In Limbo

by E. C. Marsh

  “Come on. Let's go and get this over with.”

  We started out into the woods, initially blind and feeling helpless. It took about 10 minutes for our eyes to adjust to the darkness and when I realized it happened, I was really surprised at how much we could see. As our vision improved, our pace increased. Occasionally, Sam would point out stars to me, but mostly we walked in silence. The first stretch was fairly clear and only at a slight incline. I had no trouble seeing trees, but the bushes got me, and so did the holes in the ground and the tree stumps. I never noticed that Sam ran into anything. When I commented on this he just chuckled.

  “Practice, my dear, practice. I've done this before. Just concentrate on what we are doing and tune out why we are doing it. Ouch!”

  Now it was my turn to giggle. “Concentrate, Sam”.

  The night air was getting cooler, but not at all uncomfortable. I was sweating from the uphill hike, and the light breeze felt good. There was a nice, woodsy scent in the air and, for the first time in two days, I heard animal sounds off in the distance. The woods became denser and it was harder to see stars. We walked through a patch of low brush and my legs got scratched up. I wanted to stop and clean up. Even more, I wanted to be at home in my soft comfy bed and in my husband's arms.

  When I looked around, all I could see was Sam's form and the trees and bushes.

  I felt lost and lonely. Come on now, I said to myself. Don't be such a wuzz. Pull yourself together. Focus on going home. Concentrate on Allen and Tom. Just focus!

  Finally we took a break. Somehow Sam had found a grassy spot and we sat down next to each other. I wanted to say something, reassure Sam and be reassured, but I suddenly felt completely exhausted.

  “Chris,” Sam said softly. “Take your shoes off and massage your feet. It will help some.”

  I did and it really felt good. Sam checked his watch.

  “We've been at it now for more than three hours,” he said. “It's a little after one, but we still have a ways to go.”

  We must both have smelled it at the same time.

  “Sam, I smell wood burning.”

  “Me too,” he whispered and put his index finger across his lips. I nodded my head in agreement. His lips were on my ear as he whispered: “Let's just be careful. We don't know who else is out here. Let's figure out where the smoke is coming from. Follow me and be very quiet.”

  Very slowly and carefully, we followed our noses. Fortunately, that also meant continuing toward the highway. Just before we reached a flat spot, we started to hear voices. I couldn't make out what was being said, but the voices were male and loud and rowdy. We moved closer, then Sam signaled to stop and we lay down on some grass.

  Directly ahead of us, maybe a hundred feet away, was a nice, big campfire. I counted five people, and judging by the voices they were all male. From what I could see they were wearing uniforms.

  “Army?” I softly asked Sam.

  “Could be. Listen, but try not to look at the fire or you'll lose your night vision.”

  I heard the “pssst” of a beer or soda can being opened, and watched as cigarettes were lit. Before too long, judging by the scent, I realized that it wasn't tobacco.

  “This has been one weird day.” I heard a male voice say. I thought, “Amen brother.”

  “Today was Sunday. Man, I had a date lined up for yesterday, but instead I ended up out here. With you assholes!”

  “Lucky date!” followed by raucous laughter.

  “Aw man, you wouldn't believe who with.”

  “Tell, come on”

  “That little supply clerk over at Battalion.”

  “The blonde with the big tits?”

  “Yeah, that's the one, Brenda.”

  “I hear she gives great head, man.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I can vouch for that piece.”

  “Oh baby, yeah!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I went out with her one time. We went to a real nice place, you know. Had dinner, a couple of glasses of wine. Then we drove around a little and ended up in this little park. I get to foolin' around a little, then she wants to go to a motel. Well, gee whizz , nobody needs to say that to me twice. Mr. and Mrs. Jones checked in. Man, it was great -- one hot piece of ass.”

  “I don't believe you.”

  “You want the details?”

  “Yeah man, spare me nothing.”

  “Well, we're in this motel, see. Before I get the door closed she has her clothes off. Man, them knockers just jumped right out at me saying: 'suck me suck me'.”

  A voice laughed.

  “Well did you?”

  “Let's just say I was very accommodating.”

  More laughter and the sweet-smelling smoke drifted over to us.

  “I had her on that bed lickety split and oh, man, did she ever taste sweet. Always have been a tit man. And her pussy, man, she was so wet, she practically came on my hand right there and then. I gave her some of that big black dick of mine to suck on just to slow her down a little, but only a little. I couldn't believe it, man. She was hot, ready, willing and most certainly able. Once we got going, anything went, man. Anything. I kid you not! She sucked my dick like there was no tomorrow, oh sweet Jesus was it ever good. And then I rolled her over and fucked her from behind.”

  “Did you fuck her in the ass?”

