Beneath a Winter Moon (18 page)

The howls came right after Thomas finally dozed off. The first was eerie and long, as if it were the sad lament of a jilted lover in the night. A moment later, however, the howl was sharp and bold, as if it were meant to say,
I am here
.

Delmar heard the second howl, and slowly sat upright.

“That was pretty far away...sounded just like the creepy howls from last night.” Thomas whispered.

“Probably the same animals,” Delmar said, yawning as he leaned back against the backpack once more.

“Spookiest howls I have ever heard, for damned sure.”

“What about the ones from when you were a kid—the story you told us back in the chopper?”

“True,” replied Thomas. “But then those howls were a lot like these.”

“Well, since those were far away, let’s just try to get in our last hour of shuteye. Then it is another two hours of walking in this wonderful weather.”

Thomas chuckled. “This was your idea, Hero.”

 “Don’t remind me.”

* * * * *

The Other had wasted no time in its haste to reach the humans. His senses told him that they were still there, that they were waiting. He moved faster than ever, at times his footfalls no more than whispers among the trees…and other times he crashed through thick brush, growling as he broke branches and snapped long dead brambles. He salivated even as he ran with all his might. Cold yellow eyes remained narrow, always alert. He smelled so much…so many other creatures of the night. Some were predators, though the largest were no match for him…and there were the pungent odors of those sad, little creatures that knew he was coming and tried to hide under bush, rock, and tree. The smell of their fear was delightful, but nothing compared to that of the human prey. For a moment, he slowed. He sucked in long breaths through his wet, black nostrils. Confused, he cocked his head sideways, and then stopped altogether. There were two sets of human scents, from opposite directions.

Though his mind was that of a prehistoric hunter…almost mechanical rather than thinking…he was also oddly pragmatic. Forgetting the weaker scent, he pushed onward toward the area where the humans were holed up together in some sort of shelter. The Beast had come last night but tonight it would be different. Tonight they would be his prey. Instinct powered him now…he must move quickly to reach the humans before the Beast began the hunt…for him.

Daniel’s eyes snapped open and he leaned forward. Jack rumbled a throaty growl at Daniel’s feet. “You heard something too, boy?” He whispered. To his front, sitting on the floor near Jack, covered by Daniel’s sleeping bag, Jenny slept. She had stayed awake as long as she could, holding Steven’s hand and sometimes talking to him, but she finally collapsed, leaning her back against the padding of the passenger cabin door on the cockpit side of the aircraft.

Jack growled low and bared his teeth.

“Easy boy,” Daniel whispered. “Easy. Nothing to worry about while we are in here.”

Daniel struggled to see through the foggy window above Jenny’s head. Their breath had steamed the windows enough so that those in the two sliding doors were all but useless. He reached down beside him and found the night vision goggles. He slipped them on and adjusted them, and then turned to try to see out of the cockpit bubble, where the steam had not settled due to the hole in the windshield. Though a rag was jammed in it, the cold still overpowered the moisture of their breath.

Jack whimpered softly.
Quite a change in his demeanor
, Daniel thought. Perhaps it was a female coyote or wolf. That might make Jack more anxious than defensive. He placed the goggles to his eyes once more, losing all peripheral vision in doing so. He positioned himself so that he could get a better look out of the plexiglass bubble.

A full five minutes passed by and he saw nothing. Then, timed perfectly with a throaty moan from Jack, he saw a blur of movement perhaps fifty meters toward the tree line. The thing was big.
Too big
, he thought, t
oo big to be a coyote or a wolf.
He could not see it anymore but had caught enough of a glimpse to know that the animal was easily as tall as Delmar. “Bear,” he whispered. It felt wrong, but he said it anyway. No bear could have moved that quickly and with that much agility. It was as if whatever was out there
knew
that he would be looking and was doing its best to elude him.
There it is again…closer this time.
He cursed as he lost sight of it again.

Daniel removed the goggles so that he could get at the rifle when the window above Jenny’s head suddenly billowed with steam, and then a spot, perhaps as large as a fist cleared up as the fog disappeared. A chill ran up Daniel’s spine as he realized that whatever it was, it was trying to peer into the window, so close that its breath was counteracting the fog on the plexiglass. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, and he involuntarily sucked in a short breath. Jack whined and pushed his head against Daniel’s leg. Daniel ignored him and slowly put his right hand around the fore-stock of the rifle. He brought it up and waited, shivering, staring at the window. No more steam, no sign of the…
thing
.

He wanted to yell out, beginning to believe that it might be a person outside, purposely stalking them…trying to scare them. The hermit-guy came to mind. Would he do such a thing? Had he heard their calls after all and decided to have some fun with them before extending help to the stranded companions?

He could not risk putting the night vision back to his face. He would lose all depth perception and peripheral vision and it would take too long for his eyes to adjust to the darkness again. He held the rifle, it’s butt jammed into his right shoulder.

His military training should have helped him. He had a familiarity with all types of situations where an enemy approached a fixed position, but this time it failed to comfort his nerves. He was also a natural with most weapons and had seen his share of varying types of combat all around the globe. Yet—something about this was all wrong. He held his breath. He tried to let his senses gather in everything around him…but something about this wasn’t right. He could not focus.

