Now, close to dawn, I sat up, shivering, and reached for the mobile phone tucked away in a hip pouch. Strepp had given me the precious piece of technology before we left the camp so I could report back to her. I figured the skirmish with the United soldiers last night counted as important enough to risk using an unsecured cell signal. But when I pulled the phone from its holder, pieces of plastic rained from my hand.
Shit! The phone had been smashed when that United asshole tackled me. Strepp was going to kill me—if I survived long enough to see her again.
We had to get on the move again. I woke the team and we broke camp, removing all signs that we’d been there. As we walked, I did constant sweeps, remembering to look up as well as all around. Didn’t want any more drones to sneak up on us. I froze suddenly when I saw—in the trees—
I held up my hand, and the footsteps behind me stopped. They’d seen it, too—I heard gasps from my squad and whirled to give them a silent “shut the eff up” gesture.
Nate stood next to me.
“Shit,” I breathed almost soundlessly. Nate nodded.
The woods were full of… skeletons? Skeletons. Hanging from the trees. Fraying ropes were still looped around the small bones of their necks. I looked around, my eyes peering through the gray half-light of the coming sunrise. Under some trees were small piles of bones—the ones whose rope
s had finally given way. Carved into the bark, almost grown over, were the letters O W.
“Ow?” I said softly.
“A warning,” Nate whispered. “But an old one. How old? Why? Who?”
I nodded, triply on alert, and advanced silently, gun drawn. Despite the grisly remains, there seemed to be no other dangers.
We stayed in the woods for more than an hour, picking our way east. Finally the filtered light got brighter and we could see ten, twenty feet ahead. I was thrilled to see the approaching end of the woods—my skin had crawled the whole time we were in here. There had been no birds, no insects, no animals, just like a couple days ago.
Near the edge of the woods I surveyed the field we were approaching and I almost jumped when Levi whispered, “Weird.”
“What?”
Levi pointed up and I took a step back in surprise. Above us were… boats. Boats stuck in trees.
42
CRANING MY NECK, I WANDERED in a circle, staring at the treetops. There were actually boats above us, maybe twenty feet up. One was old and wooden, with the name Jack of All Trades barely visible, painted on the side.
Jolie took my hand and spelled F-I-S-H-I-N-G. The only fishing boats I’d ever seen were much smaller, used only on Cattail Pond.
Another boat was much fancier than the fishing boat but had been broken in half, its rear end missing. Its once-white sides were stained gray-green with lichen and age. And right at the edge of the woods was a long, long gray metal thing, like a boat turned on its side and almost completely buried.
Without speaking, we walked the length of it, unable to believe that there had ever been a ship this big. Toward its pointed bow was painted US NAVY.
“US?” Nate said. “Like, United Sea something?”
I shook my head. “No idea.” I wish we still had Jolie’s camera to document the weirdness. Strepp would want to know about this.
I turned and looked back at the woods. Boats in trees. The woods were growing up around the boats, through them, eating them. Why would someone put boats in a forest? How long had they been here?
“Maybe this used to be a lake or something?” Bunny suggested, her dark face lit by morning’s first sun.
“In the middle of dry land?” Mills scoffed.
“You got a better idea?” she challenged him.
“Basically, we have no freaking clue,” I said, settling it. “Let’s just file it under Crazy Shit We Saw, along with everything else.”
Before us was a high, sloping plain of tall grass, but different, more like grain. It reminded me of wheat or oats but I didn’t recognize it.
“Let’s cross this slowly, guys,” I directed. “Watch out for trip wires and snakes.”
“I’ll take point,” Nate said, moving into the grass slowly, tapping a long, thin branch ahead of him.