SWARM

Lin

Chapter 11

The monsters couldn't go far enough from the terror demonstrated from last night. Although far away from the Minotaur and his two canines, Nathan and Raymond kept walking until sunrise. Then they hear a stream from an open river nearby, with no tall grass around — just tress by the other sides thirty yards away from the shallow creek.

"Obviously, we passed through to some kind of portal from the lake," Nathan says.

"Doesn't look anything like heaven," Raymond replies.

"It's not hell either."

"You never know. The weather doesn't seem to get any cooler even at nights man."

With a big doubt, he's not yet a walking spirit, "Well, I'm out of ammo." Nathan says, then raises his gun and asks, "what do I do gives this back to dad?"

"I still have my rifle. Let me see dad's gun?" Nathan hand him the rifle, then Raymond observes the tip of the double-barrel gun, "that'll work..." he whispers, "now, hand me your knife and your shirt there."

"I ain't got no shirt." Raymond took the shirt wrap around Nathan's head.

"Oh there it is," Nathan said.

Raymond then began cutting it into long strips and into thick knots as ropes.

"What are you doing to my shirt?"

"I'm gonna teach you how to use a bayonet Nathan, just in case those guys come close again; at least you can reach and poke them on the eyeballs." Raymond then tied Nathan's knife on the side of the rifle's barrel; when the bayonet is completed, Nathan picked up a feather and added it to the gun.

"Now I got myself a spear," Nathan boasted to Raymond.

"Too bad you don't have your headband, chief." Just a few lessons from the green beret on how to use the bayonet without any targets, then they move on towards the creek, hoping it'll lead them to a roadway. But after their ordeal with the Minotaur and his menacing canines, they are skeptical of the place they entered of any hope for civilization. "Those bullets sure stop the Minotaur and his dogs from chasing us," Raymond said.

"Sure did man."

They walk on muddy soil with clams hidden under the little rocks and muds and waters squirts underneath the low tide. "There are geoducks here," Raymond says, and both try to dig for some. To their surprise, the clams are green, with little fangs inside their mouth. Raymond blocks Nathan with his arm away from the green clam, "Don't touch it!" The guys continue walking, and the sound of screaming monkeys every five minutes echoes far away.

"What's with that monkey... it's giving me the creeps man," Nathan said nervously.

"We heard it too from yesterday... let's keep off the woods then and keep close to this river. We don't know what else is hiding in the woods so keep your eyes open." Raymond has his rifle drawn, pointed to the ground, and Nathan's bayonet towards the wood.

Nathan is once again hungry and tempted to drink from the water below. And Raymond noticed. "I wouldn't drink it if I were you."

"You're right. Their green!

"Their algae."

"Damn I am hungry, though."

"Me too, we'll find something."

As they followed the creek, they spotted a group of birds feeding above the shallow river that looked to be cranes but green; spooked by the two wanderers revealing what the birds are eating, and they are dying green fish infected with white spots. The two got near, and Raymond scratched his head, puzzled by what he saw. "That is so strange, man. It's not even the right climate for these fish to be around."