Wishes, Plans, and Hallucinations #2
“Do what?” Dean asked grumpily.
“Compartmentalize so completely,” Marcus said. “Put your discomfort in a box labeled ‘after my nap’ and then get all the oogies out at once.”
Dean grunted. “They’re like flies. They just keep coming back. As long as I don’t move suddenly or violently they don’t sting me. The scorpions are just doing their thing. It’s the stinging that’s the problem.”
And most people didn’t react badly enough to the venom to do more than suffer some swelling and discomfort. The ones that had been grouping and regrouping along the edges of their parachute tent were less venomous than bees.
But that could still creep a guy out.
“Sure, sure,” Marcus agreed. “Anyway, if you’re all clear—”
Dean gave his neckline one last pat down to make sure nothing had snuck into his shirt. “We are.”
“Then you need to see this. You told me you saw these trucks on the way in after I went down around ten, right?”
“Right,” Dean said, checking his pocket for scorpions before pulling out a tiny, deadly accurate pair of binoculars. “Are they leaving now?”
“All three,” Marcus told him. “They’re heading back toward town. I’m wondering, do they need all that food, water, gas, etc. for a day, or are those coming back in the next two to three days?”
“Why?” Dean asked. “Whatcha thinkin’?”
“I’m thinking Trojan Horse,” Marcus said. “One of us needs to take a bike to town and find the supply trucks—”
“Easy enough,” Birdie said, surprising them both. “They’ve got that creepy bleeding-heart insignia on the back.” Birdie waved a larger pair of binocs in the air, probably personal and wedged in Birdie’s parachute pack. “I’ll do it.”
“But Bird—” Dean objected, only Bird was already pushing Marcus’s motorcycle out of the shelter, the empty trailer weaving a little without the weight to pin it down.
“Don’t ‘But Bird’ me, young man,” Birdie snapped. “I can fill the bike’s tanks and the spare and have it ready in town, and I can let you in when that thing returns in the next few days.”
“Bird, we can’t—”
“You’ve got enough supplies to last the two of you a week,” Birdie said, looking at them over a hunched shoulder.
“You did not count on feeding me, which is not your fault. Let me set the bike up as exfil and fill it with supplies. If I don’t come back in two more moonrises, or you don’t see my signal in the next truck delivery before that, assume I’m cheesed and do your thing, guys, but for now, trust me. ”
Birdie gave a wizened smile, complete with a wink, and then asked, “Wait—do you idiots have any C-4?”
“Yes,” they both said, a little alarmed at the question.
“Awesome. Back in two days.”
And then Birdie was gone.
“Oh my God,” Marcus muttered. “That small irritating human had better not screw us over.”
“Oh no,” Dean said, certain of this at least. “You and me are Bird’s best bet at payback for the downed plane.
I’m pretty sure Bird’s not going to let anything get in the way of revenge.
” He gave a grunt, and from far away, they heard Birdie start the engine.
“Bird’s right anyway—the bikes have enough fuel to get us into town or get us to the compound.
Not both. If Bird sets up the bike and supplies for exfil, we’ve got some options. ”
Marcus grunted back. “But in the meantime, it’s us, in this pit, with the motherfucking scorpions.”
Dean nodded. “Hey, think we could rig sort of a platform with the other chute and some rocks? It would keep the little bastards off us?”
“Mmm….” Marcus cocked his head. “No, Dean. I think they’ve got nests in the rock face, and while we might be able to cover the rock face with the other chute, that would mean they were wriggling around underneath it.
I think we should refold the chute and save it for anything else and settle in for a long July nap in the asshole of the Chihuahuan Desert. ”
“Could be worse,” Dean said. “Could be Fresno.”
Marcus chewed on that for a moment. Fresno was a central California valley town known for its homeless population and its poor air quality—and its lack of access to any of the neat places that California was known for.
“Fresno’s not bad if you’ve got air-conditioning,” he said after a moment. “They’ve got a nice little state university there.”
“So you’re saying you’d rather be in Fresno?” Dean asked, making sure.
Marcus shrugged. “Hey, in two days we’ve got the possibility of getting shot at here, so that’s a plus for the Chihuahuan Desert.”
“I’m saying,” Dean told him. “It could definitely be worse.”
“I’ll let you know if we don’t kill each other in two days,” Marcus told him direly, but they’d killed time before without killing each other. “Anyway, go back to sleep. You were only an hour into your nap, and now that I’ve seen you do the heebie-jeebie dance, I’m wide-awake.”
Dean rolled his eyes. “You just want a chance to see me do it again,” he accused, but he was busy wrapping his scarf around his head and sealing off the neck areas, as well as tucking his hands in his sleeves and reupping the snugness between his boots and his khakis.
“Two days, Dean. We’ve got to get our entertainment somewhere.”
Dean grunted and settled in for his nap, making doubly sure his baseball hat was tight to his head and covered by his scarf. “I feel you. Did we bring cards?”
“Damned straight. Tomorrow’s gonna be one long game of cribbage.”
“We can keep points using dead scorpions,” Dean promised, and then he put his various fears, paranoias, and phobias into the other box and closed his eyes.