Contemptable Wrest - (Ch. 3): Unsportsmanlike Conduct

Animal Planet has canisters of film depicting the beauty of nature: timeless interactions between animals and their environments. It also captures the predator on the hunt, occasionally involving a gruesome but mandatory kill. We all have to eat. That is what I had assumed was happening here, a basic and simple affair. Overpowered, the prey relies on its best weapons: speed and keen evasive tactics. I couldn't have jumped to a worse conclusion.

At the last second, when the monstrosity was close enough to catch a whiff of him, Dudley gathered his bearings. Whipping around wildly he spoiled the beast’s aim so it couldn’t arrest him with its ungainly, golden legs. Forced to reassess its approach, it settled to fly by and club him about the head with strokes of wings and rakes of steely claws. Twirling about, by wings his body was cloaked in darkness.

Half a forever later he emerged, disoriented, reduced to staggering on all fours in pursuit of an upright position. There was a dreadful stain on his bright pink shirt just beneath the bold orange letters: my brother kicks grass.No cuts were visible, but the splotch of blood was ballooning. Through the hysteria his eyes found my face, then my soul.

Instantly my world was solely him; my mind cleared, vision narrowing. My head felt like it was pressed in a vice. For a second the bird wasn't on my mind. Dudley let himself crash upon his palms, tips of hair wet and dangling. Sorrow was engraved upon his gaunt face, yet a purpose flashed behind his weary gray eyes.

In his hopelessness, a void expression crossed his face, as if scanning a flood of memories, searching for any lasting life impacts. A subconscious frown aged his face ten years before his dreamy contemplation died, then his smoky eyes returned from endless space to billow around me with insight.

The guy wasn't someone that people gave much thought to, except to tell him to get lost when he playfully pestered them like a dog seldom shown attention. Mostly, he just had his brother Stewart and a limited number of acquaintances for comfort. Basil was always there to pet in the midst of the worst of times. I think he was misunderstood.

It dawned on me. You got ready to be the distraction if it meant any harm.

He bullied his lips into a faint smile. Shuddering, he pinched his eyes shut, then opened them in steady defiance. The creature extended the two cranes it had for legs, each suspending black meat hooks. These fell upon him at full speed, somehow rather delicately, and hoisted him by the waist. Instead of taking off with him, as I again assumed it would, it hurled him like a loaf of bread. Right into the base of a wide trunk.

Unfortunately, the trunk belonged to a thriving tree, one of the few that actually looked healthy. Down sprinkled leafy dandruff from the collision. Limp backside now facing me, I could make out two lines of ruby. Neither were minor. One traced his right shoulder, the other, his lower back.

On instinct, my right arm jerked towards him, fingers spread in futility. "Buck!" I shook the tree in front of me for all I was worth (nothing) and protested through a chest saddled with crippling sobs, "Buck, NO!"

I barely heard the racing footsteps beside me over my anguish.

"We can't do anything for him now!" said an impatient voice. "Come on!" It demanded, ripping at my arms. With no way to deny its truth, I slumped, overcome with grief, into the awaiting arms of partners who plucked me from my herbal embrace.

They whisked us away hurriedly as possible, knowing it was crucial to get to the store. Through my tear-stricken face, everything was one big blur, mostly a sick green hue with humanoid shapes moving around in it. I was tired of green. Too tired period. Too pooped to breathe words and alert those who might be within splatter range of my vomit to watch out. I tried to twitch my nose to grant them fair warning.

I was out of it. My insides felt rearranged. Somewhere in my forehead thrived an acute pain, but upon trying to pin the area, it would relocate. My queasy stomach couldn’t be stomached much longer.

Aw hell, what a day, and it has only begun.

My voice came out a hushed slur as I labored to lift my tongue, "Guysch…"

To which no one answered. They were probably focusing on getting holed up inside. Ahh, too bad.

The ground started to gradually slope upward, which meant we were basically there. The bad ass little shack was on this big old mound, resting like a castle in the middle of nowhere. The swamp naturally functioned as an impersonal moat.

Everything about it was discreet. Virtually hidden from every angle, it sat in a solid curtain of timber. There was only the one entrance; a wee notch whittled into the ring of trees, that when peered into, gave the impression of going nowhere. Near impossible to happen upon if not approached from the proper direction, even someone specifically combing the area for it might walk away empty handed.

