Chapter Six

Leigh woke up in partial darkness. The rain had stopped, but the clouds still gathered tightly against each other. The air tasted somewhat metallic, it was thin and cold. Leigh coughed.

As she sat up, she saw Tyler crouching beside her, smiling, more like she tried to smile. The fright was clearly displayed on her face. Leigh took a quick glance around. Except for Cory who looked out into the trees, they were alone. Tyler had her first aid box open, syringe in hand. Leigh felt the sting in her right arm, she cringed. Touching her temples with her left arm, Leigh coughed again and stared at Tyler.

“you blacked out.” Tyler said.

“yeah I figured.”

Tyler closed the first aid box and returned it to her bag. She stood and went to sit with Cory.

“Where are the others?” Leigh asked, standing.

“Searching.” Tyler replied. “Sam said they needed to make sure. The wounds are still to fresh on them.”

“Them?”

“Yeah, about a dozen more dead men.”

“Oh my God.”

“Same thing I said when I saw you lying cold on the ground.” Tyler looked at Cory, and then back at Leigh. She sighed. “Cory says it’s not human.” she paused. “He says it’s something bigger.”

Leigh stared at Cory, he just sat there, looking at the trees as if something was there. “Is he okay?”

“Yeah, probably just shock.” Tyler pulled another syringe from her bag and gave him a shot. “He’s not used to these things.”

“Yeah, no kidding.”

The search ended in less than twenty minutes. All four men came back, carrying supplies and heavy ammo. The looks on their faces showed that they had seen worse things.

“Welcome back pony.” Kurt said, dropping two M590 shotguns on the wet ground, and an extra bag of supplies. “How was your nap?” He smirked.

“Great, seeing that you weren’t there.”

“Aw, missing me already.” Kurt laughed.

Leigh looked at Sam, her eyes begging him to  say something to Kurt, anything to make him stop talking. Sam chuckled under his breath.

“Kurt, gather the supplies.” Sam said, his gaze still fixed on Leigh.

“What, what’s there to gather-”

Sam shot a commanding look at Kurt.

“Alright man.” Kurt said, backing up. “Whatever.” He went round, picking the supplies they had gotten from the dead men. “This mission just went from ridiculous to fucking crazy.” He looked up at the rest. “I mean look at it, we’re gathering supplies from dead men, and we don’t even know what killed them.”

“Well, we do know that we’re gonna find out what it is that killed them.”

“Like you’d want to know who did this Winston.”

“Yeah Kurt, I do.”

“Not who,” Cory stood. “What.” He looked around the forest, his eyes grew wide with fear. “It’s what did this.” He paused. “That’s the right question.” Cough.

“Oh yeah, why didn’t you tell me there was a crazy person among us Sam.” Kurt said. He spoke in a way that made him sound grim.

“I’m not crazy.” Cory returned. “Look,” He continued. “We were not told of any encounter between the Brazilian military and any other armed group or whatever. What we do know how ever is that they requested for our help,  and we know that there were reports of disturbances in and around the forest.”

“Could have been native tribes.” Kurt interrupted. “You know, bush people.”

“No,” Cory snapped. “Any forest dweller would have taken their bodies. And besides it wouldn’t have been the military that would die, look at their weapons. Heavy stuff. And the supplies were left untouched. Definitely not bush people.”

“The boy is making sense.” Winston said softly.

“That’s ‘cause it’s the truth.”

They stood  in silence for about a minute, the fear of the possibility of facing something bigger registered fully in their brains. Though, it was just a possibility for now.

“Sam,” Tyler said suddenly. “You spoke with the General, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I did, why?”

“What did he say about the mission?”

Sam stared out the trees that covered the forest floor, thinking about the conversation he’d had with the General, his father, before they left on the mission. He cleared his throat and spoke. “Nothing but troubles in the a****n.” He paused for a minute and then he continued. “He only said he had permission from the President to send an infantry unit into the a****n to ‘check’ on the Brazilian military and help them on a mission. I had asked him why, but he just dismissed it.”

“Yeah, you told us that part.” White supported.

“And that was all.”

“Fuck this.” Kurt cried. “So we’re here, alone with dead men everywhere, and we don’t know what might be waiting for us out there?”

“Technically,” Tyler started. “It’s ‘in here’.”

“Whatever.” Kurt said.

“Did the General know about this?” Leigh asked no one in particular, but Sam answered anyway.

“I’d have to ask him when we get back.”

“If we get back.” Kurt corrected.

“Hope Kurt. We don’t know what we’re facing yet.” Tyler said.

“Uh huh.” Kurt eyed her. “The only thing we can hope for is to die a better death than these ones, cause you know why, we ain’t getting out of here alive. We ain’t getting out at all.” He stormed around, shouting and groaning.

“With that attitude of yours, we are gonna die.” Leigh said.

“Okay, alright,” Sam chipped in. “No more death talks okay? Lets think of our next course of action. We ain’t got no business here anymore, so we’d better start moving cause whatever killed them is still out here and we’re probably its next target. So-”

“That’s the problem, we don’t know where to go.” Kurt exclaimed.

“Cory?” Tyler called.

“Well, I could lead us out of the forest, but I don’t know what’s waiting for us out there.”

“Freedom, now let’s go.” Sam grabbed some of the supplies they’d gathered.

“These things will only slow us down.” Winston said. “It’d be wise to only carry ammo. Just enough, to be able to fight what ever we face.”

Sam glanced at Winston. He looked around and measured the weight on his back. “You’re right.” Dropping the bags he carried, Sam gathered shell rounds. “Well, gather as many ammo as possible. We don’t want to be slow, but we also don’t wanna be caught off guard.”

With that, they went around searching and gathering any extra ammo they’d missed during their first search. With no idea of what waited ahead of them, they wouldn’t want to take any chances.

Death was not an option.