“Mother flipping finally,” Candra exclaims.

  The sound of a flowing rivulet tinkles over loose rocks: a dip in the forest floor which channels the tiny stream, cutting through wet soil as it goes.

  There is brush here. Bushes and smaller trees. The foliage is dense, and the thorns are wicked.

  Joe trades swords with Randall, and he chops heavily at the greenery. Swipe by swipe, he opens up a path to the bank of the little waterway.

  Todd opens his mouth to warn Joe about the possibility of murderous trees, but stifles his concern. It’s too late now, and no harm’s been done.

  “Let’s set up here,” Joe huffs.

  “I think we should make camp a ways away,” Sue Ann disagrees. “The animals will come for water too, and we should avoid them if we can.”

  “I’m fine with that,” Candra says.

  “Sure. Sounds smart,” Todd adds.

  “As long as we don’t get lost,” Randall negotiates.

  Joe hacks at a particularly stubborn branch. “Okay. But we fill up first.”

  “Obviously,” snorts Candra.

  “Obviously,” repeats Sue Ann.

  They watch the surrounding woods; on a hair trigger. Once a path is mostly clear, the girls squeeze through the gap and fill their water canteens from the source. The piney duff crackles somewhere out of sight and Todd spins to track it. Nothing. After the containers are full, Todd takes off his helmet and ducks through the bramble.

  “Ow,” he mutters as an errant thorn scratches a line across his scalp.

  Another branch catches on his sleeve and he tugs himself free. Alone by the stream’s side, he dips his helmet into the water and tips it to collect as much as possible. The liquid is cloudy with inclusions and debris, and is warm to the touch. In fact, it’s nearly hot.

  Todd’s helmet sloshes as he makes himself small and threads the breach back towards his friends.

  “I figure we have to boil it first?” Todd asks.

  “That would be best,” Sue Ann confirms.

  “I wish we had a filter or something.”

  Joe’s head pivots as he scans the area nearby. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “There’s just a lot of junk in it.”

  “I’m sure a little dirt won’t kill us.”

  Todd shrugs. He carries his helmet carefully under his arm, cradled so as to not spill it. Resupplied, the five of them cut away from the water, but continue downhill. Sue Ann checks her compass to no effect.

  Thirty yards out from the course, a single centipede bursts from the litter, surprising Joe as it reaches towards his stomach. But it’s alone, so Candra beats it senseless and Randall cuts it in two.

  The young man does a little dance on his tiptoes. “Alright! I’m level nine! I’m catching up!”

  Underneath the dead creature, they find a hole filled with a tangled coil of translucent baby centipedes. They squirm, but remain in place. The group chooses to ignore them and moves on.

  They travel a good hundred yards before setting down and breaking camp. They lay down their bags and their bedrolls, and Todd balances his helmet in the soil. Listening intently, the gang circles their claimed space. They plant their feet carefully as they go, and Joe carries a staff made of three [mercury rod]s connected together. He prods the dirt questingly.

  “You think it’s safe?” Candra asks.

  “No,” Joe and Todd say.

  Joe waves his improvised rod out towards the trees. “We can’t assume that something won’t find us here. We’re out in the open, and it’s hard to see anything coming.”

  Randall puts his blade over his shoulder. “Do you think we could build a shelter?” he asks.

  “Maybe. These spines though…”

  “We at least need firewood. We could bring down a tree and use it as a wall.”

  “Who knows how to chop down a tree?”

  Sue Ann steps forward. “I can show you. You just have to pick the right angle and cut out a wedge. Then you do the other side and let it fall.”

  “Maybe it’s easier if you just do it yourself, 4H.”

  “But it’s hard work.”

  Candra derides her. “It’s hard work, guys.”

  Sue Ann blushes. “I mean I’m still poisoned.”

  Todd moves over to Randall and removes the damaged ax from a loop in his travel bag.

  “It’s fine. I’ll help her.”

  Randall grabs the ax back. “No, I’ll do it. It’s fine.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Sue Ann and Randall limp in a circle around the clearing until they find a tree which is leaning at an opportune yaw. They clear the low level branches away first, and then Sue Ann starts instructing Randall in the best means and location to swing.

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  “While they’re doing that, we should clear out the surrounding area,” Joe suggests. “Drips, Candra, let’s make a circuit.”

  Exhausted, the three of them chart out a meandering circle, just at the edge of sight range. Joe continues using his long stick to check the dirt. At first they find nothing. After their first loop, they confer with each other and agree to go further. They will use the sound of chopping wood to find their way back.

  On their second trip, they hear a grunting noise from a distance. They slow, attempting to hide their footsteps. But they’re clumsy suburbanites, and the creature narrows in on them toute de suite. The beast emerges from between the trees looking like a four legged turkey. Its plumage is striped black and white, its head is naked and dull red, and its mouth looks like a turtle’s, except full of sharks’ teeth. It gallops, warbling maliciously.

  Joe drops the [mercury rod]s and makes a double grip on his sword. But he stands too close to Candra.

  “Hey!”

  “I’ve got it.”

  Candra leans back and staggers away. Joe winds up and takes a few leading steps forward. The beast extends its neck towards him, jaw wide. He swings.

  The turtle turkey squawks as [armor breaker] catches it in the throat. Its neck bends at a ninety degree angle at the point of impact, with a morbid cracking sound.

  The beast’s inertia carries it onwards, and it bowls into Joe’s lower legs.

  “Oof!”

  The two go down together, Joe tipping over its back and the creature’s head going underfoot. But it hasn’t died.

  Talons scratch into the earth as the animal rises. Its neck twists, bleeding and still whole. It whips around, trying to chew on its rider.

  “Get it!” Joe shouts. He stabs with his sword and its chisel tip sinks in a half inch.

