“Don’t litter.” She shot him the evil eye.
Buck paused his chewing and glanced at her. He fought the smile trying to form across his face as he picked up the wrapper. “Yes, Mother,” he mumbled as he shoved the wrapper into his pocket.
“You wouldn’t want a soldier to find it and know we were here, would you?” She gave him a knowing look.
“I think the napping lady might be a dead giveaway.” He fought the urge to smirk.
Skeeter stared at him and then turned her back to him to finish her granola. Buck stared at her a moment longer and finally threw his hands into the air in frustration. Women!
Fisher stirred a bit and rolled over onto his broken arm, waking him with a start. He looked around the makeshift camp and stared wide-eyed at the two kids sitting near him. “What the hell is going on?”
“You were asleep,” Buck said.
“I know that.” Dwayne pulled himself up to a sitting position and cradled his arm. “The question is, who the hell are you, and why am I here?”
“Well, let’s see. You broke your arm, the deputy set it. She had to dope you up, and you were about worthless after she did it, so we more or less babysat your butt,” Buck stated.
Fisher shot him a sideways glance. “And you are?”
“Buck. That’s Skeeter.” He pointed to the young girl who was still giving him the cold shoulder. “And keep your voice down. We’re sort of hiding.”
“Really?” Fisher replied in disbelief. “From who?”
Skeeter turned and gave him a dirty look. “From the Army.”
“The Army’s here? Sweet,” he said, trying to stand.
“Not sweet.” Buck stood and tried to get Fisher to lower his stance. “They’re not here to help.”
“Oh, really?” Fisher did his best to tower over the kids. “And who put you in charge?”
“Daniel did.” Buck squared off against the large, red-haired man. “He and that really huge black guy, Mitch, are down there right now with a lady cop trying to capture the colonel of the Army and force him to stop being a dick.”
“Kid, you’ve been reading too many comic books.” Fisher shook his head in disbelief.
“He’s telling you the truth,” Skeeter all but shouted in a loud whisper. “Now, please, get down or they might see us.”
“I’m not going to get down. If anything, I’m going to work my way back to the ranger station and see if I can assist.”
“You’ll be shot before you get anywhere close,” Buck said.
“Now I know you’re nuts,” Fisher said. “The Army doesn’t just come in to a national park, guns blazing, and start shooting at people.”
Bark from the tree next to Fisher erupted a moment before the report from the shot sounded. The splinters showered the back of his neck and head and he instinctively ducked. He rose back up again, his hands raised as much as he could with his arm wrapped, while he yelled, “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! We’re not infected!”
Dwayne Fisher’s shoulder exploded as the next round ripped through the muscle, bone, and sinew. He was in mid-turn as the third round entered the back of his head, effectively removing the front of his face. He was dead before his body hit the ground, the pain from the shot to his shoulder never having a chance to register with his brain before it was destroyed with high-velocity, copper-jacketed lead.
Skeeter, to her credit, didn’t scream as Buck grabbed her arm and pulled her through the brush toward the edge of the lookout he had stared at the station from. He wasn’t sure exactly where the soldiers were, but he knew they had to be out toward the road for the shots to have hit Fisher where they did. That meant he was going to run the other direction, and that direction lead toward the ranger station.
As Skeeter followed, Buck’s mind reeled. He knew that to be caught anywhere near the station by soldiers would mean a bullet, but to stay where they were meant the same thing. He saw the disturbed ground where Daniel and the others had slid down the hill and he quickly pulled Skeeter after him.
“You ever play baseball?”
“No, why?” She thought he must be crazy to ask such a stupid question at a time like this.
“Because we’re about to go on the world’s longest slide into second base!” he huffed as the pair ran to the same spot and he pulled her after him.
With his right leg in front and his left leg tucked under him, Buck did his best to slide down the steep, rocky hill while tugging Skeeter along with him. The moment they hit the ground, Buck was pulling her behind him as he sprinted across the compound and over the parking lot to the ranger station. The entire time, he prayed that Hatcher and his people had already taken the station and had the Army leader in handcuffs, or this was going to be a very short escape.
Captain Andrews sat at a computer terminal in the green tent that housed his ‘office.’ His pressurized suit was unzipped and hanging from a peg in the corner, his helmet discarded haphazardly at the foot of the suit. He sat arguing with the image on the screen of his computer, growing more impatient by the moment.
“I don’t see why you won’t come down here Viv. I’m telling you, this is it!”
“And I’m telling you it can’t be!” Dr. LaRue argued. “Joseph, the virus we found in the Neanderthal mitochondria was degraded and ancient. There is no way it could have travelled half-way around the world and not mutated.”
“Darling, that’s what I’m trying to explain. I honestly believe that this is Archaea. It makes total sense if you think about it, a thermophilic archaea? Where else could it live and sustain itself than in thermal vents? And what is Yellowstone covered in?” he posited. “Listen, they’ve found others here
