The conversation trailed off as their silhouettes disappeared into the forest.
“We’ll be back tomorrow.” Joked L. They all laughed.
11
THE ELOHSSA FOREST
After two or three hours of hiking, they reached the fence on the border of Elohssa property. It was more formidable than they’d seen or imagined. It was tall and thick, not your regular chain link fence. It was like 2 extra thick chain link fences woven together, with big sturdy bases. It had barb wire along the top, the circular fancy, super sharp kind. There were warning signs every few feet.
“Electrified?”, Tony questioned the sign, he had good eyesight.
“Wow, they really don’t want anybody getting in.”, Eric said.
The group approached the fence and slowed to a contemplative stop. Perry
began taking off his pack, seemingly he had a plan.
“Should I piss on it?”, Perry said. He didn’t have a good plan. He started taking off his jacket when L coughed from a little ways away. The guys all looked and saw L pointing at the ground in front of the fence. Fozzie was with her. Fozzie disappeared into the ground and wiggled up on the other side of the fence.
Someone had dug a hole. Good for them. It was just big enough to shove a pack through and then squirm through yourself, which they all did. They repacked up and were ready to go off again, this time on the wrong side of the fence. They all looked at each other, their adventure just got turned up a notch, there were a few smiles. “Wait.” Eric said, looking down at his phone. “I got no bars all of a sudden. Wait a sec.” Eric dropped his pack on the ground, jogged over to the hole and under the fence. He kept his eyes on his phone and crawled under. On the other side he made a face looking at his phone, then his face changed to a smile. “Bars.”
He crawled back under the fence, holding his phone and watching, “No bars.” They all checked their phones, no one had service.
“Good idea with the solar panel phones Perry.” Tony mocked his failed plan, even though he knew it was a good idea.
Perry mocked back, with an even mockier dumb voice,”Yea, like I knew they’d
block all cell phones.”
Eric jumped back under the fence and tapped on his phone’s screen. “I gotta let
this hot chick know I’ll be back in a few days.” He sent the text, put his phone away, scrambled back under the fence and put on his camping pack. He looked up at the group, “She wants me.”
“Also,” Eric continued, “It’s not a total waste, I have some apps that work
offline, like offline Wiki app. That could come in handy.”
“Yea it could.” Tony said. He put out his hand and L gave him her phone. Tony ran under the fence and downloaded the free app. He also started downloading a few good pinball games, those are good offline too.
Tony sat on the other side of the fence in awkward silence as the apps downloaded. He looked up at the group like, “What?” When they finished, he crawled back under and they were ready to go.
“Good idea.”
They hiked for a few more hours. Trying to stay close enough to the river, but
also trying to get to a high point. There was no sign of any borders, there was a vast wilderness on this side of the fence. They saw a few birds and insects.
“I wonder if there are real animals in here. Like bears and shit?” Eric thought
out loud.
“Yea, and stuff we can eat like rabbits.” Perry replied.
“If there are bears, they’ll need to eat something like rabbits.”, Tony put in his 2
cents.
“They can eat you Fozzie. You’d be like a chicken McNugget to a bear Foz!” Perry taunted the animal, looking at her as he did. Fozzie looked back at him but didn’t break her little butt bouncing stride. Tony looked at Fozzie. He could tell by the bounce in her walk, she was having the time of her life.
“As long as the river has fish, we’ll be good.”, Perry wasn’t joking for once.
They came across a nice flat area with good rock cover from the wind; a good place to camp. They set up camp.
“I’m not setting up my tent. Too much of a hassle.”, Tony said.
They got a fire going and sat around the fire,. Their first night in the wilderness
inside a corporate owned forest. The first night was uneventful.
Early in the morning Tony and L were woken up by Perry coughing. He was
hitting a 4 foot bong.
“You brought that?” L said, wiping her eyes.
Trying to talk while coughing Perry replied in a cloud of smoke, “Ice cold..”, He
coughed,”..river water.” He smiled, holding up the bong, referring to the water he put it in. He sounded like an old man, “So smoooth...” And then burst into lough coughing fit, he stood up and danced.
Eric came back from the woods, he must’ve been using the facilities. He
instinctively sat down by the fire pit and reached for the bong, Perry instinctively passed it to him. Neither of them looked at each other. They had bong passing down, second nature, like two perfectly trained Olympic relay runners.
Eric pressed his face into the bong. Before taking a hit, out of the side of his mouth he said,”First night wasn’t so bad.” They all shruggingly agreed.
The hiked another day, heading North as far as they knew. Later in the day, they set up camp, went fishing and everyone caught something. They sat around the fire that night, living off the bountiful land. There camp was high on the Western side of a valley. The river wound through the bottom of the valley, a little to their East.
Before it got dark, they all made a trek to the peak. They noticed the hill or
mountain they were on went North for a long while, as far as they could see. The river snaking it’s way alongside it’s Eastern edge the whole way. Looking over the West of the mountain was mostly flat forest. After looking for a while, they all noticed a single path through the forest. The clearing looked like a road, but there was no road. After some debating, they concluded it must’ve been the path the first warstore took. It went North as far as they could see also.
