Chapter 6:

Stranded

The stranger’s story was impossible, except that there was a preponderance of evidence. The rubble that pocked the Nevada desert—and one sad Jeep—was the remains of an asteroid that was supposed to wipe out Southern Europe (and Northern Africa), a fact which Davies could not deny as he investigated the craters, digging up a few of the asteroids: blackish things, burnt, and alien. Some were impossible to find though they left scars big enough for Davies to lay in. The largest crater was a good thirty feet deep, and some seventy or eighty feet wide. It took some digging and the better part of an hour, but eventually Davies found an asteroid that weighed thirty or forty pounds and was half the size of a baby’s head. Davies struggled to get the rock over the steep lip of the crater, but managed it all on his own. The stranger offered to help, but Davies waved him off. The Private First Class had decided the rock must be worth hundreds of dollars, and didn’t want the stranger to have any claim to it. Especially since he did all the digging. “Go get your own!” he snapped at the man that was glowing when they first met.

And why did the asteroid crashed down in the middle of the Nevada desert and not the Mediterranean, you may ask? Because the explosions that destroyed Lucifer 6 also slowed it and spread the rubble along a thick swath in the process. The moon’s last pass exacerbated this, so the rain of asteroids fell late, and striped the Atlantic Ocean and the United States all the way to the eastern edge of California.

Officials at NEAR knew that the asteroids remains were going to fall late, and had a good number of observers all along the path of the raining rocks—all except in Nevada, where Captain John A. B. C. Smith, was ordered to have personnel along the 39th parallel at about 27’. Put off by the assignment, Smith gave orders to one single man, and that was the reason Davies was in the desert. It was all because someone with lots of authority told someone else with a bit of authority to make sure someone entirely else, and quite presumably without any authority whatsoever, must be on location—but slightly off to the side; so that the whole incident would have a witness, but hopefully no victims. Yet, in his zeal to fulfill his orders by estimate, Davies had parked directly in the path of said space rocks at the 39th parallel and 39’. Whoops. Luckily, there was only one death caused by this dramatic shower of stone, as a meteor crashed into a house in the suburb of Townage. Some poor lady was killed in her bathroom while dropping her own stones.

Davies and the stranger had little food, especially since there were now two mouths to feed. There were about four gallons of water in the five-gallon tank. It wouldn’t have mattered if they had not lost the Jeep and also the radio. If they should stay where they were, they would last three days, tops—and when John A. B. C. Smith came looking for Davies—whenever that might be—would they range so far north? Davies imagined Smith finding him weeks later with strips of meat drying in the sun—as Davies was forced to kill and eat the stranger just to survive. Initially, he would be properly conflicted, but the stranger would eventually be sacrificed to the code necessity. Yes. Davies felt some long pig might be the only way the Private First Class would be able to keep up his strength—strength he would need if he hoped to fend off the blood-spitting lizards.

But Davies didn’t really want to practice the code with the stranger’s bones, and so they decided to risk it in the desert. Before they left, they consulted the map. Davies fidgeted with his GPS and a manual compass, trying to get north to line up. He swiveled the crinkling paper under the compass trying to make heads and tails of the little symbols, lines, and names.

“Where are we trying to get?” the stranger asked.

Davies pointed to the bottom left corner where a grid of roads was labeled Fort MacNamar, not far from the city of Las Vegas.

“And where are we?”

“Where are we?” Davies repeated.

“Yeah, where on the map,” the stranger pointed.

“Specifically?”

“Yes, specifically.”

“Uh,” Davies made a vague gesture over a large area of desert near the middle of the map. “Or maybe...” he drew a slightly bigger circle around the first.

“Somewhere in here?” the stranger asked as he circled half the map.

“Possibly,” Davies gave a noncommittal shrug. “Probably?”

The stranger glared at Davies, suddenly sure that they were lost long before they started.

“I’m thinking we should follow the tracks of the Jeep,” Davies began. “It does a fair bit of drifting, some back and forth, left and right,” he noted with a shrug.

“Sounds doable,” the stranger agreed.

