Project U.L.F. (2 page)

The trap pitched into the ground with a dull thud and Wyatt winced at the noise. He looked up again at the creature, crouched over the Chaddook, still intent on its meal, and for a moment he thought that it had not heard it. It was a false hope but he clung to it desperately. It was all he had.

The creature turned swiftly, practically pivoting on one leg with surprising speed considering its bulkiness. The tail cut a wide arc behind it. It cocked its head like a bird, a sharp, jerky movement. Wyatt couldn’t tell if it was looking at the trap or listening, waiting for another sound that would give away whatever had intruded on its feast. It remained motionless in that position.

The urgency of the situation had numbed all of Wyatt’s senses. His world was silent and he felt like he was watching a slow-motion movie through another person’s eyes, from another body. The trap whirred continuously from where it had fallen, quiet but certainly audible. He knew he had to move. The realization horrified him, but he had to get away from the trap. Trying to retrieve it would be a dangerous and pointless exercise.

He inhaled deeply in a vain attempt to strengthen his resolve. A bead of sweat rolled off the corner of his eyebrow and ran a frantic, tickling line down his cheek. By some huge act of will he drove the fear out of his body and managed to raise his right foot. The mental toll almost made him cry out, but the breath that would have carried the sound escaped as a quivering stutter. He slowly placed his right foot directly behind his left and then, with his left foot, repeated the whole agonizing procedure. Slowly, noiselessly, Wyatt backed away. The creature remained completely still.

After what seemed hours Wyatt stood about twenty-five feet away from where the trap had fallen. He could still hear it, buzzing like an angry insect in the short grass. He realized then that he had not thought about what he would do when he reached the cover and safety of the trees.

Safety? He had no idea of what this creature was capable of or if, indeed, the forest offered any safety at all.

The creature was moving again. Turning its head slowly from one side to the other, the movement deliberate and disturbing. It was obvious that the animal perceived no danger here. Suddenly it moved to where the trap lay. Covering the distance in two strides with a comical strutting gait. It paused there for a moment, head bowed as if in mourning, scrutinizing the object, the irritation, on the ground.

The trap had fallen head-first into a small depression, the laser beams stretching two to three inches before being abruptly terminated as the earth absorbed them. The creature craned its head forward and watched the flicking rays of light as they danced across the tiny pit. Suddenly, its posture changed and Wyatt could tell that for some reason, it had become afraid. Perhaps nothing so small had ever dared to stand its ground. The trap seemed to move but yet it did not flee, and this unfamiliar scenario demanded caution from the animal. Experience had taught this creature not to attack such simple offerings without proper investigation. A mouthful of acid or a face full of stinging cells was lessons that required teaching only once. Whatever it was, Wyatt surmised that it possessed a reasonable amount of intelligence.

He watched as the creature cautiously lifted one leg and prodded the trap with its foot, trying to get some response from the thing, something that would identify it as prey or otherwise. It nudged the trap lightly at first and then, when no response was forthcoming, more insistently. Finally satisfied that the silver object in the grass posed no threat, it stooped to lift the trap, gripping it clumsily with its three fingers. As it lifted it from the ground the lasers once again darted off on their separate paths. The sudden burst of light alarmed the animal and it dropped the trap, instantly springing back some ten feet in one single fluid movement. Its lips peeled back in a sneer revealing its impressive array of teeth. The creature hissed its displeasure. Then it turned to face Wyatt. The thing had known he was there all along.

In that instant Wyatt felt like a child again, preparing to be reprimanded by his father. Here, once more, he was faced with an authority that he was powerless to challenge, to which he was inferior.

The creature had made an association between the trap and Wyatt, and looked at him as if waiting for some explanation. It sneered and hissed again and then bellowed at him, its neck stretched forward as if to emphasize whom the howl was directed at.

He turned and ran then, the thought to flee being the first one to cross his mind. He could have reached for his gun but he did not trust his shaking hands to operate the weapon as they had been trained to, besides, he had seen the speed with which the animal could move and he doubted whether he could draw and raise the gun before the creature covered the ten or so yards between them.

He plunged through the dense foliage, arms flailing to push away the stray fronds and leaves which occasionally struck him, leaving scratches on his face and tears in his clothing as he frantically fought his way past them. It seemed as if the whole environment had suddenly turned malicious.

He stumbled and fell, his legs not being able to move as fast as his body was willing them. He landed awkwardly but sprang back to his feet with a newfound agility. Over the sound of his ragged, hurried breathing he could hear the pursuit—the rustle of leaves and the crack of wood as the animal stampeded through the forest after him. He thought it sounded like a forest fire, but only the strongest of winds could make fire follow him as swiftly as the thing that mimicked the noise now.

He was running blind, batting aside the forest growth to hasten his passage, turning only twice to be confronted both times with a glimpse of the plant growth swaying back behind him like a gate closing, shutting him in. On the second occasion, his foot struck a large protruding tree root and he was sent sprawling to the ground in a shower of leaves. As he clambered to his hands and knees and spat the earth from his mouth he was struck from behind with such force that he was almost thrown to the ground again. It had caught up with him. It was grasping his backpack, its head level with his. He could feel its hot breath and flecks of spittle on his neck.

