by J Boyd Long
Tocho laughed. “We stashed a lot of stuff here, but we didn’t just leave it on the counter for someone to find.”
“You are a pirate-treasure-burying motherfucker,” Eissa groaned, rolling her eyes. “I should have realized we were going to have to play that game again.”
Bob roared with laughter, and Tocho couldn’t help but chuckle.
“I have a flair for the dramatic at times, I’ll admit it,” he said. “But most of the stuff here is underneath the house. The unknown part is what condition it’s in. It’s been under there for a long time.”
Quentin was relieved to hear about the stash. The crabs had been a great dinner, but he didn’t think he could live on them for very long. Hopefully they had some fishing poles or something in there, or some seeds for a garden.
“Okay,” Quentin said. “We’ll put that as our primary goal for tomorrow. We can make a skills list right now; that shouldn’t take long. Who wants to go first?”
“I’m good with electrical and mechanical stuff,” Bob volunteered. “I know how to use simple explosives, and I have a passing understanding of how the DimGate system functions.”
“Very good,” Quentin said, writing quickly. “Who’s next?”
“I’m a thinker,” Tocho said. “I’m a good ideas guy. I have a pretty good memory of places I’ve been, like the DimCorp control center. At least, how it was before we blew it up. I haven’t been back since then, of course. Oh, and I know where all the treasure is buried.” He winked at Eissa. “Alright Eissa, your turn.”
“I was a combat medic, so if someone gets hurt, I can probably fix it,” Eissa said. “I know how to fight, I’ve jumped out of an airplane, and I’m good at staying focused when shit is falling apart all around me. I’ve also had a lot of therapy, so if you need to talk something out, I know all the things that therapists say.”
“Okay,” Quentin said. “Let’s see… I’m pretty good with computers, I’m really good at processing information and figuring things out, I’m very organized, and I’m very logical.”
“You could have just said that you’re an anal-retentive nerd with moderate OCD,” Eissa said. “It’s a more efficient way of getting the point across.”
“Very funny,” Quentin said, pretending to glare at her. “Ok, liabilities and weak areas. Bob, is there anything we need to know, or plan around for you?”
“Well, I’m older than I was last time I played this game,” Bob said. “You probably shouldn’t expect me to run a six-minute mile either, but I can still hold my own. My thinker still works just fine, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“The same goes for me,” Tocho said. “I’m in pretty great shape for a guy my age, and I still do a lot of walking, but I’m no spring chicken.”
“Well, if we’re being completely honest, then I need to say that I have some PTSD issues,” Eissa said, finally being serious for a moment. “I’ve had a lot of therapy, like I said, and I’ve come a long way, but being in combat and having a bunch of young soldiers die on me while I was trying to save them did some damage to me. I don’t know how I’ll react if we get in a combat situation, but sometimes I have anxiety attacks. I just want you all to know going in that I could freeze up if someone starts shooting at us, I just don’t know.”
The idea that Eissa might not be able to do this was something that troubled Quentin. Certainly, her attacks were getting fewer and farther between than they used to be, but he was worried about her. This was a far more stressful week than she had had in years, and she’d already had one anxiety attack. He hated the idea of causing her to relapse, but she had already made her mind up, and he knew he’d never talk her out of it. Even if he did, what could they do with her?
“I appreciate your honesty about that,” Tocho said quietly. “I’m sorry that happened to you. If we find ourselves in a situation like that, I’ll do whatever I can to help you get through it.”
“Thanks, Tocho,” Eissa said. She leaned over and gave him a hug. “You’re all right, even if you do have a penis.”
“Well, don’t tell anyone,” Tocho said with a grin. “I have a reputation to uphold.”
“How about you?” Bob said to Quentin. “Anything we need to know?”
Quentin considered mentioning his recurring lack of self-confidence, but decided to stick with smaller stuff to begin with. “Well, I’m not the bravest person in the world, and I usually try to avoid conflict, so this is a little outside my comfort zone, like we said. Oh, and I usually need to eat every couple of hours. I get hangry if my blood sugar gets too low.”
“Hangry?” Bob asked. “What’s that?”
“It’s a combination of hungry and angry,” Eissa explained. “He turns into a total grouchy diva. On the upside, it’s easy to fix, and once you feed him, he gets better right away and apologizes for being a douchetard.”
Quentin shot her a dirty look and stuck his tongue out.
“Well, we’ll figure out how to handle that as best as we can,” Tocho said. “We don’t exactly have access to fast food or grocery stores here, but we’ll come up with something.”
They fell silent for a bit. Quentin leaned back on his sand recliner and gazed up at the sky. The fire kept him from seeing the stars in great detail, but the ambience was satisfying for him, all the same. The quiet rolling of the surf lulled him into a semi-trance, and he felt better than he had in a long time.
“I think I could sleep out here,” he said, breaking the silence. “This is fantastic.”
