Dave Freedman - Natural Selection

THE LIGHT disappeared and so did the wind. In less than a minute, Darryl Hollis was enshrouded in a silent, blackened void. Walking forward, he strained his eyes, trying to see something, anything. But the darkness was absolute. He wondered what his own senses would have been like if he had evolved in a place like this. Would he be able to see now? Could anything? Could the creature?

He removed a flare. A brief snapping sound echoed everywhere. And then there was light. The flare shot out a long stream of sparkling yellow, and Darryl held it in front of him, astonished at how long the tunnel was. He couldn’t see the end of it. He glanced up, barely able to see the dirt-brown ceiling, the same ugly rock as the walls. It wasn’t a romantic place to die, was it? He tossed the flare on the rock and saw that it created a small halo. Maybe I’m an angel, Darryl thought cruelly.

He walked forward, snapped another flare, and dropped it. He repeated this every hundred feet. He walked for nearly a quarter mile when the transmitter beeped again. Not a single pulse, but a series of them, slow and steady, separated by three-second gaps.

He paused, looking around. He saw nothing unusual. Without snapping another flare, he walked forward, and the darkness slowly returned. He continued for a hundred feet when the air abruptly cooled and the pulses’ echoes changed. He knew he’d entered a larger space. He snapped the next flare.

“My God.”

The cavern was gargantuan, the size of a football stadium. Darryl squinted in the dim light, wondering if his eyes were fooling him. But no. He whipped a flare straight up. Gold sparks flying, the flare toppled end over end. It rose a hundred feet, not even close to the ceiling, before falling back down. He snapped a dozen more flares and whipped them in every direction.

With more light, he studied the space anew. The cavern was an enormous circle, lined with twenty other tunnel mouths, all apparently identical to the one he’d just entered through. He dropped five flares at his feet, a marker to find the right tunnel on the way out.

His awe of the vast arena evaporated. The beeping continued. The Demonray was close. He walked to the nearest tunnel, to his left left, and peered in. The tunnel was long, dark, and cavernous. He considered smashing the transmitter in his hand. Instead, he raised it to the tunnel and listened. The beeping didn’t change. One pulse, three seconds of silence, a small echo, then the next pulse. He walked to the next tunnel, and again, the beeping continued as before. Five more tunnels responded identically.

But at the tunnel directly across from where he’d first entered, the beeping picked up by a half second. He gazed into the void. “Fee, fi, fo, fum.”

Then, feeling for his bow, he entered it.

LIKE THE others, this tunnel was dark, dank, and seemingly endless. Dropping one flare after another, Darryl descended deeper and deeper, the beeping maintaining its slow, steady pace. He wondered if this very passage was where the creature had first entered from the sea. He froze. Or was it that one ? He stood at the mouth of yet another tunnel, an offshoot. He raised the transmitter, and the beeping was unchanged, slow and steady. He ignored the offshoot and walked on, faster now, dropping flares every hundred feet. Then he reached a fork, and the tunnel split in two.

He went to the left side, and the beeping increased ever so slightly. He eyed the looming dark void. This was where the predator was hiding.

He walked to the right side and the beeping slowed. Then he heard another sound. The ocean, ever so faintly. This side was an escape route. Not if Darryl could help it. He removed several explosives and carefully positioned them in the walls and floor. He checked and rechecked that they were properly set, then trotted away and removed the remote.

He eyed the little red button for a moment, then pressed it.

The explosion was like an earthquake. The ground literally shook, and suddenly boulders the size of swimming pools were falling everywhere, from the walls, the ceiling… In seconds, there was silence except for the faint trickling of falling pebbles.

Darryl lifted himself off the rock floor. Through thick plumes of dust he saw it, the passageway, completely caved in now, the sounds of the sea gone. He returned to the left fork, and again, the transmitter picked up its pace, the beeps now a second and a half apart. He removed two more explosives and placed them on the center of the floor. Another precaution, just in case. He snapped the next flare and walked forward.

Ten flares later, the beeping increased.

He stopped, studying the tunnel, looking for any sign of the creature.

There was nothing, just a long dank hole.

He continued walking, faster now.

The beeping increased again, markedly so.

He still didn’t see the predator.

He walked even faster.

The beeping increased further.

He looked around, twisting in every direction. He didn’t see the animal anywhere.

He walked faster still.

The beeping increased further, the pulses separated by milliseconds.

He jogged.

Suddenly he froze. It was directly in front of him, something huge and looming.

He couldn’t make it out entirely. He threw a flare at it.

The flare bounced backward.

He loaded an arrow and walked forward, the beeping almost droning.

And then, amid a burst of sparkling gold light, it came into view. A solid rock wall. The end of the tunnel.

He noticed something in front of it. In the far-right corner, just lying there. He stepped toward it and the beeping became a steady drone.

It wasn’t the creature.

It was a bloodied harpoon with a homing beacon inside it. Somehow the animal had pulled it out.

“Son of a bitch!”

Darryl hurled the transmitter to the floor, smashing it to pieces.

In an instant, there was pure silence—almost. The only sound was from the softly hissing flares, illuminating the tunnel behind him like streetlamps on a foggy road.

Then there was a second sound. Off in the distance. Flapping.

It was so far away, Darryl couldn’t even see it yet. But he knew. The predator was coming for him.

He breathed, calmly, evenly. A war was about to start. Darryl Hollis was ready for it.

THE POWER of the roar was extraordinary. It erupted without warning, shattering the silence and echoing everywhere.

Darryl didn’t flinch. He couldn’t see the Demonray yet—it was just a faint outline in the distance—but hearing its roar only made him want to kill it more. He marched forward. “Come on, you ugly mother.”

Surging forward, the animal gradually became visible, gliding higher than Darryl had expected, halfway between the floor and ceiling. He halted and fired. Eight times. In rapid succession, the arrows exploded away at different heights.

The creature veered down sharply. Three arrows missed, but five were direct hits to the face. They had no effect. The predator continued, ten feet high, neither slowing down nor speeding up, simply maintaining its pace.

Darryl paused. He’d hit it, he was sure of it, numerous times, but the animal hadn’t roared, shuddered, slowed down, or sped up. Nothing. It simply hadn’t reacted. He didn’t care. He could almost make out the blacks of its eyes.

He strode forward and fired again. Ten times.

All ten were direct hits, plunging nearly a foot deep into the head and body.

The Demonray continued gliding.

Reaching back for the next arrow, Darryl noticed the flares, moving ever so slightly, apparently tossed by gusts of wind. The predator was no longer gliding. It flapped its wings, suddenly moving faster.