Somehow he managed to stagger to his feet and then, like someone resigned to throwing himself off a precipice, he flung his hands behind him. With a wriggle the straps of his pack slipped off his shoulders and the weight of the animal pulled it off his back, both pack and beast falling to the ground.

He was away once more, running with a lightness in his step which was perhaps not only due to the loss of the cumbersome weight he had carried before but also to the closeness of his brush with death. He had never been that close to actually perishing before, but he had also never felt more alive than he did now.

The combination of the heat and the exertion was making him dizzy and he knew that he would have to pause to catch his breath while he had a lead on the animal, which was probably where he had left it, examining its trophy with the same caution it had shown the trap, thinking maybe that it had claimed a part of him. He stopped and turned to look behind him. There was no sign of the animal and he could hear nothing that would signify its approach. He leaned over, his hands on his knees as his breaths, which came in huge, wheezing pants, gradually lessened in frequency. Thoughts raced through his mind, each being dismissed as quickly as they came. He straightened, still with no real plan as to what he was going to do. He would think as he ran. He was sure the creature would continue to hunt him down as soon as it realized that it would get no meal from the backpack. He turned to run again and was confronted with hundreds of teeth as the thing howled into his face. He screamed.

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He was covered in sweat and his voice died in the room. The forest was gone, and where the trees once stood were now dim outlines that slowly resolved as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. It was the dream again.

He wiped his brow with a shaking hand and let it fall down his face, rubbing forefinger and thumb across his eyelids before pinching the bridge of his nose. He struggled to prop himself up on his elbows in the soft bed and exhaled deeply. It was not the first time the nightmare had come and he was annoyed at himself for letting it wake him. He was growing tired of the disruption, almost to the point where he wished that, as he woke, one of the shadows in the room would move and it would be there, somehow managing not only to chase him through the forest but also across the boundaries of imagination and reality. To make the outcome of the pursuit final.

He flipped the bedclothes off and away from him as he swung his legs off the bed and planted his feet on the floor, pausing there to cup his face in his hands and rub away the sleep before standing, collecting his robe and padding quietly out of his bedroom.

The kitchen tiles were cold on the soles of his feet, but it was more of a refreshing sensation than a discomfort. “Lights, surface and ceiling,” he said and then, as an afterthought, “Dim.”

The strip lights on the ceiling flickered into life and behind each tile that skirted the kitchen work surface a single bulb winked on to produce a solid bar of light which cast a faint blush on anything in the near vicinity. With the light came a faint hum, the sound of electricity, a force that had been stirred from unconsciousness and now dozed peacefully.

He opened the fridge door. It was empty except for a jug of milk and a joint of ham. Removing the jug he shuffled across the kitchen and reached up to the cupboards on the wall. He touched a pressure pad with his forefinger, and the cupboard door slid open to reveal a number of glasses, of which he took one. He poured a glass of the white, cold liquid and gulped it down, gasping in his first breath when he finished, savoring the taste in his mouth. He didn’t begrudge the price he had paid for it, even if it had cost him a fortune on the black market along with the meat. It was so much better than the synth milk from the replicators. Time inside had been useful in at least one respect. He poured himself another glass before replacing the jug and wandering into the living room.

“Screen, channel hop,” he said and an area some forty inches square on one of the bare white walls began to illuminate as a picture slowly formed within the undefined region. A computer generated voice stated “Channel one” and Wyatt watched with undisguised apathy as the characters from some dire sitcom he had been unfortunate enough to see once before went through the motions, interrupted only by canned laughter after each delivered punch line. The picture changed and the voice stated, “Channel two” in an identical tone as previously as if it too, shared Wyatt’s disinterest in late-night viewing choice.

Three politicians now argued over the city’s overcrowding problem and one of them, a rotund man with beady pig eyes, was just about to launch into his proposal for a solution. “I think
…
” he began.

“Who gives a shit what you think?” Wyatt muttered. He walked to the window and looked down over the city. Even in the dead of night it was a hive of activity. The buildings stood like solid shadows, columns whose forms were darker than the night itself. Within each a multitude of lights blinked and danced like fairy lights on some horrifically charred Christmas tree. The view made him feel like some supreme being, looking out over his minions, but with the same thought came another—that every speck of light he could see was another person going about their business, and the feeling of supremacy was rapidly replaced with one of insignificance.

“Yeah, who does give a shit what you think?” he said again. Every one of those lights was another person and every person had their own problems and their own personal dramas, which to them were far more important than any large-scale social or economic problem.

His thoughts went to Tanya and he turned and looked back toward the bedroom door, hoping somehow that he could spirit her back just by thinking about her. He could see her, standing with her back to the doorframe, one leg bent so her short silk robe climbed revealingly up her thigh. Her long dark hair, ruffled but not untidy, tumbling over her shoulders and down to the middle of her back and her eyes, those lovely dark eyes which could be as soft as velvet or as hard as if they were lumps of coal set in her face. She was a strong woman, every part his equal and every bit a lady and he missed her more than he cared to admit.

Tanya was really the only woman who had ever fully understood his predicament. Registered as a dangerous criminal, Wyatt had been offered a place on the state community service program. In exchange for a reduced sentence, he would do a five-year work placement at a location of the government’s choice. The catch was that the jobs that were offered were extremely hazardous and few, very few, ever completed their five years.