“What is it?” he heard Sparrow whisper.
He had no idea. It was of monstrous size and appearance for something that walked upright and was vaguely human. It stood well over eight feet, its massive body coated with a mix of scales and tufts of long hair and clots of debris that seemed to have grown into its leathery hide. Huge, bowed legs supported its tree-trunk body; its overlong arms hung loose from its shoulders, ridged with muscle. Wicked green eyes peered out from beneath a brow formed of bone grown thick with scars, and there was an intent in those eyes that left Hawk chilled all the way through.
Cheney growled deep in his throat and took a cautious step forward, muzzle drawn back, teeth gleaming.
“No, Cheney,” Hawk said at once.
He reached down and touched the dog’s thick ruff to reinforce his command, and he felt Cheney shiver in response.
“What do we do?” Bear asked.
“Back away,” Hawk ordered.
He took one step and then another. Sparrow and Bear went with him, their movements slow and cautious. Both leveled the barrels of their weapons and pointed them at the monster. Hawk took a third step, and his companions did the same.
Cheney had not moved.
“Cheney,” Hawk whispered. “Back.”
Still the dog did not move. He remained frozen in place, his eyes fixed on the monstrosity confronting them, head lowered, ruff bristling, muscles gathered. The mist drifted in curtains across the barren terrain, ceaselessly changing the look of things, conspiring with the darkness to trick and deceive, to cause the eyes to question.
“Back, Cheney,” Hawk repeated, a sinking feeling blooming in the pit of his stomach.
Then the mist swept in out of the night, a suffocating blanket that enveloped everything, and the creature facing them was gone.
For a second, no one moved, staring into the hazy darkness, waiting for it to clear and for the monster to reappear. But when the dissipation finally took place, the monster was nowhere to be seen.
Cheney remained in his defensive crouch.
“Can we go now?” Sparrow asked in a small voice.
Hawk nodded without answering.
They set out anew, moving away from the place where the monster had appeared and then vanished, following the tracks of the AV, still trying to make their way toward their destination. They walked in a tight cluster, Bear and Sparrow with their weapons held ready, Hawk with his eyes on the darkness, and Cheney, who was again on the move in front of them, leading the way. Cheney didn’t seem entirely satisfied with the decision not to stand their ground, a reluctant participant in their efforts to get away. He slouched guardedly some half a dozen paces ahead, muzzle lowered, head swinging, the hair ridging his spine bristling like spikes.
No one said anything.
The minutes passed, a slow progression that measured their efforts at putting as much distance as possible between themselves and the creature, efforts that did nothing to reassure them. There was something about the encounter that left Hawk wondering if what they had seen was even real. It felt as if what they had witnessed was the emergence of an apparition, a specter not subject to natural laws. Nothing about it felt right. Its abrupt appearance and disappearance suggested that their encounter had been with a ghost come out of the ether rather than a creature of flesh and blood.
And yet he could not shake the feeling that there was substance to it, that the weight of it, should it be felt, would be crushing.
Like the weight of its gaze as it stared at him, he thought. Immense, implacable, and overpowering.
More time passed, and they kept moving, passing in and out of chambers formed of mist and darkness. Distance lost meaning, the terrain unchanging beneath their feet, a swampy combination of sucking mud, sand, and withered scrub. The horizon was a low, jagged line fading into the night’s gray emptiness. There was no sound and no movement. They might have been alone in the world, the last of its creatures.
“Maybe we lost it,” Sparrow ventured finally, a hopeful whisper in the deep silence.
“I don’t know,” Bear whispered back. He glanced about, looking decidedly uneasy. “It doesn’t feel that way to me.”
“You’re just spooked,” Sparrow continued. She gave him a quick grin and glanced at Hawk. “What do you think?”
The boy shook his head. “I don’t like it that we can’t see anything. I wish it was daylight.”
Bear shook his head. “I wish we hadn’t left the city. These mountains don’t feel right. All this open space feels dangerous. It reminds me of the farm when I was a kid.”