James Smith - The Flock

The way the other men were moving, it was obvious both to Niccols and to Crane that they possessed some kind of night vision capabilities. If they were wearing goggles, then they would be moving freely but they wouldn't be able to aim and fire as well. If they were sighting with scopes and moving that way, then their fire would be more accurate, but their mobility would not be quite as fine. Either way, the three were in a lot of trouble. With nothing to guide them but their own two eyes and the slight sounds of subtle pursuit, they would have to guess where to shoot. In the case of Crane's shotgun, that wasn't too bad. He could get a shot off in the general vicinity of a target and still hit it. But the pistol was going to be useless unless Mary got very lucky and hit something while basically aiming blind.

Less than thirty feet away someone stepped on a dry twig. It cracked, going off like a rifle shot in the night. Ron bit his lip and did not move, despite rabbit fear welling up in him. Mary wanted to shift, to get into a better position to fire, but resisted the urge.

Billy Crane rose up and aimed, firing and immediately falling back down into the gully. A rifle shot had come simultaneously with the roar of the shotgun, but the scattergun's blast had all but drowned it out. Mary had detected it, but Ron had not. And only Billy realized why he had suddenly lost all strength in his legs and had toppled backward, landing in a loose heap near the bottom of the small ravine, his back lying painfully against a devil's walking stick, the thorns jutting into his flesh. Still, it was a small pain compared to the lethal wound the steel-jacketed slug had drilled through his chest. The man Crane had shot full of buckshot was screaming, and the yells hid Billy's own muffled groans.

Ron scrambled over to where the Seminole was lying. He was surprised to be crawling through a great, warm puddle to get to him. The metallic smell of blood was everywhere. The gnats were swarming crazily.

"T-take the shotgun." Crane made an effort to thrust a canvas bag at Ron. It was wet with his blood, but heavy with shells. "Take these, too."

Without saying anything, Ron grabbed the shotgun and hung the canvas bag around his neck. Reaching out to find Crane's head, to prop it up, he heard a long, wet breath throttling out of the Indian's lungs. Death rattle. He'd heard it a few times when he had worked in a hostel as a college student. Scrambling away from Crane's body, he said nothing and began to move away from the spot, throwing himself into the tightly packed undergrowth at the bottom of the gully. He was afraid to call out to Mary, and the man Billy had shot was now screaming.

Someone was coming up to the lip of the shallow ravine. Mary took a chance and rolled onto her back, knowing that the screaming man would hide the small sound she'd made rolling over. She just lay there, the.357 held tightly to her chest. Mary looked skyward, at the pattern of stars overhead: too many stars to count, a patchwork of brilliant little green lights against a tar-black heaven. Suddenly a shape like that of a human torso blotted out some of those stars. Mary extended her arms and fired, hearing the surprised exclamation of the man who had stepped up to take a chance. "Oh, damn," the man had said before the slug took off the top of his skull, sending a fountain of brain matter toward those numberless stars. They'd never make it, though.

Crappy last words, Mary thought. She followed in Ron's kneeprints. The wounded man continued to scream, and Mary wondered where Billy had nailed him.

Mary could hear Ron scrambling ahead of her. Thorns and sharp twigs ripped at her arms and scratched her face in dozens of places. But she pushed on, knowing that if she slowed down long enough to give anyone a good target then she was dead for sure. There was the crack of a rifle shot and the bullet whizzed through the brush, slammed into a tree trunk six feet to her right. That told her that they couldn't see her, at least. She was catching up to Ron and could see what looked like the soles of her friend's boots pistoning as the man crawled as fast as most people chose to run on a brisk morning jog. She would have laughed if her life hadn't been in such danger.

Suddenly they were free of the brambles and undergrowth. She watched Ron stand and begin to run. Hell with it. She did the same. They were at the far end of the gully and it played out on a low ridge of oaks that were widely spaced, forming a canopy of limbs overhead that blocked out the sun in the day and hid the stars at night. It was very damned dark. There was another shot, and a tree less than ten feet away took a bullet meant for them; brave soul. The wounded man's screams were growing fainter, but because of distance or because he was running out of life, neither Ron nor Mary could tell.

Mary was looking at the blotch of shadow that was moving in front of her, the one she took to be Ron. She heard Riggs' oof of surprise, wondered what was going on, and soon discovered as the ground suddenly opened up beneath their feet. They fell. And fell. Bounced once against a fortunately soft bank of earth, and then found themselves treading water at the bottom of a very deep sinkhole.

Ron choked, spat water. "What the heck."

"Sinkhole. You know what they are."

"Jesus. Now we're screwed."

"Maybe not. You got the shotgun?"

"Yeah," Ron told her as his boots finally found solid purchase and he pulled himself to the almost perpendicular bank. A big chunk of limestone jutted out at them, and they both forced their bodies against it. Swimming while clenching guns had proven almost impossible.

Mary reached out and took the shotgun. "Take this," she said, handing the pistol to Ron. "He gave you shells, right?"

Ron reached into the canvas bag, turning back the flap, and shoved a couple of shells her way. "Yeah. Poor Billy. He nailed that one bastard, though."

"Look," Mary whispered. "In a second or two they're going to be looking down at us. Do what I did earlier when I shot one of them."

"You got one of them?"

"Yeah. Just look toward the stars. As soon as you see something get in the way of some stars, shoot at it. I got lucky, close range and all. But this shotgun will do the job. I think there might only be one of them left, anyway."

"You think the guns will still fire? Wet?"

"Only way to find out is to try them," she replied. "You look south, I'll look north. Just watch for anything that blocks the stars."

Clutching the rough, pocked surface of the rib of Florida limestone jutting out of the sinkhole, they scanned the edge of the collapsed cavern above them, seeing the silhouette of trees and earth below the bowl of brilliant stars twinkling in the sky. They waited.

In a while, they began to hear something. At first, both thought that it was just their imaginations. It seemed to be coming from a distance, as if something were moving very quickly through the forest. Neither said a thing to the other. They were afraid to move, almost to breathe for fear of giving away their position to some sniper waiting just beyond the lip of the sinkhole.

But after a few minutes the sound began to increase. They could definitely hear something, or somethings moving through the forest, sliding amidst the trees and brush. Whatever it was it was coming in their direction, as if led there somehow. And finally they could actually feel the approach of whatever it was in the earth, which they clutched in their hands and on which they lay. And it was then that they realized it wasn't a single thing coming their way, but perhaps a herd of…

"Horses," Mary whispered. The sky was growing lighter and they could see the sun beginning to tint the dome of black above them.

"I don't think so," Ron said. "I think it might be something else."