~3.8~

“Okay, that’s it!” Adam bellowed. “Everybody up… get up now!”

This directive was met with confusion and anger from those who had been trying to sleep.

“Huh?”

“What’s that?”

“Piss off!”

“Up! Off the ground!” Adam said, more urgently. “We need everybody together, now.”

“Come on, people,” Lee said in a more measured tone. While Adam moved around the periphery of the camp site repeating his commands, he moved among the people, shaking shoulders and pulling bodies upright. “We need to do a little head count.”

“Great… a couple of jerks wander off and we have to do bed checks,” somebody groused. “It was that teacher guy and the newbie. They just took off.”

“We know about them,” Adam said. “But three more people have gone missing… two while we were watching.”

“Weren’t watching very closely, were you?” said the woman who’d complained about the light in her face.

“We need to get everybody close together, away from the trees,” Adam said, while Lee busied himself actually accomplishing this. “Make sure nobody else is… taken. Then we can start figuring out wha… I mean, who’s out there.”

“Taken?” somebody repeated. “Something’s taking people?”

The panic spread quickly through the tight group.

“Alright,” Adam said, reaching for the handgun holstered beneath his jacket. “It’s time to take charge. Who here’s armed?”

“Hold on, partner,” Lee said, reaching out to restrain him. “You want to start shooting our own people in the dark?”

“No, I want to protect our people from whoever else is in the dark,” he said.

“Let’s be rational about this,” Lee said. He saw at least three people had produced firearms. “Everybody, guns away. Let’s form a circle and then fan out through the edge of the trees. It’s possible we’re just dealing with a couple of… active sleepers.”

“And they just rolled out of sight, I suppose?” a man asked. “Detweiler said it… something’s out there.”

“Hey, I said no such…” Adam said… right before the scream cut him off.