Cole nodded at that. Their powers used up the energy from their bodies. The fact that they could even age to power their abilities was freaky to think about.
Jin's last words floated back to Cole from memory. Win. That's all Kiddy wanted to do. Cole hated to see this island from his friend’s perspective, to view everyone’s existence as a game, but maybe Jin had had a point. If the island really was like a game, luckily, Cole had years of experience as a game tester. It had been his full-time job, had even paid for college, his dorm, and what he’d called “girlfriend-money.” Holly had really hated the phrase but never complained when he paid for their dates. The thought amused Cole--it always did.
The point was, he knew games too.
He thought about the situation, trying to dissect it like he would a strategy game. First, he needed to tally up the sides. He knew there were dangerous animals on the island. People had died. So far, the known dead included Ray Casey, Warren, Gary-Wayne, and maybe Gary-Wayne’s daughter. Nobody had seen her body, but they hadn’t seen her alive since her father blew himself up, either.
Cole’s group included himself, Nadia, Holly, Sheriff, his wife Annie, and Jarret. Nadia was still recovering, but thanks to Holly, nobody had any serious injuries. She’d even healed their blisters.
The other group had Ricardo, Javier, Mohammad, Kiddy, and maybe Kenan, if he hadn’t gone off alone or something. Javier was wounded, Mohammad probably was, and now that he thought about it, Cole wasn’t sure about the rest of them. His group hadn’t properly talked about the fight since then. Either way, as far as he knew, the other group didn’t have a healer. This thought made him start thinking about their abilities.
He reviewed what he knew about everyone who had revealed powers so far and what he knew about energy, where they were getting it from. Despite feeling the same hunger the others described, he and Annie were the only people in the group without powers. After the fight at the first supply drop, he'd felt useless.
That line of thinking wasn’t useful, though, so he abandoned it. This was a time for analysis, not feeling sorry for himself. He thought about all the role-playing games with magic spells and abilities he'd tested. There was always a pattern to ability sets. After a few minutes of thinking, he realized he probably actually had a good idea of what the limitations of everyone's powers were. He told Sheriff so.
The older man whistled doubtfully. "You sure sound confident about magic powers you've never seen before."
“I’m serious,” insisted Cole. “If it comes to fighting, just focus on Ricardo, he seems most dangerous. Trust me, this is what I'm good at--I see patterns in systems. In my experience, there is no truly perfect system where everyone has equal abilities and powers, and I doubt Dolos would have cared about that sort of thing anyway. Some people's powers are likely more powerful while others will cost less."
Sheriff shrugged. "I barely understand what you're saying, but I trust you."
It was Cole's turn to give the old man a searching look. When they had met at the base camp on the island for the hike, Sheriff had been somewhat stoic, keeping to himself with his wife. During the hike itself, he’d focused most of his energy on leading his wife, only telling Cole and his friends that Annie had always wanted to see Costa Rica since her grandparents had lived there.
At that time, Cole had held a mistrust of older people because of a lifetime where they’d generally held authority over him. Of course, Holly had told him several times that Cole just had a problem with authority in general. Most adult figures in Cole's life--his foster parents, his exhausted teachers, his angry coaches--they’d all used the same words to describe him: He was a backtalker, disrespectful, or whatever other words they could use to call him a deadbeat without actually saying the word.
This was the first time he could remember that an elderly person had extended this level of trust to him. Sheriff had basically been handing him the reins as the group's leader.
Cole looked up, and saw the dome shape had tightened considerably compared to when he’d first seen it. He raised his voice and shared his new realization. "The wall of the dome might move faster after the second hour is over, after we hit the second supply drop. We might be jogging for an hour straight after that."
Sheriff cursed under his breath. It had only been an hour and a half since they started surviving this hell, but the man looked at least five years older. Cole couldn't tell if it was because he'd burned through his powers or if the situation had just wrung him dry.
