The Gypsy Morph

EIGHTEEN

For A FEW ENDLESS MOMENTS, no one moved. Not even Cheney, who must have sensed the danger instinctively. None of them had ever seen anything like the Klee–had not even imagined such a thing could exist. They stared at it as people always stare at things so foreign and so unlikely, they seem a trick of the mind. They stared at it, as well, with the cold realization that they had come up against something much more terrifying than anything they had encountered before.

The Klee stared back at them, immobile against the screen of the dark and the mist.

No, not at them, Hawk corrected, catching the glint of its tiny eyes beneath the heavy brow. Not at them.

It was looking right at him.

Perhaps the others didn’t know this, but he was certain of it. He didn’t know why he had been singled out, but he knew he had. Perhaps something about him had caught its attention. Perhaps it had been looking for him all along. For reasons he couldn’t fathom, he was the one it was focused on, the one it wanted.

“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.”

“What do you mean?”

Bear shrugged. “No protection from anything. I like walls with doors, and doors that lock.” He paused. “That thing back there. We used to see things like that now and then, roaming the fields. Mutants, changed by the chemicals and radiation from the bombs. Lizards and Croaks and such, but other things, too. Some of them were big and mean. Some of them didn’t even seem to have a reason for being. You had to watch out when you were out in the open. You had to be real careful all the time. We learned that the hard way. My little brother …” He trailed off and shook his head. “We lost him because of one of those things. We didn’t go out much at night after that.”

No one spoke for a moment, and then Sparrow said, “In the mountains where I lived with my mother, we never saw anything like you described. Or like that thing back there.” She shivered. “Maybe there were monsters, but they didn’t come around. The only monsters we saw were members of the militias that were hunting us. That was bad enough.”

“Everything’s hunting us,” Bear said quietly.

True enough, Hawk thought. Street kids were at the bottom of the food chain. All kids, for that matter. He tightened his grip on the prod and peered ahead into the darkness where the mist was beginning to thicken again. Bear was right. It was harder to defend yourself out in the open, away from the protection of walls and doors, from the safety of barricades that would keep the bad things out. He remembered how safe it had felt inside their home in Pioneer Square, the rest of the world locked out by Fixit’s inventions and the sense of security that being part of a family created. He wondered if they would find that again where they were going, if the sense of always being hunted would finally end, if the shelter that was promised really would be waiting when they arrived.

He shook his head. He couldn’t imagine it, but he wanted badly to believe that it could happen–an escape from the madness of the world, a retreat from their fear that everything could end at a moment’s notice. It didn’t seem too much to ask, he thought. Not if the vision he had been shown so often was true.

The fog was growing heavier about them, an ebb and flow of shadow movements that could have been anything. Their vision was down to less than a dozen feet and still diminishing. Hawk kept his eyes on Cheney, a few steps ahead of them, watchful for any signs of danger. The big dog kept moving at a steady pace, head swinging, muzzle lowered. Maybe he knew where he was going. At this point, none of the rest of them did. It was impossible even to determine direction.

“Morning can’t be far away,” he said quietly. “It can’t be long now.”

“Hope so,” Bear mumbled.

The ground dropped away into a shallow ravine, and the mist that had collected there stole the last of their vision. They moved through it blindly, fearfully, anxious to get past. “Damn,” Bear muttered.

When they climbed out again on the far bank, they were back on level ground. But the mist was even thicker here.

Bear grunted. “Hope this isn’t going to continue all the way to …”

He gasped sharply. The Klee had materialized right in front of him. He had just enough time to bring up the barrel of the Tyson Flechette before a backhand blow sent him tumbling head–over–heels into the ravine and out of sight. Hawk and Sparrow were already falling back, scrambling away like frightened cats, when Cheney burst out of the darkness and flung himself on the Klee. His body weight and the ferocity of his attack staggered the monster but did not knock it over. The Klee straightened as Cheney tore at one arm, and then shook free of the big dog. When Cheney came at it again, it was waiting. Cheney was airborne when the Klee braced itself, stopped the dog’s momentum with one arm, and delivered a devastating blow to the shaggy head with the other. Cheney went down and did not move.

Sparrow screamed in horror and fury, leveled the Parkhan Spray, and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened. The weapon was jammed.

