Structophis Page 9

  Markus scrambled up to her and stood between the wolves and the dragon. Bits of his brain reminded him Blodgette had a much better chance of survival against these creatures than he did. It would be smart to continue running, to leave the wolves to menace the “injured” prey and potentially ignore him long enough for him to reach the campground. Those pragmatic tactics were utterly drowned out by the much louder demand of his heart and conscience: keep Blodgette safe.

  He looked around, trying to search his surroundings for weapons while simultaneously keeping his eye on all three predators as they circled. The tree they’d struck had seen better days even before its collision with the organic freight train that now sat dizzily beneath it. Most of the needles were brown, and the bark flaked easily away. It was standing deadwood, dry as a bone. An idea flickered to mind.

  Markus grabbed one of the dislodged boughs covered with dead needles and turned to Blodgette.

  “Blodgette, look at me,” he said, snapping his fingers. “Remember ‘aaahh’? Taking your temperature? Open up and say ahh!”

  The dragon was still shaking the cobwebs out, but she mustered a half-hearted “ahh” for Markus. He stuck the dry end of the bough into her mouth. She sputtered and spat, but even the brief exposure to her raging inferno of an internal body temperature was enough to ignite the seasoned wood.

  Markus thrust the smoldering, smoking wood at the wolves and they quickly backed away, retreating from the alarming sight and scent.

  “Hah! That’s right!” Markus said triumphantly. “Fire! Mankind’s oldest ally! Tremble before the might of the flame!”

  Blodgette blinked and pulled herself to her feet, adding her imposing presence to the intimidation factor of the fire. She glanced back and forth between the fire and the wolves. Again, the surprisingly expressive masked face of the creature began to tell a story. These wolves were scary, but they were scared of fire. And fire wasn’t scary! If they were afraid of something so simple and so harmless, how scary could they really be?

  She scooped up a veritable branch from the ground and nibbled on the end until it sparked to flame, then poked it at the wolves. They scampered backward and watched warily. Blodgette trilled proudly and looked to the wolves again, waggling the branch in their direction.

  “Yeah!” Markus said. “That’s a high five right there.”

  He held up his hand and she proudly slapped it, perhaps with a bit more enthusiasm than was called for. After Markus recovered, he squinted into the distance.

  “Let’s go. It can’t be too much farther to get to the campsite. The wolves should back down now, or at least lose interest after a few minutes, but I don’t want to press my luck. It’ll be tricky enough getting there without burning the forest down.”

  Blodgette snuck her hand into his and waddled along happily beside him. He winced a bit at her grip. His hand was still a bit tender from touching her antlers.

  “We’ll have to talk to Gale about that headgear of yours. I think we’ve figured out what’s keeping you cool. I’m sure that’ll be good for a whole new section of the report she’ll be writing.”

  #

  As expected, or at least as hoped for, the wolves decided the armored wielders of fire were more trouble than they were worth with regard to a meal for the evening. Just to be on the safe side, Markus and Blodgette kept their smoky torches until they reached the campground.

  “Yeesh, this place has seen better days,” he said, stomping out his torch.

  Nature was in the process of reclaiming the facility. Most of the smaller cabins—barnlike structures that held the bunks used by overnight campers—were in various states of decay. They’d all been locked with padlocks that were rusting over, and one of them had suffered a roof collapse. The Native American motif with its bright colors had been faded and sun bleached down to something oddly pastel. Signs with instructions and maps were now illegible masses of peeling paint and splintered wood.

  “All that’s missing is a narration about a masked murderer who went on a rampage twenty years ago, and we’d have a perfect slasher film reboot,” Markus said.

  There was one building that had seen at least some maintenance. That was the main cabin. Three stories high and sturdily built, it looked something like a cross between a log cabin and a public school. They stepped up onto the elevated deck that wrapped around the structure and Markus peered through the windows to the darkened interior. Steel gratings covered them, a semirecent addition that would make breaking in more of a challenge than he’d hoped.