They had decided to keep heading North, not exactly sure why. No one was sure if they should set up a camp and stay somewhere or keep hiking, but for now they were going to keep hiking.
That night, they sat around the campfire talking about their fishing adventures. Tony caught Fozzie looking off in the distance and noticed she was looking at something.
“What is that?”, Tony stood up to get a better look.
L was sitting with a good view and squinted, then stood up. “Is that another
fire?”
“Yea, see the smoke.” They all noticed.
“Ohh shit.”
“Ohh shit.” Someone else said, in a higher pitch, “What the fuck is that?”, Perry
was looking North in the valley. There was a beam of light shining down into the trees, cruising over the forest. It was too dark to see the flying object, but at first it seemed like a police helicopter using its search light. But after watching how it moved, it was too small and agile to be a helicopter.
“A drone.” Tony realized.
“It’s searching the forest.”, Perry continued.
“It’s heading right towards that other fire.”, Eric noticed.
L quickly began kicking dirt over their fire, extinguishing it.
“Good idea.” Everyone said.
Perry started getting his pack ready, even though they were probably a few miles
away. The others watched the search light. It zig zagged a bit, but it was on a collision course with the camp fire on the other side of the valley.
Perry sang and finished with a flourish, “Someone’s in trouuuubleeeee.”
The light swung by the edge of the camp fire, and then the drone quickly stopped moving and focused the search light on the camp. A small red light turned on and began to circle on the drone, like a red-only police siren lamp. The group
was too far away to hear or see the details of what happened, but suddenly the camp fire seemed to ignite, catching the surrounding trees on fire. For a second the shape of a person stood out, because it was on fire. The flaming person ran under some trees and disappeared. Another flaming human silhouette ran into view, it tumbled over and fell motionless into the dirt. The drone sat motionless, hovering over the campfire.
A few moments later, two more search lights slid over the horizon of the treeline. They were heading straight towards the former camp fire, which was now a mini forest fire.
“Backup.”, Eric noted.
The first drone hovered silently, red siren spinning slowly. Just as the other two
neared it, the siren turned off. For a second, they all hovered near each other, no doubt exchanging information, a forest fire growing underneath them.
“That fire is getting out of control.” Tony thought out loud.”I wonder if we should move.”
The drones all turned off their search lights. A few seconds later they spread out
and began shooting out a white spray over the fire area.
“Holy shit, they’re putting out the fire.” They sprayed a bit here and there and
before long the growing fire was no more. The two backup drones kept their lights off, turned back and silently glided North. The first drone turned on it’s search light and resumed searching the forest.
“That’s not good.”, Tony stated obviously.
“Not good at all.”, Perry agreed.
“It might not be good for our health to be on this side the fence.” Eric added.
They all were staring at the search light, it was combing the forest, searching
every part methodically. It turned.
“It’s coming this way.”, L projected. It kind of adjusted it’s trajectory and did seem to be headed towards them now. They all looked intently.
“It is!”
Everyone started helping cover all traces of a fire and camp. Eric was quickly in
a bush with his pack, Perry bounded into a short, but very bushy tree. L pointed towards a rock grouping up the hill a few meters. L, Tony and Fozzie ran for it. There was a small cave, the 3 of them could hide deep enough to not be seen, they crammed in.
The search light seemed to be making a beeline straight for their campsite. It
menacingly and quietly surfed up the hill at their location. The search light was still scanning back and forth.
Perry looked back from watching the search light and saw the bong sitting out in
the open, in the middle of the camp. He made a sound, like a grunt, sigh and “Fuck” all at once. Everyone heard and noticed what he was looking at. Perry looked like he was going to jump down and try to run and grab it, he hesitated. L waved him off. Suddenly, it was too late, it was on top of them.
The light stopped short of the campsite. It scanned a few trees right near Perry, the scanning approached his tree. He wasn’t hidden particularly well, he crunched up into a ball as the light slid over the tree he was in. The light didn’t hesitate. It must’ve not seen him. Same with Eric.
Then the search light saw the bong. It froze. The little red light began spinning. Everyone’s heart dropped. Perry, Eric and Tony had seen trouble with cops before, their plan was always to scatter. The thought was “They can’t catch us all.” And when their group was at full capacity, they’d have Juicy, and he was the slowest. This time they didn’t have Juicy. They didn’t have anywhere safe to go, no predetermined meet up point. They were days deep in the middle of the Elohssa Corporation forest. They couldn’t even call the cops to help.
Tony thought, “We didn’t plan this good enough. We’re fucked.” As kids, when they didn’t plan well enough, the cops caught them and brought them home, it was all a learning experience. This time, it looked like they were going to be burned alive, not a good learning experience.
Tony was holding Fozzie’s collar, he handed her to L, scooted up and gave her
a look. The look said, “If this goes bad, you stay here I’ll take off and distract them.” He crouched like he was ready to take off running.
L looked back at him. her look saying, “No.”
