SODIUM:1 Harbinger

  Chapter 8

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  On inspection of the creek, it was decided that we could make our way across. The rains had ended, and the night had given the flood of water a chance to run down the valley and out of our way. After crossing we moved down the creek to where the trail picked up to take us to the top of the ridge.

  It was a slow and slippery climb. About three-quarters of the way up the trail, we encountered several steep ascents. Bull climbed first and then threw a rope back down for the rest of us to secure ourselves. considering my track record for disaster , I felt the rope was a good idea.

  As I pulled myself up onto the final rock, my right boot began to slide. I tried to get my balance with a stable foothold, but none was there to be had. I slid and then tumbled backwards, falling ten feet before Bull pulled tight on the line.

  The tumble brought with it more bruises and a rope burn around my waist. As I made the climb for a second time, I was again thankful for my friend. I watched closely as Susi and then Allie made their way up, holding the rope as they came. From that point to the top of the ridge offered far less danger.

  We had a long walk across the plateau to get back to Lake Eleanor. The terrain was still wet and muddy. Even with my new bruises, I was still excited about our hunt for the demons. The fact that there were now two did nothing to lessen my enthusiasm. Man was hunting aliens and I was a part of the team.

  As we walked, the skies began to clear and the temperature began to climb as drier air moved in. There would be no firewood for at least another night, but the fact that it was drying out gave me hope. As I walked, I imagined the comfort of being dry and sitting around a warm fire.

  With the clouds gone, we would also have a chance for moonlight, as the sliver of moon from the previous night would be getting bigger with each passing day. Being out of the canyon would add to the brightness. I was happy to not be faced with another night of pure blackness.

  As the sun warmed my face and began to dry my clothes, I could once again imagine building a big, beautiful home in the area. As I walked, I imagined constructing a small fortress and keeping a watch on the skies; intruders would be confronted early and sent packing back to whence they came.

  I found myself consumed with different scenarios of how I would defeat the aliens or even how I might interrogate one if it was captured. I would demand that it tell us its secrets or I would take it apart piece by piece with my bat. My bold and brazen train of thought was only broken periodically to look back down the trail behind us; there was no sign that we were being followed.

  We had a number of smaller ravines to cross along our way. With each one we would lose our ability to see for any distance. We tried our best to get in and out of them as quickly as possible because of the added threat. As we climbed our way down into one of the ravines, our fears of being trapped became justified.

  One of the demons had walked up to the edge of the ravine several hundred yards away from us. We were in a bad position and could not attempt to retreat, as it would leave us fully exposed. Our only choice was to turn and run down the ravine with the hope of finding a defensible position.

  We stood without motion as the demon scanned the ravine from the other side. I repeated over and over in my mind that we were invisible and that the demon would not see us. My thoughts of having magical powers ended when the demon stopped and locked its eyes on us.

  On Bull's command, we all turned and began running down the ravine at our best clip. I glanced back to see the demon disappear and then reappear up on the ridge as it followed our movement. It was easily apparent that it was gaining on our position.

  As we came upon a split in the ravine, Bull made the command decision to send Allie and Susi down the split while he and I led the beast away from them. There was no time to argue, and the girls turned and hid behind a boulder to wait for the demon to pass.

  Bull and I both had to stop when the demon reached the edge of the ravine across from where the girls were crouching. Bull raised his .45 and fired a shot that skipped off a rock about two feet from it. I yelled and waved my bat. The demon turned back toward us and began bounding from rock to rock, gaining on us as we continued to run. The girls made their way safely up the split and out of the ravine as we continued to flee.

  The demon had closed to within fifty yards of our position when the ravine finally opened into a flat expanse. We kept running straight ahead to a small outcropping of rocks that would offer us cover as we attempted to defend ourselves. The rocks were four feet high in front with a much larger boulder located just behind us. Bull had his .45 and his bear bow, and I had my trusty bat. We had not seen any type of weapon on the demon other than the obvious use of the knife blade for dissecting animals.

  We crouched behind the rock, Bull with his .45 at the ready and me hoping that I would not be in need of my bat. With our somewhat secure position, we hoped the demon would determine that we were too well defended. I hoped that it would then turn and leave. My hopes, however, were not fulfilled.

  The demon remained up on the ravine edge and was now keeping itself behind a large rock as it evaluated the situation. We were in a standoff for several minutes before the demon decided to make its move. A rock about the size of a baseball was hurled at us. After just missing Bull, it shattered on the side of the boulder behind us with a loud crack.

  I was sprayed with small bits of debris. Even though the rock fragments did not break the skin, they offered a painful result, making the demon’s weapon an effective one. The rocks then began to crack on the boulder behind us one after another.

