MacCready was jolted instantly awake by an agitated bleat from the goat. How long have I really been asleep? The music had stopped and, strangely, so had the noise from the insects and frogs. As the moon emerged from behind a cloud, the staked-out goat and the surrounding stand of trees were illuminated. MacCready’s imagination, too, seemed illuminated, and in ghostly silence, he saw shadows everywhere—and deep within the shadows he sensed movement . . .
Phantoms?
Ghosts?
Chupacabra?
No, he told himself. Figments of my imagination. Nothing more.
In the darkness of the forest, four “figments” reacted as the biped stretched, yawned, and, after a long look around, relaxed again against the tree trunk. Honed by more than fifty million years of evolution, the creatures in the trees employed an ultrasonic equivalent of night vision, through which they created acoustic images of their mammalian prey—both species. MacCready’s body, even his slow, rhythmic breathing, was analyzed at unimaginable speed, simultaneously visualized and heard through a chorus of rapid-fire clicks. Communicating in the language of sonar, the mother and child identified the biped on the branch as the same one they had encountered in the straw cave several days before. He had been more alert then—dangerous to the mother and, more important, to her child. But now the biped was slowing down, becoming more relaxed . . . almost asleep. Now, she decided, he would serve as the next step in her child’s education.
The largest of MacCready’s ghosts transmitted what to human ears would register as a barely detectable streamer of clicks. The child received the message and understood: food.
The young creature tensed and actually vibrated with anticipation.
Then the command.
KILL
In the clearing below MacCready and his phantoms, the goat shifted uneasily. The animal was completely oblivious to the blood that streamed from a pair of incisions above each of its rear hooves. Two dark shapes crouched behind the goat’s hind legs—but the twins, a year older than their brother, were anything but oblivious to the warm flow.
As the mother observed, the youngest crept—suspended below the branch on which the biped slept. The child moved cautiously but true stealth came only with experience, and as the predator neared MacCready’s right leg, the claw on his elongated thumb snapped a thin, dry twig.
Jerked instantly awake, MacCready blinked into the moonlight. Can’t see a thing.
He swiped at his eyes with a sleeve, and then looked down, searching for the goat.
Two black forms, resembling nothing more threatening than mounds of leaf litter, flanked the goat on either side. Then, reacting as one, the mounds came alive. Raising their bowed heads and, with long incisors glistening like tinsel, they glared up at MacCready. And then, in an instant, they were gone.
Whathefuck?
There was a faint rustle of parchment—Just like the sound in the Balloon Man’s hut—and the scientist knew that he was not alone in his tree. Strange shapes were moving toward him—ever so slowly, keeping to the shadows; and he understood that the darkness itself had come alive. Overcome with a sudden sense of claustrophobia, MacCready snatched a deep breath and pressed his back firmly against the tree trunk—trying to put more space between himself and the phantoms. Now, if he could only convince himself that the faint scuttle, more felt than heard, came from his imagination and not from directly behind him, on the opposite side of the trunk. If only—
Craning his neck to one side, MacCready glimpsed—or thought he glimpsed—a shadow, adjusting its position, keeping the vertical trunk between itself and its prey’s line of sight. Only by accident did he discover that flesh-and-blood shadows and not phantoms of his imagination actually did surround him—only by accident. Three feet away, on the branch that supported him, he sighted a dark bump that hadn’t been there before.
I’m dead . . .
For long seconds, MacCready watched the tightening perimeter of shapes as if in a trance, and for the first time within memory he retreated into himself—squashing panic with what he expected would be his last scientific observation: Incredibly cryptic morphology and behavior. No wasted movement. These are pack hunters at the peak of their evolutionary game. Black fucking ju-ju! These are the creatures that—
Something like a wave pierced his body, vibrating. It instantly reminded him of the GO sensation from the dead village—but this time, it was different.
GENTLE
“What the—”
GENTLE, came the message again, and immediately an incomparable sense of peace crept into him, seized him.
You’re not losing your mind, MacCready thought. Everything is all right, now.
RELAX
And suddenly he was dreaming of his mother’s face. It’s been so long. So long since I’ve seen you smile.
On the ground below, the goat jerked spasmodically, as if it were lying in electrified water. The animal let out a wet cough that sounded astonishingly human.
MacCready’s eyes widened. He could still see his mother—but now she was swallowing a handful of pills. Now she was about to—
“No!” he screamed. It’s some type of sonar. They’re in my head—buzzing and whistling inside my head and they’re trying to kill me.