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Harvest - Audio Narration

“That’s the highway you knucklehead!”

“Just admit we’re lost!”

“We are not lost!”

Three children staggered to a stop in a clear area under the drooping branches of a tree that had covered the ground in tiny pine cones. The smallest child dropped into a crouch while the larger two wrestled an electronic device between them. The faint light of glow-sticks that hung from their wrists reflected off of thick warm clothing. Above them, except for a narrow ribbon of stars over the empty highway, the impenetrable darkness of a dense forest canopy stretched in every direction. Something chuckled in the branches above them and the two larger children stilled their fight to listen.

“What’s that smell?” the smallest child asked, idly picking up a tiny pine cone revealed by the dim light of his glow-stick.

“The GPS says that this is the way to the river!”one of the larger children insisted, bending back over the screen.

“It’s lying!” protested the other. “There’s the highway! Right there!”

“I see the highway! Quit pointing out the highway!”

The smallest child rose and walked towards the barrier of branches that separated the forest from the warm stretch of asphalt.

“Don’t go out on the highway!” one of the larger children yelled as the smallest one parted the branches.

“Won’t,” the child said. “I just want to see what smells. It’s a body.”

The other two children fell silent and darted forward, grabbing his shoulders and peering through the branches.

“Oh, just a deer,” one said with faint disappointment.

“It reeks,” commented the other, “and that’s a real big deer.”

“Told you,” the smallest child said in a satisfied tone. “Something smelled.”

The smallest child started forward and was promptly yanked back.

“Let’s just head back to the camp and ask for help finding the river,” someone muttered, “Uncle Roy-”

“We are going to the river!” the largest child said in a firm tone. “Don’t you want to float your glow-sticks like we planned?”

“Oh, yeah!” the small child perked up at that.

“Uncle Roy-” interjected the other voice.

“And we don’t need help!” cut in the largest child. “Just come this way,” the largest child led the other two back into the forest, glaring down at the device. “We just gotta read the map backwards-”

The screen scattered into rainbow flecks and went dark, and the smaller child giggled.

“We know the river is one way, and the highway is the other,” the larger child went on shoving the useless device into a pocket and holding out a glow-stick as they walked forward. “We just have to head back the way we came and -”

The children stilled as one and glanced back through the branches at the highway. The faint sound of a distant engine had increased to a rumble that couldn’t be ignored and a pair of headlights swept around the corner, wreathed in smaller yellow lights just visible through the dense barrier of branches. There was a sharp hiss as the giant truck slowed and rolled to a stop.

“Hide your glow-sticks!” the smallest child whispered, tucking his into the sleeve of his coat and dropping to the soft forest floor.

“Why?” the largest child demanded, but the other two followed suit, tucking their glow-sticks into their sleeves and dropping down beside him.

There was the sound of a door opening and shutting with a bang and the dark shape of a man was silhouetted by the headlights. The strangely elongated form walked forward a short way and then crouched and pulled out a knife that seemed massive back-lit by the headlights. The form seemed to prod at something on the ground before standing up and turning as if to look back at the truck.

“Nothing I want here Sal,” the man called out. “Have at it.”

A rumble that seemed to roll under the sound of the engine washed over the children and they pressed closer to each other. The man’s shadow moved out of the light and the truck rolled forward. Dark bands fluttered across the beams of light and suddenly the massive shape of the deer was lifted into sight, dangling from its hind legs, the head lolling from side to side.

“Between you and the forest Sal,” the man’s voice said in a tone of exasperation. “Pa’ll skin us if we make news after what happened in Whitehorse.”

“Don’t teach grandma to pick huckleberries,” a deep, eerie voice rumbled out and the dark body of the deer slipped out of the bright beams. “Besides, you don’t know that there isn’t someone watching from the forest…”

The smallest child tried to lift his head at that but the largest child shoved him back down with a terrified hiss. A deep rumbling chuckle drifted to them through the trees. With a sudden, wet ripping sound one of the legs detached from the body and the headlights dipped as the hood of the massive truck lifted. The ripping sounds were joined by the sounds of teeth on bones and slurping. Suddenly there was a snap and the sound of something large falling through the branches off to the side, before landing on the forest floor with a distant thump.

“Sure you don’t want any?” the strange voice asked. The voice swept over the children and froze them in place, unable even to cry out. “Lots of it is aged real good and slimy, but there’s still enough unripe bits you could probably stomach. Even a child, even two, or three human children might like this…I know what human children like.”

The sound of rapid breathing got louder as the children listened.

“Nah bro, you have your fill,” the blessedly normal man’s voice said in a distracted tone from a different position now, and accompanied by the sound of boots on gravel as if he were walking around the truck. “I still got that moose from Cousin Gabe’s last hunt and lower forty-eight elk is always a letdown.”

“Suit yourself,” the deeper voice replied.

The sound of another engine approached and the slurping and grinding noises paused a moment, then resumed as the man-shape stepped back into the light. A white SUV with what looked like writing on the side and lights on top pulled into park in the beams of the headlights and another man-shape stepped out. This one was not nearly as tall as the first, but with a wide flat hat on its head.

“See you found it all right!” The newcomer called cheerfully.

“Yup,” the first man-shape agreed.

