By Shadoe Masters
This is Story 6 of "The Great Burt Baiting Saga." These stories center on the characters from Tremors: The Series, and feature Burt, Tyler, and all the gang from Perfection Valley. There are also original characters of my own creation - just so you're warned ahead of time. But please don't let that scare you off. I hope you enjoy them.
While this story is a romance, the people involved are not the most cooperative people in the coupling department. The romantic elements take time to unfold.
Feedback: Please let me know what you think of each story. I love feedback, both good and bad, and the more detailed the better.
Disclaimer: "Tremors" is not owned by me or my affiliates, but by Stampede Entertainment, Universal Studios, and their affiliates. No copyright infringement is intended - just some good, clean (well, mostly) fun!
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Thanks to my beta readers: LadyNRA & the gang at work
It's the Little Things
Part 1
Perfection Nevada, 7/12/2003
"This is the most disgusting one yet," Kylie complained.
They were several miles out of town, in Perfection's local junkyard, looting parts for Burt's latest project. He wanted intact sheeting from the trailers, but as they progressed through the junkyard, each one they examined became increasingly dilapidated.
"Don't worry about that," Burt replied. "We'll clean them up before we attach them."
Kylie looked around the gloomy interior uncertainly. "Why can't we clean them up before we detach them?"
Burt only gave her a look and went to the nearest panel, inspecting each to see which he could use.
"I don't see why we need these icky things," she said, going to the other side of the trailer and inspecting the panels there.
"I just need some sheeting to protect the electronics and shield its heat signature. No point in building the ABDS if it's going to be the first thing the AB attacks."
"Yeah, but do they have to be so... icky?" She poked a finger up and down the seam on the second panel. "Why don't you just buy them in town?"
Burt shook his head. "Panels like these aren't made anymore. We'd have to go up to the next step, heavier metal sheeting. Besides, they're expensive and I don't have the money for that. These will do just fine if we put in a double layer." He knocked on one of the panels and shook his head, then moved on to the next one.
"How about this one?" Kylie said. "Looks intact to me."
Burt crossed the trailer to take a look at it with his mag-lite. "Looks fine to me. Shouldn't be too hard to pry off. We might be able to use the one next to it, too."
Kylie went to the open door where they'd left their tools when they'd climbed in. She picked up the two crowbars and handed him one before putting on her gloves. "And just how many more of these do we need?"
"If they're all this size," he said, slipping into his own gloves, "six more should do it."
Kylie's face showed her disgust, but she nodded and knelt at Burt's feet. They'd gone through this process three times already, and worked out a routine. She pried at the bottom while Burt pried at the top. The panels usually came off with relatively little effort.
Relatively little effort, that is. This panel wasn't coming off with near the ease the others had. Problem was, they couldn't pull too sharply, or the panel would break. They'd been working at it for a while when Burt said, "I think it'll come off with one more good pull. On three." Both of them set their crowbars into the seam and got ready. "One. Two. Three."
With one firm pull, the panel came free.
And buried Kylie with thousands of writhing, crawling insects. Roaches, centipedes, spiders, and other small, multi-legged desert dwellers rained on her hair and clothes.
"Aaaaaiiiiieeeeeeeee!!!!" Kylie lurched to her feet, trying to shake off the bugs. She ran into the opposite wall, stumbled two more feet, trying to shake and run simultaneously, then back into the wall they'd just removed. This only succeeded in raining more bugs down on her. Still screaming, she ran, vigorously shaking her head, waving her arms, and brushing frantically at herself.
Burt lunged toward her, trying to catch her, but she moved too fast. First she bounced off the wall again, then stumbled a couple yards. Burt saw the danger and made another desperate grab for her, but he was too late. She fell out the open door and landed with a thud on the ground, four feet below.
This seemed to have a calming effect as she only sat up and kept shaking, trying to get the bugs off. But at least she'd stopped running everywhere. Burt leaped to the ground next to her and helped, brushing at her hair, her shoulders, her knees.
Finally, they were gone, but Kylie kept brushing and shaking herself, convinced they were still crawling on her. She scuttled a few more feet away after spying the bugs still near her on the ground, then got to her feet. She was still brushing at her clothes and shaking out her hair. "They're gone, Kylie," Burt assured her, exasperated. "You can stop now."
She didn't. "No! They're not!" She cried. "I can still feel them! Ugh! They're all over!" She shuddered again.
"Well I can't see any," he told her.
She only flicked off her gloves and started working at the buttons of her shirt. Burt turned quickly and started walking away. "You stop right there," she commanded, her voice harsh.
