Doyle finally couldn’t go any farther, and he collapsed to the soft forest floor. He lay on his back, arms thrown out, gasping for breath, wheezing and coughing, suppressing the urge to vomit. He had run like a madman for God knows how far, tripping, falling, getting up again, thrashing through brush, and stumbling across streams. He was torn to pieces, cut and bleeding, his clothing in tatters. But he was alive.
As he lay there, he realized he’d escaped the crazies. Maybe he hadn’t even been chased. One of the motherfuckers was dead for sure, but the other? Maybe he too was dead—or at least too injured to give chase. Whatever it was, he’d beaten those mofos, he’d escaped—he’d survived.
The thought calmed him down as he began to recover his breath. He tried to slow his gasping enough to listen. He could hear nothing but the sighing of the wind. Looking upward, he saw the dark forms of the trees against the night sky and, beyond them, a smattering of stars. There were little patches of moonlight here and there speckling the forest floor and tree trunks, and everything smelled of pine needles.
His breathing gradually slowed. He felt the cold mountain air flowing over him, turning the sweat on his face icy.
He took a deep breath and then, wincing and trying to stay quiet, he raised himself up on an elbow. He was near the base of some kind of gigantic pine tree, or fir, or whatever—with a bunch of gnarly roots. He scooted over and propped his back against one of the roots. Now which way had he come? He looked around and realized he had no idea. With all the tall trees around, he couldn’t see any mountains or landmarks, and the dark forest floor showed no tracks.
How far had he run? A long fucking way. He’d crashed through dense vegetation, crossed open areas, run like hell through big deep forests of tall trees, climbed over rocks, fallen in a stream, traversed wilderness. He must’ve gone miles and miles. Mostly, it had been downhill, but there were uphill portions, ravines, scrambles. He was as lost as a person could get.
The important thing was, he’d escaped those motherfuckers. Jesus, the image of Ballou above him, tangled in the airbag with his throat cut, blood still draining—that horror would live with him for the rest of his life. It was insane what had happened … And it would make a hell of a documentary. He was there. He was attacked. He escaped. He was the guy who survived.
What now? It was going to get cold—very cold. The temperature was already dropping fast. Might even go below freezing. At least he had put on a light jacket to ward off the evening chill of the mountains. But it would get colder, and the jacket would not protect him against below-freezing weather. On the other hand, no way was he going anywhere. He was going to spend the night right here, in this deep forest, where he’d be safe, far away from what was happening down there around the lodge and the movie town. No way was he heading back to the road or anywhere near those fuckers. He would wait for a rescue, which he knew would be coming soon. He would spend the night here and wait until it was safe, and only then would he come out. A body could survive weeks without food, that he knew. And there was no shortage of water. As long as he didn’t freeze to death, he would survive.
He sat up a little more, adjusting his back against the massive root. This was not a bad place to spend a night. He thought once again, this time with a glow of pride, that he had escaped the mofos. He was a survivor, always had been since his hardscrabble childhood in the Burren in County Clare. He had spent the night out before, many times, when he got in trouble and was kicked out by his da, or with his friends getting drunk and smoking cigarettes.
He breathed in the night air, filled with the scent of pine. He could already see the documentary. He began writing the voice-over in his head.
And then he froze: there was a distant noise. Suddenly alert, his heart pounding, he listened. And he heard it again: a footfall in the forest, the crackling sound of twigs and needles being trod on. And another. And another. Slow and stealthy—and getting closer.
In a sudden panic, he crouched, trying to hide himself among the roots, hardly daring to breathe. They were coming. They were moving around in the dark, no doubt looking for him. He thought of running, but they were already too close, and they’d hear him and catch him.
Doyle stared in the direction of the sounds, straining to see, but there were no lights. He huddled in the darkness at the base of the giant fir tree, among the roots. They were moving at such a slow pace that he figured they hadn’t seen him yet. He couldn’t outrun them, especially in his condition. He prayed they would pass on by without seeing him. It was dark and he huddled, trying to cram himself in among the roots, become as invisible as possible.
The sounds got closer. They were heavy, like they were marching in unison, brush and branches cracking and falling. It was noisy—there must be a lot of them. Closer now … closer … He strained to see through the gloom. A huge shape loomed out of the dark—a gigantic lumbering monster that blotted out the night sky.
What was this? He felt such relief he almost laughed. It wasn’t the mofos; it was an animal. A gigantic, stupendous creature. Not a mammoth—Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, it was twice as big as a mammoth, the biggest animal he’d ever seen, a giant shaggy rhinoceros, moving in slow motion, a living mountain in the night. In awe, he watched it pass by, each footfall shaking the earth, its breathing deep and ponderous, forming swirling clouds of condensation behind it.
After a few minutes, it had passed, and he could hear its bulk moving down through the forest, the sounds of its passage gradually fading away into silence.
Doyle was spellbound. He felt like he had just had a religious experience. He had escaped death, and now he had witnessed this gigantic extinct animal going he knew not where, thinking its lonely, ancient thoughts, resurrected and given a second chance to live its prehistoric existence.
He leaned back against the tree and shivered. It was going to be one cold mother of a night. The forest floor was covered with dry, soft needles, and he began scooping them up and stuffing them into his jacket, packing them all around for warmth and then zipping it up tight. It didn’t take him long to realize that, even though the stuffing was a bit prickly, it was going to work well. He felt himself warming up already. He might be lost in buttfuck nowhere, but he was safe. He was warm. He had escaped death. He was a survivor.
Even though Doyle had rejected Catholicism a long time ago, he thanked God most fervently for having been delivered.