Free The Black Seas of Infinity by Dan Henk

soldiers, with dogs—and at least two
helicopters, most likely searching with spotlights and infrared.
But they were all far away. The strength of this body, not to
mention my performance so far, was starting to boost my confidence.
I had no scent, gave off no heat, and was black. Real hard to find
in a large, wooded area. The dogs posed no threat. The most they
could pick up was the rhythm of my footfalls, and I was too far
away for that. It wouldn’t be long before I reached the car. With
it lay my hope of an easy escape. Then a thought crossed my mind.
If they followed me too closely, or anticipated my trajectory, the
clearing wouldn’t be too difficult to discern. The safest option
would entail me circling out into the woods and back in an attempt
to throw them off. Veering off to my left, I descended a slope and
ran deeper into the forest. A wall of reeds abruptly manifested
between the trees, and I tore through them, splashing into a muddy
pond below. Insects buzzed around me, and my pace slowed as my feet
started to slip in the muck. I tore out of the reeds and landed on
another dirt trail.
    Pausing for a moment, I listened. A swarm of
gnats buzzed around me, but there were no sounds of pursuit. I
started jogging up the trail, the soft sand crunching beneath my
feet, a gang of tiny toads leaping out of the way to safety. The
sky was now growing bright, and I could almost smell the freshness
of the morning air. But that was just a memory. I couldn’t actually
smell anything. Something whizzed past my head and exploded. I
jerked to a stop and looked around. I could hear laughter in the
background. A kid, maybe ten years old, wearing a white T-shirt and
jeans came running over the crest of the hill. He was clutching a
mess of bottle rockets and yelling back to his friends. As he
stumbled down the slope toward me, his head came around and he
froze. His jaw dropped open as the bottle rockets fell limply from
his hand. Letting out a hoarse yell, he started to scramble back up
the hill, his feet slipping on the pine needles, kicking up dirt
and causing him to crash chest first into the ground. A couple of
his friends peered over the crest and froze, eyes wide in
disbelief. I must have looked like something out of a horror movie.
These kids were probably in grade school, for fuck’s sake. They
immediately dropped behind the hill, stumbling backwards, trailing
the sounds of their screams. The fallen boy had managed to scramble
back to his feet and was quickly disappearing over the ridge as
well. I decided it was time to look for that four-wheeling trail
again. It was doubtful anyone would believe the kids, at least not
at first, but some skeptical adults might come to check it out.
    My sense of direction had improved slightly
with this new body. I would still be guessing, but I seemed to have
an inherent sense of my geographic situation, as if I had a
built-in GPS now. I ran up the hill and to the right, out of sheer
coincidence following the same path taken by the fleeing children.
I bobbed and weaved around tree trunks and underbrush, my feet
scouring pine needles with machine-like precision. The forest
abruptly ended in a wall of tall grass and bushes, the top bathed
in the bright morning light. I slowed my ascent, decelerating into
a trot as I cautiously approached the edge of the trees. I peered
through. The yellowed wild grass beyond waved softly in the wind,
rising and falling like a body of water. It covered a large,
circular plot. As I looked around the meadow, every direction
appeared the same. Then something drew me toward the far end. I
tried to focus, but it was slippery. A buried premonition. I
strolled through the grass, the beckoning tips brushing against my
hard shell of a body. Something darted across my foot. I couldn’t
see it, but I could feel it. Even more fascinating, something told
me it was a small mammal. But like the ephemeral pull toward a
direction, I couldn’t quite grab onto anything, and by