Pillar of Smoke

The moist wind whispered through Benjamin's hair, bringing a promise of rain to the browned fields surrounding Fort Gibson; along with that promise came the faint smell of rotting fruit. For a moment, he lowered his rifle and scanned the rows of corn. The summer's drought had almost ruined the crop, but a long, soaking rain would bring it back to life and ensure another winter's survival.

A quick slap to his head from his sentry, Dinah, brought him back to his duty. Sighing quietly, he brought the rifle up and looked through the scope, moving the sights left to right as he covered his assigned sector. A ripple in the corn stalks caught his eye and he tracked it as it progressed across the field. At the end of the row, the stalks spread open to reveal a target shambling toward the fort. A questioning tap on Dinah's foot drew her attention to the target; a return tap on his back let him know that he was clear to fire.

Benjamin took careful aim at the target's head and drew in a deep breath, then gently squeezed and held the trigger. His rifle gave a sharp report. The target stumbled and fell facing him, a neat hole drilled through the side of its face. The target clawed the ground while its blood soaked into the parched soil.

"Nice shot, fuckwad," Dinah whispered.

Biting back the urge to snap back, Benjamin watched the target carefully, hoping it wouldn't need a second shot. Once it stopped moving, he resumed his slow and careful scan. Every so often, he would hear the short bark of a rifle from elsewhere in the corn field. Scattered across the field were dozens of stilled targets.

The evening sun was slanting across the field before First Sergeant Clayton finally blew the 'all clear' signal on his whistle. They'd been in the blind since dawn, with nothing to eat and little to drink, and Benjamin wanted nothing more than a piss, a meal, and a shower, in that order.

Instead, Dinah kicked him as he started to rise from where he lay.

"What was that for?" Benjamin rasped out, rubbing his side where her boot had caught him.

"What was that for?" Dinah snarled back. "What the fuck were you doing, phud? While you were gold-bricking, that target almost got away."

"I was watching the target," Benjamin replied. "Something was odd; this group didn't act like normal targets."

"And you would know, wouldn't you-phud?"

"Dammit, I'm not a phud!" Benjamin shouted. A deep voice from behind him silenced any further protests and brought him to an automatic brace.

"No, you aren't," First Sergeant Clayton said from where he stood at the entrance to the blind. "But you did go to school to be a biologist, which is why you are paying off your debt to God and society here. Now what happened?"

"There was something wrong with this group of targets, First Sergeant," Benjamin repeated as he turned to face the next best thing to God in his painfully proscribed life. "They didn't come all at once; they came a few at a time. It doesn't make sense."

"You let me worry about things making sense," Clayton said. "You just worry about keeping the targets out of the fort. And Dinah?"

"Yes, Top?"

"You let me take care of discipline. If there's a problem with the phud, you tell me. You don't take it into your own hands."

"Yes, Top." Dinah nodded.

"Thanks, Top," Benjamin whispered.

"Shut the fuck up, phud," First Sergeant Clayton thundered. "You're just here because you can't fucking farm and this squad was short a rifle. Only real soldiers get to call me Top."

"Sorry, First Sergeant," Benjamin said.

Clayton nodded curtly, then led the way to the rally point where the rest of the squad waited, weapons held at the ready, heads automatically swiveling to and fro. As they scanned the fields for movement, the soldiers joked with each other over the number and quality of their kills. Even when the First Sergeant joined them, their eyes never stopped sweeping the fields for more targets.

The cornstalks bent before a sudden gust of wind running from a mass of dark clouds in the western sky, and a cold rain began pouring down, making good on the afternoon's promise.

"Shit!" Sergeant Clayton said, wiping the rain from his ebon face. Raising his voice, he called out "Quick march! Back to the fort!"

"Had to be the field furthest from the fort, didn't it?" Dinah griped.

"If you've got enough breath to complain, you've got enough breath to run," Clayton said. "Double time!"

By the time they had jogged back to Fort Gibson, the rain was a drizzle and all ten squad members were soaked through. Reaching the open area before the western wall of the roughly pentagonal fort, they slowed to a march and followed the killing field around the corner and along the fort's southwestern wall.

When the target alarm had sent them running out to their blinds in the field this morning, the road had been ruts and dust. Now the rain had added pools of water and a layer of slippery mud, forcing the troops to walk in the knee-high grass beside it.

"Shouldn't there be someone on the parapet?" Benjamin asked Dinah.

"Probably hiding in the blockhouse to get out of the rain," she replied.

When they reached the next corner, Clayton signaled a stop with a raised fist. Pointing to two soldiers, he motioned for them to enter the fort and investigate. "Gate's open. No sentries," he explained in a whisper.

Benjamin nervously watched the other troops as they rechecked their weapons and turned to face the surrounding fields. At Dinah's pointed look, he reloaded his rifle and joined the others in the safety against the fort's palisade wall.

Soon the scouts gave a low, long whistle. Benjamin mentally translated it to 'no immediate danger, proceed with caution'. At the First Sergeant's signal, the troops quietly moved around the blockhouse and through the gate where they stopped, stunned by the carnage that filled the fort's main yard.

The smells of fear, sweat, blood, and death filled the stuffy confines of the fort's central quad. Dead bodies were everywhere, draped over wagons and lying on the ground. Some had died rushing into homes. Others had been killed coming out of the communal kitchen. Whatever the settlers could grab-scythes, shovels, rakes, even a paddle from the main oven outside the kitchen-had been used for defense. But most had been caught unaware, surprise written on their faces along with the horror and agony of their deaths.

"Jesus wept," Clayton whispered, aghast the charnel house his home had become. "McGill, take Bravo up to the palisades. Check the blockhouses. Adams and Ethan; check the married housing and kitchen. Ray and Dan, you've got the hospital, granary, and stores. Dinah, Benjamin, you're with me. We'll take the barracks, head shed, and guardhouse."

"What are we looking for, Top?" McGill asked.

"Survivors."

The designated groups peeled off to their assignments as Benjamin, Dinah, and Clayton went to the north-side wall.

Opening the barracks door revealed a long room filled with rows of neatly-made beds and closed trunks. Ten soldiers had been on guard duty last night; theirs were the only beds occupied. A quick check showed all ten had been brutally and messily killed; their blood formed a dark stain on the otherwise spotless floor. Clayton holstered his weapon and knelt beside a soldier who lay naked on the floor, her throat torn out. As Clayton reached down to close her eyes, Benjamin grabbed his wrist.

"Just a second, First Sergeant," he said. "What killed them?"

Clayton shrugged off Benjamin's hand and glared up at him. "Does it matter?"

"Yes, it does. There aren't any bullet wounds, but there are lots of teeth marks."

Clayton looked at the bodies again, seeing the details of their deaths for the first time. "So this wasn't someone in camp going psycho. It was-"

"TARGETS!" Dinah shouted as the bodies on the beds began to move.

Clayton fell backward on the floor as the soldier began to squirm toward him, snarling and gnashing her teeth. Benjamin grabbed the First Sergeant by the collar and dragged him away from the reanimated corpse. Once they were out of range of blood splatter, Dinah fired one bullet into the face of the former soldier, stilling it once more. Quickly and methodically, she turned and shot each of the other bodies in the forehead, ensuring that they would not also become targets.

"Shit," Clayton said. Clambering up from the floor, he raced outside and shouted, "Targets! Fire at will!" just as an anguished cry came from the northwest blockhouse. "Fuck!"

The next twenty minutes were a confused mass of devastating impressions for Benjamin. He remembered being in the kitchen, shooting at targets that used to be the chaplain and the cook while Dinah frantically reloaded. Then he was running to the storeroom across the quad while a male target in a pioneer bonnet chased him with a cleaver. He was weeping and clubbing a baby with the butt of his rifle while it snapped and growled at him. And he remembered standing on top of the latrine, firing down at targets clustered inside-though he had no earthly idea of how he had managed to climb up.

Finally the firefight ended. Nine of the ten soldiers in Benjamin's squad had made it through; that anguished cry had come from PFC Danson when he was stabbed in the heart with a scalpel by the target that used to be the medic.

Survivors were few. Twelve of the fort's other forty-one soldiers had hidden in the granary. Fourteen of the fort's fifty-four civilians had taken refuge in crawlspaces and attics. But the majority of those who lived in the fort were now dead. What had once been a thriving colony was now an open-air morgue, with the survivors gathered by the flagpole.

Clayton reverently closed the door to the head shed and walked slowly to the group. Wiping his face with an old bandanna, he cleared his throat and spoke in a broken voice. "It is with profound regret that I tell you this. Our commander, Captain Edwards, is among those killed in today's battle. She was a good commanding officer and deserved better than what happened today."

"Then who is in charge?" Mrs. Miller, the fort's schoolteacher, called out.

"Goddamit," Clayton mumbled to himself. He paused for a moment before continuing in a determined tone "As the ranking service member present, effective immediately I take command of this fort until I am relieved, pursuant to the US Military Code of Justice and US Army regulations."

Clayton paused to let that sink in and then turned to speak directly to the civilians huddling together. "I know this means nothing to you who have lost so much, but it is all I have to give right now. You have my deepest regrets for our failure today. I can promise you that I will do whatever I can to make this right. First, however, I need to know-do any of you have any medical training?"

Mrs. Miller looked at the others before raising a hand. "I do. The children are always getting scraped up in the playground."

"Very well," Clayton nodded his gratitude at the schoolteacher. "Unfortunately, all of the military personnel with medical training were killed in the attack. I must ask you to help us; I need you to examine each of the survivors for untreated wounds and report back to me."

Mrs. Miller's face lit with understanding of what he wasn't saying: unless promptly treated, a wound from a target would fester and kill within two days. And that would start the whole horrible process over again. "I understand."

"Thank you," Clayton repeated. "In the meantime, if you all would please go with Sergeant Allen to the kitchen, he will help you make a list of what resources we still have so that we can do our best to ensure that the relief party finds a healthy colony when they arrive."

At Clayton's signal, Sergeant Allen led the civilians into the kitchen, which was the least-damaged and least gore-filled of the fort's buildings.

Once the civilians were gone, Clayton turned to the soldiers gathered in the quad. "Alpha troop!" He called out. "Sentry duty. Bravo! See about securing that gate before something else horrible comes through it. Double-time! Hup!"

Throwing a quick salute to their new commanding officer, the troops went to their assigned duties.

