Chapter 37
“If you hear whistling, leave. If you hear laughter, leave. If you hear a voice you recognize that definitely shouldn’t be there, leave.”
Journals of Reaper J. T. Cross
She woke to the muffled sound of someone screaming her name.
Before she was even fully conscious, Alexys scrambled out of her sleeping bag, tugged on her shoes, and tumbled out into the woods, desperate to track the sound.
Not just any sound.
Elliot’s voice.
Alexys would have known that nasally pitch anywhere. After countless phone and Zoom calls, there was no doubt in her mind that it was him. She’d bet her life on it.
“Alexys?”
She was running before her brain had time to catch up.
His voice seemed to come from the trees to her right.
There wasn’t a deer trail or path to follow, but the first wisps of dawn’s light were finally beginning to crack through the clouds.
She pushed her way through dense foliage, still heavy and dripping with rain, and tried to head in the direction of his voice.
Elliot called her name again. His voice sounded closer, but his tone was laced with panic.
“Elliot?” Alexys shoved her way through the bushes and brambles. Thorns snagged her clothes and hair like dark claws. “Elliot!” she called again. “Where are you?”
“Oh God! No, no!”
Elliot’s scream froze the blood in her veins.
She stopped dead in her tracks. Her head swiveled this way and that as she frantically searched for any sign of him.
She shouted his name, tears blurring her vision, too set on finding him to care about what else might hear her.
For a long, horrible moment, she heard only the sound of her own rattled breaths.
Rain dripped and pattered around her, the smell of damp earth hung heavy in the air.
“Alexys?”
A chill crept down her spine. Elliot’s voice was now behind her. The pitch lower, all traces of panic gone.
“Alexys,” it said again, the sound uncanny, eerily familiar.
She shrank back against a neighboring oak tree. The voice was even closer this time, and the way it said her name, confused and stunted, was like it was saying her name for the first time. Testing it. Tasting it.
“Alexys.”
She pressed a hand to her mouth, silently cursing her impulsiveness. She was a fool for running out into the woods alone. Unarmed and with no idea where she was going. How had she not learned from any of the near-death experiences she’d had so far? The trap was such an obvious one.
“It’s here,” whispered the voice. “It’s here. Alexys?”
Hot tears slipped down her cheeks. She didn’t want to open her eyes. Wasn’t sure when she’d even shut them. The bushes near her left rustled, and she held her breath. She already knew what was there.
“Alexys.” And then another identical voice, “No, no, no …” His voice echoed all around her, overlapping with even more voices, louder and louder.
“Please, someone …”
“Alexys?”
“It’s here.”
And then it stopped.
Her legs shook with the instinct to run as she slowly turned her head toward the sounds.
A sea of red eyes. Jackalopes, dozens of them, stared back at her.
Alexys didn’t scream. She couldn’t even breathe.
She balked at the forest full of eyes and ran.
Crashing through the trees with such force she surprised even herself.
Branches and thorns caught her face, her hands and her clothes.
The air burned in her lungs as she tried to avoid slipping on the damp earth.
She prayed she was running in the right direction.
The sound of far too many creatures came thundering through the underbrush behind her. Alexys could hear them whispering in Elliot’s voice, calling her name.
She slipped through the mud, careened around a tree, and finally saw the cave and the dying fire tucked against the mountain. She screamed for Nic.
The Jackalopes poured through the trees behind her as she scrambled up the rocks and mud. A sea of hungry cryptids, with torn flesh and salivating teeth.
Nic stumbled out of the cave, hair an absolute mess, his glasses sitting crooked on his face. He looked at her, looked behind her, and all the color drained from his flushed cheeks.
“Quick!” she screamed, racing past him inside the cave. She picked up a smoking piece of wood from the fire, prepared to brandish it.
“You can’t even run away properly, can you?” Nic hissed, storming past her. “I have to do everything around here.”
“Don’t you see!” Her voice cut off when she saw the item in his hand. “Is that a flask?!” she screeched. Sure enough, Nic waved a larger-than-average silver flask at her.
“Whiskey,” he said, as if that answered all of her questions. He walked confidently to the edge of the cave, whistled sharply, and then chucked the silver flask into the woods.
Alexys made it to his side just in time to watch the herd—pack?
flock?—of Jackalopes bank a hard left, only a few feet from the cave, chasing off after the flask.
The sounds of their crashing through the underbrush faded until the woods were finally quiet once more.
Even the cicadas hesitated after the ruckus the Jackalopes had caused.
Or maybe she just couldn’t hear them over her still-thundering heartbeat in her ears.
After moment, she let out a long, deep sigh. Nic turned to look at her, his expression equal parts exhaustion and irritability.
“You clearly didn’t pay attention to the Jackalope research I sent you last month, either.”
“Was alcoholism part of it?”
He rolled his eyes and finally fixed his glasses. “A Jackalope is highly dangerous and aggressive, however, one can be easily stopped if offered their favorite thing: whiskey. The more aged, the better.” She gaped at him. “What?”
“That’s insane!” Alexys pointed a dubious finger in the direction the Jackalopes had disappeared to. “A flask can be used to stop murderous creatures mid-rampage? That sounds like an old wife’s tale.”
“All old wives’ tales start somewhere. They aren’t all rooted in truth, of course. We got lucky with that one.”
Alexys had far too many questions, and the adrenaline still thrumming through her veins wasn’t helping her nerves.
Chiefly, she wondered: was that enough whiskey?
