Iglesia ……………………………………… Episode 35

(Iglesia is a serialized novel, published on Tuesdays and Saturdays at midnight ET, you can read all of the episodes by clicking on the tag.)

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If there was one thing Abe was good at, it was following orders. The fact that this was one of those kind of “if you want to live, do this now” orders, just made his reaction that much faster. And it was. It was unmistakable in Rogers’ voice. And he was running as fast as he could through the long prairie grass. He had been trained well and so didn’t look back until he was at full speed. He was expecting choppers. There were no choppers. So, he didn’t bother with trees or cover. Just ran flat out. Reaching out with his senses for any sound behind him and any ambush ahead or being flanked from the sides. As always in these kind of deals….he was waiting for a bullet in the back. But he had learned long ago that you can’t cringe and run fast at the same time.

He missed his suit and helmet, dammit! He would have to do this one…whatever the hell it was, without the crutch of technology. And, apparently without Rogers…who was nowhere to be seen.

One nice thing…the moccasins that he was running in were fucking great! Just enough padding and he could really feel the ground as his flying feet passed over it. That was how he knew that something was behind him. He felt it thumping the ground.

He was a about three hundred meters from the sandstone outcropping that Rogers had pointed to when he finally looked back, knowing that it would only slow him down…..and knowing that whatever it was, was gaining on him …. and so he waited as long as his reptile brain would let hi, before it jerked his head around to see what was bearing down on him. He jerked it back as soon as he could, for he knew that every split second he didn’t have good running form, he was endangering his life. When it came right down to it, whatever it was that was chasing him was either going to catch him or not. It was doubtful that him seeing it would make much difference.

But our lizard brain gets to act before our cortex, which has to spend time and do all that nasty computation that the lizard brain…doesn’t, so, he looked. But at least he didn’t gawk.

Lions.

Looked like lions…..

Ok now HE had to look, now HE couldn’t help it….curiosity being a feature of the animal brain, and one step higher up on the totem pole, it had been  something he had trained hard to get control over. Apparently ….not completely successfully.

He was almost to the outcropping now and his adrenal glands were pumping ethel into his tank and his endorphins were shooting the equivalent of nitrous to his muscles. He had been in a full out sprint for longer now than he could ever remember. When he got to about a hundred yards from the outcropping two things happened. Rogers appeared ahead of him…and his curiosity made him look behind him. When he looked back his cortex was forming a joke to itself about curiosity killing the cat….because that was what was chasing him.

It was a matched pair of what looked like calico cats….regular old house cats…but the size of lions….if not bigger.

When he looked forward, Rogers seemed to be… pulling, at the outcropping. 50 yards.

The cats were pounding the ground behind him with their paws, the sound and vbration made it feel like they were running up his back. He was now waiting for a calico in the back instead of a bullet, and started wondering why they hadn’t yet pounced. Their fangs had looked disproportionately large, but he would worry about them later…if they weren’t in his neck. Rogers had opened some kind of door. 20 yards. From WAY too close behind him, he heard a very loud….Meow….and almost shit himself.

But then he was diving through the door and Rogers was pulling it closed and there were two large …..thumps on the wall outside.

When he looked up…they were in a fucking service corridor!