Minutes to Burn

The wind made a loud rushing noise as it whisked through the top of the watchtower. Leaning an arm against the structure, Rex paused. The road continued on, stretching a little more than two hundred yards between and past the farmhouses before fading into the Scalesia forest. Slender groves of towering balsas crowded the road. On either side of the tree-lined road sat crop fields and expanses of cleared pasture.

Most of the village houses were nestled among the balsas, but a few sat farther back, situated in the middle of plantain or yuca fields and angled to face the shadowy mass of the Scalesia forest. At its maximum, the island's population was twenty-three, but it had been rapidly drop-ping since the first quakes. The houses had seemingly been abandoned, and the fields had become overgrown with shrubs and scattered domes-tic plants. Big grassy wastelands, the fields would take decades to be reclaimed by the native forest.

Well into the cleared field to the west of the road, a few cows congre-gated in a pen beside a small bloque house, just beyond a stretch of castor oil plants. "We must figure out how to kill them," Diego said, watching the livestock graze. He ran a sleeve across his dripping brow. "But I'm pleasantly surprised by the lack of goats and dogs."

"That must be Frank's," Rex said, pointing through a stand of citrus toward the remains of a camp. Two canvas tents, a rocky fire pit cradling ashes and scorched stones, a large aluminum specimen freezer-all arrayed in the pasture about a hundred yards beyond the house, farther upslope toward the forest. A piece of canvas on one tent flapped loudly in the wind, the noise carrying up the dusty road.

Until he saw it, Rex hadn't grasped how imposing the specimen freezer was. A metal block large enough to pack a big mammal, like a rhino, head-to-tail, it looked as if it had fallen from space. He tried to picture a supply boat dropping the thing off on the coast of this untamed island, but the image failed him. Built of aluminum, it wasn't as heavy as it appeared, but getting it up the mountainside to the village had certainly been an honest day's work for a few unsuspecting crewmen. He imagined Frank, hands set on his sturdy hips, fishing cap shading his eyes, barking out commands and pointing the way. Maybe the expedited delivery charge of $400 wasn't exorbitant.

"So," Rex said to Derek as he started for Frank's camp, "you run a pretty lax ship. Not a lot of saluting and 'Sir, yes sirs' going around." He wove through the patch of citrus plants, passing alongside the small house. The others followed him, Diego still mumbling about the live-stock left unattended.

"SEALs are like thoroughbreds," Derek said. "You don't want to reign them in too much, especially during down time. But we spin up at a heartbeat when the shit's about to hit."

Rex placed a hand against the wall as he rounded the corner, Cameron at his heels. "Well, let's hope that's the-"

A screaming face met him, an ax whistling through the air at his head. Rex yelled and raised his arms protectively just as Cameron hit him from behind, taking him down hard. The ax sliced just above his head and stuck in the side of the house, sending a spray of mortar back into Derek's face. Derek shoved Diego clear, and Diego tumbled to the soft grass. Cameron sprang up to a crouch, one hand protectively pressing down on Rex's head, the other instinctively slapping her hip for a pistol, though there was none.

Ax still raised, the dark-skinned man looked at them with confusion just as Derek struck him beneath the ribs with a stun blow to the solar plexus. The air left him in a deep bark, like that of a seal, and he tumbled to his knees, clutching his gut. Cameron had him bent forward in a choke hold when a pregnant woman stepped heavily from the doorway, crying, waving her hands, and yelling in Spanish. Rex stood, feeling slightly queasy.

"It's okay!" Diego shouted, pulling himself to his feet. "He didn't mean it."

"Okay, my ass," Cameron yelled. "He came at Rex with a fucking ax." She bent the man's head forward even more sharply, and his face darkened a few shades. His mouth was working open and closed, trying to find air.

The pregnant woman continued to chatter in Spanish, and Diego talked over her, translating for the others as quickly as he could. "You scared them… they thought the island was abandoned… there's danger here, something that's been picking off the villagers…stalking their live-stock…"

The woman stepped forward, pleading with Cameron, and Cameron shook her head, clearly not keeping up with the Spanish. Cameron released the man, who fell onto all fours, vainly trying to suck air in. Finally his lungs loosened, inhaling in a deep screeching rush, and he almost convulsed, his shoulders heaving. "Lo siento," he said between breaths. "Lo siento, lo siento."

Derek looked at Cameron, and she stepped back, her arms loose at her sides. "He says he's sorry," she said.