Part Four
Xander decided that Jack had to be the coolest person ever. Or maybe the foolhardiest. Or both. The verdict changed every two seconds. But why did he always have to pick on Xander? It wasn't fair.
He glanced at Daniel as though the other boy held the answer, but a raised eye-brow was all he got.
"Is he always like that?" Xander asked, nodding vaguely into the darkness that surrounded their hiding place, but meaning Jack, of course.
"Like what?" Daniel asked back. He sat comfortably, ankles crossed, arms resting on his thighs, looking calm and collected like a Cheyenne brave in a powwow. A very pale Cheyenne.
'Brave?' Xander almost said, but instead he shrugged.
Help came from an unexpected corner. "Who gave him the black eye?" Jesse whispered eagerly. "Is it true he got into a fight with Larry?"
"Ask him," Daniel said.
Jesse and Xander exchanged a glance of mutual exasperation until Jesse remembered that he and Xander were still at odds and pointedly looked away.
"I bet it was Larry," he mused. "It would explain why Principal Flutie made him stay after class for two weeks in a row. That's what you get for roughing up the football jocks."
Daniel shrugged again. Jesse was on the wrong track, but Daniel was determined to keep his friend out of the school rumor-mill. If he told Jesse and Xander about Jack's mean drunk-ass uncle, chances were that by tomorrow everybody, down to the janitor and the fifth graders, would know.
He squinted into the dark. His heart was still racing, but it didn't bother him. Fear was something that you pushed away.
Jack was gone for an eternity, well, a few minutes anyway. It just seemed a long time. Even Oz was relieved, when Jack finally slipped back into their hiding place.
"Hi girls, miss me?" Jack's face was obscured by shadows, his blond hair a mere blotch of grey, but his teeth gleamed, even in the dark. He was grinning. "Wanna see something cool?"
"What do you mean, 'cool'?" Xander asked. "Are we talking things that go howl in the night?"
"Didn't find it," was Jack's curt reply. "It's probably locked up in one of the cages. Whatever 'it' is."
"You sure?" Jesse whispered.
"Do you see any circus folks swarming around toting their guns?" Jack said scathingly. "Of course I'm sure."
It made sense. Yet Xander couldn't shake a sense of foreboding, and Jesse didn't look entirely convinced either.
"Now, there's a few more trucks like this one, closer to the big top. I say we work our way there. But first? A little detour. There's something you have to see."
"Like what?" Jesse asked, perking up.
Jack grinned again, and maybe it was just a play of moonlight and shadow, but Xander didn't like his grin at all.
"Follow me, and I'll show ya."
Without waiting for a reply, Jack darted away, and the other boys had to scramble to keep up with him. Like four Cheyenne braves on the war path, the boys filed through the darkness, flitting from cover to cover. Twice they heard footsteps and snatches of conversation in a language they couldn't understand and had to stay hidden. In the end they had to leave the cover that the huge trucks provided, because they had reached a cluster of trailer homes. Unlike all the vehicles they'd passed earlier, most of these were lit and clearly occupied.
Jack crawled under a parked pickup truck and stayed there, flat on his belly. The other boys jostled around until they all fit under the car.
"There." Jack pointed at a trailer, about ten yards away. It looked old and worn, but sprouted a modern satellite dish on the roof. Yellow light spilled out of the windows, surrounding the trailer with a warm halo, and illuminating a clothesline full of laundry that connected it to a neighboring trailer. Thankfully, the darkness hid Xander's blush, because most of the laundry consisted of women's lace panties and bras, elegant lingerie in burgundy and black.
Someone moved behind the transparent curtains. Xander's jaw dropped when a woman's shapely silhouette could be seen quite clearly against the light.
Sensuous music drifted towards the dumbstruck boys, some song about blue velvet.
All thoughts of lions, wolves, or dinosaurs fled their brains. The boys gaped with awe at the woman's outline, the proud curve of her full breasts, the flatness of her belly and the seductive sway of her hips as she danced through the trailer all by herself.
She wasn't exactly naked, it was clear that she was wearing a bra and panties, and there were curtains between her and her secret audience, but still, Xander's heart was beating madly in his chest and a strange, inexplicable restlessness grew inside him.
"Yowsa," Jesse whispered, nudging him with his elbow, his grudge momentarily forgotten.
