Into the Mist Page 9

  On the bank, Anaru watched as she savoured the quiet. No doubt she was grateful for the respite from de Haas. They’d hardly arrived before he’d started bossing her about. He would’ve had her work through dinner too, if Dr Asher hadn’t gone over and pulled her away.

  Louise sighed. “It’s a lovely spot, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “The way the torchlight picks up the droplets...”

  A wisp of poetry surfaced in his mind. “A note as from a single place, A slender tinkling fall that made, Now drops that floated on the pool, Like pearls, and now a silver blade,” he quoted, feeling awkward the second he finished. Citing poetry to a woman he hardly knew. What was he thinking? He was working.

  But Louise Hemphill didn’t laugh. She said, “Then the moon, in all her pride, Like a spirit glorified, Filled and overflowed the night, With revelations of her light… And the Poet’s song again, Passed like music through my brain, Night interpreted to me, All its grace and mystery…”

  Anaru raised his eyebrows. “Yeats?”

  “Longfellow. And yours?”

  “Robert Frost.”

  “Pretty.” There was nothing to say to that. They watched the water rush by, Anaru on the bank and Louise on her rock. “So you like poetry,” she said. A statement.

  “A thug like me shouldn’t like poetry?”

  “I didn’t say that. It was more of a refreshing revelation. My ex-boyfriend was in finance. He didn’t like poetry. Thought it was girly.”

  Anaru noted the prefix, ex-boyfriend. “It’s like you said: the poet’s song. Poets put the world into words for us.”

  “They do.”

  They stayed there a while longer, watching the play of the light on the water. Anaru heard Singh and Lefty chatting amiably further along the bank.

  After a while the drizzle started to set in. “I should probably get you back or you’re going to get soaked,” Anaru said. Louise stood and jumped the gap to the bank. They picked their way through the brush and up the narrow path to the campsite. A few paces in, Anaru caught a rustle a little way off the path.

  He stopped. Louise slowed too.

  “Did you hear that?” Anaru asked.

  She half turned in the direction of the sound. “That rustling? Probably nothing. The wind.”

  “Hmmm.” Anaru was unconvinced.

  “It could be an animal. A possum maybe, or a bird? We might’ve frightened something.”

  “Or it could be our hunter.”

  “You think so? I thought your sergeant said he had this area searched.”

  “McKenna also said the man might be injured. People in shock often react strangely. They’ll crawl into a small space and hide, even when it seems odd. It happens all the time in house fires. I suspect it’ll be nothing ‒ most likely a possum or a bird ‒ but I should probably take a quick look. Just to be sure.” He hesitated. “Are you okay if I leave you here a second on the track?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ll have to take the torch.”

  “It’s not that dark, and Singh and Lefty are just behind us at the creek. You go ahead. I’d feel awful if the poor man was lying there and we walked right past.”

  “I won’t be a minute.”

  Anaru didn’t like leaving her, but this drizzle looked like it’d turn to rain soon. If the hunter was in here, without warm clothing and shelter, even with no injury, he could die of hypothermia by morning. Anaru didn’t want that on his conscience. It would only take a moment to check.

  Wishing he hadn’t left his Mini N/SEAS night vision goggles back at the campsite, Anaru stepped into the bush, the undergrowth brushing softly against his legs. He’d only advanced a few metres, when the rustling came again. Definitely something close by.

  He stopped. Listened hard.

  Nothing.

  But now he could smell something. The sour odour of an unwashed body? He took a step forward.

  “Private Winters? Can you see anything?”

  His blood thundering, Anaru nearly leaped into the treetops.

  Jeepers, she gave me a fright!

  He took a second to inhale deeply before replying. “Ms Hemphill, shush please, I’m trying to locate the origin of the sound—”

  Pain exploded in his chest. Heart attack? He gasped as the agony tore through his ribs and legs. His chest was constricted, crushed. He couldn’t get any air, couldn’t breathe – his breath stalled. Suddenly, he was yanked upwards as if tethered by a cord. Battling the burn in his torso, Anaru tried to twist. He couldn’t move. He was pinned. Dangling. Was he in some sort of animal trap? A metallic stink hit him. Another animal. Or the pig hunter?

