The Ravine

The two didn’t wake again until mid-afternoon. Something dripped on the roof of the sedan in a rhythmic pattern. The alpha? It didn’t sound like anything the monster had done before. It sounded more like—

“Rain!”

Carol got so excited that Jameson almost flew off her lap. But even then, his response was minimal. Carol looked outside and saw sparse droplets spotting the sun-dried soil of the forest’s floor. Jameson’s mouth opened to speak, but nothing came out. His lips broke open and bled. Carol cried out, sobbing from emotional stress and the miracle outside. She crawled, suspended over Jameson and, with her right knee placed between the two seats, rolled the window down and placed both elbows on the window’s threshold, cupping them together. Occasional droplets snaked their way down to where Carol patiently waited, resting in the makeshift bowls of her hands. She looked down at her collected treasure.

“Need just a bit more,” Carol exhaled. “Not enough.”

Another drop. And then another. And then another collected in her hands. She brought them in and emptied the few droplets in one hand into the other. The amount was small. But she had collected something. Carol turned to Jameson and brought him gently up with her right hand. She tilted his head back, allowing his mouth to open. Quickly and carefully, Carol brought the collected rain over to his mouth and poured it in. After a few moments, Jameson’s eyes fluttered and his tongue creeped slowly forward before resting just behind his teeth. Carol smiled slightly and set Jameson back down on the front seat. She looked around desperately and found the water bottle, still sitting in the cup holder to her left. She unscrewed the cap and looked for a place she could reach that had a consistent deposit of rainwater. From the left side of the vehicle, it was evident that it had been raining a while before she came to. The windows on her side had been rolled up to keep the monsters from getting clever and to keep as much of the cold out as possible. Now they were but murals of dirt. The rain had loosened the slope so that sections of the hillside had slid down onto the vehicle, flowing up and over it. Muddy water now dripped into the vehicle in small, taunting amounts.

No good.

Through the open window, Carol pulled herself out just enough to turn her head and check the roof of the vehicle. Her heart raced. She hadn’t heard the alpha above them, but was worried that the rain had somehow drowned out its movement. But to her relief she found that the monster wasn’t there. And to further add to her fortune, there was the source of the dripping; a branch, hanging low from the weight of collected water, was in arm’s reach. Carol took the bottle that she cradled in her other hand and put the end of the fir branch into it. Her eyes widened and soul leapt when she saw the drip, drip, drip collecting at the bottom of the bottle.

“Hang on, Jamey, water’s comin’!”

The afternoon crept into evening and the rain slowed to a drizzle. From the raindrops that made it into her hand through as many collection sessions as Carol could manage, she drank as much as she could and tried on numerous occasions to get Jameson to drink. However, he could barely respond in his exhaustion.

“Come on,” she assured him, through her repeated attempts. “You gotta drink. You gotta.”

Several hours had gone by and Carol, knowing that the bottle was filling up by the drop, couldn’t sleep. She also wanted to keep an eye on Jameson. His breathing had become concerning and she would bring her ear to his mouth just to make sure she could feel the fleeting life he exhaled. But she also wanted to stay awake to keep her eye out for the alpha. As was the routine, the monsters would normally arrive to check in on their prey during the twilight hours or shortly before. And that time was soon approaching. Sometimes, as Carol found out, they’d surprise her and arrive sporadically; especially the alpha. She usually saw the big one first.

Carol popped her head up from inside the car and surveyed their surroundings. With the rain now falling substantially lighter, where they were trapped had grown a lot quieter. Carol propped herself up, putting her ear as close as she could to the roof of the sedan. She took in a deep breath and listened.

Nothing. Not a sound.

The alpha hadn’t arrived yet. She pushed herself forward, carefully suspending herself over Jameson, and stretched her arm up and out of the window, resting her hand on the mud-stained metal. When her hand felt the bottle, she put her hand around it and pulled it forward. Suddenly, Carol screamed in pain and her arm slammed upwards, pulling her towards the open window.

“Shit! Let me go!”

The alpha shifted, digging into the metal of the car, stepping backwards to avoid sliding towards the edge of the car as it pulled. Its teeth pierced Carol’s hand, blood spurted out from subdermal snaps as fingers broke in the monster’s grip. The plastic bottle collapsed under the weight and, as the alpha shook, fell free from Carol’s crippled hand, rolling down the windshield, spilling its contents along the way. Blood snaked its way in rivers down Carol’s arms, dripping from her elbow and onto the driver’s seat, landing close to Jameson, who only shifted slightly. Out of instinct, Carol pulled back and, when the alpha adjusted his clasp on her hand, she was able to wrench her mangled hand free. The alpha howled in defeat and the betas ventured cautiously forth, then stopped, occasionally joining in with howls and snarls of their own. Carol held up her mangled, twisted hand and wrapped it in the remaining mass of her T-shirt, cradling it like a sling. And beyond that, on the hood of the car, was the mangled bottle of water, bleeding in unison with Carol.

“Jameson.” Carol had all but forgotten to check on him in the midst of the chaos. She nudged him but there was no response.

Jameson!?” Carol tugged at him harder, trying to elicit some kind of response from him. She put her finger to his nose but felt nothing. She then leaned in and put her ear to his mouth. No sign of life.

