Written to rix_scaedu‘s prompt(s) here to my Summer Giraffe Call.

“What was that? Up there in the bushes?”

“Damn it, Shane, get out of my line of fire!” Donna looked up as Shane darted up into the brush, crossing in front of her not once but twice. “You’d think you’d never had any training at all, the way you’ve been bouncing everywhere this morning!”

“Sorry, chief, it’s just…” Shane ducked down behind a thorny bush, “there’s all sorts of…”

“Get down!” she shouted, as he stuck his head up again. For once, he obeyed, and Donna took down the monster stalking him with one bullet. “Damnit, this isn’t a walk in the park, you know. Stay down. Where there’s one… there.” She took out a second one, firing twice. “Get back here, and be careful.”

Shane headed back to Donna’s position, hunching forward to keep a low profile. “Sorry. It’s just…” He tumbled into the low gully where Donna was stationed. “This had to be a nesting zone, before the war.” He opened the front of his jacket. “The other ones, they’ve all been left alone too long, or they were just eggs. But this one…”

The head was similar to the things they’d been fighting since the first rain of spring. But it was tiny, smaller than a human baby, and its eyes were wide and nearly cute. Donna sighed.

“Shane…”

“Well, I can’t very well put it back.” He buttoned his jacket up and pulled out the gun. “Besides. Maybe we can teach the young ones not to kill us.”

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