The sound came like thunder out of a clear blue sky.

She waited silently, sunlight streaming green-yellow through the foliage as the rumbling grew louder. Whatever it was, it was drawing nearer, and it didn’t sound good.

Still as a statue, and camoflauged to match the earthy hues of her surroundings, she searched for the one who was stalking her. She had caught a glimpse of the assassin, a powerful, dark creature that did not have the need for a coat of greens and browns to blend into its surroundings because it was somehow able to disappear into the ever-present shadows. It relied on stealth, raw speed, and brutality. She shivered as she thought of its poison-tipped implements stabbing past her armor, into her flesh, the weight of its heavy body bearing down on her as it wrapped her in its sinuous limbs. She was being hunted by a living nightmare, and she had to get away. She hoped that this new distraction might provide cover as she made her escape from the dense jungle.

The noise had grown deafening now, and with it came colors and smells with which she was unfamiliar. A shadow passed overhead as the machine - it was definitely some sort of machine - razed the canopy to the West of her hiding spot. The new clearing allowed more sunlight to pour in, and she felt exposed. She looked for the watchful, glossy black eyes of the thing that desired her, wished to consume her, but she saw nothing. Time was running out. If the machine made another pass, it could destroy her along with the surrounding vegetation. She crouched low, the muscles in her lithe, powerful legs tensing. She would only get once chance at this, and she needed to be ready to spring into action.

* * *

Something was wrong. The prey was close. So close. He could smell it. He could almost taste it, and he was hungry for it. There was murder in his mind. A lot of prey was running about on this fine day, but one in particular, this juicy female, would provide quite the feast. He had kept patiently after her, darting across sun-lit patches into the shade, creeping low along the ground. He could not see her from where he was, and now, with the vibration caused by this new thing, he could not detect her movements with his heightened senses. His many eyes gave him a preciseness of vision that was unparalleled, but he relied less on this when he was hunting than on being able to sense the slightest disturbance in his surroundings. Motion was what triggered his attack, and avoiding motion was what his prey was best at. Oh, she could sit remarkably still for one so capable of flight. She was fast, faster than him if he lost the element of surprise, and this roaring, rumbling thing that was so unceremoniously destroying the shadows of his domain was costing him the upper hand.

Suddenly it passed over head, and the noise was deafening. Dirt and grit and shredded plant life twirled tempestously around him, and he dug his claws into the earth to keep from being pulled into the vortex. The shadow of the thing passed, and he found himself exposed, bathed in hot, bright sunlight, beating down on him and giving away his position. It was not often that he felt fear, but the thing was leveling everything around him, reducing his hunting ground to dust. His own predators were few, but most of them came from the sky, and his ability to go unseen was all that protected him from their vicious attacks. He scrambled as fast as he could, making the most of his many legs, darting away from the noise and the sun and toward the edge of the forest that yet remained. The thing, the murderous, roaring engine of destruction had turned to follow him, and it was closing fast. He stopped for an instant, wondering if the terror had a visual acuity based on movement, but it kept on. It was almost on him now, and in a panic he burst forward at top speed, overcoming obstacles as if they weren’t there as he dove for cover.

He was not fast enough. The hot blades of the machine swept him up, and in, and pain and darkness overcame him simultaneously.

* * *

She saw the thing overtake him. She felt a mixture of relief and horror. Relief, because she had seen her hunter, stripped of the disguise of darkness, and it was a truly terrifying sight. The huge, hairy, dark body, the vicious fangs, the innumerable eyes, the eight limbs - two more than she herself had at her disposal. All of it was too much. It was a creature created for killing, and she knew she could not outrun him forever.

The horror she felt was a surprise to her. There was a certain sympathy she had not expected to feel as the thing thas stalked her was sucked into the wicked maw of the machine. It was a horrible death, and if the beast had deserved it, it was hard for her to see anything killed so terrifying a fashion. And now, it was headed for her. She still crouched, coiled to strike out, waiting for the opportune moment. The roaring was so loud now it consumed all other sounds, and she knew that before long the entire forest would fall to this new predator’s ravenous jaws. Finally, when it was almost on top of her, she leapt - leapt with all of her might. She cleared the top of the canopy in that one, fantastic jump. She was higher than the machine now, high enough to see the enormous creature that was driving it. At the apex of her jump, she spread her small wings and pumped them furiously. They were small - insufficient for anything like real flight - but they could extend her jump quite a distance, and she wanted to be as far away as she could be from things that hunted and chopped and killed. From her vantage point in the sky, she saw many others of her kind abandoning their homes among the broad, green leaves. They too were leaping, they too tried for distance with wings outstreched. None, she noted with a sense of satisfaction, soared nearly so high as she.

* * *

Steve released the grip on the lawnmower and let it sputter out. It was a nice day for August, with a cool breeze that came and went, but he was hot, and hungry.

He walked inside, wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his forearm. He clicked off the iPod in his pocket and removed the headphones from his ears. There was a plastic jug of water on the counter, and he took a long drink before setting it down. Just then, Jamie, his wife, came into the room.

“It’s like a game of cloak and dagger out there.” He said. “In the tall grass, there are hundreds of grasshoppers, crickets - you name it - and spiders too. There was a wolf spider out there almost as big as the one I saw on our front step a few weeks ago. He must have been this big.” Steve spread his thumb and forefinger nearly two inches apart, holding his arm out in front of him.

“Ooh. That one was in my garden the other day,” Jamie said.

“What do you mean, ‘that one’,” Steve asked with a laugh, “There’s lots of them out there. Whatever the case, this one in particular is gone. He must have been out hunting grasshoppers. He tried to make a break for it but I mowed over him.”

“Good.”

“Yeah, I hate those things. Hey, so what’s for lunch?”

* * *

It was dark. He was covered in something cold, wet, and heavy. He tried to move, and it sent pain searing through his body. Still, he couldn’t stay lying buried beneath whatever it was. It smelled like grass, mixed with an odd, chemical odor. The same odor that emanated from the machine that had nearly killed him. He gathered his strength, and pushed. It was grass, and with an effort, ignoring the pain, he tunneled out of it into the sun. He made a quick appraisal of himself, and saw that one of his legs was gone. He tried walking, but it was awkward, the perfect balance he was used to now lost. He was, he noticed, still quite hungry. There was nothing left of the forest of tall grass that had been his hunting ground for the last month, but no matter. It would grow back. A number of baby crickets and grasshoppers made their way among the green stubble along the hill, looking for a new place to hide. He would have to settle for these for the moment, until he had his strength back and could learn to cope with his missing appendage. The strong, statuesque female he had been salivating over was nowhere to be seen, and was no doubt more than a match for him in his current condition. He had been kicked by an adult grasshopper before, and it wasn’t an experience he wanted to repeat, even in top fighting shape, let alone maimed and hurting.

He saw a youngling bounce near him, blissfully unaware of the danger. He increased the flow of venom to his fangs, and waited. Closer. Closer.

In an instant, he struck. Struck like death from above.

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