Dave Freedman - Natural Selection

Darryl strode forward and fired six times.

They all missed. The flapping form suddenly climbed to the very top of the hundred-foot ceiling then plunged down, rocketing just above the floor. The increase in speed was fantastic. Moving with tremendous momentum, it hurtled straight for Darryl….

He fired twice more. On a line, two projectiles penetrated the creature’s face.

The Demonray sped closer, three hundred feet away, two hundred…

Darryl reached for something in his breast pocket.

The creature rushed in, one hundred feet, fifty feet…

Darryl didn’t budge. He just removed whatever was in his pocket….

The creature rocketed in, thirty feet, ten feet, the mouth opening, the teeth zooming in….

Suddenly Darryl dove to the rock, simultaneously thrusting a knife up with both hands. As the enormous body hurtled overhead, he dug a ten-foot, gaping slash into the white canopy. A powerful stabbing pain shot through his upper arm. As the body surged over him, he saw his shirt was suddenly soaked through with blood, his left shoulder almost gone.

The predator glided unevenly toward the dead-end wall, a small river of blood gushing from its underside. It suddenly veered away from the wall, then banked and landed with a loud, thwacking thud.

Darryl just looked at it, perfectly still, three dozen arrows blanketing its body like a pincushion. Its eyes were still open, looking right back at him over the sparkling golden light. Then he heard it, wheezing, struggling to breathe.

Darryl had to finish it. He painfully raised his arm to get the next arrow. He walked toward it, halted, then… Voom! He fired a speeding projectile into its face, just below the left eye.

The Demonray didn’t move. Didn’t flinch.

“My God.” Darryl couldn’t believe it. It was like it hadn’t felt it, like the animal literally hadn’t felt the arrow enter its body. Jason had said its brain had a minuscule pain center but this… Darryl reached back for the next arrow. There weren’t any.

He painfully raised his knife. “I’m gonna carve you up good.” Feeling the blade’s heft, he marched toward it, praying it didn’t have anything left.

As he got closer, it didn’t move.

He jogged

It still didn’t move.

He sprinted.

Suddenly the predator lifted its front half into the air and let out a shattering roar.

Darryl froze, just watching it, the taut muscles on the bloody white underside, the huge head, the teeth flickering in the dim light.

Then the mouth snapped shut like a trap, and there was perfect silence. The great body just stood there, slightly more than six feet high.

Then, very slowly, the head turned, and the black eyes, as cold and rational as ever, focused on Darryl anew.

“Jesus.” Darryl stepped backward. The animal still had something left. It still had a lot left.

He eyed the tiny knife in his hand. He had to get away; he had to get away immediately. He turned and sprinted.

The creature threw itself into the air. And landed on the rock. Its wings weren’t working. The eyes shifted, barely able to see Darryl now. Then they slowly closed.

Sprinting awkwardly, his shoulder in agony, Darryl glanced back. He thought the predator had just closed its eyes, but he didn’t care. He’d blow the explosives he’d left on the tunnel’s floor and trap it. He ran as hard as he could. He was halfway there.

The body flinched. Then the eyes blinked and opened, focusing on Darryl anew. They could see him now. The animal coiled its front half off the rock, pushed off, and, like a wobbly airplane, rose on the diagonal.

Darryl turned back. The creature was flying again. Out of control, but flying. Clutching his knife, he ran as hard as he could. The explosives were a few hundred feet away. He could make it.

The predator veered back and forth, its rippling muscles out of sync. Then it smacked into a wall and seemed to right itself. It flew straight. It pumped its wings and suddenly surged ahead.

Darryl turned back and couldn’t believe it. The predator was really moving now.

He turned forward. The explosives were less than a hundred feet away. He could make it; he knew he could make it.

The animal flew faster, closing rapidly.

Darryl ran for dear life, chest heaving, arms pumping. The knife slipped from his hand. He just ran. The explosives were fifty feet away. Then forty, thirty, ten…

He ran past them and stopped at the fork.

The Demonray hurtled closer, ripping over the halos of light, seconds from the bombs.

Darryl reached for the remote.

It wasn’t there.

He frantically patted his pockets.

He found a lump, removed it, and positioned his finger over the button.

The speeding animal looked right at him and let out a deafening roar.

Darryl stared right back at it. “Yell all ya want. You’re done.” He pressed the button.

Nothing happened.

He pressed the button frantically. Nothing.

The predator sped forward, refocusing on its prey.

Darryl sprinted away. As he rounded a corner, he focused on the offshoot tunnel he’d ignored earlier, praying it had a place to hide. He ran in….

Banking around the corner like a fighter jet, the animal focused on the offshoot tunnel….

Darryl ran hard, looking for someplace, anyplace. He froze. It was another dead end, a solid rock wall. He turned back as the creature rocketed in….

Darryl scanned the wall frantically. There had to be an opening, a crevice, something. There was nothing, just solid rock.

The predator rushed closer, dipping slightly, eyes locked, mouth opening.

Darryl backed against the wall.

The animal sped closer, dipping, a few feet above the rock.

Darryl braced himself.

The predator dipped farther, inches above the floor, a hundred feet away.

Darryl raised his fists.

The Demonray dipped again, suddenly on the rock, sliding very fast, like a train on ice. It skidded for a hundred feet and stopped a yard from Darryl’s boots.

His back against the wall, Darryl just stared at it.

The predator didn’t budge. It just lay there, eyes open, looking right at him.

He slid off the wall.

It didn’t move.

He held his breath and listened to it. There wasn’t a sound. The body wasn’t rising and falling anymore. He noticed the eyes again. They were still looking straight at the wall.

He stepped toward it.

It didn’t move.

He stepped again.

It still didn’t move.

He kicked it in the head.

No movement of any kind. The Demonray was dead.

Darryl fell hard to the floor and laughed his head off. “Just like I planned it.”

“ YOU TWO still awake out there?”

Lisa and Jason shared a stunned look. Darryl Hollis’s voice had just crackled from the little walkie-talkie, glinting slightly in the late-afternoon sun.

Jason fumbled to grab it off the rock. “Darryl?”

“Better get in here fast.”

“Why?”

“You wanna see this thing before rigor mortis sets in?”

Jason couldn’t believe it. “My God, you killed it? You actually killed it?”

“I thought you could trust people now.”

A smile. “How do we find you?”

“Just follow the light.”

I MUST have banged my damn knee somehow, Darryl thought, staggering into the central cavern. With the burning flares lighting the way, he lumbered into the middle of the giant space and lay down, wondering how much blood he’d lost. He was tired. He’d lost his wife, his best friend; he was so very tired.

Minutes later, he heard Jason’s stunned voice.

“My God, look at the size of this place.”

Lisa looked around, marveling. “Wow.”