  “I'm sure she would've let me, she was that hot, but, I don't go for that shit. No, that pussy was so sweet and so wet and when she stuck her ass up in the air and showed me that thing, it looked so good, I could have sworn it winked at me. She was goin' along with anything I wanted, man, anything. It was a great piece of ass.”

  “I can't believe I missed my date with her. I could fall in love with someone like that.”

  “Well next time you're just gonna have to come along with us and join the fun. Make it a threesome. I'm sure she won't mind. You just let me get her motivated.”

  “All right, yeah.”

  “I saw something wild last night right out here.”

  “Oh yeah? What?”

  “Did you have a wet dream?”

  “You been out here too long when the trees start to look good to you.”

  “No, you perverts. We were down by the river. Sarge didn't let us build a fire and I was with some square guys, so I didn't dare smoke. But one time I took off by myself for a little while and just sat close to the water.”

  “Come on man, admit it, you was beatin' your meat.”

  “There were some people on the river. I watched them skinny-dipping and then I watched them get it on.”

  “Cool, how many?”

  I could feel myself blush, but Sam just took my hand and squeezed it.

  “Just two, man, a man and a woman. Nice looking chick, big tits. Nice. I watched them fuck, man. I wish I could've gotten in on that.”

  “Did he fuck'er in the ass?”

  “No, dickhead, not everyone is perverted like you. These looked like pretty normal people. They had no idea I was there. It was cool! This dude, you know, he played with her tits! And, awh man, I know she was coming all over him. I heard her moaning and begging him for more.”

  Sam squeezed my hand again. I still felt myself blushing.

  “You two did get a little loud.” Sam whispered in my ear with a chuckle.

  “Hey, why didn't you go over and partake?”

  “I was with these weird people, man. Some suits from DC or some place, I guess. Couldn't just swim over and say hi, lemme fuck the bitch too.”

  Sam squeezed my hand so hard I thought my fingers would break. It hurt, but it also helped. “I'm sorry,” I told Sam. “We didn't know anyone was there.”

  “It's ok. Really, it doesn't matter. Be quiet now. I'm trying to figure out a way to get past those idiots.”

  “Who was with you?” One of the male voices asked.

  “I really don't know. They wasn't introduced to me. It was all hushhush and supersecret. I was just the driver. They didn't
even set up camp. They had put up some electronic equipment earlier in the day. Computers and that kinda stuff. And then they waited. I guess it was around lunchtime when something turned on. Then, after a couple of hours, some of the stuff got loaded up again and a couple of these dudes went back to base. One of them spent the night and came back with me just before dawn. I'm telling you, it was weird.”

  “Didn't they talk at all?”

  “They was probably aliens!” followed by raucous laughter.

  “Aw man, I'm serious. No, these guys wore suits, man. They was talking to each other all right. You know. 'Bout this satellite and that it had already sent some kinda rays. I guess I musta looked lost, cause one of them had coffee with me and told me that they were doing some field tests on some kinda rays that would come from some satellite. Those rays would be sent to farming areas and then the farmers could harvest sooner. He said that in their lab, they had gotten an extra crop per growing season.”

  “Yeah, some kinda Startrek stuff?”

  “Find out how it works, we'll increase my pot harvest.” More laughter.

  “You're a bunch of assholes! I don't know how it works, I'm no fucking scientist. But I tell you, they was serious. This dude I was talking to, he said that he'd been involved with this project for a bunch of years. He said that they'd been working in a lab all this time. Then they got money from the Feds and suddenly everybody wants in on it. They practically had this field test crammed down their throats.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He didn't think that they were ready. Said he was worried about it, how it would affect humans. But his company had made all these arrangements and wouldn't back off, and then the Army was nice enough to let them use this dump. Now that they had their field-test everything looks real promising.”

  There was silence on the other side. Finally a new voice could be heard.

  “You mean to tell me that somebody did some secret testing here, with us right in the middle of it and just up and tells you? Come on.”

  “I'm serious. He told me that the actual test had been earlier in the day and they were monitoring. Nobody was in the area. They made sure of that. The Army leased some of the farmland over here on this side of the river for this test. They paid some old farmer a fortune for the use of his land. They picked that section because you can't really get into it on this side; there's no road.

  “And then they got us running perimeter guards to keep people away. As if there are any people! No, no, none of us was on this side of the river at the time of that test. We were all on the other side. Besides, this was just a split second thing. Real superfast! Now they're just watching for changes, make sure it worked. Don't get so fucking hostile with me. I'm just telling you what I heard last night.”

  “Did you tell Sarge about that?”

  “Naw, I didn't want to get the dude in trouble.”

  “I don't understand this. These people have this weird shit they shoot from a satellite and it's supposed to make stuff grow faster?”

  “Hey Tony, they shoulda told you earlier, you coulda put your dick in, make it grow.”

