Tritium Gambit (Max and Miranda Book 1) by Erik Hyrkas Page B

Aren’t you coming?” I asked back to Miranda.
    She sighed, pulled out the Power Protein drink I had given her earlier, and downed it in one swallow. “All right, let’s go.” She stood up on her good-as-new leg.
    I missed my calling. I would have made an awesome doctor.
    I noticed that she had turned her pants into shorts with a knife, probably to hide the blood stains from the trap. I looked down at my pants and observed the bloodstained hole in my own pants. When I returned to my room, these were going in the drawer of fame.
    “ You’re staring at him and drooling a little,” John whispered to Miranda.
    She wiped the corner of her mouth and then winked at me. I liked her better before she had my hormones. She was going to be so upset with me if she grew chest hair.
    We followed John outside, past the fire chickens and the goat, and into the dense underbrush. Once in the forest, his tan uniform wasn’t always easy to follow, even with the backdrop of mostly greens and blacks. We followed the sounds of his footsteps, occasionally catching a glimpse of movement. But when he came to a stop somewhere ahead of us, Miranda and I almost completely lost him. Thankfully, Miranda’s acute senses led us to where he stood rooted.
    On the ground lay a bloody weapon that both Miranda and I recognized immediately, the fully automatic assault weapon that the guy who gave us our room key at the resort had been cleaning. Then I realized that there was more to the scene, a hand still gripping the gun and an arm that was not attached to a body. Then I saw what was in the trap that the sheriff had set—a man’s leg from the thigh down.
    Then a thought occurred to me. “Does that mean our resort stay is free?”
    Miranda nudged me in the ribs. “You know that you can expense it to the Service, right?” she whispered.
    “ Oh yeah,” I whispered back. I wish I’d kept all those receipts from the mission on Virrean. “Why are we whispering?”
    “ Because he’s dead,” she said pointing at the limbs.
    “ He can’t hear us,” I whispered. I indicated the limbs. “His ears aren’t even here.”
    Her voice resumed normal volume. “I suppose it’s possible he survived.”
    “ No,” said John. “It’s not. If you look at the flesh here and here…” He pointed to two different spots on what remained of our desk clerk. “You’ll notice something odd.”
    “ What?” I asked.
    “ Teeth marks. Giant teeth. This man was eaten alive, starting from the other side of his body. These are the bits left over.”
    “ Well, we know one thing for certain,” I said.
    “ What?” Miranda asked.
    “ Whatever we’re up against didn’t finish dinner and so it doesn’t get dessert.”
    Miranda nodded. “Well, it better not get dessert because we’re the closest food.” She looked at me with a lascivious grin. “Especially with a treat like you here.”
    “ You’re still drooling,” John whispered to her.
    “ We also know that we didn’t see any bits of Tyler left over,” I said. “So maybe Tyler wasn’t eaten.”
    “ Was there any blood when you checked the perimeter of the area where you last heard him?” the sheriff asked.
    “ Not that I could find,” I said.
    John knelt. “Look at this.” He pointed to some yellow-green goo on the ground.
    “ Yeah, you’re right. Somebody really hocked a giant loogie.”
    John shook his head. “It isn’t phlegm. It’s blood. It looks like this guy got off a few shots before becoming dinner. I don’t see a blood trail leading away, though.”
    “ If it can bleed, that means we can kill it,” I replied.
    Miranda frowned. “To leave teeth marks this large means this creature is huge. I don’t see how you could kill anything let alone a monstrous eater-of-people. You don’t even have a gun.”
    “ The lack of blood trail suggests it had a way of staunching the bleeding,” the sheriff said. “There’s a chance it has regenerative abilities.”
    Miranda sighed.