On the floor was an M60 machine gun, complete with a long ammunition belt holding a few hundred rounds, in an ammo feed bag. On the table, on top of the scattered cards, was an assortment of ammunition clips, knives and grenades. Along with these items there were also four bulletproof vests, four combat helmets, and four separate piles of clothing, each belonging to one of the beastwalkers. Zakaria’s thick arms were cradling a small arsenal of weaponry, and he was quick to bark out orders the moment the teens came rushing out of the cabin.
‘All of you, take a bulletproof vest and put it on, and a helmet too! Now!’
The teens had practiced this drill a number of times, so they were able to slip their combat gear on in no time.
‘Next,’ Zakaria barked, ‘everyone grab the following items and put them into your bags: two AK clips, three nine mil clips, three hand grenades, a hunting knife and two smoke grenades. Each of you must also take one of those piles of clothing! Look for your names next to the piles! Do it!’
The teenagers were too frightened and overwhelmed to do anything else, so they hurriedly began stuffing the items they’d been told to take into their backpacks. While they were doing this, Zakaria continued to issue curt orders.
‘When your bag is packed put it on, then take an AK-47 and sling the strap over your shoulder! Take a nine-millimetre pistol and clip the holster onto your belt, clip three grenades onto your belts too, and then stand on the steps!’
The teenagers completed their packing as rapidly as they could, and once they were done, they lined up on the steps, their eyes wide, their nostrils flared, their breathing and heartrates rapid with anxiousness and worry.
‘Well done!’ Zakaria said, his tone softening but remaining firmly authoritative. ‘But that, my young friends, was the easy part. Now we are ready to make our escape. Each of you will ride one of us—’
‘Wait, what?!’ Chloe blurted out. ‘Ride you guys?!’
‘Shut your mouth kid,’ Njinga snapped, silencing the teen. ‘Didn’t you hear what I said before? You do what we say, or we all die. We all die, get it?! Now shut up an’ listen!’
‘Our one chance to slip through the closing net of Huntsmen soldiers,’ Zakaria said, ‘is by cutting through the thickest section of the woods to the north-east at speed, and the only way to do this is in our animal forms. We can each carry one of you; who goes with who has already been worked out, based on your sizes and weights. First, though, we need to do something that might look and feel a little strange to you. We need you to just keep quiet and wait for a few moments. Whatever happens, and no matter how alarming things may seem, don’t worry, you’ll be safe. Now, please don’t say anything, in fact, don’t even move while we do this; we need complete silence.’ He then turned to face Lightning Bird, Njinga and William. ‘Are you ready, my brothers and sister?’
All of them gave him nods of affirmation, and they then arranged themselves in a circle, holding hands. Each of them closed their eyes and drew in deep breaths, filling their lungs to maximum capacity. The teens watched, both anxious and fascinated, as the four adults started to tremble, twitch and shake, moaning, groaning and gasping, as if they were zealots undergoing an exorcism at a Pentecostal church. Then, however, the teenagers began to feel what was happening; it started out as a sensation of static electricity fizzing its electrical tickling over every square inch of their bodies, making every fine hair stand on end, but as the beastwalkers’ trance grew more intense, the sensation became more palpable, and the youngsters felt as if they were standing next to a massive biological transistor, humming with the crackling energy of billions of volts of electricity. Pulses of energy started to flow from the circle of beastwalkers, washing over the teens in waves, which felt almost pleasant at first, but which grew rapidly in intensity to the point at which it felt as if they were being assaulted with some sort of hi-tech ultrasonic weapon that was pulsing its invisible rays through their bodies, twisting and wrenching their internal organs and causing sudden, alarming feelings of crippling nausea, disorientation and reeling dizziness. The teens all doubled over in a collective paroxysm of debilitating panic and paralyzing terror, seized by this ghastly sensation with such furious intensity that they could neither scream nor run. It was like being caught in the throes of some unimaginably powerful hallucinogenic trip, from which their minds desperately wished to flee … but from which no escape was even remotely possible. Never before had any of them felt this kind of unbridled fear; it was as if they’d been taken to the very gates of Hell itself and been given a peek at the indescribable horrors taking place therein.
However, as quickly as it had struck them down, the gripping terror vanished, rushing out into the forest in a rapidly spreading circle like a shock wave from some titanic explosion. After it had passed, the teenagers’ minds returned to a state of relative normalcy, although they were left shaking, with nausea continuing to grip their cores in its acid-coated fingers.
‘Wh-, what the hell was that?!’ Daekwon gasped as he struggled to his feet.
Before anyone could answer this question, the forest started to stir, as if the entire ecosystem had woken from some deep hibernation
