Project - 16 Read Online Free PDF

years.
    Finally I returned to my senses, took a deep breath and set
off along the tracks, still following and still hoping that somehow
I'd find them alive.
     
    The paw prints of the dogs were a far easier spoor to follow
and they must have followed the scent for a while before moving to
act. I walked for another twenty minutes before I came across my
first signs that the three of them had engaged the animals and
faired reasonably well. Where a section of road leading to the very
centre of the high street widened there'd been a violent struggle
near two wrecked cars and a motorcycle. There were three dead dogs
littered across the tarmac - two had been shot through the chest,
the other had had its throat cut. There was plenty of dry blood
splattered around the area and it didn't seem that old when I
touched a little with my fingertip. There were also no obvious
human casualties either, which was a good sign. The only blood was
clearly that of the dogs. But how come I hadn't heard the shots?
Silenced weapons? If so, what were they really after? How well
trained were they?
    As I neared the large indoor shopping precinct I got my
answer. There, disembowelled and half eaten, was the remains of the
first of the treasure hunters. He'd taken his own life with a
silenced Gloch which sat loosely in his lifeless hand - the exit
wound at the back of his skull painting a blossom of pink on the
stonework behind him. He was young, early 20's perhaps, and his
face was pale and expressionless save for where blood and brain
matter leaked out over his blue lips from the bullet hole in the
roof of his mouth. Nearby there were two more dead dogs, each one
hit in the head and chest. The boy'd been a good shot.
    I wanted to check his body, to get some I.D, but it was too
dangerous to stay still. I suspected the worse now and if any of
the dogs had survived, which I was sure they had, then they'd be
looking for me next. So instead I looked inside the shopping
precinct as far as the shuttered doors before coming back and,
finding nothing, I looked for spoor around the corpse.
    To the left near an alley that ran behind the shops I saw a
few drops of blood near a rusty bin. I might have missed them had
the light been a little worse, but I just caught a glimmer of them
as I was looking around. I peered down the mouth of the alley and
saw some more further on and followed. It was darker there and I
held my pistol out in front of me, cocked and ready in case I had
to react quickly. There was no need. Lying across the flagged
street was my second corpse. He had the expression of a man deep in
sleep and I might have tried to wake him up if it hadn't been for
the lack of anything inside his open chest cavity. There was an
enormous pile of half-chewed intestines and blood and fleshy bits
and I leaned against the wall with a hand over my nose. The stench
was vile and even breathing through my open mouth was a
struggle.
    His pack was on the floor near some bins and I grabbed it
before walking away into fresher air. At the mouth of the alley I
took a deep breath and listened. Nothing. I didn't like it. My
scent would have been as strong to them as that rotting corpse had
been to me yet there were no dogs here, not even the sound of them
in the distance and I still had one more corpse to find. I resumed
my search, leaving the pack near the first body and finding another
on the other side of some railings towards the bus station. It was
a woman's pack, small with pink trim and a 'Hello Kitty' fob
hanging from a zip.
     
    Rebecca's pack.
     
    I took it back to the others before following the trail
Rebecca's pack had put me on. Still there were no sounds, no barks,
nothing. I felt like time was in a glass and the last few grains
were about to fall. I sped up, scanning the ground as quickly as I
could. A shoe. A piece of clothing. A bone. The clues led me
towards the railway station where I found a pack dropped in haste.
It must have been the pack belonging to the