Boucenna's Walk
By EB
©2004
When Nick wakes up, it's light, and a scorpion is standing about an inch from his face.
He stares at it. This close it looks alien, gigantic, like something out of a cheesy Japanese horror movie. The Scorpion That Stomped Las Vegas.
It edges closer, and he edges back. Flicks his fingers at it, and it retreats.
His headache is worse. So much worse. He squints in the vapid sunshine, shades his eyes. The sun actually feels good. He's cold. His hand feels frozen, like it doesn't even belong to him. Someone else's hand, stapled onto his arm during the night.
He watches the scorpion trundle away. Wonders what scorpions taste like. If maybe they're wet on the inside. Grissom would know. Is the whole thing poisonous, or just the stinger part?
Grissom's gone. There's no one around. The coyotes are silent, just the wind brushing against his face, like greedy little fingers, exploring him. You're ours now, honey. We'll keep on touching you until you fall over and you can't get up that time. We'll hold you and rock you and cradle you against the sand, and suck the last drop out of you, scour the skin from your bones, and leave your skeleton like a warning in a white ribcage and long white leg bones. You can't fool Mother Nature. You dumb shit.
A buzzard lands about ten feet away, flapping its wings explosively.
Nick recoils, uttering a harsh bark of wordless disgust. Oh no you do NOT get me yet, you miserable carrion eating garbage. Finished off Carson and you came for me? FUCK you, no fucking WAY.
Panting, he takes off one of his shoes and flings it at the staring bird. Shot goes way wild, soaring at least three feet to the left of his target, but it does the trick. The buzzard caws and flaps its huge wings, takes off into the sky. Nick watches, breath hitching in his chest, while it rises, rises. Circles. Doesn't leave.
"Not dead yet," Nick croaks. "Not yet, motherfucker."
After a minute he gets up. Stupid idea, throwing the shoe like that. But he doesn't regret it. He stands hunched over while waves of dizziness wash over him. Worse than Pete Martinez's wedding reception, way back in Denton, he'd gotten so drunk he'd actually forgotten most of the second half of the party, and woke up on the roof of Denise Chambers' car. Dizzy then, too, but man, nowhere near like right now. His stomach turns over.
When the landscape steadies a little he minces over to find his shoe. Sits on a rock to put it on. His toes are blue. Feet are amazingly cold. Can't figure that part out. It's already warm, and getting a lot warmer. Why are his feet and hands cold? He ties the shoe awkwardly, and pushes himself off the rock.
He's just looked at his watch – eight-thirty – when he sees a glint just to the right. He looks at Sara, who lifts her chin.
"What do you think it is?" she asks.
He shakes his head.
At her side, Brass shrugs. "Check it out, Nicky. Could be related."
The glint is sun, off a plastic bottle. His heart makes a tiny painful lurch in his chest, seeing it. Bottles hold water. Fluid. He knows this. He shuffles over, bends and wants to cry at how much it hurts to reach down. His body aches, all over.
The bottle's as dusty dry as the dirt in which it's laid for untold days. Weeks, months, whatever. He empties out the dirt inside, and looks at Sara.
"Just follow procedure," she says. "We'll find out what it means later."
Holding the bottle, he turns to stare at the horizon. There are no roads out here. There should be, but there aren't. Godforsaken empty nothing. Where is he? Where's the farm, where are the hippies? Carson was dreaming, there's nothing here. Nothing but dirt and rocks and creosote and mesquite. Bugs and buzzards.
There's an outcropping to the right. Maybe a few miles. A cliff facing, maybe shelter. It's going to be pretty toasty out here today.
"We'll go there," Brass says, walking up next to him. "Maybe take a load off for a while. What do you say?"
Nick eyes him, and nods. "Okay."
Brass stays to his right when he starts walking again. Sara's on his left. Bookends. Nick smiles, and shades his eyes.
It's much too far. He isn't going to make it. Gonna have to sit down now, Jimbo. Just need a little break. And while we're on the subject, got any water on you? Because you don't look thirsty, which means you must have water, and you're not sharing. That's pretty damned unfair of you. Pretty goddamn sneaky.
"Brass isn't coming," someone says directly behind him.
Nick wheels around, stares. Crane is grinning, shaking his head slowly. "Poor Nick," he says with a shrug. "Your friends abandoned you. It sucks when people abandon you, doesn't it? Just when you need them the most. Trusted them the most. Where are they?"
Nick's lips pull back in a snarl. "What'd you do with them? If you hurt them, so help me God, I'll –"
"What? Hurt me back?" Crane is holding a glass of iced tea. Droplets slide down the sides of the glass, plop on the ground. Ice tinkles faintly. He sips, sighs happily. "You couldn't hurt a fly anymore, Nick," he says reasonably. "Have you taken a look at yourself recently? Looking kind of ragged there."
"You're not here," Nick whispers, and takes a step back. "You're not. You're in prison."
Nigel Crane cocks his head to one side, mouth pulling down in a quizzical look. "I'm always with you, Nick," he says kindly. "You'll never lose me. Don't you realize that?"
"No," Nick says, petulantly. "No, I don't want to see you anymore. Go away."
