Chapter 5:

Skipping Breakfast

The morning came and went without observation. The sun rose over the desert as children rise over the heads of daffodils: full of mirth and terrible danger. The morning brought the end of the night’s chill, but the desert was never comfortable. It went from cold to hot and back, without pause.

Davies slept in the back seat of the destroyed Jeep as the stranger dozed on the ground only a few feet away, wrapped in a space blanket scavenged from the emergency provisions. As the day continued, the heat of the desert invaded Davies’s sleeping bag, stirring him out of a deep and fitful sleep, haunted by artillery and blood-drinking lizards. Slowly, he woke, sweating and uncomfortable—and despite an inclination to do nothing—he peeled himself from his sleeping bag, as the heat and stench was becoming too much to ignore. His body cried and his head ached, as if Davies had a hangover, despite an egregious lack of alcohol the night before.

Water. He needed water.

After a long and terrible night, a long and terrible morning seemed to be in order. Miserable and slow, Davies drew himself a glass of water. Thank god the water still had some of the night’s chill on it!

Ahh, better!

He poured another.

What he wouldn’t do for some ice…

He began to pour another, then noticed the stranger staring at him. He decided to leave off the water. But perhaps a meal was in order.

Davies felt he would have to eat, would have to keep up his body, if he was going to survive this blasted wasteland. Survival was essential, mostly because John A. B. C. Smith would be all too smug if he discovered Davies dead in the desert. Indeed, if the Private First Class should perish, Smith would be such an obnoxious dick about it, that even in the afterlife Davies would hear him gloating. Therefore, Davies would have to be careful, and properly hydrated, especially if the stranger was indeed suicidal. He would have to keep his mind strong if he was going to deal with his mounting difficulties.

Davies returned to the Jeep and dug through the stack of MREs he’d brought with him. He had chicken soup, beef stew, ravioli, two packages of spaghetti, chicken-a-la-king, hot dogs…

Davies glared at the package of hot dogs. Where were these last night, when he needed them?! Where were they when they could have warded off the foul tempers of the desert gods and deflected the steel rain of his comrades? But now his Jeep was destroyed, and somewhere in this vast desert, a lizard army was amassing…

Stupid hot dogs.

Uninterested in his choices, Davies set aside his concern for breakfast. He’d get back to it, he thought, as he examined the remains of the Jeep in the full light of day.

“Tough break,” said the stranger, who at least had enough tact to stop glowing—or maybe his glow was simply not visible in the light of day? The stranger folded the space blanket as he glanced at the Jeep. The man was quiet, yet strong, his movements slow and steady. His expression was blank. Only his crystal blue eyes suggested anything, but what, Davies wasn’t sure.

“So, who set you up?” Davies asked.

“Set me up?” repeated the stranger. Thinking about it a second, he finally answered. “If this is anybody’s fault, it’s mine,” he admitted with a shrug.

So he was suicidal... But Davies couldn’t do anything about that just now. He’d made a rather strange discovery. “There’s a huge rock embedded in the engine,” Davies stated. “How the hell did that get there?”

“It fell out of the sky,” answered the stranger, as if the matter was self-evident.

“Yeah, right out of the sky, a Paleolithic missile,” quipped Davies. He glared at the stranger. “Rocks don’t drop out of the sky, and they don’t fit in a howitzer.”

“What…? Do you think last night was artillery? Why would it be artillery?”

“Because that’s what happens on a firing range,” Davies answered.

The stranger stood straight up, looking around the horizon as far out as he could see. “I’m on a military base?”

Davies nodded.

“Figures,” shrugged the stranger, “and this is the firing range…”

Davies smiled.

“And…” the stranger pointed at Davies. “Are you suicidal?” he asked, concern on his face.

“No, I was set up,” Davies explained.

For a second, the stranger stared at Davies. Then the stranger shrugged and turned away. “Good. I don’t think I can handle a suicide watch right now.”

Davies ignored the accusation and turned the questions back on the stranger, “What do you think happened last night?”

“Meteors,” The stranger stated. “You got caught in one hell of a meteor shower.”

“Is that why you’re out here? To watch the meteors?” Davies asked, “Where’s your car? Where are your clothes for that matter?”

“Burned up,” the stranger answered with an amused grin. “A better question is where did I end up?”

“Where did you want to be?”

“I was expecting Sardinia,” the stranger frowned as he looked about the desert, “I was hoping for the French Riviera.”

Davies gave a knowing nod, “Nudie beaches.”

“What?”

“Hence the lack of clothes, right?”

“That wasn’t exactly my choice,” the stranger shook his head. “They burned up on reentry.”

Davies stood, confused, his head cocked to the side. He stared at the stranger through narrowed eyes. “So you wanted to go to France, but got lost on reentry?”

The stranger shrugged. “That’s where I was told I should end up.”

“So how exactly did you end up in the middle of the Nevada desert instead?” asked Davies.

“I guess that’s just the way the world turns,” he said. “I bet if you fell out of the sky, you might be a little inaccurate.”

“You mean, like, from a plane?” Davies was puzzled. “Even so, how did you miss an entire continent?”

“No,” the stranger huffed. “I lost my spaceship, so I fell through the atmosphere without it.”

Very slowly, Davies smiled. “Of course you did.”

The stranger laughed, “I wouldn’t believe me either, but that’s what happened.”

“That’s a comfort,” noted Davies, “At least we know you’re crazy.”

“If I’m so crazy, then you explain how you got a rock through the hood of your Jeep.”

Davies turned back to the Jeep. “One does not necessarily have anything to do with the other…”

The stranger snorted, then looked about. “So this is Nevada?”

“It’s not the part most people visit,” Davies replied. “Too much radiation—and not enough strippers.”

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