Horizon

Chapter 39

Noon was just a couple of hours away; and I still had no idea where Thomas was taking me, or why we were going. Thomas led me out of the house, and turned towards the city; as we walked down the middle of the neighborhood street. It looked as if we were trying to get attention from others...which was bad because we were in our anthro forms.

            "The humans outside of the city are going to attack us if we keep walking like this," I grumbled. "What the hell are we doing anyway?"

            "Shhh," Thomas replied loudly. "No more questions out of you! I'll explain what we're doing in just a second. Just shut up, and follow me."

            I scoffed, and shoved my hands into my pockets. I hated not knowing what was going on. It reminded me of the times when Thomas kept secrets from me...you know...the secrets that ended up bringing me a lot more pain because they had been kept secrets.

            We continued to meander down the empty street, with our hands placed lightly on our weapons. I looked around at the empty ransacked homes, and wondered how it was possible that just a few hundred anthros could make a whole city run away in panic. The world was definitely not going to be the same after everything settled down, that was for sure.

            After a few more minutes of walking, I noticed that Thomas was starting to move more stealthily. Deciding not to ask any questions, I followed suit. If Thomas was worried about being seen suddenly, then I guess I had to be worried as well.

            "Alright," Thomas muttered, as we slowly came to a stop. "We're close to the city line. Now, if we're going to keep the anthros away from the humans, then we will need to cause a distraction...a pretty big one, if I might add."

            "How are we going to do that?" I pried.

            Thomas finally answered, "Easy...we need to leave a path of destruction through the city. Now, I'm not talking about killing a bunch of anthros. We can injure them...you know...shoot them in the leg or something. All we have to do is take out one anthro from every patrol that we see. If the injury is bad enough, then the anthros will do the rest of the work for us. They'll radio what they've seen up the chain, and...boom...we've got more anthros headed that way."

            "That'll leave less anthros to hunt humans," I figured out. "That's brilliant."

            "It's only brilliant if we can avoid getting captured, or killed in the process," Thomas added. "We need to make sure that we leave enough distance between us and the enemy, or they will hunt us down."

            I gripped the rifle that had been slung across my back. I was the only one with a long-range weapon. I guessed that it was going to be up to me, to make sure that we didn't get caught by any wandering patrols.

            "Ready for some target practice?" Thomas asked, with an enthusiastic grin.

            "Nope," I replied with a fake grin of my own.

            "Well get ready, because as soon as we get enter the city, the anthros will be after us. We can't let them capture us or its game over. We need to strike fast, and stay unseen," explained Thomas, as we started walking. "Let's go look for a patrol."

            I reluctantly followed Thomas into the city, with my head on a swivel. Nervousness was already starting to swell within me. I wasn't too keen on the idea of going out, and looking for trouble. Who could tell how many snipers, assassins, and artillerymen there were, out there?

            Thomas made sure to be as safe as possible. We slinked as quickly as we could when we need to cross any streets, and peeked at just about every building corner. I was glad that he was taking the necessary steps to be stealthy, but the fur on the back of my neck was driving me crazy. I just could help having jitters...even with Thomas around...and he was pretty much a living tank.