Southlands by D J Molles

Author:D J Molles [Molles, D J]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-05-27T16:00:00+00:00

***

Lee’s half-healed lungs burned like red pepper was stuck in them. The urge to cough was strong, but he resisted, knowing it was only going to take more air away from him, and probably make his chest feel worse.

He was at the lead of the column, and Abe was taking up the rear, Tex and his men between them, struggling up the hillside in a slurry of curses and huffing breath.

Lee was just beginning to feel the slope level out—thought he could see one of Tex’s trucks through the trees—when he rocked to a stiff halt, one arm raised.

Everyone else stopped behind him, the sound of their feet in the leaves silenced, and only their gasping breath audible now.

Lee pivoted to his left, towards the town of Caddo, and where the back-and-forth stream of tracers had been a near constant. He glared into the woods, registering that he was still hearing the pound of machine guns, but that something was different.

“They’re not shooting at us,” Lee husked.

Tex, gulping air next to him and supporting a wounded man, struggled to see why that was a problem. “Maybe they’ve had enough.”

“No, they’re still shooting,” Lee said. He peered down the slope into the darkness of the town below them, and he could still see the twinkling of muzzle flashes down there. But he could hear something else.

The screaming of men.

“Shit,” Lee muttered, then turned and shoved Tex up the hill. “Primals! Teepios! They’re getting hit by teepios!”

Lee didn’t need to explain his urgency. This wasn’t a stroke of luck: The primals didn’t discriminate, and they were just as likely to shift their attention in your direction at some random sensory input—a shift in the wind that brought your scent to them, or the shuffling of your feet that somehow carried to their ears.

The two wounded and the men that were hauling them up the hill started to lurch their way up the last fifty yards, all pretense of stealth now thrown to the wind.

“Abe!” Lee called, looking through the darkness for him, and finding his friend already in a cover position about ten yards from Lee. Abe’s dark eyes glimmered in the pale dawn light now coming through the trees. He made eye contact with Lee and nodded.

No further speaking was necessary.

Abe held coverage down the slope. Lee turned and ran back about five strides, then posted on a tree. When Abe heard Lee stop moving, he started. The two continued to bound in this manner, always keeping one gun trained down the hill.

They had less than a second of warning when it happened.

Lee was just posting on a tree, his own feet falling silent, and in that small moment, he heard the thud of something galloping toward them.

His eyes came up over his rifle just in time to see a gray shape hurtle out of a thicket of low brush, crashing through it and launching itself through the air in an inhuman leap.

“Abe!” Lee yelled.

Abe ducked, firing a burst on automatic

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