Davies crammed his pack with the remaining MREs, and a variety of essentials: a change of socks, matches, his jacket, a first aid kit, the space blanket, and the bottle of beer he’d managed to sneak into, and then back out of the barracks. He tied his sweat soaked sleeping bag to the bottom. He’d dried it on the back of the Jeep, but it still stank. Only the essentials, he thought, leaving the rest, which included very little. The two obvious items were the compass and the GPS, though the stranger took the map. After that, there was nothing else worth having—except a forty pound meteor. “You sure about this?” Davies asked as they abandoned the corpse of the Jeep. He glanced back repeatedly, distraught to leave, yet knowing the broken vehicle could offer no help.

“Maybe leave the rock?” the stranger suggested.

Davies looked at the man as if he was mental.

And so they marched.

Noon. Scorching sun. Davies was miserable. He lumbered along with the mighty stone, often going a good quarter of an hour before having to stop for a bit of a sit. He’d take a swig of water, thoroughly disappointed as it got more and more warm. The stranger walked several feet off, keeping quiet. Davies suspected the stranger was enjoying himself: the crunch of the dirt, the clear blue sky, the heft and fall of his lungs. At least he had the courtesy to keep it to himself.

There was dirt and dust everywhere, which continued to crawl into Davies’ socks, down his pants, into his eyes and mouth. Davies couldn’t keep the thought of a cold shower out of his mind. What he wouldn’t give for a swimming pool and lemonade—or better yet, a margarita! Frozen and laced with salt! He found the thoughts distracting, and entertained them as much as he could. Davies plotted what he would do when he returned to civilization. He planned to hide the meteor in plain sight, until he was let out of the army. Then he would sneak it off base and sell it for hundreds! He used the thought of such a bonus a motivation to keep on pushing.

The glare of the desert kept a-knocking at sanity’s door. Davies saw streams, lakes, and oceans in the distance, but the stranger never reacted to these far off visions, so Davies knew they were only mirages. He never even had time to get excited. The heat wafting up over the sand created ripples and waves in the distance. If the stranger ever saw these effects, he certainly didn’t react to them. Davies just stared at them, trying to will them into existence, but as he trooped along, the waving lines that looked so much like water vanished before his eyes.

Critical, the stranger watched as Davies crept over a slight ridge. “Let’s take a break for a bit, sit out the worst of this heat,” he said, then retreated to a bit of shade.

As they sat, Davies fished out the first aid kit for some ibuprofen in hopes of getting rid of a developing headache. He took several pills with a few gulps of sun-warmed water. The stranger smiled as he took his own small glass. Davies was a touch concerned when the man only took about half as much—but despite the soldier’s protests, the stranger refused to drink any more.

After a few hours of rest, they walked again. The sun sank and drifted behind the far-off mountains. They walked until dark and then they walked a bit further, until the air took on a bit of a chill and Davies felt goose bumps on his arms. Remembering the cold of the night, understanding the cycle of suffering he would now have to endure as long as he possibly could, Davies made a brave decision. Standing off from the stranger, Davies drank his own pee. If he started when he was properly hydrated, Davies knew this would stretch their water supply for days. He wasn’t keen on telling the stranger, but felt it was necessary. The stranger eyed him with a quizzical gaze, and simply asked, “Are you sure?”

Davies cringed. “It’s completely sterile, and there are lots of stories of people getting stranded and drinking their pee to survive. Think about it: if it comes out of your body, it can’t possibly have any diseases or bacteria that you don’t already have.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s good for you.”

“Anything that keeps me alive is good for me,” Davies claimed.

Standing far away from Davies, the stranger made his actions obvious as he pissed a small portion into a cupped hand. With contempt on his face, he shook the liquid out of his hand, then caught the disappointed look on Davies’ face, and decided to lick a wet finger. “Not as bad as I would have thought,” he noted, though he swore to himself it was the last time he’d taste his own pee.

As darkness descended, they collected twigs and snapped up the dry brush in order to make a fire. Their camp sat on the crown of a small hill. The world was large and terrible that first night, as darkness crept over them. The moon was nowhere to be seen. The stars were an advancing army, and Davies was out almost as soon as his head touched the earth—only to find himself chased through the desert of his dreams by blood-spitting lizards.

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