CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Morning took a long time, so it seems, coming to the two men.
They were both awake by the time the sun rose and by the rime that it was fully light, they had finished eating and made their way into the forest.
It was a perfectly clear day out by the river, but the odd clouds that towered over the forest were still there and they were maybe even thicker than the day before.
At any rate, the inside of the forest had a night look to it.
The trek through the forest was the part of the journey that the two men wanted most to do without. They were afraid of the forest because they knew very little about it.
The veil of mystery and the stories of horror and evil, surrounding the place, didn't make their nerves any calmer.
Not much time went by since they had entered the forest. All was quiet inside and they
began to feel easier until they came across a gigantic, ox-sized carcass of a rabbit that was being devoured by huge larvae as large as big rats.
They didn't know the nature of the larvae, whether or not they attacked their prey or just fed-off of dead animal bodies, so they both took their weapons and carried them as they continued.
Soon after, the men heard a strange grating sound overhead that got louder and louder. As the sound became louder, so it changed, sounding like the beating hooves of stampeding horses and finally like a droning whistle.
"Maybe it's the gremlins!" Boyce joked.
Suddenly, before them was a small swarm of hornets, larger than anything that they had ever seen, flying straight for them.
Lloyd shouted to Boyce to dive to the ground and he immediately did it, always trusting that Lloyd had a good reason for telling him to do such a thing.
When Boyce threw himself to the ground Lloyd pointed his weapon at the swarm and shot into it. The laser setting managed to hit and kill only one hornet which was the size of a human head.
He quickly put his weapon on the electrophoric setting. By then Boyce had already set his weapon and shot into the swarm that moved towards Lloyd.
A bunch fell to the ground dead, and after Lloyd killed some more, the few that were left took off for the clouded tree tops.
They both got up and looked at a couple of the hornets twinging on the ground as they died.
They bent down and prodded one with a stick and saw that it had a stinger that was about five inches in length. Its mandible was large and sharp, too. It looked as if it was able to snap a hand off at the wrist. They looked around to see if there would be another attack.
They continued to walk, hoping that the direction was still south, since the only way that they could assume that they were heading south was by taking a straight line right through the forest, ever so often looking back from whence they came, in order to make sure of their direction.
They made steady and rhythmic their jaunt through the thick underbrush, keeping their eyes open for anything and everything that could possibly be harmful to them.
They kept walking, not stopping for a rest or a drink. They didn't speak or look at one another, either, although each knew exactly where the other one was at all times.
The forest seemed to be slightly brighter the further they went into it but this boon to them soon passed, also.
It soon became very dark again and they knew that it was time to find a place of shelter where to sleep.
They were fortunate to find a resting place not too much further into the woods. It was an outcropping of rock that was fairly high and there was a recess in the rock, some ways up. Over the recess there was an over-hanging piece of rock, which would be a nice guard against the condensing moisture that was beginning to fall now.
Boyce set his weapon on laser and blasted holes into the rock, to make the climb up to the recess easier for them.
The recess was large enough for only one person so when they climbed up to it they carved out a much larger hole. It was smooth and warm in the shelter that they made. The cutting edge of the lasers warmed the surrounding rock while they melted a strong smooth surface on the ceiling and walls.
It was another night spent in trading watch by each man, keeping guard from the ferocious animals that stalked their prey at night.
They were high enough up the rock, though, to be safe from most animals, so they hoped. They remembered the size of the rabbit and the hornets, and they couldn't really presume safety even that far up.
What made the watch worse for the two men was the utter lack of light that prevented them from seeing anything, including their own hands in front of their faces.
They used their electric lights only when they heard noises that were nearby, but they never saw anything.
Throughout the entire first day in the forest, Lloyd and Boyce barely said anything to each other, or even stopped anywhere to eat or to drink. The evening was quiet, too; the only things said between them happened when they relieved one another from their watch periods.