Nasty Little F___ers-Kindle (2 page)

Chapter One

Northern Maine,

Somewhere in the woods of Aroostook County

“Damn,” Colby muttered under his breath. “They just keep buzzing around the computers, like bees.” He squatted by the empty tent, his thick, muscled arms folded against his chest, and watched the scientists scurry around the site like ants with nothing better to do. He reached up and rubbed the stubble on top of his head.
Getting long
, he thought. He’d need to shave his scalp again soon. They’d been out here for two weeks already, and still had another week to go before the Department of Wildlife would send out the Huey to pick them up. The group was tracking the supposed deforestation and dwindling wildlife of the area. Pete Anzer, the director of the department, wanted to know if the forests were truly shrinking or if it was all just a bunch of hooplah the EPA wanted to pass off as fact.

Colby was about as un-environmentally sympathetic as a guy could get, and while Anzer wouldn’t normally rely on someone like him to lead a team whose purpose was so green-friendly, Colby knew the director wanted a military man in charge, just in case things got hairy. Anzer interviewed several possible candidates to guard the team of geeks on their trip. Since Colby was an ex-marine, strong, smart, good with a rifle and most importantly, willing to work cheap, he got the job.

The other people on the team were all environmental experts in one field or another – Colby never could keep all that science shit straight – and not one of them had ever fired anything more dangerous than a water pistol. But the woods of Northern Maine could be very unforgiving, especially if a hungry cougar or bear came to pay this mobile buffet a visit. If anything came at them from out of the trees, they would likely all end up dead, and Anzer knew it. He wanted to make sure they got home alive. That was Colby’s job; get them home safe, and he’d do his damndest to see to it.

Until today they hadn’t run into anything more dangerous than a hungry chipmunk. Jared had shooed it away and the rest of the expedition went on to work as normal. Taking measurements, removing samples, looking at their laptops, which stayed plugged into the gas-powered generator. That’s all the scientists did, it seemed to Colby. Scurry, measure, scurry, measure, then scurry some more. All the while churning gasoline exhaust into the very forest they were supposed to be protecting. Go figure.

But this particular morning was different. Jared - who did something with computers, but Colby never knew what - turned up missing. Just like that. He was there the night before when the team hit their tents, but the next morning his sleeping bag was empty as a wino’s pocket. Allen, Jared’s tent mate, hadn’t seen or heard anything at all, and they all figured Jared must have woken up in the middle of the night to take a leak and gotten himself lost.

But there weren’t any tracks. Not one. He looked all around the tent and didn’t see a single crushed leaf or bent twig. Nothing. It was as if the man just up and disappeared from inside the tent. That wasn’t necessarily reliable, of course, as the ground around the clearing was full of dried pine needles and dead leaves, all of which blew with the breeze and could easily shift during the night to cover any evidence of a person’s passing. Colby sighed in frustration as he ducked into the tent and checked out Jared’s sleeping bag. He unzipped it to look inside and that’s when he saw it. Blood. Not a lot of it. Not much more than a few drops, in fact. But it was there, all right, and it gave him the willies. He poked his head out through the tent flap.

“Allen, come here,” Colby called.

“What is it?” Allen asked, shuffling over. He was short, pale, and thick. Thirtyish, with thinning brown hair and blue, twitchy eyes that never seemed to stay in one place for more than a few seconds. Humpty Dumpty with a nervous disorder. He ambled up to Colby with a blank expression on his chubby, stubble-lined face.

“Look at that,” Colby replied, pointing out the blood.

“Is that what I think it is?”

“It’s blood, Allen. You sure you didn’t hear or see anything last night?”

“No, not a thing.” Allen seemed a little edgy. Maybe he just couldn’t take the sight of blood. Or maybe it was knowing he’d been sleeping right next to it that creeped him out. Colby never got a chance to ask, because after a moment Allen continued. “Jared did get a nosebleed last night, but it was just a small one.”

“Nosebleed, huh?”

“Yeah, he gets them all the time. It’s a weak lining in his nasal—”

“That’s enough,” Colby said. “I don’t need the medical details.”

