“It’s in his fucking blood?!”

“He was going to kill them! What else should he have done?!”

The group was still trying to come to grips with the situation even as they made their way back to the Humvee. After some time, they’d managed to parse what happened with Adams.

Summers’ blood was toxic, that was the only conclusion that made sense. Cortez and Nowak had seen what Adams was about to do. And when it came down to it, there were no good options.

They’d long ago left the city behind them, no guards had followed them on the road back to their Humvee, but time would tell if that would last.

Adams’ body laid in the back of the wagon. They’d covered his head with a blanket.

As they spoke, they each looked at Summers, a mix of emotions on their faces.

Summers ignored them.

“He said he had a family, right?”

They arrived at the Humvee a few hours later. The group had settled into an uncomfortable silence. Summers didn’t question his decision. He’d only really known Adams for a few weeks, but he seemed like a good kid. If he had the choice, he knew that Adams would have approved.

There was no telling how much damage he could have done, how many innocent lives he could have taken. Hell, Adams could have killed them, if he’d gotten lucky.

He knew Adams would have approved because he’d seen what that guilt did to people. He’d seen how many of his friends took their own lives because of some stupid mistake they’d made years before. He wondered if this would be the one that he’d look back on, if he got home. Maybe he wouldn’t be so sure of himself by then.

“Shotgun.” Nowak called over as he approached the Humvee.

“Yeah, yeah.” Summers ignored the man’s attempt at humor and reached for the first branch covering the Humvee.

“There’s a shotgun!” Nowak repeated.

Something in his voice made Summers stop, and he noticed the trip wire tied to the branch in his hands, and the barrel of the shotgun pointing at his head. Slowly, ever so slowly, he put the branch down.

The others stared at him with worried expressions.

“I’m going to sit down for a bit.” Summers moved off. He needed to get his head straight.

“I shouldn’t have let him get loose.” Nowak said before Summers could move off.

“If -.” Summers started but Nowak cut him off.

“If Cortez or Logan had been paying attention to what was happening in the back and helped us.”

“Sarge…” Cortez tried to interject.

“If I’d seen this shit coming. And I should have.” Nowak continued. “We all could have done better. Should have done better. I didn’t know the kid that well, but if nothing else we can make sure this shit doesn’t happen again.”

“We can always take the Humvee back and finish the job.” Cortez ventured.

“The guys that tried to rob us are dead, right?” Logan looked at Cortez skeptically. “You really want to take it out on a bunch of farmers and grunts?”

“Just a thought.” Cortez replied.

Part of Summers agreed with the sentiment. The other part knew just as well as she did that it was childish.

He saw Nowak exit the Humvee with a helmet, it was the same that held the dog tags of the fallen 63rd. Summers moved to Adams’ body, and added his tag to the pile.

He took a moment to stare down at Adams’ ruined head. Dead eyes staring directly into Summers’.

“So… What do we do with the body?”

Summers woke early the next morning. He’d spent most of the night digging a grave.

He sat up, intent on getting back to work. But as he made his way over, he saw Adams staring back at him. Actually staring, the eye was following him.

He froze for a moment before something darted out of Adams’ skull. Followed quickly by a dozen others like it.

“What in the fresh fuck?!” Summers yelled.

His hand came up just in time to catch one of the insects as it lunged at his face. It fell apart in his grip. That was… fast.

The rest of the insects were already far in the distance by the time Nowak and the others found him.

“What the hell were those?” Nowak asked.

“Fucking bugs. Lot’s of fucking bugs.” Summers managed, tossing the corpse to the ground.

“Skeen.” Asle corrected.

They all looked at her, then looked at the bodies of the insects on the grounds.

“This is the shit that makes skinwalkers?” Summers asked.

Asle nodded.

Cortez looked at the scene, at the insect that had recently vacated Adams’ head. “If I go out, just burn me on the spot.”

They buried Adams without ceremony. A shallow grave in the forest, that was the best any of them could hope for. The presence of skinwalkers likely meant that there was something like the shambling moss around. Between that and anyone looking for them after their exit from the city, they felt the need to get on the road sooner rather than later.

And without the need to hide themselves, they had little use for the wagon. The cow, Tank, was set free of his reins. Summers half expected it to run off on its own, but it just stayed in place.

“Think it’ll find its way back to the city?” Cortez asked.