"You know," Sheriff began, "I noticed we were all pretty tired on our hike even before the tsunami came. I've seen men and women push themselves when the devil's on their tails, but they were still dragging. We aren't dragging. Hell, we're moving like a bunch of pro athletes."
Cole nodded at the distant Holly, who seemed to be lost in her own world. He said, "Holly said something about our bodies evolving with the power seeds. She might be onto something. Jarret was about to pass out during the hike before the group split up. I think he was barely hanging on to impress Nadia."
Sheriff seemed like he was debating whether to say something. After a moment, he firmed his mouth and softly said, "I don't want to pry, but your girl seems...different than a few hours ago."
"Maybe.” Cole sighed. “But she's still my girl, and she's had all of our backs since the beginning."
Cole almost jumped when Nadia suddenly spoke up from where she was walking about forty feet away. "You all hear that?"
Cole focused his attention on the jungle around them. They hadn’t heard the screams or pops of the jungle burning behind the closing dome since they’d gotten ahead of it, but he’d grown accustomed to the steady, natural surrounding sounds as they’d traveled. But the chirps of insects, cries of animals, and other natural sounds of the jungle had faded. When he’d first landed on the island, it had surprised him how loud nature really was. Now it was too quiet. "I don't hear anything."
Holly hurried up to walk beside Cole. She reached for his hand, and he grabbed it, grateful for the familiar gesture. At least something normal was happening. She said, "Back on Earth, the animals would have stayed away. They might have been curious. But those mutated gorillas--"
"Demon gorillas," Nadia corrected.
“Unnatural. They shouldn’t have been here at all,” offered Sheriff.
"Sons of bitches," Cole offered.
"Mutant gorillas," Holly continued, annoyed. "They attacked us, and it didn’t seem territorial. They seemed confused, clumsy. Even with powers, we probably shouldn’t have survived that. Anyway, the attack seemed deliberate. They likely sought us out either through our tracks or smells. It's fascinating, really."
"Our smells?" Cole asked.
Sheriff nodded. "Humans stink to high heaven to other animals. Pheromones and such. Annie loves National Geographic's magazines."
"Who reads magazines anymore?" Nadia asked.
Cole slashed an empty hand in frustration. They didn’t have time to get sidetracked. He said, "So, you're saying the animals here are trying to kill us?"
As if his words had tempted fate, or Dolos had been listening in, blood-curdling screeches suddenly echoed weirdly under the jungle canopy. Everyone's heads snapped around. Through the green vegetation to one side of their little trail, through some trees, Cole spotted a giant group of wild boars. Well, he thought they might have been boars in the past. Now whatever they were, they stood on their hind legs, their tusks pointed outward rather than up.
"A lot of them, maybe twenty," Jarret warned, voice barely above a whisper.
Without a word, everyone started moving again and their pace picked up. Cole cursed inwardly. Couldn't they catch a damn break?
"Boars can't climb! Find trees!" Sheriff ordered.
"No!" Cole refused. "These aren't normal, we can’t think of them like normal animals. They're coming for us."
He hated being right. The group of mutant boars began climbing the hill at a relentless pace toward them, only slowed by t
he clearly unfamiliar way they moved. Jarret began to panic while Nadia quietly tried to comfort him, driving him on to the dubious safety of the large trees ahead.
Next to Sheriff, Annie must have sensed something was wrong because she began swiveling her head around, asking, “What? What?” Her voice was getting louder, and Sheriff patted her hand, nervously looking back as he tried to calm her.
He looked to Cole. "Even if we run, these things are still going to catch up, and I can’t leave Annie behind. You got a plan?"
Calling his hunches a plan would be a disservice to plans, but Cole had a few ideas, and didn't have time to explain. They'd make it out of this alive.
He began growling out orders, just like he would to a raid team in a multiplayer game. "Nadia, don't use your powers like before! Don’t tell the plants to do things they normally wouldn't do like build a wall. Instead, suggest they do things that they were already going to do!"
