Greetings from Den Haag, and goddamn it is so much nicer here than my home in the UK. Makes the inevitable move easier to handle, though I guess I'll miss my friends and family. I'd better start practising Dutch.

The Pelanoi Accounts

Chapter Nine: Encounter in the Grasslands

The Survivors

They were dead on their feet, but they kept walking. To slow down would be to die, whether from the walking dead, the monsters that now infested the once paradisiacal island, or the mercenaries in black who seemed all too eager to fill them with holes bar one.

'So whose bright idea was this again?' Randolf asked wearily, using his battered, bloody boat paddle as a walking stick.

'Yours,' replied Ethan curtly, appearing even more cranky than usual.

'Any chance we can just take a small breather?' Leah asked herself aloud. 'It's not like we won't see anything coming; it's bright enough.'

Sema glanced around. The sun was beginning to crest the horizon, and the colourless dark was slowly giving way to sparse, illuminating rays of sunlight. The group currently travelled through grasslands that put the most picturesque spans of Africa to shame. It was also flat, open ground, and unless a man was crouching on all fours there was little chance of anyone passing through the plain without either party spotting the other. The tropical forest Randolf had pointed out loomed in the distance, and despite his initial assurances Sema couldn't help but feel a dread sense of foreboding.

Sema retrieved a transparent pouch from one of the pockets she hadn't filled with various other items from the gas station and inspected the contents. She frowned as she realised that she had used up almost all her herbs patching up the various scrapes and cuts everyone had received escaping the town. Sema scanned the earth but it was still too dark to make out anything beneath the tall grass which came up to their knees.

She made a mental note to look for more herbs when it got brighter, the tropical forest ahead would probably have a wide variety of medicinal plants she could put to use in the name of healing.

'Not a good idea,' Tiffany finally replied to Leah's earlier question, though she must have been aware as the rest of them that the young woman was only thinking aloud. No one had stopped trudging onwards, though Mary the British teen seemed to have fallen asleep on Nick's back. Sema spent a brief moment envying the luxury of sleep Mary presently enjoyed before her thoughts were dragged back to her own exhaustion.

'It works both ways, anything heading our way will be able to see us; monsters and mercs, and we don't have the firepower to take on either.'

'I know,' Leah groaned, rubbing her eyes with one hand.

'Don't suppose any of you is hiding a cup of coffee anywhere? Or anything with caffeine at all?' Cassidy asked. No one replied. 'I didn't think so,' she said with a yawn.

They proceeded the next dozen yards in silence until suddenly Randolf yelped in surprise. Suddenly alert (or as alert as they could be) everyone turned to him, weapons in varying states of readiness.

'What is it?' Tiffany asked quickly.

'I felt something touch my leg,' Randolf answered, shifting grass with his legs and holding his paddle over his head to bring it crashing down on any potential threat hiding in the grass.

A minute's tense silence passed, with the group holding a collective breath, keeping a watchful eye on the grass for any sign of unnatural movement. Finally everyone relaxed a fraction.

'You sure you felt something?' Tiffany asked.

'You think I'd kick up a fuss over nothing?' Randolf asked, incredulous. Tiffany gave him a pointed look and Randolf almost sighed in exasperation. 'Look, I'm a horn dog and I'd be one of the first to admit it but I'm no liar!'

'All right, all right,' Tiffany waved her arms in a placating gesture, 'look we're all pretty exhausted, maybe you just brushed a rock or a plant or something.'

Randolf nodded but anyone could tell he was far from convinced, both by the look on his face and the wary glances he was giving the grass at his feet.

At that moment, Mary stirred, roused by the commotion the adults had caused. She blinked sleepily, rubbing her eyes before she was finally awake enough to find out what the fuss was about. Movement just out of the corner of her eye drew her attention to her right. Peering intently at the spot she believed was the source of the movement, she caught what seemed to be a shimmer. It seemed almost to be in the shape of… no, she thought to herself, that couldn't be right at all, such a thing was impossible.

It was only the reminder that the dead now walked and monsters from her most horrific nightmares prowled the streets that made her suddenly cry out a warning.

At that point, the creature struck.

It was dozens of metres long and just under half a metre thick, thin enough to glide easily through the grass without anyone noticing unless it reared its scaly head. It appeared to be a snake at first, but the gaping jaw and the rows of dagger sharp teeth made many of the survivors wonder if there wasn't some lizard involved in its creation.

