Voracious - Alice Henderson [16]
“Yes,” she said, bewildered about his worried state. The only animal that could potentially do them harm was a grizzly, and it certainly had been no grizzly.
“Stayed low to the ground?” he asked, peering out into the deepening shadows.
“Yes. Look, what do you think—”
“Shh …” Now Noah was listening intently, too, though Madeline didn’t know how he could hear anything over the roar of the river.
But she listened, too. Wind in the subalpine firs. The high cry of a night bird. And always the roar of the unrelenting water.
“I think you’d better change into your hiking boots,” he said.
“But they’re wet and—”
“All the same,” he insisted, never taking his eyes off the jumble of logs. “I think you’d better put them on. I think we need to leave.”
She studied his face, bewildered. He was alert, nervous.
She looked around. Her boots lay on the other side of the chair. Beyond lay the alpine meadow, the wildflowers now lost in the darkness. “We can’t hike down now in the dark.”
“We’ll have to. There!” he said, so suddenly that Madeline started, causing her heart to pound.
And she saw it.
The dark, hunkering shape crept through there again, darting in and out of the logs, furtive and quick, weaving closer and closer to them. She could see now it didn’t have wet fur at all, but oily black skin which glistened in the brightening moonlight. The animal was lithe and muscled, moving efficiently, though she still couldn’t see enough of it to tell what it was.
“Quick,” Noah urged her, placing an insistent hand on her shoulder.
Madeline shucked off the sandals and pulled on her wet boots, knowing they’d soak through the dry socks in a matter of seconds. Quickly she tightened the laces.
With her boots on, she turned her eyes back to the logs. The creature had stopped, and Madeline felt eyes burning into her. And then she watched as it put a paw on one of the logs. It was dark against the white of the wood, distinct in the gleaming moonlight.
And Madeline saw immediately that it wasn’t a paw at all, but a hand. A hand as black as charcoal, with impossibly hooked claws that bit into the wood.
“He’s got the advantage,” Noah said grimly.
“He?” Madeline asked with bewilderment. “He?”
Noah didn’t seem to hear her. “I can’t fight him like this. I can’t endanger you. If I could find someplace for you to hide …”
“Fight him—What’s going on? What is that thing?”
He turned to her then, his eyes full of fear. “I’ll explain on the way down the mountain. But right now, we’ve got to get you somewhere safe. C’mon!” He stood up and gestured for her to follow. “There’s an abandoned skiers’ hut just over that rise.” He pointed to a cluster of trees on a hill. “It’s not the greatest, but we’d be more protected than we are now. Okay?”
Madeline nodded, feeling bewildered.
Moving to his pack quickly, he threw everything inside haphazardly and zipped it up, leaving the tent standing some distance away. He grabbed the chair with one hand as he slung the pack over his shoulder. “Let’s go,” he said, and she caught a glimpse of his eyes in the moonlight, haunted and terrified.
THEY ran down the mountain in near dark, trying to leave the animal behind. Exhaustion seized Madeline, and she knew she couldn’t run for very long. Her wet boots felt as heavy as small European countries.
She followed Noah closely, the pack slapping violently against his back as he struggled to strap it down. For a moment she didn’t think she could keep up, felt her breath failing her, lungs laboring too fiercely as they tore across the lily-strewn meadow. Behind her the furtive rustle of grass told of the thing’s presence close behind.
Then, much to her relief, the old, falling-down ski hut came into view, nestled amid some trees. As they drew closer, Madeline could see that most of the windows were broken, and that one side of the roof had fallen to ruin. The door hung on one rusted hinge. As soon as they reached it, Noah shoved the door open and nodded for her to go inside. She slipped by him, her eyes adjusting to the