Part 2
Burt's Power Wagon slid to a stop near the site of the two latest bovine victim's remains. Burt and Tyler climbed out of the cab, Burt stopping only long enough to grab his H&H mag rifle out of the back.
Burt surveyed the surrounding area carefully. "There's Harlowe's footprints," he pointed out to the younger man. "And Rosalita's." Then he turned to the multitude of animal tracks. "Those are coyote tracks... There's something strange about them, though. I just... can't put my finger on it." He sat on his heels to get a closer look.
They didn't make any more sense from there. He shook his head.
"They sure picked it clean," Tyler pointed out.
Burt nodded. "That bothers me. Coyotes aren't usually this neat."
"Sure were a lot of them, though." The area was covered with tracks.
"That's strange too. Coyotes don't run in packs this large." Burt surveyed the area, kneeling to get a closer look here and there. He finally came to a stop some yards away. "They took down the animal here," he said. "You can see how it struggled, tried to get away. It looks like... they swarmed it." He examined the area in ever-widening circles, and finally called Tyler over at one end of the field. "Over here!"
Tyler caught up to him as he mounted a gentle rise.
"Look here," Burt pointed out. "See the tracks?"
Tyler glanced down. "Looks like coyote tracks to me."
Burt shook his head, following the trail. "But they're all in a straight line. No deviation. Coyotes don't travel like that, they move side by side. If their prey is larger than they are, they'll surround it, but these... It looks like they stood in line to attack the cow, one by one." He came to a stop and sat on his heels when the tracks turned sharply, all of them, to the west. He looked up to Tyler. "Something's wrong."
He stood up and started walking. "Let's see where these lead."
They followed the trail until it intersected with other trails, all of them following a single line. "I don't like this," Burt declared.
Continuing, they came across several other trails, until all of them cumulated in a cave entrance.
Tyler started to approach the cave.
"Stand fast," Burt said, eying the cave suspiciously.
"Come on, Burt."
The older man shook his head. "I don't think so. Something's wrong with this. I'm not sure what it is, but I think I want some more firepower before we go in there." He turned and started back the way they'd come. "Let's go back to the truck."
"You've got a rifle," Tyler complained, following.
"There could be sinkholes, low ceilings. We'll need light too."
Burt stopped the truck close - but not too close - to the cave. "Whatever's in there, we don't want to disturb it prematurely." He reached in the back and pulled out the HKG3, then handed an M-16 over to Tyler with a flashlight. He affixed the LED head lamp over his hat. Thus armed, they crept up to the cave.
At first, there was nothing, just an empty cave. Though there were piles of fur scattered along the edges, there was no sign of the animals they'd pursued. "Remember," Burt cautioned. "These... coyotes took down a full sized cow. Be careful."
Tyler rolled his eyes. "I was there, Burt. I saw the cow."
They proceeded further into the cave and came to another chamber with several more openings leading from it. One side of the chamber was what looked like a larger pile of fur. It stirred.
"I'll be damned. He was right. They are coyotes," Burt whispered, making out heads and legs in the pile. "Five or six, maybe." He panned the light over the pile, looking for details.
"Something not right about those coyotes," Tyler pointed out.
Burt nodded, making the light on his head send crazy shadows around the room. He looked at Tyler and jerked his head toward the entrance. "Let's get out of here."
Slowly, they backed away. Just as they were about to round the corner to the first chamber, one of the heads lifted. It didn't make a sound, as Burt expected it to. Instead, it's ears pricked up and it turned an oddly-blunted snout toward the rest of the pile. Then there were six sets of eyes peering in their direction.
That's when Burt saw the first problem. "Those aren't ears," he said, pushing Tyler out of the cave. "They're antenna."
Before they'd reached the entrance, the coyotes were pouring out of the inner chamber, after them. Burt leveled his gun and fired, taking out the lead animal. Its body slammed into the one behind it, and the three or four following that one fell on them both. The rest just detoured over or around the pile.
Tyler fired twice from the hip, killing one and shooting one leg off another, but it kept moving.
Then they both fired once more and ran like hell.
"You drive!" Burt shouted, turning quickly to fire twice. He got two more, but by then there were a dozen swarming out of the cave.
They reached the truck, Tyler fired it up and took off, but they weren't out of the woods yet. Two of the animals leaped on the back of the truck. That's when Burt finally got a good look at them and figured out what had been bothering him all along.
Tyler took a turn and they lost one, but the other kept coming. Out of ammo, Burt took up Tyler's discarded M-16 and shot it point blank.
"There's gotta be two dozen of those things!" Tyler shouted, checking their status in the rear view mirror.
"And they've all got six legs," Burt pointed out grimly.