  His arms were free…

  …and he still had hold of his rifle! If he could just point the gun’s torch forward. Get a sight on what had him caught. Turning the Steyr was the hardest thing he’d ever done. Lacking control, the beam of light spiralled widely, glancing off the trees in violent angles. Anaru fought white hot pain. His vision blurred, his body was wracked with nausea. He inched the rifle sideways. Not much time before he passed out; the stabbing in his chest excruciating as he manoeuvred the gun light, holding it still just long enough to see… the horizontal blink of a scaly-rimmed eye.

  Lord help me. I’m being eaten like a fly.

  * * *

  A wail pierced the air. Jug leaped to his feet. Beside him, Lefty did the same.

  Immediately, the forest around them was alive with birds screeching and flapping.

  “What the fuck was that?” Lefty said, raising his Steyr and pointing it into the blackness at the edge of the water.

  “Don’t know,” Jug said, scanning the brush.

  “Sounded like a chick shrieking.”

  “Louise Hemphill? She was just upstream with Winters. I heard them talking.”

  Lefty sighed, and lowered his gun. “That’ll be it then. She’ll have a huhu beetle crawling on her, or a wētā in her hair.”

  “Yes, probably,” Jug said. Women and creepy crawlies. Priya could wake the dead with her squealing if there was a daddy long-legs in the bathtub. Although Jug wasn’t convinced what he’d just heard was an ‘eek-get-it-off-me’ kind of scream.

  “Anaru was with her, so she’ll be safe enough,” Lefty said. Perhaps he wasn’t convinced either.

  “The pig hunter is missing,” Jug said. “So maybe we should check it out anyway?”

  “Yeah, I reckon. Just to be on the safe side.”

  They left the river, heading up the path at a jog.

  * * *

  Louise ran for her life, heart pounding so hard it hurt. Frantic, she scrambled through the undergrowth. In the darkness, the branches jabbed at her, grabbing at her hair, and scratching her face. She whacked her shoulder against the trunk of a tree, reeling as the air was forced out of her lungs. She got up, turned her bruised shoulder sideways to push past the obstacle, and ran on, staggering.

  She hadn’t heard anything behind her for a while. Perhaps she’d outrun the danger? Escaped? Oh please, let me escape. But the sound came again. That rustling. Closer. It was coming closer! Louise let out a tiny squeak of terror and jumped away, tearing off in the opposite direction, running hard, her arms spread out in front of her like a blind man without a cane.

  Even so, she hit another tree and stumbled. Half-stunned, she got to her knees, and closed her hand, feeling the stickiness in her palm. A deep cut. A new thought filled her with dread. Could it smell blood? Panicked, she hauled herself up, snatching in the dark for branches to hold on to, her raw hands stinging. She ran again, sobbing silently, not daring to look behind her. The sounds of pursuit followed her anyway, and in her head was the image of Anaru Winters, flopping.

  God help me…

  Why had she followed him in? She should have stayed on the track and waited like he’d asked. Lefty and Eriksen were just there. They were there. She should have waited. But minutes had passed and she’d got nervous. Before that, she’d heard him brushing through the fern
s and cracking twigs, but then, after he’d told her to shush, everything had gone quiet. Uncannily quiet. So, she’d taken a step off the path into the bush…

  There was scraping, like a log being dragged. Over there. She turned away from the sound and ran on.

  I can’t keep this up. I can’t…

  She had to. Because if she didn’t, the alternative… She pushed herself to run faster, ignoring the scrapes, the branches cruelly whipping backwards to smack her face, her eyes. She wiped the back of her hand across her forehead. It came away wet.

  Suddenly, she was seized by an awareness of space in front of her, whether it was the movement of the mist, or the lilt of moonlight through the canopy, she didn’t know, but she pulled up, her feet kicking stones forward. The pebbles tumbled away below her, clattering as they fell. She was at the top of a gully. She’d nearly gone over the edge! Reaching out her injured hand, she grasped at the air until she found a support. Bracing herself against a tree trunk, the spike of adrenaline drained away. She’d come that close to falling.

  A hiss.

