They were moving deeper into the land beyond the border. Glenn let her head fall back and peered up into the sky, hoping to catch sight of stars that would give her a better estimate of how far they had come, but they were moving too fast and the forest was too thick.
“Where are you taking us? My friend needs a hospital. We have to go back!”
The creature picked up speed again and leapt into the air with a grunt, flying over a crack in the earth that had to be ten or twenty feet across. Glenn shut her eyes as the earth came rushing up to meet them, the cold wind tearing through her hair. They hit the ground with a jolt and then were off again without a pause, speeding through woods more wild and overgrown than any Glenn had ever seen.
Glenn didn’t know how long they ran, but when they finally
stopped, the creature set her down on one side of a long scar in the ground, and itself and Kevin on the other. Glenn could hear water running between them.
Glenn sat in a patch of moonlight, but the opposite shore was shaded by overhanging trees and was too dark for Glenn to see anything more than the creature’s immense shadow hunched over Kevin’s body like an animal preparing to feed. It leaned forward until it was only inches from Kevin’s side and sniffed at the wound.
“What are you doing?” Glenn asked.
It turned to scan the woods around them. What is it looking for?
“We have to go back. Listen to me. We — ” But before Glenn
could finish, it was gone, crashing through the undergrowth. What was it? Glenn wondered. And how could something so big move so fast?
Glenn sat frozen. Soon the noise of its movement faded, leaving only the sound of water flowing over rocks and Kevin’s slight breathing.
Glenn listened for any other movement in the trees. Nothing. She braced her hands on the slimy rock beneath her and got up into a low crouch, looking down at an undulating black streak of water. The thermals in her clothes kept her warm enough, but she wasn’t sure she’d survive a dip in the icy water. Kevin lay across from her, his chest barely moving. Glenn extended one slippered foot out in front of her and across the space between the shores. Once she was safely on the other side, she dropped down by Kevin’s side and lifted his head into her lap.
“Kevin?”
His skin was cold and damp. His clothes were cold too — his thermals really weren’t working. Glenn lifted him up and stretched her arms across his chest, pressing her body into his, trying to share her warmth. She wiped the cold sweat from his cheek. As she did, the red jewel of the bracelet glinted.
Why didn’t I give it to Sturges? Glenn thought bitterly. If I had handed it over to him when he’d asked, Kevin would be fine.
Glenn wondered if she could carry Kevin back over the border herself and get to a hospital. She tried to piece together the route they had taken to get there. If she could find a place where the woods were thinner and keep her eyes on the stars, she thought she could keep them heading east, which would bring them to the border eventually.
Kevin moaned as Glenn gathered him up into her arms.
“Put him down.”
The creature loomed in the darkness behind the trees. Its chest was like an iron gate blocking her way. Glenn remembered the rock-like feel of its arms, and the sound of the agent’s scream.
“I have to take him back,” Glenn said, even as her stomach
churned with fear.
“You won’t make it with him in your arms,” it said. “We’re miles from the border.”
“Then take us back!”
“Even if I did, the trip would kill him. Please. I have medicine.”
“He’s been shot!” Glenn said. “He doesn’t need medicine. He needs surgery.”
Kevin’s head fell into the crook of her arm with a groan. She could feel his blood on her skin.
“Let me help him,” the thing said. “If you don’t he’ll die.”
Already Kevin was weighing on her. She wouldn’t make it a mile if she tried to carry him. She had run out of options. The only thing she could do was put Kevin down and back away. The great shadow flowed out from the trees and enveloped him once again. Glenn couldn’t make much out in the darkness, but she thought the creature was arranging several small piles on the rock next to him, things it had brought back from the woods. When it was done, it crushed them together with a stone and then lifted out handfuls of water to make a paste.
As the thing worked, Glenn strained to get a better look at it, but it was still little more than a shadow mixed in with the deeper shadows around the stream. Glenn remembered seeing what looked like claws at the end of its finger, but surely she was mistaken. A delusion borne from fear.
“How did you know my name?” Glenn asked.
The creature drew Kevin up into its lap and began smearing the paste it had made on Kevin’s side.
“I asked you — ”
Instead of answering, it lowered its head and began a soft chant over Kevin’s limp body. Glenn drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, watching it. The deep notes of its voice rose and fell as the forest around them rustled in the wind, and the dark stream trickled by.
“We can’t stay here,” it said, its head still bent over Kevin. “Your friend needs more help than I can give. There’s a village nearby.”
“There aren’t any villages beyond the border,” Glenn said.
The creature remained still, Kevin draped in its arms.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Aamon Marta.”
“How did you know my name?”
Aamon didn’t move, didn’t look away from the run of the stream.
“Others will come,” it said. “Worse things than your Authority. We have to go now.”
The vastness of the forest hummed and pulsed with life, the chattering of insects, the crunching movements of animals as they prowled for food.
“I want to see you,” Glenn said.
“There’s no time for — ”
“I want to see you or I don’t go anywhere,” Glenn snapped. She was tired and the hours-old terror had gone stale and shifted toward anger. She was sick of vague answers. She wanted to know who she was trusting with her life.
Aamon shifted, then began to rise. Glenn scrambled backward as it crossed the stream and lowered itself into the moonlight.
Ever since she was a little girl, Glenn loved science because it taught her to take new things and incorporate them seamlessly into what she already knew about the world. It was like adding a new room onto an ornate but ever more perfectly constructed house. In science, she learned, everything is connected and everything is explained.
Despite that, when she looked at the nightmare that crouched before her in the moonlight, she couldn’t help but wonder if Dr. Kapoor had been right about her. Had her parents’ madness finally fallen to her?
Aamon Marta’s body was covered in what looked to be thick fur that blanketed the rise and fall of his slablike muscles and his fingers did in fact end in glistening claws. But it was his face that made Glenn’s stomach go cold. It was nearly human, but not quite. It was more like a panther’s, a broad triangle topped with arrow-shaped ears and a dark muzzle. His green, vertically slit eyes glowed with an almost sickly light. When Aamon breathed, his mouth opened, revealing deadly rows of fangs above and below.
“Now that you have seen me,” Aamon said in his deadly growl,
“may we go?”
They came to the edge of the forest late that night. Aamon
shouldered through the tree line and disappeared with Kevin cradled in his arms. Glenn stood frozen at the edge. It was insane, she thought.
There were no villages on the other side of the border. She had seen the pictures to prove it. But what choice did they have? It was too far to go back now. Glenn steeled herself and stepped through the trees.