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Jak grinned. In the moonlight his red eyes glowed and his teeth glinted, the predator in him becoming all too clear.
âNever alone in desert. Come out at night, but driven down by storm. Can hear them, getting nearer. Just wait.â
Ryan frowned, but didnât push Jak for further explanation. Instead he hunkered down next to the albino and decided to wait. He didnât have to wait for long.
As the two men crouched, still and silent, their breathing slow and moving into sync with each other, the silence only broken by the snufflings of those sleeping behind them, Ryan became aware of another sound that began to creep into his head, from beyond the limits of normal hearing. At first he thought it was nothing more than the sound of his own nervous system, amplified by the intense silence, then he realized that this was what Jak had been hearing for a long time with his sharpened sense, heightened by years of hunting.
It was a whispering, gentle hissing that grew louder by almost imperceptible degrees until it was clearly audible without his having even been aware of it impinging on his hearing. It was like the whispering of the sands as they moved, but accentuated by more movement within, as though there were several currents moving beneath the surface, making it whisper in different tones, until it built up into an overlap of harmonics that produced strangely shimmering and unsettling sounds.
Ryan inclined his head toward Jak. The albino met his monocular gaze with a vulpine grin that grew ever wider.
The one-eyed warrior was on the verge of blurting out the question. What the hell was this? His answer came to him with a sudden surprise.
Spumes of sand shot up into the night, dunes rose and fell with the disturbances, and suddenly the pale desert floor was filled with dark shapes moving at speeds varying from a crawl to a scuttle.
âAlways life, even in desert,â Jak whispered softly.
As Ryanâs eyes adjusted to the shapes, he could see that there were lizards, spiders, beetles and even a few skinny mammals that looked a little like hybrids between cats and rabbits. The shapes moved over and across one another, starting to engage in combat as some sought to use the others for food.
It was a battle that occurred every night, with some emerging winners and some never even realizing they were losers as their lives were snuffed out. Ryan realized that the creatures were moving in the direction of the camp, and whirled to look behind him. There were none to their rear, just an empty expanse of sound.
âWhat the hell is going on?â he yelled at Jak, the chatter of the creatures, shrieks of those that were buying the farm, rising to a louder and louder level.
Jak indicated the sand around them and gestured to the rear. âFigure weâre uphill, sand deeper where they nest. Mebbe telling us where thereâs waterââ
âThatâs if theyâre not headed for us because weâre a strange scent,â Ryan countered. He turned to the sleeping companions, but could see that the noise had penetrated their rest and they were beginning to waken.
âRyan, whatâDark night! What the fuck is that?â J.B. yelled, sleep driven from his brain by the shock of the sight that greeted him.
âThatâs trouble,â Ryan snapped. âTriple red, people. We need to get moving, and fast.â
âShould take some out,â Jak commented. âFood what short of.â
âYeah, and mebbe thatâs how they see us,â Ryan told the albino youth. âTheyâre not much on their own, but thereâs thousands of the fuckers, and weâre not a hundred percent.â
Jak shrugged. âYeah, guess so.â He pointed beyond where the initial mass of creatures had come from. In the distance, the sands were exploding as more nests of lizards, spiders, beetles and small mammals were stirring after the temporary hibernations caused by the storm.
âOh my Lord, I never did like spiders, and I really donât want a crash course in getting used to them now,â Mildred cracked as she helped Doc to his feet.
ââPon my soul, itâs almost biblical,â the old man breathed as he took in the sight that greeted him. âThe plagues came down upon the deserts andââ
âYeah, some other time, Doc, or else youâre gonna be a lizardâs next meal,â Krysty snapped, cutting him off in midflow. âWhy the hell are they all coming this way?â
âMebbe weâre uphill, and they come up this way to search for food and water,â J.B. said as he gathered his bags.
âMake more sense if we were downhill,â Mildred snapped. âCould be theyâre all down there because itâs easier to make burrows. Maybe this moves more with the storms.â
âIt doesnât matter,â Ryan yelled. âWake up, people, triple red. We need to outrun these little bastards before they overwhelm us. Just try to keep one step ahead of them.â
The companions wasted no more words on speculation, but instead devoted their energy to outrunning the mass of desert life that was closing on them.
Which wasnât as easy as they could have hoped. They were still exhausted, having had no real chance to rest, and the sand was of an erratic depth and consistency, in some places being loose and clinging, in others relatively hard and compacted. For every step forward that seemed to buy them time and distance, there was another where a step meant sinking halfway up to the calf in the clinging sand, tugging insistently at them as they had to tug insistently to free themselves.
Looking over his shoulder, Ryan could see that the creatures were gaining on them. He couldnât tell if they were on an uphill gradient: certainly, the struggle suggested this, but with their fatigue and the erratic depths of the desert floor to impede them, it was almost impossible to tell. Doc was exhausted, and was already falling behind, despite the efforts of Mildred and J.B. to assist him.
Then the worst thing that could happen in the circumstances occuredâas Doc freed his left leg and took another step, J.B. moved over slightly to the old manâs left, took one step forward, and was swallowed up to the waist in a sudden cave-in. The sand, acting as a top crust at this point, was delicately balanced over a series of tunnels, and the Armorer had put his foot on a weak spot.
He yelled in surprise and pain as his heel hit something hard and the jarring traveled up into his hip. Obviously, there was some kind of rock shelf under this part of the desert, and that was what he hitâ¦but it wasnât all.
His yells grew as he was surrounded by a squealing, yelping mass of fur and teeth that scrabbled to get free of the collapse, using his body as purchase for their scrambled escape.
âOh my God,â Mildred breathed, stunned into a standstill by what was unfolding before her. Even as she muttered those words, the creatures were swarming over the desert floor, scuttling around and over her feet, some of them being pitched up to cling for safety on her calves and thighs as the mass exodus caused fighting among the fleeing rodents.
For thatâs what they wereârats, with slick black fur and red pinpoint eyes, large teeth and sharp claws threatening in their mass.
Suddenly, the reason for the insects, lizards and other small mammals to be heading in this direction became clear, as did the reason that this area had previously been deserted. The companions now found themselves caught in a territorial war, a struggle for supremacy between the rats and the other life-forms that inhabited the desert wastes. It may even have been a nightly occurrence: the rats raiding the nests of the lizards and reptiles for eggs, the insects falling prey to them, as did the other mammals, which would be vulnerable