"Hal. Wake up," came the voice.
"Hm?" The dark-haired teenage boy raised his head and blinked sleepily at the blonde haired girl standing over him.
"It's time for patrol," she said. "Five minutes. Hurry."
"On my way," replied Hal, already sitting up and looking relatively alert.
Yawning, he swung his legs out of the cot he was sleeping on and began to lace up his boots. Reaching for his gun, he glanced at the photograph next to his jacket. He smiled as he saw his brothers and his father grinning into the camera. He touched it softly, then swung his automatic rifle onto his shoulder and tucked his handgun into his belt. As soon as he exited the tent, the blonde fell into step beside him. It was just beginning to grow light out and Hal concentrated on his feet so as not to trip.
"Are you ready?" he asked as they reached the gates. He lifted up his automatic in a ready position.
"Always am," replied Maggie, taking out her handguns as the gates swung open.
No longer concentrating on his feet, Hal was now scanning his surroundings as they made their way into the forest.
"I brought you something," Maggie continued. She handed him a napkin and he took it, neither taking their eyes off of the underbrush. Hal spared it a quick glance. It was two pieces of toast, the bread made out of oatmeal, which they never seemed out of.
"Thank you," he said gratefully. That was the worst thing about morning patrols. It was the only one that missed mealtime and Hal was always prompt to those, no matter what was on the menu.
"We can stop by the stream and eat," suggested Maggie. Hal agreed, not wanting to risk eating on the go as he knew it would become a distraction.
Everything was quiet, which wasn't unusual. No one had reported any signs of activity in the past few weeks. There were a few people who dared to hope that the Skitters (awful aliens that bore an unfortunate resemblance to gigantic spiders) and mechs (huge metal destroyers that looked like something out of a Star Wars movie) had moved on. Hal wasn't naive enough to consider that possibility, but he did expect a few weeks of peace at the very least.
"Don't forget to keep your eye out for anything that could be of use back at base," reminded Maggie after a while.
Hal nodded. Anne, their resident doctor, had told all the scouts to be on the lookout for any medicine they could find to replace her quickly dwindling supplies. And Captain Weaver, the commander of the 2nd Mass, reminded them all daily that anything that could be used as a weapon, no matter how bent out of shape, would be useful.
"There's the stream," pointed Maggie finally, about half an hour later.
Hal had tucked a few pieces of bent metal into his pockets and Maggie had found an old beer bottle, but other than that there hadn't been much out of the ordinary. There was a giant rock beside the running water and both Hal and Maggie sat down with a sigh of relief. It's not that they were tired- they had far too much endurance for that- but they were still thankful to sit and hear the silence. They sat back to back, a habit all the scouts had picked up quickly. They didn't want to leave any blind spots open in case that meant they missed something of importance.
Hal ate his breakfast enthusiastically while Maggie thoughtfully ate her own piece of bread. Neither were much for making small talk, especially not on patrols. Sometimes, it was nice just to hear the stillness. As Hal bent down to wash his hands off in the water, he stopped. Maggie felt him stiffen and was instantly on guard.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Blood," he replied shortly.
Maggie turned around and stared at Hal's feet. On the mud lining the water and the leaves on the ground were splatters of blood. There were inconsistencies where it looked like somebody- or something- had tried to cover the trail, but there was no denying the existence. Both Hal and Maggie followed the marks with their eyes until they couldn't see them anymore. Immediately both stood up and had their arms at the ready. They followed the trail cautiously, Maggie covering the left and Hal slightly behind her covering the right.
"It could be a trap," warned Maggie.
"I know," replied Hal quietly. "But the trail might be gone by the time we get backup."
"Look," said Maggie, clearly not paying attention to Hal. The trail of blood suddenly split, two different paths opening up. "One path was coming, one was going," she surmised.
"All right, but which was coming and which was going?" mused Hal.
"You take one, I'll take the other."
Hal nodded, taking the right trail. Maggie continued on, her ears open and her eyes alert. She came to a clearing and immediately turned in a circle, fearing she had walked straight into a trap. There was nothing except for silence to meet her. Slowly, she walked to the center of the circle. There she stared in horror. She had seen plenty of blood and was in no way squeamish. But the sight that greeted her was nowhere near pleasant.
