Shadow Animals Read online

  Koryn smiled slightly, her lips twitching, flickering. “Yes. But you’re the one with the gun.”

  Saul didn’t reply. They were silent for a time. The fire spat and sparked as it consumed a knot of wood.

  Quietly, tentatively, “What’s your son’s name?”

  “Ezekiel, but we call him Ezzy. He’s nine years old.”

  Koryn’s eyes were hidden in shadow. “That’s really sad he’s lost. Did he run away?”

  Saul sighed heavily. “He likes to play in the forest, like you. One day, he didn’t come back for dinner. My wife and I always knew there were dangerous things in the woods, but we also knew they never came far downriver. We never thought our son would wander far enough to—” He couldn’t speak.

  Koryn said, “Oh,” then was silent.

  The flames danced like spirits seeking the freedom of the night.

  After a few minutes, Saul reached his hand down into his pack, all the way to the bottom, feeling around for something. He swallowed dryly. He removed the object: a book, plain and brown, like an encyclopedia, turning it in the firelight so that its gold-gilded title glistened as if wet. It was Unusual Landscapes: Amazing Places of the World. Written by a man by the name of William M. Gately and published in 1974, Unusual Landscapes contained the only description, however brief, of the Copperton Forest and the Purgatoire River Saul had ever found. According to the librarians he’d corresponded with, it had never been reprinted beyond its initial thousand copy first edition, one copy of which he’d managed to purchase for a substantial sum on eBay, and he’d never seen another for sale since.

  “You mind if I read you something?”

  Koryn shook her head. “Go ahead.”

  Saul opened the book to the section he had marked with a folded corner. He cleared his throat and turned the open pages to the firelight. “It was Francisco Vasquez de Coronado himself who first reported seeing unusually large beasts in the Copperton Forest of what is now southern New Mexico. According to his journals, he claims to have come upon a winding river that grew ever wider and ‘most furious’ as he and his companions travelled up it. He claims to have seen a saber-toothed tiger and a small predatory cat with spots like a cheetah, and he claims one of his men to have seen a wooly mammoth in the mists crashing through the trees one morning. These animals are, of course, known to be long ago extinct, but there is evidence that some of these animals may still survive on the upper reaches of Purgatoire Creek, whose waters dry by the time they reach the town of Copperton itself. To this day, hunters in the Copperton Forest sometimes report sighting massive beasts with dark and matted hair like a human’s and reptilian creatures the size of dogs with aubergine spots. Perhaps these tales are nothing more than the embellishments of weary hunters living in such a remote and unpopulated region, or perhaps…” Saul stopped, taking a drink from his canteen. He cleared his throat. “And it goes on from there,” he said. He watched Koryn for her reaction.

  Koryn returned his gaze. “So?”

  “This book is about some really strange places in the world and it includes the Copperton Forest. Why? It describes the Chocolate Hills in the Philippines, the Moeraki Boulders in New Zealand that were formed sixty-five million years ago and look like massive cracked eggs, the Darvaza Gas Crater in Turkmenistan that excavators lit in 1971 and that still burns to this day, the Naigu Stone Forest in China, and the four islands of the Socotra Archipelago where some of the weirdest plants in the world grow like the dragon’s blood tree and the desert rose. But why do you think it also includes the Copperton Forest? I’ve read this book extensively, as you can tell. What do you think, Koryn—who has lived her entire life here? Have you ever seen a wooly mammoth or saber-toothed tiger in these woods?”

  Koryn stared at him, her mouth open slightly, her eyes reflecting orange the firelight. “I...I don’t think so. What’s a wooly mammoth?”

  “They’re huge and hairy and... Never mind. It doesn’t matter. It’s just, I’ve given up being shocked by some of the weird things I see in these woods. I just...I want my son back. I’m worried about him.”

  “I know,” Koryn said. “I’m sorry.”

  “I hope you can help me.”

  Koryn looked serious. “I can.”

  “Good. That’s good. Because I have no idea what I’m doing.”

