by V. Moody
“Yeah, thanks for leaving us the twigs. I don’t know if you understand how weather works, but it gets colder at night. If you want a fire that lasts, you need those larger logs to form a base. What the fuck is wrong with you?”
My little speech designed to imply he must be stupid did its job. His smile dropped and he ran his tongue over his lips.
“You want to watch your mouth, mate. No need to be uncivil.”
When a big guy starts talking about good manners, you know he’s lining up a punch aimed at your face. But I was in a strange world, trapped with the Noob Squad, facing imminent death by ogres of one kind or another. I was too pissed off to backdown.
“Really? You think taking more than your fair share and leaving others to freeze is civil behaviour? Take what you want and the hell with everyone else, that’s your idea of being a decent human being? Your mum would be proud of you, would she?” I threw in the mother thing because all the black guys I’ve ever known held their mothers in high regard. To a ridiculous degree in some cases. Racist stereotype? Possibly, but when you’re up against a guy who can crush your skull with his bare hands, you don’t really have time to consider all the politically correct ramifications.
“Guys, come on, calm down.” Golden Boy had decided to take charge of the situation. “We only took a little extra because there’s more of us.”
“There’s six of you, and five of us. That’s one more person, out of twenty. Does it look like you took an extra one-twentieth?” I pointed at the bonfire of the vanities raging behind him.
“Okay,” said Golden Boy, “maybe we overdid it, but we didn’t mean any harm. We aren’t trying to deprive you guys. You’re all welcome to come over here and share the fire with us. How about it?”
He looked past me at the rest of my group over by our area. His smile was big and magnanimous and it made me want to puke. I could sense the others walking over towards us. I’d look pretty silly if they all agreed to share the fire and only I held out. A compromise would probably be the best thing. If you think that’s what I went with, you obviously don’t know me at all.
“How about it? How about fuck you? You did a shitty thing and now you’ve been called on it, instead of giving back what you stole, you’re trying to wheedle out a way so you keep what you took.”
“Jesus,” said the black guy, sounding like he was right on the edge. “We invited you to join us, what more do you want?”
“Yeah, an invitation to join a bunch of thieving arseholes. No thanks.” The others were now standing behind me. I was just waiting for one of them to suggest we agree to share, so I could tell them they could go fuck themselves too. But they didn’t say anything. Whether because they were backing me up, or just too nervous to speak, it’s hard to say.
“You know,” said the black guy, “I’ve had just about enough of you.” He moved his hand along his waist.
I noticed their weapons for the first time. The black guy had an axe. Only a small one, a hatchet I guess, but it looked like it could do some serious damage. Golden Boy had a sword. Yes, a real sword. I don’t think he got it from the handouts earlier, so he must have found it or bought it.
“Easy, Dag,” said Golden Boy. “No need for that.”
“Come on, Tin, he’s asking for it.”
“Dag and Tin?” said Maurice. “What are you two supposed to be, Teletubbies?”
*crickets*
I started sniggering. I couldn’t help it. Not at Maurice’s terrible attempt at a cutting slam, but at the way it totally killed the conversation. Everyone just stared at him.
I patted him on the shoulder. “Nice try, man.”
He shook his head, looking more upset about the premature death of his stand-up comedy career than the life-threatening beating we were on the verge of receiving.
“Tough crowd,” he muttered under his breath.
Maurice’s intervention did have one good side-effect. It lifted the red mist and made me realise you don’t beat arseholes by acting like one.
“Look,” I said, “once we get out of this place, you can do what you want. Kill us all in a fair fight if you want. You with your swords and axes, us with our sticks and stones. I’m sure the girls will all be very impressed.”
The three girls in their party, including Jenny, had been watching silently. I decided to include them because a guy will act differently when he’s in front of girls. He wants them to believe he’s cool and brave and whatever other bullshit he thinks will get him laid.
“But while we’re in here,” I continued, “it would be nice if you let us do what we want instead of stealing our options. We want to build our own fire, our own way. Do you think you could stop cockblocking us?”
“Fine,” said Golden Boy, whose name was Tin (short for Justin?). “Help yourself.” He stepped aside.
The heat from the fire made your face melt if you looked at it too long. The flames crackled and popped, and the centre glowed crimson like a warning light. Getting the burning logs out of that seemed like a fool’s errand. The job I was born for.
I raised my stick, letting them see its barbed end for a moment (I enjoyed seeing their eyes widen as they realised I wasn’t quite so defenseless as they’d thought) before smacking it into the fire. I felt the nails dig into wood and pulled.
A large log, bathed in flames, came skidding out. At the same time, the rest of the fire collapsed. Logs rolled out, the roasting pig fell, burning twigs went flying. Everyone jumped back, squealing and swearing as they tried to avoid getting hit by red-hot embers.
