Page 40 of Four Calling Birds

Despite what the movies might tell you, Special Forces guys don’t go into retirement and start a workout regimen, bench-pressing logs in the woods, or running for miles and miles to keep themselves sharp. No, we tend to catch up on the rest we didn’t get while we were working, and let our bodies get that civilian roundness that I had always marginally envied in some of my peers.

My ability to run back to the cabin hinged on the latent fitness and muscle memory that remained in my old bones.

I had a dozen things running through my head. In the watery scuffle with Magnus, she had lost her rifle, and I’d need to find that in the morning. I also suspected that we’d need to get Griff to a hospital. A tourniquet was a temporary solution until we could get him into a clean surgical environment. Goose would need to get home to pick up his kids, so he couldn’t stick around to take care of everyone. And Taz… God, I just hoped I could keep her from setting everything and everyone on fire.

I was running the laundry list of shit I had to do through my head, while keeping half my mind occupied on not tripping on the ancient roots that cropped out of the ground. I was feeling more gray hairs sprout with every thought.

Should I have been thinking about it at that moment? No. Because I obviously didn’t have my mind on the 50 meter target, the battle that I had just left, and the fallout from it. Like a mother hen, I was thinking about the kids, and their feelings, and all the drama that circled between them, and how I could keep the brood together without them clawing each other’s eyes out.

It was also the holidays, and I knew that I was about to have some squatting house guests that might never leave.

So, when my footsteps were joined by someone else’s dragging, lumbering gait, I didn’t notice.

When the branch crackled under feet that weren’t mine, it didn’t register. I didn’t notice anything until the glint of a matte metal barrel peaked, perfect and straight, from a tree line.

There are only two things that don’t exist in nature – a perfect, flat black, and straight lines.

This was both.

“Put the rifle down!” He got the drop on me. In the time it took me to bring my rifle shouldered, and aimed, he’d be able to fire, and I’d be dead. So, I did what any sane person would do. I put my rifle down.

Out came a man with a balaclava pulled down below his chin, revealing a blood-soaked mouth. He limped, his body swaying unsteadily.

The rifle in his hand sure looked familiar. It was the one I had handed Lotte. The one she had lost in the river. I wondered what strange confluence of events landed it in his hands. Was it a sign that this was going to be it for me? I wasn’t fucking sure.

“Get me a car,” he said, his barrel pointed right between my eyes.

“Okay,” I said, slowly. Trying not to match his frantic breathing partner. “I’m heading to get one now. Put the gun down, and I’ll hand you a key to any of the vehicles you want…”

“Give me the keys now!”

“I don’t have the keys now.”

“You son of a bitch, give me a fucking key or I’ll…”

A loud, grunting wail that sounded like a walrus being boiled alive suddenly pierced through the sky. Birds flew out of the trees, and little woodland creatures scampered away. The cry echoed through the trees.

At first, I wondered if it was a bear… but what kind of fucking bear sounded like that? Then the rapid stomping of hooves and a second, frightening wail had me dropping down to shield my face because I had no earthly clue what weird fucking sasquatch would barrel through the trees, ready to devour every man or beast in its wake.

The Scorpio beside me tumbled to his side, shredded in half as an enormous, brown, furry weight collapsed into him. Two hundred pounds of well-fed, stomping venison collided through. Bruce reared back on his hindquarters, his front hooves fluttered in the air as he let out another menacing cry, then brought it down with all the force of hell, crushing the Scorpio’s head like a grape, blood squishing up, splashing over his fur, and across my face, where I was huddled on the ground.

“Jesus christ!” I yelled. “My mouth was open and everything, Bruce.”

I stuck out my tongue, trying to spit out bits of brain and human before I accidentally swallowed it.

The smell was odious. Sweet, like a pile of rotten fruit left on the counter too long, but much stronger, with the stomach-turning scent of shit and piss.

Bruce grunted, his snort coming out in steam from his flaring nostrils. His enormous antlers turned down, and even though those things were blunt, rounded at the tips, they were now splattered with blood which made him look… fucking scary as shit. He stepped towards me, blood dripping from his chest.

“We’re cool, right?” I asked, putting my hand out defensively in front of me because he could mostdefinitelyend me right now. He wasn’t a deer. He was a fucking woodland God, ready to take revenge on humankind! “I mean… like… we’re okay?”

Was he going to beat the shit out of me too? Jesus, this is not how I want to go out. Killed by a bear? Cool. That’s manly. But killed by a fucking deer? No one would ever forget that shit!

“Look, I swear, I’ll keep you fat with a supply of corn from now until the end of time!” I promised.

Yup, I was bargaining with an animal. Not even a predatory animal… though I was starting to reconsider that categorization now. I was bargaining with Bambi’s dad! Either this was a fevered dream, or I had reached a new low.

But Bruce gave a snort, lifting up his head and tilting it to the side. I looked into those black eyes, and realized that he was accepting my offering. How did I know? Well, I didn’t. It could all be in my imagination. But I got up, and Bruce stepped back to give me space, his back leg accidentally crushing the dead Scorpio’s stomach, popping it like a balloon so that gas, and fluid came spurting out a second time.

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