  Bull popped up to fire off a round before being forced back down by the highly accurate throws from the mechanical pitching machine. He had spent a full clip when the demon made its next move. As Bull reloaded, the demon jumped from the ravine edge down into the flats.

  I saw the jump and turned to inform Bull of it, as I had been peeking through a crack between two of the rocks. I also informed him that the thing was picking up rocks and heaving them with each of its legs as it advanced toward us. When I turned back to check its progress, a rock hit in the crack directly in front of me. I was lucky that I was not blinded as a fine but heavy spray of fractured rock came through the crack and impacted me straight on.

  I rolled over away from the crack, covering my face in pain. When I pulled my hands back to look, they were covered with blood. The shrapnel from the exploding rock had come through the crack and spattered my face with a thousand tiny grains. The impacted area ran from the tip of my nose down onto my neck.

  It was all surface damage, but it was extremely painful, as the larger bits had embedded themselves into my skin. Bull moved two feet to his left and popped up to fire a shot and was barely able to duck back under cover. Another baseball-sized missile skipped off the rock he had popped up behind and shattered on the boulder behind us. The open expanse did not offer any cover to the demon. It did, however, offer a seemingly unlimited supply of projectiles to be heaved at us. And the alien machine had a deadly accurate throw.

  For just an instant I got the crazy notion that I could take a swing at one of the rocks with my bat and maybe launch it right back at our attacker... “Crazy notion” turned out to be the correct term. I timed the next three impacts and popped up ready for the fourth, swinging my bat as I rose. To my delight, I actually hit the rock dead on with the fat part of the bat. But unlike a baseball, the rock did not compress and then recoil off the bat. It instead shattered and again sprayed me with debris.

  I dropped back behind cover just as the next rock skipped off the top edge of the rock where I had been standing. It then shattered on the boulder wall behind us. Using the same timing technique as I had, Bull then popped up and fired off one more round before ducking back down. He then informed me that the demon was continuing its advance. It had us pinned down, and he could not get off a decent shot to slow it.

  He then moved to the left a few more feet, popped up, and
fired off another round. This strategy allowed him to get off a shot after each move, but he did not have time to aim with any kind of accuracy. The demon was also moving from side to side as it advanced toward us.

  The fifty yards turned into forty and then thirty. With each yard closer the demon came, the more accurate its throws became and the deadlier it was. At twenty yards Bull popped up for the last time, as the demon had guessed where to make its next throw catching him on his way down.

  The rock skipped off our cover and next made a glancing blow off Bull's scalp just as he descended. It was enough of a scrape to cut the top of his head open, starting the flow of blood. With this, Bull changed tactics and began to just try to pop up his hand with the gun itself to fire off a shot.

  I sat just staring at his attempts as the blood dripped from my shrapnel-encrusted face and a single line of blood made its way down his. Bull fired another round; we heard it make an impact, and the rocks stopped. We waited a full thirty seconds, and then Bull decided to check to see if the demon was still alive before he popped up himself. He took out a handkerchief and wrapped it around a stick, poking it up above the rock. The demon took the bait and again started its barrage of stone missiles, with the first one striking the stick-and-handkerchief decoy dead on.

  All I could do was stay behind cover, lying on the ground as the debris from each shattering stone filled the air all around us. Bull made a move toward the end of our defense wall and the rocks followed him, shattering on the boulder wall just above his position. We were trapped, and it was now inevitable that we would be overtaken.

  As a distraction, I poked my bat up and down and moved it from side to side. That strategy only worked for a few throws before a direct hit on the bat almost knocked it from my hand. I entertained thoughts of having one good swing at this beast if it got close enough to me, but I knew the chance of that was slim. The demon was smart. It had been adjusting its attack all along the way in order to counter our every defensive change. And it was intelligent enough to try to trick us into coming out when it had stopped its barrage.

  The rocks continued to shatter behind us, and we were soon forced into covering our faces in order to protect our eyes from the debris. I had no doubt that it was the end for us. The thrill of the hunt, which I had latched onto earlier, seemed like a curse that was going to inevitably do us in.

  I didn’t want to die, but it seemed I had no choice in the matter. Bull was attempting to get an angle on the demon by moving as far away from me as he could. All it was going to do was allow the demon to focus on him with his .45 as I sat helplessly toward the other end of our defensive line.

  As the demon closed to ten yards, the angle of the rocks began to change, with each one now starting to come in at a downward slant. This made it even more difficult to protect ourselves, as with the new angle the beast had also slowed down its throwing speed. The result was rocks that were no longer shattering but were instead now bouncing around between the boulder and our wall in front. My thoughts next turned to the fact that I was now going to be stoned to death. Bull had already taken four hard hits and was showing the pain from each of them.

