The Book of Joe (Forgotten Ruin 5) by Jason Anspach & Nick Cole

Author:Jason Anspach & Nick Cole [Anspach, Jason]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: WarGate Books
Published: 2021-11-30T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

With Joe leading and me watching our six, we’d nailed our land nav point as we stood on the sand-covered road leading to the temple and towering crooked obelisk looming above us. Which, in anyone’s Ranger School, is a go.

Take that, Kurtz.

“Good job, kid. The obe—obelish, whatever, looks deserted. What time do you think it is?”

He was shaking the Timex on his wrist.

That happened here in the Ruin. Our gear would fall apart fast, and even though the Timexes the Rangers loved held up longer than most things, they didn’t last forever. The Forge had to crank them out by the big-box-store pallet. I’d lost mine in the river. Perhaps the blast had pushed Joe’s over into inoperable.

That had happened before.

“My guess would be not midnight yet, Sar’nt.”

“This one’s done,” said Joe, giving up on the watch and returning his attention to the temple as we closed on the dark angular opening that led inward at the end of the sand-covered and column-lined way.

“Got another in the ruck. But… let’s secure this place first. If they wanna fight some more tonight, then we’re gonna need to find a place to make our last stand in.”

I smelled smoke.

Then I saw the body in the sand.

“You smell that?” asked Sergeant Joe.

Rangers are big on what they call SLLS. Stop, look, listen, and smell. You do it before every patrol and during short and long halts. I do it automatically now, and we’d both smelled that scent in the night.

Maybe it was the explosive or the burning flesh or gear all around us. But it didn’t smell like those things.

The wind was mostly dead now. The night was hot, dry, and silent all around us.

I sniffed the air and smelled smoke. Barely. Then I heard the soft and melancholy tinkle of wind chimes somewhere in the night. Just for a moment, as though some last-gasp breeze had stirred them to life for one last haunting song before calling it an evening.

“Wind chimes on the objective…” whispered Joe to himself, then laughed softly.

I had no idea what that meant and now was not the time to ask.

“There’s a body over there,” I noted in the silence. We’d stopped. Doing our SLLS. Both of us taking a knee, covering by the columns that led down the grand walk toward the looming low temple complex and the crooked obelisk rising in the night. Now that the storm was gone, the moon was out, turning everything bone and silver under its cold glare.

“Spotted that. Others too. Some are buried in the sand. There, there, and there.”

“From the blast?” I asked.

“Negative, bro. These have been here before the storm. Not long—they don’t smell yet. Maybe twenty-four hours or less, which is saying something in the average daily desert heat during the day. Bodies get ripe fast. That’s why desert tribes bury their dead by sundown. Someone didn’t bury these because they couldn’t. There’s danger here. Too dangerous to bury your own dead.”

The scent of smoke was gone now.

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