Spewing all over the doorstep or interior wouldn’t be very nice, and since I'd have to use the ladder to get in, I'd lose my lunch during the climb. The crew would have to handle the sight of my lunch.The incline grew steeper, and we stepped onto dry land. It was moist and mushy honestly, but arid in respect to an hour voyage through endless sea. If I wanted to avoid a foul greeting, I’d need to puke in a jiffy.

Buck is probably floating in smithereens after being devoured alive and I'm worried about formalities? That thought planted a nauseating image in my mind and a rush of hot barf filled my throat and sprang to the soil. My assistants skipped back as if kids touching a scalding pot for the first time.

"Uggh!" I heard, followed by gags.

Too weak to uphold myself, I dropped to the dirt, bent over, and piled up a sizeable fortune of yellowish vomit dotted throughout with brown. I wiped the driblets off my chin with my arm and then wiped that on my waterproof navy blue pants. Well, that's one way to do it.

"Sick, man. You look like you need a doctor."

My entire body still felt sapped and was quivering of its own accord, but I felt better. I stood up on wobbly knees to assess who was speaking, the film over my eyes retreating. It was Vinny.

“Get your priorities straight!" I spluttered. "I’m not the only one who's going to be plagued. Think of all the people who are really going to flip when we break the news to the parents. And what about our own sanity? We'll have to live with the nightmares!"

"Let’s focus on the more immediate dangers!" he barked with a nose thrust towards the clouds, then swallowed.

I followed his gaze. Good empty sky. For now.

I clenched a fist."Considering the circumstances I think I’m doing alright, thank you!"

Now he was studying me with intense green eyes. "Good! Then how about we stand here like morons and make all kinds of racket so that...that thing...can polish us off too?"

A moment stretched on. My temperature was escalating. Not because of Vinny. One on one, huh? As big as you are! Defenseless too? You pathetic freak of nature! I’ll make you regret it, bastard, even if I have to take you down with my bare hands!

I shoved it to the back burner. We were all terrified. And he was right, first things first. Safety."Where are the others?”

He pointed up at the plain wooden fortress. Rocky was shambling up the metal ladder, two steps from the balcony where the actual shop rested. The whole structure towered three times larger than the shop itself. Well, I tended to view it as three stories.

Built on stilts in hopes of preventing any flood damage, it had an obvious height advantage. To give it an impressive, sturdy appearance, the owner had overlain the stilts with a hollow wooden scaffold.

"Be grateful,” Vinny urged as we loped toward the building, “Rocky helped me drag you away so you might not die needlessly."

"I was just going to do a little hulk impersonation and bash birdbrain back to hell." I honestly would’ve tried it.

Vinny cast me a skeptical look.

It caused me to hesitate and drink in his manner. Vinny Rain: obviously he was flustered; his well-oiled dark hair was a tattered mess. Greasy bangs normally arranged straight back, wilted about his cagey eyes, and tufts appeared to be trying to eject from his scalp in places. Which said a lot, because his hair was his baby. Well, his baby for his baby.

"And die needlessly in a fit of rage," I admitted. "Much obliged."

Regret and frustration superseding the loss, I sauntered over to the ladder in front of him. It was remarkably cool to the touch. A small comfort.

This would be more than a transient stopover now. This would be a rendezvous concerning life and death. Right now, people who cared were left oblivious to the accelerated danger, meaning there was a wonky chance we wouldn’t make it home for dinner. I was only eighteen, he only seventeen.

Solemnly I said, “I’m sorry about Kelly. I mean, if we don’t survive, if she’s left alone.”

I scaled the rungs rapidly, curious as to what was running through all the other heads, eager to get inside, maybe subconsciously running from Vinny, fearing I’d kindled his anger. There might’ve been fifty to the crest.

"Hey, nobody saw that shit coming," I was reminded from below.

"Great obser--”

"That wasn't what we came out here to do.” Vinny shot in. “If I’d’ve known…” he trailed off as raw sorrow plugged his rant. He came back more hostile. “Just one of those curve balls in life. That’d be a job for the army or some crap. Tell me how we could fight that?"

He wasn’t at all concerned for himself, just the hurt that, with the loss of her boyfriend, would infect Kelly. Give him some hope, you pessimist!

"The surprise enemy is no longer a surprise." I swung a leg onto the balcony, "And we’re no longer defenseless." I continued thinking out loud, “We better have a curve ball bigger than that bitch, or game’s over.”