"What the fuck are you talking about, White?!" Nadia screamed. The boars were almost up the hill and gaining speed, screaming and oinking with disturbing, pain-filled voices.
Cole tried to keep his voice calm, like a movie action hero, but it came out shriller than he would have liked. "Find trees in the area that are about to tip over! There has to be some. Encourage vines to grow where they were going to grow anyway. Jarret, you hold her hands and make her invisible too!"
"I can do that?" Jarret blurted.
"Grab two protein bars and just fucking try it!" Cole ordered.
Jarret reached inside the duffel bag that Sheriff was holding. He wolfed down two more protein bars. His cheeks were still full when he gripped Nadia's hand. They vanished.
"Fascinating," Holly whispered.
Cole didn't have time to figure out how he felt about that response. The porcine mutants were close. He yelled to the open air, hoping Nadia and Jarret could hear him, "When you find trees you can tip, or ways you can slow these things, do it, but don’t push yourself too far! We need you conscious. We will keep moving ahead to draw them forward!"
He and the rest of the group hurried forward in a tight rush. Suddenly, he heard cracking, splintering behind them to their left. A giant tree groaned, splintered from a crack that had grown wider as a limb grew out its center, and the majority of its mass toppled over, slamming into the jungle floor so hard the ground trembled. Annie almost lost her footing, but Sheriff caught her, maintaining their group’s run at Annie’s pace.
Cole glanced back and felt a surge of hope. The felled tree had rolled, utterly destroying several of the mutant pigs. Jarret and Nadia were still nowhere to be seen.
"Well, I'll be damned," Sheriff breathed. Holly whooped.
Cole didn't celebrate. The tree’s landing had been lucky or well-timed on Nadia’s part, but had still only killed half of the mutants. The others climbed over the fallen tree and the fresh corpses of their fellows, squealing and screeching. “Crap crap crap crap,” muttered Cole. Time was almost officially out. Sheriff was good, but he couldn’t take on so many of these monsters and protect everyone else. They needed to do something now or else the boars would rush them in a violent, misshapen stampede.
This wasn't a video game, but all Cole could think about was the game mechanic, “aggro.” In games, when you pissed off a mob, an enemy, it would focus on your character. This mechanic was normally used to protect vulnerable allies, when characters called tanks would maintain aggro and either avoid damage, block it, or soak it up.
Cole was pretty damn sure his power seed's ability wasn't invincibility. He was feeling awfully vulnerable, but this didn’t stop him from running straight toward the pigs, or the orcs as he was thinking of them now.
"No, kid!" Sheriff yelled.
Cole knew what he was about to do was the stupidest thing he'd ever done in his life. The weight of leadership, of responsibility was weighing heavily on him, though. He wanted to save everyone.
A small, sad thought nudged the back of his mind as he ran, even though the rush of mutant boar monsters were about to greet him with tusks, teeth, and sharp hooves. Sheriff had yelled, but Holly hadn't told him to stop. She had even been holding his hand when he’d started back, but had just let go, hadn’t tried to pull him back. He hoped she’d just been surprised.
The orcs were only a few seconds away now. This was at least the fourth time he'd faced death now in the last few hours, and it didn’t have the same grip on him anymore. He watched his footing, keeping in mind he was running downhill. Any loss of balance meant a face plant before getting mauled to death.
Four more steps and he took advantage of the slope of the hill, running down a large, fallen log that stuck out into space. He somehow kept his balance, running right over the orcs, and jumped behind them, machete in hand. After his feet hit the damp, loamy ground of the jungle, he rolled, but the undergrowth cushioned his fall and stopped his movement down the hill. Using the last of his forward motion and the massive dump of adrenaline in his system, he sprang back to his feet.
Miraculously, the boars halted their assault, turning their attention to Cole. Fortunately, his plan had worked. Unfortunately, he hadn't thought of what to do next.