  “I don’t see a security system or anything… There shouldn’t be an alarm if we manage to get inside,” he said. “Back when I was spending my summers here, this was where all the rainy-day activities were. There’s a basketball court over there. Sort of a preschool area for the toddlers over there. I think the upper levels had the lodging for the counselors. I was never on the third floor. Probably offices and stuff.”

  He investigated the door. It had been chained and padlocked as well, but the lock wasn’t rusted at all, and there was evidence of a recent repair on the deck nearby. Other places where repair should have been done suggested that this place was receiving only the barest of maintenance necessary.

  “I guess someone’s keeping this place from falling apart. More or less. Probably they use it for administration or something when they need to do… nature reserve stuff.” He tugged at the lock. “Give this a good hard yank, would you?”

  Blodgette twisted her head, then grabbed the lock and tugged at it.

  “Harder. This you can break. And hurry up. I’m not going to assume those wolves are out of our hair for good.”

  She yanked a few more times, then winced when the chain finally snapped. The lack of a reprimand was met with a sigh of relief, and the pair walked inside. Markus flipped the switch on the wall, but the hallway remained dark.

  “That was too much to hope for,” he said. “And I’m certainly not going to carry a torch in this place—that’s just asking for trouble. Come on. It’s been a long time, but I’m pretty sure the supply closet was over this way.”

  They fumbled their way down a side hallway. Either Markus had misremembered the layout or the place had reorganized in the years since he’d last been there, because as best as he could tell by rummaging around, the closets he found along the way were mostly filled with cardboard boxes packed with executive detritus like clipboards, toner cartridges, and adhesive labels.

  “Seems as if this place went white-collar at some point,” he mused, checking the latest box in the dim moonlight from the window.

  Eventually they found their way to the kitchen, and he checked the cabinets.

  “Jackpot. Fully stocked with canned goods.” He tested the oven, and while it didn’t light, there was the hiss of gas. He quickly shut it off. “Seems as though the propane is stocked up too. Which means there’s probably… bingo.”

  A nearby drawer revealed matches, and another one had candles.

  “Let there be light.”

  He lit a candle for himself and one for Blodgette. Perhaps it was the running or the snacking, but her temperature was running high enough that it got a little soft in her grip, but not unmanageably. Now that he could see, he started looking through the stuff in the cabinets.

  “Let’s see. Canned white potatoes. Canned beets. Canned corn. Green beans. Oh, hey, tomato puree. Hungry?”

  He tossed her the can, and she snapped it up in her mouth like a dog catching a treat. It went over in much the same way, with Blodgette’s brief and evident delight followed by an intense interest in having another. Markus obliged, then continued his investigation. Eventually he turned up a logbook in one of the drawers.

  “Okay, let’s see what we have here.” He cleared his throat and began to read. “‘Department of Fish and Wildlife, Site 1214 Supply Manifest for Administration Building, May 15.’ Seems as though they restocked this place a few months ago. ‘Food: 250 cans, nonperishabl
e, including… blah blah blah… 50 hand-crank flashlights with USB chargers.’ It’ll be handy to find where they’re hiding those. ‘Propane: 850 gallons for heating/cooking. Diesel: 500 gallons for generator.’ Cool, if we can find that, we’ll actually have lights.”

  As he read off additional potential handy things, like first aid kits, he discovered a section labeled “Service Road Maps.”

  “What’s this now?” he said.

  He flipped to the indicated section of the logbook and looked over the simple lines of roads that had apparently been kept up in order to facilitate research and basic maintenance.

  “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me. If she’d just taken a right instead of a left, there’s a service road that goes around the other side of the lake that leads all the way to the parking area right across the courtyard. Too bad I can’t call Gale to let her know about that, and our little wolf problem. But… wait a minute… there’re phone lines. And someone is keeping this place stocked with the basic amenities. So in theory…”

  He marched to the old-style landline phone on the wall and picked it up.

  “Bingo! Dial tone! I can call her! … Except I don’t know her number, it’s in my cell phone. Which she has.” He slouched. “Stupid technology, robbing me of my memory. Wait, wait… 4-1-1… hah! Thank you Luddites for not trusting the internet!”

  Markus navigated his way through a somewhat decrepit automated system until he finally got her number. It turned out to be her mother’s number, but a little forced polite conversation eventually earned him her current number. He dialed and almost immediately she answered.

  “Hello?” she said curiously.

  “Gale, it’s Markus. I didn’t expect you to pick up the phone. Aren’t you supposed to be driving?”

  “Speakerphone. Where are you calling from?”

  “The main building of the camp. It’s some sort of an admin building now. Hopefully no one shows up while we’re here.”

  “Well, ideally you’ll be there for two years, so that’s not too likely, is it?”

  “I wouldn’t call that ideal, but that’s not why I’m calling. It turns out there’s a service road around the other side of the lake. Should get the van all the way here.”

  Blodgette, either irritated that Markus was no longer paying attention to her or perhaps having heard Gale’s voice, attempted to shove her head between his face and the receiver and warbled directly into it.

  “Is Blodgette behaving herself?” Gale said with a snort.

  “Give me a minute, Blodgette,” Markus said, pulling the phone aside. “Listen, be careful when you get here. We had a run-in with some wolves.”

  “Oh, great!”

  “… Great?”

  “Yeah! I’d heard they were reintroducing the gray wolf to Colorado. It’s great to know they’re getting a foothold.”

  “Wasn’t that great in the moment.”

  “Well you’re fine, right?”

  “Fine is a relative term, Gale. ‘Had to run from wolves to avoid dying’ is the sort of thing that downgrades the average day from ‘fine’ to ‘harrowing.’”

  “You shouldn’t have run. You should have stood your ground. Wolves are—”

  “Easier said than done, Gale!” He shook his head. “Just hurry back, take the road, and watch for wolves!”

  “Will do, so long.”

  “Bye.”

  He hung up the phone and shook his head again, looking to Blodgette.

  “Gotta love her enthusiasm, Blodgette, but I wish she’d shift her focus to be a little more practical.”

  The dragon, having lost interest in the phone, was snooping around the kitchen. Her long neck meant that just a bit of a stretch let her horns brush the low ceiling, giving her a view of the tops of the cabinets and shelves scattered about the room. Something had caught her eye, but her arms were a bit too stubby to reach whatever it was. After some flailing, she gave up and nudged a box down from the shelf with her snout. It spilled, dumping a few dozen hand-crank flashlights across the floor.

  Blodgette cringed at the clattering and looked sheepishly to Markus, anticipating a scolding.

  “Hey! The flashlights! Good job, Blodgette!”

  She hesitantly raised her hand, testing for the obligatory high five of success. He delivered it. She wriggled happily and swiftly knocked down another box.

  “No, no, no!” Markus said. “Knocking down boxes is bad in general, but good in this specific case. Come on. Let’s find someplace to keep you occupied.”

  He grabbed a few of the flashlights, cranked two of them up, and replaced their candles with something a little less hazardous. A few twists and turns through the halls, some of which required Blodgette to squeeze through doorways barely large enough for her, brought them to what had formerly been the pre-k playroom. It was stacked with boxes, for the most part, but the colorful decorations still hung on the walls, and a large chest of toys sat under the bank of windows facing the road.

  “Here we go, Blodgette. Let’s see what you make of these.”

  He started to dump things out onto the floor for her. She immediately worked out that these were for play and plopped down to entertain herself. Before long she’d settled on some oversize wooden alphabet blocks. After she ate two of them before Markus could stop her, he demonstrated stacking them and she latched on to the concept, mounding them into tall towers until they toppled, then clapping her hands and starting again.