Clayton then turned and glared at the twelve remaining soldiers, the ones who had failed so spectacularly at protecting the fort and the families that lived in it. "If I could, I'd have you all staked out for the targets to feast on," he growled. Pointing at the bell hung over the fort's gate, he continued "You could have sounded the alarm. Instead, you let us walk into a trap without warning us. Your cowardice got good soldiers killed. Worse, you let the people you were supposed to protect die. Not a single one of you is worth the blood spilled here today."

"You don't understand, Top," one of the privates protested. "They overran us!"

"And how did they do that, you pusillanimous piece of shit?" Clayton thundered, moving so that he stood nose-to-nose with the private. "If you'd been keeping watch, you've have seen the targets massing. Instead, you were inside pulling your puds and good people died because of it."

"But …"

"Not another fucking word, or I swear, I will finish what the targets started! As of today, you are all broken to the rank of private, every single one of you. For the next two months, you are on bread and water. You will begin to pay for your failures as people and as soldiers by collecting all of the bodies, decapitating them, and placing them in two piles. Bodies go over there, by the barracks. Heads go over there, by the latrines. When you are done collecting the bodies, you will dig a grave for each and every one of those bodies out in the field, past where the three roads meet; you aren't done until each and every person who died here has been identified and buried. While you do this, you will continue with your regular duties of tending the crops. Is that clear?"

"But how will we take care of our families while we're doing all that?" a soldier protested.

Clayton walked up to the soldier and stared down in disgust. "Do I look like I give a shit? Thanks to you fucking farmers pretending to be soldiers, most of the people in this fort no longer have families. Now get out of my sight."

Clayton stared angrily at the soldiers as they dispersed to begin the task of gathering the bodies, then started toward the palisade. He needed to radio HQ to tell them what had happened, but first he needed to understand it. And for that, he needed someone who thought like a scientist. He needed a phud.

******

Benjamin followed Dinah along the palisade walkway linking the north and northwest towers. Signs of the attack were everywhere. Bullet holes in the blockhouse walls and floors marked where the defenders had fought back. Weapons dropped on the walkway showed where they had been overrun. And where the targets had fed, blood and worse soaked into the floors and splashed up the palisade walls.

"Keep your eyes on the field, asshole," Dinah hissed. "The targets aren't in here any more. They're out there."

"Sorry," Benjamin mumbled. Though he'd gotten plenty of on-the-job training since being paroled to Fort Gibson six months ago, he still thought more like a prisoner than a soldier. With only a slight shudder at the sound of unrecognizable bits squelching underneath his boots as he progressed to the next guard point, he peered out at the orchard on the north side of the fort that provided them with apples, pecans, and wood. "All clear," he said.

"Clear," echoed Dinah. She led them around the palisade, stopping at each guard station to repeat the routine. Scan the area for hostiles. Scan again. Report. Move on.

Benjamin heard two more soldiers that were doing the same halfway around the palisade. It wasn't enough for a fort designed to be guarded by five sets of spotters, but it was what they had. Pausing a moment to rub his eyes, he wondered how much longer the day would go on.

"Heads up!" Dinah hissed as quiet footsteps came from around the corner.

"There you are," Clayton said in a voice that sounded as tired as they felt. "Report."

"All clear so far, Top," Dinah replied. "No evidence of targets. But this walkway needs to be cleared; the, uh, remains are making it difficult to keep our attention on the kill zone."

Clayton nodded. "I'll send some of the farmers up to take care of that." Turning to Benjamin, he continued "Your quick thinking kept us from taking more casualties than we did; it also kept me alive. Thank you for that."

"You're welcome, First Sergeant," Benjamin said.

"How did you know that there were going to be more targets?"

"I'm not sure," Benjamin said. Frowning in concentration as he remembered the scene in the barracks, he continued "the bodies were torn up, but not like a typical victim. They still had their limbs and the guts were still inside, instead of being chewed out. It is almost as if the bodies were left behind by the targets as a sort of delayed attack."

"Did you notice anything else odd?" Clayton asked.

Benjamin thought for a moment. "There were adults and little kids but no teenagers."

"You're right!" Dinah put in. "I didn't see any of my grubs at roll-call after the attack. Were they all killed?"

"None of the search teams report finding the teens or their bodies," Clayton said. "It looks like they were taken. But why?"

"Recruits, maybe," Benjamin said. "Or a mobile food source. But adults would have worked as well for either of those purposes. There has to be something that the teens have that made these targets want to take them along."

"But targets don't behave like that," Dinah protested. "They attack in a mass and just eat what they can grab."

"So maybe these weren't targets at all. Maybe it was something else using targets as a way of getting rid of us," Benjamin said. "Or maybe there's a new type of target. We don't have enough information to know."

"What will it take to get enough information?" Clayton asked.

"We can spend all night guessing but there's only one way to be sure," Benjamin answered. "We have to follow the teens and find out who took them and why."

Clayton nodded; that was what he had expected to hear. "Very well. I'll send up reliefs for you as soon as I can," Clayton added. "When they show up, you two get cleaned up, get some chow, and hit the racks."

"Huah," Dinah and Benjamin said.

Clayton looked out at the dark fields. "Tomorrow is going to be a busy day. And Dinah?"

"Yes, Top?"

"Start figuring out how you would track these targets. I want a plan from you right after reveille."

"Yes, Top!"

******

As promised, a half-hour later Clayton sent six of the disgraced soldiers up to relieve the Alpha troop contingent. Exhausted from the day's events, Dinah and Benjamin trudged into the kitchen for a quick meal of hot beans and cold cornbread before collapsing into their bunks in a barracks that was still marked by a faint bloodstain near where the ten soldiers had died.

The next day dawned clear and blue, the sky rinsed clean by the overnight rains. Benjamin opened his eyes as a slightly off-tune bugle blatted out reveille, calling the fort's personnel to their duties. Fifteen minutes later, he and the rest of Escort squad had cleaned themselves up, dressed, and assembled at the flagpole with the other troopers. Seconds later, First Sergeant Clayton joined them from the head shed while chickens pecked at ants by the troopers' feet. At his signal, the bugle played "To The Colors" as the American flag was quickly raised and slowly brought back down to half-mast in honor of the victims of the previous day's massacre.

Once the ritual was complete, First Sergeant Clayton turned to face the soldiers gathered before him. "Yesterday was not our best day," he began. "Yesterday morning, there were 105 people living in this fort, working to restore this state, this nation, to greatness. Yesterday evening, we had been reduced to just forty-five survivors. In one day, fifty-two of your compatriots were killed by the inattention and failure of the soldiers guarding our gates.

"Worse, eight of the people who depended on us most for protection were taken by the targets. Eight children gone. We do not know where they were taken or why. All we know is that we, each and every soldier present here today, failed them. This is unacceptable." Clayton paused to let his words sink in. "We must restore this fort's honor and continue this fort's mission. To start that process, Corporals Maxwell Tobin and Ethan Bridger and Specialist Dinah Peterson, front and center."

The three quickly made their way to the front of the formation and braced at attention in front of Clayton.

"Pursuant to the needs of this fort, and in accordance with US Army regulations and the UCMJ, and in my capacity as acting commander of this fort, I hereby promote Maxwell Tobin and Ethan Bridger to the rank of sergeant, and Dinah Peterson to the rank of corporal, with all of the rights and responsibilities attached thereto. Tobin, you'll head up Escort squad. Bridger, you've got the farm squads. Sergeant Allen will be acting as my ADC in addition to his other duties. In addition, I will be sending out Specialist Dinah Peterson, along with Privates Adams and Kellog, and probationary soldier Benjamin Pisum, in order to track down the missing camp members and bring them back safely." Clayton gave Dinah a look that silenced whatever protest she was about to make. "Dismissed."

Dinah waited until the other soldiers had headed into the chow hall before cornering Clayton. "I'm not ready for this, Top," she said. "What about Sergeant Allen or one of the others?"

Clayton stared down at her. "I need all the NCOs I can get here to ride herd on the civilians and mudfeet. I won't have this situation become any more fubarred than it already is. You've got your orders. I told you last night to work up a plan. Do you have it?"

"Yes, Top," Dinah answered, nervously fingering the leather bracing strap on her wrist. "We'll start by circling the fort, looking for the targets' spoor. We'll follow them at best speed, blazing our path with a double X, four feet above the ground."

"Good. What will you do if you catch them?"

"That depends on what the targets are doing," she replied. "If the teens are in no immediate danger, we'll follow the targets until we find out where they came from and what they want with the teens. Otherwise, we'll improvise and do our best."

"That's all the Army can ask," Clayton said. Clapping her on the back, he gave a push toward the mess hall. "Go eat. This may be your last chance for a real meal for some time. I expect you back in no more than two weeks."

Dinah thought for a moment; two weeks on foot would let them cover roughly 150 miles out and back. It was doubtful that the targets had come from any further away than that. "Roger."

As she turned to head to the chow hall, Clayton added "And Corporal, remember-the only thing dumber than a private is a shavetail."

"And I don't have any shavetails," Dinah said.

"Right. So keep an eye on Adams; he's got a tendency to play grab-ass when he should be tending to business." With that final word, First Sergeant Clayton turned and headed for the pile of paperwork waiting in the head shed.

In the chow hall, Dinah looked around. All of Escort squad sat at one table: PFCs Ray Kellog and Jonas Adams, Sergeants Allen, Tobin and Bridger, and Specialist Nate Bradford. As expected, nobody from a farm squad shared the table with them. Escort squad had barely tolerated the half-trained mudfeet before yesterday's massacre and was now openly contemptuous. Dinah grabbed a plate of beans and cornbread topped with a fried egg from the line, poured herself a cup of chicory, and headed for the table.

"I don't know who's got it worse," Sergeant Allen said as Dinah sat down. "You've got to track targets with a phud. But we get to ride herd on mudfeet."

"At least I can shoot the targets," Dinah replied, reaching for the bottle of home-made hot sauce. With a twinge, she remembered that it had been made for the soldiers by one of the settlers killed in yesterday's attack as a 'thank you' for helping her forage for grass to feed her rabbits. "Any scuttlebutt on reinforcements?"

"Clayton was on the radio all last night," McGill said. "Ran down our batteries to almost nothing, arguing with Fort Smith. No dice."

"Why not?" Dinah asked around a mouthful of beans.