  No…

  It was there. Behind her. Louise turned slowly, too scared to breathe. The feckless mist chose that moment to clear, allowing Louise a glimpse of her pursuer. Its body slung low to the ground, the predator lowered its head. Feathers? Are those feathers? And the smell of it! Like a rotting carcass.

  They were eye-level now, just metres apart, staring at each other, predator and prey, Louise’s body wracked with tremors.

  Go away… please God, make it go away…

  But in her terror, she had allowed it to corral her here, turning and turning again from the sound of its passage. It had played with her the way a cat plays with a mouse. Now she was cornered on a precipice. Almost as if the creature was waiting, testing her mettle. Would she jump, or wouldn’t she?

  It opened its jaws; pink ooze dripped from the side of its mouth.

  Fuck that.

  Louise jumped.

  Chapter 11

  Jug stayed with Anaru while Lefty raised the alarm. Within minutes McKenna dispatched Coolie and Read to watch over the civilians, leaving Jug and Lefty to look after Winters’ body while the rest of the section searched for Louise Hemphill.

  Those first few minutes on his own in the forest had been the longest of Jug’s life, standing over Anaru, waiting for Lefty to return. Even with him back, the last hour hadn’t been much fun either. Jug didn’t think McKenna and the others would be long; the conditions were too poor, the rain really setting in now, and none of them knew the terrain. Plus, the sergeant would want to avoid a second surprise attack by Winters’ killers.

  Except there was only one killer.

  “So,” Jug said carefully. “What exactly did you tell McKenna?”

  “Just that Winters had been attacked and killed, and Louise Hemphill’s missing.”

  “You know he’s going to come back and ask us what happened.”

  “Yeah,” Lefty said, his eyes skittering over Winters’ corpse.

  “What are we going to say?”

  Lefty shook his head. “Fucked if I know.”

  “But you saw it, right?” Jug whispered, his voice cracking.

  Jaw tight, Lefty nodded.

  Jug slumped. “Crap. I was hoping my eyes were playing tricks on me,” he said.

  A creak sounded behind them. Panicked, Jug turned, swinging his rifle upwards. Lefty pushed the barrel down and away with his hand. ‘Singh, not at me, you arse!”

  Jug had come close to shooting him, spooked by the trees, scraping together in the storm. Just as well he hadn’t. Jug didn’t fancy standing out here on his own. “Sorry. I’m a bit jumpy.”

  “Yeah,” Lefty said. “Me too.”

  “They’ll be back soon.”

  They said nothing, listening to the rain hit the tarpaulin they’d slung across the trees to keep the attack site dry. After a time, Lefty said, “What if we say we didn’t see anything, that it was too dark?”

  “We’re equipped with infrared gear,” Jug countered. “They’ll think we’re incompetent.”

  “Yeah. But what’s the alternative?”

  The question hung in the air between them.

  “Did you cop a look at its teeth?” Lefty said, shuddering.

  Jug nodded. “They’re never going to believe us.”

  * * *

  Taine cast his eyes over the site, Trigger at his side. There wasn’t much to see. Some trampled undergrowth, and Winters’ body, washed clean of blood in the ensuing rain. The soldier has been dead three hours now, but Singh and Lefty were still shaken. Pale and sluggish, they were like a couple of zombies. Even Singh looked white – no mean feat given his ethnicity.

  “I’m going to need a fuller account of what happened here,” Taine said. “You say you were both at the creek when you heard a shout?”

  “We heard something,” Singh said, plucking nervously at the cuff of his tunic. “We thought it was a woman…”

  “Or it might have been Anaru...” Lefty said softly.

  “At the time, we thought it was Ms Hemphill, you know, scared by a bug or something. We went straight to where we thought the sound was coming from. It was just a little way up the path, but it took us a few minutes…”

  “And that’s when you saw Winters’ killers?” Taine noted that both men paused, each throwing a glance at the other.

  “Not killers, killer. It was an... animal,” Lefty said, hesitant.

  Taine frowned. “You’re sure? Not a bunch of men?”

  “No.”

  “I was a couple of paces behind Lefty,” Singh said. “It was definitely an animal of some sort.”

