A peremptory knock on the door. Unearthly quiet. Hank, already sweltering, began to sweat still more profusely. He kicked the door open, drew his gun, and peered into the gloomy apartment. It was too dark to distinguish anything more than their vague shapes. He felt a grip at his throat. He pointed the flashlight beam at the floor. The room was a shambles—their throats had been cut and they lay in a waste of blood, piles of dirty laundry.
He closed his eyes and sagged against the wall.
“Damn it to hell.”
The creak of a floorboard broke the silence. The flashlight beam dimmed perceptibly, and he came face-to-face with a tiger.
“You’re late,” he growled.
Sources: New Oxford American Dictionary, Collins English Dictionary
They arrived all together in darkness, an unstoppable army in astronomical number. They destroyed us root and branch, columns of men five abreast with reliable, accurate rifles. We were hunted from our ground, shot, poisoned, and had our daughters, sisters, and wives taken from us.
Thrown into chaos, breathless from running, we attempted to swim the swollen river. We unfastened a boat from its moorings and hung on like grim death as the current drifted the boat to sea, and the thunder of the surf became a muted whisper. Looking back at the pewter sky, faces ashen and haggard, we said nothing.
Now there are just twelve of us in all. Some of us have a lower resistance to cold than others.
Where are we going? What exactly are we looking for? Where do we live? We have no ready-made answers. How do butterflies navigate when they migrate? Birds winging the air, wind bellying the sails, I persist in dangling over the boat side to dabble in the clear, deep, running water.
Sources: New Oxford American Dictionary, Macquarie Dictionary, The American Heritage Dictionary, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary