It was impossible at times in this part of the old ville to tell where the buildings began and ended. What hadn’t been destroyed in the nukecaust or earth movement had since been taken down and crumbled by the inevitable forward march of the forest, the mutie heart of postskydark nature claiming back what man had destroyed.
Jak scaled one of the trees. It rose no more than eight feet from the ground, but by standing on the topmost branch, which was thick and sturdy in relation to the trunk and so could easily support the slender albino, Jak was able to see through the dense growth of stalks, and also through the multicolored heads that spread their sweet yet pungent scent across the air.
It was while he was balanced on this branch that he saw them. Although, to be accurate, he heard them before sighting them…
There was little noise in the forest. It seemed that any animal life found it hard to survive in the conditions, and so there were only insects and a few small birds. Their chatter and high-pitched noises were soon cut out of his hearing by Jak’s attuned ears. They were still registering, but were disregarded as he searched for other sounds.
Like the humming…no, not humming, a chanting of some kind. Jak could make out sounds formed into words of some kind, but not in a language that he could recognize. There was a variety of male and female voices; this he could tell by the differing frequencies.
Jak scanned the horizon, drawing close into the large oval leaves on the branch as he did so, instinctively using as much cover as possible, even though it was unlikely that they would be aware of his presence. It was proving hard to locate their direction, as the trees and plants acted against each other, the wood becoming a sound dampener, and yet the plants and their flowers acting as sounding boards, amplifying and distorting the sound as the party approached, making its true direction difficult to determine.
Jak’s instincts told him to keep his attention focused on the direction from which he thought it had originally come, so he turned back that way and carefully scanned the horizon. His eyesight was slightly impaired by his lack of pigmentation, but his other senses more than compensated for this by being ultrasensitive, finely honed by his years of hunting and stalking.
It didn’t take him long to locate them. They were crashing through the trees and brush with little regard for stealth, chanting loudly. They numbered twelve in all, six groups of two with a pole strung between them. Their clothing was a multicolored collection of old rags, dyed brilliant purples, oranges, pinks and yellows, which mirrored the plants around. They had probably found a way of extracting the color from the flowers and using it as a dye. They had obviously been hunting, as they had something strung from the poles, something just a little too obscured by their own bodies for Jak to make it out. Something that looked as if it were an animal. The alarm bells sounded in Jak’s brain. How could they have been hunting an animal when all his senses screamed that there was no animal life in this forest?
Jak assessed their direction. They were headed for the outskirts of the old ville of Seattle, and presumably out to the other ville, the one with the stupe name…and there was only one route out, one which would take them right past Jak’s companions.
The albino slipped down the tree. He had seen enough to judge the party. That they had been hunting suggested knives or blasters. This made them a danger, one he had to warn his companions about before the party reached the old apartment building.
JAK HAD a good start on the hunting party, and was faster. He was back at the ruined apartment block in next to no time, and outlined what he had seen.
“Sounds like these aren’t from the ville we want,” J.B. said.
Ryan agreed. “They don’t sound like the bastards we met on the way, and they’re headed the wrong direction.”
“Think they’re from the other ville?” Dean asked.