"Reclaiming Tulsa is fubarred," Allen replied. "They found two new nests, so they are going door-to-door. Again."

"Ding, dong! Army calling!" Ethan chimed in.

"We're from the government and we're here to shoot you!" Ray added as the others chuckled.

"You'd think we'd have a better way to clear out cities than burning them down," Dinah said sadly. She'd grown up in Tulsa and only a lucky break had put her outside during Hell Week and its aftermath.

"Me, I like the old-fashioned way," Ray said with a knowing look at Benjamin. "Just take a phud and hang it from the nearest telephone pole. When the targets come out for a snack, take 'em all out with one grenade."

"Kind of rough on the phud, though," Ethan mused.

Ray snorted. "Who cares? If it wasn't for them, we wouldn't have any targets."

"Be that as it may be," Sergeant Allen said, overriding any further comments on the subject, "we still have to deal with this mess. And that means protecting the mudfeet so they can raise food for the survivors. Even the phuds." Nodding at Dinah, he added "So how are you going to deal with your little problem?"

"Treat him like any other asset. Use him until he's got nothing left, then discard him." Scraping the last of her food off of her plate, she stuffed it into her mouth and hastily swallowed before continuing "And that goes for everyone on this expedition. We need to bring back the teens and information. Everything else is secondary."

"Good to see you've got your head in the right place," Allen agreed. "So what's the plan?"

"We'll be out for two weeks, all on foot since the mudfeet have first dibs on the mules."

"You checked?" Jonas asked.

"Didn't need to; I can count heads. With half the pogs dead, the mudfeet will need the mules to work those fields."

"Fair enough," Allen said as he slurped his chicory.

"So we need maps, food, and ammunition." Dinah pointed at the two PFCs. "Ray, Jonas-you'll take care of that. Ray, get twenty magazines for the rifles from the supply sergeant."

"No can do," Ray said bluntly, his instinct for avoiding extra work overriding any need to be polite. Besides which, it wasn't like Dinah was an officer or NCO. "Targets got him."

"Yes, can do," Allen corrected. "Clayton made me supply sergeant last night, as punishment for my sins."

"Congratulations, pog," Dinah smiled; putting the sergeant in charge of the supplies made sense. He knew enough to get the supplies where they were needed and his experience would keep other soldiers from turning seed corn into hootch. "Welcome to the Quartermaster Corps."

Allen snorted in amusement. "Thanks, grunt. I'll be sure to take your attitude into account when I issue that ammo." Turning serious, he asked "Will 300 rounds per person be enough?"

"I think so. We're not target shooting; we're rescuing eight scared teenagers. I'd be happiest if we brought all 1,200 rounds back to you unfired."

Allen nodded in agreement; for a Specialist, Dinah thought a lot like an officer. "What about food?" he asked.

"That's the tricky part," Dinah replied. "It depends on what we've got. There should be dodgers in the pantry. For each person, we'll need about ten pounds of that along with five pounds of pemmican and a mess kit. Jonas, that's your job. You and Ray get the supplies and your gear and meet back here. We head out in ten."

"Roger!" The two privates chorused.

"Guess that's my cue, too," Sergeant Allen said, standing up. "Good luck with the phud." Looking down at Ray, he added "C'mon private; we've got lead to sling."

The trio scraped the last bits of their breakfasts into the compost barrel by the door before dumping their plates and utensils into a tub of dishwater. Allen and Ray went outside, headed for the armory, while Jonas headed for the pantry.

Dinah sighed and stood up. Leaving her tray on the table, she headed to the corner where Benjamin sat alone.

Benjamin held up a hand to stop her. "You don't have to say anything," he said. "Clayton nabbed me last night as I was headed to the latrine, and told me exactly how things were."

Dinah stared skeptically down. "And how are they?"

"Until we get back, you are the next-best thing to God. And not the New Testament one; Yahweh from the Old Testament, complete with fire, brimestone, and bears. Anything you say is part of the Ten Commandments and if you tell me to lay down on an altar for a human sacrifice, I'd best do it. And if you get back but I don't, he's just going to assume that the targets got me and not ask any difficult questions like 'did he scream much?'"

"That saves me some time," Dinah said. "Did you believe him?"

"I don't really see that I've got much choice," Benjamin shrugged. "He made it clear that if I don't go with you, I'm fertilizer for next year's bean crop."

"Glad to see that you understand the situation. Now go get your gear. We'll be gone for two weeks, so bring your rifle, spare socks, and an empty rucksack. We meet back here in five minutes."

"Yes, ma'am."

The First Sergeant met the group half an hour later at the fort's gate.

"Remember, the best intelligence in the world doesn't do me any good unless it gets back to the fort," Clayton said. "Come back alive."

"Do our best, Top!" Dinah replied. Turning to her team, she added "Ray, take point. Jonas, you've got left flank. Benjamin, you're on right flank. I've got rear. We'll start by scouting around the fort for tracks to follow."

"What if that doesn't work?" Ray asked as he moved into position.

"Then we'll scout the woods until we do find tracks."

"But what if that doesn't work?" Ray insisted.

"Then I'll get a mudfoot and see if they have better eyesight than you do," Dinah snapped. "Enough chatter. Move out!"

The team slowly zig-zagged through the knee-high grass in the fort's northeast kill zone, looking for any traces of the targets and the kidnapped teens. After about ten minutes of searching, Jonas said "We won't need the mudfoot, Dinah."

"You got something?"

Jonas pointed to the rut where the kill zone ran up against the road; a scrap of cloth caught on a bush fluttered in the morning breeze. It was a piece of old denim, cut neatly into a square.

Ray picked the fabric from the bush and said "That's one of Marcy's quilting pieces. She must have had it when she was taken."

"Or she grabbed it to play Hansel-and-Gretel," Jonas said.

"Either way, she's saved us a lot of trouble," Dinah replied. Moving to a tree near the spot, she took out her knife and made two X-shaped cuts in the bark near eye level. "There. That's our start. So where next?"

"Targets aren't very smart," Benjamin said, pointing at the ribbon of asphalt leading from the fort. "Even these targets. So they'd probably use the easiest path."

"Down the road?" Jonas scoffed.

"You got a better idea?" Dinah asked. At Jonas' blank look she said "Thought not. We'll try the road for a mile. If we don't find any more tracks, we'll circle back and try something else. Form up and move out."

The team resumed their formation and started down the road. Oaks and pines crowded the sides but the asphalt macadam was in surprisingly good condition, with only a few small bushes growing in potholes, and honeysuckle vines creeping across the road. After about half a mile, Ray pointed at a mass of Indian paintbrushes on the side of the road that had been trampled and were just starting to recover.

"That was done in the past day or so," Ray said.

"So we're on the right track," Jonas said. "What do you know? The phud isn't completely useless."

Benjamin stiffened at the slur but said nothing. One minor success couldn't undo ten years of prejudice, and he knew it.

"Shut it," Dinah said. "Targets have ears. And let's keep moving. Those targets aren't going to stand still while you two gossip."

For the next five hours, the team followed the kidnapped teens' trail. Sometimes it was as blatant as another of Marcy's quilting pieces; other times it was as subtle as a scuff mark in gravel or muddy boot prints by a puddle. But mile after mile, the teens found ways to mark their route for whomever might be coming to rescue them.

By the time Dinah called for a rest at noon, the team had come nearly ten miles. The grassy, sparsely-wooded low hills near the fort had changed to rugged ridges covered with towering oaks and pines knitted together with wild vines in a confusing, claustrophobic array. Ruined fences lined the road, interspersed with abandoned driveways and decrepit mailboxes marking the way to fallen-in houses.

Dinah pointed to a shady bridge over a quietly chuckling stream and announced "Chow break. Ten minutes."

As the team eased down to the pavement and reached into their rucksacks for food, Dinah looked at Benjamin and added "Two corn dodgers and a handful of pemmican, phud. We've got to make this last."

"What about water?" Benjamin asked.

Pointing to the stream, Dinah said "See the animal tracks? Means the water's probably safe. So drink all you want and refill your canteen before we leave."

Benjamin nodded in understanding as he reached around to grab one of the two canteens hanging off of his belt.

"So why'd you try to play God, phud?" Jonas asked moistly around a corn dodger.

"Why did you become a soldier?" Benjamin countered, digging in his rucksack for the rations.

Jonas swallowed and shrugged. "Not much to it. I was ten when Hell Week hit. The Army saved me when OKC broke out in targets. After my folks got changed, the Army took me in, took care of me. As soon as I turned sixteen, I signed up. Haven't regretted it one bit." Jonas waved away a dragonfly as he thoughtfully nibbled on pemmican. "Tell the truth, I don't know what I would have done if this had never happened. This is all I know now."

Ray took a sip from his canteen before speaking. "Same here. I still remember having to shoot my folks before they could attack my little sister."

"I didn't know you had a sister," Jonas said. Grinning at his friend, he asked "Is she cute?"

"She was. She died. I wasn't fast enough." Ray said bleakly. Giving Benjamin a direct stare, he added "We've told you ours. Now you tell us yours."

Benjamin sipped his water, stalling for time. How to explain the ineffable? "Why did I become a biologist? Because I saw Nature's patterns and wanted to understand them, I guess," he finally said.

"Patterns?" Jonas snorted doubtfully. "Like what?"

Benjamin looked around for something that would help him explain. "See that tree over there?"

"Yeah."

"To me, that's not a pine tree," Benjamin said.

"Bullshit. It's a pine tree!" Ray said.

"I should have said 'it's not just a pine tree'," Benjamin replied. "See the needles? They have a poison that keeps other trees from growing near it, so it can have more of the nutrients from the soil. And if you look in the needles, you'll find ants that have adapted to living there and nowhere else; in some of them, there are ants that grow funguses in their tunnels for food."

"Huh. Mudfeet ants," Ray smiled.

"That's right; some ants even farm other insects for food. And by digging tunnels and filling them with ant shit, those ants make the soil richer for the pine tree. It is an entire ecological system with one thing feeding on the other and back again. That's why I wanted to study biology," Benjamin said. "So I could understand how Nature created these communities."

"Feeding is right," Dinah said bleakly. "You scientists stuck your noses in one too many communities and unleashed the targets to feed on us all." In one smooth motion, she stood up and swung her pack into place. "Time's up, chuckleheads. Pack it in and put it on."

