Unlucky trip

This mysterious man

We were all three inside the pickup truck. Mr. Williams was in the driving seat, I was sitting next to him and Dave was in the back. We walked the left road. Our destination, the Goldsprings Park Ranger's Post and the mountain maps there, where we could find an old smuggling trail to get out of here. At that moment, it was our only hope to leave the hell out of this place. Unfortunately, there was now one thing that was bothering me. Namely, I wasn't quite sure about this seating arrangement due to the fact that the old man had drunk two cups of stronger alcohol less than half an hour ago. I might as well have been driving, even though I drank a little too, but it wasn't enough for me to have any problems in the current situation. I kind of protested that I should drive the car, but he was so stubborn. As you can see, he was doing pretty well. He drove like he was completely sober, so that was a little reassuring, but only a little. We're done checking my gun now. I've already loaded two Post magazines with bullets I stole from their truck. I pulled the barrel of the gun back slightly to check if the cartridge was properly in the chamber and nothing jammed. After that, I put it back in my pocket. Then I looked ahead at the sight of the road illuminated by the glow of the headlights in the car. Now I could see many things a little more clearly. Trees wrapped with these vein-like vines and this strange weed covering the bark. And then suddenly one of these creatures jumped out onto the road. For a moment, he stood with his legs apart, hunched over, and looked at us with his mouth wide open, black goo dripping from it. I heard it screech at us until we hit it with the bumper to make it disappear under the vehicle, which jumped at it. I kind of knew that this thing was no longer human and hitting it was a grace for this unfortunate person, but as soon as the car jumped, my right heart stopped thinking that we had hit someone. No matter who he was.

- We should be at Goodsprings Park in a moment, then it's just a stone's throw from the ranger station. - I was suddenly snapped out of my reverie by an elderly voice. - We will stop at the parking lot at the gate to the park. We'll continue on foot, because I'm worried about those guys in uniform. If only they weren't there.

- Damn... We could find out.

- How exactly?

- There were walkie-talkies in that truck I got the gun from. If I could take one, maybe we could eavesdrop on them.

- Actually, it could even be. In the event of something, maybe we could even try to contact the outside world... Well, unless those people would count on it.

- Do you mean?

- We did a trick on the slant-eyes in Vietnam. Retreating from one base, we left behind a radio station and a book with several ciphers. The Viet Cong was supposed to get their hands on them and think they could eavesdrop on us. In fact, we were feeding them false information, or we were bugging them with a listening bug. This worked for about a month before they realized it was a trick.

- Did you fight in Vietnam? Wow, I mean... He's old, but you seem too young to be a Vietnam veteran.

- Yeah, I was a little younger than you when I volunteered. I was about 15 or 16 if I'm not mistaken.

- Shit, your parents didn't mind that?

- The atmosphere in the house was a bit... tense. You don't like to talk about it. Those were pretty crazy times. But back... One of the mercenaries gave us this idea referring to the ploy of Poles from the times of the Polish-Bolshevik war, where they made jokes about Russians by reading the Bible to them over radio stations. We thought we'd do something similar.

- And you think these guys can do the same?

- It's possible that yes, but these are just assumptions, it's not 100% probable, but if these guys want no one to get out of here... I assume many scenarios.