Net Force--Kill Chain by Jerome Preisler (e book reader txt) 📕

was no point leaving it wide open. If he could block it, cut some of the wind and rain flying in, it would be an improvement.

The blanket over his shoulders, he inched sideways toward the left on his rear, sliding his backpack along with his leg as quietly as possible. Stopping just inside the entrance, he looked up at the boards above it. But he couldn’t see anything in the total darkness.

He decided to risk briefly using the Maglite, thumbed it to low, and angled it up over the entrance.

It was just as he remembered. There was a narrow space between the strip of wood forming the top of the simple door frame and the three horizontal planks between the frame and roof. Better yet, he saw another gap between the second and third planks. It originally had been very small, but the wood had warped and loosened, so it now looked about a quarter inch wide.

He thought he could easily stuff one edge of his blanket into the space and cover the entrance. Then he could pin down the bottom with his knapsack to prevent it from billowing in whenever the wind kicked up.

Bryan peeled off the blanket. The roof was only six feet above the floor, about his height when he stood up straight. Bent over slightly, rolling his shoulders down, he pushed to his feet with the blanket in his left hand and his flash in the other.

The gap between the two planks looked even wider up close. Keeping his flash steady, he held the blanket lengthwise so it hung over the entrance like a curtain, feeding its upper end into the space with his fingertips, pressing the loose sections against the boards with his right wrist.

It worked like a dream. The blanket covered the whole entrance. As he’d figured, the wet wind was fluttering it around, but a downward glance confirmed there were at least two inches puddled on the floor. Enough to anchor it with his pack.

He glanced over his shoulder at Natasha. She hadn’t stirred. That made him even happier.

Bryan knelt, set the flash on the floor, and grabbed his pack.

These things all happened within four seconds:

A sudden, powerful gust heaved against the blanket so it flapped wildly in the entrance and tailed into the tree house, a corner of its upper edge slipping out of the gap, pulling the rest of the blanket free as it sagged to the floor.

On reflex, Bryan let go of his backpack and lunged for the falling blanket, trying to catch it with both hands before it all came down. But in his haste, he bumped up hard against the pack, pushing it forward through the entrance with his knee. Then, on second disastrous impulse, he groped helplessly for the pack, pushing the blanket out with it.

They tumbled through the air outside, the blanket first snagging on some lower branches ten feet below, the pack crashing noisily through them to the ground.

This was second number three of four.

“Bry...what’s going on?”

Natasha. Behind him. The racket had startled her awake.

His head buzzing with panic, he swung around on his knees to face her and accidentally kicked the Maglite with the side of his heel. As it rolled toward the entrance, clattering across the floor, he spun clumsily back around to catch it and instead kicked it a second time, boosting it out the door. It spun through the air like a propeller in its downward trajectory, end over end, falling past the already soggy blanket stuck on the lower branches.

Bryan’s head whipsawed back toward the entrance in time for him to see the flash land about two feet from the backpack in a bed of wet leaves, still on, its beam lancing out into the darkness of the forest.

He felt the blood drain out of him and jerked his head around again, back toward Natasha. She was sitting up straight as a bolt, staring at him through the darkness.

His eyes went to her face.

“Oh, no,” he said.

She grabbed her pack, hurriedly folding her blanket into it.

“We have to get out of here,” she said.

Bryan watched her, his heart still pounding like a mallet. Outside, the wind howled and swooped. “Where do we go?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “For now we’ll keep moving toward the kayak.”

He hesitated. “Maybe no one heard anything. I can get my stuff and—”

“Bry, no.” She cut him off. “We can’t stick around here.”

He fell silent. Natasha shrugged into her pack and moved up beside him, stooped under the tree house’s low ceiling.

“I’ll go first,” Bryan said.

He turned to face the tree trunk. Its branches were swaying and shaking in the wind, but he grabbed a heavy limb with two hands, swung himself out through the entrance, and descended in the light thrown up by his dropped flash, feeling for branches that could support his weight. Seconds later, she saw him hang briefly from a low branch and then jump down the last few feet.

Natasha was about to hurry out the entrance after him when something registered at the extreme left-hand corner of her vision.

She instantly turned her head to look. There was a shape. Out in the woods, in the rain, between the trees. It was moving. Coming closer.

We’ve turned the lights off, but keep your eyes on the door. Your photopigment shifts toward the infrared, which is why you see clearly in the dark.

Her heart beat rapidly against her ribs. The memories were coming back. All of them. Everything. They spilled through her head like marbles rolling out of a glass bowl.

Over the next minute or two, something is going to happen. A surprise. It might scare you, but you won’t be hurt. You might see it. You might feel it. You might smell it. Or all three. I don’t know exactly how you will experience it. We want to map this sort of thing.

Natasha opened her mouth and swooped air into her lungs. Snatching at this memory, then that, as they scattered elusively across