by Pj Belanger
threw me in it and followed me in. He’d stripped his own clothes off. It was a tight fit but he reached across pressing the button that turned the contraption on.
The buzzing of the machine started as the rays of ultra violet light began going up and down. I remembered to close my eyes. We turned over and over; making sure the rays reached every part of our bodies. The blowers started at the top of our heads and finished at our feet. The floor of the booth was covered in small dead bugs.
“Make sure your ears are clean and bend over to make sure you don’t have any up your asshole,” Lars told me. When we stepped out we had small welts everywhere but I could feel they weren’t under my skin anymore, the itchy feeling was much less.
As exhausted as we were, we cleaned every part of the cabin, making sure that none of the leachy bugs were present. The disinfectant booth’s bottom was covered. I looked closely at the small mealy slugs; they were the size of the tip of my little finger.
We threw our ripped wind-torn clothes out and didn’t get dressed in our second set of uniforms until every inch of the cabin was free of bugs. We helped each other put ointment all over our bites. Then we slept again totally naked. When we awoke the wind was whipping all around the outside cabin, shaking it to its very foundation.
“Shit, what a hell hole,” I expressed. “Whatever next?” But the cabin kept together as the wind reached an intensity that increased the shuddering even further. I kept watching the roof but my patches held. We both were feverish. I hit the first aid kit and we both took some anti-biotic pills that tasted absolutely horrible. The instructions said to take without liquids - probably some doctor’s idea of a joke. We were both gagging all afternoon from the aftertaste but our fevers did disappear, leaving both of us with wicked headaches.
It was Lars that brought up our armor, “We left our panoply suits outside!”
With us trying to recover, I had completely forgotten our left behind protection suits. I looked out the window slats but I couldn’t see enough of the road to get an idea if they were still there. “Shit, think we’ll get in trouble?”
“Yeah!” Lars almost shouted at me, “They’ll write us up or worse charge us to replace them. You know how they lectured us about all that damn stuff! There went our fucking bonuses.”
“Crap.” I needed that extra pay. The thought of having stayed here in hell for six months and get nothing out it set me to pacing the cabin. My anger rose as I shouted obscenities at the ceiling directed at my officers, at command, at the cosmos. I tired myself out, falling back on my cot and sleeping a restless sleep. When I awoke it was dark. “Lars?” I yelled over to where I assumed he was.
“Yeah,” was all he answered me.
“We’re going to have to go out and try to find them.” My voice cracked as my fear rose.
“Yeah,” was all he answered and would not talk anymore leaving me to the dark silence of our prison. I lay naked with thoughts of death ringing in my ears. The thought of returning to the edge of the jungle sent shivers throughout my body. No sleep, just horror kept me company the rest of the night.
In the first light that filtered into the room, I was up at the window. When Lars awoke we just stared at each other, each knowing what we had to do, each trying to avoid it. We dressed. We ate in silence, both forcing ourselves to eat.
He went over to the door, I stood right behind him. He opened it a crack, the stream of gray light flooded the now clean floor. He opened it a little more - a little more, until we both stood in the opened door.
Nothing happened. No arrows flew, no animal was visible but then again no armor appeared strewn across the road, not that the view was that good. The wind had swept the ground clean. No sand was visible, neither was the big footprint. The surroundings looked like the day we had arrived. No hint of danger. It was like a reset button – this damn planet had a reset button! Was it part of the engineering?
“Okay, grab our rifles, they are fully loaded.” Lars’ voice was shaking. He filled his pants’ pockets with grenades and made me do the same. I could feel the reassuring bulges as we headed out. Turning around with our backs to each other, we crossed the road, rifles up and ready. Nothing came at us. The clouds filled the gray sky but nothing else was flying. We reached the edge of the jungle and did a three sixty keeping our rifles ready, our trembling fingers on the trigger.
“What’s that over there?’ Lars pointed to the edge of the jungle; something was piled right under the tree we’d been at when the snake had attacked. We advanced slowly. Our armor, including the bullet proof masks, was neatly stacked. It was almost like someone was giving us a gift.
I pointed down near the road where it headed into the jungle; there was the skeleton of what was left of the snake. The head and the backbone were stripped clean to the point where the bones were sparkling white. The eye sockets were large and unseeing. The sandstorm had polished what was left of the boa. I noticed some of the sharp pointed ribs were missing. I took a few steps but Lars stopped me. “Leave it,” he said. “We ain’t supposed to take anything. It may be a trap. Christ, it could be poisonous.”
We went back to our equipment. It was all there. “I’ll cover us, you drag it back to the cabin,” Lars said.
“Goddamn it, you drag it back and I’ll cover you.” I was sick of taking all the risk. I had sat on the roof for hours patching, waiting for an arrow to take me down. He could do this!
“Fuck, don’t argue. I’m the better shot and you know it!” he growled at me.
He was right. So I lowered my gun and grabbed everything and with my back to the cabin, I dragged the armor, throwing it all into the room. Lars followed me in but as he was closing the door an arrow with a yellow feather pieced the door right near his head.
He let out a barrage of firepower towards the jungle. I pulled him in slamming the door. “You’re wasting ammo,” I yelled at him.
He sat on his cot and cried. Huge sobs shook his body. I slid down with my back to the door. I sat there too numb to do anything but stare at the ceiling, wondering why I hadn’t been killed up there while patching.
“They are fucking playing with us,” I heard from across the room. “They are going to kill us just before we leave.” To my surprise he jumped off the cot, going to the window, he flung it wide open. “You fuckin assholes!” he screamed out.
I jumped up, tackling him, pushing him down. We rolled across the floor, screaming at each other. He punched me, grabbing onto my hair, yelling “coward” at me. I bit him on his hand, feeling my teeth sink deeply into his fingers.
“Asshole. Freakin asshole,” I yelled at him. Both of us gave up at the same time, flopping back onto the floor. We sat up. My nose was bleeding. He wiped his bloody hand on his shirt. Now our t-shirts were ruined. At this rate we’d have nothing to wear back to base.
My eyes went to the opened window. A yellow arrow was lodged in one of the slats. I heard Lars gasp. I jumped up, grabbing the arrow and slammed the window shut. Neither of us said a word for the rest of the day. Sleep, we slept.