  Koryn smiled. “It’s okay. I know what took him. Galen will know where he is.”

  “Galen?”

  “He lives on the other side of the Great Wall. I’ll show you.”

  Saul watched Koryn closely. She didn’t seem to be lying, too innocent to be telling untruths. He nodded assent. “You mind if I write in my journal now? I’ve been writing in it every night, trying to keep my memories straight this time.”

  “Sure. I’ll be quiet.” Koryn poked the fire idly with a stick.

  She watched Saul bring out his notebook and pen, watched him look over what he’d written the night before, but wasn’t bothered by her curiosity. Before he began, he looked at Unusual Landscapes one last time, still open in his lap. He read the final paragraph of the page-and-a-half section on the Copperton Forest, as he had hundreds of times before:

  The mysterious qualities of the Copperton Forest to exceed the factual elements of the rationally explained, and to maintain its elusive nature of relative indefinability, may, in fact, be an extension of man’s inability to civilize that which it fails to understand. This fantastic region—its indigenous life far exceeding in quantity and variety any other single region on Earth—remains unmapped by any official means. Indeed, the Purgatiore River itself is marked only as a tributary through southwestern Colorado winding northeastward for only about 200 miles, never going further south than the Arkansas river, where it “officially” drains, certainly never reaching the southern region of the state of New Mexico. There are no recorded texts of the exotic wildlife known to exist along the Purgatiore River in the deeper regions of the Copperton Forest beyond the personal journals of certain explorers, such as Francisco Coronado, nor of the people who dwell beyond the “impenetrable face of the green mountain,” with their strange and shamanistic ways. The United States Geographical Survey has released only this official statement regarding the Copperton Forest region: “Despite receiving several reports concerning the region, the USGS is unable to verify the location of the Copperton Forest or the stretch of the Purgatoire River said to flow through it and must therefore conclude its existence to be nothing more than rumor and hearsay, much like the famed gold-laden city of El Dorado.”

  * * *

  Later—the fire burned down to coals like fiery, warming gems—Saul lay with his head resting on his backpack and closed his eyes. He was drifting when Koryn came to lie beside him. He could already tell it was going to be a cold night and Koryn had only her cloak and he his sleeping bag. She snuggled against him, turned away, the shape of her body against his; her hair smelled sweet like the forest. He couldn’t help but be stirred by her curves, young and smooth, yet womanly. “You can if you want,” Koryn whispered, feeling his stiffening warmth. “I don’t mind.” He put his hand on the up-rise of her hip.

  Saul shifted away, pulling his hand back, laying the other way. He thought of Helen, his wife, waiting for him back home, her hair long, the color of morning beach sand, even as it’d been when he’d left her, greasy and unkempt.

  * * *

  He awoke abruptly to Koryn sitting up with a jerk. Through sleep-slackened eyes, he blinked up at Koryn’s darkened face staring down at him in complete terror. She raised her hands, making claws of them, as if to attack him, then turned them on herself, raking her cheeks, then dropped her face into her palms and sobbed.

  Saul sat up and took the girl in his arms. “Koryn? What’s wrong? It was just a dream, just a bad dream. Shhh. It’s okay.”

  She screamed into her hands. “I saw it! What is it? What’s chasing you?”

  Saul’s heart jumped in his chest.

  Ezzy had only been missing for two days when my wife gave up hope. It happened abruptly. She simply stopped eating and her eyes grew distant and glazed. She knew where our son had gone; she knew he was lost. Those who went too deeply into the Copperton Forest never came back, and if they did return, were never the same thereafter. The authorities promised to help with the search, after the allotted legal time period, but even they knew they’d never find our son, not, at least, where they were looking.

  I remember how she looked when I told her I was going after our son. I told her what I’d found: a spot along the river where there was evidence of a struggle and Ezzy’s baseball cap lying in the sand. I told her how I’d heard there were strange things about in the Copperton Forest, things that didn’t belong. I told her our son had been taken.

  “Don’t you see, Helen?” I said. “I have to go after him. I have to rescue him. There’s no one else.”