Had this particular specimen, dubbed 'Maw' for the way it seemed able to devour near most anything it had come across, encountered the survivors earlier in the outbreak on Pelanoi it would no doubt had slaughtered everyone present. While far from battle hardened however, the men and women had grown somewhat accustomed to the existence of strange, unbelievable creatures.

This experience saved their lives.

So when the beast struck, its gaping jaw the only visible part of the monstrosity, the survivors had leapt clear, learning early on that to waste precious seconds searching for the source of an imminent attack was to invite an early, messy death. The beast rushed past them, realising it had missed and slithering into the grass where its reflective hide concealed it entirely from view.

'Okay, what the fuck?' Randolf asked as he picked himself up before raising his paddle, placing it between himself and any harm from a front attack.

'What he said,' Ethan said as he scanned the grass with his one good eye.

'It was almost completely invisible until it opened its mouth, its skin probably consists of some properties with light-reflective capabilities,' Tiffany said, her handgun raised, though many doubted it would be too useful against such a creature unless she was particularly lucky.

'Those are some pretty big words GI Jane, I'm almost impressed,' Ellen snarled, taking her revolver out before remembering it was out of ammunition. Her lips curled in distaste as she holstered it and drew her combat knife, crouching into a low stance.

'Please everyone this is really not the best time for arguments,' Cassidy pleaded, both hands on her own gun.

'I'm rather inclined to agree,' Sema murmured, her eyes darting all over the grass, watching for the slightest hint of movement.

Sydney turned herself and clutched her bat tightly so as to cover Cassidy from behind; Kit placed himself close to the centre, ideally to allow him to assist whoever the snake creature attacked next. Leah took a similar position while Mary clung to Nick, her small hands white as she kept hold with all her might, and almost strangling the poor man in her fear.

They waited for a full minute. Two. Three. Then five with no further attack. The tension was almost palpable as the survivors jumped at movements caused by the light wind.

'Think it's gone?' Sydney dared to ask.

'Wouldn't count on it,' Randolf replied in a low voice, 'every time in the movies people think the monster's gone, it comes back and takes–'

Ethan suddenly fell over. He had time to yelp in surprise before he was winded by the sudden fall. Then he was being dragged away through the grass at an impossibly fast pace.

'Ethan!' Someone cried, but no one paid much attention as to who it was.

'Help me!' Ethan cried as he was dragged further away. The group sprang in his direction. Kit sprinted ahead, quickly putting some distance between himself and the rest of the group in his effort to save the beleaguered young man. He caught the vaguest movement in the corner of his eye before the tail of the snake monster slapped him in the face with the force of a sports bat. The impact took Kit off his feet and he crashed into the grass, groaning as he nursed his jaw. Tiffany sped by after giving him a worried glance, while Cassidy and Sydney paused to check on him and help him up.

Tiffany was a quick runner – her Marine training had not been for show – but she realised the monster was gaining ground. Racking her brain, she called out to Ellen in between frantic gulps of air:

'Ellen! You take it!'

'Why me?' Ellen demanded, and Tiffany hoped that she wasn't considering simply leaving Ethan to die at the jaws of the snake.

'You're the fastest runner out of all of us now get on it before we lose them both!'

Ellen continued at her previous pace before shaking her head and muttering several expletive curses before she shot off like a rocket after Ethan and the snake through the long grass. She caught up in moments and, judging she had a good enough lead, leapt with her knife at ready.

'You owe me for this Cyclops!' she bellowed. Fortune favoured her knife arm, and she drove the blade through photo-reflective scales and into the flesh beneath. Chilled maroon blood jetted out of the entrance wound and Ellen heard a baleful hiss. The snake suddenly jerked forwards and Ellen almost lost her weapon and the hand still clutching onto the blade as it pulled away. A series of pained grunts told Ellen that Ethan had been released. A few moments later he picked himself up, ruffled and covered in dirt, but alive.

'… thanks…' he said after a moment to collect his breath. Ellen seemed almost surprised he'd bothered to thank her at all, and tipped her head in acknowledgement.

The rest of the group caught up moments later, panting and out of breath.

'I don't know about you but I vote for getting out of this grass ASAP,' Randolf said in between tired pants.

