Ten

That night he did not get much sleep, and the little he did manage was restless. Finally, he gave up on the attempt and got dressed. The stars and crickets were still out as he started on his morning run.

After a 2-mile loop he had enough. There was something bothering him and nagging from his subconscious. This was wrong, and somehow it would be ignored, covered up, and those kids would be abandoned. Not on his watch. S.S.C. Carlos Ramirez was going after them.

The barracks door slammed shut behind him while he rubbed greens, browns and blacks on his face and neck. By the time he crossed the base and loaded his gear into an airboat the sun was cresting above the trees. He would prefer the cover of night, but if the two were still alive, he couldn't bet on them making it another day. So, he untied the ropes, fired the engine, set his sights on the horizon, and cranked the throttle.

He used the engine as long as he could before cutting it off and rowing silently. It took him almost three hours to make the whole trip, get to the dock, and tie the ropes. There was nobody on the beach as far as he could tell, so he made his way across the dock and into the trees. His heart sank slightly when he looked around and saw two trails of broken sticks, and clear boot prints. They clearly did not cover their tracks very well.

It took just a few minutes to reach the tree marked with a big blob of red paint at roots. His head shook on its own. If they were in trouble, and still alive… it would be a miracle. But he froze. Through the bushes there was blood. Three bodies. One young woman, two-gun shots to the head. And two… men? There were two sets of blackened bones, not much flesh left on them.

He had a horrible thought, one female… "Oh god, don't be them."

He rushed, silently, to the bodies and turned the girl over.

A sigh slipped quietly from him, "Not her. She had to have been the one to torch the other two, but at least they made it past here."

 

The trail of boots led to the left, around the shed and into the trees, so he brushed dirt off his rifle and started after answers. Through the trees and over the hillside, he tracked them. There were dogs paw prints there for about a ten-minute trek across the wooded hillside. Every so often he would stop and listen. There something was making him more nervous, but he couldn't figure out what. He heard no sound of boots, no voices, nothing.

"Why am I so on edge?" he asked himself.

Finally, he passed a few more feet of trees and stepped from the bushes to see the animals. One was burned to death, two were shot and one was soaked in blood. Ramirez knelt beside the third creature and examined its wound, knife to the chest. Bled out with a collapsed lung. Both had been here as well. Two sets of drag and scuff marks easily matched their boot sizes.

In a few more feet the bushes to the right were shredded and tire tracks joined the trail. Still he remained increasingly unnerved. It wasn't until he made it through the forest to the rocky, blood-soaked beach that he realized what was nagging at the back of his mind. Birds and bugs. It was dead silent. There should be birds singing, crickets chirping. But it was too quiet.

The beach was a horror scene. Empty shells, destroyed ATVs, and blood. Everywhere, there was blood. It soaked the men left lying on the stones. Sprayed across the machines, and vegetation was cut down around a small section of trees. He stepped over a body, and around a wide drag mark of dried blood toward the splintered trees and bushes.

"How could you have survived such hell? He muttered to nobody.

Further down the beach there were a different set of ATV tracks and footprints. At least half a dozen sets of feet had marched through this section, but as he examined imprints, he couldn't tell which were his team, much less if they both made it.

He needed to follow the trail across the stream, needed to know the whole story. So, he waded into the water. The stream was much deeper than he anticipated, and every step he took seemed to tease the current. Rushing water raged around him, threatening to drag him off his feet. Still he pressed on, deeper and deeper until the water nearly reached his chest, his foot slid off a rock and he went under.

Swept downstream, he fought to stay above water, every rock he passed first made itself known by being struck violently with some part of his anatomy. Wide arcs dragged his head out of the water just long enough to gasp a shallow breath before the current pulled him under. Slices and bruising covered his back, legs, and arms.

He groped furiously for salvation until his fingers found a stone, not yet slicked by algae, and he clung to it. Pulling himself up to break the surface of the water his lungs drew air as fast as they could, choking from the rough, spraying water. Painfully he dragged himself, exhausted and bleeding, onto the far side of the river. He lay on the rocks and swore.

After nearly a half hour he pulled himself, stiffly, back to his feet. He had been dragged well past the trail and had to make his way through a rocky patch of thorn bushes and claw up a slope to get back without braving the water again.

There was no sign of their footprints, but there had been a lot of ATV activity through here, both directions. He followed the trails for several miles through twists and turns around trees, stumps, boulders, and past sheer drop-offs. Where the path ended, over a dozen shoeprints circled the campsite. But the only thing noteworthy was a red stain on a tree, and bloody bandages ripped apart across the ground.