Blood covered the ground to the point where her shoes were slipping in it. She fully expected to see a body lying there, the scene of a gruesome murder. But there was nothing except for a single tree with a knife stuck all the way through it, so that the blade poked out from the other side. Shiny red liquid, turning brown, was still dripping down the bark. Maggie hesitated, her morals conflicting with practicality. The practical nature in her won. After all, a knife was a knife. Grimacing, she yanked the knife out of the tree, keeping her gun elevated in case it was booby-trapped.
"What happened here," she murmured.
It couldn't be a skitter attack, because they left their dead and their attacks usually didn't produce that much blood. The blood was too fresh to have allowed for an animal to have dragged off the body. Mechs destroyed everything in their path and the foliage looked healthy enough. It could have been outlaws, but there were no signs of life reported from the other patrols.
Remembering Hal and the second trail, she slowly started to make her way back to the split. But a yell startled her into a run.
"Maggie!" came Hal's voice, clearly panicked.
He knew better than to yell, especially on patrol, for fear of alerting nearby Skitters. Which meant that something beyond that concern was occurring wherever Hal was. Maggie ran though the woods as quickly as she could, ignoring the branches slapping her face and arms. She hit the point where the trail split and then dashed along the other line. The whole time she was running, she prayed she wouldn't find Hal in trouble because while she was handy with a gun, there was only so much she could do without backup. This trail seemed less bloody, certainly less than she had found back at the clearing. She continued to follow the trail until she saw the back of Hal's jacket. He was on his knees in the middle of the forest, and she pointed her gun over his shoulder, afraid someone had a weapon trained on him.
"Hal?" she asked quietly.
He turned around, panic evident on his face.
"What is going on?" she asked, stepping closer. She walked forward until she could see what he was kneeling by and then her mouth dropped. She was even more bowled over than when she was in the clearing and that had been disturbing enough. Her eyes were horrified and she quickly came to Hal's side. She pointed her gun at the figure lying in front of him.
It was a girl, lying on her stomach with her face turned to the side. She had dark hair and looked to be of Asian descent. She was decently clean, all except for her back. Tough girl Maggie, who didn't even flinch at men dying or children screaming, had to steady her shaking hand. Headstrong Hal, who had seen men and women come back from battle with limbs torn off and yet still begged to join the fight, had to work hard not to vomit up his breakfast that Maggie had so kindly brought to him.
The girl's back was soaked with blood. It was no doubt where all of it in the clearing had come from. There was flesh sliced though, most of the cuts extremely deep. Hal was looking at it in a horrified fascination and Maggie looked closer, despite her strong desire to walk away. There seemed to be uneven sticks lying on her back and neck pointing upwards, but she couldn't tell much else. The girl was breathing, though just barely. Maggie was honestly surprised she had lasted that long. She didn't know much about medicine, but she knew enough to see red flags when it came to that much blood loss.
"Do we take her back with us?" asked Hal tentatively.
"Maybe we should go get your dad and Captain Weaver," replied Maggie, still staring at the girl.
"Yeah, that's probably a good plan," agreed Hal getting up, clearly eager to leave the gristly site.
"We can't leave her," admitted Maggie reluctantly after a moment. She wanted to leave as much as Hal, but she knew that it wasn't the right course of action. "She'll die by the time we get back."
Hal looked around. "You're right," he said, sounding slightly disappointed, wincing as he looked at her again.
A sound of movement suddenly came from the forest. Hal and Maggie froze, turning to each other. They moved back to back again, scanning the forest.
"Skitters," whispered Hal. Maggie spun around, following his line of sight.
"They must have heard you calling me," she murmured.
"Great," replied Hal, his eyes not leaving the aliens. "They haven't seen us yet, but they will soon."
As if on cue, the Skitter in the front lifted its head and stared at Hal. It made a clicking sound and the four around it looked up too. Maggie fired off a shot without another moment.
"Let's go!" she shouted.
"Catch!" shouted Hal back. He threw his automatic to her and she immediately fired off a round.
"What are you doing?" she said. "We need to go!"
"Hold them off. I need you to cover me!"
Pulling out his handgun, Hal raced over to the girl. She was still breathing but she was also still bleeding. Grimacing but trying not think about it too much and praying he wouldn't do more damage, Hal picked up the girl and swung her over his shoulder. His knees buckled and Maggie looked at him like he was crazy.
"Leave her! She's going to die. We need to go," she said urgently, shooting one Skitter but having four advance on her.
"What happened to 'we can't leave her'?" replied Hal, steadying the girl and getting his balance back. It wasn't that she was terribly heavy and he was a strong individual, but the sudden addition of weight plus the blood now trickling down his back threw him off center. "I got her, let's go," he said.
