Piss Break

Harold was not a happy camper.

He didn’t know what “camper” meant, but he certainly wasn’t happy. Oh, Goldacres was a fine enough settlement, but Harold hated venturing into the jungle, and made that fact amply clear to everyone within earshot. He was in his early forties, with his kids well on their way to getting hitched, and he was therefore, from his point of view, an old hand. And old hands were listened to. Their opinions were respected. He should have been en route to the Green Zone, if not the Base. Put plainly, this assignment should not have been given to him.

“Then why didn’t he tell Barney?” Al mumbled.

Shane shushed him. The two youngsters redirected their gaze back to Harold, who was still complaining at top volume. They were travelling along the river, their slow-moving train weighed down by tons and tons of produce: a ripe harvest from the fertile fields of Goldacres. Al didn’t know why Harold had chosen to take this route, but he gathered that it probably had something to do with the older man wanting to get this whole assignment over and done with as fast as possible. The fact that they’d be skirting Blackheart territory hadn’t seemed to register.

“Won’t the Blackhearts demand tribute when we pass through?” Al mumbled.

Shane shushed him again. “If you know what’s good for you,” he hissed, “you’ll keep that mouth a’ yours laced up tight. Old Harold hates being questioned.”

Al nodded sullenly and scratched idly at his neck. Was it just him, or were the mosquitoes in this part of the jungle larger and more daring? He blinked rapidly, stifling a yawn, and paused.

Was it just him, or was there…

“Do I bore you, Al Smith?”

Al jerked upright. Harold was squinting at him. “N-no, sir,” he stammered. “I just thought I saw something.”

Harold regarded him coolly. “Saw something, eh?” he sneered. “Well, share it with the class.”

Al shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Well, I – I thought I saw a flash of blonde hair, sir. In the bushes. It was –”

“Blonde hair! Blonde hair?” Harold tipped his head back and laughed, his mirth swallowed by the trees, and the other men in the cargo bed laughed along with him. Al’s face burned; beside him, Shane forced out a few chuckles. He didn’t hold it against the older boy, though. They were both rookies, and it was either him or Shane. “I do believe young Al here is losing his wits! Are you a lackwit, boy?”

“N-no, sir.”

“Then don’t let me catch you dozing off again,” Harold snarled. “Ain’t no blondies in these woods.”

They carried on through the jungle in silence, the sound of rushing water never far away. From time to time, a few of the jumpier men would aim their weapons at the bushes whenever they heard rustling, but Harold never needled them the way he’d mocked Al. A heavy, awkward silence sat between Al and Shane.

HALT!

The convoy slowed to a crawl, then stopped completely. The sounds of the jungle intensified all around them. Harold stood up. “Piss break, anyone?”

No one responded. Harold was growing old, and his bladder was getting weaker. Al had last gone three hours before, or close enough. He knew how to hold it in.

“Al Smith, you’re with me.”

Al followed Harold as they both dismounted from the cargo bed. His boots sank into the moist dirt. Strange smells suffused his nostrils as he followed Harold into the bushes. To his credit, the older man was surefooted, and he navigated the brambles as though he’d been born to them. Al, on the other hand, floundered. “Keep up, boy,” Harold called, voice growing indistinct, and Al hastened to hurry up.

He found Harold in a clearing, pissing against a tree. “Gotta have some privacy,” Harold said, his back turned, “to give you a right talking-to.”

Al braced himself.

Harold sighed. “You’re a bright kid, Smith. But you just need to listen to your elders more often. Yer mam handed you over to me because she said you wouldn’t listen, and it’s my responsibility to make a proper man out of you. Get that wanderlust out of your system and all.” He did up his fly and turned around, extending his hand. Al stared down at it for a second, then shook it. “All right, lad?”

“All right, Mr Babson.”

“Attaboy. Now –” Harold paused, hands on his hips. “Did you hear that?”

Help

“Someone’s calling for help,” Harold said.

