John Adams - By Blood We Live

Although the thing’s legs were motionless, its claws were fast as ever. As Davis came abreast of it, jabbing at its head, its arm snapped in his direction. Pain razored up his left arm. Blood spattered the grass, the Shadow’s head jerked towards him, and the momentary distraction this offered was, perhaps, what allowed Lee to tumble into a forward roll that dropped him under the Shadow’s other claw and up again to drive his stake down into the base of its throat. Reaching for the cell phone in his shirt pocket, Davis backpedaled. The thing’s maw gaped as Lee held on to shove the weapon as far as it would go. The Shadow twisted and thrust its claws into Lee’s collarbone and ribs. His eyes bulged and he released the stake. Davis had the cell phone in his hand. The Shadow tore its claw from Lee’s chest and ripped him open. Davis pressed the three and hit SEND.

In the woods, there was a white flash and the CRUMP of explosives detonating. A cloud of debris rushed between the trunks. The Shadow jolted as if a bolt of lightning had speared it.

“SHIT!” the lieutenant was screaming. "SHIT!”

The Shadow was on its feet, Lee dangling from its left claw like a child’s bedraggled plaything. Davis backpedaled. With its right claw, the Shadow reached for the stake jutting from its throat. Davis pressed the two and SEND.

He was knocked from his feet by the force of the blast, which shoved the air from his lungs and pushed sight and sound away from him. He was aware of the ground pressing against his back, a fine rain of particles pattering his skin, but his body was contracted around his chest, which could not bring in any air. Suffocating, he was suffocating. He tried to move his hands, his feet, but his extremities did not appear to be receiving his brain’s instructions. Perhaps his hand-crafted bomb had accomplished what the Shadow could not.

What he could feel of the world was bleeding away.

2006

Although Lee wanted to wait for sunset, if not total darkness, a preference Davis shared, the lieutenant insisted they shoulder their packs and start the trail up Winger Mountain while the sun would be broadcasting its light for another couple of hours. At the expressions on Lee and Davis ‘s faces, he said, "Relax. The thing sweeps the Grove first thing in the morning. It’s long gone, off feeding someplace.”

The trail was not unpleasant. Had they been so inclined, its lower reaches were wide enough that they could have walked them two abreast. (They opted for single file, Lee taking point, Han next, the lieutenant third, and Davis bringing up the rear. It spread the targets out.) The ground was matted with the leaves of the trees that flanked the trail and stationed the gradual slopes to either side. (While he had never been any good at keeping the names of such things straight, Davis had an idea the trees were a mix of maple and oak, the occasional white one a birch.) With their crowns full of leaves, the trees almost obscured the sky’s blue emptiness. (All the same, Davis didn’t look up any more than he could help.)

They reached the path to Thompson’s Grove sooner than Davis had anticipated. A piece of wood weathered gray and nailed to a tree chest-high pointed right, to a narrower route that appeared overgrown a hundred yards or so in the distance. Lee withdrew the machete he had sheathed on his belt and struck the sign once, twice, until it flew off the tree into the forest.

“Hey,” Davis said, "that’s vandalism.”

“Sue me,” Lee said.

Once they were well into the greenery, the mosquitoes, which had ventured only the occasional scout so long as they kept to the trail, descended in clouds. "Damnit!” the lieutenant said, slapping his cheek. "I used bug spray.”

“Probably tastes like dessert topping to them, sir,” Lee called. "Although, damn! at this rate, there won’t be any blood left in us for Count Dracula.”

Thompson’s Grove was an irregular circle, forty feet across. Grass stood thigh-high. A few bushes punctuated the terrain. Davis could feel the sky hungry above them. Lee and Han walked the perimeter while he and the lieutenant stayed near the trees. All of their rifles were out. Lee and Han declared the area secure, but the four of them waited until the sun was finally down to clear the center of the Grove and build their fire.

Lee had been, Davis supposed the word was

off, since they’d met in Kingston that morning. His eyes shone in his face, whose flesh seemed drawn around the bones. When Davis embraced him in the lobby of the Quality Inn, it had been like putting his arms around one of the support cables on a suspension bridge, something bracing an enormous weight. It might be the prospect of their upcoming encounter, although Davis suspected there was more to it. The lieutenant’s most recent report had been that Lee was continuing to struggle: Shari had won custody of Douglas, with whom Lee was permitted supervised visits every other Saturday. He’d enrolled at his local community college, but stopped attending classes after the first week. The lieutenant wasn’t sure he’d go so far as to call Lee an alcoholic, but there was no doubt the man liked his beer a good deal more than was healthy. After the wood was gathered and stacked, the fire kindled, the sandwiches Davis had prepared distributed, Lee cleared his throat and said, "I know the lieutenant has an order he wants us to follow, but there’s something I need to know about.”

“All right,” the lieutenant said through a mouthful of turkey on rye, "ask away.”

“It’s the connection we have to the thing,” Lee said. "Okay, so: we’ve got a direct line into its central nervous system. The right amount of adrenaline, and we can hijack it. Problem is, the link works both ways. At least, we know that, when the thing’s angry, it can look out of our eyes. What if it can do more? What if it can do to us what we’ve done to it, take us over?”

“There’s been no evidence of that,” Davis said. "Don’t you think, if it could do that, it would have by now?”

“Not necessarily,” Lee said.

“Oh? Why not?”

“Why would it need to? We’re trying to get its attention; it doesn’t need to do anything to get ours.”

“It’s an unknown,” the lieutenant said. "It’s conceivable the thing could assume control of whoever’s hooked up to it and try to use him for support. I have to say, though, that even if it could possess one of us, I have a hard time imagining it doing so while the rest of us are trying to shorten its lifespan. To tell you the truth, should we succeed in killing it, I’d be more worried about it using the connection as a means of escape.”

“Escape?” Davis said.

Lee said, "The lieutenant means it leaves its body behind for one of ours.”

“Could it do that?”

“I don’t know,” the lieutenant said, "I only mention it as a worst-case scenario. Our ability to share its perceptions, to affect its actions, seems to suggest some degree of congruity between the thing and us. On the other hand, it is a considerable leap from there to its being able to inhabit us.”

“Maybe that’s how it makes more of itself,” Lee said. "One dies, one’s born.”

“ Phoenix,” Han said.

“This is all pretty speculative,” Davis said.

“Yes it is,” the lieutenant said. "Should the thing seize any of us, however, it will have been speculation well-spent.”

“What do you propose, then, sir?” Davis said.

“Assuming any of us survives the morning,” the lieutenant said, "we will have to proceed with great caution.” He held up his pistol.

6:42am

Davis opened his eyes to a hole in the sky. Round, black-for a moment, he had the impression the Earth had gained a strange new satellite, or that some unimaginable catastrophe had blown an opening in the atmosphere, and then his vision adjusted and he realized that he was looking up into the barrel of the lieutenant’s Glock. The man himself half-crouched beside Davis, his eyes narrowed. His lips moved, and Davis struggled to pick his words out of the white noise ringing in his ears.