'Yeah let's get on that right away,' Ethan said, dusting himself off and shaking out his battered body. 'Oh wait!' he said, spreading his arms outwards, making a show of observing his surroundings. The long grass stretched until it reached the canopy of the forest ahead of them and going back was certainly not an option.

'This sucks,' Sydney moaned.

'Tell me about it,' murmured Ellen, very much in accord with the teen, flicking a few strands of hair out of her face.

'Can we not stand here talking about how shitty our situation is and actually do something about it?' Nick asked, his tone a mixture of irritation and fear. Mary popped her head over his shoulder and nodded eagerly.

No one said anything, instead taking off collectively in the direction of the forest, as though convinced it might provide sanctuary from the monster.

They got no more than five metres when it attacked again.

This time however, they heard it coming. Perhaps it had sensed their urgency and decided that, now its cover was blown, it could simply strike with such overwhelming speed that the prey would be unable to react. Or perhaps it was driven to rashness by the pain it experienced at Ellen's hands. Regardless, the rustling of grass and the hiss of the enraged beast gave the men and women infinitely more warning than before.

The yawning maw of the beast sprang from the grass, the dagger teeth and darting forked tongue diving for Kit, who swayed to the side with barely a nanometre to spare him from a painful death. The monster continued its dive, slithering back into the grass, likely to turn and prepare for another lunge. The survivors kept running, lungs burning and limbs aching and protesting against the prolonged exertion.

'Nearly there! Keep going!' Sema gasped. The distance was indeed shortening, but there was still much grassland to cover before they reached the forest, and even then it likely would not provide them much in the way of safety.

The snake lunged again, tearing through the grass in front of the survivors, its slavering like a black hole that reeked of rotting flesh and blood. Ellen and Leah threw themselves aside, letting the monstrous reptile pass them without harm where it slunk off to prepare for another ambush.

Finally they made it. Thick, tall trees and dense foliage whipped against the men and women as they charged through the undergrowth. Even then however they didn't stop running. Randolf, who had somehow managed to make it to the front of the group, suddenly pointed forwards.

'There it is! Holy shit there it is!'

The sign told them they were now entering the Pelanoi Wildlife Preserve. Just a hundred metres further was a small compound where – if Randolf was correct – they would find some transportation to take them to New Rynns City. The sight of the building revitalised the ragged survivors and their pace increased as they tore towards the building like men and women possessed.

A slightly ajar door leading to a lobby teased the survivors with the tantalising promise of safety and Kit, the first one through, practically threw it open. Scanning for threats and seeing none, he ushered everyone else through before slamming it shut, twisting the lock and bracing a chair against it. Nothing followed them through but Kit was certain he heard a soft hiss. He waited for the inevitable attack, but it never came.

He turned to the rest of the survivors, most of whom were doubled over catching their breath.

'I really should have put more effort in when I did track,' Randolf gasped.

No one said anything in response, too breathless to muster up even the simplest of words. After a full two minutes everyone, upon some unspoken signal, picked themselves up and took stock of their surroundings fully. The lobby was small, a desk with information leaflets for tourists sat just before a set of double doors, with a single, bland metal door just a few metres down from this. A pool of dried blood that had seeped underneath the gap of the single door spread out for almost a metre from the door and, presumably, its source on the other side.

A clatter reverberated from somewhere deep within the building, and the survivors jumped at the sudden noise. Almost immediately afterwards a soulless moan that had become entirely too familiar to them filtered through winding corridors to reach their ears.

'It's never over on this place is it?' Ellen muttered bitterly.

One by one the men and women thrown together by chance picked up their weapons and prepared themselves for the march onward and the dangers that would follow.

The Mercenaries

'You sure? This looks like a fantastic spot for an ambush.'

'You asked me to look so I damn well did, and all the signs tell me they went this way,' Felix argued. Elias cast a clinical eye over the grasslands before them. They could have gone in almost any direction from here and but for Felix and Natalia's sharp eyes they might well have lost them entirely.

Unlike Natalia however, who simply told the situation as it was and accepted her orders without complaint, ensuring that they were carried out to maximum efficiency, Felix, he felt, was quickly becoming a liability. He had failed to so much as wound the prey in Ryder House and his attitude would have seen him discharged in a matter of weeks in the British Army. He wondered if he shouldn't have petitioned for a different choice in marksmen when he selected the dossiers Grant & Glukhovsky had given him.

