Something Of A Kind (24 page)

 

As her breathing slowed, she said, “Sorry. I mean this in the least
grotesque way possible, but you scared the living crap out of me.”

He apologized, kissing her cheek before retracting the embrace.
Fingertips brushing the sparks on her skin, her eyes caught a flash of
motion. As they circled theplants on an unmarked hunter’s path in
investigation, a familiar screech ripped through the meadow. Aly
flinched, resisting
twisting
fear, enabling
curiosity. Gravitating
towards the sound, they stumbled into another clearing, the grass
low and pressed down like a footpath.

Adjusting the settlings and removing the cap, Aly had the
camera rolling. Along the horizon, a dark smudge moved throughout
the trees. In the distance, it looked like a large bird. Nearing the
animal, Aly discerned the arms gripping each branch as it propelled
itself across, suddenly dropping onto a black mass that ducked to the
ground.

Terrified and fascinated, she sprinted towards the creatures.
Though Noah yelled after her, she didn’t turn back, hoping whatever
it was wasn’t alerted by his voice. Closing in, she spotted something
peculiar about the trees. Halting, she allowed him to catch up. As he
considered her face with concern, Aly shuddered, rubbing the goosebumps peppering her arms. Realizing he expected an explanation,
she pointed ahead, speechless.

The forest doesn’t deforest itself.

Nausea twisted in her stomach. The cedar had capsized. Aly had
heard of it before, even seen it on the walls of the tunnel, but neither
could prepare her. The tree, at least a thousand pounds, had been
ripped from the ground, flipped so the top was stuffed in the hole
left by the tear. Her gaze followed the bark to the sky, roots splayed
out like branches. It was unnatural. As though her eyes couldn’t
register what she saw, she felt herself scrambling to rearrange the
image so it made sense.

Wait… where’d they go?

The air prickled with muted electricity. Noah snaked a tense arm
around her waist, starting to drag her back the way they came. Her
eyes left the alien marker, darting to the backdrop. Though the
distance between each varied, the trees were the same – inverted,
protruding from high points in the terrain. Amongst the greens and
yellows, each shadows seemed to darken. An unshakeable sense of
being watched overcame her. With each rustle, it intensified until her
lungs quivered in search of breath.

A whistling gasp pulled her attention to Noah. His skin, warm
and tan by nature, was ashen – as though it had been drained of
blood. Cold to the touch, his guiding movements begged for escape.
Anxiety bled from his presence, sending spikes of adrenaline into
her bloodstream. Heart racing, she gripped the arm that embraced
her. Petrified, he spoke quietly about the dangers of the cedars.
Whooping howls followed as they continued to stagger away from
the anomaly.

His hand folded into hers as
instinct demanded flight. An
obscure figure at their sides dashed in and out of view, enforcing
territory and igniting a burning desire to disappear. She instantly
regretted running
for
it – wishing she’d considered Rowley’s
warnings again, recognized she could be shoving Noah in harm’s
way, or at least sensed the obvious.

It seemed so harmless.

As they cut across the brush to the nearest path, a large beast
shadowed another as it retreated into the woods. The first was down
on its arms, legs bent under as though it was crouching. The other
was standing, bi-pedal, at full height.

It looked like something she would have seen on late-night
Discovery documentaries from countries below the equator, with
people like her father filming from the brush. A primate was strictly
unnatural against the wooded North American backdrop.

The thing was at least eight and a half feet tall, even with its
back was slumped. Long, disproportioned arms hung low at its
sides. With a cone-shaped head, the forehead protruded, separate
from the flat nose. Its black lips rolled back, baring yellow teeth
packed into pale gums. Its massive size radiated aggression and
strength, onyx eyes flashing.

Shivering, Aly froze in place. It was making a sound, but she
couldn’t quite hear it. Wedging himself between Aly and the animal,
Noah pulled on her hands. Unmoved, her feet seemed to fuse with
the earth.

