She had faith.
4
PREDATOR AND PREY
Sarah returned to the forest the next morning at sunrise. The sun was just starting to seep down through the canopy above the small woodland creatures scurrying around, their faint noises the only things audible aside from the peaceful and gentle breeze.
Sarah had an M16 slung over her shoulder, a Sig Sauer on her hip, a canteen of water for the long trek ahead, and a pair of running shoes tied by their laces to the back of her jeans that she would wear after trudging through the watery tunnel in and out of the lab with her brown boots. She didn't know where they would be going, but Ron told her to prepare, and so she did.
She skirted around the hill toward the entrance to the tunnel in the little valley, but before she got there, she heard her name suddenly dart out from somewhere behind her. She stopped and spun around.
Trevor, the scientist she met the day before with the curly mess of blond hair on his head and the short yet wild beard, leaned against a tree—a tree she had just passed by—and she didn't even notice him. He held a smirk on his face. "No need to head in the lab today. We're going to get an early start right now."
"So where are we going, anyway?" she asked.
"Nowhere yet," he replied. "You won't be needing all that stuff, either." He pointed to the gun on her shoulder and the canteen on her waist.
"Ron said we're going to get some camera today," she said, confused.
"Little change of plans," he said. "We'll get that another day. I was talking to Ron about you and he told me a lot of your history and what you've done. Very impressive."
"Thanks, but I don't do it for the flattery," she said.
Trevor pushed himself off the tree and approached her. He didn't have any of the weaponry on his person like she did; in fact, all he appeared to have was a knife and a little pouch around his waist. "He tells me you've survived a lot. And you're very good at beating the odds."
"I do okay."
"Also tells me you're a little loud about it—rough around the edges."
Sarah felt the same annoyance that she usually did with Ron. "Oh he did, huh?"
"I told him I wanted to take a day to work with you first and see what you can do."
"I can handle myself just find, in case you don't know." Sarah felt quite indignant at what he was getting at, especially since she hadn't the slightest clue what his qualifications were to be talking to her like that.
"Let's not get off on the wrong foot here; no one's questioning your abilities. But I have it on good authority that when you get the job done, you make a big ruckus," he said, stretching his thumb and forefinger away from each other like a measurement. Then he narrowed his fingers so they were almost touching. "We want... little ruckus."
Sarah thought back to Ron's comments when they made their way through the tunnel. It was something she never really gave any thought to. Her modus operandi was always taking things as they came to her and dealing with them the best she could. And while she was still annoyed, she was willing to hear him out. "What have you got in mind?"
"We all know Jack Glass very well. He's far better equipped and more organized than we are, and the things we're about to do will involve some interaction with his forces. We've come so far on this project that we can't afford any mistakes and we can't bring any attention to ourselves. So we'll need to rely on stealth."
"Stealth?" she asked. "That doesn't sound like a big deal."
"You any good with it?" he asked.
She thought about it. "No one's really trained me in any of this," she said. "I've done okay with ambushes and combat, but I've never had to sneak around too much."
Trevor nodded. "Then let's get started." He motioned for her to follow him and the two of them headed away from the lab to another part of the woods.
They came to a hill that descended down into a clearing. Thick grass covered the ground in the treeless area, and various other forms of underbrush swayed gently in the breeze.
"First we'll try a little hunting," he said. "I'm a hunter myself... been one for my whole life."
"So you know how to sneak up on things, then," Sarah surmised.
He nodded. "To be honest, I would consider myself the runt of our scientific community in terms of accomplishments and intelligence. The others are like shining galaxies compared to me in our field. But I make up for it in other ways, namely being our security. If we need something collected, secured, or something taken out, I'm the man for the job. And I've done okay, but I could use a little muscle backing me up." He looked at her missing arm. "Ron mentioned you were injured. Pretty impressive hearing about you breaking into that base, though."
"And I snuck in, too," she reminded him.
"Only until you got there, as I hear it. Then all hell broke loose."
