by Nick Thacker
A head poked up from behind one of the boulders, just as it had before. They had only been in the cave for a couple minutes, so the men behind the circle of boulders were still guarding whatever weapons remained stashed there.
“Reggie, duck!” he heard Ben yell.
Before he could, he felt a cool swish of air just next to his head, then saw the head behind the boulder lance backward violently. Only then could he make out the outline of a spear, sticking up in the air above the soldier’s head, affixed to his skull. The man didn’t make a sound as he fell backwards.
Reggie was amazed. What a shot, he thought. The warrior who’d thrown the spear quickened his pace and reached the boulder at the same time as the first three men out of the cave. Reggie, Ben, and the leader of the small band of fighters were right behind them.
Unlike the other circle of rocks Reggie and Ben had hidden behind, this group of boulders had clearly been placed in a specific formation — a circle. In the center of the circle was a pile of weapons — the four assault rifles, sidearms, and combat knives from the four mercenaries who’d been sacrificed to the lake, as well as Reggie’s own weapons and the two remaining backpacks they’d brought along. Ben didn’t see the bag Joshua had been carrying, the smaller pack that the tribe had stripped from his back when they’d arrived.
While he was relieved to see a small stack of weapons piled there, it also meant that the rest of the mercenaries either already had their weapons back or were about to. He glanced to the lake but it was impossible to tell from this distance whether the soldiers were still tied to their posts. Once again he thought of Joshua, Archie, Paulinho, and the girls, and hoped they were safe or had somehow escaped.
There was also another problem. The guns weren’t the only things waiting inside the circle of boulders. Two mercenaries, not including the one who had already been killed by the spear, were posted inside the circle, each facing outward a different direction, keeping watch. I guess they’re not tied up anymore. One of the men was already swiveling around to see what the commotion behind him had been. He saw his dead comrade first, the spear protruding from the man’s face, leaning backward at a steep angle. Then he noticed the native warriors, creeping over and around the wall of boulders. He lifted the gun and fired.
Reggie winced, ducking, as the first warrior went down. The second was able to launch a spear, but by then the second mercenary had turned around to help. Reggie retreated, grabbing Ben before he entered the ring.
“We’re going around,” he said. Ben nodded, but broke away from Reggie’s grip. “What are you doing?”
“I’ll go around the other way, then,” Ben said. Before he could argue, Ben was gone.
Reggie ran around the rest of the rocks and aimed for the gap between two of the smaller boulders. This was where one of the soldiers had been posted up, and he gained speed as he entered the ring. He had no weapons, but he hoped he at least had the element of surprise. There were two more bursts of gunfire, and Reggie hoped the shots didn’t land on target.
He breached the line of boulders and saw that Ben had made it to his entrance at the same instant. Both men ran toward the center of the circle, aiming for their chosen soldiers standing just next to the pile of weapons. In his peripheral vision he saw two of the natives, bleeding on the ground inside the ring. The leader of the group and the last warrior were nowhere in sight.
In the last split-second before impact, he focused again on his target — the soldiers both had their backs to him and Ben, holding their guns up and at the ready for a frontal assault. Reggie dove forward, aiming for the lowest part of the man’s back. He hoped to not only tackle the man solidly but provide him with as much pain as humanly possible in the process. The connection was abrupt, and Reggie’s vision lit up in a flash of white.
The pain quickly subsided and he had a brief moment of weightlessness as he felt himself soaring through the air with his prisoner beneath him. He wrapped his arms around the man, and both tumbled to the ground, hard.
He’d knocked the air of the soldier, but the man was recovering quickly, already starting to roll sideways to shake the attack. Reggie reacted faster, having the benefit of not being on the bottom of the pile, and he reached over and grabbed at whatever weapon lay nearby.
A pistol. Good enough.
The man was struggling beneath him now, but Reggie lifted the gun up and pressed it against the man’s temple. “This ends now, buddy.”
