30 Minute Plan - 16

Considerably thinner and gaunt-looking but those were the eyes of a human being. Danton checked his dual swing and tumbled away from another ziggy that lunged at him.

Cargill blinked down at him and his mouth fell open.

 

"Danton?" His voice was a whisper.

 

"I have to get you out of here." Danton chopped into another ziggy's dome and his machete made it midway down its forehead before it slumped to the ground. The pack was beginning to turn on him. He had to get away.

 

Danton began slicing at arms and hands and mouths as they drew nearer. He kicked one center mass, pushing it back into four others and creating a small gap he might be able to squeeze through. A hand grabbed his shoulder before he could jump and he smelt cold, rancid-fruit breath as another ziggy's mouth drew much too close.

 

Cargill elbowed the ziggy aside and broke the grip of the one holding him. He grabbed Danton and shoved his way through until he'd broken the pack.

 

Danton was ready to fight them off; he could definitely do it from outside the pack. Maybe he could take them all down. He was fast enough even though his eyes burned from the thick lemony smell from within the pack. But they stopped where they were.

 

Danton didn't get it.

 

"I'm their… I'm their leader," Cargill said, his hands resting on his shoulders. "We protect each other. I don't understand it, probably something Boyle put in those canisters. Maybe it has a symbiotic effect on living humans in relation to Ziggy." Danton didn't know what that one word meant, he figured it must have meant 'calming' or some shit like that. "But that's why they broke in the base and took me. They sensed me—sensed I was one of them. Except I'm still alive."

 

"Why aren't they eating you?" Danton asked.

 

"I can control them, for the most part. It's a low level grunting kind of thing. I warn them away from dangers and keep the pack tight. There's another pack following us."

 

"The ones that smell like burning wood?"

 

"Yeah, that's them. You've seen them?"

 

"No, but I was close. Got a good whiff."

 

"Good. Avoid them. When we first saw them there were only a dozen. I don't know where their numbers were coming from, but three days ago there were twenty at least. And I think they're all singles."

 

"But they don't pack up," Danton said.

 

"I know. There's something else going on."