THE PERFECT TEN (Boxed Set)

pointed up.
    “What the heck’s that?” Tony demanded, his gaze following her finger. “Sounds like—”
    I shushed him with a raised hand then moved to stand next to Gabby, both of us facing the direction of the racket. My shoulder bumped hers and I got a jolt of an image. Not a clear image but a clear sense of danger.
    She tensed the way she had back in the equipment room when she’d repeated my thought about Tony, but when I said nothing to expose her she continued quietly staring in the direction of the noise.
    “Any idea what it looks like?”  I’d realized that Gabby had gifts she kept hidden. Based on my reception since waking up in the desert, and Tony’s taunting just because I was different, I didn’t blame her for protecting her secrets.
    She murmured, “I’m trying to see it in my mind...but it’s not like anything I can explain.”
    Tony made a disgusted growl. “If you savants are done doin’ a mind meld thing, would someone please tell me what the heck is goin’ on?” 
    Gabby’s fingers twisted the skirt of her dress. “If you’d shut up long enough to hear and look up, you’d know.” 
    The warning in her tone must have worked. Tony froze then glanced in the direction where we stared. “I don’t–oh, crap.”
    That summed up my feelings as the moving object started taking shape.
    Not object but objects. A good dozen or so of the largest maroon-and-black bat-like creatures I’d ever seen.
    I didn’t know where I’d seen bats before but bits and pieces of my thoughts were functioning at times, at least whenever my brain seemed pressed to figure a way out of trouble.
    Like now. We had to get away from these big dark flying creatures.
    First, I had to determine which direction they were headed.
    They easily had wingspans of four to five feet across, blackening the sky as they swarmed nearer.
    “Are those...bats?” Tony said to no one in particular as the swooping wings grew louder the nearer they came. “Aren’t bats nocturnal and only eat insects?”
    Tony’s last words had been more hopeful than reassuring.
    Gabby’s voice sounded squeezed from her lungs, getting higher by the second. “This could be nighttime in this place with that red moon, and we may look like insects to them.”
    “Let’s not hang around to find out,” I shouted. “ Run !”  
    I didn’t have to say it twice as all three of us took off toward the closest trees, which were across the field.
    Tony yelled, “We’ll never make the trees in time!” 
    I checked to the left of us. The bats were still gaining altitude so they might not actually dive toward us, but we were going to intersect their path and end up running beneath them before we reached the tree line. I kept moving rather than risk a bad guess that they weren’t going to fold their wings and plummet toward us.
    We’d almost made cover when tiny acidic pellets hit my face and arms, stinging my skin.
    “Ouch!”  Gabby swatted the air around her face.
    Tony slapped his head. “They’re spittin ’ at us.”
    I thought it was obvious, but still shouted, “Keep your face turned away.”
    After a hundred feet of running flat out, the grass gave way to thick, vine-strangled vegetation. Plate-sized leaves whacked my face. Gnarled roots, some knee-high, snagged my shins, and thorns raked the skin on my arms. Another hundred feet and we’d reached the tree canopy.
    Panting and slowing once we’d plowed fifteen feet into the thick growth of trees, I stopped and squatted until I could peer through a break in the twisted limbs back toward the grassy field.  
    “Gone,” I whispered, catching my breath as I scanned the sky, or what I could see of it by moving back and forth until I found a sizeable opening in the towering trees. Deep purple ribbons appeared through gaps, but no green streaks that had been there when we’d first arrived. That throbbing red moon still mocked us though. Inside this forest, we’d entered a world of shiny copper and brown colors, red vines, dripping hollow sounds and shadows that shimmied.
    Creepy, but safer than where we’d been. Away from oversized bats.
    At least, I hoped we were safer.
    That sprint had been no real effort for me, but Tony had his hands on his knees, dragging in deep breaths of the thick, damp air. He whistled. “What’s this place? Jurassic Park goes techno? That was close.”
    Jurassic Park? I gave up trying to figure out the things Tony said.
    “At least the bats didn’t