“What if we just trade some weapons for a ride? Not like they know how to make gunpowder, right?” Adams asked.

“So, you want to hand someone a gun and hope they play nice?” Nowak responded.

“I mean, yeah?”

“And what’s to keep them from shooting us and taking the rest of the crap we’re hauling around?” Summers called back from the driver’s seat.

“Pretty sure it’s a warcrime too?” Cortez added.

“I mean, even if it wasn’t brass would find a way to string you up.” Nowak started, “Shit with guns a few of them might just decide to take over the world. They ain’t really hard to make, just mass produce. If they did figure out gunpowder, they’d have a real chance.”

“Or they’d start world war one.” Summers pointed out. “Actually, more like the trail of tears, only with elves and machine guns.”

“Tears?” Asked Asle.

Logan ran a finger down from his eye to his cheek. “Tears, crying. Uh, sad?”

Asle nodded in understanding. Logan had been trying to expand Asle’s vocabulary while they travelled. It had been going fairly well, they’d even managed to explain a few idioms, and learned some in her own language. Although the few that Asle could relate were a little disturbing, a lot of focus on bones and hides. It was painting a picture of a culture that was not known for its peaceful ways.

“All right.” Adams relented, “No trading guns. Got it. Message clear.”

They’d been setting up the Humvee and Wagon for the road that morning. Summers popped open the driver’s side door as they started to load up, everyone had more or less agreed he was back to normal, so he was once again the team’s designated driver.

Summers had failed to mention his newly augmented sense of smell, aggression, and the disturbing change of appetite, for which he felt an immense amount of guilt. He of course, had a good reason for that. He was a coward and didn’t want them to think he was a freak. And Summers was holding on to the hope that it wore off like the other effects of the fog.

Nowak tossed a bag of something resembling coins into the back of the Humvee. There were a few of of its like in the back of the wagon, so they assumed it was the local currency. They only had an assumption to work from because Asle, in her usual form, had no idea what they were. And without any information of the denominations they were carrying, or how much spending power they’d have, they were happy to have the merchants passes. At least they could avoid being fleeced by a couple of perceptive guards.

“So, tell me again why I’m the one doing this?” Adams asked from atop the wagon.

“You said your family owned a farm.” Nowak called back.

“That doesn’t mean I know what I’m doing.” Adams held the set of reins in each hand, trying to will the cow forward.

“Well then, because you’re the private and it’s your god given duty to do the things no one else wants to.” Cortez answered.

“Besides, you still have more experience with animals than the rest of us.” Summers added.

“We had chickens.” Adams responded.

The cow paid him little heed as he continually flipped the reins up. As far as cows went, it was a little frightening. It stood about twice as wide as the cows of their world, with toned muscle in its arms, back, well, pretty much everywhere. Suffice to say, they were happy to let it work at its own pace.

“You’ll figure it out.” Summers climbed into the Humvee and they started off. Sure enough, the cow took that as its cue to start walking. Adams still held on to the reins in the hopes that it would do some good.

Creatures like mottled green deer were crisscrossing in front of the road as they drove, slower than their usual pace, so they wouldn’t leave Adams and the wagon behind. Summers guessed these were this world’s version of herbivores. He almost hit a group of the more curious ones as they drove but managed to avoid them with minimal bitching from the back of the Humvee. His fine motor skills still weren’t up to what they used to be, but he was making do. Although he’d avoided trying anything like handwriting up to this point and wasn’t optimistic about the results.

“Pull over here.” Nowak instructed, tapping the dash for emphasis.

“You are not going to kill those things.” Adams asked from the wagon, more tension in his voice than Summers would have expected.

“Why do you care?” Nowak responded.

“They’re fucking adorable.” Adams pointed to three of the deer a good distance away, “There’s a family over there with a little green bambi.”

Summers stepped out, looking at the scattered herd on the hill beside them.

“That’s a buck bed over there.” Nowak indicated a small bed of leaves beneath a larger horned deer. “Usually it means there’s water nearby, and we need to resupply.”

“All right wildman, which way?” Cortez asked.

Nowak took a moment to look over the herd. “Summers, think you can hit one of them from here?”

Summers hefted his rifle then looked through the scope at the relaxing buck.

“Sure can.”

“Aw come on guys. Bambi!” Adams protested.

“Just need to wing it, any of them. Thigh shot would be best. Hunted enough to know the little bastards always head to water when they’re hit. These things are probably the same.” Nowak responded.

Adams made a strained noise beside Summers.

“It’s all right I’ll hit one of the old and weak ones. See that one’s already limping.” Summers fired as he said this. “Well it is now, anyway.”