  As a last effort to try to distract the demon so that he could get off one last shot, I began to pound the bat on the ground just hoping the noise would be enough. It worked, but not before the last rock it heaved in Bull’s direction bounced and caught him square in the forehead, knocking him nearly unconscious. As the first several rocks now began to bounce around my end of the wall, I knew the end was upon me. My demon-hunting days were over. The end was upon me.

  As I cowered awaiting a certain death, a barrage of gunfire erupted from the flats! I could hear clear impacts on the demon! It was the girls! They had doubled back! The rock throwing ended as the shots continued. In what was probably the quickest decision I had ever made in my life, I jumped and rolled over to Bull. I picked up his .45 and popped up from behind our rock wall, just in time to see the demon recoil as another one of Allie's rounds cut through its outer shell.

  I fired off a round from Bull's cannon of a gun and put a large hole square in the middle of the beast. A spray of demon bits exited the other side as the recoil from the .45 shook the gun from my hands and onto the ground. This happened just as the girls were reloading. And even though I had made a dead-center strike on the beast with a .45, it continued to function.

  With that one hit, the adrenaline was now pumping through my veins, and I felt as though I could now take it on hand to hand. I looked down toward my bat lying beside me. I wanted to reach for it, but it seemed that time was standing still.

  The demon was on the defensive, and instead of throwing rocks, it sprayed out a green mist. It then turned back toward me and jumped. In one bound it cleared the ten yards between us and landed on the rock directly in front of me. With its next leap it went up and over the large boulder behind us, and I could hear it continuing to run as it bounded away.

  I recovered Bull's .45 and then looked back toward where the girls had been standing. They both backed up as the green mist descended upon the area around where it had been sprayed. As I watched, I could see the bits of demon that had been blown off from it by our gunfire beginning to dissolve. Also, the grass and other organic matter that was in the mist seemed to disappear before my eyes; all that remained was dirt and rock.

  I could only reason that as a defensive move, the demons cleaned up after themselves, leaving nothing behind for an enemy to make use of. It would seem to be a very effective and well-thought-out strategy. It was evident that they had seen action before.

  The girls circled around the remains of the mist and made their way over to our position. Bull was now sitting upright, and although he was awake, he was still groggy. Allie nursed the cut on his scalp, and Susi wet a handkerchief with water from her canteen and began to clean my face.

  She then pulled a pair of tweezers from her pack and began to pick the larger bits of rock from my skin. It was painful, but the adrenaline coursing through my veins made it tolerable. I had gotten my revenge for the shrapnel when I blew the hole through the demon. I viewed my battle scars as nothing more than a badge of honor.

  There were now two new heroes to thank. After a few minutes of nursing, Allie decided we had better get out of the area, as there was still one more of the aliens roaming about. We gathered ourselves, donned our packs, and made our way out of the ravine.

  We had another two hours to go to get to Laurel Lake and only about three hours of daylight left. We would need time to set up a defensive position once we arrived, as we could no longer just camp out in the open. We would also want time to tend to our wounds and to get food in our bellies. Our energy was running low.

  We had not eaten anything since our dry lunch the afternoon before. Fatigue and hunger would not be our friends if we were to be fighting for our lives. And fighting for our lives was exactly what we were doing. We reached our previous campsite at Laurel Lake, and Allie went looking for small game while I attempted to fish.

  I no longer feared death by the demons, as I had now been to the brink and had survived. After winning our small battle, I felt it had brought out a warrior in me that had been fast asleep deep down inside. I would battle these demons with my last breath if that's what it took. I wasn't sure the others felt the same.

  Before casting into the lake, I decided to give calling Minhafa another try. I knelt down on a rock by the water’s edge and smoothed the water gently while repeating “Minhafa” three times. I looked around afterwards and was let down that seeing my spirit protector earlier was really just a coincidence.

  As I cast into the lake, I hooked a nice fish. After reeling it in, I glanced up before turning back to the others. There on a rock five hundred feet away, stood a proud and mighty mountain lion. I was emboldened with a strong feeling that it was indeed Minhafa and that it would be watching over me, ready to come to the rescue should the need arise.

  The girls had protected me today, but as a super
stitious chap, I took comfort in knowing that my spirit protector was also watching. It was just too much of a coincidence that it had appeared to me again after I had summoned it a second time. Little did I know how true those thoughts might be. After several additional casts, I returned to our camp with three large fish in tow and a grin on my scabbing face.