Dennison pulled the beat up 1979 Oldsmobile up onto the embankment. He turned off the car, but left the keys in the ignition. A red sports car zoomed past him on the left as Mitchell grumbled something and climbed out from the passenger side. Dennison watched him carefully step across the wide ditch, the barren field with only the sporadic tree here and there to his right.
Mitchell swore loudly as he almost fell. Making his way around the car, he finally got back to the rough pavement of the sidestrip and continued back a few yards. Dennison looked up in the rearview mirror at the item his partner was jogging to obtain; a single tennis shoe along the side of the highway.
Dennison whispered a silent prayer that the shoe wasn't double knotted.
The car door slammed shut again and Dennison turn the key. He didn't look over at the shoe until they were some miles down the road, his partner saying nothing. It was a worn Nike running shoe, nothing particularly unique or distinguishable about it.
Except it had been where they had been told to look and it was double knotted.
"Shit," Dennison said with a sigh.
Two in the next car. Mitchell hammered a code into his cell phone, texting the others. They would all meet at rest stop back a few miles along the highway and wait. Dennison would drive the Olds and Mitchell would drive back the other vehicle. Either of them could hotwire it, if need be.
"They've upped the quota," growled Mitchell.
"We'll bag our own two after the feast tonight, don't worry. The other tribe is just flexing."
"We should be hitting them," said Mitchell. "Two tribes in the same state are too much. We're going to get noticed."
Dennison kept quiet as they pulled up behind one of those new Escort models. This time he kept the car running and got out with Mitchell. Protocol demanded that both partners always checked the meat. Mitchell slid a tool into the trunk's lock, popping it instantly.
"We're good," said Dennison looking around casually.
Both peered inside the trunk quick enough to see two severed heads staring back. There were easily enough bulky black garbage bags to constitute a pair of butchered bodies. The feast tonight would be glorious, if not costly.
"Two males," stated Dennison as Mitchell slammed the trunk.
"Of course the other tribe gave us two males!" exclaimed Mitchell. "They know we don't have their man-power despite our legacy. They know that'll make it a more difficult hunt."
Dennison pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. "It's getting out of control."
"We have twenty-four hours to come up with two males for those bastards, Dennison. That's high near impossible; not without rousing suspicion. What are you going to advise the rest of the tribe?"
Dennison's thoughts strayed to the abandoned shoe, the manner in which his kind had been communicating between tribes now for sixty-odd years. A shoe which led to a tribute, one that was expected to be repaid. Meat for meat. A custom to insure his kind didn't go to war.
"We slaughter them all," Dennison said with a sigh.
rating: 4
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