An Extract From Birdie Down - the bad guys are on the hunt

Cummings stood inside the forest’s edge and studied the still rippling water. They had just missed him. He flipped the filter down over his right eye and ramped up the thermal imaging in his left.

Coming from bright sunshine into such a gloomy environment had left Sparks all but blind. He fished around in his trouser pocket for a night scope. As he waited for it to boot up, he unfocused his eyes and looked for movement in his peripheral vision. Still he saw nothing. Hemmings shrugged in the gloom. It was like entering a cave.

Cummings flicked his filter up. There was nothing to see, just a wall of trees.

‘This way,’ he ordered.

Cummings broke away to the left and followed a spit of dry ground around the edge of the pool, looking down at it for signs of foot prints. He continued for a few hundred metres as it curved around the far side.

Sparks followed Cummings closely, looking out across the pool through his scope, trying not to bump into him whenever he stopped to check a piece of ground.

The lower half of the image began to sparkle. He stopped and looked into the pool with a naked eye. It was moving of its own accord. The fish were beginning to thrash.

‘Sir. Sir!’

Cummings stopped in his tracks, hoping Sparks had seen them. He looked to where Sparks was pointing. He saw the fish.

‘Ignore them,’ he ordered. ‘Just turn your sonics up. Now follow me.’ He set off again, annoyed to have wasted a few precious seconds.

Sparks and Hemmings followed Cummings less eagerly as he made his way around the last half of the pool. They constantly looked up at the now stirring canopy.

Cummings stopped, kicked at an empty airbed and placed his hands on his hips. Sparks and Hemmings sighed with relief, hoping Cummings would call the hunt off. But the relief was short-lived.

He pointed across to a pool that lay fifty metres or so off through the trees. Or maybe it was the edge of the river; it was difficult to say - anyways, it was brighter.

‘That way,’ he said. He set off at a run, splashing across the water, heedless of the growing noise above them.

Sparks shook his head and made to run after him, but something hit him on the shoulder. Hemmings froze, staring at Sparks’ back and then at the water. Sparks turned around.

The pool behind them was already foaming. The branches above them were swaying and starting to sag. Another black ball hit the water beside him. It re-emerged and then scampered away on the surface. Then another. And then another.

It was raining rats.

Hemmings screamed, bent over and clutched at his leg below the knee. He started to dance in a frantic effort to tread water.

Sparks took a step backwards and looked down at his own legs. Below the surface he saw rats tearing into his boots.

Cummings jumped up and spun around, cursing under his breath. The water below him boiled. He roared in pain as something tore into his calf.

The sonics weren’t penetrating the water.

Hemmings slipped. He thrashed as he tried to stand. Sparks wanted to help, but the rats were now ripping into his trouser legs and taking bites from out of his boots. He snatched down to push them away. They grabbed at his hand. He pulled it out of the water and the rats let go.

Cummings staggered towards the river line. Sparks tried to follow. Hemmings continued to thrash about on his back.

Out in the river the water pushed and sucked at Sparks’ legs. The rats let go and sped away on the surface, back into the forest.

Cummings growled and cussed. He raised a leg as high as he could to inspect his wounds but stumbled backwards. Sparks caught him before he was swept downriver. He looked back into the forest. There was no sign of Hemmings; no pleas for help; just the shrill noise of rats as they dropped into the pool and the constant thrashing of water.

Cummings steadied himself and took a deep breath. He raised his pain threshold. Sparks could only grin and bear it.

‘What use are these friggin sonics if they only work above water, eh?’ Cummings asked, grimacing between sharp stabbing waves of pain.

‘None, sir. You think they’ll be of use against them?’ He pointed across the river.

One by one, large brown reptiles slid into the water, attracted to the high-pitch squeals of the rats descending into the pool behind them. Their tails whipped left and right as they powered themselves across the river.

‘I doubt it,’ Cummings replied, taking a first shot with his PIKL. ‘Back to the Farm. Quickly.’

‘What about that Scatkiewicz guy? He must be close,’ Sparks asked. He then turned awkwardly in the swirling water to face the forest. ‘And what about Hemmings, sir?’

Cummings switched to the company net. He cussed as his right leg gave way again.

‘Hemmings is gone, Sparks. You fancy going back in to confirm it?’ He broke off as the companynet came to life. ‘Muldrow? Wake the medic up and get your butt into the air.’