What if the Jackalopes come back? And how will they drink the whiskey without opposable thumbs?
What if we have to fight off drunk Jackalopes?
“Don’t overthink it, Keane.” Nic walked back into the shelter, and Alexys begrudgingly followed him. “Instead, ask yourself how you managed to get nearly eaten by the same creature—twice.”
“Oh my God.” Her words dripped heavy with sarcasm. She lowered herself onto her sleeping bag. “Do you think they might, I don’t know, live here?”
“No need for spite, it was an honest question.”
“No, it wasn’t. It was you making fun of me and reminding me of my incredibly bad luck. There was nothing honest about it.”
“Not true. I am honestly shocked by how bad your luck is.”
Alexys glared daggers at his back. “Next time, I’ll make sure the pack of Jackalopes eats you.”
He grinned. “A flaggerdoot of Jackalopes, actually.”
Of all the things she needed to process, that singular word needed to be addressed immediately. “What did you just say?”
“A flaggerdoot,” he repeated with a careless wave of his hand. “It’s the word for a group of more than two Jackalopes.” She analyzed his face for any trace of humor but found none. He was being entirely serious.
“I don’t believe you. That’s not a word.”
“Yes, it is.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Nic smiled, small and teasing. “Then you should listen to yourself talk more often.”
“You’re such an ass.” She looked back toward the woods to reassure herself that the Jackalopes weren’t coming back. “It’s just like you to have a go at me after nearly being killed not once, not twice, but three times in the span of forty-eight hours.” The shadows beneath the trees remained silent.
“It’s a shame you don’t appreciate my sense of humor. Laughing is quite cathartic.”
She rolled her eyes. “I wonder if your flaggerdoot would appreciate your clever insults.”
“I doubt they’re intelligent enough to understand human conversation.” He ignored her icy glare, instead turning his attention to his backpack. “Although, they do seem smarter than I originally thought.”
“Of course they are.” She followed suit, shoving things haphazardly into her pack and carefully rolling her sleeping bag. “They mimic people’s voices. How is that not a sign of intelligence?”
Nic paused and looked up at her, eyes wide. “Wait a minute, did you hear them mimic someone? I’ve always thought that was such an intriguing talent.”
Alexys swallowed against the fear that welled up at the memory of Elliot’s screams. “Yes, I did. They were …” Her voice trailed off and she looked down at her hands. Once again, covered in mud and forest debris. “They were using Elliot’s voice.”
Nic grimaced. “Were they? Well, that’s certainly an interesting development.”
She frowned at how fearless he seemed. Like it was an interesting discovery and not a near-death experience. In fact, he hadn’t even stopped to ask her why she’d gone running out the cave like some sort of maniac.
“The one that ate my purse used your voice,” she said.
“Did it?” Nic stood a little taller. “I’ll consider that a compliment. Creatures who possess such talents don’t mimic just anyone’s vocal patterns, you know.” His smug smile said it all.
She rolled her eyes. “Right, you’re so very special.”
“That said, it is disturbing to know that creature was following us, listening in on our conversations, long enough to mimic my voice,” he murmured. “Flattering, yes, but also disturbing.”
“Do you think it means Elliot’s alive, that we’ll find him? They have to hear someone to mimic them, right?” She tried not to consider what the mimicking actually meant, and that he’d been screaming, and instead focus on the fact that she’d heard his voice at all. He had to be alive. He had to be.
“He might be, yes,” Nic said gently. “We can’t be sure how long ago they heard his voice in order to mimic it. There’s no available data on Jackalope’s ability to retain vocal patterns for specific lengths of time.”
“No evidence?”
“Conservation laws haven’t caught up with everything yet,” he explained.
“We would need to keep Jackalopes in captivity to truly understand their vocal mimicry and how they use it. For all we know, they could hold on to the same voice for months, possibly even years.” Alexys tried not to feel discouraged as she finished repacking her backpack.
“That said, we know Elliot hasn’t been out here for too long, so …
” Nic shrugged, but he wouldn’t meet her eye.
It would have been nice to have a positive voice on the trip to balance Nic’s endless cynicism. She knew it was just as bad to get her hopes up, but a little optimism from him, genuine optimism, would’ve made her feel a little less hopeless.
“It’s a good thing we at least have the compass with us.
” He walked to the edge of the cave and held it in his palm.
“Even without a map, a person should still be able to find their way through the woods with a compass. I have to assume Elliot was in possession of one. They come standard in all Warden packs.”
She appreciated the silver lining, but the truth was it was very easy to get lost in these woods. And all the trees looked the same, everything dense and brown and green, a sea of the same in all directions. She’d been lucky to escape the woods herself, that first night, otherwise Waylan …
Suddenly a horrible, absolutely god-awful idea occurred to her.
“What time is it?” she asked first.
Nic narrowed his eyes at her, but checked his watch nonetheless. “Half past seven in the morning. Why?”
The idea was reckless. It had gone horribly wrong the first time, but she’d be prepared. She knew what to expect. The Jackalopes were proof enough: Elliot had been here, and recently too. So what if they needed to divert their course slightly? It was worth asking someone who might have seen him.
“I don’t like that look, Keane.” Nic cleared his throat. “Keane?” Hello? Earth to HR.’
Alexys looked up at him. She felt confident and a little crazy, and judging by his expression, it showed.
“Waylan might have seen Elliot.”
Nic stared at her for several seconds. He took off his glasses to rub his eyes, already exasperated. “Let me get this straight. You want to ask a homicidal ghost for directions?”