Instantly, Maggie turned and ran. Hal gave a parting shot, hitting another Skitter, before retreating as well. Maggie moved to the side and then around Hal so that she was behind him.
"What are you doing?" he called back.
"Covering you," came the reply.
"Just run! We're nearly to the gate."
"We're going to lead them straight to the community!" said Maggie, dread creeping into her voice.
"We're gonna have to kill all of them then. And hope there's a welcome party waiting for us at the gates."
He heard a shot and then Maggie say, "Three down, two left!"
"Just keep running!" he called back. His shoulder was getting sore and he hoped they would be at the gates soon. The girl was starting to get heavy and he felt vulnerable not being able to fight with the full range he would have had with two arms available.
"There it is," he called back to Maggie. The gate was ahead and Hal charged towards it, hearing Maggie doing the same.
"There are still two on our tail," she said. "But I think we lost them for a short while."
"That's not enough." Hal whistled through his teeth, a short piercing sound followed by a long one. Heads began to pop up behind the blockades and three men ran out to join him.
"What-" began one, staring at the girl on Hal's shoulder.
"Two Skitters behind us," said Hal, ignoring his companion's quiery. "We killed three already."
Without another word, the three men took off down the road, Maggie turning back around to join them.
"Hey, don't break my gun!" he called out after her, realizing that she still had his automatic.
"Hal!" came a voice from the gates. It belonged to a middle-aged man running out to meet him. "What in God's name is that?"
"Captain Weaver," acknowledged Hal. He nodded respectfully and then continued to walk, needing a place to put the girl down. "Where's my father?" he asked urgently.
"With Ben, in the medical trailer," replied Weaver.
"We found this girl," explained Hal. "There's blood all over her back, she needs help right away."
"Lourdes should be in trailer," said Weaver. "Get the girl in there and I'll find Anne."
He headed in another direction, leaving Hal to walk though the camp alone. None of the people paid much mind to him because, sad as it was, another dead or bleeding body wasn't much news to them anymore.
The exception was a man with long hair, surrounded by tough looking men, who called out, "Whatcha got there, Hal? Another lost puppy?"
"None of your business, Pope," replied Hal evenly without breaking his quick stride.
He reached the medical trailer and yanked open the door. Two boys were sitting on chairs in the back along with a man with a dark beard and a young girl wearing a doctor's coat.
"Hal," said the man, looking up. "Is everything okay?" he started to ask, worry on his face.
The girl wearing the coat saw the body over Hal's shoulder and she got up quickly.
"What do you have?" she asked, her voice urgent but even.
"Maggie and I found her on patrol," explained Hal. "Her back is completely torn up. She was bleeding out when we got there but we couldn't leave her-"
"Of course you couldn't," said Lourdes, breaking off the beginnings of his ramble. She quickly cleared off the table in the middle of the room and Hal gratefully set her down.
"It's messy," he warned her.
"I'll be able to handle it," she reassured him with a smile, but it faltered when she got a good look at the girl's back. "Where's Anne?" she asked, her eyes worried.
"Weaver went to get her," said Hal, but the man standing in the back interrupted him.
"Matt, Ben, why don't you two go see if you can find her before Captain Weaver does?" His voice was calm but his stance was rigid. Hal glanced at him, realizing he didn't want the two boys to see the girl.
"Okay, Dad," said the younger one. The other walked behind him, keeping a grip on his brother's shoulder. As the middle son passed by the girl lying on the table, he suddenly lifted his hand and touched the back of his neck in a smooth motion.
"Are you okay, Ben?" asked Hal, noticing.
"I'm fine," he replied, but he looked over at the girl on an impulse and suddenly wished he hadn't so he kept on walking.
The man watched his kids walk out of the door and then turned to Hal. "Did you find any Skitters?"
"Five," he replied, tearing his gaze away from Lourdes and the girl on the table. "Maggie and the others went after them. I think they heard me calling for her, so they're closer than we thought."
Before his father could reply, the door opened again and another woman walked in with Captain Weaver.
"What seems to be the problem Lourdes?" asked the woman briskly.
"Severe bleeding and blood loss. I can't see much else though all the blood. I'm trying to stop the bleeding but I can't get anything to work."
"Let me see," said the woman, coming over and hurriedly but carefully beginning to work with Lourdes.
"What do you think happened to her?" asked Hal, his voice shaking slightly.
"I don't know, Hal," replied Anne evenly. "Right now, my guess is as good as yours."