  Relieved of the burden of keeping her distracted and entertained, Markus sat on the floor and tried to switch his brain off for a moment. When his thoughts instantly turned to the snarl of ill-advised and ultimately doomed decision-making that had brought him here, he decided instead to shift his attention to something that might at least help him deal with the task ahead.

  He slipped out one of the books Gale had provided.

  “‘The Development and Physiology of Structophis gastrignae: A Study.’ Now that’s a page-turner of a title if ever I heard one.” He thumbed through the pages. “‘Education. Structophis gastrignae are imitative learners, and develop habits and skills very quickly. Though their physiology limits their ability to finely manipulate small objects, the presence of opposable thumbs facilitates human-level tool usage. Depending on the level of early development socialization, this tool usage can facilitate communication methods that overcome the lack of vocal range necessary for spoken communication. Structophis gastrignae have successfully learned basic sign languages. Many have learned to read, and some have learned to write.’”

  Markus watched Blodgette stacking blocks for a while, then stood and rummaged around until he found a picture book.

  “Let’s just set a baseline, shall we?” He flipped open the book to a large illustration of a cat. “This is a cat. C-A-T. Cat.”

  He found the proper blocks to spell it out. One by one, he did the same for the other labeled images.

  “D-O-G. Dog. B-A-T. Bat. C-O-W. Cow.”

  Blodgette’s face was one of intense contemplation, scrutinizing the images, the words, and the blocks, over and over.

  “Okay, now let’s try this.” He scrambled up the letters, then pointed to the cat, then the blocks. “Spell it.”

  For a long time she merely stared down at the blocks. Then she took three of them and lined them up.

  “No… No, that says ‘fub.’ We’re looking for ‘cat.’” He arranged the proper letters. “‘Cat.’ Now let’s try ‘dog.’”

  Blodgette looked curiously to Markus and moved the letters, one by one, to the dog picture.”

  “No, that’s ‘tac.’ We’re looking for ‘dog.’ Like this.”

  He spelled out the word. She looked over the arrangement of blocks again. Suddenly her eyes opened wider, and she almost vibrated with excitement. She tapped the picture of the dog, then the word “dog,” then the blocks.

  “Yes, those go together,” he said, smiling.

  She could barely
keep her hands steady as she fumbled through the blocks and piled them next to the picture of the bat. It wasn’t exactly flawless. The A was actually an upside-down V, and the B was a sideways M. But it was far too similar to be a coincidence.

  “Good job! Good job. That’s a double high five!”

  A flurry of spelling followed. Some approximations were closer than others, but a bit of searching and a bit of comparison eventually turned up something at least resembling the proper word. Then, just as quickly as the tizzy of learning started, it stopped.

  Blodgette’s face made her appear to be deep in thought for nearly a minute, her mind churning at something complex. Finally she turned to Markus and chirped. She tapped the word and then the picture of the cat. Then the word and then the picture of the dog. Then, with a metallic clunk, she tapped her own chest.

  “What word is for you? Heh. As much as Gale would prefer I tracked down enough letters for Structophis gastrignae, let’s take the easier choice. D-R-A-G-O-N. Dragon.”

  She watched the word form, then moved the blocks carefully together and set them aside. Next, she tapped Markus’s chest.

  “What’s the word for me? I’m pretty sure I saw ‘boy’ and ‘man’ and a bunch of stuff like that. Tell you what. How about you try to figure it out?”

  Getting her to wrap her head around the challenge he was putting forth took a bit more illustration, but before much longer she was leafing through the pages as gently as she could, scrutinizing images and comparing them to Markus.

  “You’re a quick learner, Blodgette. I can certainly see that. Pretty soon I’ll have to watch what I say around you, or you’ll start getting the wrong ideas.” He flipped through the text looking at images and skimming passages. “Pizza dragons are amazing creatures, that’s for sure. I can see why Gale is so head over heels for them. I just don’t… I just have to find Dimitrios. This isn’t for me. I can’t… I’ve got a life. I was heading in a certain direction, you know? This is more than I bargained for. Already I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to dig myself out of this mess.”