The soldier froze, recognizing defeat. Reggie felt him relax slightly but he continued to watch the man’s hands. The pile of weapons was equally within reach for the soldier. “Don’t even think about it,” Reggie said. “Ben, you okay?”
Reggie didn’t turn away, not daring to let the man he was sitting on catch him off guard. He still had the gun to his head, but Reggie wasn’t taking any chances.
“Ben, you there?”
Reggie jumped at the sound of a gun firing directly behind him. He momentarily dropped the pistol from the man’s head, startled.
The man took the opportunity to lurch forward a few inches and grab the knife on the ground in front of him. In a single, swift motion, he swiveled his upper body around and backhanded the knife point toward Reggie.
Reggie was in motion, but it was too slow. He saw the point of the knife falling closer and closer to his face, as if watching a slowed down instant replay from a separate camera angle. He forced his body to move faster, but he wasn’t going to make it.
The knife curved through the air until it was an inch from his eye, then stopped. Only then did Reggie’s mind register another gunshot. The soldier beneath him immediately sagged, his arm dropping back to the ground and releasing the knife. Reggie saw the open hole on the side of the man’s head, the tiny circle of blood marking the entrance wound.
“What the hell, Ben?” Reggie yelled. “He surrendered. We could have used —“
“Well, we can’t anymore. He’s dead,” Ben said. Reggie could hardly hear him. “And keep your voice down. You’re screaming.”
“You discharged a weapon next to my ear,” Reggie yelled. “It’s not funny.”
“Didn’t say it was,” Ben said, shrugging. “Come on. Stop whining, you’re supposed to be trained for this.”
69
“WE NEED TO GET BACK to the lake and find the others,” Ben said. Reggie was opening and closing his jaw, trying to regain his hearing.
“You go on,” Reggie said, still talking far too loudly. “I’ll hang back and cover you.”
“You sure?” Ben asked. He hadn’t expected the man to decline.
“I was a sniper back in the day, so I’m better off back here, anyway. Besides, someone needs to make sure the mercs don’t get to the tunnels.”
Ben hadn’t considered that, but he knew Reggie was right. Whatever his decision, Ben was going to get back to Julie. “Okay, fine. Let me have some of those.”
Reggie was already handing Ben the assault rifles. He ignored the knives, but kept his two pistols for himself.
“How many of them are left?” Ben asked.
“Bad guys? We took care of three here, the natives got four earlier, and I think they started with ten or eleven, right?”
“So a few more.”
“Yes, but a few more well-trained soldiers, hunting us. And without weapons, we’re fish in a barrel.”
Ben nodded, then turned to leave.
“I got your back.”
The four assault rifles were heavy. There was no possible way to carry any of them in a position he could actually fire one, and he was reminded once more at his complete reliance on Reggie’s ability to ‘get his back.’ Ben was also not able to carry extra ammunition, so whatever was remaining in each gun’s magazine was all they’d get.
He hoped it would be enough.
He increased his pace, fighting against the awkward weight of the rifles but plodding along without trouble. The lake was about 100 yards away, but it felt like a mile. His legs were straining, h
e was drenched in sweat, and the air was heavy with moisture. He was having a hard time breathing, as if in a steam room. Every inhalation was marked with stabs of pain as the exertion, stress, fatigue, and heat all acted against him.
The lake was growing larger and larger every second, and suddenly he was there. He’d reached the building closest to the small lake and used every bit of remaining strength he had to step over the dirt threshold and check the interior.
“Julie?” he shouted.
No answer.
He found them inside the second building, huddled together. Archie, Julie, Amanda, and Paulinho, who had somewhat of a dazed look in his eyes but was otherwise healthy. Ben assumed they were hiding, but when Julie didn’t rush toward him when she saw who had entered, he took a closer look.
Joshua was lying on the ground in the center of the hut. Archie and Amanda were hard at work, treating a terribly bloody wound on his abdomen.
“It looks worse than it is,” Archie said as he glanced over to Ben.
“Well, it looks pretty bad. What happened?”
“Shot, by his own man.”