"All right, all right, you've made your point," she said. "Show me what you've got."
Trevor instructed her to crouch with him behind a tree at the edge of the clearing. For the longest time they waited, and eventually Sarah asked him what they were doing. But he simply pressed his forefinger to his lips and then whispered for her to never say a word. His gaze turned back to the clearing and they waited. They waited until Sarah's muscles and bones started to ache, but Trevor was perched there like a statue, motionless. Eventually, his head perked up as if he noticed something.
"Wind direction's changed," he said. "Let's move."
They circled the clearing and found a new hiding spot to wait and observe. After another unknown but seemingly forever period of time, Sarah saw Trevor's eyes narrow.
A deer strolled through the far side of the clearing, coming out from the trees and burying its head in the grass. It munched then raised its head up and looked around, seemingly none the wiser about their presence. When it wandered over and found some weeds and vines at the base of a nearby tree and became firmly engaged in its meal, Trevor began to stir. His upper body rose like a machine in one perfect movement. He looked at Sarah and whispered, "Wait here."
As he left the cover of the tree and Sarah watched, she saw for the first time that he actually wasn't wearing any shoes; his bare feet, covered in dirt and grime, slowly glided through the air, one by one, and felt the ground in front of them very carefully before committing to a footstep. He came up from directly behind the deer, his torso staying locked to his target. His head was twisted ever so slightly to the side, as if he was staring at something just next to the deer, and he slowly moved toward it, step by step.
The creature wasn't aware of his approach, happily munching on its food for the day. Sarah wasn't sure what Trevor's plan was with the deer; he didn't remove his knife from his sheath, nor did he take anything out of his pouch. He just walked. He took his time. And when he was only a few paces away from the deer, still not discovered, he continued on in no hurry at all. The deer's head was still buried in the ground by the time he walked up right behind it. He slowly stretched an arm out to the deer like it was moving through Jell-O. Then he gently placed his hand on the deer's ribs and his fingers briefly brushed its fur.
The deer's head shot up and twisted around, violently pulled out of its happy daze. In the next instant, it bucked and took off running, and with another blink of the eye it was out of sight like it had never been there in the first place.
Trevor turned around and looked at Sarah with a smile. He trotted back to her. "Look easy enough?" he asked.
Sarah stared at him in disbelief. "How the hell did you do that?"
"Practice," he said. "Here, take off your boots." He pointed at a nearby tree. "Just leave them there for now; you can pick them up when we get back. Take off the rifle, too. Anything rattling around will give you away." Sarah did as he said and placed the ugly brown rubber boots and the rifle by the tree. She also untied the sneakers hanging behind her and tossed them. It felt almost alien to her to stand in the forest—in nature—in nothing but her naked feet. But it felt good. It almost surprised her that there could still
be such a good feeling in this miserable world.
"Pretty good, isn't it?" Trevor asked, seeing her reaction.
"This is wonderful," she said. "Do you do this a lot?"
"I never wear shoes. Haven't in years."
"Years?" she said incredulously. "How do you manage? Don't your feet ever get sore?"
"Like I said, I'm a hunter. I need to keep every sense that I have sharp. You'll never be able to stalk an animal unless you can feel the earth under your feet. Every little leaf and twig."
Trevor told her to follow him and they made their way through the woods until they spotted a rabbit hopping around in the distance. Then as they stood about thirty yards away from it, he instructed her to drop to the ground and roll around.
"Seriously?" Sarah asked. "What for?"
"To mask your scent. The last thing you want to smell like when you're approaching an animal is a human. You have to be careful about wind direction, too."
So Sarah hesitantly lowered herself onto the floor of the forest and rolled in the dirt, grass and natural debris of nature. She stood up and frowned at how filthy she felt.
"So this is what you do..." he said quietly. "When you see the prey you're stalking, you want to be still. Any movement you make, especially quick movement, can be picked up by them. It should go without saying that you need to come up from behind them, but you also need to pick your moments and only approach when they're distracted and making a little bit of noise themselves. So if they got their head down and they're eating, perfect. If their head is up and they're alerted and looking around, not so good. Make sense?"
