Anthony DeCosmo - Disintegration

The Red Hand people collected around those fires, feasting on fresh kills and covered in animal skins while the ruling class of warriors and their Chief gathered in the community hall.

The scrawny human slaves lay in one mass inside the muddy pen, clothed in the remains of business suits and sweatpants, short sleeve summer T-shirts and socks pulled over bloody hands as makeshift mittens. A moan came from the pile of forlorn souls.

A soft pop stayed hidden beneath that moan, the chatter of Red Hands, and the steady trickle of the bubbling brook. Neither warrior nor slave saw the first sentry die.

Another guard walked behind the main lodge. He heard the next pop and felt a warm pain in his chest. His body twisted, fell, and tumbled into the stream with a quiet splash.

Another pop. Then another. Screams erupted as a Red Hand dropped his wooden cup and collapsed face-forward into a campfire.

More pops. More bullets striking tribesmen. The alarm sounded in a series of cries. The Chief and his warriors mustered in the center of the settlement.

No more pops. Nothing moved.

The Red Hands gathered and scanned the surrounding forest. Their ivory eyes saw only shadows, but a noise came to their ears. It started low then rose to a terrifying cacophony echoing around the doomed primitives: a chorus of snarls and barks, of growls and yaps from beasts unseen. Louder…louder…LOUDER!

Warriors gripped their bows and spears tight in sweaty slender fingers. For months the tribe had hunted, enslaved, and killed unarmed men, women, and children. Now they shivered and shook as an unknown enemy stalked them.

A warrior’s chest exploded. The Red Hands scrambled to cover behind buildings and posts and piles of chopped wood.

The sounds of barks and snarls from the woods suddenly stopped, leaving only the gentle roll of the stream in the warriors’ ears.

Arrows flew blindly into the dark: shots of frightened desperation.

On orders from the Chief, four Red Hands approached the perimeter with spears and bows raised. They disappeared, seemingly swallowed by the forest.

A second later, the snarls and barks returned joined by the cries of the four scouts.

The Chief focused on the darkness, hoping to see what haunted his people, to glimpse whatever nightmare this strange world had unleashed.

The snarls and barks stopped again. No more screams. No trace. No sign.

A cold autumn wind gust across the settlement carrying fallen leaves on its wings.

They came.

Flashes like lightning exploded around the camp followed by loud claps not of thunder but of man’s deadly weapons, wielded by a handful of human soldiers and led forward by the icy blue eyes of a blond-haired demon of a woman.

Fast-moving four-legged animals raced in with the humans tearing at legs, leaping and growling as they attacked.

The Chief’s warriors threw spears and fired arrows but the assault poured on them horribly fast. Bows misfired in trembling hands; hastily tossed javelins missed their mark.

The tribe-warriors and more-died one after another, many standing and fighting, others dragged to their death. The humans attacked so viciously that some of the slaves trapped in the pen fell victim to stray bullets but this did not slow the woman and her pack.

The Chief suffered a deadly projectile in his shoulder. He saw one last vision as his life’s blood drained onto the dirt: the human woman with the cold eyes taking embers from the tribe’s fires to the homes of his people. The flames licked to life…

…in the campfire. Woody Ross, Washburn, and the young Dustin McBride warmed themselves in the glow.

The freed slaves had already rendezvoused with the retrieval convoy, the radio transmission long since sent to the estate; no doubt, another 'X' marked on Trevor's map.

The rain had stopped yet no stars shined from beyond the veil of clouds. Nina figured they did not deserve any stars. They did a dirty business. She did not want anyone to see.

She sat away from the radius of the fire against a barren birch tree with Odin at her side. For some reason, the Elkhound had taken a liking to her.

Nina cleaned her rifle. Not because it needed to be cleaned, because she needed to do something. She heard the men speaking around the fire, probably unaware of her presence.

Woody Ross asked, "So what is it you guys miss the most about before ‘all this’?"

Danny Washburn answered first: "Pineapple."

"Pineapple?" The answer puzzled Ross.

"Yeah. Not the canned shit. I mean real, fresh pineapple."

Dustin McBride chuckled, "Oh man, that is weak."

Nina listened. Pineapple?

She could not remember the last time she ate pineapple, even before "all this."

The former ATF agent joked with McBride, "So what about you, rookie?"

"Man, I’ll show you," the teenager pulled his wallet from a back pocket and dug through until he found a photograph. Dustin McBride’s wide grin captivated Nina as she watched him share the photo with the men around the fire.

Washburn reacted, "Wow, but ah, ain’t she a little young for a girl friend?"

"Damn, that’s my little sister, g-man. I was raisin’ her like my own. You shoulda heard her playing the piano at school. I tell you, she was going to be something."

Nina turned her eyes from the fire to her half-assembled rifle. She stared at it for several moments. After a grunt of resolve, she snapped the upper receiver in place, propped the rifle against the tree, and walked to the fire.

Nina wanted to see that picture. She wanted to know why Danny Washburn liked pineapple so much. She wanted to hear what Woody "Bear" Ross missed about his old life.

She stepped into the glow surprising the men and chasing away smiles.

"What’s going on here, guys?" Even as she said it, she realized how it sounded.

The men scattered. Dustin McBride put away the photo before Nina could see.

Washburn muttered, "Oh, yeah, I should be keeping watch out."

Ross grumbled, "Got a big day ahead of us."

The three men-thinking her annoyed at their late night chat-left to do things more to her liking such as guard duty and weapons cleaning.

Nina stood alone in the glow of the fire…

…The cross hairs fell on the chest of a Red Hand sentry who refused to stand still as he smacked the posterior of a hunched human teenager tasked with repairing a fence post.

Nina could shoot and… probably…hit only the warrior…but…

Ross and Washburn waited on her flanks observing the final Red Hand settlement from a grassy knoll just as a cloudy new day began. The rain had started during the night again, only to pause a few hours before. Muddy puddles lay scattered throughout the camp while the sky threatened more showers.

She pulled the sniper rifle from her eye.

"What’s wrong?" Washburn whispered.

"It’s too tight in there," she crawled from the knoll, retreating with the two men to the cover of the woods where she handed the sniper rifle to Bear.

"Listen, I’m going to go in real quiet and take out the guards," as she spoke Nina removed her camouflaged jacket, rolled her black BDU sleeves, and slung an M4 over her shoulder. "I’m just saying maybe we can take these guys out without losing any of the prisoners. Watch me and come in when the time is right."

She walked off.

Washburn wondered to Ross, "Since when does that matter?"

Most of the tribe still slept. While one sentry tormented the teenage slave, another patrolled outside a longhouse. The slave pen stood across from that longhouse in the center of the colony, surrounded by the smaller living quarters all atop a muddy field.

Nina waited around the corner of that longhouse. She heard the patroller's footfalls as he approached. She drew her knife. He casually strolled by her position. She struck from behind, grabbing his chin and raising it in the air laying bare his pale skin. Her sharp blade drew across his throat. He spun toward the ground, spraying red blood from the wound across her like a hose.