No one challenged them as they raced forward.
Blade reached the side of the building first and crouched down, listening. Once the others were to his left he eased to the corner and peeked around the edge.
Not a soul was in sight.
“Stay close,” the Warrior reiterated in a whisper, and darted from cover to sprint to the front of the cabin. He paused again at the corner to scan the field and the front of the structure, bothered to finding the door wide open. Surely whoever sent the message wouldn’t go off and leave the cabin unattended? He inched along the wall to within a foot of the doorway, then stopped.
The waist-high weeds in the field were stirred slightly by a sluggish breeze from the northwest. Bees, a few butterflies, and other insects were in evidence, but nothing else.
“I don’t like this Boss,” Lynx whispered, sliding up beside the giant.
“Don’t talk,” Blade hissed, and swung into the doorway, his knees bent, sweeping the Thompson from side to side.
The cabin was unoccupied. A rickety wooden table sat off to the right, and a chair had been positioned on either side. Those three items were the only furniture.
Blade stepped inside, checked behind the door even though it hung almost flush with the wall, and walked over to the table. He thoughtfully gnawed on his lower lip, pondering the implications. His first assumption was that no one had used the cabin in ages, that perhaps he did have the wrong coordinates. Then he glanced at the windowsills and the floor and realized someone had been there, and quite recently. Dust caked all the sills and the floor space nearest the walls, but the table, the chairs, and most of the floor were all dust free. So perhaps the cabin had been the site from which the broadcasts had originated.
But where was the broadcaster?
The Warrior returned to the doorway and stood gazing at the countryside to the east. A very faint trail was visible leading in that direction.
“Can I speak, oh, mighty one?” Lynx inquired.
“What is it?”
“If you ask me, this is turnin’ into a waste of our time.”
“No one asked you.”
“What do we do now? Sit around and twiddle our thumbs until someone shows up?”
“We might,” Blade said. He stepped outside and moved a dozen yards from the structure, debating their course of action. Perhaps whoever had made the calls only did so at night. In that case, the person with the radio might not put in an appearance until nightfall. They could scour every nook and cranny, or they could stay there and hope someone came.
Ferret walked a few paces to the north, his nostrils quivering. “Do you smell that?” he asked, glancing at Lynx.
“What?”
“I’m not exactly sure. A reptilian sort of scent, one I’ve never encountered before.”
“Yeah. I smelted it a while back. Beats me what it could be,” the cat-man stated.
“Snakes, maybe?” Blade suggested.
“I know snake scent,” Lynx said. “It’s faint and very distinct. This is a stronger odor, and different.”
“Alligators, then,” Blade remarked.
“Or an unknown kind of mutation, yes?” Gremlin interjected.
“Whatever it is, it gives me the willies,” Ferret mentioned.
Blade raised his right hand to shield his eyes from the sunlight. Far off on the eastern horizon towering buildings were barely visible. Skyscrapers, most likely. Downtown New Orleans. He estimated the distance at four or five miles.
“What’s the plan, Fearless Leader?” Lynx queried. “Your wish is our command.”
“Tell you what,” Blade said. “Since you’re so antsy to do something, why don’t you take that trail over there and see where it leads?” He pointed eastward..
“My pleasure,” the cat-man replied promptly, and took off. “Don’t wait up for me, Mother!” He jogged into the field.
“Be back here in thirty minutes!” Blade ordered.
Lynx looked over his left shoulder and smirked. “I don’t own a watch.”
With that he cackled and broke into a trot, only his chest, slim shoulders, and head in view above the tops of the swaying vegetation.
“Lynx is a card, no?” Gremlin commented.
“No,” Ferret responded.
“I can think of other words that would fit him better,” Blade said. He walked back to the cabin and sat down in the doorway, leaning his back against the right-hand jamb.
“Lynx means well, yes.”
“Is that why he persuaded you to come along on this assignment against your better judgment?” Blade asked.
Ferret and Gremlin exchanged startled looks.
“You knew all the time, no?” the humanoid said.
“I do now,” Blade said.
“Don’t be hard on Lynx,” Ferret stated. “He can’t help himself. The damn Doktor bred all of us to be exactly as we are. I’m a moody cuss, Gremlin is always Mr. Cheerful, and Lynx just naturally believes he’s right all of the time. Unfortunately for his ego and the rest of us, he’s correct about eighty-five percent of the time. And if you ever tell him I said so, I’ll deny every word.”
Blade smiled and rested the Thompson in his lap. He debated whether to open the backpack and remove a few strips of jerked venison, but before he could reach a decision a series of sharp retorts from the direction Lynx had taken brought him to his feet.
Gunshots!
Chapter Four
Lynx chuckled as he jogged eastward. So far the mission had been on the dull side, although he had been able to alleviate the monotony by baiting Blade. His conscience nagged at him about taunting the giant so much, but he simply couldn’t help himself. Contrariness was an integral part of his feline nature, as much a part of him as his fur or his razor-sharp nails.
Besides, Blade invited such treatment by his somber attitude and strict devotion to proper procedure. The giant was a perfectionist, and perfectionists just naturally got Lynx’s goat.
A garter snake slithered across the path four feet in front of him.
Abruptly slowing, Lynx warily watched the reptile even though it was harmless. He disliked snakes intensely. They gave him the creeps. And he invariably went out of his way to avoid them where possible. He chided himself for not realizing there would be a lot of snakes in Louisiana.
The tip of the garter snake’s thin tail disappeared in the weeds.
Good riddance, sucker! Lynx thought, and forced onward.
The presence of the snake prompted him to think of other unsavory creatures, like alligators and spiders. He’d never encountered a gator before, but spiders ranked high up there with snakes as creatures the planet could better do without.
The scent of deer wafted to his sensitive nostrils.
Lynx almost turned aside to stalk the animals. He was starting to become hungry, and fresh venison would taste delicious. Just thinking about a mouthful of raw, bloody meat made him salivate. He’d have to talk to the Big Dummy about allowing them to do some hunting after he returned to the cabin. Neither he nor his friends had brought backpacks; they’d opted to travel light and fast; to live off the land as befitted their bestial natures.
Even Gremlin.
Which was odd.
Lynx wondered why Gremlin tried so hard to emulate Ferret and him.
Of the three of them, Gremlin possessed the least animalistic nature.
While Ferret and Lynx were half-man, half-beast, Gremlin was essentially a strange-looking human. A human endowed with exceptional strength and stamina, true, but nonetheless more like Homo sapiens than Lynx or Ferret could ever hope to be.
Sometimes Lynx found himself envying Gremlin, but only in extremely rare moments of emotional weakness when he pondered the stigma attached to his own state of being. Most humans regarded hybrids with either disdain, mistrust, or outright hatred for no other reason than the fact that hybrids were different. And Lynx had never been able to tolerate such a repugnant attitude. It wasn’t his fault he was a damned mutation.