Bovine Bloodbath

by Chris Lowry

  Carver leaned in, expecting a kiss.

  “Then get out and get moving.”

  He stopped.

  “Huh?”

  “That super secret government project you’re working on? They track little launches like this. I figure you have about thirty minutes before really nasty men with really nasty weapons show up. I plan to be long gone by then.”

  “Time to go,” Dawes shoved him out of the way and scrambled from the cockpit.

  Rosita gave Caver a shove and he spilled out onto the grass next to him.

  She slammed the door closed, locked it and fired up the engines to spin the plane around.

  “She’ll wait for us to move,” Carver got up and dusted his pants off.

  The engines roared, flames leaping out of the end to lick at their eyebrows.

  “No she won’t!” Dawes dragged Carver after him.

  They scrambled across the runway to the fence and watched as the plane lifted off, kicked on the afterburners and shot into the stratosphere.

  “Baby girl ain’t playing, is she?” Carver said in admiration.

  “Your eyebrows are singed.”

  “They are?” he smoothed them with the tips of his fingers.

  “We need to get moving.”

  Dawes led him along the fence line until they reached a gate. It was padlocked and they had to climb over.

  "You know we can't get on the base, right?" said Dawes.

  "We got into a super secret space base in the middle of Texas, didn't we?"

  "That was a mistake."

  "Man, people make mistakes all the time. I made a mistake picking you up."

  "And you made a mistake blowing up the rocket."

  "You know that wasn't my fault."

  "You pressed the button."

  "They should have had that marked better."

  "Just admit you're not a pilot."

  "Which one of us flew a space ship before?"

  "You crashed us into a ship the first time, and almost got us shot into the sun. You blew up the second one."

  "At least I'm trying something. Have you flown a rocket before?"

  "You don't fly rockets, you strap in and hang on."

  "Man, you don't even know."

  "Physics. It's simple physics."

  "Did you take a physics class? Are you a rocket scientist that you hadn't told me about?”

  “Man, we’ll figure it out. Ain’t that what we always do?”

  “I think we should have a plan.”

  “I do have a plan.”

  “Then why didn’t you say so?” Dawes complained.

  “You ain’t let me get in a word since we started walking. All you do is complain and moan. I got this man.”

  “We got this.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I said. We got this.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  "Alright man, how we going to do this?"

  "Why are you asking me?"

  "Oh I see how it's going to be. Just because I'm black, I'm supposed to know how to break into someplace?"

  "Do you?"

  "I mean I do, but that's because I watch a lot of Youtube videos, not because I've done it."

  "Why would you research something like that?"

  "Just in case."

  "Just in case you want to break into someplace?"

  "Yeah."

  They two men walked on the sidewalk along A1A, sparse traffic drifting past them.

  Rosita had flown them in Central Florida and taken off again immediately. A kind old man from some place he called The Villages was heading to a condo on New Smyrna Beach and given them a ride to the infamous highway that stretched from Key West all the way North to Jacksonville and points beyond.

  "Did any of those videos tell you how to break into an army base?" asked Dawes.

  "Nah man, you know the CIA won't let that stuff out on the internet. You see what they do to those guys that jump the fence at the White House."

  "Yeah, and I'm imagining what they're going to do to us when they catch us."

  "If they catch us," said Carver.

  He watched a garbage truck rumble past and held his nose against the stench.

  "That's what we need."

  "A big stink to track us by?"

  "Man, pay attention. You got to think outside the box sometimes. Nobody pays attention to the garbage men. We could just drive right past the gate."

  Dawes stopped him.

  "That's a good idea."

  "Yeah, but where we going to get a garbage truck?"

  "We don't need a garbage truck."

  Carver crinkled up his eyebrows.

  "You said it was a good idea, man."

  "It is, but a different idea."

  "Is the heat down here making you crazy?"

  Carver nodded.

  "This whole thing is crazy. We got away. We escaped and now nobody knows where we are. Really, we should be going underground and hiding. But instead we're trying to steal a rocket. That's way crazy."

  Carver stared up at the blue sky as if he could see the alien ship slowly approaching earth.

  "But if we ain't going to do it, who will?"