“Yeah, you’d change your mind when the crabs come out,” chuckled Bob. “They’ll try to eat you, and trust me, the little bastards will leave a scar when they latch onto you.”
Tocho laughed. “I haven’t thought about that in years,” he said. “That was a bad night. Talk about lessons learned the hard way.”
Quentin leaped to his feet, wildly searching around his seat for crabs. “Seriously?” He brushed at his pants to be sure he wasn’t under attack.
The other three roared with laughter at his antics, and he grinned sheepishly. “I guess we can add live crabs to my list of liabilities,” he said with a chuckle. “I outed myself on that one.” He remained standing, though.
“We probably ought to get headed back up to the house,” Bob said. “It’s getting late, and we’ve got a lot to do tomorrow.”
Quentin took the pot that they had used to cook the crabs and walked down to the water to fill it. It took him several trips to get the fire doused, but by the time he was done, the others had cleaned up the area and filled in his recliner hole.
“Just in case there’s a sea turtle nest around here,” Tocho explained. “The hatchlings can get lost and turned around if they run into a hole, and then they get eaten instead of growing up.”
“I see,” Quentin said. “Well, I don’t want to be responsible for that. I do try to be a friend to all creatures.”
The moonlight reflected off the sand as they walked back up the beach, lighting their way with ease. When they reached the pine tree that Quentin had dragged out to mark the trail, Bob produced a flashlight.
“We’ve only got the one light,” he said. “I’ll walk in the back and try to light the path for everyone. Tocho, you lead the way.”
It was much darker under the canopy. Tocho carefully picked his way through the undergrowth, following the broken limbs from their trek down to the beach as much as the dim trail underfoot, which was invisible in the darkness. At last, they reached the clearing, each of them nursing a few minor scratches.
“The couch folds out into a bed,” Tocho said, as he opened the door. “If you two want to sleep there, Bob can sleep in the bed. I’ll grab one of the foam bedrolls out of the rafters. We should be comfortable enough.”
Quentin and Eissa folded the couch out and made the bed up with the sheets and a blanket that Tocho produced from the cedar chest. The couch cushions were coated with dust, and Quentin gingerly carried them out to the porch. If they were going to be here long, this
place was going to need a serious cleaning. The mattress and sheets were clean, though, and he felt better once he was cleaned up and in the bed.
“You know, this is the third dimension that we’ve slept in in the last three days,” Quentin said. He stretched out on his side of the bed, flexing his legs and arms. “We’re becoming quite the traveled duo here.”
“I have to admit that breaking into your job is not exactly going as I expected it to,” Eissa agreed. “I expected it to be interesting, but…” she trailed off into a jaw-splitting yawn. “Hanging around with you is exhausting. That part hasn’t changed.”
Quentin chuckled. He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths, but sleep was a long time coming, once again. Thoughts of the adventure that had led them to this point, and the task that lay before them competed for his attention, and when he did finally sleep, it was filled with dreams of flying cars, dinosaurs, and evil corporations.
Chapter 15
The next morning dawned clear, and Quentin wasted no time getting the inventory going. This was something that he could really get involved in, rather than being an observer, and that motivated him almost as much as the discussion had the night before. After a quick breakfast of oatmeal, they assembled by the door.
“Okay, let’s get the floor up,” Bob said. “I’ll hand you the boards, and you all stack them against the wall over there. Once that’s done, I’ll hand the stuff up to you, and you can carry it outside and lay it out in some kind of organized fashion, so we can see everything.”
Bob picked up one end of the bed, and Quentin grabbed the other end. They shuffled it across the room, and deposited it against the wall next to the couch. Tocho followed them with the cedar chest, and Eissa grabbed the boxes and bags that were under the bed and carried them over and placed them on top of the bed.
Bob knelt down near the corner and used a screwdriver to pry up the floor board nearest the wall. It took a minute of fidgeting with it, but he managed to get a finger under the lip and levered the screwdriver down the length of the board. Once the first one was up, the rest came out easily.
“This is way better than Tocho’s buried-treasure approach,” Eissa said.
Bob chuckled. “Well, it ought to be cleaner, anyway.”
Most of the stuff beneath the floor was in boxes, or wrapped up in tarps. Bob climbed down into the space, being careful not to step on anything. He picked up a bundle of long fishing poles and handed them out, followed by a tackle box.
“We’ll put that to use pretty quick,” he said. “Hopefully the line is still in decent shape.”
It took them nearly half an hour to get everything outside. When the last box was removed, Quentin and Tocho helped Bob up onto the floor. He stood slowly, stretching his back.
“I’m getting whipped back into shape the hard way,” he said with a pained smile. “Working on that door yesterday did a number on me, and this isn’t helping.”
“If I had known we’d be coming back to all this as beat-up old men, I’d have figured out a better plan for everything we did,” Tocho said. “For starters, I’d have put in a hot tub, and a better mattress.”
“And an IHOP,” Eissa added. “No offense, but their breakfast menu is better than yours. The oatmeal was better than nothing, don’t get me wrong, but it can’t compete with a spinach and goat cheese omelet.”
