Murray Hill || A Superhuman Tale - 1

Chapter Forty-Nine

"There's more of them coming," the youngster said.

She was half a head taller than Celia, with thick dark hair and a long face. That face now was trembling, and her eyes were brimming. In all his living days, Sam had never seen a child so frightened, and despite the heat of the day, she looked cold. The girl was frightfully thin.

The thump of a helicopter—no, two helicopters—sounded in the distance. They were moving closer.

"Damn."

Reaching into the truck, Sam grabbed two full hydration packs and an assault pack. Fishing about, he came up with five MREs and shoved them in the pack. He turned. The girl was gone. Looking about, he saw her running up the slope in the opposite direction from which he had come. As thin as the child was, she ran like a deer.

There was a sudden sound of a diesel engine down the muddy road. Sam took off after the girl at a run. His speed was remarkable for a man of any age, even injured, but he quickly lost sight of the child in the underbrush ahead. There was nothing about running wildly in the woods that he liked, but he had no choice. He didn't want to lose her.

Fortunately, after 10 minutes of careening breakneck through the bush, Sam again caught sight of the youngster. She was hunkered down near a clearing. In just a few seconds, he joined her.

"We have to go," she whispered shakily.

As she went to rise, Sam gently took her arm and pulled her back. Her eyes widened, and she looked to her right.

Following her gaze, Sam saw three men standing on a rise in the clearing about 70 yards away. The chugging of a vehicle in that direction and the squelch of a distant radio now caught his ears. Looking back, he saw the tears streaming from her eyes.

There was no faulting the child. Speed likely had been her only ally for more than a month. How she had lasted in the wilderness this long, even against these rank amateurs, was a mystery for the ages. He pulled her closer and raised his finger to his lips in the universal sign of silence.

Gently, tenderly, he began creeping away from the men, using whatever cover was available to him. Over the next hour, Sam took every opportunity to demonstrate his skills to the child—move little, pause often, and look, listen, and smell constantly.

By the time an hour of careful skulking had passed, not a single mercenary was within a mile of them. Still, though the worst of the kid's terror had subsided, she remained nervous and jittery at every sound in the forest.

Probably not the worst instinct, he decided.

And there was worse yet. Sam's injuries had improved, but he still was nowhere close to 100 percent, and the girl—well. She was a wreck and very possibly on her last legs. They needed to find a place to rest.

"Where do you go to hide, darling?" he asked her.

Without speaking, she took a new direction, quickly at first, but it appeared that hearing Sam rush to catch her reminded her to slow her pace. Soon, the two began creeping up a slight rise in the forest. They shortly approached a rocky outcrop in which Sam could see a series of caves.

His guide took him past those, however, and they continued along some rocky ground for about a mile before coming to an exceptionally dense section of the forest. The ground there was soft and spongy, and Sam realized, looking back, that they left little or no trail behind them. After winding about the woods for some minutes, the two arrived at what looked like a mound. Lydia disappeared inside.

Sam followed her into what must have been an old storage bunker, now completely covered by the forest floor. There was no door, but the entrance was at a sharp angle and below ground level, so no wind entered. The place was damp and musty, but it was relatively cool against the heat of the day. There had been some effort to clean.