  "That's what I'm saying. We will. But we need a geek."

  "A goose?"

  "A geek. We need to kidnap an egghead and get him to take us to the rocket."

  "Just like that?"

  Dawes snapped his fingers.

  "It'll be a snap."

  "You want to break onto an Army base by kidnapping some man, man?"

  "Yep."

  "That's stupid."

  "It's better than a garbage truck."

  "Nobody checks a garbage truck."

  "Are you going to hide in the back?"

  "They're going to check the scientist."

  "Not if we distract them."

  "How you going to do that?"

  Dawes started walking again.

  "I don't know yet. But we've got ten miles to figure it out."

  "And find the rocket scientist."

  "And steal a geek."

  Carver shook his head, but when Dawes increased his pace, he matched him step for step.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  "How you wanna do this?"

  The two men hid in the sparse underbrush next to the long road leading to the guard shack.

  Sneaking up hadn't been easy.

  At first, they tried a direct approach, but the two lane blacktop leading to the fenced off section of the base was too exposed.

  "They going to see us coming."

  "Kinda hard to sneak in that way," said Dawes.

  He followed Carver as he led him off the road and hustled from palmetto bush to palmetto bush, scrub pine to rows of sea oats growing in the sandy soil. Footing was treacherous and more than once, one of them slipped.

  Now they were fifty yards from the guard shack, stripped palmetto leaves stuck in their collars.

  "Camo," Dawes explained.

  "I ain't no camel," Carver snapped back.

  "Not camel, camo. Camouflage."

  Carver studied the pointy leaf.

  "This gonna hurt?"

  "Don't poke yourself with it."

  Dawes demonstrated how to stick it in the collar of their shirts so they would blend in with the background better.

  "See?"

  "I can still see you," said Carver. "This ain't going to work."

  "No one's perfect," Dawes shrugged.

  They settled for hiding behind a bush, peering around the rough trunk.

  "How do we know which one's a geek?"

  Carver leaned against the bark.

  "It's the car, see. He's gonna fall into two categories. If he's got a good four door car, that means he's sensible and probably a geek."

  "What's the other category?"

  "Rich geek. He's gonna have a nice lean shiny sports car to let the ladies know he's got money."

  "Why can't we get one of those?"

  "Cause man, rich geeks only think about gettin
g laid and science and stuff. We take him, he's gonna hassle us about getting back on base. But a regular car geek is just going to do what keeps him safe."

  "You didn't say we were going to hurt him."

  "We're not going to hurt him," Carver brushed a bug off his shoulder. "But he don't have to know that."

  Dawes nodded in appreciation.

  "Intimidation tactics."

  "That's right," Carver grinned. "We scare him into letting us on the base."

  "How do you plan to do that?"

  Neither recognized the new voice behind them. They whipped around and found an armed guard aiming his rifle at them.

  He was young, and the weapon shook in his thin hands.

  Carver and Dawes lifted their hands in surrender.

  "We ain't armed."

  "We're just talking," Dawes added.

  "What are you doing out here? This is a restricted area."

  "Oh, it is?" Carver glared at his partner.

  "See, I told you this was a dumb place to have a picnic. We're sorry Officer, we're just looking for some place for lunch."

  "I'm not an officer," the guard said in a high pitched voice. "If you're having a picnic, where's the food?"

  "Snake," Dawes stuttered.

  "Snake? That's gross. I've never eaten snake, but I heard it tastes like chicken," said the Guard.

  Dawes pointed.

  "Snake."

  The guard looked down at his feet as a long brown rat snake slithered out of the bushes and across his boot.

  He hopped.

  He shouted.

  He fell back with a grunt and a plop after Carver punched him across the jaw.

  Carver shook his hand and massaged his knuckles.

  "Damn man."

  "That was quick thinking."

  Dawes bent over the guard and checked his face.

  "That's going to leave a mark. Did you have to hit him so hard?"

  "You almost let him get eat by a snake."

  "That snake was more scared of him than he was of it."

  "Did you see how high he jumped? I don't think it was more scared."

  Carver shivered.

  "Besides, snakes give me the heebie jeebies."

  Dawes shivered with him.