“It was Alan,” Joshua said, straining his neck to peer up at Ben. “I thought he was loyal, but they were all working against me.”
Amanda gently pushed his head back down and tried to force the man to rest, but Joshua continued.
“I think the Company’s been planning this for some time,” he said. “They got rid of my father somehow, and now they just need to get rid of me and my brother to tie up loose ends. I played right into their plan.”
“You’re being too hard on yourself,” Julie said.
“Doesn’t matter — it’s too late now,” he replied. “They’re going to murder every single one of those villagers and then converge on these buildings. We’re toast.”
“No,” Ben said. “We’re not.”
Finally, everyone turned to look at what Ben had dumped on the ground just inside the door of the hut. Without a word, Paulinho and Julie walked over and grabbed a weapon.
“You found the stash,” Julie said. She smiled, then started to turn back to the others. Ben grabbed her arm before she could move away from him, spun her around, and kissed her.
He felt her tensed body relax after her surprise wore off, then she straightened up again and pushed herself closer to him. He pulled her lower back closer, still kissing.
“Okay guys, probably not a great time for that…” Amanda said. She grinned, but Ben felt his face flush from mild embarrassment.
Julie stood on her tiptoes and kissed him again, quickly, then finally pulled her hand from his and looked up at him. He knew she was uncomfortable to say the least, her clothes streaked with sweat, hair disheveled, and holding an assault rifle, but he thought she’d never looked better.
“Thanks, Ben,” she whispered. The two words spoke volumes, and neither felt the need to fill the sudden silence with any more.
“Lucky man,” Joshua said, grimacing from the pain of his gunshot wound. Ben snapped back to the real world, feeling his short-lived boost of confidence draining again as he remembered their predicament.
“So where’s Reggie?” Paulinho asked.
“He’s guarding the exits,” Ben answered. “But they’re going to easily outnumber him if they decide to regroup and head that direction. We need to get out there and give him some help.”
“But Joshua —“
“I’m fine,” Joshua said with his eyes closed. The word ‘fine’ was squeezed out through clenched teeth.
“You must rest,” Archie said. “I believe this is only a flesh wound, but we’ll need a doctor to look at it.”
Joshua ignored Archie. “In my pack… I have a way to get a helicopter here. It’s the emergency extraction protocol.”
“And it’ll work from way out here?” Paulinho asked.
Joshua nodded. “It should. Just enough juice to send a signal, assuming we can triangulate from here. There isn’t any tree cover, so that should help.”
Ben considered this plan. “But what about the pilot? Won’t they be working for —“
“I’ll discuss it with the pilot,” Joshua said with an air of finality. He wasn’t intending to discuss the plan with anyone, and if Ben was reading between the lines correctly, Joshua wouldn’t actually be doing much ‘discussing.’
“I can help out with the discussions, then,” Ben said. “Where is this pack of yours?”
Joshua shook his head. “No idea. Alan’s in charge now, chain-of-command. He’s out there still, but they haven’t been shooting at anything for a few minutes.”
Ben noticed that as well. The gunfire, save for a few bursts every thirty seconds or so, had mostly ceased. Probably not a good sign.
“We’re probably sitting ducks in here,” Amanda said, voicing the concern Ben had just stumbled onto. “Shouldn’t we —“
Her voice was cut off abruptly by another, coming from just outside the hut.
“On your feet, all of you. Outside, now.”
70
THERE WAS NOTHING HE COULD do but comply. Without looking, Ben knew the voice would be accompanied by a man pointing a gun directly toward the back of his head.
Ben stepped backwards slowly, out into the moonlight. The area seemed brighter now, as if the moon had been afraid to fully rise earlier. He didn’t turn around, but he continued backwards until he felt the heated circle of the gun barrel pressed against him.
“The rest of you,” the voice shouted. “Outside!”
Ben saw Julie, then Paulinho, Amanda, and Archie come out of the doorway. Joshua did not appear. Ben looked at each of the members of the team he’d helped lead out here, met eyes with each, and attempted to convey the message of ‘I’m sorry’ with nothing more than a deep look. Each of the group wore a stubbornness on their faces, silently rejecting his apology and surrender. Paulinho’s eyes weren’t even open as he walked by Ben.