  Helen nodded vaguely from amongst the yellowing sheets on the bed.

  “I have to try. I can’t just sit here and do nothing. Okay?”

  Helen stared at her curled and motionless hands in her lap.

  “I’m going to the store for supplies. Then I’m heading out. You’ll have to take care of yourself for a couple of days. Okay?”

  Helen looked up at me then, and for a brief moment, she was my wife again, meeting my gaze with intense emotion-filled eyes—then she dropped her head, and slumped against the wall.

  It was enough. That look was all the assent I needed.

  I left her like that. There was little else I could do for her anyway. There’s everything she needs in the house; I made sure of that. She’ll be okay.

  This forest. This damn forest.

  Even as a kid I’d always known there was something unusual about the territory upriver from our hous
e, and my father knew the same thing, and likely his father before him. When I was little, I used to hike up to where the creek became a stream and the waters made a soothing bubbling noise as they tumbled through the rocks, and you could find deeper pools beneath shaded boulders where fish could be caught that shone luminescent in the sun. Sometimes, my father would take me a little further—on weekend camping trips—where the waters began to widen and splash white against the rocks, where he taught me how to hunt, how to fire a rifle, although I was never very good, nor had I the stomach for it. He used to snatch the rifle from my trembling hands because he’d lost patience with me, set it effortlessly in the crook of his shoulder, and slay the ibex eating leaves in a copse of trees in front of us with a single shot. Sometimes, when we reached the body of the ibex, with its intricate horns that curved outwards and backwards, and I saw the blood, I couldn’t hold back the tears and my father would call me a sissy. Sometimes he hit me with the back of his hand, or used his belt when we got back to camp.

  Other times, my father would wrap his brawny arm around my skinny shoulders as we huddled by the fire at night with his chin turned out, eyes on the stars above. He could point out and name most of the major constellations. “Although it’s difficult to make out,” he’d say. “There’s Virgo. See. Those faint stars form the head and body around the single bright star of Spica. And that circle there with the long tail is Pisces, the fish. And over there is Canis Major, the Great Dog.” Times like that I’d look at my father and I’d ask him how he knew such things. “Knowledge is important, Saul,” he’d say. “I spend a great deal of time reading and you should too. Do you know of Plato, or Descartes, or Marrow, or Confucius?” I’d shake my head. “You will learn. When you are older, I will teach you.”

  I think I was nine years old when my father died. He’d lost his job at the plant and had been supporting me and my mom with various temporary work, but it wasn’t enough. To ease the burden, he’d take his rifle and go on hunting trips upriver into the Copperton Forest. At first, they were only short trips. He’d leave the house at just after noon and return that same evening with a strap of fish slung over his shoulder or a couple of squirrels or rabbits. But then the trips became longer. Sometimes he’d stay out overnight, or a couple of nights. He told my mom the game was getting scarce, wise to his recent hunting activities, and he had to hike up further and further. He starting bringing back larger game: deer and ibex; once he brought home a fox; another time a pair of long-bodied river otters. My mom didn’t like to cook the stranger animals, but my dad skinned them and butchered them in the shed and brought my mom the meat in neat slices, almost as good as the pink steaks or ham hocks wrapped in cellophane from the grocery store. Personally, I didn’t mind the meat, tasted just fine to me. Then, one day, my father never came back. He went too far; someone must have caught him; something must have happened. That was the only time I ever saw my mother cry. I think she cried because she knew how hard it was going to be for us with my dad gone, more so than because he was dead.

  After that, I stopped going upriver much. I just sort of forgot about it. The memory of those waters never disappearing completely, but fading, becoming dull, like the memory of my father. If you went far enough, I knew, there was a small village. My father had taken me there only once before his death. It was a place I never forgot, although, for many years, I didn’t believe it was real.

  It was very dark in the forest. It grew darker and darker the deeper they travelled. Saul hiked steadily and Koryn led the way, surefooted and confident. The temperature dropped, but the exertion of their movements kept them warm. Koryn had her cloak tied about her throat so that it billowed around her, keeping in her body heat. Saul was wearing an old sweater.