“Oh God, Jameson!”

Carol laid him on his back has best as she could and put her mouth to his.

The week after Carol and Jameson’s disappearance consisted of two search parties, comprised of what Avery could afford; police officers, community volunteers, and the occasional specialist, But the end of each day turned up more depressing and hopeless than the last. Martin did what he could to help. And work understood as much as they could. And as each day passed with no luck, more townsfolk abandoned the search, too emotionally strained and brokenhearted to face another disappointment until there were but Martin, a local, retired logger named Henry, and two police officers, one of them being Matson. Carol’s sister came out to offer her guidance and support, too, but could only do it for a few days before having to head back home. Martin understood completely and he imagined that Carol would, too.

When the second week approached, a freak rainstorm renewed their hope.

“Maybe something’s broke loose up there,” Henry informed Martin and the others, shouting over the rain.

“Yeah?” Hope raised once more in Martin’s eyes.

“Shit, if your wife and son were fortunate enough to wreck around a clear cut hill then the rain could have washed us up a clue.”

Martin looked over to Matson and then to the other officer.

“It’d be best to try again tomorrow,” Matson replied. The others agreed and Martin reluctantly nodded, also.

“Let’s meet back here tomorrow and go up from here,” Matson informed the rest.

“Okay,” Henry agreed. “Happy to offer my home.”

After the two returned to the old logger’s house, they sat on the porch and listened to the rain slow to a drizzle.

“Listen, Martin,” Henry turned to face him. “I know this hell’s awfully stressful. I can’t imagine what you’re going through. But I don’t think it’s good for you to make the trip back up tonight.” Henry looked out to the town from the small mound of hill his home was propped up on. “All this rain and the possibility of more landslides. And you on that bike. Not smart. I got a spot on the couch reserved just for you.”

Martin started to protest and Henry waved, cutting him off.

“I ain’t taking no for an answer.”

Martin nodded. “Okay, Henry. You win.”

Henry got up and left the porch, momentarily disappearing into his house before reemerging with two beers in his hand. He set them on the table and cracked them open, handing one to Martin.

“How long were you a logger,” Martin asked.

Henry thought for a moment.

“Oh about forty years, give or take,” he replied.

“Wow,” Martin exclaimed.

“All of those years in those hills?”

“Yep,” Henry replied. “That long, damned stretch’s stained with my blood, sweat and tears.”

“Well, I gotta ask.” Martin swallowed hard. “Any people go missing up there?”

Henry took a sip of beer.

“Not so much to my recollection. We don’t get a lot of tourists around here and those who vacation here, like yourself, don’t normally venture out that far. You’re most likely the first in a long while to set up camp at that cabin. Before you, it was a place where locals, who know the tides of those hills, would settle for a weekend or so.”

“Guess I should have asked around,” Martin surrendered. “Got an idea about the weather, those hills. Hell, anything really.”

“Well,” Henry coaxed him. “Don’t worry much about that. Shit happens. But,” Henry looked at Martin square in the eyes. “If someone wanted to get lost up there, it would be the easiest place to get lost.”

“Wh-what do you mean?”

“I mean, there are hazards up there, son. There’s reasons why that old logging road’s been retired.”

“What reasons?” Martin’s curiosity grew thirsty.

“Ever notice how the hill’s only bald mostly along the flat part of the road?”

“Maybe a little. Why?”

“Well,” Henry went on. “You got strange weather patterns of rain and whatnot. Way before, when the logging road was first put in, you’d have loggers go in and on up the hills and cut away the trees. It’d be easier to take them off of the hills ’cuz the weight and the angle that they grew on the hillsides would make toppling ’em over real easy. But, the more weather patterns turned to rain in this region the more landslides start coming, knocking over the trucks sometimes. But mostly blocking the road and costing the logging companies a fortune to clear ’em.” Henry took another drink.

“So, the logging became confined to the flatter parts, away from the hills, where landslides didn’t occur.”

Martin nodded in understanding.

“But that ain’t all,” Henry continued.

“The lack of trees on the hills seemed to drive the game up there slowly away and with it a lot of their predators.”

“Predators,” Martin asked. “What kind?”

“Wolves, mostly,” Henry informed. “See any wolf tracks up there?”

“No.”

“Well, me neither. But it’s strange.”

“What’s strange?” Martin leaned in.

“Sometimes I can hear a faint howling coming from up in those hills. And sometimes there’s the occasional report of someone’s mutilated pet found, guts all eaten up. Sometimes less. Sometimes it’s just a torn and bloody collar.”

“Any truth to these?”

“Well, I guess it’s possible for a few of them predators to remain up there. Woods that thick can’t be completely without prey. But whatever’s up there to eat’s gotta be so few that those predators up there would have not choice but to come down here on occasion for a meal.”

The clinking of beer bottles touching brought Martin back to reality.

“Hell, I didn’t scare you, did I, Martin?”

“Oh, no. I was just thinking about where to search tomorrow.”

“Listen, you take a mental night off. Don’t think too hard about tomorrow and don’t get any nightmares ’bout any damned big, bad wolves, okay?”

Martin chuckled and swallowed the last drops of his beer.

“Okay.”