The two backup drones appeared and began scanning the area. The search light went over the rock formation L and Tony were hiding in. It stopped. Tony and L held their breath, Fozzie didn’t. It scanned back and forth again.
The three drones met up over the campsite, hovering in a little huddle, 20 or 30 feet above it. Without warning, a muffled zipping sound and the ground around the bong exploded. Dirt kicked up and created a cloud of smoke. A few pieces of glass dinged off of rocks. Perry grimaced at the pain of his now only bong being destroyed. “Goodbye old friend, thanks for all the fish!”, He thought.
The two backup drones silently left again. The search drone’s red light turned
off and stopped spinning. It took off, search light waving back and forth in front of it.
Tony popped his head out and watched it leave. Once it was far enough away Eric began appearing from the bush. Perry fell out of the tree with a thud, he bounced up, arms flailing and ran to where the bong once was. “Awww, man!” It was destroyed.
“That was too close.”, Tony thought out loud.
“Yea way to close. We didn’t plan for shit like this.”, L chimed in.
Eric was pacing back and forth, thinking deeply, “We gotta bail. Fuck this place. We didn’t almost get arrested, we almost got burned alive. Flying murderous drone motherfuckuing fire fighters, warstores, not a sign of life around besides us! And now our bong is gone!! That’s just too much.”
Perry couldn’t resist, in a panicked but joking voice he did his best Bill Paxton impression, “That’s it man. Game over, man! Game over! What the fuck are we gonna do now? What are we gonna do!?”
Tony continued as Burke,”Maybe we could build a fire, sing a couple of songs. Why don’t we try that.”
“Are you fucking serious?” Eric wasn’t laughing. “You guys can joke about
that right now?! I just saw my life flash before my eyes.”
No more fire tonight. The rest of the night they talked by the moonlight.
“In the morning, let’s go see that other camp they hit.” L said.
“Good idea.” Perry agreed.
“We need to be more careful.” Tony said the moonlight lighting his face in an eerie way,”Like in D&D, we can’t all go to sleep with those things flying around. We need to set up a watch.” He continued, “We need to have a plan, in case shit hits the fan.”
“Yea, like how we’d all meet up behind Treetop after a job.” Eric remembered.
I’d say we meet at the hole in the fence, but that’s so far away now.” Tony
thought out loud.
“What about here?” L injected.
“Yea, we’ve all been here. It’s kind of near the top of this hill. You can see that
little rock formation from all around.” Perry agreed.
“Ok.” agreed the chorus.
“Camp rock.” L named it.
Perry laughed, “Camp rawk!” He growled, flashing the devil horns.
12
GOING DEEPER
The morning was uneventful. They all woke up with a newfound sense of alertness. They weren’t just out hiking and camping in the forest anymore. The stakes were raised.
They headed towards the other side of the valley to survey the campsite they saw get torched.
“I say we go back.” Eric stated. “What are we even doing here?”
Perry countered, “Go back to what? Valley Forest and live with masses?”
“Yea, with real food, girls, drugs, tv and you know, like, society.” Eric said.
“Yea, then we can all get ICs, become Ads ourself and then we can die at a warstore sale buying a bunch of rainbow dildos!? Fuck that.”
“You rather die out here? Burned alive by some silent drone in the middle of a company owned forest.”
; ”Fuck those drones, they surprised us last night yet we still outsmarted em.” Perry said.
“Then what? Say we can outsmart the drones every night. What’s the goal here? What’s the endgame? What the fuck are we hiking for?” Eric continued.
“Not dieing.” Perry said, he sounded like he knew what he was out here for.
L chimed in,”I don’t care that much, but this is like the Area 51 of our time,
right? I kinda wanna see what it’s all about.”
“Like what? Go see the infamous Elohssa company HQ?” Tony questioned.
She shrugged with her body and face, “Yea, kind of?” Tony agreed.
Perry agreed too, “Yea, and blow the fucking place to shit,” Fozzie froze in front of them. The camp, they were there.
The ground was blackened. In the center of a tiny clearing was the remains of
the camp fire. To the left was a burned body, laying dead in a burnt bush.
“Ohh shit.” Eric.
“Aww fuck” Tony.
Nasty!” Perry said reaching out to touch it.
“Eww, I can’t look.” L turned away.
The body was posed in a painful gesture, hands reaching towards its face. Mouth gaping open, probably screaming in agony. Back arched back as far as humanly possible, the body forming a crispy half circle. Body, hair, skin and clothes burnt and fused into one black, flaky covering.
Fozzie had walked up to the camp fire and was sniffing at something. L walked
over while the others contemplated the last moments of the body in front of them. Perry had grabbed a stick and was poking it.
“Ohh my God.” L exclamated.
They all looked and ran over. Sitting on a skewer in the middle of the camp fire
was a foot.
“Is that a…?”
“That’s a muthafuckin foot!” Eric burst out. Then Eric started pacing, “Ohh my fucking God. Cannibals!?” Grabbing his head and then shaking his arms. “Now what Perry?! Now what? How are you gonna outsmart the cannibals.”
“We don’t know they were cannibals.” Perry said.
The Search for Ball Zero Page 8