Sarah nodded. "But how do you actually walk up behind them?" she asked. "How did that deer not hear you?"
He directed her attention down to their feet. "You want to move slowly and keep your balance. The foot that you're going to move, pick it up as gently as you can and put all your weight on the other foot. Make sure you have your balance." He lifted up his foot to demonstrate. "Now you want to take a short step and gently lower your foot to the ground."
He watched Sarah's foot as she followed along.
"But don't put it down yet," he continued. "First, you're just feeling to make sure the ground under your foot is solid and testing for noise. If you feel some crunchy leaves or a soft branch that's about to snap if you put your weight down on it, lift your foot back up and pick a different spot."
Sarah looked down at her feet, trying to find a spot on the ground that looked free of debris.
"Don't look," Trevor said. "Use your sense of feeling. Your eyes will be forward at all times to keep your balance and focus on stalking the prey ahead of you."
Sarah took a deep breath and looked up at the clearing ahead. She tried again, lifting her foot and shifting her weight. She extended her front foot and slowly lowered it, feeling the patchy grass and dirt of the forest floor. She did as he told her, and when she determined that the spot under her foot was safe, she slowly lowered her weight. "Like that?"
"Perfect," he said. "You didn't make a sound. Now try it again. Take a few steps."
She refocused her attention forward and took another breath. Very slowly and carefully, she took her first step. The ground was safe and she put her weight down. Then she shifted herself and lifted her other foot. As she began to place it on the ground in front of her, not looking down at what it was touching, she felt something hard and gnarled pressing against the ball of her foot. It felt like a twig, and she could sense some give to it. Trevor watched carefully as she paused then picked her foot back up, choosing a slightly different spot adjacent to it to try again. When it felt clear, she lowered her weight down. After a few more steps repeating the same process without making any noise, she stopped and turned to Trevor with a smile on her face.
"That's not so bad at all," she said. "I think I could get used to this."
"And don't be afraid to dig your toes into the ground. Really feel the earth beneath you. It'll give you strong rooting and balance."
Trevor's attention turned back to the rabbit still hopping around in the distance.
"Now," he said, "give it a shot."
Sarah looked at the rabbit, sizing it up. She figured it was aware of their presence already, but it didn't sense them approaching and thus didn't sense any danger.
As Sarah worked herself up to begin creeping up on it, Trevor added, "And when you stalk your prey, don't look directly at it. Look just to the side of it. Focus on something else, but keep your prey in your peripheral vision. Animals can feel when something is looking at them, and so can humans. Keep that in mind." He tilted his face up and turned his head. "Wind direction is good. Go get 'em."
Sarah nodded. She looked at the rabbit to get her bearings, then she shifted her gaze slightly and began stalking when its back was turned and it was busily munching on an overgrown patch of grass.
A soft breeze rolled in, cutting a cross section between Sarah and the rabbit. But it came more from the rabbit's direction than it did hers, so her scent wouldn't be delivered to the little critter. And so long as she kept quiet on her feet, she would go undetected.
To her surprise, she got halfway to the rabbit from where she started without it being wise to her approach. She did everything Trevor said, going slowly and taking her time. She stayed aware of the creature's movements and actions, determining when it was making its own noise and when she would take another step. Every time she felt something under her foot that would betray her presence, she paused and shifted her foot to another spot.
When she was three-quarters of the way there, the rabbit had apparently finished its meal and perked up, spinning its body around. The rabbit froze, its eyes wide and blank.
Sarah froze, too. She held her breath and didn't move a muscle. She very softly scrunched her toes into the earth, rooting herself to the spot.
The breeze continued in the same direction, and she remained still as a statue, so nothing she did would give her away. But she was standing out in the open and she knew she was in the critter's line of sight.
After a long, tense moment, feeling like her lungs were about to heave open on their own for oxygen, the rabbit bolted and scampered away.