“Maybe. It knows the road.” Summers answered. As they hopped into the Humvee, he noticed Tank’s head perk up. It fell in behind them, just as it usually did.

“Or maybe not.”

They took the long route around the city. Tank had followed them the entire way, stopping for a few minutes only to catch up as they circumvented the many obstacles in their nonexistent path. They’d avoided roads for a solid three days before they decided to risk heading back to the main highway.

And the first thing they saw were a group of elves in the distance. They were wearing guard’s uniforms.

“Shit.” Nowak muttered.

The group took one look at their Humvee and legged it in the other direction.

“We can probably run him down.” Summers ventured.

“No, not like they’d know us from the Humvee. More likely we just scared him.”

“We heading back off the road, then?” Cortez suggested.

“Probably for the best. I don’t want to deal with the locals any more than I have to. Not until we’re at least off the main road.” Nowak ducked back into the Humvee and Summers shifted the wheel.

It was going to be a bumpy ride.

“I can’t feel my ass.” Logan said, rubbing at his backside.

The trip had not been a pleasant one. Unlike the forest they’d started in, the ground here was uneven, with more rock than actual ground. The already worn shocks of the Humvee weren’t doing much to help, either.

“We won’t have to deal with it long.” Nowak replied. He had a map in front of him, one adorned with something like gold leaf. While it was clearly more professional than the crude map they’d found in the abandoned village, it still left them wanting for things like landmarks. “There’s a small trade route that heads to the coast up ahead, we’re going to have to cross to it eventually, it looks like it’s the only path through the mountains.”

“That far enough from the city?” Summers looked at the map.

“Should be, if it’s not I doubt they’ll be coming in any force.”

Summers glanced over at Cortez who was taking two suitcases out of the back of the Humvee. She was smiling. “Sarge what’s Cortez doing?”

“We used all the claymores, so I told her to get creative.”

“Uh huh. And what’s in those suitcases?”

“C-4.”

“We have C-4?”

“A couple blocks of it. Demolition charges I think.”

“And you don’t see any problems with this?” Summers watched as Cortez began running a wire towards the mouth of the cave.

“Worked pretty well the first time. Besides, she said she’d hook it up to a detonator, so we don’t have to worry about the cow or a squirrel tripping it by accident.”

“Uh huh.” Summers knew better than to complain at this point. “Mind if I take a walk?”

Summers wandered around the forest outside. The rain didn’t bother him, if anything it was kind of a relief not to be able to smell everything around him for once. He still wasn’t used to the sensation, and it only seemed to be getting worse.

As he walked Summers saw something like a small creature in the distance, it looked like some sort of lizard that walked on its hind legs. It quickly scurried off at the sight of him.

“Huh.”

Tank was grazing idly nearby, digging at the ground beneath it looking for something to chew on. The damn thing had been able to keep up with them, despite everything. Still, it wasn’t like he was bothering anyone, so they just let it be. They figured the Humvee would get them to the coast on the gas they had left, but just in case they were wrong, it was nice to have Tank as a backup.

He stayed like that a while, just trying to get his thoughts straight. He’d known coming into this that getting home was going to be a longshot, they weren’t even technically out of Alaska yet, he wondered how many more of them would die before the end of this.

Then the rustling of leaves and snapping of branches caught his attention, he heard something coming their way. Tank must have heard it too, the cow’s head instantly snapped up, then a set of enormous jaws closed around it.

Summers stifled the scream that was building in his throat. Tank, or what was left of it, let out a yelp before the creature holding it slammed its head into a nearby cliff, crushing it.

Summers ducked behind the trunk of a tree. The creature itself was massive, it stood maybe thirty-five feet tall, with a mouth that seemed to reach far into what should be its neck. It was as if someone tried to cross an alligator with a t-rex. It raised its head and let Tanks remains slide back into its throat.

Summers stood absolutely still, hoping he’d be overlooked. Then he heard one heavy footstep come towards him. Then another.

He didn’t wait for the third. Summers tossed a grenade, then ran.

The explosion resounded behind him. Summers had hoped that it would confuse the creature long enough for him to get away. The roar of pain that erupted moments later was probably an indication he’d just pissed it off.

“What the fuck happened to you?” Nowak looked at Summers, concerned.

The rest of the group stopped what they were doing, the cave silent as Summers fought to catch his breath.

“Fucking. Big. Monster.”