The man grabbed Ben’s shoulder and yanked him backwards, where he was caught by two more mercenaries and held in place. The man, Alan, walked into the hut. Ben waited for the gunshot.
Instead, he heard a wrenching noise as one of the men holding him suddenly lost his grip. He turned around to see a wide-eyed man, his mouth full of blood, fall to the ground. The other man, stunned by the sudden attack, had momentarily forgotten his task and allowed Ben to wiggle out of his grip. Ben elbowed him in the nose and turned to face the last of the soldiers. This soldier was ready, and had already started aiming in the direction from which the spear had been thrown.
He opened fire, and Ben started running.
Julie was closer, and she gave the man a hard push. He lost his balance, and the gun dropped to his side as he tripped and fell to his knees. Ben was on him then, and he was about to grab for the gun, but another sickening, deep thud came from the man. Ben looked down to see a sharpened section of flat rock poking out from the man’s back.
The handle of a six-foot spear stuck out the front of the man, and he instinctively dropped the gun and tried to pull out the spear. Ben, still watching the drama from behind, could hear the gasping strands of breath as the man struggled, in vain, to remove the weapon from his chest.
He could see them now, creeping forward in the shadows. They moved silently, knowing where to walk to avoid the direct light of the moon. They were wraiths, ghosts of an ancient civilization, enacting revenge on the intruders who’d threatened their way of life.
Ben felt completely helpless, and he was. His life was in their hands now. He could see only five of them, betrayed by the whites of their eyes, but he knew there were more. From all directions, watching them, moving slowly forward, there were more.
The warriors, but also the villagers. He saw a child, the streaks of dried tears still stuck to his cheeks. He held on to his mother, and both of them walked closer.
Ben whirled around, only then remembering the third soldier, the one whom he’d hit in the face. His worry was nullified, however, as he saw the man’s arm
s lifted above his head, interlaced together. He was on his knees, waiting for the group to decide his fate.
Behind this man, waiting outside the hut, was the chief of the ancient tribe. The man who only an hour ago had been covered in gold and standing on a sacrificial dais at the center of the lake was now standing in the doorway, looking in.
What is he waiting for? Ben wondered. No one moved. Every party — Ben’s group, the remaining mercenary, and the innumerable indigenous tribespeople watching on from the darkness — waited for the chief to act. Ben considered helping, but he was unarmed, and he had no idea what he could do anyway. The guns were still on the floor near the hut.
What is Joshua doing in there?
He knew they would be talking, the new leader explaining to the old the faults that led to this moment. The old leader, Joshua, would either ask for his life or ask for a quick death. They had been inside together for about a minute, so Ben wasn’t sure where in the negotiating process they would be.
The skirmish started at that moment. He heard Alan yell something unintelligible, and Joshua shout a pained reply, then both men grunted with the unmistakable sound of the impact of two bodies. He doesn’t stand a chance, Ben thought. Joshua’s injury alone would be more than most men could bear, and he was now being attacked by a trained killer.
Ben had to force himself not to run forward and push the chief out of the way. Joshua was not on ‘their team,’ necessarily, but he trusted him. He’d already proven useful to their group, and they were all still alive, in no small part due to Joshua. Even still, it was Ben’s hatred for the other group of men who’d chased them through the jungle that ignited his fury and urged him to help Joshua.
But the chief wasn’t moving, and it was clear he wasn’t going to. Ben tried to understand his motives.
Is he allowing the fight to happen, to find out which man was stronger? Is it one less person he has to sacrifice?
The end happened much quicker than Ben expected. He heard another grunt, this time louder and deeper, and he vaguely saw Alan stumble backwards toward the door. He must have been kicked. Alan was grabbing at his stomach, as if the air had been knocked out of him, and still moving backwards. He reached the opening in the tiny building and continued out, finally able to catch his balance.
