David Golemon - Primeval

"Did one of your people do this?" he shouted as he thrust Jack forward, almost making him lose his balance.

As Collins caught himself, he finally looked around, and then up until his eyes saw the body of Gregory Deonovich impaled on the tree branch. The body was slammed into the tree in a prone position with the limb traveling through his rib cage until it poked out the opposite side. The eyes were wide and staring. Jack could also see that the body had been impaled with such brutal force that the man's back had been shattered to the point where the entire large frame of the Russian bent far enough to create a an upside-down U shape.

"Either Little Sis has been working out, or I would say you have a problem on your hands, and by the look of it, I would say, a rather large one."

Collins was suddenly attacked from the rear and tackled. Alexander moved fast, but was slow in pulling Dmitri Sagli off. The man had actually gotten as far as to pull his large knife from its sheath and raise it, ready to bring it down into Jack's chest before he was kicked off by Alexander.

"Is there something wrong with the English phrase, I need him alive, that you idiots don't understand?" Punchy yelled angrily. "You know how stupid Deonovich was; he undoubtedly deserved what he got. You yourself watched him be humiliated earlier by a small woman and you would have allowed her to kill him. It's a little late for sympathies about how you and he fought in Afghanistan together."

Sagli lay where he had fallen, then he slowly picked himself up out of the wet loam of the forest floor. He sheathed his knife and then looked at Alexander.

"It's the manner in which my old comrade was killed, not the justification of it."

"You cannot account for fools, my friend, just grieve for them," Alexander said, making Jack's stomach lurch at the falsity of the sentiment.

Sagli just dipped his head once. Yes, he knew his partner was a fool, but one he could always control and order about. He knew he may have regret that Deonovich is gone after dealing with their new partner. He may have had a use for him down the road that Alexander would not have understood.

Jack watched the exchange. As he did, he felt something under him that he had fallen on, just like Mendenhall had only minutes before. He knew what it was immediately as he had handled the same weapon a hundred times in his career: a Glock nine-millimeter automatic. The weapon must have fallen from the hand of Deonovich as he was being killed.

Punchy Alexander strode over and lifted Jack in one strong sweep of his arms. Then he roughly turned him over and removed the handgun from his grasp. He angrily turned and tossed the automatic toward Sagli, who flinched and let it fall to the wet ground.

"Don't get into the habit of disappointing me," he said to the Russian. "Now let's go."

Alexander pushed Jack back toward the commandos and started walking. Sagli went to his dead friend and reached up, calling for assistance from someone taller to help remove Deonovich from the tree.

"Leave him," Alexander said as he had stopped and turned around. "Let the men see the price of not being vigilant in this place." He turned back and headed for the plateau that was rising before them.

Sagli angrily motioned the men away as he reached up and touched the face of his oldest friend. He glared at Jack and then abruptly turned and followed Alexander— his new boss.

"What did we miss?" Everett asked as he and Will, and then finally Farbeaux, were led into the light of the flare.

"I take it we missed this," Farbeaux said as he nodded toward the tree with Deonovich hanging from it.

"What in the hell did that?" Will asked as he backed away from the gruesome sight.

"Jack, are you starting to consider that either your sister hasn't told you about her current strength-and-conditioning program, or that we may have more than these assholes to worry about in these woods?"

Collins just looked at Everett and was about to say something when all around them, close and far, the pounding of clubs on trees started, far louder and closer than they had ever heard before. Inside of the light of the flare, Collins saw the Russians as they turned every which way, in anticipation of something unexpected. Jack saw the look of fright on most of the battle-hardened faces and the sheer terror in the eyes of the regularly trained troops. All twenty-seven of the technicians and soldiers had the look that must have crossed the faces of Custer and his men when they realized the jig was up at the Little Bighorn.

"I have a feeling we're about to find out just who it is we pissed off by being here," Mendenhall said as he backed into Collins, all the while his eyes never leaving the woods around him.

"I believe I must concur with the lieutenant's assessment; these sounds are far angrier than before."

Farbeaux didn't have the words out of his mouth when the first flash of dark movement took the two men bringing up the rear of their small group. They were gone in an instant without as much as a shout.

Mendenhall just turned to face Collins with his eyes wide as the drumming continued.

"It… it… it was… was big!" he finally said.

The rain had stopped but the clubbing of the trees continued. Suddenly, a shot was fired, and that led to another, then another, and then someone opened up an AK-47 on full automatic.

Collins and the others cringed as bullets started ricocheting off of trees, and tracers lit up the night. He looked around as fast as he could and saw that no one was watching them. The lone guard was terrified and watching the woods to the rear where the two men had vanished.

"Mr. Everett, I think now would be a good time."

Carl didn't hesitate once given the order, he simply moved his hands from his back to his front and then as quick as the earlier lightning streaking across the night sky, he reached out and twisted the soldier's neck, snapping it, and then catching the AK-47 before it fell to the ground. He quickly aimed at one of the men as he turned at the sudden movement behind him. A single shot by Everett brought the man down. The single discharge wasn't even noticed in the din of gunfire.

"May I suggest egress from this area?" Farbeaux yelled as he ran past the others and then turned suddenly to his left and jumped into thick woods. Jack and the others quickly followed the man who had made a living out of surviving when he should have died.

All around the trail of men and equipment, clubs sang out and the dwellers of the forest primeval attacked in earnest.

As the rain slowed, Jason Ryan was trying with his wounded shoulder pounding in pain to get the ejection seat inside the cave opening. He slipped and fell several times while dragging the heavy piece of safety equipment and attached body to cover. He had decided to do something when Marla and Sarah had abandoned him when they went out after hearing noise in the brush.

After ten minutes of struggle, Ryan fell in backward through the cave's opening. The ejection seat was now secured inside with him. As he moved his hand to his right shoulder, he felt the stickiness of his own blood. Great, he thought, Sarah's going to be furious with me for opening my wound again . He lay back and tried to get his breathing under control. When he thought he had achieved a modicum of control after so much exertion, Ryan sat up and looked over the skeletal remains of the pilot as the ejection seat lay on its side. He couldn't see much in the dark, but he could make out the basic outline of the remains. The left hand was missing and the fibula was sticking out of the rotting flight suit. The crash helmet was still in place but Jason could see that it had done this poor bastard no good at all. From all the evidence he could see from the time outside in the illumination of the lightning storm, this man had died of a high-impact crash.