The two privates gracefully followed her lead while Benjamin hastily tossed the uneaten portion of his food back into his pack and clumsily scrambled up. The three soldiers laughed at his quiet "oof" as he put the pack back on.

"That's going to get a hell of a lot heavier before it gets any lighter," Dinah chuckled. "Jonas, you've got point. Ray, left flank. Move out!"

The afternoon was much like the morning. Jonas and Ray took turns leading the group as point, while Dinah remained in position as 'tail end Charlie'. Every few miles she would order Benjamin to swap from the left flank to the right, more out of boredom than for any tactical reason. The roads climbed the ridges in long, lazy curves before plunging back into the shallow valleys that cut the land into a crazy-quilt of interlocking small farms and ranches. Only two discoveries broke the routine.

The first happened where a small gravel road intersected the paved farm road they were following. On the corner was an abandoned convenience store. That was nothing unusual; they had passed two others like it. However, unlike the stores they had seen earlier, this one's windows were still intact.

"Holy shit," Ray breathed. "Would you look at that?"

Jonas broke from the formation and ran up to the store, pulling on the door's handle. "Damn thing's locked!" he said. Peering through the glass, he shouted "The shelves are full!"

Ray ran up to join him. "I wonder what's in there? Beer?"

"Candy?" Jonas countered.

"Coffee?" the pair chorused as Dinah and Benjamin joined them under the store's drooping eaves.

Ray brought his rifle up to break the glass but was stopped by Dinah's sharp "As you were, soldier!"

"Dammit, Dinah, just look! We could trade what's in there for damn near anything we want!" Jonas said. "Hell, if there's even a pound of coffee in it, we could get a new mule for the fort!"

"New mules for the fort aren't our mission," Dinah said. "Saving eight scared teenagers is. This store has stood here for ten years. It will still be here when we get back unless one of you does something stupid like breaking into it now."

"But-" Ray began.

"But nothing, soldier. Eyes on the prize. Unless you want to be the one to tell First Sergeant Clayton that we were ten minutes too late to save those grubs because you two wanted to play store," Dinah said firmly. Hiking a thumb at the intersection she added "Get your asses back on the road and find me the trail."

Grumbling, the pair of privates headed back to the road as Dinah took the map out of her pocket and made a note on it. Seeing Benjamin's curious look, she held the map so he could see her marks. "Everything from that nearly-intact farmhouse we passed this morning to the washed-out bridge over Greasy Creek to this," she said. "If I don't make it back, one of those two muldoons will, and this map will tell the fort everything that they need to know."

"Makes sense," Benjamin agreed.

"So why aren't you on the road, looking for clues?"

"Heading there now, ma'am," Benjamin said.

The second, grimmer discovery happened about an hour later. The trail had become more difficult to follow as the teenagers ran out of things to drop by the wayside. Twice, the team had been forced to back-track to the previous intersection and try a new direction when they found themselves traveling down a false trail. But this marker was unmistakable.

Jonas, who was walking right flank at the time, saw it first. "Dafuck is that?" he breathed. Holding up a clenched fist, then waving an open hand forward and to the right, he called out quietly "In the woods, ten meters from the road."

Dinah looked in the direction Jonas had indicated and felt her heart lurch. From her position, it appeared to be a small body, wearing a deer-hide jacket and collapsed in the woods. She signaled Ray and Benjamin to come with her before gesturing for Jonas to remain on the road guarding their backs while they investigated.

The three moved quietly toward the body. As they got closer, the heap resolved into a young deer with its guts torn out, surrounded by a confused mess of bloody footprints. Bluebottle flies buzzed around the corpse and turkey vultures peered mournfully from the branches, silently urging the humans to go away so they could resume their feast.

"What do you make of this, phud?" Dinah asked Benjamin.

"The guts are gone but the rest of the animal wasn't touched," he said. "And look at the footprints. They are barefoot and too big to be our kids. This was almost certainly targets."

"Fine, but were they our targets?" she asked.

"I think so. This happened on the trail we've been following. And even targets have to eat."

"But why do they eat guts?" Ray poked at the deer's head with a stick. "That's just disgusting."

"Guts and belly fat give you the most calories," Benjamin said. "There are some seals in California who eat almost nothing but fish guts."

"So this is probably where the targets stopped for dinner last night," Dinah said. "OK. Fan out. Look around, see if you can see anything pointing to our kids."

"Think they stayed here last night?" Benjamin asked.

"We're nearly fifteen miles from the fort, road-wise," Dinah said. "Even for grunts, that's a good day's march. For teens? They must have been running on sheer terror. So, yeah, I think they probably camped here last night."

"Why wouldn't the targets keep them moving?" Ray asked.

Dinah held up a hand, raising a finger with each reason as she explained "One, because even targets get tired. Two, because the targets just ate, which means that they'd want to sit more than they'd want to march. Three, because even if the targets could see in the dark, which they can't, the kids need light to see by so they'd have to stop until sun up. And four, why the fuck aren't you doing what I told you to do?"

"Sorry," Ray said as he moved away and started his search.

"Over here," Benjamin called out after about ten minutes. "Behind this bush!"

"What is it?" Dinah asked.

Benjamin looked at the pile by his feet. "Human scat. The teens were definitely here."

"Can you tell how many of them?" She asked, walking over to join him at the bush. "Ick."

"No," he replied. "All I can say for sure is that there is more shit here than any one person could make."

"OK. So they were here and we're catching up," Dinah said. "Let's get back on the trail and see if we can cut their lead a bit more before sundown."

"Sounds good," Benjamin agreed.

"Let's go find those fuckers," Ray added.

Despite the lift that finding evidence the teens had been alive the previous evening gave them, the team only managed another four miles before the fading light of twilight forced a halt. The marks left by the teens had continued to grow scarcer and the number of intersecting roads had increased as they moved closer to the Ouachita mountains. Worse, the roads had begun to climb to the top of every ridge before dropping down into the valleys between, forcing the searchers to travel more slowly even as the Sun heated the asphalt to near-blistering temperatures. Before the afternoon was done, they had all sweated through their clothes.

Dinah finally called a halt as the last bits of zodiacal twilight vanished from the sky, leaving behind a dusting of stars and a pale crescent Moon above and flashing fireflies below.

"Do we have to stop?" Jonas asked as he stared impatiently back at the road. "We were catching up."

"And we'll never catch them if we go haring off in the dark," Dinah said, pointing Ray to a heap of deadwood. Piling some loose stones into a rough circle for the campfire, she added "In case you didn't notice, we aren't on the plains anymore. There are cliffs out there. Not to mention rattlesnakes, hogs, and the odd cougar."

"Slow is faster, fast is slower," Ray said as he picked up the wood.

"What's that mean?" Jonas asked, dropping his pack by the fire ring.

Ray dropped the wood by the fire circle. Squatting beside it, he shaved tinder into a pile with his knife. Sparks flew as he gave a flint a quick strike, lighting the tinder. "Hah. Just something that my dad used to say when we were getting our boat ready for fishing. He meant that if I did things too fast, I'd make mistakes."

"He was right," Dinah agreed. She began feeding deadwood into the burning tinder, building a respectable fire in just a few moments. "So we'll camp here tonight and get back on the trail tomorrow at first light. In the meantime, we'll get some hot grub and some sack time."

Benjamin sat down facing the fire and leaned back against his rucksack. "Do we really need a fire?" He asked over the chirring of cicadas. "It is still pretty hot and there's no breeze here to cool things off."

"Yes, we do," Dinah replied. "Hot food does you a lot more good than cold corn dodgers and pemmican."

"But all we've got is cold corn dodgers and pemmican."

Jason smiled at Benjamin like a carnival barker about to fleece his first mark of the night. "Son, you are about to enjoy every soldier's favorite taste treat. The reason that they call the mess hall the mess hall. The cause for our iron constitutions and regular habits. In short, you are about to have genuine, cooked-over-a-campfire slumpie."

"What is slumpie?" Benjamin asked, intrigued despite the feeling that he was about to be had.

"That's easy to explain and easier to make," Ray chipped in. "Lend me your mess kit, your canteen, some corn dodgers, and some pemmican."

Wordlessly, Benjamin dug into his pack and handed over the requested items.

Ray put the kit's skillet over the fire. He held out a handful of corn dodgers and asked "Jonas, would you do the honors?" While Jonas ground the nuggets of fried corn meal against each other to make smaller pieces, Ray chopped the pemmican into bits. "Where'd the pemmican come from, anyways?" he asked.

"Anna Holsinger's rabbits from last fall," Dinah answered.

"Glad we got some use out of those furry monsters," Ray said. "I was getting tired of chicken jerky." Working carefully to avoid being burned, Ray tossed one of the pemmican bits into the now-hot skillet where it hissed and sputtered. "Ahh, that's just right," he said in satisfaction, adding the rest of the greasy lumps. Taking the corn dodger crumbs, he tossed them in the pan as well, then used the kit's fork to mix everything together. "And now for the pièce de résistance!" he announced, as he poured a swig of water into the mix, stirring it to create an unappealing, lumpy, soggy mass that could only be described as a mess.

Ray fished the skillet out of the campfire with a hand wrapped in a jacket sleeve. Handing Benjamin the fork, he announced "Your dinner, mess-sewer!"

Benjamin reluctantly took the fork and dipped it in the bubbling mess to scoop up a bite. Even more doubtfully, he placed it in his mouth and chewed.

Ray, Jason, and Dinah all burst into laughter at Benjamin's attempt to keep the disgust from showing on his face.

"That has got to be the foulest thing I've ever tasted," Benjamin gasped out when he had finally managed to choke down the food. Desperately, he took a swig of water from his canteen, hoping that would wash the taste out of his mouth.

"It may be foul, but it has been the mainstay of soldiers since the time of Caesar," Dinah said proudly. "Congratulations, you have now had the same meal as a Roman emperor."

"No wonder Rome fell," Benjamin muttered as Ray shared out the slumpie onto the plates that Dinah and Jonas had pulled from their mess kits.

With a knowing look, Dinah fished a bottle of hot sauce from her rucksack and poured it liberally over the slumpie. "Compliments of the mess hall," she said, passing the bottle to Ray.

"It may not be as tasty as the beans and cornbread we get back in the fort," Dinah continued, "but it will fill your belly and keep you warm on a cold winter night."

