Dave Freedman - Natural Selection

“Damn it, Darryl, this guy’s wife is alone in the middle of the forest with a baby ! We’ve got to help him! You want me to trust you more; I want you to trust Phil more!”

Darryl couldn’t say no to this. He nodded, and Jason ran over to Phil. “We’re all set! You sure you’re OK doing this, Phil?!”

“I want to get back to my computer anyway!”

Jason paused over the thumping noise, wounded anew. The sad fact was that he wasn’t sure he trusted Phil Martino anymore. The only reason he knew he’d go back to the boat was because of his goddamn precious laptop. Jason had no idea why he was so obsessed with it, but he didn’t care now. “Go, then!”

As Phil climbed into the chopper, Jason realized the SUV’s driver’s seat was empty now, Allen Meyer in back and waiting to go. “You want to drive, Darryl?!”

“Can you trust me to!”

“I’m sorry, Darryl, all right? I’m sorry! Let’s just go!”

Darryl rushed into the driver’s seat, Jason into the passenger’s, and they sped off.

As the trees started to blur by, Jason put on his seat belt.

“ THERE IT is!”

From an open window, Phil pointed to the Expedition, docked farther up Redwood Inlet.

Craig rocketed the big bird toward it, reaching it in an instant, then they started to descend. “Open the door, Phil! I’ll take care of the ladder!”

Phil swung the door open, stood strong against the rush of wind, and started climbing. He hopped onto the deck just as Monique ran up.

“What’s going on, Phil?!”

Phil waved to Craig. “Come on! I’ll tell you inside!”

Below deck, Phil walked quickly to his bedroom. He saw it immediately. His laptop was just as he’d left it on the little desk.

“What the hell’s happening, Phil?” Monique was behind him. “What are you doing?”

He eyed his machine for a moment and turned, saying nothing.

“Where’s Darryl? Where’s everybody else?”

“They’re… outside.”

“What are we supposed to do?”

Phil didn’t answer for a moment. His mind seemed to be working, almost like he couldn’t remember. “You’re supposed to meet them at the rangers’ station.”

“Really?”

As Lisa walked up, Phil nodded. “Right away. You know how to get there?”

LAURA MEYER walked rapidly down the trail. With Samuel and his portable chair in tow, she wondered if her husband had found the jogger. She’d tried him earlier on her now-charged walkie-talkie, but strangely, he hadn’t picked up. It wasn’t like her super-anal husband not to have his walkie-talkie on. Could he have gone out of range? Earlier, Laura had sworn she’d heard a helicopter and wondered if he’d been inside it. But that was impossible; Allen didn’t know how to fly.

The walkie-talkie was off now. It produced tremendous static, which always made Samuel cry. The baby was prickly already, and Laura didn’t want to push him over the edge—she just couldn’t deal with that right now. On a wide trail surrounded by towering redwoods, she looked up. Probably not more than twenty minutes of light, she thought. Then Samuel made a sound, and she glanced down at him. Son of a bitch. A crabby look. Such looks typically preceded legendary crying fits. “Come on, Samuel; please don’t be like that.”

She couldn’t worry about it now. She had to find the jogger. She walked forward tensely.

THE PREDATOR sped into the forest just below the treetops. The animal couldn’t smell them yet, but it was locked onto their heartbeats. It banked around a grove of redwoods and hurtled forward.

“YOU THINK you’re going a little fast?”

Darryl didn’t answer Jason. The SUV was doing ninety, rattling a little, and he was focused on the road. He didn’t notice a 25-mph speed-limit sign as they flew past it. A curve was up ahead, a pretty sharp one. He rocketed into it, barely depressing the brakes, and Jason felt a powerful pull toward the trees. He imagined his life ending in a brief violent instant. It didn’t happen. The insides of his stomach shifted as they entered a straightaway.

Darryl glanced back at Allen Meyer. “She’s gonna be fine, Ranger.”

Holding a handle with white knuckles, Meyer nodded but was too afraid to say anything. Then he braced himself. Another bend was up ahead.

“ Please be quiet, Samuel.”

Laura halted in the middle of the trail. The kid was screaming his lungs out now. She gently rocked him in the Snugli, trying to quiet him. It was useless. He continued to howl. Growing more tense, Laura pushed forward.

ON A branch three hundred feet high, an owl ate voraciously, tearing chunks of meat from a dead squirrel, when it suddenly stopped.

The pupils of its bright orange eyes widened, and it looked around. Every direction: left, right, down, a hundred and eighty degrees behind it. It saw nothing in the fading light, just redwoods and shrubbery.

Then it looked up. Suddenly a speeding white underbelly tore above the treetops then disappeared.

The owl stared after it. Then it returned to its squirrel.

THE SCREAMS from the baby. The predator had heard them. It hurtled closer when the treetops beneath it abruptly parted and a double-yellow-lined road appeared below. As it followed the road, the sounds abruptly grew louder.

Their source was seconds away.

“ SAMUEL, PLEASE be quiet!”

Speed-walking in the fading light, Laura looked down at the screaming baby. “Please, Samuel, I’m beg—”

She abruptly stopped talking. It had just gotten dark. Suddenly. Almost as if something had blocked out the light from above. Then she heard something from above as well. A rustling or a flapping? She looked up.

“Oh.” The fog was rolling in.

Thick, treetop-only fogs were common in coastal redwood forests, often occurring every day. This is a big one, Laura thought. Great. The fog could thicken fast and would shorten her search time even further. Samuel abruptly screamed even louder, and suddenly she couldn’t take it anymore. “You want your chair, is that it?”

She set it up on the soil, put him in, and… He stopped crying. She shook her head. “It’s a miracle.”

The baby swung silently.

She waited for a moment and picked him up again. He immediately began crying. She shook her head, put him back in, and again, silence.

She scanned the trail ahead. She was near the end of it and just wanted to finish the last small portion then call it a day. She’d done all she could to find the missing jogger. She looked up. It was incredible, in just seconds the fog had thickened considerably. And it was getting even darker as a result. She had to go now.

She glanced at her swinging baby and wondered if for just a moment she could leave him here. But no, that was beyond stupid, especially with the squirrels and other rodents running around. But then she noticed an enormous burned-out redwood on the side of the trail. Inside it was a cave the size of a Porta Potti, and she got an idea. “Samuel, I’m just going to put you in there for one minute, OK? One minute. ”

The baby smiled, but Laura didn’t. She was nervous as hell about doing this. Did leaving her child alone for a couple of minutes make her a bad mother? Under the circumstances, she didn’t think so…. She lifted him, chair and all, and put him in the cave. He swung happily, and she quickly knelt to check it was safe. There was a strong charcoal smell from the burned wood, but no spiders, mites, squirrels, raccoons, or anything else. She stood.

“I won’t take my eyes off you. I just want to see what’s a little further up here.”