Dave Freedman - Natural Selection

SAMUEL WAS captivated.

The creature was just hovering there, five feet off the ground, flapping rapidly, staring at him.

Swinging in his little chair, Samuel looked right back at it, drawn to its eyes. The eyes were almost magnetic, pure black and perfectly still. Then, like magic, the eyes moved. They looked to Samuel’s left, then his right, then back to his left again.

Then the great body dropped lower and the mouth opened.

In his little chair, Samuel was almost swinging into it.

“SAMUEL!” ALLEN Meyer ran as hard as he could.

THE HEAD jerked. The predator hadn’t been paying attention, but someone was coming….

It turned back to the child. Then jolted closer….

Samuel just stared at the approaching teeth, hundreds of them….

He swung away… then back again.

His father screamed once more….

The head turned. Then there was a powerful surge of wind. The mouth snapped closed, and the teeth disappeared.

ALLEN MEYER halted. On the opposite side of the trail, Samuel was swinging in the cave, perfectly fine.

As Darryl, Jason, and Laura came around, the ranger plucked his son from the chair. “You OK?”

The kid cooed.

Jason noticed the soil in front of the tree. It almost looked… wind-strewn. Just like Samuel Meyer’s hair. Jason noticed the child was looking up.

Jason looked up too. But nothing was there now, just thick, white fog.

“ SON OF a bitch!”

Laura Meyer couldn’t believe it. She pulled her SUV over to the roadside, and her husband and his two guests did the same. Outside, she pointed angrily at the red pickup. “I saw these guys earlier. Three hunters. I told them to leave immediately.”

Allen Meyer exhaled. “Oh boy, what a goddamn day.” He eyed the silent trees. “OK, I’ll go out there and find—”

“I’ll do it.”

Meyer turned. This had come from the big strong black guy. “No. That’s OK.”

“You sure? I’m qualified. I’m former U.S. Army and a licensed hunter in four states with firearms and bow and arrow.” Darryl opened his wallet to show his credentials.

Meyer studied them and looked up. “I get paid for this, you know.”

“It’s not about that. You guys have had a tough enough day already.” Darryl Hollis eyed the tot in back of the SUV. “When my wife and I have little ones one day, I hope someone helps me out. No big deal.”

The Meyers shared a look. What a genuinely touching offer. “That’s very nice of you. If you’re sure you want to, we’ll leave you a truck to get back. And a walkie-talkie.”

Darryl was looking at the fog now. “Sure.”

“Darryl, you got a second?” Jason led him a few feet away.

“What’s up?”

Jason swallowed nervously. “Be careful, all right?”

“A bear could have killed that jogger.”

“You really believe that?”

Darryl looked around. “I don’t know. Just trying to come up with other possibilities. See ya soon.” He pocketed the walkie-talkie, then walked into the redwoods and disappeared.

HE ALMOST had the shot. Big Tim and his two minions had been tracking the deer for half an hour and were finally within shooting range. After darting everywhere, the deer had stopped to nibble on some ferns. On one knee, Big Tim aimed his rifle at the buck with the crisscrossing horns. It was a big animal, probably 350 pounds. Yes—he almost had the shot.

THE EYES shifted. From Big Tim, to the deer, back to Big Tim again.

Gliding silently in the fog above, the predator watched every movement. It instinctively recognized what was happening: the stealthy behavior, the careful deliberate movements. One species was hunting another. But the creature didn’t understand how. Its eyes shifted back to Big Tim. Then to the instrument in his hands. He was aiming it at the deer.

ONE EYE open, one eye closed, Big Tim began to ease down on the trigger. If the buck didn’t move in the next quarter second, he’d have it. The buck didn’t move.

THE CREATURE shivered when the shot rang out.

The predator didn’t know how it had happened, but a metal projectile—its ampullae of Lorenzini had picked it up before it even left the rifle barrel—had rocketed out and plunged into the buck’s chest. The deer staggered and fell onto the dirt. Its heart beat rapidly for half a minute, then stopped. The eyes calmly watched it die. Then they swiveled back to the rifle.

DARRYL FROZE. He’d heard it quite clearly. A gunshot. He ran toward it.

“GREAT SHOT, Dad!”

Big Tim blew the nuzzle. “Yeah, not bad.”

The three men walked toward the dead buck, its horned head twisted on the dirt.

“How we gonna get him back to the truck?” Timmy asked.

“Gotta tie his legs to a stick and carry him back.”

“Where we gonna get a stick?”

Big Tim wondered if his son was brain-dead. “We gotta go find one, Timmy. Come on.”

THE CREATURE watched them go.

Then it focused on the deer.

IT TOOK a while, but they found a perfect stick, eight feet long and as thick as a baseball bat. They weren’t more than ten feet away when they saw what had happened to their prize.

“Jesus Christ! Look at that, Dad!”

“ Son of a bitch.” Big Tim suddenly clutched his rifle tighter.

The deer was right where they’d left it. But its chest, stomach, and hindquarters weren’t there anymore. They were gone, replaced by a single gargantuan bite.

“You think a bear got it, Dad?”

“I don’t know.” Tim Jameson knew many bear species had huge appetites, but he didn’t think any of them—black, brown, grizzly, or Kodiak—had a mouth large enough to take a bite like this one. Staring at the mutilated animal, he rubbed his beard. What the hell had a mouth like that? A goddamn whale? He glanced up at the fog. “Let’s get out of here.”

“You don’t want the deer?”

Big Tim looked around nervously. “Forget the deer, Timmy. Something wants it more than we do. Put the stick down; let’s go.”

THE THREE men spotted him from a hundred feet.

“Hey, what’s that black guy doing out here? I thought the park’s closed.”

As they walked closer, Big Tim spoke up. “Hey, mister, I don’t think you wanna be out here just now.”

Darryl Hollis hesitated. “That’s what I was coming to tell you.”

“Mission accomplished. We’re leaving.”

They hustled past him, and Darryl didn’t follow. Something had scared them. As the men disappeared, he looked up at the fog. It was very quiet here. Darryl had never thought about it before, but as big as redwoods were, he realized, they actually deadened sound, blocked it out. He scanned the area. But it was more than just quiet, wasn’t it? There were no animals—none—not even squirrels or birds. He realized he was alone and didn’t have a weapon. He looked up at the fog again. Was something up there?

“Darryl, you out there? Darryl?”

He removed the walkie-talkie. “What’s up, Jason?” He didn’t take his eyes off the fog.

“A lot. Get back here right away. The rangers’ station.”

“ SO YOU’LL take care of whatever’s out there?”

Jason nodded to the ranger. “We will.” He, Darryl, and Craig didn’t like making major decisions without consulting Monique, Lisa, and Phil, but these were extreme circumstances. Allen and Laura Meyer were leaving the park in minutes, so they had to make an immediate decision right here in the rangers’ station.

Allen Meyer was tense. He hadn’t cleared the proposed plan with park management. He turned to his wife for support, but she looked away. She was beyond tense. A hearse from the closest funeral home, 110 miles away, had just picked up the jogger. It was the first dead body Laura Meyer had seen in her entire life, and she still hadn’t recovered. She was seated at a desk hugging their eleven-month-old tightly, the way a mother would after seeing her first dead person. Still, she was a fellow ranger, and Allen Meyer wanted her opinion of this potential arrangement. “What do you think, honey?”