"Best of all, it makes you want to go back to the fort, just so you can eat something that isn't slumpie," Ray said around a mouthful of the mess.

Benjamin snorted and took another bite of his slumpie. "I've had worse," he said, thinking of the unidentifiable scraps that he had been fed in prison.

"Probably had better, too," Jonas said as he grabbed the bottle from Ray and liberally doused his food with hot sauce. "I know I have."

"Hey; if you don't like my slumpie, then you can make it tomorrow night," Ray replied.

"You've got to admit, it isn't as good as hamburgers," Jonas said.

Ray sighed wistfully. "God, I miss hamburgers."

"Well, it was them or us. Personally, I think that President Norgay made the right choice when she ordered us to infect the cattle with anthrax and drive them at the targets," Dinah said. "If we hadn't, we might not be here."

"Yeah, but did we have to use all the cattle?" Ray asked.

"What was the alternative? Let the targets swarm out of the cities and attack the few people that had avoided infection?" Dinah swallowed the last of her slumpie. "It was a lousy solution but a lousy solution now is better than a perfect solution ten days after we've lost the battle."

"There might have been a way to save the remaining cattle," Benjamin said. "But we'll never know because the military stopped all scientific research when they took over."

"The military didn't take over, phud," Dinah said.

The day's stress, not to mention five years of being treated as a pariah for the 'sin' of studying biology, took their toll and Benjamin snapped. "Bullshit. Martial law was declared. You goons took over and anything that might have helped us stop this was outlawed so you could keep your power."

Dinah overrode the convict's protests. "That isn't what happened. President Norgay declared martial law. The President and Congress took over; the military was and still is under civilian control. And it was Congress that declared what you did to be a crime. We're just helping you turn your punishment into something that does society some good."

"So why outlaw the one thing that might end this nightmare?" Benjamin insisted.

"Because the first thing you do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging," Dinah replied. "Biologists created targets. We're not about to let you make new and better ones."

"We never-"

Dinah held up a warning finger. "Just shut the fuck up and clean the mess kits, phud. You'll never convince us that this isn't your fault, so stop trying unless you want to find yourself being used as target bait." Dinah stopped herself with a visible effort and took a deep breath. "Jonas, put out the fire. Ray, you've got first watch. Wake me in two hours; Jonas, you'll have last watch. Be sure to wake us all up as soon as it is light enough to see."

"Roger," the pair chorused as Benjamin went to wash out the mess kits.

******

Jonas carefully paced around the camp, stopping every so often to stare at his sleeve in the dim light. When he could finally make out the difference between the black thread and the white thread sewn into the fabric, he walked over to Dinah and gently nudged her awake.

"First light, boss," he said quietly. "Nothing moving, nothing to report."

Dinah nodded her understanding and reached for her canteen. She splashed a handful of water over her face, then took a sip of the water. "I'd kill for some chicory," she muttered.

"Build another fire?" Jonas asked.

"No, I want to catch up to those targets." Pointing at the other two, she added "Wake up the rest of our troops. We break camp in five."

Jonas gave Ray a push in passing, immediately rousing the seasoned trooper. Benjamin was somewhat harder to awaken. Shaking and even kicking him produced no response other than a muttered groan as Benjamin rolled away from the irritation of an early morning wake-up call. With an amused snort, Jonas opened one of Benjamin's canteens and poured the water over the sleeper's face, laughing as Benjamin flailed in panic.

"Good morning, sunshine," Dinah said sarcastically. "Time to rise and shine. You've got five minutes to SSS."

"What?" Benjamin sputtered.

"Shave, shit, and shower," Ray explained. "You've already showered and you don't need to shave in the field." Pointing at a bush he added "The shit-house is over there."

True to Dinah's orders, the team was back on the road five minutes later, searching for any spoor showing where the targets had gone.

"Shit. I was afraid of that," Dinah said when Jonas found another fabric square lying at the foot of a red octagonal sign with 'alehwisdiha' printed in reflective white letters.

"What is it?" Benjamin asked.

"It is a Cherokee stop sign; they used to be thick as flies around here" she answered. "We're headed toward Tahlequah."

"How big a city was that?" Jonas asked.

"Big enough; about 20,000 people."

"So some targets could still be there," Jonas said.

"Yeah. That's why Fort Doubleday is twice as big as we are; they have to patrol constantly." Dinah sighed. "No help for it. Pucker up and stay sharp. Jonas, point. Ray, right flank."

The reformed team edged down the road, alert for any sound that might indicate a target attack. The sense of impending doom grew stronger as the day wore on, piling up like the thunderclouds massing beyond the distant mountains.

Benjamin found himself wishing that the targets would just attack already. With each plunge of the road into a copse of woods, the sound of hidden grasshoppers and whisper of ravens' wings grated on his nerves. Even resting his finger on the trigger of his rifle did nothing to calm his nerves.

Ray glanced over at Dinah, who was walking backward as she scanned for targets behind. Smiling, he picked up a long stick and quietly moved just behind Benjamin before giving the untrained soldier a quick jab in the side. The results were better than Ray had hoped.

Benjamin jumped in the air with a loud yelp, tightening his finger just enough to fire off a round.

Dinah whipped her head around as the shot rang across the valley. "What the fuck?!" she hissed. Ray's silent laughter and Benjamin's terrified look told her exactly what had happened. "Congratulations, dipshit; you just told everyone where we are," she snarled at Benjamin. "You take your fucking finger off of the trigger and keep it off or I will fucking break it off and feed it to you."

Turning to Ray, she added "I won't bother to deal with you right now. I'll wait and let Top do it when we get back. Until then, get your ass up to point and stay there." As Ray moved to relieve Jonas at point, she added "And if you do anything like this again, I will personally turn you into target bait myself."

Ray gulped and nodded.

Benjamin started to apologize, only to be stopped by Dinah's glare.

"Don't," she said. "Just don't."

Soberly, Benjamin returned to his place in the formation and started down the road once more.

The morning wore on, the silence broken only by the distant calls of birds and the chuckling of creeks in the valleys. Cool breezes briefly caressed their faces when the team reached each ridge top, only to die away as they followed the trail down into the next valley.

As they climbed yet another ridge, footsore and frustrated from the long chase, Ray suddenly stopped, then backed down to meet the others.

"Targets climbing the next ridge," he whispered. "I think they have our teens with them."

"Stay here, out of sight," Dinah ordered, dropping her rucksack onto the ground. She rummaged through it for a moment before pulling out a battered pair of binoculars. "I'm going up to take a look."

She crept up to the ridge top, hunched over to keep from showing a profile against the bright sky behind them. Peering through the binoculars, she studied the opposite ridge for a moment then signaled Benjamin to join her.

He put his rucksack on the ground with a small grunt and did his best to copy her smooth, quiet climb. All went well until he stepped onto a patch of rotting pine needles; the untrustworthy footing caused his boot to slip out from under him so that he fell onto his face. Feeling his chin, he found a small scrape but nothing worse. With a sigh, he continued up the hill.

At the top, she gave a small shake of her head as if to ask 'what did I ever do to deserve a fuck-up like you?' before handing him the binoculars. Pointing at the group climbing the opposite ridge, she gave him a questioning look.

Through the binoculars, Benjamin could make out both the teens from the fort and the targets that were prodding them along. Interestingly, a pair of targets stood off to the side, cheek to cheek, their chests rising and falling like a pair of bellows. After a moment, the taller of the pair stepped back and cuffed the other target on the head, forcing it to move off of the road. Several others followed, leaving the teenagers guarded by just targets.

Dinah tapped Benjamin on the side and jerked a thumb back to where the privates were waiting below.

"So what the fuck is that?" Dinah asked once the team was together again. "Were those two targets necking?"

"It looked like some sort of a dominance struggle," Benjamin said. "The little one didn't want to do what it was told until the big one reminded it who was boss."

"But what was he telling it to do?" Dinah asked.

"Fuck that," Ray said. "What about the teens?"

Dinah gave Ray a quick look. "They are all right. They looked tired and scared, but as far as I could tell none of them had been turned." Turning back to Benjamin, she asked "Since when are targets smart enough to figure out who is in charge?"

"I don't know," Benjamin admitted. "They aren't acting like normal targets. I just wish I could remember what this reminds me of."

"What it reminds me of is how much I hate phuds," Jonas said, glaring at Benjamin. "Let's just pick the targets off and rescue the kids."

"We need to find out where these targets came from and what they want with the teens," Benjamin said, picking up his pack. "If we don't, then this has all been for nothing."

"Saving eight scared kids isn't 'nothing'," Dinah said. "But you're right. Top said that as long as the kids aren't in danger, we should track the targets to their nest." Raising her voice to override Ray and Jonas, she added "Those are our orders. Now saddle up."

Reluctantly, Ray and Jonas resumed their positions in the formation and started down the road again. This time, instead of walking on the road, they walked just to the side, taking advantage of the cover offered by the brush and trees that grew there. The need to push through dense foliage while making as little sound as possible slowed their progress, but at each ridge top they were able to see the targets shambling steadily along on the road ahead.

The deadly game of hide-and-seek continued for nearly three hours, during which time they climbed five ridges and traveled perhaps six miles, before the ambush happened.

The first hint that Ray had that something was wrong was a sickly-sweet smell like rotting fruit. Wrinkling his nose at the stench, he turned to ask "Do you smell somethi-"

Before he could complete the question, a target leaped from behind a tree and sank its teeth into his neck. Dinah screamed in anger and Benjamin stared, transfixed as Ray's blood sprayed out over the target. Four more targets appeared from the woods and headed for the remaining team members.

A target headed straight for Benjamin. Backing away, he tripped over a root and fell, losing his rifle in the process.

"Shit! Shit, shit, shit!" Dinah bellowed as she shot the target headed for Benjamin in the face before turning to aim at another.

"Fuck!" Jonas said. "My rifle's jammed!"

"Well, unjam it, dipshit!" Dinah replied as she desperately took aim and shot at targets that kept appearing from the woods like evil spirits summoned to a bacchanal.

Benjamin shook his head to clear it. Looking at the blood slowly oozing out of the target lying at his feet, he suddenly reached down and slathered his shoulders with it. Standing up, he headed for the nearest moving target.

"What in God's name are you doing?" Dinah shouted.

"Trust me," Benjamin replied. Gore dripping from his shoulders, he walked over to the target.

