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The monstrous bodies that laid around them were somehow not as important. Their faces were torn open, long claw marks stretching down their bodies. It was as though they had been shredded. In fact, Will needed to check their tags just to make sure it was them.
He rose to his feet, "And the note?"
"I stopped at the Café to rest. Someone knocked on my door, when I opened it there was no one. I found a box of bandages," He pointed to his patched head wound, "And the note. It told me to come here."
Cholmers and Cadell were still watching the corpses, their eyes flicking between their dead comrades, and what The Collector had called the Moonsana. Harrison was standing beside Melanie. That was good, Will thought, they'd comfort each other. Harrison had only just turned twenty. What a situation to end up in...
William Garson couldn't quite place his finger on Arthur's age. The man looked about forty, but he couldn't be sure in the dust and with the blood that had dripped onto Arthur's face. He wouldn't waste time asking either.
"Man, we've got to get out of here," Cadell said to Garson, "What if more of those things show up?"
"We'll shoot them," Cholmers answered him.
"What? Like they shot them?" He pointed to the human corpses.
"They got ambushed," Will said, "They were standing in the middle of the intersection when these monsters attacked them. They weren't expecting them... we are. We won't get ambushed."
"Yeah, and these guys didn't have civilians to look after either," Cadell said, looking at Melanie.
Samuel spoke, "Now just hang..."
"Everyone shut up," Will said, and then, "We have to move. We can't just stand in the middle of a bloody intersection. We're going to head back to the base. Collect some samples of these objects while we're at it. Those were the orders."
"What about the corpses?" Samuel asked.
"Someone will be sent..."
"No they won't. You know as well as I do that these bodies are going to be left to rot."
Will appeared to consider for a moment, "So they'll rot. We're not going to join them though."
Melanie wondered what that meant for her mother.
"Arthur," Will said, "Can you move alright with that wound?"
"Yeah... yeah. I'll be fine. As long as I don't think," Arthur said.
"And what the hell was that about?" Cadell interjected, "Who the hell was that guy?"
"There will be time for all that later. For now we have to get out. Why can't we think Arthur?" Will said hastily.
"I'm not sure... the note... it said not to think. I think those... these... monsters are attracted to thought."
"How the hell is that...," Cholmers trailed off, into silence.
It lasted a second or two, just enough for everyone standing at the intersection to notice the change in the vibration that hung behind the dust. It was rippling now, like some kind of static was interfering with it. It was the kind of sound that rattled shocked the spine and rattled the brain.
"The... The Collector," Cholmers said, rolling the phrase off of his tongue for the first time, "He said the clans were mobilizing.