  Todd lurches into action. He and Candra take the beast on either side and wave their weapons, looking for an opening.

  “Get off of it!” Candra exclaims.

  Joe flings himself off the beast, rolling onto the ground beside it. Todd raises his ixwa and brings it down. The beast’s head lashes towards Todd’s leg and, snap – bites empty air.

  Todd’s weapon sticks out from the animal’s hide. He kicks himself: he keeps having to let it go.

  Candra heaves her scepter like a pile driver, slamming down onto its back and shoulders. Little ripples shudder through its feathers and flesh with each blow.

  Joe rises and attempts to batter at the ass end of the beast, but he’s confounded by the spread tail pinions and his first strikes cut only through feathers.

  The moment the turkey turtle’s teeth are facing the other direction, Todd dives in, grabs his spear, and rips it out. Blood squirts liberally from the wound and lands on Todd’s pants. He dodges back again, reverses his grip, and sinks his ixwa back into the flank of the round-bodied monster. This time, he remembers to pull it out again.

  Agonized, the creature spins towards, and then rushes Todd. Todd backpedals furiously. He catches the beast’s teeth on his broken [knuckle-shell bracer] and groans as the razor sharp cusps dig into the rubbery inner guard. At point blank range, Todd summons up a punching ray of water, and directs it toward the beast’s head.

  Backspray peppers him, biting and cold. The stream carves through the animal’s eye and into its socket. It releases him with a scream.

  Rolling around on the ground, the turtle turkey no longer defends itself. It twists onto its back and exposes its belly. In its convulsions, Candra runs up and slaps it across the solar plexus with her weapon. In its battered state, the sudden jolt disrupts its heart and throws it into cardiac arrest.

  Letting go of the ghost, the creature joins its ancestors.

  “Whew,” Joe pants.

  “I know,” Todd agrees.

  “What a bitch of a thing,” Candra says.

  Todd cradles his wrist and nudges the corpse with his toe. “We should either dump it or bring it back to camp.”

  “Bring it back?” Candra exclaims.

  Todd points at the pile of meat. “Well, I figure we could probably eat it. Save ourselves some ration tokens.”

  Candra pitches a fit. “I’m not going to eat that!”

  “Why not?” Joe casually asks. “It tried to eat us.” He kneels down and prods at the beast’s neck. “We’ll have firewood soon, and we have a pan. Who knows how it’ll taste, but I’m up for something new.”

  “Ugh. Alright. You two can drag it back though.”

  The three of them listen for a moment to hear if anything else was approaching, then they hand their weapons to Candra. Todd takes the forelegs, and Joe takes the back ones, and they lift from the knees. After agreeing it’s unnecessary to carry the thing, they drop it and move to the same side, opting to drag it instead.

  They head back towards the clearing, but stop as Sue Ann warns them back. The tree is getting ready to come down. There is a mighty crack as the trunk starts to splinter and the crown of the tree starts to tip.

  “Oops!” Randall exclaims.

  “Move!” Sue Ann shouts.

  The tree twists as it falls. It crackles and snaps as it crashes down into the clearing. Once it settles, Todd, Joe and Candra circle around the timber. Unfortunately, they find their bags are trapped under the twisting branches of the improperly dropped tree. They are forced to chop kindling with their [mercury rod]s in the dark until the ground is clear.

  Randall continues on. Protecting his eyes, he hacks off branches and then starts cutting the trunk of the tree into logs. Everyone moves over and tries to help, to varying degrees of success. Joe takes the ax from Randall at one point and his poise as he works is picture perfect lumberjack.

  Candra watches for beasts while Sue Ann collects sticks and gets the beginning of a fire going. The wood burns slow, hot, and smoky.

  Sue Ann waves down Todd. “Are you going to help me dress and gut this thing?” She indicates the dead creature.

  Todd shrugs and agrees. So, as Sue Ann breaks off twigs and tosses them into the flame, she rattles off instructions – and he saws open a belly. He finds himself up to his elbows in offal.

  “Once this is going, I’ll help you pluck it,” she says, feeding a larger stick into the pit.

  Setting up with their backs to the downed tree, the five make camp. They prepare to boil water, and to set up their tents. Todd continues preparing the meat.

  “I bet it’s going to be good,” Randall eagerly says. He plunges a stake into the soft earth and raises a pole to hang tarp across. “Monster meat, I mean.”

  “Or it could be poison,” Candra says. “We don’t know.”

  Todd twists a handful of feathers and they tear out with a wet, sucking noise. “We’ll try a little bit first and see.”

  “We have luxury meal tokens,” Candra complains. “Luxury. Meals.”

  Todd’s hand hovers over another patch of feathers. “You can keep yours. I’m going to try to save mine.”

  “I’m just curious how it will taste,” Sue Ann interjects. She sucks her hand where an errant thorn pierced her. “My guess is that it’ll be gamey.”

  “Shut up. I hear something,” Candra snaps. She raises a hand and cups her ear.

  Todd drops what he is doing and fetches his ixwa. Randall fishes through his pocket and pulls out a white pill.

  Then, grunting and trundling, out of the woods comes a trio of huge, slick-skinned beaver creatures. Their incisors clack as they go.

  The beasts die hard. While slow on their short legs, their sturdy bodies and tough skin resist all forms of attack. Eventually, all five of the crew participate in the fight. It takes time, and the fire goes low.

  Finally, Todd pries his ixwa in between the vertebrae of one beast and levers it back and forth until it digs through the spinal column. The last beaver creature flops to the dirt and becomes an inanimate object.

  The five stand sweating, with their hands on their knees.

  “Well great,” Todd exclaims, “now what the heck are we going to do with these?”