Dinah frantically tried to find a shot that would allow her to hit the target without killing Benjamin. "Get out of the way!"

Benjamin held up a hand, waving it at her to ask forgiveness, and embraced the target. Up close, the stench was an almost unbearable combination of unwashed socks, rotting fruit, and excrement that threatened to overwhelm his self-control.

As Dinah and Jonas watched, frozen in shock, the target sniffed curiously at him. Then, instead of biting him the way it had Ray, it growled and pushed him away. When Benjamin stepped back, the target started to move toward Dinah and Jonas.

Benjamin scooped more gore from the body of the dead target and rushed over to the pair, dumping the slimy mess on them just as the target came up to them. First with Dinah then with Jonas, it brought its face close to theirs and sniffed deeply before growling and moving back. Finally, the target shambled back to the others and lead the pack into the woods with a guttural howl.

Terror turned to anger as Dinah and Jonas turned to Benjamin.

"What the actual fuck?" Jonas said as he tried to wipe the dripping bits of blood and gore from his shirt.

"You'd damn well better have an explanation," Dinah added.

"Why don't targets attack each other?" Benjamin replied. "They have to be able to tell who is a target and who isn't somehow."

"Targets do attack each other," Jonas said. "They even eat each other."

"Yes, they eat each other when food is scarce," Benjamin said. "But food isn't scarce right now." Gesturing at the three of them, he continued "We're food. So they should ignore each other and attack us, which is what they were doing."

"Until you decided to cover yourself in target blood," Dinah pointed out.

"Right. Remember when we saw the two targets embrace? They weren't necking; they were trying to see if the other was a target or food. And remember that smell just before the targets attacked? I've smelled it before."

Dinah's eyes lit in understanding. "Just before the target attack at the fort. They always have that smell."

Benjamin nodded, excited by his discovery. "Right. Ants do that; if an ant smells right, the other ants in the colony ignore it. But if it smells wrong …"

"It becomes ant food," Jonas said.

"Bingo. When I realized that, I took a chance and covered us with the blood from that target," Benjamin said. "It worked. They thought we were targets and left us alone."

"OK, you aren't as crazy as I thought," Dinah conceded. "But if you'd held onto your rifle, you wouldn't have needed to put that God-awful shit on us."

"You're right," Benjamin said. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry," Dinah said firmly. "Be better."

Jonas looked at Ray's corpse, lying next to the dead target. "What about Ray?" he asked, nudging the body with his foot.

"We bury him here and stash his ruck in a tree to grab on the way back," Dinah said. "Lucky for us, this area is lousy with rocks."

The burial took less time than Benjamin expected. Cutting off Ray's head was messy but necessary to keep him from coming back as a target; that lesson had been well-learned early on. And even though both Dinah and Jonas stood guard while Benjamin did the majority of the work, piling up the rocks to form a rough cairn went quickly.

Dinah looked down on the tomb and sighed. "Ray, you were a grab-assing first-class asshole who couldn't pour piss out of a boot without asking for directions. But you fought bravely and always put the mission first. Rest in peace, soldier."

"Here's something to nibble on until you get to wherever you are going," Jonas added, putting a handful of corn dodgers onto the stones. "I hope that they have hamburgers there. Have one for me, OK?"

"I'm sorry," Benjamin said.

Turning away from the grave site, Dinah pulled the map from her pocket and carefully marked the spot. After a moment of study, she tapped the map with a finger. "We cross this ridge and we're at Fort Doubleday. That's two hours, so we should be there about sunset. We'll be able to report in, get cleaned up, maybe get some backup."

"You're the boss," Benjamin said. "Lead on."

******

The sun sank behind Ogles Mountain as the three soldiers came to the open field separating Fort Doubleday from the woods, turning the sky a riotous mixture of pinks, purples, and golds. The late evening concert of cicadas, frogs, and hoot owls filled the woods as a distant skunk's scent reminded them that targets weren't the only dangers in the area.

Dinah put a hand out, stopping Jonas as he started to walk out of the woods and into the killing zone. At his startled look she whispered "Something's wrong. Look at the field and the gate."

Jonas gave the area a closer look; the field was filled with chest-high grass and young trees, perhaps a year or two old. Despite the looming darkness, the lantern over the gate wasn't lit. Indeed, no light of any kind came from inside the fort. And an ominous quiet replaced the usual babble of animals, soldiers, and farmers settling in for the night.

"Jonas, gate. Quick and quiet," Dinah ordered. "Benjamin, rear guard. Eyes sharp."

Jonas moved across the field, carefully placing his feet to avoid holes and roots, bent almost double to take advantage of the limited cover offered by the tall grass. Pushing himself against the palisade, he crept up to the gate and looked quickly through. Raising the index finger on his free hand, he gave the 'regroup' signal.

Silently, Dinah tapped Benjamin on the arm and motioned for him to follow her. The pair jogged quickly across the field and joined Jonas at the gate.

"Nobody home," he whispered. "Now what?"

"Now we go in," Dinah replied, just as quietly.

"Split up?" Jonas suggested.

Dinah scowled. "Are you fucking nuts? We stick together. Secure the high ground first, then clear the buildings. Fast but thorough. Heads on a swivel. You two close the gates when we're through; I don't want any targets wandering in after us."

"Roger."

"Roger."

With one last look at the empty killing field, Dinah led her team into the fort. Benjamin and Jonas swung the gates closed, grunting as they pushed them over tufts of grass that had grown in the entryway. With a quiet sigh, Benjamin dropped the bar latch in place, securing the compound from outside threats.

Ignoring the small heaps scattered around the parade ground, the trio climbed the stairs quickly but quietly. Turning left, they proceeded around the walkway, stopping briefly in each blockhouse to check for survivors and hidden traps, finding neither. What they did find were piles of near-skeletal remains. Sometimes the bodies were huddled together where they had made a desperate last stand; more often, they were individuals, cut down as they defended themselves and their fort.

"Shit," Dinah said. "Its just like Gibson all over again."

"Only I don't think that anybody here made it out," Jonas said. "None of the soldiers, anyway."

"Let's check the rest of the fort before we jump to conclusions," Dinah replied.

Grimly, Benjamin and Jonas followed her downstairs to the parade ground where the heaps turned into dead livestock mixed with the bodies of settlers. Thankfully, the blood and gore from the target attack had rotted away; all that remained was macabre reminders of the life that once filled the fort. One skeleton grasped a hoe, its blade stuck in the skull of what had probably been a target. Another one held the smaller skeleton of a child in its arms, vainly attempting to shelter it from the Hell that had come to visit.

Broken windows and pushed-in doors showed where the attackers had breached make-shift barricades, leaving nothing but forlorn remains. The only surprises were the storeroom, which had nothing but empty slots where the hoes, plows, and other tools should have been hanging, and the granary, which was nearly emptied out.

Dinah brought her team to rest in the chow hall. Righting a table, she dragged it over to a corner that was mercifully clear of bodies, then pulled up a chair. Sitting down wearily, she motioned for the other two to join her. "So what happened here?" she asked.

"Same thing as at Gibson, only more so," Benjamin replied. "The targets attacked and somehow managed to get into the fort. They massacred everyone except the teens."

"How do you know that?" Jonas objected.

"Look at the bodies," Benjamin replied. "They are either adult-sized or kid-sized. No tweens or teens. And this happened at least six months ago," he added. "The bodies are all too decomposed for it to have been any later."

"Do you think it was the same targets?" Dinah asked.

"It seems likely," Benjamin said. Waving a hand around the room, he continued "Same method of attack. Same limits on what they did. Only one thing is different."

"What's that?"

"The farming stuff was taken. The seed corn, the plows, all of that. Why would targets take that?"

"Fuck if I know," Dinah said.

"Maybe it isn't targets. Maybe somebody is just pretending to be targets or using them somehow," Jonas said. "Like that robber band two years ago."

"But why would robbers want kids?" Benjamin asked.

"Why would targets want 'em?" Jonas replied.

"I don't really give a fuck. Targets or robbers or jackalopes, they'd taken our kids," Dinah said firmly. "And I mean to get them back." Taking her helmet off to run her hand through her hair, she added "First things first. Let's use the radio to report back to Gibson. They might be able to send some reinforcements and help us secure this fort again."

"Sorry, Dinah," Jonas said. "The radio is smashed; I saw it when we checked the head shed. We're still on our own."

"And we still don't know where the targets are or where they've taken the kids," Benjamin said.

"Any more good news you two want to share?" Dinah asked sarcastically.

"I think I'm getting a blister on my foot," Jonas said, deadpan.

The joke, weak as it was, broke the tension. Whooping with laughter, Dinah pounded the table. "Just for that," she finally gasped out, "you get to cook tonight. There should still be some stores in the kitchen. See if you can make us something to eat other than slumpie."

"Wilco."

Turning to Benjamin, she said "Pull some bedding out of the barracks and put it in the head shed. We can secure it and spend the night there. Once you've done that, draw us some water from the well so we can wash this shit off before we eat."

"Gotcha," Benjamin said. "What will you be doing?"

Dinah gave him a grim smile as she remembered First Sergeant Clayton's words to her. "Trying to figure out how to keep this situation from getting any more fubarred than it already is. Now move it, pog."

******

Dinner that night was an unlucky chicken that Jonas had found scratching for worms in the kitchen garden, roasted with some leathery root vegetables that had been hidden in the back of the pantry. Concealed in the brush near the garden was a nest with four eggs that formed the basis for the next morning's breakfast. Scrambled with bits of chopped pemmican and herbs from the garden, the rough omelette was filling and much better than another round of slumpie. Hot chicory sweetened with honey completed the meal.

With a barely-concealed belch, Benjamin pushed back from the table and began gathering up the dishes. Jonas was off walking the perimeter, having eaten his breakfast while he was cooking for the other two.

"What's the matter," he asked Dinah as he picked up her plate. "Are you still worried about where the kids are?"

"Yes," she said. "We don't have the slightest clue where the targets took them. And I can't think of a good way to find them that doesn't involve going all the way back to Fort Gibson."

"I wouldn't worry about that," Jonas said as he came through the mess hall's door. "There's something that you need to see."

Benjamin put the plates back down on the table and followed the pair out of the mess hall and up onto the palisade walkway. Jonas led them about one-third of the way around, then pointed toward a thin trickle of smoke rising on the horizon.