He stopped. Carefully, he turned back, afraid she was already naked.
Burt was grateful to see that she'd turned away, though she was still shaking her shirt with one hand and brushing her fingers though her hair with the other. "Look at my back, Burt," she said. "See if there are any bugs there." She shuddered again.
"I can't see any." She turned just long enough to glare at him. "I mean inside the shirt."
"I'm not going to--"
"Do it!" she demanded.
Burt edged over to her and glanced down the back of her shirt then quickly away. "I didn't see any."
"Oh please," she groaned, shaking out her sleeves. "You hardly looked."
"I didn't see any insects!" he insisted.
"Are you sure?" she asked uncertainly, still squirming. "Check again." She shuddered. "And take a good look this time. They could be stuck to my shirt or something."
Rolling his eyes, stepped closer. He lifted her hair out of the way and looked down the back of her shirt. He shook his head. Didn't the girl have any white bras? His eyes followed every smooth, creamy inch along the arch of her back until it disappeared into her tight jeans just below the curve of her hip.
"Check my hair too," she said, breaking into his thoughts.
He pulled his gloves and ran one hand through her hair. It slipped through his fingers like silk, soft and shining. He made his hand drop to his side. "They're gone," he said hoarsely. He cleared his throat. "There are no more insects, Kylie."
"Are you sure," she whined piteously. "I swear, I--"
She'd started rubbing at her jeans now and Burt had had enough. "They're gone, Kylie," he barked. "And don't you think about taking those off. They're too tight to let anything in anyway."
At last, she pulled herself together and started buttoning her shirt, her composure marred only by the occasional shudder.
Burt resettled his hat on his head and turned away as she tucked her shirt back in. "I didn't know you were afraid of bugs," he said. "Nancy's spiders never seem to bother you."
Kylie was designated to dispose of the bodies when Nancy killed one of the ever-present desert spiders. "On a one-on-one basis, I can cope. I just..." she paused to shudder delicately "...don't like to be outnumbered." She shuddered again, still running her hands up and down her arms.
Burt shook his head. Women. "Are you ready to get back to work?"
"Yeah," she nodded.
Burt turned back toward the open trailer door, but Kylie had other ideas.
She grabbed his hand and pulled him back toward the power wagon. "Come on!"
"Where the hell are we going?" Burt demanded.
"Bixby. We're going to buy the damn things."
"I told you, I can't really afford--"
"I can. We're going. That's it."
"I still don't see why you didn't get the heavy-duty panels," Kylie said on the way back from Bixby.
Burt shot her a glance. "Thirty-two miles and you're still saying that."
"We'll just have to go get more, this way."
Burt's chin went up. "The heavy-duty panels are more expensive. We can get by with the lower grade materials."
"Don't blame me if we just have to go back and get the other ones anyway," Kylie persisted.
"We should have just used the ones from the--"
"NO!" Kylie said with another shudder. "I'm not going to go dig through that junkyard ever again."
Burt's lips quirked into a half-smile. "I never figured you--"
"Don't you start with me, Burt Gummer. See how you feel if you're ever covered in bugs." She shuddered again. "I've still got the willies." She glanced over at him just before he was able to wipe the expression off his face. "And don't you smirk at me, either."
If anything, his smile broadened, almost including the other half of his face, but he decided it was time for a change of subject. "You want to stop in town for lunch?"
"Yes. I'm starved," she said with a look at her watch. "I can't believe it's this late."
They pulled into town and searched for a place to park. "I may have to get my gypsy outfit on, Burt. Look at all the tourists. Jodi must be..." Kylie turned to look at Burt as he continued through town without slowing down. "Uh... Burt? Lunch?"
Burt had pulled his hat down until it almost covered his face, and studiously looked to the side of the street that had fewer people milling about. "Too many tourists," he muttered shortly.
"We can get something to go," she said. "I don't have to do the Tarot thing."
"No. We can eat at the site."
Kylie studied his face. She knew he wasn't at his best around strangers. He sometimes freaked out over dinner at Nancy's. But he never acted like this before. He was all stiff and prickly, and wouldn't look at her. And was his face a little redder than usual?
She narrowed her eyes and looked back at the crowd just before the road curved around a hill. "Okay, what's going on?"
"Nothing," Burt said tightly, his eyes on the road.
"Who were those people?"
"Not important," he said shortly.
Kylie could see he was upset, so she dropped that line of questioning. But she was intrigued. Something was definitely up. Something to do with that particular crowd of tourists. She had to find out. Burt obviously wasn't going to tell her, but there were other ways she could find out. She started considering strategy.