Adams watched the deer scatter, with Summers’ target scrambling away in a mad panic.

“You people are monsters.”

They ate deer by the river that night, cooking over a fire that was well away from the Humvee. A landmark a few hours before signaled they’d soon be in the “red” area of their map. Nowak had decided they should stock up on water, food, and make a game plan before heading into a place even the locals thought was dangerous.

“At least it tastes the same as what we have back home.” Nowak said, tearing a chunk of cooked meat from the bone.

“Didn’t know you were a big game hunter.” Summers responded, tentatively chewing on a piece of flank.

“My family did this kind of shit every Christmas. Said we were going out to find Santa’s reindeer.”

“Guey, seriously? That’s a little fucked up even for me.” Cortez said. The rest of the group gave various noises of agreement.

“It was fun! You didn’t do some crazy shit with your folks?”

“Nope.” Cortez shook her head. “Not opening that pandoras box. Me and my family have an understanding, they stay away from me and nobody gets hurt.”

“Summers what about you, or let me guess you probably had some suburban wet dream shit?” Nowak looked over, still chewing.

“Man, I worked every Christmas since I was 15.” Summers answered.

“Shit, really?”

“Single mom, shithead dad. Do the math.” Summers responded.

“You sure we can eat this?” Cortez asked.

“Asle’s been eating MRE’s and she’s fine. We’re probably okay. Besides I know game, it looked healthy.” Nowak emphasized this point by taking another large bite. “How about the rest of you?”

“Happy Christian church going funtimes for me.” Adams raised his hand.

“Good for you.” Cortez spat.

“The hell you mad at me for. I’d pay for them to leave me alone.”

Cortez just grunted in response.

“Same. Protestant.” Logan provided, “Also you people desperately need therapy. For so very many reasons.”

“… Hey Asle, do you have family?” Summers looked at the young girl eating… well a piece of meat the size of her head.

“Yes.”

Silence.

“Okay, I mean do you have family we can take you back to?” Summers and the others looked at her with a sudden understanding. The 63rd had probably taken Asle from somewhere around their “main” base in Nevada. If they were heading that way anyway…

“No.”

Summers saw a flicker of sadness flash across her face. That was… new. He’d never actually seen her show any kind of emotion short of body language.

And it was absolutely clear she didn’t want to continue their talk. Which spoke enough on the subject as it was. Logan carefully guided the conversation away from Asle as they ate. Leaving her to stare into the fire.

They hit the “red zone” only a few hours into the next day. It was what Nowak was calling “Defcon 1”. Which meant Cortez was on the roof, freezing her ass off with a tube the size of her leg cradled in her arms. A MAAWS, actually. They’d scavenged the rocket launcher from the remains of the 63rd, and she had three more just like it at her side.

Adams was still handling the wagon, a duffel bag of grenades beside him and very stern orders to not throw them anywhere near the Humvee. Leaving the rest of them to drive and hope whatever lurked in that part of the forest wasn’t hungry. They’d gone with the assumption whatever was out there was on the same level as the shambling moss. So, while one could say they were being overly cautious, Summers would point out that same attitude got an entire platoon killed.

The road was still relatively clear, winding through mountain valleys and rivers. Throughout their trip they’d passed some forks that the map hadn’t covered, with little interest in exploration, they stayed on the road straight towards the city. To its credit, it did seem to be the quickest way there.

To everyone’s surprise and relief, they made it through the first leg of their journey without issue. That didn’t mean they were letting their guard down as they made camp, however.

That afternoon, Summers watched over Cortez as she worked, eyeing the detonator in her hands warily. She was wrapping it with a few lengths of wire.

“Are you sure, absolutely fucking sure, that this isn’t going to kill us?” Summers asked.

“Mostly.” Cortez replied, simply.

“Do I need to go to explain why that answer worries me?” Summers looked at the perimeter of the camp. They’d decided to settle against a small alcove in the mountain just at the edge of the tree line. Cortez had wire running from tree to tree in some kind of trap he was hesitant to learn the details of.

“What do you trust more, that we’ll get lucky and whatever’s out there won’t come looking for us, or that I know what I’m doing?”

“…Fair point. But just how are you planning on taking this down in the morning?”

“Very carefully.” Cortez murmured through gritted teeth as jammed another stake into the ground. “Relax, we’ve got a good distance from camp. If anything, this is the riskiest part.”

“So…”

“So, stop fucking distracting me.”

“Got ya.” Summers agreed, backing away as he saw Cortez pull out a long wire.

He headed over to Nowak who was keeping watch from the top of the Humvee. He saw him cleaning out a few spent cartridges.

