Canyons of Night

Chapter 19

NATE GRABBED DEVIN’S ARM. “DID YOU HEAR THAT?”

“Ouch.” Devin winced. “Yeah, let go, man. That hurts.”

They were sitting side by side, their backs against a massive granite rock. Nearby a waterfall splashed into a pool. It was late afternoon but night fell fast and early inside the Preserve. The last of the sun had vanished a few minutes ago and a deep twilight was descending.

The plunge through the weird energy fence had been bad for both of them, although Devin suspected that it had frightened Nate more than it had him. Nevertheless, they were now facing the prospect of spending the night inside the Preserve and he was not looking forward to it any more than Nate was.

At least there had been no sign of the two smugglers. The really bad part, Devin thought, was that they did not have a flashlight. They hadn’t had anything to eat for hours. He thought wistfully about the packs they had left on top of the cliff above Hidden Beach.

“There’s that creepy noise again,” Nate whispered. “Maybe it’s those two guys.”

Devin stared hard at the dense darkness between the trees. Nate was not imagining things, he decided. Something had moved in the shadows. He could have sworn that for a couple of seconds he saw a pair of glowing eyes but it was hard to be certain because whenever he concentrated with all of his energy it seemed to him that there were a lot of small, strange things glowing in the dark around them. He’d realized very quickly that Nate could not see all the scary glow-in-the-dark stuff so he had decided not to mention it. Nate was already freaked out enough as it was. One of them had to stay calm.

“No,” he said. “It’s not the smugglers. If they had found us they would have shot us by now. You heard them back there at the cove. They said they couldn’t follow us into the Preserve.”

“They think that whatever is in here will get us. Don’t know about you but that doesn’t make me feel any better. Who knows what’s in this place?”

“You’ve lived on Rainshadow all your life. If there were dangerous wild animals in here you would have heard about them by now.”

“I’m not talking about wild animals. I’m talking about other stuff. Lots of people have gone missing in the Preserve over the years. What if they didn’t just die? What if they’re still around?”

“There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

“How do you know that?”

It was, Devin thought, a legitimate question. How did he know there was no such thing as ghosts? He decided he did not want to pursue that line of logic.

“At least it’s not too cold in here,” he said. “If we have to spend the night we won’t get that hypo thing.”

“Hypothermia,” Nate said automatically.

“Yeah. That.”

Devin took out the old compass that Charlotte Enright had given him. He held it tightly in his hand. He had already discovered that it didn’t work inside the Preserve. When he’d tried to use it earlier he saw that all four points of the compass were glowing equally brightly. There was no way to tell which way was true north. But it felt good to hold it in his hand. Comforting.

“I’m thirsty,” Nate said after a while. “I’m going to get some water.”

“Me, too.” Devin got to his feet.

They moved across the grass to the grotto pool and looked down at the frothy water.

“Huh,” Nate said. “Something weird about that water.”

“Like what?”

But he could sense it, too, Devin thought, probably better than Nate could. There was something strange about the water in the pool.

“You can’t see the bottom,” Nate said. He looked down into the pool as if he was fascinated by it.

“The rocks at the bottom are dark so the water looks dark. That’s why you can’t see anything,” Devin said.

“Oh, man, there’s something down there,” Nate whispered.

“A fish, maybe,” Devin said uneasily.

“Whatever it is, it’s big. Don’t know about you but I’m not thirsty enough to put my hand into that water.”

“It’s just a fish.” Devin started to lean forward to scoop up some of the water.

Something dark swirled in the depths of the water. He realized he suddenly felt an overpowering urge to plunge into the pool. The darkness down below summoned him with a force that was slowly becoming irresistible. His heart started to pound. He leaned a little farther forward.

“Are you crazy, man?” Nate shouted.

He grabbed Devin’s arm and yanked him back from the edge.

Devin felt as if he had just awakened from a nightmare. He gasped for air and took several deep breaths trying to calm his racing pulse.

“Thanks,” he managed.

“Come on, we need to get away from this place,” Nate whispered.

“If we start running around in the Preserve no one will ever find us.”

“No one’s ever gonna find us, anyway,” Nate said. He did not take his eyes off the dark surface of the pool.

“Wrong,” Devin said. “The chief will find us.”