When the creature didn’t respond, he wrapped his arms around
her, hauling her down the path until she ran at his side. Trying to
keep pace with his athletic gate, hand in hand, was grueling. Aly
didn’t dare let go, lest they get separated or one of them fall behind.

Crossing trail after trail, she struggled to avoid sticks and debris
from the forest
floor.
Noah propelled
her
forward, his grip
protective. He constantly looked over his shoulder, but she couldn’t.
Her lungs burned, her calves cramping. When it felt like an eternity
had befallen, the wood beast finally nowhere in sight, her fight-orflight response gave way to debilitating exhaustion. As though it was
unthreatened, it hadn’t followed.

Converging with a main route, Noah steered her though a hoard
of shrubs, onto a paved walkway.

 

Breathless, she offered, “Maybe… we’re out… of its territory.”

He nodded his head, gasping, leading her onto the porch of a
cabin. Waterlogged neon papers were stapled to wooden pillars
labeled the structure as the Quassitauck Campground Sign In. He let
her go for the first time since they’d seen it, summoning the strength
to bang on the door. A polite rasp turned into hammering blows
before weakening to feeble thumps.

She trembled, immobile as he moved from window to window,
peering in. He returned to the doors, testing the locks. Unwilling to
descend the porch, Noah backed against the railing, collapsing. Aly
dropped into his arms. Sitting between his legs, she drew her knees
to her chest, finding safety in his solidity.

She buried her face, taking shelter from the world. Warmed
against a throbbing heartbeat, she released a chilled shiver. Noah
pulled the sides of his jacket around her with an embrace. He
breathed
into her
hair,
gasps calming as she
offered hushed
apologies. He whispered that it was okay, they were safe, and if not,
he’d protect her.

Believing him, Aly closed her eyes to the woods.

 

CHAPTER 18 | NOAH

Noah stared into the shadows of the tree canopies. With ache
crawling up his spine, it felt like they had been hiding forever,
though he knew it couldn’t have been more than an hour. They were
both still alert, but his nerves had calmed enough to hear things
besides his own heartbeat. He could feel her shaking in his arms.
They didn’t speak, but Aly clutched his shirt like her life depended
on it.

On the land of humanized territory, he felt secure enough to try
to put her at ease. As an arm rose with the intent to brush her cheek,
he hissed, a gasp of pain sucked in through his teeth. Aly jumped as
he clutched his shoulder. Panicked, she blurted, “Did that thing hurt
you?”

Before he could protest, she was edging his jacket down his arm.
Pulling his free arm through one hole, she removed his tee shirt with
as much clearance to the wound as possible. Aside from peppered
scrapes and a torn sleeve, it wasn’t bleeding. The relief was
momentary.

A faint yellowed line stretched from his ribs to his neck, dark
violet pooling around the clavicle and across his shoulder. It was
visibly deformed, the ball of the joint protruding from a sickening
angle. It had swollen, generally red and puffy, edges ending in
discolored splotches. His neck tingled, the area beyond his elbow
numb, even his hand feeling like deadweight. In between, intense
pain seemed to shoot in every direction, dense and pounding in the
center. The sight was nauseating, triggering a painful shutter. Noah
stuttered, “I-I don’t know.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Aly whispered, eyes wide.
Though she sounded horrified, her voice held no accusation.
“I guess,” he paused, queasy and baffled, “I don’t think I
noticed.”

Miraculously, she managed to wedge more concern into her
expression. “Noah, your shoulder looks completely dislocated. You
don’t just not noticesomething like that.”

“I’ll be fine,” he sighed, aware his perplexed inflection was
unconvincing.

 

She offered an incredulous stare. “You need to see a doctor.”

He hesitated, evaluating the discomfort before nodding. Noah
watched as she stood, careful not to bump him. Aly stared at her
hands, as if seeing the camera for the first time, and muttered
something about a dying battery. Shoving it into the bag at her side,
she retrieved her phone, holding
it
into the
air for
a
signal.
Reluctant, she ran down the steps, looking back and forth for
persons unknown. Having
recovered nothing,
she disappeared
around the sides, possibly looking for a way into the building.

