Colin leans slightly back on his rock, very nonchalantly he asks Jochen, "Why did you attack us?"
Jochen seems a little sheepish. "We've had problems with people attacking us, steal our things. We thought you might be a.... scouting party."
Colin looks thoughtful, but I can tell he isn't buying it, neither am I. Whatever is going on here, it's not our fight. And neither one of us wants to get involved.
"So, now what? Why do you want to go to Russland?" The girl who was with us earlier, Erika, asks.
"The Russian and the American President are our ambassadors with the aliens," Colin explains. "We hope that Fedorov will give us a lift back to Alaska in the spirit of cooperation."
Jochen nods, understanding. "You can stay with us." He invites.
"That is really nice of you, but we must go back; we have a lot of intel the President needs to know about, and our families probably think we're dead," I explain.
"You're welcome to come with us, though," Colin suggests. "We can always use more people."
Before Jochen can answer, a scream rings out, followed by a loud boom, and Erika's head explodes all over me. Instinctively I curl back, my hand reaches for a gun that isn't there. Colin pulls me down to the ground with him—behind the rock, as more shots ring out. I peek around our cover and notice shadows moving in the bushes around us. Here and there, nozzle fire lights up the darkness for a few seconds before surrendering to it again.
Colin pulls my arm, "Let's go."
He nods at the other side of the clearing as screams ring out. Erika's arm pokes out from the other side of the boulder.
"Help me," I ask Colin as I start pulling on the corpse. He grabs the other arm, and within seconds we managed to pull the body halfway behind our hiding spot. I lean forward, trying hard to avoid looking at the place where Erika's face was just minutes ago, and reach for her hip, pulling her small gun out.
Further out, I notice her machine gun, stretching and laying low to the ground, I extend my arm as far as possible, I try to grab the AR's strap. When the tips of my fingers make contact with it, I begin to pull it towards me.
All the while, I'm fully conscious of the loud ratatat of machine-gun fire around me. Something tears at my arm, and the sharp noise of a ricochet against the rock alerts me, just as Colin curses. The bullet shaved some splinters of the rock, and they stung his face.
"Let's go." He urges again.
We stay as low as possible to the forest floor, while crawling through the mayhem. Most of the Germans lie dead or wounded on the ground; Colin makes a grab for another gun. A deep sigh escapes me, as my eyes fall on my new backpack. Longingly I give it one last, yearning glance, so close, yet so far out of reach. And in reality, there is nothing in it that we need apart from some clean socks. Nothing that can't be replaced.
People step out of the shadows, guns raised, shooting indiscriminately at anything that moves. I freeze for a second as I watch in horror the body of the little girl—who blushed so cutely, get jerked this way and that as a volley hits her small frame.
"Move your ass." Colin hisses at me.
I need to get my head in the game, or we'll both die. Using the ground as cover, we belly crawl towards a tent. It won't protect us from flying bullets, but at least it hides our presence.
Colin lifts and shoots at two people closing in on us from our rear; we get on all fours, check left and right, and hurry towards the dark foliage. I hear a noise and aim; before the shadow can take form, I shoot, and he or she is thrown back.
Colin and I turn our backs to each other so that we can cover one another better. Most of our attackers are still concentrating on the center of the camp. I recognize one of the men who waylaid us, I think his name is Karsten, the second he sees us, he comes running, a machine gun slung over his back. Another shadow pops up behind him, and Colin takes him out.
"Please help me." Karsten is close to tears.
"Move." Colin points towards the darkness of the forest with his chin.
More attackers move into the camp; all of them are mere shadows in the darkness of the night, but when one or another step towards the campfires, I notice their dark skin and black hair. Karsten sees me watching them.
"Turkmen," he spits.
We make it unnoticed into the bushes. Inside the camp, the slaughter is over; the shooting has stopped, and nothing moves but the attackers searching through bags and the dead for anything they might deem useful.
My heart goes out to the children, who were as indiscriminately killed as the adults. My anger towards the thugs who attacked the camp rises, but unfortunately, there is nothing Colin and I could have done; there are only two of us against how many? There must be at least a hundred heavily armed enemy forces inside the camp by now. Plus, everything happened so fast, I don't even think there are any survivors we could help.
Once we're enveloped in darkness from the surrounding trees and are well hidden, we shoulder our weapons and start to run.
Chapter 5
We run until we're at least a mile away from the camp and its massacre. Karsten is the worst off. He's panting hard, and I worry he'll have a heart attack. I don't think he is older than thirty but in really bad physical shape. His pants sag, and he has the looks of somebody who has lost a lot of weight recently—nothing like an alien invasion diet, I think sarcastically. He falls to the ground; his chest heaves