"I checked the map; there aren't any forts in that direction," Jonas said. "So …"

"So even if it isn't our kids, it is something that we should check out," Dinah said. "Good work, soldier." She paused for thought then continued "Here's the plan. Benjamin, finish cleaning the kitchen. We're likely to be coming through here on the way back, and I don't want to find mouse shit in our food. Jonas, keep an eye on the smoke and let me know if anything changes. I'm going to go get reloads for our ammo. Meet back here in fifteen. Be ready to move out. Read me?"

"Roger," Benjamin said as he headed down to the mess hall.

"Wilco," Jonas said, staring at the pillar of smoke that just might lead them to their teens.

Fifteen minutes later, the three soldiers stood on the walkway next to a pile of knotted laundry. Dinah carefully measured the azimuth and estimated the distance to the smoke. Holding out the map, she tapped a spot near the Tahlequah airport.

"Looks like that is coming from about here," she said. "About five miles away, so about three hours of travel through the woods. That's too damn close to the city for it to be anything but targets."

"Could it just be a wildfire?" Benjamin suggested.

"Nah. It would have moved and be spreading if that were the case," Jonas said. "That's people. Or targets."

"And targets don't make fires," Dinah said. "So it has to be people, living near targets."

"And that makes no fucking sense at all," Jonas said.

"Well, we aren't going to figure it out from here," Dinah said. "If we want to know what's going on, we'll have to go look for ourselves."

Benjamin turned to head for the stairs, only to be stopped by Dinah.

"Where do you think you are going?" she asked. "I'm not leaving the gates open; we've got to keep this place secure."

"So how are we getting out?" he asked.

Smiling, she kicked the pile of laundry. "Guess."

Jonas started to laugh at the look on Benjamin's face. "Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair," he chanted. With a grunt, he reached down and grabbed a loose end from the pile. Tying it to one of the palisade stakes, he tossed the rest over the fence. "That I might climb thy ladder fair!"

Benjamin looked over the fence to see a chain of bed sheets extending all the way to the ground.

"I would have used rope, but that was all gone from stores," Dinah smirked. With a gesture at Benjamin, she added "After you, prince charming."

"With my rucksack?" Benjamin asked.

"Only on the way down," Dinah replied. "If you don't fuck up too much, I'll let you climb up without it when we get back here."

******

The trip up the valley was uneventful. Patches of new-growth forest alternated with the remains of once-cleared fields, providing cover while still allowing them to keep an eye on the smoke rising into the morning sky. Mule deer grazed in the shadows, flicking their ears at the sound of woodpeckers hunting for grubs in the dead oak trees. Once, they carefully backed away from a black bear sleeping under an apple tree.

It wasn't until they had been on the route for about three hours, covering nearly four miles, that they had their first sighting of a target. It was walking slowly in the woods, rubbing a hand against every tree it passed. Every few feet it would stop and take a deep breath before continuing on its way.

"What is it doing?" Jonas asked.

"I've got an idea," Benjamin replied. "Cover me." Slowly and quietly, he crept up to one of the trees that the target had rubbed against. Putting his nose close to the bark, he took a deep sniff and immediately jerked his head back, coughing. With a frightened look, he covered his face until the fit passed and crept back.

"What the fuck was that all about?" Dinah asked, head swiveling from side to side as she looked for targets.

"Smell," Benjamin gasped. "Remember? It was marking their territory. I just didn't expect it to be so rank."

"So?"

"So they are marking their territory. Either they want to draw in mates-"

"Not likely," Jonas scoffed.

"Right. Targets aren't born that way; they get changed into targets by other targets. Which means that they want to protect a food source or some other resource." Benjamin paused, waiting for them to get it.

"Some other resource," Dinah muttered. Suddenly, understanding dawned on her face. "Some other resource, like the kids. They want to protect the kids for some reason."

"But why?" Jonas insisted.

"I don't know," Benjamin said. "But we won't find the answers out here. We need to go in and find the kids. That's where the answers are. But how?"

"Oh, that won't be too hard," Dinah said with a smile. "Remember your last bad idea?"

Jonas stared at her in sudden realization. "Fuck. I just got all that shit out of my shirt."

******

Benjamin stood nervously by the target-marked tree. He had to admit the logic of Dinah's plan; she and Jonas were better fighters than he was and were far more likely to kill the target without making enough noise to attract other targets. But it still didn't make him feel any better about being bait. As he paced back and forth between the stones marking the path, he muttered to himself. "How shall I be killed, let me count the ways. The targets will grab my guts and use them for garters. They will eat my face and wear my ears as buttons. They will rip my legs off and play Babalu. They will …"

A whispered 'hsst!' from the tree limbs above brought him to a halt. Just down the path stood a target, staring at him like a kid with his first ice cream cone. Growling to itself, the target shambled his way. As the target closed in, Benjamin backed away until he was standing on the exact spot that Dinah had marked with two crossed branches.

Suddenly a loop made out of three belts snaked down and wrapped around the target's neck. With a sudden upward jerk, the target's neck snapped. It stopped moving as Benjamin sagged in relief. The belts went slack and the target's body thumped to the ground; Dinah and Jonas landed somewhat more gracefully beside it.

"Told you it would work," Dinah said smugly.

"Yeah, but that was the easy part," Jonas replied. Pulling his knife from its scabbard, he said "Now it gets messy." With a quick, upward slash, Jonas cut into the target's jugular.

Cupping his hands in the flow of blood, Benjamin collected enough to smear over his shirt, taking care to avoid his skin. He then repeated the process with Dinah and Jonas. Grimacing at his partners, he said "Guess we're ready."

"Just in time, too," Dinah said. "Here comes another one."

Walking the path in the opposite direction from their victim was another target. As the previous targets had done, every so often it would stop and sniff the trees before rubbing them with its hands. Benjamin and Dinah drew their knives. All three stood stock still as the target came nearer. With a low growl, it sniffed first Benjamin, then Dinah and Jonas. It rubbed each of them on the face with its hands and stood, staring at them in grumbling anticipation.

Trembling, Benjamin rubbed the target's face with one of his hands. The target's grumbling subsided, then rose again as it turned to face Dinah and Jonas. At Benjamin's wide-eyed nod toward the target, Dinah and Jonas each reached out a hand and rubbed the target's face. Satisfied, it gave one last growl and resumed its way along the path.

When it had moved out of sight, Dinah let out the breath she had been holding as a long, low whistle. "I can't believe that worked," she whispered.

"Me, neither," said Benjamin. He sniffed his hand, gagging at the stench. "Well, we're well and truly marked now."

"So let's go," Dinah said. "Jonas, point. Benjamin, left flank."

Jonas looked around to locate the smoke again. Shaking two fingers to indicate the direction, he led the way.

Another hour's quiet and careful travel brought the team to the edge of the forest. Lying before them was a dilapidated asphalt road; across the road was a cluster of buildings and a pair of farm houses. Smoke rose from the chimney of the larger, two-story farm house. Small fields behind the houses were planted with corn, squash, beans, and other crops, being tilled and weeded by small groups of people.

As Dinah watched through her binoculars, a young girl came out of the large house. Walking over to a tall pole capped with a bell, she pulled on a rope hanging from its side. As the bell rang out, the people in the fields put down their tools. More people came out of the barns. They all went into the farm house, some pausing at a trough for a quick wash.

Looking at the sun's position, Dinah nodded. "Must be lunchtime," she whispered, putting the binoculars back into her ruck sack. "Shall we join them?"

The trio quietly cleared and crossed the road, keeping to the shelter of the shrubs as they headed for the farm house. Gravel crunched under their boots as they headed up the drive to the porch. Stepping softly so as not to alarm those inside, they gathered at the door where they could hear faint murmurs of sound from within the house.

At Dinah's nod, Jonas eased open the door, revealing a short hallway opening to stairs on the left and a living room on the right. From what he could see, the dining room was directly down the hall. With a quick motion, he headed upstairs to check the second floor for hidden people and lurking targets.

While Jonas cleared the upstairs, Benjamin moved into the living room. He rushed to the windows and moved the drapes aside with his rifle barrel to reveal empty walls, then crossed the room to check behind the sofa before joining Dinah in the dining room.

Trusting her partners to do their jobs, Dinah went straight down the hall into the dining room where she was met by a circle of shocked faces. "Don't panic!" Dinah said as she entered the room, pointing her rifle at the floor. "We're here to help you."

"Who are you?" asked a young girl in a calico dress, standing at the far end of the table with a bowl of mashed potatoes in her hands.

Dinah smiled at the girl but still continued to scan the room for threats. "I'm Dinah; I'm here with some soldiers from Fort Gibson to rescue you and some kids that were taken from our fort. Do you know anything about them?" she asked hopefully.

"There were some kids brought here yesterday," the girl said, setting the bowl on the table. "They're over at the mother's house."

Dinah cocked her head. "The mother?"

"That's what we call her. She leads the protectors; we go to visit her each month so she can make sure we're still OK. It is almost time for us to visit her again."

"Who are the protectors?"

"They're the ones who keep us safe," the girl said. Frowning in memory, she added "They keep the destroyers away."

"Destroyers? Who are they?"

"Rachel, you don't have to tell her anything; she's a destroyer," a boy at the table interrupted. Pointing past Dinah's shoulder, he added "So are they."

Dinah looked to her left and saw Benjamin and Jonas coming into the dining room.

"House is clear," Jonas whispered to her. "It looks like everyone is down here."

"Not everyone; our kids are someplace else," Dinah replied quietly. Turning back to the room, she announced "These are my friends, Benjamin and Jonas. They are here to help you, too."

"We don't need your help!" The boy insisted. "We're doing fine."

"Don't be rude, Jeremiah!" Rachel chided.

"You certainly seem to be doing well," Dinah said, ignoring Jeremiah's outburst. Gesturing at the table, she asked "Did you raise all this food yourself?"

A few of the younger teens nodded, despite Jeremiah's frowns.

"I think we might be scaring them," Benjamin said quietly. "Maybe Jonas and I should go back outside."

"Not outside," Dinah said. "You go back to the front door and stand guard. Jonas, you do the same at the kitchen door."

"How do you know there's a kitchen door?" Jonas asked.

"Have you ever been in a farm house that only had one door?" Dinah asked. "Now move it and let me find out what's going on here."

The pair nodded and headed for their places.