  “A wild pig?” Taine asked. “It’s the only animal in these forests capable of killing a man.”

  “Bigger,” Lefty said.

  Bigger than a wild pig?

  “You’re positive it wasn’t a group of men? The visibility is pretty poor with all this mist.”

  “It was an animal,” Lefty insisted. “And it was as big as a fucking bus. Big enough to have Anaru clamped between its jaws.”

  “There was nothing we could do,” said Singh. His eyes blurring, the medic stared over the tarp-covered corpse into the forest. Lefty too, was close to tears. Taine needed to tread softly. He’d seen enough PTSD to know these two could be close to flipping out.

  “Lefty?”

  The private exhaled slowly. “For a second, it didn’t move,” he said. “It just stood there bold as brass looking at me with Anaru in its mouth. I… I was paralysed. I didn’t react. I should’ve taken a shot. I know I should’ve. Maybe if I’d… I don’t know why not… in shock, I guess, and I didn’t want to hit Anaru…” He trailed off.

  “What happened next, son?” Taine prompted.

  “It just dropped the poor bastard on the ground,” Lefty said, “spat him out as if he didn’t taste good and went after the girl.”

  “There was nothing we could do…” Singh said again.

  Taine leaned forward, looking hard at Lefty. “You saw it chase Ms Hemphill?”

  Lefty shook his head. “No.”

  “We could hear her,” Singh said. “That’s how we could tell she was running away. She must have seen the animal and panicked.”

  “This animal, what did you say it looked like again?”

  The men fell silent. Lefty looked pointedly at Singh. Inviting the medic to speak?

  “Jug?”

  But the medic’s eyes slid away. “Like you said, Sergeant, the visibility is poor.”

  “Okay, so when Ms Hemphill ran, the animal followed the sound. What direction did she go?”

  “We told you before,” Lefty said.

  “Tell me again.”

  Now it was Lefty’s turn to look sidelong into the bush. “She went that way,” he said eventually, pointing into the trees, and Singh nodded.

  “What happened then?”

  “I came to get you, Boss.”

  “And I went to see to Winters,” Sin
gh said quickly, “in case he was alive, only by that time…” He broke off.

  “I’m finding it hard to imagine an animal big enough to attack a man, let alone an armed soldier.”

  Lefty blurted, “Look, it was straight out of Jurassic-fucking-Park, okay? It was a bloody T Rex.”

  Trigger snorted. “A T Rex? Yeah right!” he chortled.

  Taine shot him a glare. Whatever Lefty saw, it had him rattled. Ridiculing him wasn’t going to help.

  “A tyrannosaurus,” Taine said gently. “You mean, as big as a tyrannosaurus?”

  Lefty looked at the ground. “I know you think I’m nuts, but Jug saw it too. It was a T Rex. We both saw it.”

  Taine turned to Singh. The medic fiddled with his tunic.

  “Singh?”

  Singh lifted his chin. “I don’t know about a T Rex, but it looked like a lizard. A huge one. And before you ask, no I haven’t been prescribing myself anything from my medical kit. I’m sure of what I saw, just not what it was.”

  “Oh come on, a fucking dinosaur?” Shaking his head, Trigger folded his arms across his chest.

  “Trigger!” Taine snapped. Taine nodded at Singh to go on.

  “I know it sounds crazy. It’s true the light was bad, and we only got a glimpse of it, but that’s what it looked like.”

  After another ten minutes, Taine dismissed them. Their shoulders slumped, Lefty and Singh trudged their way back up to the tent site.

  “We’re going to have to keep an eye on those two,” Taine told Trigger as he watched them go.

  “Yeah. They’re both off their fucking heads,” Trigger said. “You’d think a medic would be used to blood and guts. Not fall apart. Did you see him? He was shaking like a girl!”

  Taine watched the twin torches of Singh and Lefty advance up the slope like two beams of a car. “You never get used to seeing someone die,” he said, crouching to lift the tarpaulin off Anaru’s mutilated body.

  Confronted with the cadaver, Trigger wiped the humidity off his face with his hand. “Yes, well, that’s true enough.”

  “Where’s his gun?” Taine demanded.