The Harvest (17 page)

“I guess we’re about to find out what’s
next,” Liam groaned.

Passing out of the air-conditioning of the
cafeteria onto the scorching blacktop of the tarmac, Shane gasped
at the harsh climate change. Kelly must’ve experienced it too. She
grabbed his arm and sighed weakly.

Jones led them around the cafeteria, into the
shady egress between it and the next building.

“Looks like we’re gonna play in the woods,”
Tracy observed.

“Sounds a heck of a lot better than being on
the pavement,” Shane replied.

“We’ll see if you feel that way in an hour,”
Jones, who was just ahead of Shane, threatened over his
shoulder.

He glanced up into the forest with
trepidation. He was nervous once again about encountering the
animals. Although he knew the fear was irrational, he couldn’t stop
thinking about their murderous rampage.

Behind the buildings, the forest grew tall
and thick, its shade inviting. A younger version of Jones, minus
the muscles and facial scar, stood next to a cart.

“Line up to receive a weapon,” Jones
ordered.

“A weapon?” Kelly said under her breath.

“That’s what I’m talk’n about,” Steve added,
eagerly stepping to the cart.

The man handed out paintball guns to
everyone, and a chatter of excitement arose from the exhausted
kids, the prospect of a war game re-energizing them. Jones climbed
up the hill a few yards so he stood above them.

“This exercise is simple. There is a flag at
the top of this mountain,” Jones explained, pointing behind him.
“The person who retrieves it without getting shot, and brings it
back down to me, wins ten points for their team. If you are shot,
you are out of the game and must come back down immediately. Do not
cheat, people. We have cameras placed throughout these woods, and
we are watching. Understood?”

“Sir, yes sir!”

“Don’t we get any body armor or at least
goggles?” one of the Finns asked.

“No, of course not,” Jones answered abruptly.
“So try not to get shot in the face.”

He pointed at a small Israeli flag sticking
out of the ground. “This is the starting point for the Israeli team
here in front of me. Each team has their own starting point. Teams
three, four and five are that way,” he pointed left, “and the rest
of you are on my right. You have three minutes to get in front of
your flag. When you hear this,” Jones honked a handheld aerosol
foghorn, “you may begin. Go to your starting places.”

Shane and his group headed west at a brisk
pace along the narrow path behind the buildings. The other two
nationalities whose flags were in the same direction followed them,
the gravel crunching loudly under everyone’s feet.

“You ever been hit by one of these?” Steve
waved his gun.

“No.”

“Well, it hurts like the dickens,” he
replied. “And it leaves a nasty welt.”

“Then we’d best not get hit,” Tracy advised
bluntly.

They found the little American flag sticking
out of the leaf litter and watched the Koreans and Fins pass,
walking toward their own flags.

“What’s our strategy?” Tracy asked in a
hushed voice, her eyes on Shane.

“I reckon we should charge straight up and
try to get to the flag as fast as we can,” he replied.

“Three of us should go in the middle, and the
rest should flank them,” Maurice suggested. “That way, the people
on the sides can act as a defense and give us the best chance of
getting at least one person up and down without getting shot.”

“Sounds good,” Shane said. “Who’s in the
middle?”

“You, Tracy, and Steve,” Maurice replied
decisively. “You’re the fittest of us, and if we get shot, you have
the best chance of fighting your way back down without us.”

A flash of insult crossed Jules’ face,
perhaps because she was the best runner on the team. She kept
quiet, and her expression quickly cleared, like she was committed
to doing whatever Maurice recommended. Shane was flattered the
stout boy had so much faith in him. It reminded him of the trip to
the capitol, when he had stepped ahead of Shane to protect him so
he could get downtown to the limbic manipulator.

“I don’t think I can make it up there,” Laura
said. She was still flushed red from the run, and her eyes were
drooping with exhaustion.

Tracy glared at her, and Shane feared she was
about to say something mean.

“Do your best,” Kelly replied kindly before
Tracy had a chance. “I bet you can if you try.”

“I’m not so sure I can get up there either.
If you can’t make it,” Maurice said, putting a hand on her
shoulder, “stop wherever you get to and wait for us to come back
down. Hide, and be ready to ambush anyone who might be on our
tails.”

“Got it,” Laura replied. A measure of
confidence returned to her expression.

“Good thinking, Maurice,” Shane said,
impressed. “Same goes for everyone else.”

“And we need to conserve our rounds,” Steve
pointed out. “These hoppers hold about two hundred paintballs, and
they only look half full.”

“So we’ve got a hundred rounds each,” Shane
said. “Seems like plenty.”

“Obviously, you’ve never played paintball,”
Tracy replied. “The rounds go fast. Don’t shoot until you have an
easy target.”

“If we head straight up, I don’t think we’ll
encounter the other teams ‘til we’re near the top,” Kelly pointed
out.

“Right,” Jules chimed in. “Let’s run with
everything we got. Coming back down will be easy.”

“If anyone gets shot, someone pick up their
gun so we have extra rounds.”

The handheld air horn sounded, its mournful
note spurring Shane’s pulse to a gallop.

“
Go, go, go
!” he shouted, and he and
his friends tore through the underbrush into the forest.

The
mountain was steeper than it looked from below. Shane and his team
slipped in the leaf litter and grabbed tree branches to keep from
falling. They settled into a clip that was as fast as they could go
while still maintaining their formation. Two minutes into the
woods, Laura stopped. It would have bothered Shane to see her give
up so easily, but then, having her there, rested and ready to shoot
anyone following them back down, was an appealing idea.

“Just like running the bleachers at
practice,” Steve said. He was huffing rhythmically behind Shane.
Tracy took up the rear of their center column.

“Yeah, but a whole heck of a lot slicker,”
Shane gasped.

