The Chimera Secret

26

Ethan Warner pushed up with his right leg around the edge of a massive gray boulder that was lodged deep into the hillside, the damp, dark surface sheened with rainwater. The incessant drizzle dripped in a symphony of tiny splashes through the gloomy forest of Ponderosa pines around them as they climbed into the mountains.

To his right, far below, a churning river gouged its silent way through a canyon, much of its course lost beneath wreaths and ribbons of cloud drifting through the cold air.

‘Does it ever stop raining here?’ Lopez asked, her voice sounding tiny.

Duran Wilkes, his graying features semi-concealed behind the hood of his waterproof jacket, shook his head.

‘Not so much at this time of year. You get used to it after a while.’

‘That so?’ Lopez mumbled, picking her way around a fallen tree trunk thickly laced with damp creepers and vines. ‘Hard to believe.’

The team of soldiers were fanned out in a loose wedge formation ahead of them, the troops apparently oblivious to the cold and the wet as they advanced with their weapons held at port-arms before them, safe but ready. Behind the soldiers labored Dana and Proctor, hindered by their lack of physical fitness but equally driven forward by their enthusiasm. Ethan and Lopez trailed them by a dozen yards, alongside Duran and Mary Wilkes.

‘Who called those guys in?’ Mary asked, gesturing ahead to the troops.

‘They were sent as protection by our boss,’ Ethan explained. ‘At least two people have died out here at the hands of something extremely strong and aggressive. We didn’t want to take any chances and risk lives, ours or yours.’

Duran Wilkes snorted beneath his hood.

‘Mighty thoughtful of you, son,’ he muttered, ‘but I’ve been walking these hills for the best part of sixty years and whatever’s hiding out here, a few pop-guns aren’t going to stop it.’

‘Bears, you mean?’ Lopez asked.

‘Black bears,’ Duran nodded, ‘elk, raccoons, cougars. There’s plenty of critters out here that’ll attack humans if they feel threatened, but they’re fine if they’re left alone.’ He gestured up ahead to the soldiers. ‘Those trigger-happy goons, waving their weapons about, will be the first to get hit if they stumble across a sleeping bear.’

Ethan decided not to say anything. Kurt and his men were from the National Guard, which to some people was held in the same regard as the Boy Scouts. But in reality the guard was highly trained, highly motivated and often manned by former regular soldiers. They were far from amateur.

‘They’re here to protect us,’ Lopez said. ‘I don’t suppose they’ll lead us into danger.’

‘They already are,’ Duran said.

Ethan looked at the old man. ‘What do you mean?’

Duran didn’t reply, instead giving a low whistle that sounded like a bird but immediately caught the attention of the soldiers. Lieutenant Watson looked over his shoulder and raised his hand to halt his men as Duran beckoned him back.

‘What is it?’ Kurt Agry demanded as he joined them alongside Watson.

‘Light’s getting low,’ Duran pointed out. ‘We need to find shelter before dark.’

‘We’ve got that covered,’ Kurt snapped in reply. ‘We know what we’re doing.’

‘Then you’ll know that we’re close to the six-thousand-foot line,’ Duran said.

Lieutenant Watson looked at the old man. ‘So?’

Duran leaned on his cane and gestured around them at the dense forest.

‘All of the attacks that have gotten your friends here so excited have occurred above the six-thousand-foot line in these mountains. Nobody has been killed in the lowlands. Whatever it is you people think you’re hunting for, this is where it lives.’

The scientists and soldiers had fallen back to listen, and Dana wasted no time.

‘Great, we should set up the motion sensors and cameras around any camp we make, and start working out a watch-rota.’

‘We’re not camping here,’ Kurt said. ‘We can make another five hundred feet before dark, enough to get us into some open country.’

Duran Wilkes shook his head.

‘You’ll lose the cover of the woods from the rain if you do that,’ he replied. ‘And it’s colder out in the open.’

Lieutenant Watson offered Duran a reassuring smile.

‘Clear fields of fire are more important to us than staying warm.’

‘Fields of fire against what?’ Duran asked. ‘You haven’t been attacked, so why would you need them?’

‘We’re done here,’ Kurt uttered before Watson could reply, and turned to the men. ‘Move out! Half an hour more, then we start looking for good ground for our LUP.’

The soldiers responded instantly, melting back into their wedge formation and advancing through the forest.

‘What’s an LUP?’ Mary Wilkes asked as they began following the troops.

‘Laying-Up-Point,’ Ethan replied. ‘A camp, basically.’

‘Easier just to say that, isn’t it?’ she suggested.

They marched for another twenty minutes, climbing ever higher. Ethan could see that as they climbed so the forest began to thin out. The Gospel Hump Wilderness held the highest mountains north of the Salmon River and east of the Bitterroots on the Montana border. The dramatically varying elevations produced different climes depending on altitude, from deep fir, spruce and pine forest in the depths of the creeks and valleys to permafrost on the lonely, high peaks. There was an altitude, usually referred to as the treeline, above which permafrost, snow and lack of soil prevented trees from growing. Anything above the treeline was essentially a dead zone, used by most animals only to traverse from one hunting or feeding ground to another, or in desperate times to hide or forage.

The last of the feeble light was fading as the soldiers gathered on a narrow strip of clear ground between ranks of spruce that stretched into the night on either side of them. In the distance to his right, Ethan could just about distinguish clouds between the trees where the edge of the hillside fell away toward the valleys below. To his left, the forest was as dense and dark as anything he’d envisioned as a child reading Grimm’s Fairy Tales.

‘We’ll set up here,’ Lieutenant Watson announced. ‘Jenkins, Klein and Simmons, you’re on watch for the first stretch, three-point placing from north. Kurt, Milner, on me. The rest of you get some shut-eye before the next watch.’

Three of the soldiers peeled away without a sound and vanished into the blackness of the night as the remaining infantrymen began unpacking equipment from their heavy bergens.

‘Looks like we’re camping here then,’ Ethan said, and dumped his bergen onto the damp, springy moss of the forest floor.

Lopez dropped her own burden miserably down alongside his and scanned the forest around them. The haunting darkness was reflected in her eyes as she looked at Ethan.

‘Jesus, this place scares the crap out of me.’