CHUMBOY HAD PULLED HIMSELF OUT from underneath the machine and was wiping his hands on a towel. The towel was so greasy that Larose said, “Maybe you should try washing up with something that is actually clean.”
Chumboy held out his hands, turning them over admiringly, then said, “No, I don’t think so. Women love the smell of gasoline on a man.”
“Sure they do.”
“No, it’s true, women love it, drives them crazy. Reminds them that you’re a man who can get things done.”
“Then how come all that male cologne stuff smells like flowers and shit?”
“Well, technically, it’s not flowers. Male cologne tends to offer scents reminiscent of bergamot or musk, things that make the modern male feel closer to nature.”
“You see, Larose,” Chumboy continued, ignoring him, “the new breed of urban male that emerged at the beginning of this century had no choice but to resort to faux natural scents. He was attempting to reclaim his lost manhood by covering himself with scents that he believed would convince females he was still virile.”
“Where does he get this shit?” Larose asked Slaught.
Slaught shook his head. “We going to stand around talking horseshit all day or get ourselves ready? It’s D-day tomorrow gentlemen.”
Chumboy said, “Oh, my Auntie told me to tell you that Mother Nature is smiling on you.”
“That so?”
“She says it’s real warm out there today, but D-Day is going to be a cold bastard.”
“Your Auntie said that?” Larose asked.
“Not in so many words Harv, but what she did say is that the hill is going to be a mess, getting all sloppy today and then seizing up. Think if our luck holds, getting those trucks up that hill is going to be harder than getting to Mitch Black’s heart. So let’s finish up these sleds boys and send some prayers to the weather gods.”
The three of them had spent the day checking the snowmachines, making sure everything was good to go. Jordan had come in part way through, asking if he could help, said sitting around waiting for the end times was making him crazy. Slaught put him to work moving in more wood for the woodpile at the back end of the shed, saying he found it hard to believe it was going to warm up at all, they’d been feeding the firebox steady and could still see their breath in the workbay.
He was just about to start helping Jordan when he heard machines coming up the road. He swung open the big doors and Jeff and Ricky pulled in, parking and cutting their engines. Slaught frowned, seeing Ricky riding one of the creepy black sleds with the demented looking happy face.
“Where’d you get that puppy?” Slaught asked.
Jeff told them about their run in with Mitch. He had them all laughing by the end of the story, but pointed out that Mitch Black’s attempt to makeover Delbert’s shithole into a lovenest was terrifying at the time, not just for Ricky, but for him too. Jeff nodded at Ricky, “We played it cool though, didn’t we bro?” and Ricky nodded, and then told them that he’d caught the keys in one hand, and that’s why he was riding her machine.
Jeff said he had something to show Slaught, reaching into his pocket and bringing out the rice-sized transmitter that Mitch had attached to Johnny’s sled. Jeff said when he’d seen her show up he figured she must have been tracking the sleds.
Johnny said, “Check ’em all.”
They didn’t find any others, Chumboy saying Johnny must feel pretty special. Slaught asked Jeff what they should do with it. “Definitely keep the little sucker for now. Got nothing to hide about being here right now and it worked once sending her on a wild goose chase.”
Then Jeff asked where to put the stash from Delbert’s hunt camp, pointing to the filthy canvas bag that looked like some old army rucksack.
“That your haul?” Johnny asked.
“The motherlode, direct to you from hillbilly heaven,” Jeff said, opening the bag then nodding over at Ricky. “His Uncle had acquired some seriously demented firepower.”
Chumboy whistled. “Whoa, what was Delbert thinking?”
“Whatever it was, he didn’t get a chance to put it into practice—the place was torched. Those Talos boys did a number on it.”
Chumboy rummaged through the bag. “We could start a war.”
“I think we already have, Chum,” Slaught said, then added, “Nice work on the guns. Why don’t you two wash up and get some food. Jordan can haul these out of here.”
