Zommunist Invasion | Book 3 | Scattered Picott, Camille (best ereader for pc .TXT) 📖

They spoke softly to one another, likely weighing their options on which way to go.

To her horror, they came straight toward the embankment where she and her friends hid. She tensed, shifting her finger to the trigger of her machine gun. Dal gave her a warning look as he pulled out his knife.

She nodded in understanding. Shooting was a last option. It would bring high hell into the stream bed with them. She did her best to melt into the ground. It was time to become one with the ants.

The first of the Soviets slung his machine gun over his shoulder, pulling at the exposed roots that stuck out of the earth. Grit showered down into their hiding place. Amanda blinked rapidly as dust landed on her eyelashes.

The man scrambled up the side of the bank. He was so close, Amanda could see the leaves and mud sticking to the soles of his boots.

His partner was so busy looking up that he never glanced their direction. The guy started up the side as soon as his comrade finished scrambling up.

His foot slipped, breaking through loose earth. His leg dangled right in front of Amanda.

Dal’s grip tightened on his knife. The muscles along his arm and neck tensed. He was ready to pounce.

The soldier flailed, calling to his friend. Sharp laughter answered him. Amanda knew what it sounded like to be ridiculed. The two men exchanged words.

The biting from the ants itched to high hell. The loose leg above her continued to kick, trying to find purchase. Amanda had to lean to one side to avoid being booted in the face.

After a long, tense minute, the leg rose and disappeared from sight. Amanda and the others sagged with relief.

They listened as the soldiers tromped off and jumped back into the riverbed on the other side. Amanda kept her back pressed against the bluff, only her eyes moving as she watched the soldiers.

Even after the Russians disappeared from sight, none of them so much as shifted position. They stayed right where they were, afraid the slightest movement would give them away.

22

Slog

The Russians continued to comb the area. Another patrol came near to their hiding place, but nowhere near as close as the first.

Amanda was miserable. The stinging of the ants was slow torture. The thin layer of mud had dried and itched like crazy. A banana slug had found its way onto her sneaker. No less than two gnats had flown up her nose.

She took heart in the fact that real amazons probably endured stuff like this on a regular basis. Heck, they were from South American jungles, for crying out loud. There were more bugs in a square mile in jungle than in all of California. This was pretty much kitten’s play.

Or at least, this is what she tried to tell herself as the ants bit their way over her body. They had made their way down her pants and up her shirt sleeves. She was pretty much a giant ant feeder.

How long would it take the ants to eat her to death? Likely she would die of dehydration first. This thought was a sober reminder that they had no water whatsoever.

At least they were waiting out of the heat of the day in this little mud hole. That had to count for something, right?

One day, this would be memory she would share with her grandkids. She would be old with curly gray hair and fuzzy pink slippers. When her grandkids came over, she’d bake chocolate chip cookies and they’d beg to hear the story about the time ants almost ate their grandmother to death while to she waited out a Russian death squad.

The image of herself in fuzzy pink slippers was jarring. No, she’d had to have something more edgy. No pink slippers. Amanda had no idea what it meant to have edgy slippers, but she would figure it out.

She would definitely make chocolate chip cookies. Her mom had the best recipe. Amanda would make sure the recipe lived on in the family. Just like her nearly-eaten-alive story. Both would endure. She would see to it.

How long had they been hiding? An hour? Longer? Too bad she’d never been a girl scout. Those girls probably all knew how to tell time by the angle of the sun and the length of the shadows. Or was that boy scouts?

The whomp-whomp of the chopper blades abruptly filled the air. Amanda was so intent on enduring the ant bites that she jumped and whacked her head on a root that stuck out of the ground just above her.

She looked at her friends. They looked as pensive as she felt. None of them dared to move.

It wasn’t until they heard the helicopter lift into the air and fly away that they finally relaxed.

“You guys okay?” Lena asked. Her voice was raspy from the long period of tense silence.

Amanda shuddered. “I’m being eaten alive by ants.”

“I think we’re sitting on a nest,” Dal said. “They’re in my pants.”

“Me, too,” Lena and Amanda said in unison.

The three of them exchanged relieved, wry grins.

Dal was the first to move. There wasn’t enough room to stand. He rolled forward onto his knees and unzipped his fly.

“Sorry, Amanda,” he said. “They’re in my crotch. Lena, babe, can you help me—?”

The whole thing would have been laughable if Amanda hadn’t felt the first bite of an ant in her own crotch. She turned her back on the pair and busiest herself with her own army of ants.

There wasn’t enough room in their little hideout. She and Lena were bumping butts and Amanda was pretty sure she had half a dozen ants in her armpits. “Guys, we have to get out of here.”

“Can you move the rock?” Lena asked.

“Yeah.” Amanda braced her back against the bluff, placed her feet on the boulder, and pushed. It was easier to move now that it wasn’t half stuck in the mud.

“You might be one of the strongest people I’ve ever met,” Dal