The creatures squealed as they pivoted, and one almost roared, the sound distorted and demonic. Cole also turned and booked it down the hill, toward the dome wall. He tried to remember the lay of the land he’d seen on his way up. As he ran, he didn't need to see the boars behind him. It was as if he could sense where they were without even looking, at least at first. That feeling faded fast.
When he’d been helping lead the group away from the deadly orange wall earlier, it’d felt like the jungle had shown him the way, presented a path. Now, every step he took away from his friends got more tangled in roots and plants.
There. He finally found what he’d been looking for. The fire and smoke generated as it mercilessly advanced, burning everything it touched had been hard to miss, but now he could actually see it. Unfortunately, this meant that Cole was barreling downhill straight toward the dome wall.
The orcs had almost caught up to him, and he didn’t have much time left. He aimed his trajectory toward a small cliff, not far from the orange wall of death. This next part would be tricky.
Cole grabbed a tree near the end of the cliff, stopped his forward motion a bit, and dropped down. Then he immediately reached out to grab the exposed roots on the side of the cliff. He’d seen this area earlier, and his memory had been accurate. The hill was steeper at this point, and covered in mud. He began carefully, but quickly pulling himself to one side of the cliff, moving hand over hand.
The dome was getting close at this point, and clearing it safely even if his plan ended up working perfectly would be a close thing. The orcs ran forward, dropped down, and immediately began sliding to the edge of the orange ring. A few actually descended practically right on top of Cole, but he hugged the side of the cliff, pressing himself as close as he could.
If the boars hadn’t been mutated, he probably would have died, but these orcs were walking on two legs and they didn’t have thumbs. Grabbing onto any roots or small trees wasn’t an option for them. They desperately flailed, Cole forgotten as they tried to stop their descent toward death.
The last of the creatures had gone over the cliff and begun slipping down the steep, muddy hill about the same time that the first of them collided with the barrier. Their pained screams pierced Cole's ears, and he knew he’d be haunted by the image of the closest creatures struggling not to slide down, slipping toward the edge of the ring. One of the orcs had managed to loop a leg around a tree. The creature oinked and screamed, but only had a few seconds left to live.
The scene was terrible and captured his sight for a time, but he shook it off. He didn’t have much time left; the dome was going to overtake the cliff soon as it marched forward. Cole gave it one last look, wondering if he should pity the creatures or not before he shimmied over to the edge of the cliff and very carefully started up the hill again.
When he got close enough to understand what was going on, he realized they’d formed a protective half-circle around a very exposed teen girl, kneeling on the jungle floor, covering her body with her hands. The group had obviously been speaking with the girl and having a conversation amongst themselves.
As Cole watched, Nadia pressed her hand into the ground while chewing one of the last protein bars. The leaves around the unfamiliar girl wrapped around her, weaving through and covering the rags she’d worn, forming something like clothes for the sake of her modesty.
Holly turned around, and the relief on her face washed away any worries Cole had about her before. He loved this woman. She jogged over, running into his sweaty embrace. "Cole, you idiot! What were you thinking?"
Annie held the new girl's hand up. The girl winced and said, “Ouch!”
“What is it, hon?” asked the elderly woman.
The girl shyly said, "You shocked me! Momma called that static electricity."
Sheriff seemed confused, but met Cole’s eyes. “Cole...this is Isla Lucas, Pastor Gary-Wayne Lucas' ten-year-old daughter. You might not recognize her, I didn’t at first. Isla, you probably remember our fearless and idiotic leader, Efrem White. You would probably know him as Cole."
"She doesn't look ten," Jarret said, shaking his head at the girl. Nadia absently slapped his arm.
Cole leaned into the duffel bag and wolfed down the last two protein bars without asking. He could feel the food practically disappear the moment it reached his stomach. The water he guzzled did the same. After he’d finished off the last of their meager provisions, he looked up and said, "We gotta get moving. Let’s talk while we walk."
Part of him was glad for this new development because he was avoiding some of the fallout he’d been expecting from his reckless action earlier. Part of him, the cynical part of him, wondered what new madness they’d discover now that Isla had shown up.
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