Morning took a long time, so it seems, coming to the two men.
They were both awake by the time the sun rose and by the rime that it
was fully light, they had finished eating and made their way into the
forest.
It was a perfectly clear day out by the river, but the odd clouds that
towered over the forest were still there and they were maybe even
thicker than the day before.
At any rate, the inside of the forest had a night look to it.
The trek through the forest was the part of the journey that the two
men wanted most to do without. They were afraid of the forest because
they knew very little about it.
The veil of mystery and the stories of horror and evil, surrounding the
place, didn't make their nerves any calmer.
Not much time went by since they had entered the forest. All was quiet
inside and they
began to feel easier until they came across a gigantic, ox-sized
carcass of a rabbit that was being devoured by huge larvae as large as
big rats.
They didn't know the nature of the larvae, whether or not they attacked
their prey or just fed-off of dead animal bodies, so they both took
their weapons and carried them as they continued.
Soon after, the men heard a strange grating sound overhead that got
louder and louder. As the sound became louder, so it changed, sounding
like the beating hooves of stampeding horses and finally like a droning
whistle.
"Maybe it's the gremlins!" Boyce joked.
Suddenly, before them was a small swarm of hornets, larger than
anything that they had ever seen, flying straight for them.
Lloyd shouted to Boyce to dive to the ground and he immediately did it,
always trusting that Lloyd had a good reason for telling him to do such
a thing.
When Boyce threw himself to the ground Lloyd pointed his weapon at the
swarm and shot into it. The laser setting managed to hit and kill only
one hornet which was the size of a human head.
He quickly put his weapon on the electrophoric setting. By then Boyce
had already set his weapon and shot into the swarm that moved towards
Lloyd.
A bunch fell to the ground dead, and after Lloyd killed some more, the
few that were left took off for the clouded tree tops.
They both got up and looked at a couple of the hornets twinging on the
ground as they died.
They bent down and prodded one with a stick and saw that it had a
stinger that was about five inches in length. Its mandible was large
and sharp, too. It looked as if it was able to snap a hand off at the
wrist. They looked around to see if there would be another attack.
They continued to walk, hoping that the direction was still south,
since the only way that they could assume that they were heading south
was by taking a straight line right through the forest, ever so often
looking back from whence they came, in order to make sure of their
direction.
They made steady and rhythmic their jaunt through the thick underbrush,
keeping their eyes open for anything and everything that could possibly
be harmful to them.
They kept walking, not stopping for a rest or a drink. They didn't
speak or look at one another, either, although each knew exactly where
the other one was at all times.
The forest seemed to be slightly brighter the further they went into it
but this boon to them soon passed, also.
It soon became very dark again and they knew that it was time to find a
place of shelter where to sleep.
They were fortunate to find a resting place not too much further into
the woods. It was an outcropping of rock that was fairly high and
there was a recess in the rock, some ways up. Over the recess there
was an over-hanging piece of rock, which would be a nice guard against
the condensing moisture that was beginning to fall now.
Boyce set his weapon on laser and blasted holes into the rock, to make
the climb up to the recess easier for them.
The recess was large enough for only one person so when they climbed up
to it they carved out a much larger hole. It was smooth and warm in
the shelter that they made. The cutting edge of the lasers warmed the
surrounding rock while they melted a strong smooth surface on the
ceiling and walls.
It was another night spent in trading watch by each man, keeping guard
from the ferocious animals that stalked their prey at night.
They were high enough up the rock, though, to be safe from most
animals, so they hoped. They remembered the size of the rabbit and the
hornets, and they couldn't really presume safety even that far up.
What made the watch worse for the two men was the utter lack of light
that prevented them from seeing anything, including their own hands in
front of their faces.
They used their electric lights only when they heard noises that were
nearby, but they never saw anything.
Throughout the entire first day in the forest, Lloyd and Boyce barely
said anything to each other, or even stopped anywhere to eat or to
drink. The evening was quiet, too; the only things said between them
happened when they relieved one another from their watch periods.