I ignored the protests and hooked out some more logs.
“For fuck’s sake! Look what you’ve done, bruv.” Dag sounded extremely hacked off. “It’s ruined!”
The pig was lying in the dirt, a couple of burning branches on top searing the flesh.
“What? He told me to help myself. If you want to blame someone—” I pointed at Tin “—blame him for being a cocky wanker. Anyway, the pig looks fine. Just think of it as barbecue.”
I kicked the log nearest me so it rolled over to our area. The others followed my lead and kicked and poked the still-burning wood away from the murderous looks aimed our way.
23. Then There Were Three
Getting a fire going was pretty easy since the logs were already smouldering nicely. We piled them together, added a few smaller bits of wood, and hey presto.
We focused on getting the rabbit cleaned and organising a way to cook it. I could feel eyes on us, but made sure not to respond. There was no doubt in my mind that the issue was not over yet. At some point we would be made to pay for my outburst, but for the time being I intended to eat dinner and plan for tomorrow.
It’s worth mentioning that while out little dispute was ongoing, the Cool Kids totally ignored us. I don’t mean they watched quietly, I mean I don’t think they even noticed. Whatever they were talking about must have been far more important and interesting than what us plebs got up to.
Cooking the rabbit was kind of tricky without utensils. Although we’d probably find out later that Captain Grayson had a drawer full of spoons, forks, pots and pans. I emptied my stew into one of the other dishes and placed my dish on top of the fire. Thanks to Flossie’s knife, cutting up the rabbit wasn’t too hard. I placed the chunks on the dish like it was a hot plate and let them sizzle away.
My spike with the handle worked well as a tool to take bits of rabbit off the hot plate, but you had to be quick.
We impaled the main body onto Maurice’s metal rod and balanced it (rather precariously) on posts hammered into the ground. Turning it so the flames cooked it evenly took some doing, and it fell into the fire a couple of times. But it tasted quite good, if a little plain.
Together with the stew, we had quite a filling meal. It also helped that Dudley came up with the idea of whittling some of the firewood into crude spoons using Flossie’s knife. We sat around the fire stuffing our faces.
Darkness crept up on us, revealing a stunning sky of s
tars. Was it different to our own sky? I have no idea. I didn’t recognise any constellations, but then I probably wouldn’t back home either. In London, where I lived, the city lights made it hard to see the night sky properly. Plus it was London, so heavy rain clouds were the norm. I did think maybe there’d be two or three moons up there, but there weren’t any.
We lay on our blankets, staring up at the glittering sky, which definitely seemed to be stuffed to overfilling with pinpoints of light.
The other groups settled down for the night and one thing became apparent. There were only three groups now. The four girls hadn’t returned, and it didn’t look like they were coming back.
My first thought was that they were dead. They met some monster, or some unsavory people, and were killed. I didn’t know if that’s what happened to them, and it might be a bit presumptuous to assume they couldn’t take care of themselves just because they were girls, but if any group had failed to come back, I would think the same thing.
On the other hand, maybe they ran into a band of handsome knights and got invited back to their castle for tea and crumpets. Even the most strident feminazi might find that a hard offer to turn down.
Whatever their fate, we didn’t talk about it, even though I’m sure everyone noticed.
One by one the others drifted off to sleep. It had been a long day—hard to believe it was still only our first—but I lay there with my eyes wide open. Partly because I worried about a sneak attack when we were all asleep, but mainly because I felt too anxious to rest.
I’ve never been able to fall asleep in a car or a train or even on a plane when they turn off all the cabin lights and give you a pillow and blanket. The idea of the vehicle crashing, no matter how unlikely it might seem, always keeps me up. I felt like that as I lay by a dying fire in a strange world. The crash could come at any moment.
I got up to add some more fuel to the fire and chanced a look over at Golden Boy’s group. Or should I say Tin’s group. They had managed to rebuild their fire, and while it wasn’t as big as before it was still bigger than ours. They were all huddled together, boys and girls leaning against each other under blankets. All except for one. Jenny sat a little apart, arms around her knees.
I looked away but that image of her stayed with me. It would be the last I’d see of her for a long time.
24. Good Hunting
I must have dropped off at some point. When I woke up the others were pottering around the fire. It was early, cold and bright. Our group was the only one in the courtyard.
“Where’d the rest of them go?” I asked, worried we had missed another memo.
“No idea,” said Maurice. “They were already gone when I woke up.”
At least it meant we wouldn’t have to deal with any awkwardness. We got our stuff together, did our business in the bathroom—which, as expected, was a hole in the ground—and set off for the hunting grounds.
We were much more confident in what we had to do, and more relaxed about it. Even Dudley joined in the conversations about who would bag the most rabbits, although he still had a habit of looking straight up when he spoke.
