Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 125037 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 625(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125037 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 625(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
The men looked at one another uneasily. “I hate this place,” Duncan declared. “Let’s get on with it. The sooner we find her and kill her, the quicker we go home and I get medical treatment.”
“We aren’t killing her,” Terry stated. His voice was low but firm.
Duncan spun around. “No one put you in charge,” he sneered. “Majority rules, and we all say she dies if she isn’t already dead.”
Diego studied the soldier named Terry. He didn’t change expression when Duncan confronted him, nor did he back down. He did wait for the others to begin moving in the general direction of the small ravine the sniffer had most likely pointed them toward. Terry didn’t pull his weapon or aim the automatic slung around his neck, but his hand brushed both guns as he began to trail behind the others.
“Turkey vultures,” Gerald announced, indicating the sky a short distance away. “A lot of them.”
Pete scowled up at the circling birds. More and more joined those in the sky. Some sank down below the trees where they couldn’t see them. “If we’re lucky, it’ll be Leila and we can get the hell out of here.”
“I told you,” Duncan said, his voice triumphant, despite the bandages covering one entire side of his face. “She’s dead. The boys are probably nursing a few wounds, and their coms aren’t working.”
Terry shook his head, clearly not believing the way the others did. He let a few more feet separate them. When Gerald glanced back at him, Terry crouched in the dirt and studied the ground as if looking for tracks. Gerald relaxed visibly. Not too bright, Diego decided. Terry was the one decent man with the others. Diego could read his resolve. If they found Leila, she wasn’t the one who was going to die. At last, evidence that there were soldiers like Luther, who had a strong moral code.
Pete was the first one to get to the top of the ridge. He simply went in the direction of the vultures. The birds were everywhere, on branches of trees, on the rocks and circling in the sky. There were several already on the ground, tearing at carcasses strewn around a few feet below the ridge. A moving carpet of beetles covered the ground and whatever dead carrion lay there. Bottle flies were everywhere, their bluish-green bodies flashing in the streaks of sunlight.
The fog hadn’t made it into the ravine, but it was slowly moving that way. A red-tailed hawk dropped from the trees, passing through tendrils of the ghostly grayish mist, moving relentlessly toward the gorge, landing on the ground beside the beetles. An opossum ambled through the grass and rocks to sniff at the very edge of one of the mounds covered in insects.
The wind shifted slightly, carrying the smell of rotting flesh to those on the ridge. Duncan swore and turned his face away from the sight.
“It’s not Leila,” Pete said unnecessarily. “I think we just found Harold’s team.”
“She couldn’t have done this,” Duncan insisted. “She’s not good enough that she could have killed all of them. How could she be? Have you seen her?” There was bitter distaste in his voice.
Gerald moved closer to the edge to peer down at the bodies. “Every damn one of them,” he announced. He crouched down, one hand rubbing his jaw as he studied the scene below. The wind tugged at his hair, and the fog swirled around him.
Diego let loose another eerie cry that sounded as if it came from deep within the forest, much like the wail of a banshee, a heralding of death. The wind and fog rushed toward the soldiers in a sudden surge. A bobcat emerged from the trees, snarling, staring at Pete, malevolence in his yellow eyes. The cat was difficult to see with its coloring and the gray of the thickening mist.
Pete tried to bring up the rifle that was hanging by a strap around his neck. As he did so, the great horned owl shot out of the fog, striking the soldier with blunt force, talons piercing his hand and neck. The rifle dropped from the nerveless hand and would have fallen to the ground if it hadn’t been for the strap.
Amid a flutter of wings, the sky darkening for a moment, Duncan, Pete and Terry could barely make out the bobcat spinning around after it snarled, showing its teeth. It faded into the swirling fog and then was gone into the forest. The great horned owl did the same, its coloring allowing it to disappear as if it had never been. The only evidence that the owl had been there was the blood dripping steadily from Pete’s broken hand.
Once again, the forest went totally silent. After the rush of strange activity, the silence was almost deafening. At first, it was the lack of insects droning and the absence of the scuttering of lizards and mice through the leaves. Then they became aware of the number of vultures sitting in the branches of the trees. The gleaming black feathers stood out as black shapes, not just on the tree limbs but on several of the larger boulders lining the ridge. The turkey vultures, and there easily could have been thirty or more, stared at them with round, beady eyes. The combination of ominous silence and the strange behavior of the birds created a creepy, almost supernatural atmosphere.