“Thanks for this cuz,” the new man-shape said, his voice turning suddenly tired. “Dispatch has been getting dozens of nuisance calls a day with the campground right there and we are criminally understaffed this season.”

“Happy to help,” the first man-shape said. “Sal was wanting a real fresh meal anyway, and I can always use an excuse to get out and stretch my legs.”

There was an especially loud-long slurping gurgle from the mass of yellows lights as if in agreement.

“Well it will make the area smell nicer on hot days,” the new man-shape said, a hint of unease in his voice. “How are you going to deal with the smell?”

“Eh, Sal can fix that easy enough,” the first man-shape said with a gesture that might have been a dismissive wave. “He can digest pretty much anything made of meat.”

“Don’t like eating alone though,” the rumbling voice interjected, causing the second man-shape to flinch back. “Shame to have all this and no one to share it with. You want any?”

“No thank you, Salcha, right?” the second man-shape said with an uneasy laugh. “Park regs say it’s not ethical for me to harvest roadkill.”

“Better to waste it?” the rumbling voice demanded.

The second man-shape gave another uneasy laugh and the talk died down, leaving only the sound of gnawing and slurping.

“Well someone other than me should get something out of this,” the rumbling voice finally declared. “They should consider it a gift, if they know what’s good for them.”

“I really can’t-” the second man-shape was saying when something particularly large and heavy flew through the trees and landed close to where the children lay eliciting a high pitched squeak from one of them.

Both man-shapes turned sharply towards the sound and the largest child’s fingers dug into the shoulders of the other two through their thick coats.

“What was that?” the second man-shape demanded.

“Lots of flying squirrels in these trees!” the rumbling voice announced, a strange note of cheerfulness mixing oddly with the terror the voice carried. “They like bones way more than I do. They’ll grab the ones they want and run right home with them.”

“Weird sounding squirrel,” the second man-shape said, unease in his tone.

“Well, what you you know?” Demanded the rumbling voice sounding slightly offended now. “You probably couldn’t tell a flying squirrel from a pack of human children.”

“Bro…” the first man-shape said in a tired tone.“Done!” the deep eerie voice cut in, as the hood of the semi shut with a slam. “Got rid of all the bones and its time to go.”

The second man-shape with the hat jumped back and said a word that you really shouldn’t say and the deep voice gave a chuckle that rumbled over the ground like it was hungry.

“Call us anytime if the work tastes this good,” it said. “You know I like eating, and making new friends.”

“Will do,” replied the second man-shape, with an uneasy laugh.

“Good to see you cuz, keep in touch.” the first man-shape said and crossed in front of the headlight beams again.

Doors opened and slammed. The big headlights moved, drawing the little yellow constellations with them and then the SUV followed. Further in the forest one of the larger children gave a gasp that seemed to break the spell of terror that had held them pinned to the ground since the giant truck had pulled up.

“What was that?” a voice demanded.

The largest child hissed frantically for silence, but the smallest child had pulled out his glow-stick and had moved off and crouched down to examine the thing that had fallen near them.

“They’re gone,” the first child went on, “why should we be quiet?”

“Sucked out its brains!” the smallest child announced with satisfaction.

The other two darted over to him and yanked him away from what the light of the glow-stick showed to be whatever remained of the giant deer’s head. The brains did indeed appear to be gone.

“Camp,” one of the larger children finally hissed out.

“What about floating our glow-sticks in the river?” the smallest child protested.

“We are going back to camp!” the largest child insisted, digging the device out of a back pocket and giving a shaking laugh when the screen lit up and the map clearly showed the camp in the opposite direction from the highway.

“Why’s it working now?” the other child asked bending over the screen as the smallest child edged back towards the skull.

“This way,” the largest child said, grabbing the smallest child’s shoulder. “Why do you have that?” The largest child nearly shrieked out.

The smallest child had grabbed the skull by the two antlers, one of them broken off and was holding it to his chest with a satisfied grin.

“You heard ‘em,” the child said. “He wanted to share the bones with someone, so he thew us this!”

“That thing, whatever that was, didn’t even know we were here!” the largest child snapped, glancing around nervously. “Put that down!”

The smallest child pouted and held the skull closer. “No! He did know! You screamed, and he said he wanted to share! That was a ranger, the man with the ranger hat. He told them to do that, like they were cleaning the road, like chores, so it was okay!” The smallest child scowled and clutched the skull tighter. “It’s okay to keep it!”

The largest child stood there breathing heavily for several moments before the other child stepped in.

“Uncle Roy said to let an adult deal with it if he got like this again,” the other child pointed out.

“Yeah,” the largest child said with a relieved sigh. “Back to camp, and just, just tell one of the adults about the skull.”

The largest child held out the device and they started following the arrow back towards the camp through a forest that now stretched out around them dark and ominous. A faint yellow light shone through the trees and resolved into the windows of the restroom and the children picked up their pace. Behind them, on the highway, the sound of an engine grew fainter in the distance.

Hidden Fires on Indiegogo October 2024!

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Science Fiction Books By Betty Adams

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Order "Hidden Fires" on Indiegogo October 2024! The thrid book in the "Dying Embers" universe continues the story of how Drake McCarty met and went adventureing with the alien warrior Bard while the judgemental dragons watched, and waited.

Harvest - Audio Narration Avaliable Here