Unable to set the truck aright, the five Marshalls decide to walk towards the farmhouse, guns holstered, before they lose the light. The truck creaks as Grim the shadowhound leaps off the chasis, following a few paces behind Shadrach at the rear of the group. Shadrach's servos whine, still activated and ready, keeping an eye on Balygyr and Taavi and letting Han and Emile take the lead.
The perpendicular fencing curves inward here, the 150 yards of sheet metal lining the road between you and the farm. "No doubt this is a trap," comments a deadpan Shadrach. The men trust Han's sharp eye and intuition and begin down the crack paving of the road, Hans and Emile each holding a shovel handle from the back of the truck. Grim pauses to sniff at what might be dried up blood on the blacktop.
Han holds up a hand for a halt. He pokes in front of him gingerly with the shovel and four large wheat cutter blades swing out on arms, spinning violently at shin and thigh height and sweeping across the road. Each time he reaches forward, the blades swipe for a pass and then reload. In a tense and harrowing moment the group determines the timing and passes by during the brief lull, one at a time. It seems a miracle, but no one is hurt.
Next there's a field of sharpened rebar that thrusts up on a pneumatic piston from below, skewering the unwary above like kabob. You're able to weave between them before they retract. Then a conspicuous set of scorches and matching holes in the the opposite sheet metal walls alerts you to embedded laser cannons aimed crosswise, machine-gunning for whatever made it this far on fixed arcs. Crawling low on the ground, you go under them.
Reaching the end of the sheet metal gauntlet, you find some comfort in having the wide open fields on either side of you, the barn and farmhouse now not far ahead. There's a large number of the black mounds here, some older and some new, just behind the barbed wire. It is clear now that they are heavy black ash, but chunks of unburnt material protrude where the ash now washes down in little runnels towards the field. A thick leg bone here, perhaps a cow? On the other side, that's definitely a human jawbone. There, a human skull cloven neatly in half and crumbling from the heat of the fire. "Not sure whose will be done... You can call me a sinner for wondering why," mutters Hans, as if remembering something. Then he shakes his head.
The sun dips lower in the sky. A pair of floodlights click on atop poles at the end of the fencing, shedding bright light on the area and all along the inner barrier of barbed wire that marks the nearest line of fields. You pause to look behind you -- Though only 200 yards lies between you and the truck, the anxiety of the narrow passage between you and it makes it seem much further. "So... what're you going to say when you get on the porch?" asks Shadrach of no one in particular.
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