“It’s not here.” Not yet anyway.
“You sure?”
She scanned everywhere. “Positive.”
Although she had to admit… it was very, very quiet.
“STAY COOL,” Darryl said, his face as tight as a guitar string. He reconsidered running back to her, but there wasn’t enough time. He turned. “You buy that it’s not there yet, Jason?”
Jason quickly ran some numbers in his head, quadruple-checking calculations he’d made earlier. Maybe the Demonray had flown slower than he’d anticipated, but he thought he’d estimated its speed conservatively. “If it’s not, it should be very soon.”
“Keep your eyes peeled, Monique.”
But even as Darryl said the words, Jason feared she just wasn’t seeing something.
MONIQUE TURNED, scanning everything, trunks, branches, patches of blue sky. There was nothing up there, nothing at all.
“It’s not here.”
“Are you sure?”
“Goddamn it; I’m positive!” She clutched her rifle tightly, still searching. “It must have gone somewhere else.”
DARRYL TURNED to Jason. “Could it have gone somewhere else?”
Jason swallowed nervously. “I don’t think so.”
Darryl nodded. “Monique, it’s gotta be there.”
MONIQUE WALKED back in the direction they’d come from.
“Wait a second….” Was it wrapped around a tree?
“What is it?”
She walked closer…. It was something a hundred feet up… something big and dark.
“Monique, what is it?”
She walked closer still.
No, just a discoloration in the bark.
“Nothing. There’s nothing here, I really think you might have jumped the gun.”
DARRYL looked to Jason for support but he shook his head firmly, eyes glaring. “It’s up to something. It’s there, I’m telling you; it’s got to be there. Craig, do you remember anything special about that area when we set up the equipment? Anywhere it could be hiding?”
Craig frantically searched his brain. “Jesus, Jason… no.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I don’t remember a goddamn thing!”
“Something’s up, Darryl.” Jason shook his head. “It’s hiding somehow. Get her out of there; get her out of there right now.”
MONIQUE CONTINUED walking, still looking up.
“Monique, just get out of there.”
She walked faster, heading to the fallen tree they’d passed earlier. “Where is it?”
“Just get out of there! Run!”
She walked faster still. “Where is it, Darryl? I wanna know where it is.”
“We don’t know!”
She jogged, frantically scanning the skyline, spinning in circles. “Where is it? I just want to see it.”
“Goddamn it, get out of there!”
She jogged faster, still looking up.
THE EYES were looking up at her.
Less than fifty feet away, the predator was flat on the soil, its colossal form gently rising and falling. It was in front of the fallen tree. The tree’s dark coloring closely matched its own and made it very difficult to see, especially with the dark soil. The animal knew that if someone had been inclined to look up, and wasn’t looking right at it, he or she wouldn’t even notice it was there.
Still looking up, Monique ran straight for it…. Running and spinning, running and spinning.
The creature didn’t move.
She saw the approaching mass in her periphery. She planned on climbing over it and simply ran closer.
The eyes shifted, no other body part moving.
She ran closer still, turning away from it.
Suddenly and silently, the great form rose up like a snake. Then it didn’t move. It just held there, its front half in the air, standing slightly more than six feet tall.
As she started to turn, it rumbled.
Monique froze, dropping her walkie-talkie. The sound was astonishingly close.
Facing the wrong way, she turned slightly and saw the Demonray out of the corner of her eye, something huge and white, looming over her. She knew instantly that the creature must have been there all along. But it wasn’t attacking. It was just standing there, coiled and watching her. She could actually feel its eyes.
Ever so slowly, she turned and looked up at it.
The deathly cold eyes looked right back at her.
She didn’t move a muscle. She simply looked at it.
Then, never losing eye contact, she gently repositioned her fingers on the rifle.
Monique moved first. With lightning quickness, she slammed her back against the dirt and fired twice. Two small red holes appeared in the massive underside. The animal didn’t seem to feel them. The head snapped downward with phenomenal quickness. A mouthful of the giant teeth rushed toward Monique, and she closed her eyes, firing three more times.
Suddenly the creature was gone.
Monique jumped to her feet, no idea where it was. Then she saw it flying away rapidly, just above the forest floor. She fired twice.
As if seeing the bullets, the pumping form suddenly darted straight up, climbing vertically along a redwood.
Monique sprinted to the base, aimed, and…
The creature smashed through the canopy above, disappearing into the sky.
Monique frantically scanned the patches of blue, catching little pieces of the Demonray, apparently on a towering trajectory above the trees…. She lost sight of it as it continued higher.
Then, a hundred yards away, something enormous and black plunged down like an elevator. Monique jerked her rifle down. The winged form knifed lower then banked violently above the soil, rocketing straight for her with the speed of a flying roller coaster.
She fired four times.
The body rose before the shots had even been taken. Every bullet missed.
She fired again. A bullet plunged into the creature’s face, a few inches from the right eye. It had no effect. She fired again but missed badly. Her hands were shaking. She fired once more, but again, couldn’t control her hands.
The great body roared closer, a hundred feet away… then fifty feet…
She fired three more times, but again her hands shook. She threw the rifle down, ripped the dagger from her pant leg, and sprinted toward it.
The creature let out a shattering roar.
Monique screamed back, her eyes filled with rage, raising the knife above her head with both hands.
The mouth rushed in, the great teeth rapidly growing larger.
She screamed again, running as hard as she could.
Suddenly her direction was violently reversed. Flying backward and shrieking in pain, she stabbed down on top of the head, four, five, six, seven times. Then the knife slipped from her hands, and she didn’t know where she was. She wiped the blood from her face and wondered if she’d gotten free. She realized her eyes were closed. Why were her eyes closed? She opened them.
She was up to her chest in the creature’s mouth, a doll in the jaws of a curious dog. Feeling down, she realized her legs were gone. Strangely, there was no pain. She looked up at the animal’s eyes. They were so close now, less than a foot away, black, deathly calm, and staring right at her. Why wasn’t it biting down? What was it waiting for?
The Demonray was flat on the soil; she could actually feel it breathing. It seemed to be playing with her, waiting to see if she’d try to escape.
But Monique didn’t try to escape. She simply thought of her husband and the family they’d always wanted.
The creature bit down. Monique Hollis was gone.