The Flock (7 page)

Walks Backward was at his position, as always. Behind him, the Flock was moving ahead, scouting. He surveyed the leavings of the route they had taken, running quickly from one side of the hunting pattern to the other. There: a bit of covering shed by one of last year's youth; he ate it. On a sandy patch of ground: a great three-toed track left by one of the females; he scratched it out with his own great claws, until there was no track to see.

Behind the Flock, he kept his vigil, searching for sign his fellows had left, things for him to collect in his gullet or expunge from existence. They had learned that to continue to live, to continue to survive, all sign of their being must be kept from the Man.

They had lived in this place for a long time, the Flock. Most of their race had vanished, and they were the local remnant of once vast numbers who had hunted here, taking the prey that had come and gone, gift of a fickle sky. The Two, Mother and Father, held the history and told it each day, bit by bit as it came to them in the sunlight moments. Once, there had been other creatures who had lived in this land, other hunters and other prey. Horned antelope, smaller and quicker than the deer on which they now lived, had once danced across these scrubby prairies. Great, hairless mammoths had shared the spaces with them. Huge armored mammals had lumbered across the land. An endless parade of life, less now than in the times faded into history.

And then, almost a hundred generations before, the Man had come. They were tall, although not as tall as a member of the Flock. And they moved on two legs instead of four. The Flock had never seen any other land hunter who moved on two legs rather than four; just like themselves. This Man, this new hunter, was a competitor, perhaps equal to the Flock: the Flock who could race across the grasses as fast as any deer; who were slyer, more cunning than any cat or wolf; who were heavier than any other hunter, even than the bears. The Flock would push out these new things who came in numbers onto the Flock's ground.

But the Flock had been in error. This new creature, this man, could kill like nothing else. They came down from the north in masses, and they could make fire, and could deliver their long teeth from a great distance. The Flocks fell dead for making war on this animal, this Man. Almost; they faded from the land.

An Egg Mother had seen what to do. An Egg Father had followed her. They would hide from this Man. They would hunt at night, when the new creature slept. And they would never again let Man know that the Flock was a part of the land. The first Walks Backward was born, was trained, lived his life, passed his knowledge down the line. The Flock had lived until today, until the now. They had hidden well from Man, who had come in numbers that were impossible for the Flock to reason. Everywhere, the Man had eaten everything, had even eaten the earth itself, pushing up big nests that covered the ground and fouled the water. The Flock had retreated and retreated.

Recalling all of this, Walks Backward did his job.

And the Scarlet rogue was endangering them all. Holding a crimson bit that he'd found, left behind by the rogue, Walks Backward lifted his head high, turned toward the hunting Flock. He wanted to scream it out to them, he wanted to tell them
that the Scarlet must die, must be killed, and must be consumed by the Flock
. He peered at shifting shadows, at youth and adult moving in an agile unit, hunting for food. He turned his snout up, tossed the bit of red into the air and snapped his gigantic mouth shut on it. The Scarlet was a bright taste in his mouth; a taste that brought up his hatred but which did not dull his patience. He was Walks Backward. It was not his place to decide anything. It was only for him to guard the rear, to hide the sign.

To protect the Flock.

Ahead, the Flock fell on the deer that had run from them for a mile, but had finally begun to slow from exhaustion.

Great, clawed feet lifted and dropped, tearing hide and flesh. A razored mouth opened wide and cut into flesh, ripping out a great killing chunk of meat. The Flock fell as a unit on the deer, feasting, calling out silently to one another. Life was good. In moments, they dispersed as a group, vanishing into the black shadows.

Soon, Walks Backward appeared. There was his share. A fine length of shank meat, still warm and wet. He tossed it up, caught it in his maw. Then, scratching the ground, adjusting the brush, he left no sign of their passing. Only someone on hands and knees could find even a spot of blood, a clue that something had killed here.

For now, the Flock was safe and fed.

For now.

As he'd promised, the Colonel had taken Dodd back to his car and had left him there, waving as the little reporter got out of the truck. Dodd had waved back. “Goodbye, you crazy fascist bastard,” he said, when the man was beyond earshot.

And just as soon as Grisham was out of sight, Dodd had found his key, digging into this pocket and ignoring the pain of his cut and abraded hands. He'd dragged the key out, reopening the wounds and leaving fresh bloody prints on his pants and on the doorhandle as he'd jerked it open. Barely able to contain himself, he had started the engine, pushing the gas down too far and too fast for this idyllic town, peeling off and leaving a great black ribbon on the pavement. He could smell the stench of burning rubber even through the closed windows of the Buick. Tim didn't care. He might not be much of a walker, but he could outdrive most folk.

Keeping one eye peeled for Salutations' ever present security forces, he pushed the limits of the conservative posted speeds through each neighborhood, until he was back at The Executive where his employers had prepaid his room for the next month. Paying little attention to how he parked, he left the rental car canted over two parking spaces and bolted from it. By then, night had fallen and he was running across the lot, Yankee tourists eyeing him suspiciously. He ignored them all, the singles and the families and their raucous kiddies. Pulling the door to the lobby open with all of his strength, he burst in.