When she resurfaced, Noah said, “I think we’re only a little
ways down the road from my truck. We don’t have a hospital or
anything, but there’s a clinic in town. They can reset it, I guess. The
only thing I can think of is that wewere so freaked…”

With a loose arm around his waist, Aly helped him to the curb.
From there, she grabbed his keys and disappeared down the road. He
waited, eyes closed, until she drove his truck up.
“Yeah,” Aly agreed, “It must have been shock or something.”

~

Noah had offered various directions to the clinic. It wasn’t until
they reached one of the few four-ways in Ashland that he decided to
brave the main road, directly through town. Neither spoke under the
pressure of tension, but her silence never felt aggressive. He often
felt her blue eyes fleeting to the side, analyzing with concern.

The pain came and went, intense on both ends. Despite arduous
efforts to appear alert and otherwise unscathed, Noah found himself
distracted. He had difficulty concentrating on one thing or another.
Though indecipherable, his thoughts raced. Worst-case scenarios and
panic plagued his subconscious. He didn’t even want to know what
Aly would expect him to testify for or against over whatever that
thing was they saw – or worse, how Lee or Greg could prevent them
from ever seeing each other again, nonetheless be together.

Images erected beneath his eyelids every time he blinked
– of
Lee’s inevitable freak out, Sarah’s guilt trip, the repercussions of
disobeying the elders. The price of medical care was an entire other
issue, but he couldn’t bring himself to think about the damage done
to his arm. It pulsed, his discomforting getting worse with the wait,
but he felt detached.

As they passed Yazzie’s, Noah expected to see Lee
standing
outside with the look of death on his face. It was like the man had a
radar that specialized in always being in the wrong place at the
worst time. He was always over Noah’s shoulder, waiting for the
slightest antagonism for all hell to break loose.

The flashing attachment on the public safety officer’s Ford, he
didn’t anticipate. From what Noah could remember, there’d never
been so many locals mulling around the area. They looked on to a
scene he couldn’t see. With sobered expressions, they crossed their
arms as though it was ten degrees below zero.

Did he seriously call the police because I wasn’t home?

No, he realized, it would be because he wasn’t home and he was
with Aly. From the assembly though, it seemed like something more
serious than boy meets girl, boy takes girl hiking for wood beast,
boy shames family. There was a fear that Lee’s drinking once again
caught up to his heart. The thought that Mary-Agnes crippled from a
diabetes complication was sickening.

A faint hope flitted that his brothers were lost at sea, rather than
a gathering ready to humiliate him. With a glance across the docks,
he knew it wasn’t the case. Otherwise, there’d be a hoard of orange-
vested locals boasting the self-appointed titles of volunteer search
and rescue. The boat of a sea warden was nowhere in sight.

Noah hadn’t seen anything like it since he was ten, when Vega
Kelley-Young tried to hide Luke in her car to leave his stepfather.
Sam grabbed the stocky woman by her frizzy hair, dragging her
from the seat and into the road. When Luke jumped out, running to
his mother’s side, Sam yanked him to the ground by the shoulder.

The sight, especially as a kid watching from his yard, was
frightening. Noah had run into the street, asking his friend if he
wanted to come inside until the fighting was over or stay the night.
Sam hauled Luke into the car, pinned against the steering wheel,
slamming the door shut at the boy’s feet. When he stalked back, he
slapped Noah across the face, spewing profanity and making threats
over what he called ‘his damned property’. Already sprinting to
break it up, Lee decked Sam Young so hard he rolled under his car
after hitting the cement, as though he slipped on ice.

After
consoling Vega
and senselessly sending her home to
reconcile her marriage to an oppressor she believed needed for a
home and a paycheck, Lee did something Noah never saw again: he
asked his wife if she loved him. She offered a ‘yes-I-do-and-howcould-you-doubtit’ reply. Afterwards, Lee took Mary-Agnes in his
arms, burrowing into her chubby sides with the embrace, gave her a
loud kiss, and helped her toddle to the hallway, disappearing in the
bathroom.