Sometime during the night, Lilith's sleep was disturbed by a luridly detailed dream. In it she stood on the shoreline of the Lake of Lost Souls. Bloated white bodies coated its surface and they gave off a limey green phosphorescent light. Lilith felt immense sadness and choked back tears of grief. All the dead were so small. Many had stubby mohawks and wore half masks so familiar to the badlands. Midget's people.., all gone and forever lost. She snuffled through tears and scanned the multitude for his little body.
There was a subtle shifting and her choking sorrow became watchful disquiet. She held her breath and listened. Aside from the dark water that lapped against her boots, all seemed still. Then she heard it. A collective harsh sighing that rose up from the corpse choked lake. It was air forced through swollen throats long gone cold.
Lilith backed away in horror as stiff limbs thrashed briny lake water into a frothy soup. She turned to flee and ran straight into the decayed grinning visage of Otter. He shrieked in her face and she jolted into heart pounding wakefulness.
She laid there in the dark and waited for her heartbeat to normalize. The glow of the phos-stick had ebbed down to a mere speck. Midget snored softly a few feet away. The nightmare's grip slowly faded and she slipped back into a deep, dreamless sleep.
They broke camp before light. Lilith dully packed up and let Midget take the lead. Her mind felt fuzzy and she suspected she had a fever.
The night sky above them was miraculously clear and held a riot of stars. Lilith looked at them and felt a pang of longing. She yearned to be back up there, voyaging to some undisclosed destination in anticipation of a new assignment. She looked down and squelched the feeling. This would get her nowhere fast. She still had so much to accomplish on Pandora.
Instead, she mulled over her nightmare's meaning. Obviously she was concerned for Midget and his people. She was almost annoyed with herself. How did this happen so fast? She knew next to nothing about his situation, yet here she was having anxiety dreams over it. And Otter? She scowled. How the hell did that creep get so deeply under my skin?
She realized Midget was looking at her with a quizzical tilt to his head. "What..." she grumbled, then expanded, "I'm wondering if it was a mistake to leave Otter."
"No." Midget shook his head emphatically. "No mistake."
"But you know he's gonna come after us. Better to have finished him off, then wonder at every turn if he's gonna show up," she brooded.
He looked at her oddly. Lilith could just detect his eyes narrowing behind rust tinted lenses as he studied her face. "If I know Otter, he won't come after us right away." He sighed. "Well actually, he would, if he was alone. But the big guy Max, he doesn't seem the type to join in personal vendettas." Midget clambered up a boulder and scanned the southern track behind them. "No, they've gone and buried whatever was left of Sammy and went back to Headstone."
"How can you be so sure?" Lilith had plunked down with her back against his lookout perch, glad for the chance to rest.
Midget jumped down and stood before her. "Ego," he said simply, as if that explained everything. Lilith raised her eyebrows and waited for him to continue. "Otter's ego won't allow him to run to his uncle for reinforcements to marshal a quick counter attack. He'll be too embarrassed to tell them a midget got the best of him and I'm positive he's sworn Max to secrecy."
Lilith snorted. "How do you know Otter?"
Midget looked down and drew an imaginary line in the dirt with his foot. "He was the boss on my work crew."
"Oh? Lot of bad blood between you two?" Lilith prompted and was rewarded with a staccato laugh.
"That's an understatement. You thought Otter was bad back there? Put him in charge and he's a total asshole. I was that close to letting you kill him" Midget held his thumb and index fingers a hair's width apart.
Lilith bristled inside at the notion of anyone thinking they were allowing her to execute a kill, but she let it slide. Her head buzzed strangely and it was hard to think. She pulled herself upright and wavered as a head rush swarmed her vision with bright dots.
"You're sick," Midget gripped her arm to steady her.
"Shit," she muttered. They both looked down at her wrists. The slashes were raised and swollen. A hot red rash was lining the length of her right forearm. The infection was on the move. She gently prodded it and asked, "How much farther?"
"Not much," Midget was already pulling her forward to resume their trek. "A handful of hours at the most. Come on Merc…"
They walked for a long time. The Badlands remained gray and seemingly unforgiving of life in general. Inside Lilith a deep thirst grew until it felt as if her brain would burst into flames.
Still they trudged on with no settlement in sight. She licked her parched lips and felt fever blisters on them. She was afraid to look at her arms now, because the last time proved the infection was spreading rapidly. Instead she doggedly focused at Midget's straight back ahead of her. I'm burning up. Midget spun around and she realized she had spoken aloud. The world wheeled and he grabbed her as she sank to the ground.
"Merc! Get up, don't give up now," Midget hissed and shook her.
Lilith shook her head and mumbled, "let me rest for a bit." Midget let go of her and she heard him howl in frustration. Shut up and let me sleep. She rolled on her side, closed her eyes and escaped into darkness.