The door clacked loudly against the glass panel beside it as he drew it open too wide. But it was shatterproof glass, and so did not crack. But the rude noise brought all attention to Dodd. And for just a second, he realized what a sight he presented to everyone gathered.

There he was, standing at the entrance to the lobby. His clothing was torn, ripped in a dozen places. His hands were lacerated to the point of comedy, blood trickling from fingers and palms. His arms were crisscrossed with nasty scratches, the edges of the wounds black with crusted blood. His pale brown pants were tattered, and likewise stained with his blood. All eyes were on him, and he knew it. “Got lost. Fell down,” he said.

And he was
racing
across the lobby. An elevator opened for him, as if on cue. The pair of couples who had been waiting to take it cringed back and let Dodd have it all to himself. “Don't you want to go up?” he asked, pointing a bloody finger at the roof.

One thin, pretty woman replied, “Ugh.” The doors closed and she was spared another instant of Dodd's presence.

On the way up, Dodd stood at the door, bouncing, waiting impatiently for the elevator to arrive at the fourth floor, for the door to open. He was wishing he'd taken the stairs. Perhaps that would have been quicker. At the fourth, the door opened and he burst out. A young man who had been waiting for the elevator actually screeched at the ridiculous sight of Dodd propelling himself out of the elevator.

Down the hallways Dodd went, running, his weird, bouncing gait taking him along in a lopsided manner, head bobbing as he trotted. His normally curly hair was hanging in sweaty tendrils from his scalp, partially obscuring his face. At his room, he again fumbled in his pocket for a key, this time the security card that would open his door. And once again he tore open the dozen little wounds on his fingers as he took the key out and jammed it into the door, waiting crazily for the little green light to illuminate and allow him entrance to 455. The light flashed, the lock clicked open. He fell into the room with a triumphant yell, pulling the key out of the slot as he went past. The door slammed shut behind him.

Taking the digital camera from around his neck, he cast about for the cable necessary to download the photos into his laptop computer. Working with his stinging hands, he had only a little difficulty achieving what he wanted, turning the computer on, and downloading the shots.

Staring, he waited while the information was brought up as a series of files. The little horizontal graph told him when each shot was ready. He had taken six photos before he'd seen the thing in the thicket, and now there were sixteen shots showing. Out of ten, he should have one that would be worth looking at. If he were lucky, he'd have at least a single shot that would prove to him that he had actually seen what he
thought
he'd seen, and had not merely been panicked.

But there couldn't be what he thought he'd seen. There couldn't
truly
be such creatures still living. He waited, standing there like a speedfreak, impatient for the laptop to do what he'd commanded it to do. There was a beep:
Download complete
.

Dodd unhooked the digital camera and tossed it on the bed. Slowly, now that he had it all there waiting on him, he sat and began to scroll down the files with the pointer. He knew that the first six shots were worthless stuff. He'd just been bored and had taken some pictures of the town, one of some kind of turtle plodding across the Salutations village green. He pointed to shot number seven and called it up.

Band by band, the image began to appear on the laptop's small, grainy screen. He stared at it. Nothing but brush, part of his shoe. This one was from before he'd fully raised the camera.

He loaded the next.

What was that?

Through the obscuring screen of a thicket, he could clearly make out a clawed, scaly foot. Perfectly, he could see three toes.
And those claws
. The rest was just brush and palmetto.

He scrolled to the next. A mishmash of vegetation.

The next. Similar.

And then the fifth. He stared. This couldn't
be
. This was not possible.

“A dinosaur,” he whispered. “Jurassic Park, for real.”

The sun had set by the time Kate had gotten a truck with which to take Ron back to his own vehicle. Ron had walked with her back to a garage that held no less than a dozen trucks of various makes, each rigged for a particular task, it seemed. And there had been four-wheelers, all terrain vehicles. Ron had made mention of those.

“What's your boss doing with ATVs? I would have thought he'd hate those things, considering they're responsible for tearing up all kinds of habitat.”

“Oh, we don't use them very often.”

As he climbed into the cab of the pickup, he looked back and remarked once again. “I'm surprised he has them, at all.”

“Everything in moderation,” she told him, climbing in on the driver's side.

“That doesn't actually sound like your kind of philosophy, Kate.” He buckled himself in, admiring the interior of the vehicle. He immediately noticed that it was equipped with some pretty serious hardware.

“Well, that's Vance Holcomb speaking. Not I. And, anyway, he's a man of contradictions. I'm sure you've heard the tales. Even his fellow environmentalists alternately love and hate him, depending on what's cooking in that amazing brain of his.” She inserted a key into the ignition and the truck pulled soundlessly out of the garage, the door automatically shutting behind them.

“I'll be damned,” Ron said. “This truck has an electric motor?”

“Dual systems.”

“What?”

“Electric and propane. We can switch to propane if we want to.”

“You're joking.” He looked the cab over again, checking out as many details as he could in the cool, green light from the dash. “I've never seen one of these.”