Jordan was complaining about how much the bags weighed as Jeff and Ricky headed off. Jeff shouted back that he’d send Max over to help. Slaught tossed Jordan the gym bags crammed with the plastic guns. “Sort these out too, bin the real ones and stash them all some place outta sight. Don’t want some of those little ones going all Montana militia with these.”
Max and Jordan repacked the bags and then hauled the four out across the snow, Jordan pretty much dragging his, leaving a thick band of track behind him. He had to stop and brush the snow off in the doorway, then caught up with Max. “Hey, slow down man, these are heavy!” but Max said there was lots to do and they should get a move on. Jordan followed him down the short hallway to one of the storage closets and started emptying the bags onto the floor outside while Max unlocked the door and tried to make room on the big metal shelves. He kicked some empty bins over towards Jordan, saw him tossing the guns into piles so told him to watch it, they weren’t toys, and Jordan frowned, “Some of them are, right?” and Max said, “You can tell by the weight Jordan. Just be careful, okay? You have to be careful around guns.”
Jordan said Max sounded like somebody’s mother and that he was more than welcome to do it himself since the guns were giving him the heebs anyway.
Max ignored him, surveying the rows of shelves, said, “There’s too much shit in here, honestly, with all these friggin’ diapers and crap, there’s no room for anything.”
“We can’t leave them out here.”
Max sighed. “Well, let’s try and shove a least the real ones in here. I’ll haul out some stuff and then we’ll take the ones we can’t make room for to the maintenance room. There’s some shelf room there. At least it has a lock.” He tossed a black marker over to Jordan, said, “They like things labeled.”
In big black letters Jordan scrawled real and fake on the lids of the bins. Max pointed to the latter and said, “Put the Slaught specials in here, okay?” Jordan shrugged, began loading up the bins as Max hauled some gasoline cans around the corner to make more room. Then they grabbed two of the bins and headed for the maintenance room.
As they’d stashed them beside the toilet paper, Jordan was still complaining that they were too heavy and why did he always get the shit jobs. Max told him to quit whining and then felt bad after what Jordan had been through so he asked him if he was getting nervous.
“Nervous? No bro, I’m not nervous, I’m fucking terrified.”
Slaught said, “We got a slight hitch.”
They’d just finished filling up the machines, Larose cursing, saying they were getting low on fuel, and then adding, “A hitch? Yeah? Is this a new hitch or just one of the fucking hundred facing us right now?”
Chumboy laughed. “Ever testy bastard, you.”
Larose didn’t answer, just said again, “What’s the hitch?”
“Tiny says we are seriously running out of grub. Big time. Said we were into, and I quote, emergency rationing. There’s no time for a proper scavenge trip. I got that moose waiting about two miles north of here but one of us is going to have to bring it in soon. It’s a helluva job.”
“There’s got to be someone besides us to go?” Larose worried about going to Thibeault Hill a man short. They were pushing their luck already.
“Got no other experienced guys. Couple of the older guys got the know-how for the moose but not the gumption, not for hauling out that sucker. Can’t ask Shaun, think we need to keep that young lad focused and not leave him on his own. God knows what he’d end up doing. Max and Susun are going to be holding down the fort. Then someone’s going have to stay back with Tiny to butcher the thing once we get it back. Maybe Jordan? Just too big a job.”
Chumboy raised his eyebrows. “Big job indeed. We gonna volunteer or get drafted?”
“We gotta decide together.”
“How?”
“Not sure,” Slaught said.
Chumboy said, “Draw straws.”
Slaught looked at Chum. “You think that’s the best way?”
“It’s the only way.”
Slaught didn’t look convinced so Chumboy added, “It’s fair and it’s blind. Otherwise one of us is going to feel like shit for backing out of the job, right? This way, its completely random and none of us has to make the decision.”
“Alright. Fine with you Larose?”
Larose nodded, “Sure, why not. Everything else around here is pretty fucked up and random, why not this too?”