“Shouldn’t we –”

“Ain’t no time for that, lad,” Harold barked. “Could be some poor sap in trouble, losin’ blood fast. We need to go, and we need to do it now.” He turned around and started to set off through the woods. Torn, Al stared after him, then followed. Harold’s voice drifted back to him, muffled by the leaves. “Simple matter of retracing our steps, lad. Don’t fret. I know these woods.”

They zigged and zagged for what felt like hours. Al wondered if the convoy was starting to get antsy; if they’d been set upon by mutants; if they’d just upped and left without them. A trickle of sweat rolled down the back of his neck, and he felt, all of a sudden, as though something was watching him. There was a sharp crack as something jumped from branch to branch, above him, and Al almost looked up, but there was a thick fern above him, and he saw nothing. There was a soft rustle, almost like laughter, and Al steeled himself.

He bumped into Harold within a few strides, and the man whipped around, furious. “Now, you stop that, boy,” he said urgently, voice low. “I think this lass is close.” As if to emphasise this, he paused for silence.

Help

It was getting louder. They were getting closer. Harold lurched blindly to the left, shoving through a dense curtain of vines, and Al followed –

They were in a clearing. The ground was matted with leaves and other rotting plant matter, and the still water of a swamp stretched out before them. It was the largest swamp that Al had ever seen, having been born and raised in Port Steel. A blonde girl in ragged, mud-stained clothes was seated some distance from them, about twenty paces or so. Her left foot was caught in a bear-trap. “Help,” she warbled, her voice clear and desperate, and Al took a step back, his instincts screaming. He saw Harold’s foot move backwards, then stop.

“You alright, lass?”

The girl shook her head. “I’m stuck,” she wailed. There was a faint accent to her voice that Al didn’t recognize, a hint of the exotic. An alien twang. She reached out to Harold entreatingly. “I’m from Godacorn,” she cooed. “My father – he’ll pay handsomely for my rescue.”

Goldacres, Al thought. She means Goldacres. He grasped Harold’s sleeve as the older man took a step forward. “Mr Babson,” he said, “I don’t think she’s –”

“I’ll just check on her,” Harold retorted, pulling his arm free. “If I can’t free her, then we’ll go back to the convoy and call some more men to help. She can’t do anything to me, lad.”

A few things stood out to Harold as he advanced on the girl. For one, his pistol started to itch in his holster. For two, the girl’s ankle didn’t seem to be bleeding. Most folks caught in a bear-trap would be bleeding, but this bear-trap seemed rusted, for some reason. The metal was decaying.

For three, the girl’s eyes were black. There was no white in those eyes, only a bleak, black abyss flecked with specks of gold and green interspersed around a single vertical pupil. She smiled at him as he froze, thrown off-guard by the inhumanity of her gaze, and that was when he moved for his gun.

It was too late, though.

The bulges at the base of the girl’s jaw thrummed, twisting into view as she turned to stare at him head-on, and Harold raised his arm to shield his face, the other lifting his gun from his pocket, flicking off the safety –

Mr Babson –

A small, foul-smelling hand came down over Al’s mouth as the words echoed across the silent clearing, and Harold began to turn. He saw another girl looming over his shoulder, tearing huge, bloody chunks out of it with her claws. Her mouth opened, stretching wider than any human mouth should have, and inside Harold saw rows and rows of gleaming teeth, needle-sharp, dripping with venom, and then he knew no more.

Outside, a balding man with mutton-chops prepared to set off. “Alright,” he shouted, standing atop his truck’s cargo bed. “Y’all know the drill. No word from Babson and Smith for well over half an hour: we’re going! There’ll be a crew from Goldacres or Port Steel to search this section of forest for ‘em, but either way: we’re going! This here food won’t last long, and we’re on the clock, and in Babson’s absence, I’m in command, so: we’re going!” He whistled shrilly, and a dozen engines rumbled into life.

And the convoy lurched off.

Edit Report
Pub: 28 Jun 2023 06:00 UTC
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