“Hey. Vance is a wealthy man. He buys only the best.” Kate tooted the horn and Ron saw two fellows appear from the shadows to unlock the gates and let them out. She waved at them and muttered thanks, even though they couldn't hear her through the raised windows. In a moment the compound was a couple of distant lights in the darkness, then gone. They were on a single lane road that was merely a couple of sandy tracks in the wiregrass, a narrow gap that led through the woods, meandering back and forth. “I like driving this little road,” she said. “We didn't cut it through here, you know. We just cleared out a couple of loblolly pines and that was all the construction needed. The big trucks that brought in the building materials did most of the work for us, and the forest has even repaired most of that
damage
.”

Ron nodded. “He seems sincere about saving this place. I have to say it's an important site. But I don't know if he's going to get what he wants.”

Kate glanced his way just as the dirt road met up with one of the paved roads that marked the current boundary of Salutations. “You might be right. But it would hurt my heart to see him fail. You've seen a little of it. This place deserves to be saved, despite shoddy impact statements from the government, high powered lawyers from an entertainment conglomerate, and the slippery good ol' boy politics of a thinly veiled neo-Nazi.” There was an edge in her voice. The truck bounced as it climbed up from sand to asphalt.

“I agree with you. It's a big place. Lots of varied habitat.”

“Ron, I don't think you have a grasp on this place. Not really. You ought to take a look at it. I mean, a really
good
look. It's one of the largest unprotected roadless areas in the eastern United States. It
has
to be preserved. As is.”

In the dark of the cab Ron looked at Kate's face outlined from the bluish glow from the lighted dash. He was finding himself more attracted to her the longer he was with her. “Sorry about what I said today. In Levin's lab, I mean.”

There was a moment's silence. “That's okay. Don't mention it.”

“I just wanted to apologize. The reason I said it, well, that guy Levin was getting on my nerves. He was baiting me. Maybe he's jealous that I was out hiking around with you, or something.” He cleared his throat, feeling nervous again. “Are you two…
attached?
”

“Attached? Me and Levin? Heavens, no.” She glanced his way. “What was he saying? Did he say something about me?”

“Not in so many words, no. It's hard to describe. He was just giving me a hard time. Making innuendoes. I'm not making any sense, am I?”

“Sure you are. Look, I've known Adam for nine years, and I know exactly what you're talking about. He can be quite irritating.” They were going through the center of Salutations. The lights were bright, the quaint mall bustling, people walking down the streets. The place looked very nice. She slowed the truck to a crawl, to avoid hitting any of the kids who might dart into the street. She'd seen kids do that here in the past.

“Apology accepted, then?”

“No need for one, but if you feel like giving one, then sure. Apology accepted.” Kate smiled at Ron and accelerated gradually through a green light.

“Then how about going out with me this Friday? I know some nice places to eat. Some nice clubs. I was thinking about driving over to Melbourne. How about it?”

Kate was quiet for several seconds. It seemed like minutes to Ron, and he was beginning to become uncomfortable. She reached over and flipped a switch, letting in cool air. Finally, she spoke. “Look. You don't know me that well. There are some things happening for me right now that are keeping me very busy. But, I'd like to make the time to get to know you.”

Ron pressed his lips together.
Okay. A mystery woman
. “I can't imagine what I'd need to know before taking you out. But, okay. Let's talk about it.”

For the first time since he'd met her that morning, an expression of something like anger crossed her face. “Not
now
. This isn't the time or the place. We'll talk later. Maybe tomorrow, if you come by the compound. Hell, there's three days before Friday.”

Ron reached back and grunted, pulling his wallet free. He opened it, dug around until he found the small bundle of cards he carried there. “Here,” he said, handing one to her. “This is a business card. I have to have them for when I'm doing interpretive talks for schools, tourist groups. They have my home phone number. Give me a call and we can make some time. Just to talk.”

Without looking at him, Kate reached out and took the card and stuffed it in the breast pocket of her shirt. “Okay.” Her eyes were on the road as they left the town center behind and faded into the darkness toward the residential neighborhoods. “Now. Where did you park your truck?”

“North side of town,” he told her. “Phase Three, they call it. I parked right next to that substation.”

“I know exactly where you're talking about,” she said. “I'll have you right there.”

She made a couple of right turns, the headlights of the truck spotlighting freshly mown lawns and smart cars parked in pale, concrete driveways, waiting to pull into wide garages. “I hate this place,” she said. And then they were there, her bright beams illuminating Ron's truck. “This the place, fella?”

“This is the place,” he told her, smiling at her and offering his hand. She took it, gripped it, and released him. “Thanks for the ride, good lookin'.”

“Anytime,” she said as he slid out. He smiled again, waved, and shut the door.

While Ron walked to the truck and climbed in, she waited until he had started it and was pulling away. Once, when she was younger, she had dropped a friend at a vehicle, a situation similar to this one, and had driven away without waiting; the friend's car had not started and a four-mile hike in the dark had been made to the nearest public phone. She had always felt some guilt over that, and never wanted to repeat that kind of error.

Falling in behind his truck, she followed for a hundred yards or so. Then he turned south, and she had to bear to the right.