He decided to give Felix one more chance to prove that he wasn't just dead weight. He'd figure out what exactly this chance would entail later. For now they had to catch up with the targets, which had evidently stopped off at a gas station earlier on, as some of the shelves lined with candy and other snacks appeared to have been raided. When he had noticed this he had thought back to Burke's claim that no one had passed him except for a group of undead. He shook his head, putting it behind him for now.

'Grey Team move out. Loose formation, ten metre spread. Anyone sees anything and I want to know about it before you start shooting.'

A chorus of 'yes sir's followed and the mercenary team stalked forwards, their weapons lowered but held in a way to allow the mercenaries to bring them up and lock onto a potential target in a heartbeat. The distant sounds of civilization being violently cast down were muted here, or maybe it was because everyone was dead. It mattered little, Elias' mission was to find and neutralise whoever had lifted the data from the Grant & Glukhovsky lab and make sure the data drive was reduced to atoms.

Burke and Jäger were either side of him as they advanced through the long grass. It was entirely so he could keep an eye on the two; the former for dissent regarding their mission parameters and the latter to check any insubordination.

The team continued forwards for several metres before Jäger held up a fist before pressing the scope of his rifle to one eye.

'Jäger?' Elias asked.

'Something moving ahead of us,' he replied, all business. Elias was almost impressed.

'What is it?'

'Not sure… looks… I can't explain it but I don't think it's human.'

'Kill it,' Elias commanded. Felix gave him a look before steadying his breathing. Finally he squeezed the trigger and the PSG1 rifle roared. A spurt of dark blood and an inhuman hiss of agony rewarded Felix's efforts. The grass about fifty metres ahead rippled with sudden movement which grew rapidly closer with each passing moment. Whatever Felix had shot, it was still alive and it was coming for them.

'Grey Team, possible BOW contact at twelve O'clock! Forty metres! I want a killzone two minutes ago!'

Grey Team sprang into action in the time it takes a man to blink. Weapons were raised and within moments they chattered to noisy life, shredding through the grass and perforating whatever monstrosity was headed their way with bullets of all calibres.

'Cease fire!' Elias bellowed and the noise abruptly stopped. An unsettling silence descended upon the grasslands that Elias had always associated as the calm after a particularly brutal storm.

No one moved for a minute, their eyes scanning the grass for any further movement. Elias turned his head towards Alaina and motioned for her to move up. Nodding, the Irish mercenary racked her shotgun and took several cautious steps forward; sweeping her weapon side to side every few seconds in case whatever it was they had shot at wasn't dead.

She stopped after stalking forwards a dozen metres. She turned to the rest of Grey Team and signalled that their target was dead. Elias approached her position with his own weapon lowered. The rest of Grey Team wasn't far behind.

'What was it?' Elias asked.

'Got no idea,' Alaina replied, her brogue as thick as ever. 'Thing's fucking invisible. Only saw it cause of all the bullet wounds leaking blood all over the place.'

Elias trailed his gaze over the bullet wounds that seemed to float in mid-air… no, not quite. If he concentrated he could make out a slight shimmer, which was likely the hide of the BOW (for there was nothing else this thing could possibly be). It appeared to be fairly long; Elias estimated around ten metres. From what he could tell it looked like some kind of hideously enlarged snake. He spent a further minute observing the lifeless carcass before he turned to give the order to move on again.

A soft hiss made him spin around, and he caught sight of what was most certainly a lizard's yawning maw, filled with teeth and wide enough to swallow him whole, which Elias believed was its goal. He dived to the right and the BOW shot past him, disappearing into the grass before the rest of Grey Team could react.

The mercenaries scrambled into a defensive circle with weapons facing outwards, eyes watchful and alert for any sign of the other creature. The hissing returned but it seemed louder. Felix cursed in his native German.

'Jäger?' said Elias, an expectant note to his voice.

Felix's eyes darted all over the grasslands that extended before him, his long-barrelled PSG1 was still clutched tightly in his hands and his lips were curled into a distasteful snarl.

'Listen,' he urged. Elias shook his head, unclear as to what the sniper was getting at. All he could hear was that damned hissing.

'There's more than one of them…'

-X-

No end of chapter author's note this time except to tell you that I'm entering my exam period soon and those of you in education will probably be in similar circumstances. Don't imagine many of you were expecting quick updates anyway but this will put a dent in any free writing I do for a while.

Otherwise, enjoy, read and rate. Constructive criticism is always welcomed.

Zips out.