We seemed to reach our destination a lot quicker this time, but I think familiarity with our surroundings just made it feel like that. The rabbits were waiting for us and as unimpressed with our deadly intentions as they were the day before. And with good reason.
Our aiming still left a lot to be desired, but there was some improvement. We would hit the target more often, but they weren’t kills. Even though the stones flew out at considerable speed, a headshot was the only way to really kill them. Otherwise they limped off. You might think injured bunnies might be easier to catch, but you’d be wrong.
We came up with a plan to all target the same rabbit. The idea was, if we got a couple of hits in that might be enough to slow it down enough to close in for the kill with my club. It didn’t quite work out that way, but the club did turn out to be the key.
Instead of going after them, we decided to bring them to us. I stood in one spot while the others herded the rabbits towards me. As they scampered past me, I lashed my club through the crowd like a wild golf swing. I couldn’t miss. And my club held onto what it hit, even if it didn’t kill. A quick stab with my spike-handle and it was goodnight and sweet dreams.
This also gave Maurice a new idea, one to rival his bicycle enterprise.
“All this open space,” he said, looking around us. “It’s like a fairway, isn’t it? You could build a pretty good golf course here.”
That’s right, he wanted to introduce golf to this world. Teaching them the most boring game ever invented could be seen as a form of revenge for what this world had put us through, but other than that I didn’t really see the point.
“You think people around here have a lot of free leisure time? ‘I’ll milk the cows later, love. Just off to the club for a quick back nine’?”
“It is the game of kings,” said Dudley. I waited for him to continue, but that was it. Back to sky-staring.
We got three more rabbits in quick succession before they got wise to us and ran off in different directions, making sure to avoid me. But then we switched who had the club and they fell for it again.
We stopped around lunch time and built a fire from scratch. Took a while, but we did it. We also skinned the rabbits. Which was not fun.
You expect these things to be hard at first, but the reality was more brutal than any expectation. We struggled to get their fur off in one piece and gutting them was also not a good time. But we did it and had rabbit kebabs for lunch (quite a late lunch by the time we finished).
The other rabbits watched impassively, not at all perturbed by their brethren roasting over an open fire.
By the time we decided to head back we had ten rabbits, all skinned and one eaten.
We went to the tanner and handed over the skins. He bought eight of them, which was generous. Two had been ripped to shreds but another three were also far from perfect. We got our hands on money for the first time.
Eight chobs. They were small black discs. Very light and smooth. They had no markings on them and almost felt like plastic. Maybe enamel.
We also visited the butcher and tried to sell him some of our rabbits. He was a chubby man with a sweaty face. He looked at our offerings and shook his head and shooed us off. I had not idea what the issue with rabbit meat was, but clearly it wasn’t a popular part of the local diet.
As we were wondering what to do with all the rabbit meat, I caught the eye of a guy running one of the food stalls—the one selling grilled meat. He surreptitiously waved me over and then opened a cabinet under his cart. He didn’t say anything, just nodded his head to indicate we stick the rabbits in there.
He gave us five chobs for eight rabbits (we kept one for ourselves). I have no idea if that was a fair price, but I was glad to get rid of them.
We went shopping, but thirteen chobs didn’t buy much. We got two sacks which would help carry stuff around. A needle and thread, which I insisted would come in useful, although I hadn’t decided how. And some salt. There was only so much bland food I could take.
We returned to the shed and found we had the courtyard to ourselves. We built a fire, being sure to leave enough for the others, but we needn’t have worried. The other two groups didn’t return that night.
25. Let’s Get Salty
Salt. Holy shit. For one chob, we’d got a small bag of salt that would last us weeks. One pinch was enough to season a plate of food. You can keep your crack cocaine and your black tar heroin. That night’s rabbit stew blew our minds.
After we ate it became clear the other groups had moved on. Levelled up. Cleared the final boss. Found a way to Stage 2. Who knows? They were gone and we were still here.
We threw some extra logs on the fire just for the hell of it and considered our next move.
“From tomorrow,” I said, “we’re really going to have to start grinding those rabbits.”
“Ugh!” said Fl
ossie. “Why?”
“No,” I said. “What I means is, we have to kill a lot more and as quickly as possible. It’s going to be a grind, like how a boring job is a grind, but it’s the best way for us to make money without too many risks. Once we can afford better equipment, we can think about hunting more rewarding beasts.”
They all nodded knowingly. Two days in and they were all veterans. Sadly, rabbits were not going to prepare us for the things waiting out there. Apparently, that was my job.
“We’re definitely getting better, but we’re still too slow and too hesitant. We need to be merciless with those rabbits, and with anything else we might run into. So far we’ve been lucky. We haven’t encountered any monsters, but that can change any minute. We need to be prepared.”