“Oh, but it’s fascinating,” Allen began, his eyes glinting with excitement. “Jared’s nasal cavity is truly unique. The mucous lining is—”

“Very interesting,” Colby said, and left the tent, leaving Allen sputtering and staring at the two tiny spots of Jared’s blood.

It didn’t take long for the rest of the group to learn blood had been found in Jared’s sleeping bag, and a wide array of speculation cropped up. The theories ranged from Jared had gotten another nosebleed and wandered out in search of a towel to he’d been abducted by a hungry bear. Colby pointed out that there were no signs of a bear anywhere else in the camp, and that bears don’t usually take people from their tents in the middle of the night. A hungry bear would go for the food supply and leave the campers alone unless they startled it.

“You sure?” Allen asked. “A bear could be attracted by the smell of blood.”

Colby shook his head. These guys were all supposed to be naturalists? You’d think at least one of them would have some sense. “A bear isn’t a shark. It would go for the easiest food first.”

The group discussed their options for a few minutes, and then Harper suggested they form a search party. Colby agreed, but the rest of the group was split. Some of them wanted to look for Jared, some wanted to keep working, and Allen wanted to look for bear shit.

“If a bear ate him, there would be evidence in its feces,” Allen pointed out.

Colby managed not to punch the fat scientist, but just barely.

In the end they compromised; the guys who wanted to keep working did so, and the rest went out into the woods to find Jared. Allen elected to stay behind, as well, since he didn’t have the faintest idea what bear shit looked like. Colby said a quick thank you to the sky and grabbed his gear.

They started by circling the camp, looking for tracks. After a complete circuit with no sign, they widened their area. In this way they spiraled out from the camp for several hours with nothing to show for it. Then, about 100 yards into the woods, Harper found a patch of bloody ground with a piece of fabric in it.

Colby picked up the fabric and examined it. It looked like a piece of a sock. Did Jared sleep in his socks? Allen might know, but Colby wasn’t about to go back and ask him. They started the spiral search over, this time using the bloody patch of dirt as the center. After just a few circuits Colby found the rest of the sock, as well as a shoe. The shoe was a Timberland boot, and it looked an awful lot like Jared’s, right down to a stain near the toe where he’d spilled coffee on it a few days before. Jared had had a fit, whining about how expensive his new boots were. Colby had smiled and tuned him out, but he’d seen the stain, and now he saw it again. He reached down and picked up the shoe. It felt very heavy, and when he turned it over, he saw why.

Jared’s foot was still in it. It terminated just above the ankle in a ragged, bloody stump. A stream of blood poured out as he turned it over again, like dumping out a flat soda.

Besides Colby, there were four other guys present when he found the foot: Harper, Moretz, Bock, and Steinman. Of the four, only Bock kept his breakfast. The rest of them bent over and retched at the sight of the dismembered foot. The bugs had gotten to it, but it was too soon for the maggots to start. As it was, flies crawled all over it, sampling it and laying their eggs in the skin, with little or no regard for the giant humans who stood around them. Even when Colby gave the foot a little shake to try and scare the flies away, most of the little bastards didn’t give up their turf. Several drops of blood sprayed out and splattered Bock and Harper on the chest and face. Harper retched again – Colby wondered how he still had anything left in his stomach – but Bock just glared.

“Great idea, dipshit!” Bock snapped, wiping at the blood on his face with a piece of cloth from his pocket. Colby lowered the foot and placed it into a plastic bag. He didn’t bother to respond.

“Ready to go back?” Colby asked the group.

Bock and Moretz nodded, but Harper was still bent over behind a bush. He sounded like he was choking on his own tongue, but managed to give a thumbs up.

“I think he needs a minute,” Moretz said.

***

Back at camp, Colby announced his discovery to the rest of the team. He showed them the foot, and, as expected, several of them vomited all over the camp. Colby kept quiet. What was with these science types? They spend their whole day carving up dead animals for experiments and then they get all squeamish at the sight of a dismembered human foot. Not one of them (with the possible exception of Bock) would have lasted a week in the military. Colby’s Drill Sergeant would have eaten them alive and served their remains to the recruits.

