Analog 2014-07-08 by Analog

Author:Analog [Analog]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penny Publications
Published: 2014-07-01T05:00:00+00:00

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Vooorh

Paula S. Jordan | 13032 words

What was that smell?

Jason sniffed, turning slowly on the dim path. A stink like week-old bait tainted the night air. Fish? On his mountain? Then it was gone on a puff of wind. A cold wind too, for October, and an old man's aching bones.

Somewhere ahead Shep broke into another peal of the barking that had drawn him from his bed and part way up the mountain. Urgent barking, pitched high to carry, thin with distance.

"I smell it too, boy," he muttered under his breath. "And I hear you. I'm on my way."

He climbed, a frown tight between his brows. Fish smell or no, four days ago there'd have been no question what the problem was: one more forest critter slashed by the big cat he'd figured had wandered onto his Carolina mountain. Couldn't be much else, he'd thought. Not on his farm, remote as it was.

But now he knew what was causing the injuries and it was no kind of cat.

He knew who'd brought it, too. He and Sara had seen them: two creatures different in every cell from anything he knew.

He paused, eyes fixed on the stars, then snugged the knitted cap down over his ears and went on uphill, wondering about that smell. And missing Sara.

Soon the slim moon, just bright enough to show him the path's roughest spots, lit the dog's faint shape a good way ahead. He whistled as he climbed nearer, fogging the air with his breath. But the old border collie stayed where he was till Jason reached for his collar. Then he put out his head for a scratch and Jason obliged.

"You miss Sara too, don't you boy," he said. "But she'll be back. You'll see."

He got a finger on the collar this time, but Shep bolted up-slope, toward the ruined cabin at the edge of the high woods. Jason stared after him, tugging his coat tighter, wondering if he should have brought a gun.

He went on, though, he and the dog, working their way up through denser forest, the underbrush crowding nearer the path as they climbed. He considered, and left the flashlight in his pocket. Best save his night vision for whatever might be out there in the dark, farther than the beam could reach.

At the cabin Shep paused, waiting, and Jason stopped beside him. It was there, deep in the trees beyond the overgrown garden, that he and Sara had first seen the strangers.

"Aliens," she'd called them, from those other stars.

Jason felt easy with most any kind of creature. But these? He scratched at the graying stubble on his jaw. These were thinking creatures, from off the Earth. Was he equal to dealing with them? He'd thought so, that first meeting. Decent, they'd seemed. Not human, but people all the same. Still he'd wondered, were others of their kind as good as these?

And the very next day...

He rubbed his eyes and looked the other way, down the hill toward home. That second

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