They made their way outside and surveyed the scene. Quentin had arranged everything in rows, so that they could walk down the lines and unpack each box to inspect its contents.
The first box contained several revolvers wrapped in oily cloths. Bob flipped out the cylinder and tested the action on each one.
“Well, these are in great shape,” he said. “As long as the ammo is still good, we’ve got weapons.”
The sight of the guns made Quentin uneasy. It hadn’t occurred to him that he might have to actually fight someone to the death, and as he stared at the shiny black barrel in Bob’s hand, he felt sure that he was incapable of shooting someone. The picture of the dead protesters came to mind, with the smoke curling up from the tip of the rifle, and his stomach rolled. We’re just doing inventory, that’s all. No one is planning to shoot anyone. He steadied himself as Bob moved down the row.
The next box contained ammo and cleaning supplies. Bob opened one of the boxes of ammo and loaded a bullet into the pistol.
“I need to make sure they still work,” he said. “Plug your ears.”
They covered their ears as he took aim at a pile of firewood behind the house. He pulled the trigger, and the blast of the gun was deafening in the silence. A piece of wood flew off the top of the pile, throwing splinters into the air. The smell of burnt gunpowder stung Quentin’s nostrils as Bob turned and placed the gun back in the box.
“Well, I think it’s okay,” he bellowed.
They continued down the line opening boxes, and Quentin made notes of what they had. Some contained tools and other practical household items, such as wicks and oil for the lamps. Others held books, clothes, and cleaning supplies. Bob pulled a cardboard tube out of one of the boxes with a look of triumph on his face.
“I knew these were in here somewhere,” he said, opening the tube. “These are maps and diagrams of DimCorp headquarters. We used them to plan our first attack.”
“That’s great,” Quentin said. “That will make everything easier.” He was impressed with the variety of supplies they had packed, and the condition it was in. They had done a good job with the safehouse.
“It’ll help,” Bob agreed. “It’s just a guide, though. You have to keep in mind that these were probably five years old when we got them, and that we set off a bomb in there, so even though I’m sure they rebuilt it, it may not be the same as it was. Still, a lot of it will be useful.”
They continued on. Some of the boxes in the next row contained food, which Quentin looked at with serious skepticism. One of his big lines in the sand was drawn around expiration dates. As far as Quentin was concerned, that was a non-negotiable boundary, and there was no way this stuff wasn’t expired.
“It’s a shame to lose all the food,” Quentin said. “This would have been helpful.”
“We haven’t lost anything,” Tocho said. “Why would you say that?”
“If the food is over five years old, we shouldn’t even consider eating it,” Eissa said as Tocho held up a package with a delighted grin. “As a medical professional, I can tell you that honey is about the only thing that could last that long and still be good.”
“In your dimension, that might be true,” Tocho said. “However, this stuff came from another dimension which is way ahead of yours in terms of food preservation. And everything else, really. It’s a great place. Anyway, this could spend a hundred years on the bottom of the ocean, and it would still be just as good as the day they made it.”
“I’ll take my chances with the fishing pole,” Eissa said.
Quentin was inclined to agree with Eissa, but Tocho’s explanation had merit. If the technology for flying cars existed, then long-term food preservation wasn’t too much of a leap for him. He decided to be open-minded about it.
“Suit yourself,” Tocho shrugged. “I’m having beef stew for lunch.” He carried the box of food inside to the kitchen area.
Quentin and Bob finished going through the last few boxes just as Tocho came back out onto the porch.
“Lunch is ready,” he called to them. “If you’d like some hot beef stew, come and get it. If you’re going fishing for your lunch, you better get moving.”
They all went inside. Tocho had swept the dead bugs up and dusted the place, much to Quentin’s relief, and built a fire in the stove. The delicious aroma of beef stew filled the air, and even Eissa couldn’t stop the rumble in her stomach. Tocho winked at her.
“Changed your mind, eh?” he grinned. “It’s good stuff, I promise.”
Bob stepped back out front for a moment, and returned with a folding camp chair. He set it at the table in the empty spot,
and the four of them sat down to lunch. Quentin was nervous with the first bite, but he was surprised to find that it tasted great. He found that if he didn’t think about how old it was, then it wasn’t an issue at all. The morning’s efforts had left them all with a healthy appetite, and it didn’t take long for the stew to disappear.
As Quentin scraped his bowl clean, a thought occurred to him. “Oh, shit,” he said. “I just realized that we left Bob’s dog at home. He’s got no one to feed or water him.”
“Oh, he’s pretty resourceful,” Bob said. “I don’t hardly ever feed him, unless it’s too cold and rainy for him to go out and scrounge up a meal. He’s very self-reliant.”
Quentin relaxed slightly. “Okay, if you’re sure.”
“He’s been left for weeks at a time,” Tocho said. “He really doesn’t need Bob, he just likes hanging out with him.”
