Breadcrumbs For The Nasties (Book 1): Megan by Steven Novak

worked its way inside and tickled my brain. My fingers went numb. Try as it might, the fall failed to shake me loose. The landing, however, succeeded marvelously. When we finally hit the water, it hurt. I felt it in my feet first, then my legs. The pain shot directly into my back, my arms, and my fingers. We might as well have landed on concrete. The liquid engulfed me, bitter cold. Blueeyes slipped from my grasp. 
    Everything went black.
    Once again I felt nothing, heard nothing, saw nothing. Up and down no longer had meaning. Out became in. Warmth seemed silly. The moving water grabbed hold, violently tossed me. It mashed me into something solid and then into something else. When I screamed, I inhaled my surroundings. It filled my lungs, choking me from the inside out. For a moment there was a tease of air. Frozen wind stabbed my face, liquid lungs spewed. I screamed, reaching for everything, anything. The icy water reached back, took hold and refused to let go, pulled me under once again. My arm smacked something stiff, instantly went numb. Again I tasted air, and again it was taken away. It was no use. I was going to die. The nasties weren’t going to kill me. The nasties wouldn’t have anything to do with it. I wasn’t going to be beaten, or eaten, or left in pieces somewhere along the road. I was going to drown. I was going to die in a river. I was going to die alone, just like Mother, just like Father.
    Or not.
    Something snagged my jacket, hoisted me from the swirling depths, and pulled me to solid ground. I couldn’t see, couldn’t open my eyes. Breathing was impossible. It didn’t matter. I didn’t need to see the face of my savior to know who it was.
    “Come on! Come on!” So gravelly, that voice, so far away yet so recognizable.   Blueeyes. 
    There was a sharp pain in my chest and then another, palms hammering my ribs. The vaguest sensation of lips, foreign breath in my lungs. 
    “God damn it! God damn it, come on!”
    Everything inside rushed upward, coughed from my mouth before splashing onto my face. When I sat up, he rolled me to my side, patting me on the back. “You’re okay. Cough it out. Going to be fine. Get it all out.”
    In between the hacking coughs, I apologized. I told him I was sorry, said I’d never do it again and begged for forgiveness. I meant every word of it. It was stupid, screaming. It nearly got us killed. I needed to stop being stupid. 
    He told me to shut up.
    Though every part of me was sore, and bruised, and cold, and stiff, I forced myself to stand. My legs wanted the opposite, had other ideas, nearly went limp. I told them to shut up. Blueeyes helped. He made sure I was capable of remaining upright before he let me go. When I was steady, he turned his attention to the surrounding forest. 
    When he sighed, I could see his breath. He ran his hand through his hair, across his face, and down his beard. “We can’t be down here, not this late. This is howler territory.”
    Through weary eyes, I gazed at the sky. It was dark, getting darker. Night was approaching. The familiar roar of a howler echoed throughout the canyon, bounced off the surrounding cliffs and back again. When I shivered, it had nothing to do with the temperature.
    Blueeyes grabbed my arm. “We need to move.”
    To my surprise we moved further into the forest. Blueeyes claimed there wasn’t enough time to make our way out before nightfall, and wandering around in the dark wasn’t an option. We searched for at least fifteen minutes before he found what he was looking for. It was a tree, the largest and healthiest we’d come across, sturdy. 
    He pointed to a branch thirty feet up. “There.”
    I was confused. “There what?”
    “That’s where were staying.”  His hand landed between my shoulder blades, nudged me forward. “Climb up.”
    It seemed high, really high.
    When I didn’t move, he nudged me again. “Anything remotely resembling human in those things is gone. They’re big and fast.