Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: The Official Movie Novelization by Alex Irvine

gone.”
    Malcolm looked at Ellie and Alexander. Now that they had come all this way, he realized what a risk he was taking. He’d known it before, but suddenly it seemed clearer, the way bad decisions always did as soon as they were irreversible. But it was done now. He hoped it was the right thing to do.
    Ellie looked scared. Alexander looked as if he was trying not to look scared. Malcolm started to say something to them, but he’d already said it all. Repeating it in front of Carver wouldn’t make it any truer. He opened the door and started to get out.
    “You don’t want me to come with you?” Alexander called.
    Malcolm leaned back into the truck. He felt a rush of love and pride for his son, trying to be brave when in fact he was utterly terrified.
    “I need you to stay in the truck,” he said. “It’s going to be okay.”
    Alexander’s nod was the last thing he saw before he shut the door and started walking.
    * * *
    He worked his way down the slope toward the river and paused at the shore below the rapids, re-envisioning the events of the previous day. The damp sand near the water’s edge was trampled, with hundreds of ape footprints clearly visible. Where the wounded ape had been, Malcolm thought he could still see faint bloodstains on a rock face. He walked along the shore, pushing through tree branches that leaned out over the water.
    Farther downstream, the water was quieter and deeper. This was as good a crossing as any, he thought, unless he wanted to go all the way back down to the highway bridge, and that would take too much time.
    Splashing out into the shallows, Malcolm stepped from rock to rock as far as he could. Then he had no choice but to drop down into thigh-deep water and wade the rest of the way. It was freezing, and he didn’t like the feeling of being exposed out in the middle of the expanse. He pushed hard to the opposite bank and paused, looking around on the off chance he might spot one of the apes, watching. Did they usually post sentries this far from their camp? That was a tough question to answer, since he didn’t know how far the camp was.
    He climbed the ridge, wet boots squeaking on the rocks, and reached the top where the apes had lined up the day before. He saw prints here and there. Some of them looked strange to him, not like feet, and then he figured out they must have been left by the knuckles of gorillas. Once he was over the ridge, the ground was fairly level. He followed what looked like a path and was surprised, a few minutes later, when he came out onto a road. He was even more surprised to see an abandoned gas station, its sign overgrown, its parking lot thick with weeds and saplings.
    The plate-glass windows that had formed the front wall were long gone. The inside of the station was empty, looted years ago. Three rusting cars sat on flat tires at the side of the building. Malcolm didn’t stop to look through them. He walked up the road a ways, and turned back into the woods when he saw clear evidence that apes had passed by. Small broken branches dangled in the tree canopy, and there was a scattering of freshly fallen green leaves.
    Hiking uphill through the woods again, Malcolm started to feel as if something was watching him from every direction at once. Every rustle of a breeze in the leaves brought him up short. Twice he saw animals moving in the undergrowth, and froze until they were gone. He glanced at his watch, which he’d made sure to wind that morning. Thirty-five minutes since he’d left the trucks.
    Was he going in the right direction? Ahead of him there was a heavily wooded ravine. If he was an ape, he’d want to be on high ground, but not above the tree line. They were around here somewhere. At the head of the ravine, where it narrowed into the flank of the mountain, might be a good spot.
    He started up the center of the ravine, looking up into the trees and trying to keep an eye out for poison oak and the brambles that grew in impenetrable