The helicopter shuddered and there was a loud thud behind Daniel, followed by a very distinct, very loud and menacing growl. Jenny’s eyes popped open and she whispered loudly, “What was that?”

Jack crawled on his stomach to Jenny and laid his head in her lap. He whimpered softly.

“Bear,” Daniel whispered. “Has to be…”

Jenny thought Daniel’s tone was odd.
Has to be
? It sounded as if Daniel was trying to convince himself, and that he was failing.

“Bear? Are we…”

“
Shhhhhhhh
”

Another growl from outside, followed by a clearly audible huffing sound. Daniel felt a bit reassured by that sound…it was the same type of sound a bear made when sniffing for prey or other food sources. His shoulders relaxed just a bit.
I can deal with a bear
.

His moment of comfort ended, however, when he turned his head to look out the front windshield, and saw a massive black shape straddled across the nose of the helicopter, peering into the cockpit…the creature’s muscled, fur-covered upper torso pressed fully against the plexiglass . The face was that of pure nightmare. Ghosts, goblins, ghouls…all were soft and cuddly things that little girls curled up with for comfort and reassurance when compared to the demonic, grotesque misshapen head that looked right through Daniel Coahoma. Its dog-like snout was parted, long, black, wet lips wrinkled in a fiendish snarl, exposing rows of impossibly large teeth.

Daniel could not breathe and for what seemed like forever, his eyes locked with the diamond yellow eyes of the thing. When it roared, breaking the deadlock, Daniel thought his heart had completely stopped.

Jenny screamed. The beast roared again, this time accompanying the roar with a deafening blow to the plexiglass windshield. Daniel finally found the will to move, and his instincts took over. He brought the rifle barrel up and fired twice at the huge form. His instincts failed him, however, in that he did not shield himself from the bright muzzle blast. Even with a flash suppressor, the blast from a rifle became a powerful torch that could ruin night vision…and this rifle had no suppressor at all. The blasts lit the cabin like a camera-flash, blinding Daniel to the dark.

The creature howled flailed backward, puzzled for a moment by the pain and its own blood. Daniel took a second to let his eyes adjust, but he realized he could not afford to wait. He pointed the rifle intent on firing again…but just as he squeezed the trigger the thing dove from the windshield and was gone. The rifle went off with another ear-splitting roar in the confines of the helicopter, but the bullet only did more damage to the now caved-in windshield.

Daniel closed his eyes at the split-second of the trigger-pull, hoping to help retain his vision in the dark cabin. Jenny had stopped screaming and pulled her knees up to her face. She yelled for Daniel to kill it while in the same breath demanding he tell her just what
it
was.

Jack had come alive, no longer whimpering or cowering—now standing fully erect in the small space of the cabin floor, sandwiched between Daniel’s legs and Jenny’s sitting form. His tail was curled tightly and the fur along his spine and on his thick neck stood erect. His teeth were bared in a fearsome snarl.

Daniel wished that he had just a little more light. The almost drained glow of an instrument panel light gave him just enough visibility to barely make things out in the cabin. Jack suddenly turned toward Jenny, scaring her even more as she feared the dog was now growling at her in the chaos of the moment. “Jack, NO!” she yelled, but Jack looked right through her, and then up to the window above Jenny’s head. He barked in unison with a loud bang as the creature pounded into the door. The middle of the door caved inward and pressed into Jenny’s back. In her frightened state she took an instinctive leap forward to get away and tangled with Jack and knocked Daniel backward.

Daniel cursed as he shoved her forcefully aside. He brought the rifle up and aimed it point blank at the sliding door. The sound of the shot deafened them again. Daniel knew he had shot low…far too low…but he believed he might have hit the creature again when it suddenly roared in unmistakable pain.

Jenny had made her way around Daniel’s kneeling form and flattened herself against the door on the opposite side of the cabin. She was now directly behind Daniel. Jack had leaped up onto the bench where Steven lay and he stood over him, growling and snapping at the air while facing the damaged door.

With a loud ‘pop’ the rectangular plexiglass window of the sliding door flew into the cabin. A large shaggy-coated, muscle-bound arm reached inside, groping for anything it could reach. There was just enough light to make out the huge claws on the human-like hand, outstretched fingers probing the air for something to grasp. Jack leaped forward, seventy pounds of fury knocking Daniel to the side. Like a vision straight from a monster movie, Jack latched onto the arm just below the wrist and hung in the air momentarily as the creature tried to pull the arm back outside. The thing, failing to pull away, slammed his body into the door. The thin aluminum bent wildly inward in a massive v-shape, creating a large gap, open to the outside. Jack could not place all four of his paws on the floor with the creature’s wrist in his mouth, so he tugged wildly backward shaking his head left and right with such ferocity that Daniel did not know how the dog kept from snapping his own neck.

In the chaos, Daniel had become oddly calm, the initial shock of the encounter with the mystifying, terrifying creature was gone. He no longer wondered what the monster was, nor did he fear for himself. It was what his ancestors had called the battle calm. Once believed to have been a product of years of shield to sword fighting among warriors of old, many men knew that the battle calm was timeless, and came over any man who had been numbed to battle…and even more so for those who lived for the conflict between man and man…or even man and beast.