  They walked in amiable silence; it no longer seemed appropriate for them to speak. The forest had folded over them, felt as if its presence loomed above, more than just the trees now, more than the oily wood and spongy ground. Everywhere there was wildlife, the croaking sounds of birds and insects, reptilian things clutching low-hanging branches, scuttling in the underbrush, and the stench of moist carrion soil turned by worms.

  When Koryn came to a halt, Saul felt as if he was in a trance, nearly bumping into her. He stopped himself, shook his head to clear it, and looked around. Koryn didn’t say anything, but she was looking up. It was very dark in this region, and Saul quickly saw the reason for such darkness.

  In front of them, rising higher than his eyes could see, was a massive and very-steep mountain. It was composed mostly of crumbling boulders, crawling with moss, stacked as if by crude, arcane giants. In some places, various forms of vegetation struggled from between cracks in the rock. It seemed impregnable, stretching distantly to their right and to their left, and there was some other quality about the mountain—it was forbidding; it made Saul wish he’d never seen it, made him feel that he should turn his back on it now, and return home.

  Koryn said something.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Here it is,” Koryn said, not much louder than before.

  “Here’s what?”

  “The Great Wall.”

  Saul looked up again. “Wall? This is no wall. This is a mountain.”

  “Nope. This is the Great Wall. Kinda freaky, huh?”

  Saul looked closely at the boulders—yes, he could see they were all of relatively the same size. And yes, they appeared to be stacked, except for those that had crumbled and fallen loose. What had Gately called it in Unusual Landscapes? The “impenetrable face of the green mountain.” A shiver ran through him.

  “It marks the border,” Koryn said. “But I know a way in.”

  Saul followed Koryn quickly as she began to take the path of crushed leaves along the side of the wall. They were forced to divert around several of the fallen boulders, one of them that, upon turning his head to glance back, appeared to Saul to have a smiling face carved into it.

  “I knew we were close,” Koryn said, stopping suddenly. “See.” She pointed to a patch of foliage, a thick weave of hanging vines growing over one of the boulders.

  Saul shook his head. “What?”

  Koryn approached the wall of vines and began to pull on them, one at a time. “I know it’s one of these.” She pulled a vine, hissed, and drew her hand back. “Ouch,” she said. “Thorns,” sucking childishly on her bleeding finger. “They don’t know it’s here,” she said as she moved on to the next set of vines.

  “Who doesn’t?”

  Koryn didn’t reply. She seemed to find the vine she was looking for and pulled. The foliage rustled; there was a groaning sound.

  “Come on,” Koryn said, using her hands to part the foliage like a beard.

  Saul swallowed dryly, and pushed through.

  * * *

  “Just follow me and don’t talk to anyone and don’t stop,” Koryn said.

  Saul followed closely behind his guide. They were in a dark tunnel, festooned with dripping vines.

  Then, quite abruptly, they came out onto a narrow and abandoned cobblestone street. Koryn moved quickly and Saul didn’t have much time to take in his surroundings, only the height of the buildings looming over them.

  “This Galen guy, are you sure he can help?”

  Koryn looked over her shoulder. “And whatever you do, don’t stare,” she said and disappeared through a cramped archway.

  Saul stepped into the murk. Instantly, it was dark. Shadows caroused about him like a living substance. The air was colder, musty; the odor of mold seeped from the walls. Koryn was only visible as an apparition sliding forward in front of him. He scrambled after her, coming out into a small courtyard.

  “This is Luto’s Court,” Koryn said, glancing about. “I know how to get to Galen’s place. He’ll be able to help. But beyond that—” She shrugged. “I’d probably get lost.”

  “What’s that?” Saul asked, indicating a crumbling stone statue at the center of the small courtyard.

  “That’s Luto. Look if you want, but then we’d better go. We don’t want to stay in one place for too long around here. We don’t want to be noticed.”