  "Me too."

  They regained their composure as they stood over the prostate form of the guard in the sand.

  Carver pointed and groaned.

  "And there goes our geek," he said as a beige sedan cruised out of the gate doing the speed limit.

  "Maybe we don't need one."

  "You got a better idea? I ain't swimming in the ocean, man. They got sharks. We already seen a snake today, I don't want jaws to bite my ass."

  Dawes nodded toward the guard who was stirring.

  "How do you think he got out here?"

  "Walked. We would have heard him drive."

  "Yeah, but walked from where?"

  Carver nodded like he was being let in on a secret.

  "I don't know man, where?"

  Dawes shrugged.

  "You don't know?"

  "He had to get here somehow."

  "Man, I thought you knew something. We're right back where we started."

  The guard sat up and nursed his swollen jaw.

  "Ow," he moaned. "Why'd you have to hit me so hard."

  "I saved your life from that snake man."

  The guard scrambled up in a hurry and danced around looking for the slithering menace.

  "Don't worry man, we took care of it,"

  Carver assured him. "That snake ain't ever going to bother you again."

  Dawes started to interrupt him.

  "Is it?" Carver stopped him and raised his eyebrows. His head arced back and forth in an exaggerated nod.

  "I mean if he goes looking for it, it might."

  "No man, we took care of that snake and saved the man's life. We saved your life," he told the guard.

  The guard was watching the brush and scrub around them, eyes wide. He kept hopping from one foot to the other.

  "Thank you?"

  "You're welcome. See, I told you," Carver grabbed the guard by the crook of his arm and turned him toward Dawes.

  "Told me what?"

  "Told him what?" the guard was still distracted by potential snakes in the grass.

  "Told you we could trust him."

  "We can?"

  "You can?"

  "Yeah man, I told him you were in on it. The kind of guy we could let know about this stuff."

  Carver kept nodding his head, mimicking the guard’s stance and body language.

  "I am?"

  "Man, you don't have to play with us. We're going to tell you the truth."

  "The snake got away?" Dawes asked.

  "It did?"

  He hopped higher, glanced around in panic.

  "No man, you don't got to worry about that snake. I told you, we took care of it. We took care of you. Now you're alive. We did you a favor."

  "Yeah," the guard nodded.

  He didn't calm down, but he did stop looking around so much. Dawes stared at

  Carver with a look of confusion on his face.

  "And what do you do when people do you a favor?"

  "Return it."

  "I told you he was smart," Carver preened.

  "No, you didn't."

  "Shut up man I did say that."

  "I didn't hear you."

  "That's cause you weren't listening."

  "I was too."

  "No, you weren't," Carver corrected. "Cause our new friend here, hey man, what's your name?"

  "Reg."

  "Reg, hey. We saved your life so now we're going to tell you why we're here."

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  "Okay," Reg answered.

  His eyes roamed around from their faces to the ground and back up again.

  "Okay. Tell him."

  "Me?" Dawes asked.

  "Yeah man, TELL him."

  Carver winked.

  "Why'd you wink at him?" asked Reg.

  "I didn't wink at him."

  "I just saw you do it."

  "Naw man, I had something in my eye."

  Carver blinked a couple of times to show him.

  "It looked like a wink."

  "I don't think so. You're mixing up blinking and winking. Happens to me all the time. Go on man, tell him."

  "It was blinking."

  "Not that man. The other thing."

  "What other thing."

  "Man, you are driving me to drink. No wonder the General doesn't like you."

  "What General?" Reg asked.

  "He does too like me. He likes me better than he likes you."

  "No, he don't, he's just playing."

  "What General!"

  They both stopped talking and stared at Reg.

  "Our General, man."

  "You're assigned to a General?"

  "Shit man who you think sent us out here to heck on security? Make sure ya'll doing your job."

  Reg straightened up.

  "We do a great job!"

  "You do? That's what we going to tell him, ain't it," Carver said to Dawes. "Write that down."

  "I don't have a pen."

  "What? You didn't bring a pen. Then how we going to put this in the report?"

  Dawes shrugged.

  "You got a pen?"

  Reg patted his pockets and came up empty.

  "Not with me."