"Couldn't have said it better myself," Xander quipped back, grinning.
His heart fell, when his friend frowned, and inched away.
"Tell me, chicken," Jack addressed him. "Still sorry you came along?"
Xander mutely shook his head.
Suddenly, sounds approached from behind, snatches of a conversation and brisk footsteps – sounds the boys hadn't noticed earlier because all their senses had been focused on the woman in the trailer.
"—damn thing knocked out the generator," a male voice said. The speaker sounded agitated. He had an unfamiliar accent.
The four boys exchanged panicked glances. Too close. No time to run. They huddled together, curled up tight in the limited shade that the pickup truck provided.
A pair of scuffed work boots with muck and straw clinging to the soles noisily walked past them, followed by the softer tread of a pair of well-polished black designer shoes.
At first the boys thought the two men would pass, and they did, but then the black shoes slowed, and doubled back. They stopped right next to the truck, so close, Xander almost gagged on the smell of shoe polish. The boys held their breaths, hearts clamoring deafeningly in their chests. Any moment now, hands would reach under the truck and drag them out of hiding. Xander tensed, ready to bolt as soon as Jack yelled for them to run.
"Ah yes, it does tend to get a tad aggravated when the full moon rises," the second man said. He spoke with a pronounced British accent and the languid arrogance that Xander had come to associate with movie bad guys.
Xander relaxed minutely. It didn't sound like he and his companions had been spotted.
"If you knew that, why didn't you tell us?" The first man said, sounding angry. The man's consonants came out a harsh staccato. Reminded of all the KGB agents in spy movies, Xander decided the man sounded Russian. With all the foreign accents, Xander felt like he'd stumbled into a Bond movie.
The truck creaked and shook slightly. At the same time, the guy with the black shoes crossed his black-socked ankles. Xander realized the man was leaning comfortably against the car facing, yes, facing the lit trailer with the beautiful lady in her undies. So that's why the black shoes had stopped here: the man was a peeping tom.
Xander felt a stab of moral outrage on the woman's behalf, neatly sidestepping the fact that he and his pals had been watching her themselves. The man was a grown up – that made all the difference.
"It must have slipped my mind." A lighter was worked repeatedly. Sounds of greedy inhaling. Exhaling. "But you dealt with the problem, I hope?"
A faint smell of cigarette smoke drifted underneath the truck.
"Knocked it out, yeah. But I had to crank up the dosage again. I'm running out of drugs. It took four goddamn darts this time. More than enough to knock out four elephants for the rest of the night. But I'm not sure how long your critter will stay down."
Xander had been too frightened to listen to the conversation, but now he realized, they were talking about the monster.
"It's not I my /I critter, as you full well know," the British guy said pompously. "But you're right, creatures of its kind are indeed quite resilient."
"I was wondering, if maybe you have something to keep it down? Something that works a little faster?"
"Do I look like a pet doctor to you?" There was more than a hint of menace in that question. Even though it wasn't directed at him, the tone made Xander's skin crawl.
"No, Mr. Rayne. No, of course not."
"Restraining the creature is entirely your part of the deal, not mine. I, as you will recall, was merely hired to spell our four-legged friend through customs, immigrations, and any vehicle spot check that chance may throw your way. Anything beyond, well, I'd have to charge extra…."
Just then, the song that drifted from the yellow lit trailer, the one about the woman in blue velvet, came to an end. Xander held his breath, waiting for more music but apparently the show was over. All he could hear was a door opening and closing, and the rattle of keys. Xander dared a peek. The trailer was dark and deserted.
"Oh well, I'll see what I can whip up. A sleeping draught, perhaps." The man with the black shoes sighed wistfully. "A pity. I'd have loved to see your pet cut a swath through this town. The havoc, the chaos, the bloodshed…. Oh well, some other time."
Suddenly, less than a foot away from Xander's face, a small object hit the ground. Tiny fiery sparks scattered in all directions. After all this talk about chaos and bloodshed it was too much. Xander recoiled. With an audible bang the back of his skull struck the metal underbelly of the truck. By sheer miracle, no yelp of pain escaped his lips.
The black leather shoe that had been about to step on the smoldering remains of the cigarette stopped in mid air.
TBC