Karl Wagner - Why Not You and I?

“But why haven’t you heard from Kirsten in all this time?”

Chance’s blue eyes smouldered. “Because she’s either trapped somewhere hiding from them — or else they’ve got her and…”

No need to finish that, assuming Chance’s logic, Moore reflected. “But why all this inhuman murder and mysterious plotting?” he protested. “Who would do it?”

Chance sighed and dug out a cheroot. “I suppose it’s time to try to tell you about a creature who calls himself Dread.”

Moore choked on a sudden rush of bile and collapsed on the floor.

Kirsten von Brocken pressed her slim body closer against the angle of the rock, staring back toward the direction of the sound. It had come from back upstream, an eerie ululation echoing down the boulder-strewn ravine. The small mountain stream along which she fled roared and rushed down its rocky bed, making it difficult to hear sounds of pursuit.

There — again. That uncanny howl, closer now at hand.

Kirsten shivered. Her bruised and weary limbs were barely capable of holding her erect after hours of clambering over rocks and tree trunks. She pulled herself further into the crevice of overturned boulders, knowing there possibly was no hope either of eluding or hiding from the thing that hunted her in the deepening twilight.

The night before was impressed in her memory with the blurred unreality of a nightmare.

The moment of horror on the mountain road — the salamander glowing in its elemental flame — John Wingfield’s hideous death as the fire-elemental turned its wrath on him. Kirsten’s inbred fear of fire made the terror of the crash dwindle in comparison — for she had escaped Wingfield’s fate by an instant when the Packard veered and hurtled from the roadway.

The heavy roadster had clipped the guardrail and pitched nose-first down the steep incline. A tree smashed into its hood almost instantly, overturning the Packard and sending it rolling and bounding over the rocky slope. That first collision threw Kirsten from the open car and into the dense thicket of rhododendron that covered the mountainside. The resilient tangle of rhododendron cushioned her impact as the car bounded and flung itself past her, narrowly missing her limp form. The girl’s head struck the soft earth with stunning force. Blackness engulfed her terror and pain, and she never heard the heavy car careen past her and smash itself into twisted wreckage down the slopes of the ravine far below.

After an indefinite space of deep blackness, Kirsten awoke to the sound of distant voices. Men’s voices, calling back and forth. Slowly she opened her eyes, trying to collect her thoughts. From instinct she remained still.

Her forehead ached terribly and she seemed bruised in every limb, but the thick branches of the rhododendron had broken her fall onto the dense leafmold of the hillside. Carefully she touched her fingers to her forehead. She winced. A branch had left a bad bruise there, but she was lucky she hadn’t broken her neck. Gingerly she moved her other limbs. She was sore, but no bones seemed broken.

Memory came back to her in a rush of horror. The salamander — was it…? But no. The night was chill and dark. No loathsome creature of flame sought her through its mists. The elemental had vanished, and instead men’s voices pierced the mists. Someone had found the wreck; they would help her.

Kirsten started to call out, but her voice felt too shaky for words. She paused a moment to compose herself — and had time to grasp the words of the unseen searchers.

“Chance is finished right enough!” someone shouted nasally from the slope far below. “What’s left of him is jammed against the steering column like a piece of shish kebab! No sign of the skirt though!”

“Sure she’s not in the wreckage?” another voice demanded, not too many yards from where she lay.

“Damn right I’m sure!” came the answer. “Ain’t nowhere in this heap of scrap iron she could be stuck! Ain’t even any blood I can see!” The nearer voice swore. “Then she must’ve been thrown out when they rolled. Bring your lights back up and look careful for the body. We got to find it before anyone else stops to see about that busted guardrail.”

“What if she’s still alive?” a third voice from below wanted to know. The new voice had a mountain twang.

“Bust her head in with a rock or something. If we go back and she’s still alive, Dread will feed us to that pet of his!”

Kirsten’s heart stopped at the sound of that name. These weren’t rescuers. They were some of Dread’s henchmen. And she had almost called out to them…

She had to get away. Already she could see the yellow beams of electric torches searching through the fog below. They were backtracking along the path torn through the undergrowth by the car’s plunge. The dense leaves and blossoms of the rhododendron thicket had hidden her unconscious body from them minutes before, but now they were searching carefully through the broken branches.

The afternoon rain had left the ground spongy and damp. No leaves cracked as Kirsten stealthily edged away from the path of the wreck. The twisted loops of rhododendron branches made a labyrinthine crawlspace beneath their dense outer foliage. As quickly as she dared, the girl slithered away beneath their shelter.

She could glimpse the murky figures of the searchers as they climbed toward her. She prayed that a chance beam of light wouldn’t pick out her white body beneath the leaves. Twigs tore at her silk frock, and in her haste branches shook and stones scraped as she wriggled to escape. It seemed impossible that they hadn’t heard her — but there were several men noisily stamping about along the slope, and the fog muffled her furtive movements.

“No sign of her!” the nasal voice bawled out, more distant now. She had made considerable progress through the sheltering underbrush.

“Well, she’s got to be here somewhere!” cursed the man who seemed to be in charge. His tone sounded round and soft. “Spread out and find her!”

Kirsten crawled several yards farther from the searchers. But now the rhododendron bank was thinning out, and in a moment she broke into open forest. Rising to her feet, she saw the lights of the searchers in the distance — perhaps a hundred yards away. It hurt to stand and her side ached, but fright dulled her pain. She only knew she must get away from this place and these men. Quickly.

Her heels catching in the loose soil, Kirsten fled stumbling down the mountainside. The night became delirium fraught with panic. In the thick mist she could only dimly see her way. Time and again an unseen root or clutching tree branch caught at her, sent her reeling to the ground. The agony in her skull throbbed ever more intensely, bursting to white pain each time she fell. Vaguely she realized that she was completely lost, that she ought to stop and make some effort to get her bearings, wait for help to come. But always she remembered who else sought her in the fog-hidden mountains, and fear sent her stumbling onward.

Until, finally, when she fell and tried to rise, her legs were too exhausted for terror to lend further strength. Gasping for breath, Kirsten had managed to drag herself into the cover of another rhododendron bank before consciousness left her.

She had lain there in a stupor until dawn. With daylight Kirsten awoke from her nightmare-haunted sleep to stare about her in confused fear. Memory returned, and with it the realization that she was totally lost in these desolate mountains where horror yet stalked her. The purling of a stream close by made her aware of her intense thirst. Unsteadily she hauled herself to her feet and made her way down the bank of rhododendron to the small stream that cascaded along the bottom of the ravine.