After puking his guts up, Edison, a chubby little botanist from Encino, grabbed his cell phone and tried to call for help. Useless. Colby could have told him there wouldn’t be a signal out here. His own phone wasn’t even on; he knew better. Edison stared at the No Signal icon on the faceplate and swore.

“Damn it,” Edison said. “I knew we should have brought a sat phone!”

Colby knew it, too. He’d told Anzer the same thing prior to disembarking, but the fucker refused, saying the group wouldn’t be gone long and he really couldn’t afford to give them one. Which meant they were on their own for the next week.

“Well, we didn’t,” Colby said, “So there’s nothing we can do about it.”

Edison glared at him. Colby tensed, not wanting trouble within the team if he could avoid it. He didn’t particularly want to beat the shit out of Edison, but the situation had just gone from bad to very bad, and he couldn’t afford to coddle anyone. He needn’t have worried; Edison soon cooled off and turned back to his workstation, flicking a glance at Janice as he did so. Colby thought he saw a glint of something strange there. Jealousy? Anger? No matter. He had more important things to worry about.

Colby went into his tent and grabbed his rifle. He also grabbed his .45 auto and two extra clips for both. He stepped out of the tent while stuffing the .45 and extra clips into his belt and slinging the rifle over his shoulder. Upon exiting, he pointed at Edison, Allen, and the last member of the team – and only woman – Janice. “You three start packing up the camp, this expedition is officially over. Bock, Harper, Steinman, and Moretz, you’re with me. We’re gonna see if we can find the rest of Jared.”

“Fuck you. I’m not going out there.”

It was Moretz. Colby looked at his unusually pale face and thought the poor bastard might faint any minute. He considered his options, then realized Moretz probably wouldn’t be much help anyway. Short and painfully slight, Moretz would have trouble lugging the supplies he’d need on a hike, let alone battling a man-eating whatever. Colby looked at the olive skinned man and nodded.

“Ok, Moretz,” Colby said. “You stay here and help pack up the camp. Anyone else want to stay?”

Steinman raised his hand as though he were in a classroom. He didn’t look much better than Moretz, but he was big and burly, with arms almost as big around as Colby’s. Colby hated to lose him, but he couldn’t exactly put the .45 to the guy’s head and force him to come along.

“Fine. You stay, too. How about you Harper? Bock? You guys coming?”

Both nodded, and Colby breathed a sigh of relief. He really didn’t want to go out there by himself, and was especially glad to have Bock along. Bock was tough, strong, and he could keep his head in a crisis. Colby wasn’t sure what Bock did for a living, but for a scientist he was surprisingly sturdy, and would look more at home in an MMA fight than behind a computer screen. Harper was okay, too, but for the most part he was just an extra body. Strength in numbers, and all that.

They were ready to leave by 3pm. All of them carried enough food and water for two days, sleeping bags, spare clothes, and matches. Bock even brought one of the tents along.

“It’s the bugs,” he said. “I can’t stand the little bastards.”

Colby didn’t argue. Besides, he was right, the woods in high summer are usually swamped with millions of biting, crawling, and stinging insects. Who wanted to get eaten alive by mosquitoes? Especially when there was something bigger out there to do it.

“Fine,” Colby said. “You guys ready?”

Bock and Harper both nodded.

“OK then. Let’s go find Jared.”

“Watch out for bears,” Allen called out.

Colby grunted and turned his back on the camp.

“If you find any bear feces, bring some back, would you?”

Colby ignored him and stepped into the woods, Bock and Harper trailing behind him. In all the excitement, Colby forgot to grab the radios. Anzer had given them eight Motorola two-way radios so the team could talk to each other in case they got separated. The small devices were light, portable, and tough, designed to withstand the rigors of a hike. Up until that morning, they’d had no reason to use them, and he forgot they were there. So when Colby, Bock, and Harper left camp that day, they went without having any means of communicating back to the others, or vice-versa.