Alosha (8 page)

In front of her, the sound of the falls grew louder.

Taking a deep breath, she put her face in the water and stretched as hard as she could with her arms, kicking her legs furiously. She had grown up by the sea; she was an excellent swimmer. Each summer, she spent hours at the beach. Unfortunately, nothing had prepared her for this. The fierce current cheated her of hope. She swam thirty feet toward the side, and got pushed back forty.

The water tumbled into a stone gully. That narrowed the river but also increased its speed. Ahead, not more than a quarter of a mile away, she could see foam blowing off the top of the falls. She had a minute, at most, to get out of the river before she would be killed.

Because the river had narrowed she was not as far from the shore. A few dozen vigorous strokes brought her to the side. But now the shore had transformed itself into an impenetrable wall. The smooth rock of the gully rose straight above her head. She could not possibly climb out!

Ali's hand caught a sharp edge. Her fingers, almost numb, reacted instinctively and gripped the protruding rock, and she threw out her other hand and tightened her grip, and for a moment she was able to stop herself from moving forward, although the force of the current was overwhelming. She did not know how long she could hang on.

“Oh boy,” she gasped. Two days in a row: what were the odds of that? First she got buried and now something was trying to drown her. Nevertheless, she did not dwell on who or what had thrown her in the river. She had more pressing problems.

Her trap was an icy cauldron—the temperature of the water was barely above freezing. The falls were now only a hundred yards away. Raining mist blew off them like snowflakes in an arctic storm. The noise was deafening; she could not hear herself think. Plus the pressure of the current was relentless. She felt as if the cold hands of the entire mountain were trying to push her to her death.

She realized she had to make some tough decisions.

Cindy and Steve would not be able to rescue her. At best, they were only a mile away. It would take them at least thirty minutes to hike through the trees to reach her. Even then, they had no rope. Not that it mattered; she could not possibly hang on for even another ten minutes. Like yesterday, she was alone, she would have to save herself.

It was at that moment she spotted something promising. Hanging across the gully, a few feet above the falls, was a large dead tree. It must have fallen from the above ledge, perhaps last winter. The tree reached all the way across the river, a few feet above the water. But it was only in the center that a large branch hung down. The rest of the tree had been stripped clean by the current.

Ali thought frantically. To reach the branch, she would need to shove off from the side and swim like a madman—away from all hope of safety. Yet to stay trapped on this freezing side was hopeless. It was indeed a hard choice to make. If she missed the branch as she flew by, or if it could not support her weight, then she would go over the falls.

“But there's no choice,” she told herself. “I'll die if I stay here.”

Ali turned and braced her legs against the stone side. She knew she needed to swim straight out, get as much distance as she could from the side. The current would take her to the tree.

She shoved off. Immediately the current grabbed her. Here, so close to the
falls, the river was narrow—thirty feet across at most; a first down on a football field. But that was not a bad thing. She was able to stroke only a dozen times before the branch loomed before her.

She had reached the center of the river.

Now she just had to catch the thing.

Ali reached up with both hands. Ten numb fingers grasping for life. Part of the branch slapped her hands. They were only strands; they sagged as she clawed at them. Cold horror swept over her. She felt herself slipping, the weak strands snapping.

The force of the water twisted her sideways. Water and wind rushed by. She could have been parachuting through a stormy sky. Still, she fought to catch something more substantial. Her fingers found a soggy branch. Yanking herself up, she let go of the strands and grabbed a second branch. Her feet continued to drag in the water, pulling her almost horizontal to the river.

Worse, she was so near the falls she could see over the edge. The white mist rushed toward her like steam blown from the cheeks of an ice monster. The crashing noise thundered inside her head. Her frozen body felt as if it weighed a ton, while the branches she clung to were like kite string. A few seconds more, she thought, and her hopeless situation would come to a bitter end.

Then she saw a rainbow, spread over the falls, a colorful half circle set like a bridge over the chasm below. It seemed to rise up as she stared at it, to touch her feet, to give her hope perhaps. For the last two days it had seemed the mountain had been trying to kill her, and now she felt as if it was trying to rescue her. Strength flowed into her from the colored light. Her frozen hands warmed and her head cleared. Suddenly, she knew she could make it.

Ali pulled herself up farther, took her feet out of the water. Kicking up high, toward the sky, she got one leg partway around the tree. Grabbing the tree and pressing it to her chest, she strained her leg to wrap higher, using the side of her ankle as a clawing hand. Again, unlooked-for strength flowed through her limbs. The damp wood slid below her like a fat metal tube. In a moment she was sitting on top of the tree.

The next few minutes were tense for Ali. It was like when she had found the
bamboo yesterday, and not been able to use it at first. Safety was only a few feet away, but scooting along the top of the tree was not easy. The water had stripped away most of the branches, but there were still sharp stumps to contend with. She bumped into them with each foot forward that she took. To get past them she had to lift her butt off the tree, and loosen the grip of her legs, which increased her chances of slipping and falling. Twice she did slip, partway, almost giving herself a heart attack.

Finally, though, she reached the edge, and climbed onto the smooth stone. She did not stop to rest but hiked away from the waterfall and the deafening noise. The rainbow had faded. More than anything she longed to find a quiet place to sit down and warm her bones in the sun. But she worried about Steve. From the strangled cry he had let out, she knew whatever had grabbed her, had attacked him as well.

