She transferred her gaze to the man immediately below her. He was desperately ill, he might die before morning, but better that he died peacefully than fell and was savaged by the waiting animal.
He moved and her heart threatened to stop as the big branch creaked. He was restless, changing position. His head turned to one side, craning his neck until he could see her, his eyes unnaturally bright and shiny.
'Have you seen . . . Sylvia?' Soft tones, chilling. Tell me, have you seen her?'
Jackie did not understand, just shook her head and tried to smile. He went into a fit of coughing; the fever inside him was raging, building up to a peak. He had not long to go-
'Lie still or you might fall. Perhaps the dog will get tired and go away.' She knew it wouldn't. It had the cunning and cruelty of its master.
'She knows it is me even though I have changed like everybody else.' He was talking fast now. 'She's with that Quinn fellow, that's what hurts me most. Somehow she escaped, just as he did. I've been turned into an animal but I still want to see her before I die. Everybody's going to die before long.'
His voice tailed off and she could hear him shivering, his teeth banging together. A glance downwards; the dog's eyes flickered open for a second, closed again. It wasn't going anywhere in a hurry. She stretched out, made sure her grip was secure. She wouldn't fall. How long before it got light? Not that it would make any difference.
She was aware of sleep claiming her, a soft soothing blanket that numbed her terror, gave her a sensation of warmth, a bed that was comfortable.
It was light. Or rather it wasn't quite so dark, a foggy greyness that created its own weird shapes. Trees became grotesque monsters, changed back to trees again. There was only one monster, a shaggy one with permanently erect pointed ears, lying with its head on its paws, its eyes wide and staring upwards. Waiting.
Jackie tried to ease her stiff limbs, felt excruciating pins and needles as the trapped blood began to flow again. The man was still there on the bed of branches beneath her, a still form with one arm that was twice the thickness of the other. For a moment she thought that he was dead, that the cold damp night air had put an end to his suffering. And then his head moved, his eyes coming round to meet hers, filmed but clearing slowly.
'Perhaps somebody will come before long,' she said. If somebody did come it would undoubtedly be Kuz and his followers. She would be rescued to meet a worse fate.
They would kill her companion because they had no use for the sick or the maimed. Only the fittest survived.
He nodded, shifted his position, and began to convulse! And she knew then that he was going to fall!
A combination of weakness and pins and needles robbed him of any chance of holding on. In his own fevered mind Eric Atkinson surrendered, had given up all hope of ever seeing Sylvia again. That single glowing ember, the spark that had kept him going, was dying. His fingers did not even attempt to grasp the interwoven fir boughs as he started to slip.
Jackie watched in horror. The branches bent, held him up for a final second or two but his sliding weight was too much for them and then they catapulted him down.
The dog had him the moment he struck the ground, Eric Atkinson's final scream of agony torn from his throat in a mass of bloody flesh, a jagged open wound that pumped scarlet fluid, saturating the crazed beast as it bit and tore, its fangs crunching on brittle bones. The man's head sagged to one side, the vertebrae snapped so that the body twisted round as it was dragged. Clothing tore, exposed more flesh for mutilation; an open groin wound, intestines being pulled, unravelled.
It was several minutes before the creature's frenzy subsided, and only then did it begin to feast on the carnage, masticating noisily, ravenously, glancing round as though it feared lest its master might suddenly appear and deprive it of its prize.
Jackie closed her eyes but could not shut out the horror below her. Sooner or later she too would weaken.
The dog's hunger appeased, it lay down by the remains of the man it had savaged, turned its attention once more to the woman in the trees above it; watched her steadily. It gave a contented, threatening yawn. It would wait until tomorrow, the day after, next week if need be. It had food; she did not.
The false warmth inside Jackie's body had long since evaporated. Her skin was goose pimpled, the cold and damp beginning to penetrate deep. A feeling of drowsiness, a fight to keep awake. If she slept again she might move, roll. . . fall! She would not make it through another night, she knew that.
Weak sunlight slanted down through the forest ceiling, a vain attempt because shortly afterward the hill-fog rolled back again as though it had something to hide. Strange thoughts, frightening ones, plagued Jackie Quinn's tortured mind. Phil Winder, a hairless race of weaklings; a face she half-knew flitting in, then disappearing and leaving her with a blurred image. A man, his features would be familiar if only she could visualise them, reaching out for her. But he could not help her, nobody could.
Her mouth was dry. She moistened her fingers on the wet foliage, sucked them. They tasted of resin, made her want to spit. Hunger gnawed, brought with it nausea. Once the lower branch creaked alarmingly, and she grabbed the overhead one but it did not crack. And below her the dog appeared to sleep but if she watched it long enough she saw an eye flicker open. It was playing a cruel game with her, savouring every second of it.
Dozing, hearing in her mind the baying of the brute as it picked up a fresh scent, the killing urge strong. A baying that grew louder. And louder.
Until at last it jerked her awake in a cold shivering sweat. She gripped the bough tightly for surely what she saw was an hallucination brought on by exposure to the elements.
There must have been a dozen dogs down below her! An assortment of mangy long-haired animals, mongrels of various strains, collies, Alsatians, deerhounds, a mixed ancestry with one overriding common factorferocity! They bunched together, their tongues dwindling to a low warning growl. The big dog stood its ground, spread-legged across the remnants of its Man-kill, its coat bloodsoaked and dried, its slobbering jaws challenging them to take its rightful prey if they dared.
They hung back, cowed. Growled again. An encounter, a cowardly hunting pack warily eyeing a King Beast, a champion. Weighing up their chances. They could conquer it but some of them would be killed and none wanted to be amongst the unlucky ones. Threatening barks but the big dog did not back off. If they wanted his food they would have to kill him for it.
Suddenly, without warning, they charged. A melee, a fighting tearing throng, fang and claw ripping deep into hide and flesh. A collie was airborne, the first one in tossed high by the beast at bay, its neck broken, dead before it thudded down on to the soft ground. Blood spouted and sprayed, ruby aerosol tinsel on Christmas tree branches, a mass of fighting fury so that the spectator above was unable to follow blow by blow. The wounded squealed, leaped clear, came back into the fray.
The big dog was eventually pulled down. Jackie thought that they had got him because she could not see him any more. A pile of dead, a carpet for the living, the low cloud drifting in even thicker than before, a curtain to hide canine shame.
Now the animals were fighting each other, two of the smaller ones being driven off. Finally only five remained, two of them unscathed, tearing flesh from the dead human body, gnawing at the bones. Finally they lay down, belched with contentment. The pack had hunted and killed, were satisfied for the moment.
And up in the fir branches Jackie Quinn wondered how much longer she could hold on. She contemplated leaping down, offering herself to the wild dogs and hoping that the end would be quick.