Crane laughs. "Go ahead and sit down, Nick. You won't make it over there anyway. What's the point in trying?"
Nick turns away, reaching up to put his hands over his ears. "Go away. Go away."
He can still hear him. Like Crane is inside his eardrums, inside his head. "You're gonna die out here. All alone. Except for me. I'm your one true friend, Nick. And you pushed me away. You get exactly what you deserve. All alone, and miserable. A three-year-old buzzard will eat your liver tonight at about eight-twenty. And tonight the coyotes will sing in your ears, while they scuffle over the rest of you. The winner will rip what's left of your face off and lick its chops when it's done. By this time tomorrow they'll have to identify you using dental records. Except they never will. Because they'll never find you. Your bones will lie here, bleaching in the sun, until long past the time when your friends are dead, too, your family, everyone you've ever known. No one will even remember there ever was a Nick Stokes. You'll have ceased to exist. You never did exist. And finally even your bones will crumble away. A good wind, and you'll be gone."
Hands pressed to his ears so hard it feels like his skull is caught in a vise. "Shut up!" he screams. "You're not here! Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!"
When he opens his eyes, Crane is gone. He's really alone.
"I do exist," Nick whispers. "I do."
After another moment he stuffs his hands in his pockets and walks on.
The buzzard shadows him. It never lands, at least not where he can see it. But its shadow keeps flitting overhead. That one, and more. They're waiting. Patient as the desert itself, patient as death. Waiting for him to fall, waiting for him to stop moving, stop fighting, stop living. Then they'll swoop down. Lunch with Nicky. Lunch ON Nicky.
He's in trouble. This much is patently obvious. He can feel it, even if he can't see himself. Walking is very, very hard now. He's still doing it, but he's not sure how much longer he'll keep on. His legs are incredibly heavy. His muscles burn relentlessly, talk about your mutant lactic-acid buildup from hell. Feels like he's got cinder blocks strapped to his ankles.
But there's other stuff, too. Stuff like the way his eyes aren't working all that well anymore. Too dry; he can't focus. Stuff like the way it's getting harder to breathe. Not like asthma, no, this is just plain hard to get his lungs to keep going in and out. Out and in. The air is so hot. It's like trying to breathe with your head stuck in a 400-degree oven. His lungs don't want that kind of air. They don't like it.
His lip is bleeding. The blood actually feels good in his mouth. Wet. Too thick, but so wonderfully wet. He sucks on it, feels the way the cracks widen, kinda sting. The pain isn't bad. He swallows a mouthful of blood and sucks out more.
The little cliff is closer. He'll make it. He will. There's shade there, and a tree, and that could mean water. Underground, probably, but he can still dig. If he has to. Sure.
A few minutes later he pees into the plastic bottle. His urine is the color of strong tea, the way his grandmother used to make it. A handful of tea bags, boiling water, about a cup of sugar, all in a clean gallon milk jug. She made the best tea. Not weak like his mom's. Hers looked like dirty water. Gramma's was serious tea. With ice and a sprig of mint, best damn thing on a hot Texas afternoon.
He tries not to think about it when he drinks. Doesn't really matter. Piss, blood, whatever. It's liquid. It tastes horrible. His tea fantasy disappears. It's salty and acrid and it stinks. But it's wet. Oh thank you Lord, it's wet.
There isn't much of it. When it's gone, he throws the bottle to the side. He has a feeling he won't need it again. His days of writing his name are gone.
His stomach gurgles unpleasantly. He licks a thick warm bubble of blood from his lip and squints at the cliff.
"I think this used to be Carson."
Gil gazes down at the body. It's hardly human, really. Most of the flesh is gone, courtesy of animals, and the buzzards he and Brass have scared off. The ragged uniform is out of place. An affront. "I think you're right," he says dully, and squats. Slides the badge out of the right breast pocket. There's blood on the fabric. Dry and stiff. The name on the badge is Michael Carson. No surprise.
Brass heaves a big sigh. "Question is, where's Nick?"
Gil's knees pop when he stands upright again. "I don't know."
The area is as bad as Lloyd suggested. Nothing out here but rocks and sand. No shade. No nothing, really.
"See any more buzzards?"
Gil shoots Brass a wounded look, but the horror and dread in Brass's eyes stifle whatever rebuke he would have made. Brass sees it, too. All of it. It's bad. God, it's worse than Gil has let himself ever envision.
"We'll need dogs," Gil says tonelessly. "Lots of them."
Brass nods. "That's not all we'll need." He looks away, vaguely east. "I'll call in. Troopers aren't that far away."
"Good."
He glances again at the body. Hard to say how long Carson's been dead. At least 24 hours. It can't be longer than that. But the flesh is already dry, mummified, where it hasn't been torn and chewed on. This time of year, the desert works fast. Bodies don't have time to rot. They desiccate instead. The humidity is below ten percent, easy. Outdoors, exposed, in this weather, it's a swift and pitiless process.
His brain superimposes Nick's face where Carson's used to be. Tries to see him alive.
He can't.
When Brass touches his shoulder, he flinches. "We'll find him," Brass says softly. "We will."
Gil nods. "I know." He swallows. "But I hope we're in time."
"Me, too."
TBC. EB