After four minutes of climbing, Shane’s quads
were on fire. The hill got even steeper, and he dug the toes of his
running shoes into the soft ground for traction. Their crashing
footsteps and labored breathing made it impossible to hear if any
of the other teams approached, but he expected they’d all head
straight up and collide near the top. Steve had the sharpest eyes
in the forest, having been a hunter all of his life. He hoped the
linebacker would see the other teams before they saw them.

“How much further can it possibly be?”
Maurice groaned. He was climbing on the right side, leaning too
much and sweating profusely.

“Can’t be too far,” Jules encouraged, her
long legs and wiry runner’s body better suited for the task. “Keep
pushing.”

Orange splattered a tree one foot ahead of
Shane, sending a jolt of adrenaline into his blood.

“On your left,” Steve shouted.

The Russians ran along the side of the
mountain, moving faster than his group because they weren’t heading
straight up.

“They’re coming right at us!” Kelly dropped
to her knee, aiming her gun.

“Keep going,” Tracy yelled.

Kelly’s head snapped back, paint streaking
her blonde hair. She screamed and held her face in her hands. Shane
pointed his gun in the direction of the approaching Russians and
fired. They were hopscotching between trees, hiding before they
tried to take a shot. They clearly had more experience in this sort
of game than his people did.

“Hurts like hell, but she’ll be okay,” Steve
promised, coming alongside Shane such that he shielded him from the
Russians. “We can make it if we don’t stop.”

He knew his friend was right, but it didn’t
extinguish his urge to tend to Kelly. Knowing she’d be upset if he
stopped, he leaned forward into the mountain and pumped his legs as
hard as he could. A splat came from his left, and Steve cursed.

“I’ve been hit.”

He tossed Shane his gun and dropped off.

A few more yards up the hill, he heard Steve
shouting, “You already got me, you bastards,” followed by wicked
laughter from the Russians.

“I’m still behind you,” Tracy said. “Keep
going!”

Having lost Laura and Kelly on the left side,
Shane ordered Maurice to cross over and provide protection.
Amazingly enough, the preacher’s son was still with them.

“There are four of us left—we got this,” he
said, trying to motivate his dwindling team.

“I gotta stop here,” Maurice huffed. “I’ll
keep ‘em off you.” He turned around and sat on the mountain, taking
aim downhill.

A few more yards and Shane saw the sunlight
showing through the trees above them.

“We made it,” he announced excitedly.

“Here come the others,” Jules warned.

Shane looked right and could see shadows
moving between the trees.

“The flag!” Tracy shouted.

Up ahead, a red flag on a wooden dowel stuck
out of the leaf litter. Shane’s group had gotten lucky. Charging
straight up, they had the shortest distance to the top. The other
teams were climbing at an angle to get to the same point. He
snatched the flag out of the ground and shoved it into the elastic
band of his shorts. Paintballs exploded on the trees around them,
and the frustrated shouts of the other kids echoed through the
forest.

“Back down, fast,” he yelled.

They spun and raced down the mountain. Shane
basically let his body fall, throwing his feet in front of himself
to keep from landing on his face. He pointed his gun ahead and
Steve’s to the side where the Russians had come from, randomly
firing shots in hopes he’d get lucky or at least keep the other
teams at bay.

“Ouch!” Jules shouted. “I’m hit. Keep
going.”

“I’ll cover you,” Tracy said, taking Jules’
gun. “Let me in front.”

Shane slowed just enough for her to pass. It
didn’t take long for them to encounter the Russians again. He saw
them looking up the hill. They shouted at each other and dropped to
their knees, firing their weapons at Tracy and Shane.

Their strategy became apparent. They were
waiting, rested and ready to attack whoever retrieved the flag and
then pick up the fumble. Smart, even if it did stink of
cheating.

Although he could easily run faster than she
could down the hill, he tried to stay behind Tracy the best he
could, firing over and around her. She had two guns pointed
straight ahead, spraying out the rounds. Paintballs found one of
the girls and the two dark-haired boys, one of which had already
been shot and shouldn’t have been fighting. Shane recognized the
cheater as the boy Kelly had kicked in the balls and worried he
might try to take revenge in the woods. They took four vaulting
strides and were almost on top of the Russians when Tracy got shot
in the face. She lost her balance and slid down the mountain on her
belly.

Shane leapt into the air, expecting to land
on top of her. His foot touching down between her outstretched arm
and her skull. He cleared Tracy’s sprawled body and
accelerated.

Fifteen feet below, Anfisa, the stoic leader
of the Russian squad, was squatting on her knee, her gun leveled at
Shane. He was moving too fast, fast enough to break something if he
hit a tree. He pulled his triggers, aiming an impossibility.
Despite bouncing wildly down the slope, Shane saw her calm, glacial
blue eyes focus on him and a triumphant smile rise on her sunburned
face. He squinted, bracing for the stinging wallop of a
paintball.

Maurice exploded from under the branches of a
fallen tree just above her. Anfisa shifted her aim and rounds from
her gun splattered his chest and face, but the shouting boy was
airborne, and nothing could stop him from hitting her.

“Woo-hoo!” Shane yelled. He leapt into the
air, clearing his friend and the tackled Russian.

“Get him!” Anfisa shouted angrily from under
Maurice.

Even over his heavy breathing and the sound
of his own feet crashing through the leaves, Shane heard a person,
or persons, running down the mountain behind him. The Russians had
conserved their energy, waiting for his descent. He sensed they
were on his heels and kicked even harder, expecting to trip and get
a face-full of tree trunk. Paintballs splatted on trees to the left
and right, and the shouts grew louder.

Surprise and relief swept away his woes.
Laura hid behind a tree ahead, her gun aimed uphill and her hopper
still full. He smiled at the thought that the two least athletic
people on his team were turning out to be the MVPs in this
game.