The pain was subsiding, but Casey still felt the muscles of his stomach cramp when he tried to straighten from his crouch.

He had to get a silencer and do it quick. Another actor taken from the house and hauled away on the sled from hell. If this continued, there would be no more actors left and he would have failed in the most important aspect of his mission.

Slowly, with a minimum of stress placed on his body, he moved to the edge of his blind and searched for the aliens and their machines.

The huge bulb was still near the edge of the woods, a second oval near it reflecting little of the light generated by the house. This must have been the machine to generate the wave of distortion. Casey felt a distinct urge to blast a hole in the damn thing, but knew he could not announce his position with a loud shot. The wave machine would have to wait.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

None of the aliens seemed to be anywhere in the vicinity. They might set a trap for him; he could not concern himself with something he could not control. He had to get a silencer; it was that simple.

His men had died near the gully, so that was where he would go, directly behind the bulbs that sat at the edge of the woods and directly in the path of the aliens returning from the gully.

It was a hell of a challenge. Hopefully, the aliens were busy with another source of disruption tonight. He had heard the report of a gun from the woods. It could only mean the man he had seen run from the house had joined the game.

With the aliens distracted, Casey could search the woods unmolested. He had to be fast.

Rolling from the blind, he waited and searched the woods again from the new perspective. When satisfied there were no aliens watching, he crawled towards the gully where he would hook north and begin his search for the bodies, hopefully he would find one fast.