Frank turned and spotted Captain Waxman a short distance up the slope. He yelled to be heard above the gunfire. “Captain Waxman! Rand’s plan is working!” Frank waved an arm. “We can cross! Now!”
Waxman acknowledged his words with a nod, then his voice boomed. “Bravo unit! Retreat toward the stream!”
Frank touched the brim of his lucky baseball cap and stepped to Kelly. “Let’s go.”
Manny hurried past them. “Tor-tor and I’ll still go first. It was my dissection upon which this plan was based.” He didn’t wait for a reply. He and his pet stepped to the stream’s edge. He paused for half a breath, then waded into the stream. This fork was clearly deeper. Midstream, the water reached Manny’s chest. Tor-tor had to swim.
But shortly the biologist was climbing out the far side. He turned. “Hurry! It’s safe for the moment!”
“Move it!” Waxman ordered.
The civilians crossed together, strung along the current.
Frank went with Kelly, holding her hand. By now, hundreds of creatures bobbed in the water. They had to wade through the deadly forms, bumping them aside, avoiding sharp teeth that glistened from slack mouths. Horrified, Frank held his breath, praying for them to remain inert.
They reached the far side and scrambled, half panicked, out of the water. The Rangers followed next, rushing across in full gear, oblivious to what floated around them. As they clambered up to dry land, the first of the advancing creatures began to appear on the far side of the stream, hurtling out of the jungle. A couple piranha-frogs approached the stream but stopped at the water’s edge, gill flaps trembling.
They must sense the danger, Frank thought. But they had no choice. On land they were suffocating. As if obeying some silent signal, the mass of mutated piranhas fled into the water.
“Back away!” Waxman ordered. “We can’t count on the water still being tainted.”
The group fled from the stream into the jungle-covered heights. Flashlights remained fixed on the water and banks. But after several minutes, it was clear the pursuit was over. Either the waters were still toxic to the beasts or they had given up their chase.
Frank sighed. “It’s over.”
Kelly remained quietly focused beside him, using her flashlight to scan the far bank of the stream. “Where’s Private Carrera?” she asked softly, then turned to Frank. “Where’s Nate?”
Upriver, a blast sounded, echoing through the forest.
Kelly’s eyes widened as she stared at Frank. “They’re in trouble.”
Nate raised his shotgun and blasted another of the creatures that ventured too close. Carrera had shrugged off her weapon’s fuel canister and was bent over it. “How much longer?” Nate asked, eyes wide, trying to watch everything at once.
“Almost done.”
Nate glanced to the stream at his back. In the glow from Carrera’s flashlight, he saw that the poison in the water was working. Downstream, bodies floated to the surface, but the current was rapidly carrying them away. The narrow streambed behind them was empty of bodies and could not be trusted. The current, as swift as it was, had surely swept the powdered poison away from here and down the length of the stream. It was not safe. They needed to backtrack along the trailing toxin in the water and seek a secure place to cross, where the current was more sluggish, somewhere where the poison was still active—but between them and safety lay a small legion of the creatures, entrenched in the forest, blocking their way.
“Ready,” Carrera said, standing.
She hauled her handiwork from the jungle floor and tightened the canister’s lid, leaving a primer cord draping from it. The tank contained only a bit of fuel, not enough to service the weapon, but enough for their purposes. At least he hoped.
Nate held his position with his shotgun. “Are you sure this will work?”
“It had better.”
Her words were not exactly the vote of confidence Nate was seeking.
“Point out the target again,” she said, moving beside him.
He shifted his shotgun’s muzzle and pointed at the gray-barked tree about thirty yards downstream.
“Okay.” Carrera lit the end of the primer cord with a butane lighter. “Get ready.” She swung her arm back and, using all the strength in her body, lobbed the canister underhanded.
Nate held his breath. It arced end-over-end—and landed at the foot of the targeted tree.
“All those years of women’s softball finally paid off,” Carrera mumbled, then to Nate: “Get down!”
Both dropped to the leafy floor. Nate fell, keeping his shotgun pointed ahead of him. And he was lucky he did. One of the creatures leaped from a bush, landing inches from his nose. Nate rolled and batted it away with the stock of his shotgun. He rolled back to his belly and glanced to the Ranger beside him. “Varsity baseball,” he mumbled. “Senior year.”
“Down!” Carrera reached and smashed his head to the dirt.
The explosion was deafening, shrapnel ripped through the canopy overhead. Nate glanced over. Carrera’s trick had indeed worked. She had transformed the near-empty fuel tank into a large Molotov cocktail. Flames lit the night.
Carrera got to her knees. “What about—?”
Now it was Nate’s turn to tug her down.
The second explosion sounded like a lightning strike: splintering wood accompanied by a low boom. The nearby jungle was shredded apart, followed by a rain of flaming copal resin.
“Damn it!” Carrera swore. Her sleeve was on fire. She patted it out in the loam.
Nate stood, relieved to see that the plan had worked. The tree, their target, was now just a blasted wreck, bluish flames dancing atop the stump. As Nate expected, the sap, rich in hydrocarbons, had acted as fuel, causing the makeshift Molotov cocktail to turn the tree into a natural bomb, and torch the entire riverbank as well.
“C’mon!” Nate called, bounding up with Carrera.
Together, they ran along the flaming and shredded section of the forest, paralleling the stream until they overtook the poison trailing through the water. Bodies of the creatures and other fish filled the channel.
“This way!” Nate ran into the river, half swimming, half clawing his way across. Carrera followed.
In no time, they were scrambling up the far bank.
“We did it!” the Ranger said with a laugh.
Nate sighed. Off in the distance, he spotted the shine of the others’ flashlights. The team had made it across, too. “Let’s go see if everyone else is okay.”