Phantoms

seemed to have claimed all the creatures in this part of the forest—except for one small, hungry fox. Yet there was not even the scent of death, not even the ripe stench of a carcass moldering in the underbrush.
    But at last, as he had scampered across the low limestone formation, being careful not to set foot in one of the crevices or flute holes that dropped down into the caves beneath, the fox had seen something move on the slope ahead of him, something that had not merely been stirred by the wind. He had frozen on the low rocks, staring uphill at the shadowy perimeter of this new arm of the forest.
    A squirrel. Two squirrels. No, there were even more of them than that—five, ten, twenty. They were lined up side by side in the dimness along the treeline.
    At first there had been no game whatsoever. Now there was an equally strange abundance of it.
    The fox sniffed.
    Although the squirrels were only five or six yards away, he could not get their scent.
    The squirrels were looking directly at him, but they didn’t seem frightened.
    The fox cocked his head, suspicion tempering his hunger.
    The squirrels moved to their left, all at once, in a tight little group, and then came out of the shadows of the trees, away from the protection of the forest, onto open ground, straight toward the fox. They roiled over and under and around one another, a frantic confusion of brown pelts, a blur of motion in the brown grass. When they came to an abrupt halt, all at the same instant, they were only three or four yards from the fox. And they were no longer squirrels.
    The fox twitched and made a hissing sound.
    The twenty small squirrels were now four large raccoons.
    The fox growled softly.
    Ignoring him, one of the raccoons stood on its hind feet and began washing its paws.
    The fur along the fox’s back bristled.
    He sniffed the air.
    No scent.
    He put his head low and watched the raccoons closely. His sleek muscles grew even more tense than they had been, not because he intended to spring, but because he intended to flee.
    Something was very wrong.
    All four raccoons were sitting up now, forepaws tucked against their chests, tender bellies exposed.
    They were watching the fox.
    The raccoon was not usually prey for the fox. It was too aggressive, too sharp of tooth, too quick with its claws. But though it was safe from foxes, the raccoon never enjoyed confrontation; it never flaunted itself as these four were doing.
    The fox licked the cold air with his tongue.
    He sniffed again and finally did pick up a scent.
    His ears snapped back flat against his skull, and he snarled.
    It wasn’t the scent of raccoons. It wasn’t the scent of any denizen of the forest that he had ever encountered before. It was an unfamiliar, sharp, unpleasant odor. Faint. But repellent.
    This vile odor wasn’t coming from any of the four raccoons that posed in front of the fox. He wasn’t quite able to make out where it was coming from.
    Sensing grave danger, the fox whipped around on the limestone, turning away from the raccoons, although he was reluctant to put his back to them.
    His paws scraped and his claws clicked on the hard surface as he launched himself down the slope, across the flat weatherworn rock, his tail streaming out behind him. He leaped over a foot-wide crevice in the stone—
    —and in midleap he was snatched from the air by something dark and cold and pulsing.
    The thing burst up out of the crevice with brutal, shocking force and speed.
    The agonized squeal of the fox was sharp and brief.
    As quickly as the fox was seized, it was drawn down into the crevice. Five feet below, at the bottom of the miniature chasm, there was a small hole that led into the caves beneath the limestone outcropping. The hole was too small to admit the fox, but the struggling creature was dragged through anyway, its bones snapping as it went.
    Gone.
    All in the blink of an eye. Half a blink.
    Indeed, the fox had been sucked into the earth before the echo of its dying cry had even pealed back from a distant hillside.
    The raccoons were gone.
    Now, a flood of field mice poured onto the smooth slabs of limestone. Scores of them. At least a hundred.
    They went to the edge of the crevice.
    They stared down into it.
    One by one, the mice slipped over the edge, dropped to the bottom, and then went through the small natural opening into the cavern below.
    Soon, all the mice were gone, too.
    Once again, the forest above Snowfield was quiet.
     
     

PART