Current Projects

Sample: Copernicus Creede and the Tree of Life

Jewel stopped, swung SPOT in front of her, then studied the readout. “I’m picking up . . . you guys ready for this? Stomach acid. A lot.”

“Not good,” Kel said.

“We came prepared.”

Cope didn’t like the fear in Kel’s voice. “Not good how?”

“Stomach acid comes from an animal that disgorges its prey,” Kel said, then he turned to Jewel. “Same animal SPOT picked up before?”

“Same source. Maybe multiple sources in the same location. Nothing conclusive. I recommend we proceed.”

“Are you getting anything yet, Cope?”

“Still nothing.”

“Kel and I will form a tighter group once we’re no longer out in the open,” Jewel said, “Cope, you follow at a safe distance and let us know the instant you sense anything standing out.”

“Roger that.”

Jewel and Kel closed the gap between them and continued on, pace slower now. Cope eyed their weapons with a twinge of jealousy. He had never really feared any animal before today, but Frankie had changed his mind about that.

They entered a grove of mixed pines, junipers, and oaks. Kel and Jewel used special flashlights to highlight their surroundings in a well-practiced side-step diagonal walk, their backs parallel to each other.

Cope veered off to cover more ground. Several slow-going minutes passed before he saw it. “I found the source.”

“What is it?” Kel said.

“A hairball.”

“A what?”

“A giant hairball. Looks fresh. There’s steam still rising from it.” Cope surveyed the area for any other heat signatures, but all he picked up on, other than the trees, was the thing in front of him.

He took his mask off and crouched down, using his flashlight for closer inspection. A mixture of bones and fur, all tangled together in a congealed mass the size of an exercise ball, rested at the foot of a gnarled old oak. Scratch marks marred the surrounding dirt but he couldn’t make any sense of the tracks.

He took his backpack off, placing it at his feet, then grabbed a nearby stick and poked at the hairball, breaking it up some. Out fell a long, dark object, one end curved to a point. It was a claw.

“It’s a bear, or, was a bear recently.” He probed around with the stick some more and with each poke a fresh pocket of steam released. “Maybe more than one. Looks like a couple squirrels too. Any ideas?”

Jewel and Kel approached and examined the mess.

“I vote we retreat until we know what we’re dealing with,” Kel said, curling his upper lip.

“Scene appears safe,” Jewel countered. “Might be a chance to learn about the entity in case we encounter it in the future . . . .”

Something nagged at Cope. The more he thought about it, the more he realized nothing he sensed bothered him. It was what he couldn’t feel. He had the vague impression of a void, impenetrable, lingering very close by.

“I’m with your brother on this. I say we hightail it outa here. Kel?”

Kel’s face had gone blank, eyes fixed on a point behind Cope, pupils the size of refrigerator magnets.

Cope snapped is head around. The oak shivered as it leaned forward, tumbling right on top of him! He dodged, but its boughs whipped in from the side, catching him around the middle. They wrapped themselves around him like boa constrictors, creaking and groaning as they moved. The tree was the creature!

He struggled against the giant web of sticks and limbs as the beast lifted him into the air by his feet, flipping his body upside down, his right arm breaking free. The bark near the main fork split open with a loud crack!, and before he dropped his flashlight, he glimpsed rows of jagged black teeth surrounding a fleshy cavity.

He did the only thing he could. Ripping his glove off with his teeth, he grabbed a hold of branch.

For an instant, but only for an instant, the entire tree-thing shuddered, loosening its grip. Then, just as he began to enter its mind, a sharp jolt of electricity exploded from his hand through his chest. The shock disoriented him, his body suddenly weightless as rushing wind filled his ears.

He was freefalling!

Instinct drove him to fling his arms and legs out, braced against the rapidly approaching ground.

Thud. Bones cracked, and a stab of pain shot through his lungs. He tried to breathe, but couldn’t, the wind knocked out of him. Warm liquid soaked through his shirt and wet his neck and arms.

Branches snapped, and leaves rustled violently in the darkness above, then all went silent.

Was this death? If so, dying didn’t hurt as much as he thought it would . . . .

His breath came back, but he lay still, afraid to move. When he drew enough courage to finally stir, however, no pain followed. He patted himself down, and finding no broken bones, felt the soft ground around him. The sickening aroma of wet fur and vomit stung his nose, and he knew what had happened. By pure luck, the tree creature had dropped him directly onto the giant hairball.

But what about Jewel and Kel?

He scrambled after his flashlight, still on and casting its light across the bed of pine needles where it had fallen.

The beam found Jewel, who stood calmly a few yards away holding her oversized plastic rifle. Aren’t you lucky I’m here?, her expression said.

Two thin wires led away from her gun. His trembling light traced their path to two brass spikes sunk into the fallen creature’s barky skin. The animal lay rigid on the ground, a newly uprooted tree. It twitched every few seconds, spasms coinciding with the clicking noise Jewel’s weapon made.

“Status report! Status report!” Abel’s voice squawked over the com. His next window must have just opened. “I’m seeing a lot of commotion overhead.”

“We’re clear,” Jewel said. “Creature’s secured. I had to use the Incapacitator.”

“I didn’t sense it until the last minute,” Cope said.

“Yeah, me too.” Was that sarcasm in her voice?

“You could have killed me when you shot it. How’d you know you wouldn’t? Figured the bark would insulate me?”

“I didn’t know. Acceptable risk.”

“I had just gotten control of it!”

“Everything from my perspective said otherwise.”

“You don’t believe me?”

“What I believe now is irrelevant. I can’t wait for you to die before I act.”

