Steve glides through the remaining few meters of the forest like a ghost, emerging at one side of a cornfield at the edge of town. He left the beast parked a few hundred meters back in a layby, it was too big to bring in so close and too easily seen, regardless of how quiet it was.

Despite the bag full of gear on his back and the two rifles he is carrying, there is hardly any noise. All clinking or grinding of contents muffled or absorbed by the padding and pouches sewn into it. Just as there are no metal loops or buckles on any of the gear that could make noise when he moves, he has replaced or bound in black insulation tape anything that could cause even the slightest sound and give his position away.

He didn’t wait until he needed it to prepare this