Sarah's shoulders slumped down. She'd been so proud of her progress, and she had no idea what she did wrong.
Trevor approached her and put a hand on her shoulder. "That was great!" he said. "Not bad for a beginner."
"But it saw me and ran away," she said. "What did I do wrong?"
"You didn't do anything wrong. Sometimes it just doesn't work out. You do everything to the letter and your prey still gets away. Don't beat yourself up; still happens for me from time to time. Besides, we're not done yet. Come on."
"Where are we going now?"
Trevor lifted his head and looked around, surveying the landscape as if he were trying to spot something in particular. "We're heading a little more toward civilization," he said. "Might see if we can run into a zombie or two."
"I don't think I've ever seen anyone else willingly seek out zombies before," she said.
"Sarah, when you have these skills, you find that you don't worry about being in their presence anymore. When you can slip in and out of the shadows..."
She ruminated on this. It would be a wonderful skill to have and something that was sorely missing from her arsenal. And when she and Trevor spotted a zombie when they came out of the woods, that very point would be proven.
The zombie jerked and twisted at the side of the road, walking around with uneven footsteps as its fingers moved between warped claws and fists. Like the hundreds she'd seen before, this was obviously a scratcher.
"Perfect," Trevor whispered.
They took cover in a ditch at the side of the road, the opposite side from the scratcher wandering around. The zombie wandered into a parking lot, moving away from them.
"Give me your gun," Trevor told her.
"Why?" she asked.
He just held out his hand in an expectant gesture.
&
nbsp; She rolled her eyes and pulled the Sig Sauer out of its holster and gave it to him.
"Now," he said, "you've got your knife. I want you to show me how to take out the zombie."
"I'd be stupid to do it without the gun," she said. "Going up against a scratcher with only a knife isn't easy."
He smiled. "Scratcher? Is that what you call them?" He made an amused sound. "Don't worry," he said. "I'll back you up. Just show me what you've got."
She sighed and turned her attention on the scratcher, who was still moving away from them. "All right," she said. "This is more my bag." She lurched up to her feet immediately, oddly enough feeling more comfortable with the dangerous zombie than she did with a little bunny. She came up onto the road and crossed it, feeling the hard asphalt and little stones dig into her bare feet. She winced at the pain, not used to the feeling, but she soldiered on. She realized that Trevor most likely wanted her to sneak up on the zombie, so when she got close to it, she slowed right down and carefully re-created the walk he showed her.
But the scratcher turned to the side and walked for a section of lawn between the parking lot and an intersecting road, moving faster than she could keep up. She increased her gait a little, following it onto the grass and holding her knife at the ready. The scratcher's movements were unpredictable, though, making it more difficult to sneak up on it. She got within a stone's throw of it, but then it began to change direction again. Sarah was slow to adjust, not wanting to make noise with her feet, and before she could do anything else, the zombie spotted her and let out a gurgling cry of anguish and rage.
Sarah's base immediately dropped into a low stance as the scratcher charged at her. She stayed calm and watched carefully for her opening. When it reached her, flailing its arms out, she stepped to the side and thrust the knife at its head. The front end of the blade hit its collarbone and bounced off as the scratcher sailed past, stumbling before grinding to a halt. Sarah took the opportunity to close the gap and she stabbed it repeatedly in its back and neck before it twisted around to her. The corpse threw itself at her and she braced her foot against its stomach, letting herself fall to the ground and using its momentum to throw it over top of her. It did a somersault in the air and landed on its back, convulsing in its usual way. Sarah spun onto her front and threw herself on top of it, mounting the zombie and using her knees to pin its arms to the ground. Its head snapped around from side to side, trying to get a big bite out of the soft flesh of her legs, but it couldn't reach them. Its whole body flopped like a fish, but Sarah rode the wave and aimed carefully before sinking the knife into its forehead. The whole body gave out a quick wave of twitches and shakes, and then it was still.
Zombie Apocalypse Series (Book 6): The Eden Project Page 4