“Fine,” Cope said, though he didn’t mean it. He stared at the creature. Now, as it lay there in a stupor, he sensed it easily.

“I think it was blocking me, somehow,” he said. “I had an impression of a tree but I thought it was my imagination.”

“And you didn’t think to mention it?” Jewel said.

“I’m new to this whole strange creatures lurking in the forest thing, you know. Give me a break. It went away the second it came to my mind.”

Jewel gave him a doubtful look, but Abel responded.

“Interesting. A creature that can cloak itself to psychic links. From now on, we must prepare for this possibility. Is everyone all right?”

“I was never in danger,” Jewel said calmly.

“I’m just a little bruised,” Cope said. “Kel is . . . .”

Cope turned to Kel, planted exactly where he had been before the attack. His mask was so fogged Cope barely saw his face illuminated by the inner display. Cope walked up to him and knocked three times on the glass.

Kel pulled his mask off with an apologetic expression. “I’m . . . also uninjured.”

“I don’t care if you get scared,” Cope fumed. “But if you’re going to freeze up anyway, give me the gun next time.”

“I didn’t freeze,” Kel said weakly. “I was just . . . startled.”

“Never mind that,” Jewel said. “I have about an hour’s worth of battery left before Big Boy here wakes up and starts eating things again. We need to work on a plan to get it secured and transported. We didn’t expect anything this size.”

“Recommendations?” Abel said. “And make it quick. I’m about to lose my window.”

“We’ll need the semi,” Kel said, “but dragging something this size back to the highway poses the biggest problem. We could try easing back on incapacitation and see if Cope can gain control over it.”

“Won’t work. It’s able to cut itself off from me somehow.”

“Perhaps if you made direct physical contact with the main body,” Jewel suggested.

“You want me to touch that thing while you’re still shocking it? No thanks. I just tried that.”

“Of course not. I would disengage the Incapacitator first.”

“And hope you don’t have to turn it back on? Again, no thank you.”

“You have a better idea?”

“We can start with something that doesn’t have me getting electrocuted or eaten.”

Jewel looked like she was about to say she wouldn’t mind if either of those things happened when Abel swore over the com. “You guys have incoming. Approaching fast. From the north and—”

His voice cut off as the satellite window closed.

Cope reached out, but felt no animals approaching. “More of these tree creatures? Please tell me this guy doesn’t have brothers!”

Jewel ripped her mask off with her free hand. “It’s Zane.”

Headlights appeared, making silhouettes of a nearby hill and trees, followed by the roar of engines and snapping and crackling of branches and underbrush.

“Do we run?” Cope said.

Jewel considered for a second. “No. Kel, stay where you are. Cope, take ten steps back.”

“Why—”

“Just do it. And be ready to fly on my signal. Meet back at the van if we get separated.”

As she spoke the last words, a spotlight shone across her face, and several pickup trucks appeared. They formed a semicircle around them, skidding to a stop.

Their high beams blinded Cope at first. Doors opened and boots dug into the pine-needled ground. As Cope’s eyes adjusted to the brightness, he made out a crew of a dozen men and women, all armed with rifles or shotguns covering Jewel, Kel, and him.

Cope threw his hands in the air as Kel’s gun clattered at his feet. Jewel froze, her weapon’s tip pointed downward.

A lifted two-toned green and white Ford pickup with a camper shell rattled up and stopped next to the other vehicles. The rumbling engine cut off, and a man on the younger side of middle-age stepped out.

Thin but muscular, with the leathery appearance of someone who’d spent most of his life outdoors, he wore a long sleeve denim shirt, unbuttoned at the top. Across his chest, he wore a bandolier holding bullets and shotgun shells, the front studded with grenades of dark glass dangling like Christmas tree ornaments.

“Zane,” Kel said.

The man cocked his ear and approached Kel. “Nice to finally meet you, though I haven’t had the pleasure of learning your names.”

“Don’t think you will,” Cope said, trying to sound more brave than he felt.

Zane laughed as though he had just heard the punch line to some hilarious joke. “You’re kids. I don’t believe it!” He turned to the others in his group. They laughed too, but theirs was more nervous and half-hearted, the way the circus troupe used to laugh when Rovnikov did, whether it was funny or not. “Well, secure the Critter.”

Most of the people ran back to their trucks, retrieving ropes and chains while a few stayed to guard them.

Zane faced Cope, eyes measuring him. “I was only being polite, you know. I don’t need to ask your name when I know I’ll get it out of you one way or another. We’ll have plenty of time for that.”

Cope tried to spit in his face but his mouth was too dry. An embarrassing puff of air came out instead.

“You don’t look too bright, kid. Which one of you is the leader?” Zane glanced at Kel who looked at Jewel.

The man pulled a wooden-handled revolver from his holster and strolled up to her, elbow cocked against his side, barrel pointed upward. He stared at Jewel for a long time, then straightened his arm so the pistol pointed right at her head.

“I’ll take that now, princess,” he said.

Jewel didn’t even flinch. “A little advice," she said. "If you must point a weapon at someone, make sure it’s bigger than the one they’re holding.”

Zane broke into a grin. “You’ve already fired yours. Single shot.”

Jewel held up the Incapacitator, still humming softly in her hands. “Oh, you thought I meant this?” Then her thumb twitched, and the gun powered down.

An immediate, agonizing shriek sounded near the tree creature. Cope spun  to see it lift a man high in the air, a branchy tendril wrapped around his leg so tight his jeans bulged like Playdough. The creature let out an elephant-on-steroids blast, and this time Cope had no trouble sensing its mood.

It wasn’t hungry anymore. It was angry beyond control.