“Hey, you got any brass?” Nowak asked.

“Should I?”

“Guess not, I should have thought about it earlier. I realized every shot we fire isn’t something we can resupply, I figured we could try to reload the rounds later.”

“How? We can’t make gunpowder or blasting caps. Hell, if we manage to get through all the ammo we have before we hit Nevada, chances are we have a bigger problem on our hands.”

“Maybe, doesn’t hurt to be prepared though. Better safe than sorry.”

That night Summers was on guard along with Logan, defcon 1 as they knew it also meant even less sleep for everyone involved. It was another three days until they hit the city by their estimates, and that meant they’d have to stash their Humvee soon. He was not looking forward to riding in the wagon. If Adams experience was any indication, it would be a long trip filled with bumps, bruises, and cow shit.

He stared out into the dark, watching the scenery with his gun at the ready.

This world had already kicked them in the ass when they got here, he had no intention of giving it a second shot.

Through the forest a creature of pure black stalked towards the strange lights in the distance. It crouched low to the ground as it weaved through the underbrush.

It had been tracking the scent of this particular prey for the better part of a day. It was a predator, and these were its hunting grounds. Though it had been following this prey at a great distance, it knew these woods better than any, and nothing could outrun it for long. The only puzzling thing, if it could be called that, was the scent itself. It was… unfamiliar.

It was still a kitten by its species standards, less than a century old. But it had learned the merit of caution when dealing with the unknown. So, it moved slowly through the darkness, alert for anything out of place.

And as it approached the tree line, it paused. It had come upon yet another unknown.

The creature had no way of understanding what it faced, but the last thing it saw before a blinding explosion were the words “Front towards enemy”.

Summers shot up at the sound of a loud ‘click’, followed by a deafening boom.

“Holy shit!”

The entire forest lit up with one concentrated explosion, as if something had just dropped a miniature sun five hundred yards away.

As his eyes adjusted, he could see trees bent in ways he wouldn’t have thought were possible. At the center of the carnage laid a large black creature, clawed wings folded over a pitch-black hide that only highlighted its long, wormlike head. It clawed at the ground, writhing in pain in a way that reminded Summers of roadkill he’d seen as a child.

Summers didn’t take long to admire the absolutely terrifying thing in front of him, he emptied his gun into its chest.

“Wake the fuck up we need to kill this thing!”

The creature didn’t recover so much as throw itself at the camp, blood gushing from the shrapnel in its head and side. It was met with gunfire from its left, as it tried to cover its head with its wings Summers and Logan unloaded onto it. Their fire only seemed to annoy it.

Then a grenade landed beneath it, in its already injured state it couldn’t move fast enough to get away even if it knew what was coming. As the grenade detonated, the creature lurched to the side and into a tree where it laid unmoving.

They didn’t stop firing until two minutes later.

Better safe than sorry.

“You’re going to get us all killed Cortez! Do you really think using ALL our claymores is necessary?” Cortez started in a mocking tone. “That fucking thing took everything we had, and we still needed to put it down ourselves.”

“I will never question your paranoia or love of explosives ever again.” Summers replied.

“Goddamn right.”

They stood wide eyed in front of the corpse of the creature. It was about as big as the Humvee, with black scales covering the whole of its body. The damn thing looked like a cross between a dragon and a roided up lion. With just enough alien physiology in its strange, tube shaped head and worm like proboscis to ensure Summers would have nightmares for the rest of his life.

“Asle, don’t suppose you know if there are more of these things? Or what it is?” Summers looked over at the young girl, who was just as surprised as the rest of them.

“Don’t know.” She muttered.

“I’m no biologist, or zoologist…” Logan explained. “I don’t know much about animals is what I’m saying, but an ecosystem can’t sustain many things this big, not for long, anyway. I think we’re safe.”

Nowak looked at the creature, then the mostly empty wagon beside the Humvee.

“What do you think about taking this thing with us?”

“I don’t know if we can eat all that, Sarge.” Summers cautioned.

“No, I mean, this is some big mean son of a bitch, right? At least to the locals.” Nowak ventured. “So, if they see we killed it, they might rightfully assume we too, are big, mean sons of bitches. And the scarier we are, the less likely we’re going to have someone fuck with us.”

Summers nodded while staring at the easily three thousand-pound creature. Then he looked to the wagon whose cow was still idly chewing on some grass, paying no more attention to what had just happened than it would a passing flock of birds.

“Any ideas how we get it up there?”

“Same as with anything.” Nowak took out his boot knife, feeling the balance of it in his hand. “Piece by piece.”