The Klee brushed her aside as if she were not even there and came for Hawk.

He IS JUST A BOY and not much of one at that. Eleven or twelve years old, scrawny and awkward. Uncomfortable in his own skin and never certain that he is where he should be, he is stumbling toward his teenage years with uncertain steps. He spends most of his time with his parents, who are still alive, their presence a constant reassurance in a world where little else is. He is living on the Oregon coast somewhere remote and wild, away from other families, but away, as well, from the things that hunt those families. He knows about these predatory things because his parents have told him about them. Incessantly. He must be cautious. He must think before doing anything. He must never go out alone unless he is in sight of his house. He must carry a weapon everywhere he goes. He hates that part; weapons frighten him. Yet he must remember that danger is never very far away.

“Even here,” his mother tells him, her voice firm and insistent, “you are not safe. There are terrible things hunting you, and you must keep watch for them.”

He does not know what these terrible things are, and his parents are vague when he asks what they look like. They look like lots of things, they tell him. They take many forms. They can be anything and everything. You must not trust your eyes.

He doesn’t know what that means. If he doesn’t trust his eyes, what is he supposed to trust? How is he supposed to tell what these monsters look like if no one can describe them? How is he supposed to protect himself from something so unknowable?

He is very young when his parents first warn him and the dreams begin. The dreams do not come every night, but they come often. Far too often. They are always the same. He is in his house or just outside. He is alone. He is doing something that pleases him–he can never remember what——when he hears an unexpected noise. He turns toward the source, but sees nothing. The noise comes again, from another direction this time. He looks around guardedly, remembering his parents’ warning to be careful. It has been daylight until now, but suddenly it begins to get dark. He calls for his parents, but they do not come. He is no longer in his home or even near it. When he tries to find it, he cannot. When he tries to make his way to safety, he cannot. He cannot move. His lack of confidence in himselfparalyzes his muscles. Nothing he does seems to help.

And nothing ever changes what happens next.

As he struggles to find shelter, to find help of any sort, he becomes aware of a hidden presence.

He searches for it frantically, trying to protect himself, but he can never quite manage to discover where it is hiding. Even when he is standing out in the open, he can feel it right next to him, but he can never see it. Finally, he breaks free of his immobility. He starts to run–through the rooms of his house, suddenly numerous and enormous, or through trees of a forest if he is outside–seeking escape from the thing he senses shadowing him. He runs until he is exhausted, until he has run as far as he can. But the presence is still there, dark and malevolent and implacable in its efforts to hunt him down. He knows what it is. It is the thing his parents have warned him about. It is the thing he has been told to avoid. But he has failed in his efforts to heed and obey, and now it has found him.

He tries closing his eyes against what he knows is coming, but somehow he cannot manage to do even that. He cannot help himself–he must look. He must see what it is that has hunted him for so long. He must see what it is that his parents have warned him about. He must know the identity of his hunter.

He can feel it looming over him. He can feel it reaching for him.

He opens his eyes and looks around wildly, but there is nothing there. He is more terrified than ever. Sometimes, he cries. Sometimes, he screams. Nothing helps. There is never anything there.

And then his hunter falls on him like a massive black weight, still invisible, still unknown, and he is crushed.

As THE KLEE LUMBERED TOWARD HIM, Hawk’s childhood nightmares returned in a flood of dark images. Because he no longer knew how much of his childhood was real and how much the creation of the King of the Silver River, he could not be certain if his memories were real. But they felt real, which was enough to give them the substance of reality. Enough, too, to remind him of a truth he had always known, a truth so terrible and so inexorable that he had lived in dread of it his entire life.

If the dreams crossed over from sleeping into waking, his life was over.

He had only an instant to remember all this, come face–to–face with the something he had thought he had left behind–only a moment to come to terms with what it meant. He was backing away, trying to think of what to do, how to escape. The creature was almost on top of him, moving more quickly than should have been possible given its size.

Its massive arms reached for him.

Hawk reacted instinctively. He thrust his prod at it in a futile effort to slow its advance. He jammed the weapon into its spongy chest, amid hair, scales, and debris, and gave it a full charge. But the creature never even flinched. It simply snatched the prod from his hands and tossed it aside.