Chum handed Larose three toothpicks from his pocket and Larose broke two off to different lengths. He buried them in his fist and tucked them all down so they were even. “Short straw stays. Ready gentlemen?”
Chum took one, then Slaught.
“Showtime,” Chumboy said.
Slaught opened his fist, then Chumboy. Chum’s was longer. Larose showed his. His wasn’t broken. Chumboy whistled. “Not an outcome I would have anticipated. Guess you hold down the fort Kemosabe.”
“Maybe just as well,” Larose said, “case something we didn’t count on happens.”
Slaught shrugged, looking maybe surprised himself that he wasn’t going to the hill. “Now that’d be a shock wouldn’t it?”
“Action!”
When Jeff yelled for them to start, the dozen or so folks lined up in the workbay squared their shoulders and stared forward into the camera. Jeff had said they had to be unflinching, that was the word he had used, and so even though the balaclavas were itchy and hot, nobody flinched. They stood behind Johnny, watching the back of his head as he delivered his lines. Afterwards, Mrs. Merrill had said to Mr. McLaren that she thought Johnny had done a pretty good job.
“It was the way he ended his speech, after we’d all taken off our balaclavas and dropped those silly guns to the floor and said our names, when he said, ‘So, this is who we are and where we live. We’re not hiding anything. Now that we’ve shown you what we’re like, that these guns Talos says we have aren’t even real, now we’re going to show you the real face of Talos, and what real guns can do,’ I liked that.”
They had tried the shot first with the kids up front but the three boys, maybe around seven or eight, couldn’t stand still, and Jeff said the fidgeting was distracting. Susun suggested getting the kids to stand in the background against the wall, but the kids begged to be in the shot, saying they wouldn’t move a muscle but Jeff said they weren’t in a position to promise the impossible and stuck them against the back wall, then looking through his camera said, “Hey, they look good back there, love that Bob Marley t-shirt Sheldon.”
It took about two hours to get everything right, then Jeff and Jordan went off to put the thing together. Slaught asked them if they were sure it was going to work.
Jeff said, “Well, if we don’t run out of batteries for the camera, maybe,” and Jordan added,” Just don’t expect Fellini.”
“I was hoping more for James Cameron,” Chumboy said, but Jordan just snorted and said, “Please.”
After they left, Slaught asked Chum what “Fellini” was?
“Some famous Italian director. I think Jordan was trying to impress us.”
“Doesn’t work if you don’t know what the fuck someone’s talking about.”
“I rarely know what he’s talking about. How’d he take the news about staying behind?”
Slaught said, “Fucking jubilant until he found out he had to help butcher a moose.”
“What’s the plan then?”
“I’ll go out get the moose. We can butcher it down in the bay. I got the boys setting up Harv’s tripod. You guys should head out in time to be at the hill before dawn. Block the road then get the hell over to the outpost and do the Fellini.”
As Slaught was saying it he thought it didn’t sound so bad. He’d woken up in the middle of the night, lying in his cot, listening to his own breathing, thinking how fucked up everything was. He’d thought about that day on the loading dock, looking around at the supplies and guns and deciding he didn’t want to be part of the bullshit anymore. He decided he wanted a place of his own, with rows of firewood in the yard, fixing up his cabin so it would be a good place to live. And now this, going to fucking war over a run down hotel with a mittful of guys and some very scared people that were just strangers a year or so ago.
Chumboy asked, “So if it gets too dangerous, folks that want can just sit tight and turn themselves in when the cavalry arrives, hope for the best?”
“Cavalry? Thought that was a good thing when the cavalry got there.”
“Not so good for us Indians.”
“Right,” said Slaught, “guess not. And what about the rest of us renegades?”
“Head north.”
“The rez? Yeah, maybe.”
Chumboy frowned. “You don’t sound too sure about that. Not planning on going down in flames are you?”
“No Chum, but it isn’t going to come to that. We’ll be having Christmas here.”
“You sure about that?”
“I promised.”
“That’s right, you did.”