Free Unity by Jeremy Robinson

throw themselves on the chopping block.”
    I can picture rugged Gwen on a farm. Working the land. Bored out of her skull. She’s been lugging Mandi around all day like she’s accustomed to carrying sacks of potatoes.
    “I’ve seen what kind of force is needed to cut through bone, Effie.” She gives me a sidelong glance, her smile retreating. “Whoever did that back there... We don’t want to meet him.”
    “‘Him?’”
    “Call me a sexist if you want, but I’ve never met a woman capable of doing that to a man. Not even my mom, and she was a big woman.”
    I’m not sure if she means physically capable or emotionally capable, but I don’t argue the point. While I haven’t met any women physically or emotionally capable of such a thing, I have met men who are both. Are there brutally savage women in the world? Without a doubt. But I’ve never met them, which leads me to believe that the male variety are far more pervasive. History and its wars agree. Even now, women generally aren’t on the front line or part of any special forces. What kind of women would want to be?
    Feet scuff over concrete as Gwen and I slow to a stop in unison. We’re just five feet from the far end of the landing pad strip, and the flecks of white hidden among the uneven grass are easy to see.
    Now this ...
    This changes things.

 
     
     

SUPPORT
     

10
     
    “How many are there?” Gwen hovers at the edge of the landing pad, while I wade through the tall grass, counting.
    “Too many,” I mumble, still counting. “Way too many.”
    In some places it’s hard to tell one skeleton from the next. These people were either dumped here, or they were killed in a very small area, landing atop each other as they fell. Both scenarios seem possible, as the cause of death is pretty clear.
    Bullets.
    And a lot of them.
    Parts of bones have been chipped away. Holes in skulls. Ribs fractured. Someone held the trigger down on these people and didn’t let go until they were pulp. I half expect to find the ground still stained red, but nature’s cleanup crew has done an efficient job. There’s no way to know if these people died at the same time as the first man we found or not. Could have been weeks or months earlier, or later.
    But the savagery of both attacks seems consistent. They could have been killed by the same person, or by a group of people.
    The gun on my hip suddenly seems very inadequate. They should have sent me with a bazooka.
    “Seven,” I say, but I’m not sure. “Give or take one or two.”
    “Give or take?”
    “Some of these skulls are in more than one piece.” With every new bone uncovered from the grass, my anxiety grows. But I’m not worried about me; I’m worried about Sig. If she’s alive on this hellish island, she might not be for long. I rip through the grass, looking for any signs of what happened here, aside from the obvious.
    “Move slower,” Gwen says. “They’ll know something is wrong.”
    By ‘they’, she means Daniel and Gizmo. “We can’t let them see,” was the first thing she said after we recognized the flecks of white for what they were. While I agree that panicking the boys won’t help us at all, my conscience is struggling with not giving them information that could make them more alert, and more likely to spot danger.
    I glance back at Daniel and Gizmo, searching the far end of the landing site. Every few steps, one of them flinches and the other follows suit. Their imaginations must be running wild with visions of killers, monsters and the dead. To be honest, mine is, too.
    Gwen is right. They don’t need to know.
    I wish I didn’t know.
    My eyes catch sight of something that isn’t brilliant green, dark, earthy brown or sun-bleached white. It’s a sliver of gleaming yellow.
    “Found something.” Crouching in the grass, I brush away the dirt. With each sweep of my fingers, my stomach clenches. By the time the object is clear enough to see, I think I might puke.
    “What is