  More rowdy laughter followed. Sam motioned for me to follow him and we slowly moved to the left, away from the fire. Finally Sam stopped and whispered

  “I don't know if they have somebody working guard duty, so I think we need to make a little detour.”

  I nodded in agreement.

  “Look over there to the left. Can you see those two little cedars? Directly to the left the ground slopes up. I think we need to head that way and see if we can keep going toward the highway.”

  Going uphill was slow. The vegetation was dense and there were lots of dried, broken off tree limbs. We had to be careful and quiet, which was very difficult and time consuming. I wondered how Indians managed to sneak through the woods without making any noise; we certainly didn't. Finally we did reach the top. Looking down and slightly to the left, I could see the campfire we had just avoided. Sam was focused on the horizon even further to our left. He tugged on my shirt.

  “Look at that, looks to me like somebody is coming.”

  I turned and looked to where he was pointing. A light was moving fast and in our general direction.

  “Sam, that has got to be a car. Wanna go check it out?”

  “Maybe,” Sam's response was slow. “I'm not so sure that would help us. Look at the headlights. I think that's a military vehicle and that means whoever is coming this way is going to connect with those idiots down there. Let's wait.”

  We watched as the single bright light became two headlights of a vehicle. We watched as the headlights came to a stop a couple of hundred yards away from us. A horn sounded and we watched a light moving from the fire toward the vehicle. When it reached the vehicle, a lot of shouting followed but I could not make out what was said. The horn sounded a couple of times and we watched as the fire went out and then several small lights moved through the darkness toward the vehicle.

  “Party's over” said Sam.

  “Yeah, but now we're stuck again.” I was feeling very tired.

  “Stuck? Not really, watch. As soon as the vehicle leaves, we'll go to where it was and see if there's a path we can follow out of here. Walking will be much faster if we can follow a set of tire tracks. Okay, there we go. See they are turning around and now they are heading back. Let's go -- it'll be easier now.”

  I reluctantly followed him as we moved at an angle toward the path of the slow moving vehicle. Sam must have had some super powers, you know, able to see in the dark as he did. We found a narrow dirt path, well worn with heavy treaded tire marks. Up ahead we could see the vehicle top a rise, and then it was gone.

  “Do you need to rest a little?” Sam asked.

  “I need to pee,” I said with conviction. “I didn't feel like dropping my drawers in front of that bunch. They knew too much of my anatomy already.”

  Sam chuckled and pointed to a couple of cedars, clearly visible in the pale moonlight. Considering all we had been through, it was good to hear him laugh.

  “You can go behind those.”

  “I'd rather stay a little closer to you if you don't mind.”

  Sam didn't mind; Sam is good people. He just turned his back and waited for me. I felt much better as we moved on. It wasn't too much easier following those tire tracks. Instead of running into trees and falling over stumps and getting scratched by bushes, we now stumbled over rocks and roots and both of us almost fell into a hole a time or two. But we made progress and the thought of reaching the blacktop, reconnecting with Tom and finally getting home to Allen, kept me going. Sam and I didn't talk, we just walked as fast as we could and focused on the ground ahead to find a safe place for the next step.

  My feet were hot and the flimsy little canvas shoes did not provide much support. I twisted my ankles several times when I stepped onto what I thought was solid ground, only to find myself sliding off a root or big field rock. My calves were sore, as if on fire. I noticed that I was beginning to lean forward more then was good for my back, and tried to stretch while I walked.

  The farther away from the river we walked, the more I noticed the noises around us. There were choirs of frogs or bugs or something. Whatever it was, it was noisy. I even heard a cow. And there were whippoorwills. Our feet were beating a rhythm on the earth, and I felt myself becoming hypnotized by it.

  Then Sam suddenly froze and grabbed my arm. Startled I said “What?” only to feel his hand firmly clamped over my mouth. “Shhhhhh” he hissed, then moved his hand off my mouth and pointed up ahead. I stared, but I couldn't see anything. Then suddenly I saw it, two small red lights. I looked at Sam.

  “I think it's our friends from earlier, maybe they needed to take a break?”

  “Now what?”

  “Now we get the hell off the road, and let's hope they make enough noise to cover any noise we may be making.”

  Sam led the way, slowly, carefully, off the path and under some cedars growing to our ri
ght. There we sat down and waited.

  The red lights blinked a time or two, once even seeming to come closer. I could hear voices.

  “You clowns owe me a big favor, I hope you realize that. The lieutenant sent me out to locate you turkeys. You need to replace Third Squad for now. I'll get you guys relieved as soon as I can, but if you had any plans for tomorrow, forget it. Something big is going down. I don't know what, just that Third was pulled off guard duty and they are all in the dispensary. Just be careful out there.”