Damage & Decay

Chapter 10

Part One: Family Business

"I don't know what's waiting for us when we die– something better, something worse. I only know that I'm not ready to find out yet."

- Charles De Lint, The Onion Girl

----

When the first shot cracked through the air, Eren dropped to a crouch, but Armin stood straight and looked away to the northeast. When Armin heard the second shot, he turned his head slightly more to the north.

"Handgun," he said. "Heavy caliber. Three miles."

Eren looked up at him through the arms he'd wrapped over his head. "Bullets can go three miles, can't they?"

"Not usually," said Armin. "Even so, they aren't shooting at us."

Eren straightened cautiously. "You can tell? How?"

"Echoes," he said. "Those bullets don't travel far. They're shooting at something close and hitting it."

"Um . . . it's cool that you know that. A little freaky, but cool."

"Yeah, this whole thing is about me showing you how cool I am."

"Oh. Sarcasm," said Eren dryly. "I get it."

"Shut up," replied Armin with a grin.

"No, you shut up."

They smiled at each other for the first time all day.

"C'mon," said Armin, "let's go see what they're shooting at." He set off in the direction of the gunshot echoes.

Eren stood watching him for a moment. 'Wait . . . we're going toward  the shooting?"

Eren shook his head and followed as quickly as he could. Armin picked up the pace, and Eren, his stomach full of beans and the hated jerky, kept up. They followed a stream down to the lowlands, but Eren noticed that Armin never went closer than a thousand yards to the running water of Coldwater Creek. He asked Armin about this.

Armin asked, "Can you hear the water?"

Eren strained to hear. "No."

"There's your answer. Flowing water is constant noise. It masks other sounds, which means it isn't safe unless you're traveling on it in a fast canoe, and this water isn't deep enough for that. We'll only go near it to cross it or to fill our canteens. Otherwise, quiet is better for listening. Always remember that if we can hear something, then it can probably hear us. And if we can't hear something, then it might still be able to hear us, and we won't know about it until it's too late."

However, as they followed the gunshot echoes, their path angled toward the stream. Armin stopped for a moment and then shook his head in disapproval. "Not bright," he said, but didn't explain his comment. They ran on.

As they moved, Eren practiced being quiet. It was harder than he thought, and for a while it sounded--to his ears--as if he was making a terrible racket. Twigs broke like firecrackers under his feet, his  breath sounded like a wheezing dragon, the legs of his jeans whisked together like a crosscut saw. Armin told him to focus on quieting one thing at a time.

"Don't try to learn too many skills at once. Take a new skill and learn it by using it. Go from there."

By the time they were close to where they thought the gunshots were being fired, Eren was moving more quietly and found that he enjoyed the challenge. It was like playing ghost tag with Levi and Marco.

Armin stopped and cocked his head to listen. He put a finger to his lips and gestured for Eren to remain still. They were in a field of tall grass, which led to a dense stand of birch trees. From beyond the trees, they could hear the sound of men laughing and shouting, and the occasional hollow crack of a pistol shot.