The Butterfly Forest

EIGHTY-FOUR

We ran the opposite direction from where the flashlights zigzagged through the trees. Buttery radiance from the full moon drifted down through the branches, illuminating moths and mosquitoes, creating a trapped and eerie image around us like dust caught in a cone of light over the dark felt of a pool table.

“I see ‘em!” one man bellowed out.

I could hear the men running, snapping branches and saplings as they closed the distance behind us.

They stopped.

We stopped. I tried to hold my breath, blood trickling out of my wound. Mosquitoes whined and orbited our heads. I saw the white burst of a machine gun. The rounds tore through limbs above our heads, raining down leaves and shattered branches.

“This way,” Billie said, as he ducked under a huge moss-covered tree that must have fallen years ago from high winds in a hurricane. I followed him, the blood again seeping out from my crude bandages.

We sprinted through an ankle-deep slough and around huge cypress trees. Moonlight reflected off the dark water. The smell of moss and muck erupted as the swamp gripped our shoes and made sucking sounds each time we lifted our feet. Then we hit dry land.

I could hear the men gaining on us, breathing and snorting equivalent to horses racing, shouting to each other. A reckless abandonment on their part of a stealth attack took over their small gang as the taste of blood blossomed in their mouths. They tore through limbs, vines, anything that stood in their way. It was beyond a posse. It was a pack of wolves running down injured prey. I looked back in the distance, under the light of the moon.

They were coming fast. The alpha wolf, Frank Soto, led the gang, eyes wide with fervor of a kill. “O’Brien’s mine!” he shouted.

“I’m taking a scalp!” I heard one of the bikers boast. “Payback for Custer!”

Billie seemed to pay no attention to their taunts. I wasn’t sure he even noticed a large white sign with black lettering. It was big, but unremarkable in the dark. However, its warning was anything but ordinary.

It was frightening.

It was a forewarning.

Any second I expected we’d hit a deep ditch. Maybe we’d run smack into a cinderblock wall, the kind that came with towers, gun turrets and men who had the first paragraph of the Patriot Act tattooed on their strapping forearms. We might be stopped by a soaring chain-link fence with razor wire in the top half dozen strands. Or we’d be hit in the face with powerful searchlights, and either be gunned down by Special Forces guards, or we’d be shot to death by our advancing lynch mob.

I was growing more light-headed by the second. I wondered if I was simply hallucinating from blood loss. THINK. I blinked hard, worked my lower jaw, and applied pressure to the wound I could reach. I felt like we were running in slow motion.

Then I heard Soto barking orders. He cursed and laughed at the same time.

My lungs ached. “Can’t go much farther,” I said to Billie. He stopped and turned toward me. A machine gun discharge exploded the leaves and sand in front of him. One bullet tore through his upper arm. He went down.

I positioned myself behind a pine tree and leveled my Glock, firing one shot at the open machine gunner to the far right. I saw him fall. I fired three more shots at the silhouettes stooping behind trees under the moonlight. Adrenaline burst through my system. “You okay?” I asked Billie, lifting him to his feet.

“I’ll live.”

“Damn straight!” I said. “One down, six to go.”

I knew we’d just run into a Navy bombing range.

In the distance, I could hear the fighter jet circling back toward us.