As Jonas pushed through the dining room to get to the kitchen, Dinah turned back to the teens gathered there and gave her friendliest smile. "How long have the protectors taken care of you?" she asked.

"Since last fall," Rachel said. "They came and saved us after the destroyers killed our parents and everyone at the fort."

"Can you tell me what happened?" Dinah moved to the girl. Crouching down so that their eyes were on the same level, Dinah pleaded "I really need to know."

Rachel slowly shook her head, fear of those memories in her eyes.

Dinah took the leather bracing strap from her wrist. "This always gives me courage to do difficult things," she said as she wrapped it around Rachel's wrist. "Can you feel it?"

Rachel nodded.

"Can you tell me what happened?"

Rachel's eyes looked away from Dinah and down at the floor, fingering the strap. In a flat, emotionless voice, as if she were telling a story about something that happened to someone else, she said "We were in school. The guards were out, chasing some destroyers in the orchard. But the destroyers got in the fort. They killed everyone. My daddy tried to stop them but a destroyer ripped out his throat. I ran to help him; his blood got all over me. The destroyer tried to attack me. It grabbed my dress and I screamed. But then the protectors came in and killed the destroyer. I was so scared, because the protectors looked just like the destroyers. But the protector stomped on it and stomped on it and killed it until it was dead.

"We were all afraid of the protectors," Rachel said, tears dripping from her eyes. Soft sobs came from the other children in the room. "We thought they were going to kill us and eat us like the destroyers did. But they didn't. They saved us. The protectors made us leave the fort. We walked and walked until we got here. They put us in the mother's house and we stayed there. The toilet didn't work so we had to pee out the windows. But she kept us safe. She gave us water so we could wash up. And she made the protectors wash, too. And then she let us move here and now the protectors keep us safe."

"I'm going to be a protector someday," Jeremiah said.

Dinah turned to look at him. "You can become a protector? How?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "But Amos is already a protector. He doesn't talk to us any more, but he keeps us safe. I see him out in the woods, lots of times."

"Is Amos the only one who became a protector?"

"Yes. He's the biggest of us; he is almost twenty years old," Jeremiah said. "And the protectors made James leave because he was mean."

"What did James do?"

"He stole stuff," a boy on the far side of the table said.

"And he would try to kiss you and would hit you if you wouldn't let him," a girl said.

"Huh." Dinah thought for a moment. "Do you think that the mother would talk to us?" she asked.

"No!" Rachel said.

"Why not?"

"You've got blood on your clothes," Rachel replied. "The mother won't talk to anyone who has blood on them."

"Only destroyers have blood on them," Jeremiah said.

Dinah nodded in understanding. "I didn't know that. I'm sorry about the blood; it was an accident. Right now, I need you all to stay in here for a bit while I talk to my team," she announced. "You'll be safe in here. Why don't you all eat your lunch? Rachel went to a lot of trouble and I'll bet it is delicious."

Jeremiah started to argue only to be overridden by Rachel. "Dinah's right," she said, plopping a spoonful of mashed potatoes on his plate. "As my mom always says, 'don't let good food go to waste'."

Dinah gave a low, carrying whistle and headed for the front door. The sound of clattering plates and soft-voiced chatter filled the room behind her, along with Jonas' muttered 'excuse me' as he came through to join her and Benjamin in the front hall. Dinah quickly related what the teens had told her.

"Stupidity is not a survival trait," Benjamin quoted.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Jonas asked.

"Something one of my professors liked to say. If you've got an animal that takes a lot of care and attention before it grows up, it has to be smart because the dumb ones die off."

"How the fuck does that help us?" Dinah asked testily. "This was supposed to be a simple recon and rescue. Now we've got a destroyed fort, and three times as many kids, most of whom think that the targets are their friends."

"I won't be sure until we look in on the mother," Benjamin replied. "But I think the kids are more right than they think."

"Huh?"

"You know how ants and bees have a queen that makes everything run right? Well, what if these targets had the same thing? They've got a queen that somehow tells the other targets what to do and they do it, even if it means that the individuals die, because it means the nest lives on."

"Bullshit," Jonas said. "These are targets, not insects!"

"Mammals do it, too," Benjamin said. "The naked mole rat is a eusocial mammal. Each burrow has a female ruler and the rest of the mole rats do what she tells them to do."

"So how the fuck could that happen here?" Dinah asked. "Remember Hell Week? Targets are stupid."

"And stupidity is not a survival trait," Benjamin repeated. "The stupid targets all died, either during Hell Week or the Burning. But we couldn't kill all the targets; the lucky ones and the smart ones always escape. And they created a new type of target, one that knows it needs new bodies. And it has figured out how to get them."

Dinah looked back at the dining room. "The teens?"

Benjamin nodded. "The teens. Once they get old enough, they are either turned into 'protectors' like Amos or maybe killed and eaten like what's-his-name."

"James," Dinah said absently.

"Right. James. They take teens because they are old enough to be useful but young enough to be malleable." Benjamin shook his head in admiration. "An incredibly elegant solution."

"And you wonder why science got a bad name," Jonas said disgustedly.

"That's enough, you two," Dinah said. "The suck is bad enough as it is; I don't need you two making it worse." Looking at Benjamin she asked "Why don't the targets attack these kids? Do they just protect from things coming in?"

Benjamin shook his head thoughtfully. "No, it is probably something related to smell. Since they have to go visit this 'mother' every month, that means the smell probably wears off. She could also use that visit to decide who is ready to be turned or would make a better meal than a target."

"And that's why our teens are there?" Dinah mused. "They're getting that stink on them, too."

Before she could say anything further, Rachel came into the hallway, worry written on her face.

"Dinah!" the teen cried out. "Jeremiah's gone!"

"What?"

"I don't think you're really destroyers but he does. He went out the back door while you were in here," she said. "He's going to get the protectors and bring them here to kill you!"

"Fuck!" Dinah snapped. "OK, Rachel, you stay in here with the other kids. Keep the doors closed and locked until you know it is safe. Can you do that?"

At the girl's nod, Dinah motioned Benjamin and Jonas outside. As soon as the bolt snapped on the door, she turned and began to run around the house. "Seeing the queen or mother or whatever the fuck it is will have to wait," she told Benjamin. "First we've got to stop that dipshit kid from getting himself killed."

Benjamin nodded, gasping as he trotted to keep up with the other two.

Rounding the corner, Jonas suddenly pointed to a figure running through the field toward the woods. "There he is!"

The three stepped up their pace, desperately trying to catch up to the teen. Stumbling over the ruts and pushing through the low-growing peanut plants, they slowly closed the gap. In front of them, Jeremiah's limbs flailed wildly as he dodged through the field, calling loudly for the 'protectors'.

As Dinah, Benjamin, and Jonas closed to within 100 yards of their quarry, a lithe, young figure appeared from out of the woods.

"Amos!" Jeremiah called joyfully, racing up to give the target a hug. "Help! The destroyers are here!"

The target looked down at the panting boy. It sniffed his hair carefully then carefully and deliberately reached down with a sharp-nailed hand and clawed out his guts. Jeremiah stared in dazed disbelief as the thing that had once been his friend pulled out his intestines and began to eat them.

Jonas stopped in shock and brought his rifle up to bear.

Reaching over, Benjamin knocked it downward. "No!" he panted. "Do you want to bring every target in the area out after us?"

"We've got to do something!" Jonas wailed.

Benjamin pulled his knife from its sheath. Ignoring the gorging target, he walked slowly and carefully over to the shrieking boy and plunged the blade into the base of Jeremiah's skull, killing him instantly. Pulling the knife out, he turned around and walked back to the others, tears streaming down his face. "It was all I could do," he whispered.

"You did good," Dinah reassured him. Looking around, she saw other targets coming near, drawn by the smell of fresh blood. Slowly, she turned and began leading the other two back the way they had come. "We've got to get out of here."

"What about the kids?" Jonas protested. "We've got to rescue them!"

"If we stay here, the targets will eat us and we won't be able to rescue anyone," she said. "And there's no way we can keep ahead of them if we bring thirty kids along."

"You aren't seriously thinking of leaving those kids here?" Jonas demanded. "They'll be killed and eaten! Just like that one was!"

"They've lived with the targets for at least ten months, Jonas. They'll be safe for another two weeks."

"Two weeks?" Benjamin asked.

"Four days to get back to Fort Gibson," Dinah said. "Another four or five days for more reinforcements to get there from Fort Smith. Four days to walk back here. And then we smash these bastards back to the Hell they came from."

"But we need to study them!" Benjamin said. If he could only make the others see how important this was. "Let me stay here and study them while you go back. I'll be safe, I'm sure."

"I'm not," Dinah hissed. "Four reasons that you can't stay here: One, we need your help to make it back to Fort Gibson. Two, you don't know you'd be safe here. Three, you're the only person who can explain this shit to Clayton. And four, I fucking told you to. So start marching."

At a push from Dinah, he began walking along with the other two. "But this may be a way to end this crisis once and for all!" Benjamin protested.

"By becoming cattle for targets? Letting them raise us like livestock, deciding who becomes a target and who just gets eaten?" Dinah asked as they slowly pulled away from the feast. "No way. I don't know what the future of humanity is, but that isn't it."

"So what do we do, then?" Jonas asked.

"We stay alive long enough to get this info back to Fort Gibson. And then we find a way to use this to get rid of the targets, once and for all."

"You can't put the genie back in the bottle," Benjamin said. "Banning science won't make the targets go away. And we can't kill them all."

"No, but we can fucking well try," Dinah said firmly. "And that's what we're going to do. So both of you quit your belly-aching. If you've got enough breath to complain, you've got enough breath to run. Double-time!"

Jogging across the field, Dinah spared a look for the young girl watching her from a window in the farm house. She'd come back, just as soon as she could. And when she did, she'd bring an army with her.

THE END

Bio: John E. DeLaughter is a geophysicist, paranomasiac, and world-famous bad sailor. (He is not, however, a target.) His work has taken him to all seven continents where he always meets the nicest people. Currently retired, he lives on a sailboat with Missy the cat. Among the stories he's had published are "A Fluke So Rare" (October 2018, Aphelion Webzine), "The Terran Game" (December 2021, Aphelion Webzine), and "The Day the Rockets Flew" (Strange Wars, 2022).

E-mail: John E. DeLaughter

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