Bruce began to whimper, to plead. With great effort, he held up his remaining hand, palm out.
“I’m unarmed…” he said. “I’m not a threat… I’m not a threat…”
The monster leaned over him. It tilted its head to one side, its weird, dreadlock-like appendages slithering across its shoulders.
His voice became a whisper. “I don’t pose a threat… I don’t…”
He only stopped pleading when the monster rammed a taloned hand between his lips and ripped his spine out through his mouth.
The triumphal, ululating screech of the Upgrade echoed through the woods, chilling them all even though they were sweating and panting with exertion.
“Sounds like we lost another red shirt,” Coyle gasped, his pack bouncing on his back as he ran. Then he gestured to his left and shouted, “Glimmer, on your nine!”
They turned to look, saw shadowy movement in the trees. Several flashlight beams picked out a hulking, dark shape, moving at panther-like speed through the jungle. Then it vanished.
Everyone thumped to a stop. Casey looked around and knew that they were all thinking the same as she was: running was pointless; their enemy was so much faster than they were; all they were doing was expending needless energy. Yet what else could they do?
They were looking to McKenna, but for once he looked as clueless as the rest of them.
“Up ahead,” Casey said, pointing. “This way.” When McKenna gave her a questioning look, she explained, “Lynch. He set some pyro to cover our back trail.”
She hoped she was right—not only that Lynch had had time to set the pyro before the alien had got him, but also that they were where she thought they were (she had a good sense of direction, but in the darkness of the jungle it was easy to get turned around and not know it). It was a long shot—but the comfort was, she knew that McKenna also knew it was a long shot, yet he was nodding regardless.
“Fine,” he said. “Let’s trap the motherfucker.”
He led the way along the path she had indicated. It was narrow, hemmed in by trees and brush. A choke point. Nettles passed him a detonator. Baxley squeezed past Nettles and tapped McKenna on the shoulder, and when McKenna turned he said, “Set it,” then jerked his head at Coyle. “We’ll draw him in.”
Coyle raised his eyebrows. “What is this ‘we,’ kemosabe?”
But the way he said it, McKenna knew he was committed one hundred percent. Knew that Coyle—like Baxley, like all of them—would do whatever it took to protect his buddies, and most especially Rory, even if it meant risking his own life. McKenna locked eyes with both of them for a long moment, his face solemn. He didn’t have the words to express the depth of his gratitude, his admiration, his love, for these two crazy men. In the end he nodded tersely, and they nodded back. It was enough.
Then he turned and hurried after the others, leaving Coyle and Baxley behind.
Alone, Coyle and Baxley looked at each other. Both were relaxed, both breathing deeply and evenly.
Then a faint rustle in the bushes nearby caused them both to jerk up their guns and spin round.
After a moment, Baxley frowned and lowered his gun. “Calm down,” he said to Coyle.
Coyle looked indignant. “ Me calm down? Sure, thanks… twitchy.”
“Just don’t shoot me, fucker,” Baxley muttered.
They began to walk back along the trail. As soon as it widened out, Coyle raised his weapon and let loose a burst of gunfire, strafing the foliage in front of them, shredding leaves and branches.
“Hey, asshole!” he hollered into the darkness. “What’s the difference between a golf ball and a G-spot?”
Baxley shot him an incredulous look. “You’re telling it a joke?”
Coyle shrugged. “If he laughs it’ll give away his position.”
“That’s the dumbest thing I ever—”
Before he could finish his sentence, the tree closest to him exploded. There was a blast of heat and light, and the thing simply shattered into pieces as though struck by lightning.
The two of them ducked, Baxley letting out an involuntary yelp as splinters showered over him. The echoes of the blast were still fading when another sound replaced it—a deep, booming, otherworldly laugh that reverberated through the jungle.
Baxley and Coyle looked at each other. They both recognized that laugh. Distorted though it was, it was Traeger’s laugh, mocking and without humor.
And I didn’t even get to the punchline, Coyle thought.
Then, yelling in defiance, both men raised their guns and let fly, blitzing the jungle with bullets. After five seconds they stopped, and then, in silent agreement, they turned and ran as fast as they could, back along the trail, toward the choke point, jumping over logs and crashing through bushes.
“Come and get us, motherfucker! This way!” Baxley yelled gleefully.
Just ahead of him he heard Coyle shrieking with laughter.
After maybe seventy meters, the choke hole widened out into a clearing. It was here that the hunted were hoping to become the hunters. With their trap hastily set, they scrambled for cover, diving behind trees and bushes, hoping against hope that their desperate counter-attack against a creature that was faster, stronger, technologically superior, and infinitely more vicious than they were would end this nightmare once and for all.
Typically, McKenna and Nebraska were the last to seek shelter. As the whoops of Coyle and Baxley grew louder, McKenna hurried across the clearing, and Nebraska followed, though not before kicking a little more dirt over the string of claymore mines they were all hoping would turn the Upgrade into dog food. Nebraska jumped over a boulder directly opposite the arch of tree branches that formed the clearing’s entrance, and crouched behind it, his shoulder pressed up against its rough stone surface. Peering over the top of the boulder, he took a last look around, like a party organizer checking the final details before the arrival of the special guest. In the darkness and the drifting jungle mist he caught glimpses of mercs and Loonies, what little light there was flashing on the barrels of their guns, and glinting in their eyes. Over to his left, he could just about make out Casey crouched next to Traeger, who seemed to be fiddling with that weird alien cannon he was wearing on his shoulder. Sensing Nebraska’s gaze, Casey glanced across at him and gave him a hopeful thumbs-up. He nodded back at her.
Then he faced front again. From the sounds of it, Coyle and Baxley were almost here. The party was about to begin.
Still whooping and yelling—not only a lure for the Upgrade, but also a release of tension and a sheer primal expression of joy at still being alive—Coyle and Baxley burst into the clearing.
“Contaaaaccct!” Baxley yelled, then he and Coyle were leaping through the air like a pair of Olympic long jumpers, clearing the strings of explosives that had been set up across the ground in front of them and threaded into the tree branches above their heads. They hit the ground, rolled like experts, and within a split second were up on their feet again, heading for cover, arms swinging, legs pumping. They ran either side of a big tree and met up again behind it, panting and sweating.
Suddenly, Baxley started grinning, then chuckling to himself. Coyle raised his eyebrows.