running toward the monster as fast as possible, raising his staff and yelling as loud as he could. Just as he got to the monster and swung hard, a branch grabbed him by the arm and lifted him up into the canopy. He felt the staff hit flesh and heard a surprised yelp. Satisfied that he had hit his mark, he continued in the canopy, swinging and climbing from tree to tree as he rapidly circled the meadow.

He suddenly came to the end of the canopy and had to jump to the ground below, continuing his full out sprint, sure his pursuers were close. After running for a bit he looked back. Steven didn't see any sign of the pursuers and his senses were too discombobulated to feel them out in the forest, so he decided to take a chance and cross the meadow from that point. The snag rose up high into the air like a skeletal spire and Steven could see the dark line of trees on the other side of the meadow. The slight mist was starting to turn into a sprinkle as another line of clouds moved in. The moon remained visible, however and he didn't see anything moving out there.

As he ran out into the grass, he targeted the dark line of trees on the other side as a line of safety beckoning him to run faster. He was starting to feel elated as the ground passed by underneath rapidly, when suddenly a vampire seemed to materialize like the mist right in front of him, just like in the dreams. The man's face was a brilliantly reflective white, like the whitest marble. His hands were the same bleached color that almost glowed in the moonlight, and he was pointing toward Steven, reaching for him. Steven remembered again the suggestion to attack his dreams, but terror filled him to his toes and he slid to a stop, digging his feet in and kicking up clods of sod and mulch as he reversed course. Turning, he saw the wolfman running toward him, growling loudly and flashing his canines in anger. This couldn't be happening now. Steven's legs suddenly felt like chunks of lead as his nightmare came back to him in full force and he desperately tried to get away.

A buzzing sound explosively filled the air, drowning out everything, even the rush of blood in Steven's ears. Suddenly Steven's head throbbed painfully and he was slammed to the ground, not by the creatures chasing him but by the heaving ground itself. Steven heard someone yelling for him, crying out in pain. He looked around, but couldn't see anyone else as he tried to right himself and continue to flee. Both of the monsters were likewise thrown to the ground and he could see them struggling to regain their footing. He locked eyes with the wolfman for a second before the ground knocked him down again. Steven tried to scramble up as he saw an opportunity to escape, but fell over as the ground felt more like a raging sea than solid earth.

Everywhere he touched started smoking and smoldering, and an acrid haze filled the air around him as the rain in the air turned to steam. Steven's head filled with white hot pain and the ground rocked with enormous explosive swells that spread out, creating massive rifts in the soil. Around him, trees on the edge of the clearing waved wildly as if they were grass in a strong storm. The air of the meadow itself seemed to explode into super-heated cyclonic energy, nearly blowing Steven over and incinerating the grass and dust it picked up into massive showers of sparks.

The vampire yelled something to the wolfman and they both retreated, both of them singed from the firestorm that started to rage around them as the ground continued to roil. Steven writhed on the ground in agony and confusion as his whole world threatened to turn upside down. The Earth itself seemed to cry out in torment and an immense groan emanated from everything solid, jarring his teeth and making his head hurt even more. He heard his own scream of pain before he realized he was the one screaming and all he could do was curl up in a fetal position, ride the angry ground, and get whipped violently by the burning hot air. A bear braved the sparks and fire, ran up to Steven, and grabbed him by the nape of the neck. It dragged him over to the snag and sat down, curling around him while the storm of earth and air raged around them.

Steven could hear a voice wailing above the raging wind. Asherah? It was definitely her and she was crying out in extreme anguish and fear. Her voice seemed to come from deep within him but at the same time from all around. His heart broke again for her and he was reduced to uncontrollable sobs as immeasurable sorrow consumed him. Steven reached out and embraced the bear, seeking any semblance of stability and comfort as the mountains groaned loudly around him, and Asherah cried loudly from within him, before he finally lost consciousness.

Laurence sprinted quickly through the forest, arms up to protect his face from the barrage of branches and shrubs as he raced by. He could hear the wolves behind and to either side of him, flanking and attempting to herd him. He was nearly out of flash-bangs, but tossed a couple more on either side of him as he jumped down into a ravine and splashed across to the other side. As he scrambled up the bank and started running again he heard the low reports and saw blinding flashes as the explosives detonated. Each time it would distract the predators, but it didn't seem to keep them off his trail for long. He had never seen predators so determined before that continued the chase after just one of these flash-bang devices were set off, and yet with this pack of wolves he's set off nearly half a dozen and they still remain on stubbornly his tail.

He grabbed his assault rifle and let off a volley behind him as he ran. The flash and sound suppressor made it little more than a token act however, and the pack of wolves persisted, easily jumping over the ravine as they chased the fleeing human. Laurence looked up in the trees and considered climbing them, but after what he had just seen, he was hesitant to trust these trees. Something was dreadfully wrong with these woods.

As he dodged and weaved through the undergrowth, sometimes barreling straight through, the ground below him heaved, tossing him and his pursuers into the air then slamming them to the ground. For a little while the ground felt like he was laying on a turbulent ocean with massive swells rolling beneath him. The trees overhead creaked loudly as they complained, then vibrated rapidly as sudden sideways shudders shook them along with him. Laurence had been in earthquakes before but noted gratefully that the wolves were momentarily discombobulated, hugging the ground and seeking shelter under the bushes. The tremors lasted for many long minutes, making it hard for him to keep his footing as he got to his feet and tried to get ahead of the wolves. Before the ground finished shaking he was well ahead of his pursuers. His head start didn't last for long, however, as the wolves took up the chase again.

Something nipped at his heel and he swung the butt of the rifle down as he ran, hitting a massive head right in the snout. The wolf yelped and fell back a little but didn't give up. Laurence was almost out of the woods. It dawned on him that he would have to stop to get into his car and that little delay could be enough time for them to attack. He had four more flash-bang devices left in his bag. Timing was everything. He tossed another two on either side of him as he ran and got the last two ready. The bangs slowed the wolves down like they usually did, and they were just starting to catch up again when Lawrence reached the edge of the forest.