Hawk had nothing left with which to defend himself save one of the viper–pricks. He had no faith in a tiny needle, no matter how venomous. He knew instinctively that the creature’s mottled, debriscoated body would resist such a weapon, might even prevent it from penetrating.

He backed away some more. The creature was still coming, but its advance was unhurried. Its gimlet eyes were fixed on Hawk, studying him, and something reflected in those eyes revealed what it was thinking. That the boy was trapped. That he could not escape. That it could do whatever it wanted with him.

It was toying with him. It was enjoying this.

His nightmares had found him in the form of this monster, and the monster was taking its time.

Hawk backed up another step and bumped into something. He reached back without taking his eyes off the monster and touched the rough surface of a narrow tree trunk, its barked surface dry and peeling. A cluster of scrawny trees blocked his way. He backed into them, guiding himself between the tangled trunks using his hands, thinking that maybe he could hide if there were enough of them, eyes locked on the monster, telling himself, I can’t let it touch me!

Then a strange thing happened. The monster suddenly stopped where it was, a puzzled look in its mean little eyes. Hawk froze, not daring to move. Even though it was staring right at him, it didn’t seem to be seeing him. It looked left and right, searching. Something was confusing it. It was almost as if Hawk had disappeared.

An instant later the Tyson Flechette boomed out, the muzzle flashes bright against the darkness–once, twice–the charges slamming into the monster with enough force to stagger it. Bear had climbed from the ravine and was coming to Hawk’s rescue, shouting and screaming all at once, making more noise than Hawk had ever heard him make in the entire time he had known him. Bear fired the flechette a third time, but an instant later the monster was gone, vanished back into the mist as if it had never existed.

Hawk stayed where he was, holding his breath. He could feel his hands shaking as he clutched the trunks of the slender trees.

“Hawk!” Bear called out to him. “Where are you?”

Sparrow had reappeared, as well, limping badly. Cheney was only steps behind, fur matted and dust–covered, his big head streaked with blood.

“Hawk!” Bear called again.

“Hawk, where are you?” Sparrow echoed.

Hawk was standing right in front of them, not twenty feet away. The mist was thick, but not so thick that he shouldn’t have been visible to his friends. Yet neither of them could see him. He was so astonished that for a moment he just stayed where he was and watched them cast about for him, searching the haze and the darkness.

He tried to wrap his mind around it. They can’t see me!

Then Cheney pushed past them and came right up to him, shoving at his legs with his dark muzzle. Hawk took his hands away from the trees and reached down to ruffle the big dog’s head.

“There he is,” Bear said at once, as if Hawk had just reappeared.

“Hawk, are you all right?” Sparrow cried.

He stepped out from between the trees as they rushed up to him, their clothes filthy and torn, their faces scratched. Sparrow looked furious, Bear simply relieved. He hugged both of them in turn, still caught up in what had happened, unsure of which was the more astonishing–the appearance of the monster from his childhood dreams or his unexplained invisibility.

He looked around quickly, half fearing what he would find. “Let’s get moving,” he urged.

They began walking again, wrapped anew in the mist and the silence and their fears, what weapons they could salvage recovered, their nerves on edge. Even the dependable Cheney seemed edgy. But within only minutes they heard the rumble of tires and the slosh of standing water disturbed, and the Lightning S-150 hove into view like a big metal beetle. The other Ghosts had heard the sound of Bear’s flechette and had come to their rescue. Hawk exhaled sharply at the prospect of his family reunited, of everyone safe and together again. But at the same time, he thought anew of the monster that was still out there, waiting for another chance at them.

They piled into and on top of the Lightning, finding places where they could because no one was going to walk after what had just happened, and they drove on through the remainder of the night. They were out of the fog after less than an hour and within another two hours after that, out of the darkness, as well. By midday of the following day, they had found the camp with its children and caregivers and been welcomed back by Helen Rice and Angel Perez, who had arrived the day before, and were able to put the events of the previous night behind them.

All except Hawk, who could not stop thinking about the monster. He had looked into its eyes, and those eyes had told him everything. That their owner was heartless and implacable. That killing was its life’s purpose. That he was powerless against it.

That at some point soon it would come for him again.