* * *
Shot out of dreams of the war.
For a full minute, he had no idea where he was, simultaneously shivering and burning with fever.
Ethan sat up, reaching out in the darkness around him, and as his fingers grazed the rocky walls of the alcove, his internal GPS updated and the horror that had become his life came rushing back.
He’d thrown his clothes off in his sleep, and they lay scattered on the stone beside him, cold and damp. He spread them out so they’d have a better chance at drying, and then scooted forward until he perched on the edge of the alcove.
The rain had stopped.
The night sky hemorrhaging starlight.
He’d never had the slightest interest in astronomy, but he found himself searching for familiar constellations, wondering if the stars he saw shone from their proper stations.
Is this the night sky I’ve always seen?
Fifty feet below him, the river sang.
He stared downslope toward the water, and when he saw it, his blood froze.
Ethan’s first inclination was to scramble back into the recess, but he fought against the urge, fearing any sudden movement would draw attention.
Son of a bitch, they followed me.
Crossed the river after all.
They were down in those giant pines by the river and so well hidden in shadow that he couldn’t gauge their number.
At a sloth’s pace, inch by inch, Ethan withdrew into the recess, lowering himself until his chest was flattened against the freezing rock, now just peeking out over the lip of the alcove.
They vanished into shadow, and for a moment, aside from the river, the world stood absolutely still, Ethan beginning to wonder if he’d actually seen anything at all. Considering what he’d been through in the last five days, rote hallucinations would’ve been a welcome return to sanity.
Thirty seconds later, they emerged out of the shadow of the pines, onto the crushed rock at the base of the slope.
What the hell?
There was only one, and though it was the size of a man, it didn’t move like a man—traveling across the rock on all fours, hairless and pale under the stars.
A metal taste—byproduct of fear—coated Ethan’s mouth as it struck him that its proportions were all wrong, arms seemingly twice their normal length.
The thing raised its head, and even from this distance, Ethan could see its oversized nose pointed toward the sky.
Smelling.
Ethan wriggled himself away from the opening and as far back into the alcove as he could get, where he huddled with his arms around his legs, shivering and straining to listen for the sound of approaching footsteps or shifting rocks.
But all he could hear was the purr of the river, and the next time he chanced a look outside, whatever he’d seen—or thought he’d seen—was gone.