“Hey miss lady, where you going?”
“Take a leak,” I mumbled, stumbling and leaning on a tree to stabilize myself from getting up too fast.
“You be careful out there.”
“Yeah.”
I wandered a few feet into the woods, breathing a sigh of relief as I found a large pine and stomped through some snow behind it to relieve myself. When I was done and finished pulling up my long-johns and jeans, I thought I heard a twig snap.
“Taylor?”
I expelled a thick fog of breath through chattering teeth and called again, “Taylor?”
The hair on the back of my neck stood up. There was still no response. I thrust my hands back in my coat pocket and pulled the fur-lined hood of my parka up over my ears. I made it two steps back to camp when I felt a hand clamp over my mouth. I tried to scream, but couldn’t.
Another hand wrestled me still, pulling my body closer to my assailant’s. I tried to scream again, then I heard him whisper and smelled my moonshine on his breath.
“Stay still, Jess. I don’t wanna hurt you.”
I jammed my elbow in his chest, hoping to loosen his grip on me.
“Careful, Jess. I’ve got a hunting knife and I’d hate for you to have an accident out here. They don’t go lookin’ for missing girls like you up here.”
I spat into his hand and Taylor chuckled.
“I move my hand and you scream, I kill you, got that?”
I nodded. He removed his hand from my mouth and wiped it on his jeans. I seized my opportunity and jammed my elbow into him again. I ran. Taylor was bigger than me, and faster than me. All I had was my head start and my ability to outsmart him ‘cause he drank more than me and he’d done hard drugs too.
I couldn’t keep running forever. Despite my head start, he was determined and he’d find me if he could. I had to find somewhere to hide. All I needed was one tree wide enough to hide behind, one rock jutting out of the ground that I could crouch behind.
I came to a tree with a wide trunk and peeled bark. I rushed around it, pressing my back against it. I could hear Taylor’s footsteps rumbling behind me.
“Jess! Jess, where are you?!”
“Jess!”
I could feel my heartbeat right in my throat. Despite the cold, I was too hot for my jacket and sweating beneath my parka. I pressed my palms against the tree trunk, steadying my shaking limbs and ready to fight if I had to.
Taylor had been using a flashlight to search for me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his light drawing closer to me. Then the light extinguished and all I could hear were boots crunching in the snow. Crunch. Crunch. I could hear him breathing. I held my breath, hoping he wasn’t listening as well as I was. I squeezed my eyes shut.
Big mistake. His flashlight came on, right in my face. Taylor was three feet away from me. I opened my mouth to scream but the sound that came from my mouth didn’t come from me. It was him. Taylor screamed and then someforceyanked him away from me. The force pulled him back andthenI screamed.
The force that pulled him back wasn’t a force, but a person. Not quite a person… A person-like thing. As I screamed, I slammed my back against the tree and heard a deep boomingvoice as if it came from inside my own thoughts utter, >
I screamed again. Taylor screamed again. I shut my eyes and when I opened them, both Taylor and the creature disappeared.
“TAYLOR!”
“TAYLOR WHERE ARE YOU, YOU BASTARD?”
Nothing. I turned around and ran back to camp, crawling into my tent and laying awake all night, unable to sleep.
TWO
KRONOS
My mission wasa failure from the moment I landed on this planet. When my pod hit the upper atmosphere, I crossed paths with an unusual storm which thrust my ship off course. I couldn’t regain control. The safest place to land was in this ice-desert with terrain similar to the Devoran home world. Landing was far from precise. The storm jostled my ship and then I fell…
