Leila of the Predators [Book Two]

Dead Men

  "We triggered a dead man's trap." Beads stated as we were all standing in front of a rotting corpse with a giant hole in its chest. It used to be a middle-aged man and a soldier by the looks of his clothes.

  "It's two weeks." Maroon piped up. "....Judging from the rate of decomposition."

  "He took opposition here." Camo gestured with his head. "Shooting in all directions." He raised his hands while looking around. "This was his last stand." Camo then reached over to the journal partially peeking out from the dead guy's pocket and flipped it open. "United States Special Forces. This is strange....he's supposed to be deployed in Afghanistan."

  "What's he doing here setting traps for us?" Orange asked.

  "They weren't meant for us." Brown said lowly. "He was hunting something else."

  "He wasn't hunting." I spoke up while putting my hands on my knees and getting a better look at the hole in the dead man's chest. "The traps were genius, yes, but they were a form of defense. And whatever he was preparing for was a lot bigger than us."

  "Bigger? What?" Maroon scoffed, and I stood up all of the way with my hands on my hips.

  "That chunk of tree trunk that flew up was a deadfall. Rule of thumb with a deadfall is that you set the weight five times that of the target." Glancing around, I continued. "Whatever it was all set for, it got past them without triggering the traps and found Mr. Hole-y." There was a silent pause as everyone let my words sink in.

  This man was being hunted. No one sets traps like this unless they were paranoid or terrified, so whatever else was out here was not only big but smart enough to avoid each and every one of those traps. That didn't bode well.

  "Let's move." Brown turned on his heel with a grim expression on his face. I no longer felt as safe as I did before even though I was armed to the teeth because this threat was unknown in every single aspect. I killed people for a living and was constantly faced with unknowns, but this....this was different.

  If I wasn't careful, I'd no doubt end up as prey, and I didn't like that one bit.

  We finally reached a break in the trees at a cliff, seeing the expanse of jungle reaching to the horizon in every direction with mountains, hills, and valleys seemingly just dropped where they were. However, my focus was on the sky. There were visible planets, either because they were just that huge, just that close, or both, but even an asteroid belt around one planet was visible from where I stood.

  My shoulders slumped. 'Fuckin' aliens.' I thought. 'Holy shit, Uncle Tito was right.' I groaned while covering my face with my hands. This added a whole new level of danger and a proper 'oh, fuck' mood.

  "We're gonna need a new plan." Brown sounded a bit in disbelief.

  "No shit." I grumbled.

~

  "Hey, where we goin'?" Orange called out.

  "Someone put us on this rock, there's got to be a way off." Brown replied.

  "Oh! What the fuck?!" Orange screeched while pulling out a shiv as something quickly flew by up above. "Hey, you know what? Fuck this. This is bullshit, man. I want a gun!" He turned to Blue. "Yo, you got two motherfucking guns!" He waved his hand at Blue who then pointed both firearms at Orange to keep him back. "Man, somebody give me a gun. Come on, Russian, you got a big fuckin' gun."

  Everyone just ignored his demands.

  "C'mon, man....give me a gun." Orange then lunged at Beads and held the makeshift knife to his throat. "Give me a gun. Right now." Beads, without saying a word, pressed his pistol to the bottom of Orange's chin.