Cry Havoc (16 page)

Something caught Tanner’s attention.  It wasn’t so much a sound or smell.  In fact, everything about the forest seemed just as it had been moments earlier.  No, this was more of a
feeling
– a cold certainty that puckered his ass and plunged him back into predator mode.

Someone’s out there.

He could feel the eyes piercing his soul, pinpointing him with a hatred so intense that it penetrated his white suit and bristled the hair on the back of his neck.  The swell of pride that puffed out his chest dissipated as quickly as smoke in a windstorm, leaving him feeling exposed and vulnerable.  The rifle snapped back to his shoulder and he ducked behind the trunk of a gnarled oak.

Pressing himself against the bark as tightly as the fuzzy vines that encircled it, he peered around the edge of the tree and scanned the forest.  The carcasses of the two Spewers were still jumbled in the same heap he’d left them in, entirely motionless and definitely incapable of the rage felt beaming toward him.  The forest beyond consisted of tightly packed trees on undulating, grass-covered knolls.  Ferns and toadstools sprouted from the forest floor and mossy stones pushed their way through the earth like the crowns of enormous, misshapen heads.  He watched the overgrown thickets, the deadfalls of decaying limbs and branches, and low lying shrubbery.  Nothing moved.

The only sound was the thudding of his own heart as blood coursed through veins that felt as though they’d constricted into something no bigger than a pine needle.  Tanner’s instincts screamed
danger
and part of his mind babbled that he should run, to just leave the dead Spewers to the insects and crows and bolt through the woods like a spooked deer.  Somewhere out there, among the pristine flora, death awaited.  He was as sure of this as he was that the couple he’d killed would never infect a settler again.

Taking a deep breath, Tanner tightened his grip on the rifle until his knuckles throbbed with the frantic rhythm of his pulse and repeated the Sweeper mantra in a trembling whisper:  “I will do my duty to my family and community.  I will serve mankind and cleanse the world of blight.  I will lay down my life so that others might live.  I will do my duty to my family and community ….”

A Sweeper was not expected to be fearless.  They were simply expected to do what needed to be done despite cold chills and a palpitating heart.  To tilt the scales more toward
fight
than
flight
, the mantra was the first tool a prospective Sweeper was given.  It was drilled into his head along with multiplication tables and the history of civilization.  It was said, like a prayer, before bedding down for the night.  It was whispered as a greeting to another day of life upon awakening.  And it was effective.  Within four repetitions, Tanner’s breathing had calmed to the point that he no longer felt as if the Tyvek suit were squeezing the air from his throat.  By the sixth recitation, his hands were so steady he could’ve disposed of sweating dynamite.

I love you, Shayla.  This is for you, princess.

With that thought, he stepped out from behind the tree to face whatever the Fates might have in store.

# # #

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