A clatter as of dislodged stones. A faint rustle of dry brush. The thing sounded
closer than it probably was, for sound was amplified as it echoed up through the
narrow tunnel of trees. Nevertheless, the creature was coming fast. Very fast.
For the first time, Travis sensed that he was in grave peril. He knew that
nothing in the woods was big or bold enough to attack him, but his intellect was
overruled by instinct. His heart hammered.
Above him, on the higher path, the retriever had become aware of his hesitation.
It barked agitatedly.
Decades ago, he might have thought an enraged black bear was racing up the deer
trail, driven mad by disease or pain. But the cabin dwellers and weekend
hikers—outriders of civilization—had pushed the few remaining bears much farther
back into the Santa Anas.
From the sound of it, the unknown beast was within seconds of reaching the
clearing between the lower and higher trails.
The length of Travis’s spine, shivers tracked like melting bits of sleet
trickling down a windowpane.
He wanted to see what the thing was, but at the same time he had gone cold with
dread, a purely instinctive fear.
Farther up the canyon, the golden retriever barked urgently.
Travis turned and ran.
He was in excellent shape, not a pound overweight. With the panting retriever
leading, Travis tucked his arms close to his sides and sprinted up the deer
trail, ducking under the few low-hanging branches. The studded soles of his
hiking boots gave good traction; he slipped on loose stones and on slithery
layers of dry pine needles, but he did not fall. As he ran through a false fire
of flickering sunlight and shadow, another fire began to burn in his lungs.
Travis Cornell’s life had been full of danger and tragedy, but he’d never
flinched from anything. In the worst of times, he calmly confronted loss, pain,
and fear. But now something peculiar happened. He lost control. For the first
time in his life, he panicked. Fear pried into him, touching a deep and
primitive level where nothing had ever reached him before. As he ran, he broke
out in gooseflesh and cold sweat, and he did not know why the unknown pursuer
should fill him with such absolute terror.
He did not look back. Initially, he did not want to turn his eyes away from the
twisting trail because he was afraid he would crash into a low branch. But as he
ran, his panic swelled, and by the time he had gone a couple of hundred yards,
the reason he did not look back was because he was afraid of what he might see.
He knew that his response was irrational. The prickly sensation along the back
of his neck and the iciness in his gut were symptoms of a purely superstitious
terror. But the civilized and educated Travis Cornell had turned over the reins
to the frightened child-savage that lives in every human being—the genetic ghost
of what we once were—and he could not easily regain control even though he was
aware of the absurdity of his behavior. Brute instinct ruled, and instinct told
him that he must run, run, stop thinking and just run.
Near the head of the canyon, the trail turned left and carved a winding course
up the steep north wall toward the ridge. Travis rounded a bend, saw a log lying
across the path, jumped but caught one foot on the rotting wood. He fell
forward, flat on his chest. Stunned, he could not get his breath, could not
move.
He expected something to pounce on him and tear out his throat.
The retriever dashed back down the trail and leaped over Travis, landing
sure-footedly on the path behind him. It barked fiercely at whatever was chasing
them, much more threateningly than when it had challenged Travis in the
clearing.
Travis rolled over and sat up, gasping. He saw nothing on the trail below. Then
he realized the retriever was not concerned about anything in that direction but
was standing sideways on the trail, facing the underbrush in the forest to the
east of them. Spraying saliva, it barked stridently, so hard and loud that each