Ali had to wind through a maze of slippery gray stone until she found a semblance of a dirt path. The latter wound up and down, but she was not sure it was the same path she had been on earlier. She could hear the sound of the river, however, off to her right, although she could not see the water. She figured she couldn't get too lost.

Ali had been hiking for about fifteen minutes when she became aware that something was following her. Stopping on the path and turning, she stood as still as possible. For an instant she thought she heard footsteps; the sound quickly vanished. Then she imagined she heard heavy breathing.

She tried blocking out the noise of the river. Like yesterday, her belief that something was coming was largely internal. She was not even sure if she heard anything with her ears. She tried to convince herself that she was just imagining things. But that was hard to do when she had almost been killed two days in a row.

Then she heard a loud snort. It did not sound human.

She turned and bolted, down the winding path. The incline was steep; as she ran her feet spent more time in the air than on the ground. She ran like the
wind—too bad her terror did not give her wings. Pounding footsteps and slobbery breathing had joined the loud snorts.

Not one but several creatures were chasing her!

The path suddenly ended back at the river, on a sandy beach. The shore was only fifty feet long, and blocked at the far end by an impenetrable wall of smooth stone. To get past it she would have to backtrack, in the direction of whatever was chasing her.

She was trapped!

Paralyzed by fear, she paced back and forth on the shore. An entire minute was wasted while she tried to figure out what to do next.

That was all the extra time she was allowed.

Three creatures emerged from around the bend.

Ten feet tall, they had broad shoulders and lengthy torsos, so long their legs were not much longer than a man's. They were more gray than brown; the hair on their bodies looked like flaking mud, or else they were incredibly filthy. With thick arms that reached to their knees, and legs like tree stumps, she had no doubt of their strength. Their blunt four-fingered hands looked like they could crush her skull with one snap.

The true horror was their heads. They had a dull cube shape. They could have been manufactured in the laboratory of a crazy scientist. Large yellow eyes glared out of the center of their huge skulls, and their wide and toothy mouths dripped green spit. Or maybe that was their blood. Maybe they were so hungry to eat her they had chewed on their long red tongues.

“I have a gun,” she croaked.

They did not believe her, or else they did not care.

Or maybe they did not speak English.

They approached slowly, grunting, licking their teeth.

Ali backed up. She backed into the river.

She could not cross it; the current would sweep her away. Nobody knew that better than she. Yet that was probably her only chance—to jump into the water, hope they couldn't swim, and float down to the dead tree and pray for
another miracle at the edge of the falls. Either way, if she lived or died, it would be better than being eaten by these creatures.

She sniffed the air. It stank.

They had bad breath on top of everything else.

Keeping her eyes on the creatures, she stepped into the river. Water swelled around her calves. The creatures kept coming, fanning out, making sure she could run neither right nor left. She moved deeper; the icy liquid rose to her waist, the current was cruel. She could not believe she was able to remain standing. But if she had been hoping that they were scared of the water, it was a vain hope. The first creature stepped into the river, and the second one quickly followed.

Only the third one stayed on the shore. Not as tall as the others, he had his mouth shut and was not slobbering. He seemed to want to study her more than eat her. Yet he was not doing anything to save her.

Ali waded out farther; the water reached her chest. The current was as strong as it had been earlier. Yet she stood against it without bending. How was that possible?

All of a sudden she felt incredibly heavy. The water rushed around her as if she were a statue made of marble. Even the cold was unable to penetrate her skin. She did not understand what was happening. Like when she had struggled on the log above the falls, a strange power swept through her body. The creatures stopped to stare at her and suddenly she was not afraid of them.

On impulse, she bent over, stuck her head underwater, and grabbed a rock from the floor of the river. Coming back up, she took aim at the first creature. She loved baseball; she played for hours every summer with Steve and Cindy. She especially liked being the pitcher. Yet she had never thrown a ball the way she threw this rock. It flew from her hand like a bullet and hit the closest creature right in the face.

He staggered back and fell on his butt with a loud splash.

“Better leave me alone!” she shouted, dunking down for another rock. This one she aimed at the other creature in the water. He stood there stupidly and
took the stone in the gut. The blow must have hurt. He let out a yelp and doubled up in pain.

Ali reached down for a
huge
rock. This one was so big it must have weighed fifty pounds, yet she had no trouble lifting it. Taking aim at the creature on the shore, she let it fly—and fly it did. The stone flew a hundred feet through the air before it smashed into the creature's leg. The impact was loud—she thought she heard its leg snap. It sure let out a loud cry. Limping back up the path, it called to its friends in monster language.

The others had seen enough. Chasing after their injured friend, they disappeared around the bend. Ali heard them growling for several minutes before the forest fell silent. She felt confident they would not be back any time soon.

Ali got out of the water. It was a day of miracles. The sun shone bright and felt good on her face. Yet the cold continued not to bother her. Even her wet clothes did not make her shiver.

Filled with amazement and relief, she hiked away from the river and sat down in a meadow filled with long grass and yellow daisies. Peeling off her soaked sweatshirt and pants, she lay down in the grass and let the warm sun sink into her stiff muscles. The minutes drifted by; her breathing began to calm down.

For some reason, in that moment, she forgot all about her friends. She closed her eyes. She felt so at peace. . . .

W
hen she opened her eyes it felt much later. Looking up, she could not find a cloud in the sky. The sun seemed unusually bright.

Ali stood and put on her clothes. They were completely dry. She must have slept for hours—it was the only explanation. She had been dreaming . . . something about a magical realm. No, that had been last night.