Dave Freedman - Natural Selection

“Thank you very much.” No one had said these words to him in his entire life.

He looked up at the sky. “Want to get liquored up after all this?”

She laughed hard. “Definitely.”

He studied the horizon. The creatures in the caves were long since dead. Hundreds of National Guard troops had descended upon the mountains north of Redwood National Park, then dynamited every passageway above and below the waterline. One dead specimen had been transported to Laguna Beach for the presentation tonight. Near the slide projector inside, the great body was covered by a nylon tarp and being guarded by four men with neat haircuts and concealed weapons.

As Jason stared up at the heavens, he saw none of their beauty. Despite his excitement over his and Lisa’s budding fame, he’d been troubled for months, speculating over what Craig Summers had once said that night in the cabin: What if a million Demonrays made their way to the land? Or just a few thousand? Or even ten or twenty?

“You OK?”

He turned to Lisa. “Fine.”

“What’s with the spooky look in your eye?”

“Nothing.”

“Really opening up to your fiancée, huh?”

He didn’t smile. “I’m worried, Lisa. I’m still really worried.”

They’d discussed this before. “About more of them coming to land?”

“Maybe a lot more.”

“You don’t know that’s going to happen, Jason. No one knows that’s going to happen.” She poked him playfully. “We’re about to give the most important presentation of our lives and then we’re getting married. Why don’t we think happy thoughts for a little while?”

He chuckled. Happy thoughts indeed. His life was so much better than it had ever been. “I’ll try to relax.”

She looked at him. “ You OK?”

“I’m great. I mean it. The best I’ve ever been.”

He seemed to mean that. She checked her watch. “We better get started.”

He looked up at the sky, black now, and he noticed the moon. “After you.”

They walked in. And the moon watched them go. Just as it had watched them come. Unblinking, the moon was still watching. Them, every one, every thing. It was watching a seagull hundreds of miles up the California coast. In the last moments of twilight, the bird circled the rolling seas below, looking for its final meal of the day. It spotted movement and dove down. But as it plunged in, it found nothing other than a strand of kelp that it had mistaken for a fish. The gull returned to the surface and floated lazily, staring at the place where the sunset had just faded into the oblivion. Then it pushed off and flew toward the shore.

As the gull disappeared, it had no idea it had just saved its own life. Through the shimmering watery plane, the newborn Demonrays were watching it. Born to the sea, their food had disappeared again, and they were in the midst of another migration. This time their destination wasn’t at sea, but on land, a place where they’d already detected massive amounts of prey. Only not seagulls and not bears, either. For the moment, they remained hungry. And perfectly still. So still they seemed like they weren’t even there. And maybe, one day, they wouldn’t be. Maybe nothing would. Maybe there would only be what there always had been. The rolling ocean, the blowing wind, and the moon. The moon from a never-ending sea of pure and absolute darkness, it was still watching.

Thank you very much to Bob Miller, Will Schwalbe, Marly Rusoff, Leslie Wells, Jeff and Marian Freedman, Steve and Judy Katcher, and David Groff. I am truly grateful to all of you for helping make Natural Selection a reality. I’d also like to thank Sarah Schaffer and her colleagues in sales for their enthusiastic response to the book and for really getting behind it. Along the same lines, I am also indebted to Corinna Harmon, Jane Comins, Katie Wainwright, Jill Sansone, and Phil Rose. In particular, I’d like to thank Ellen Archer, who believed in this project from day one right through to publication.

Copyright © 2006 David Freedman LLC

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the Publisher. Printed in the United States of America. For information address Hyperion, 77 West 66th Street, New York, New York 10023-6298.

ISBN: 9781401384586

1. California—Fiction. I. Title.

First eBook Edition: March 2007