Author's Note: So we're on chapter four now, right? God, I'm so fried right now... The heat wave has broken, freshman year of college has begun, and with any luck I'll soon be entering a professional writing program. I know this does not excuse the long hiatus since last chapter, but I do apologize. Maybe the boys have had a chance to regroup during that time... Anyways, special thanks to my steadfast reviewers, I love you, and I hope you enjoy chapter four!
Disclaimer: Gundam Wing is not mine. If it was, Trowa would be able to talk to all his little animal friends, like Snow White in the Disney movies.
For Your Info: Our calm, stoic, yet oh-so-poetic Tro-bunny claims this chapter, mostly because he is best suited to deal with animal-related crises.
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There are few things more beautiful than a sunrise viewed from deep in the heartland.
First the grey sky to the east begins to lighten, revealing swirling mist and fading shadows across lush fields and meadows. Birds begin to call in the vast, lonely expanse still too vague for the invading eye to penetrate. Then the chill, heavy air becomes slowly warmer as the skies take on a rosy hue.
Slowly, and yet all at once, dawn's first sunbeams reach out to gently touch the tops of the forest trees. Golden morning light spills down between leaves and branches, splashing underbrush, grasses and wildflower, turning night's scattered dewdrops into a million tiny diamonds sparkling with an inner brilliance. Soon everything shimmers and glows, washed in the glory that is a new day.
All this I thought as I sat silently on the veranda, sipping a cup of hot, freshly brewed coffee, the splendor of a fresh new country morning unfolding before my eyes. Or rather, eye. The other always seems to be covered by hair, no matter what I do with it.
You're very lucky, Trowa, I congratulated myself between sips. A gorgeous sunrise like this... it's a real gift. So quiet. So serene. So–
"Oh, my, GOD!"
Crash! Bang! Clatter!
The cacophony of noises streaming from the kitchen of the farmhouse told me that I was no longer the only one awake, much to my disappointment. I love my fellow former pilots like the brothers they are to me, but sometimes... they just need to stay sleeping.
"Duo, wait, don't kill it!"
"Get it away from me!"
"Stop, you'll step on it!"
"It touched my foot, man, it touched my foot!"
The screen door slammed as Quatre ran out of the house, gingerly holding an angry garter snake by the tail. I watched as it was quickly released over the wooden railing. Hopefully the little guy would head towards the fields, far away from the house and the belt-maker that dwelt there.
"Good morning, Quatre." I offered him my coffee, which he readily gulped. "There's more on the counter."
"Thanks, Tro," he yawned, disappearing back into the house. Deprived of drinkable tea and the excess adrenaline of a snake crisis, I knew he would welcome any available source of caffeine that would keep him upright. Despite what one might assume, Quatre Winner is definitely not a morning person.
Deciding that the magic of the morning could not hold in the face of what had happened in the kitchen, I went back inside. There was always tomorrow's sunrise. For now, day four of our ultra-rural vacation was upon us.
Duo was being told off in the kitchen by an angry Wufei and Heero. Wufei was holding a foamy toothbrush. Heero was in a towel.
"Dammit, Maxwell, I thought you were down here being attacked by a full platoon of enemy MS! I nearly choked on my own dental hygiene equipment!" Wufei waved the toothbrush threateningly at the cowering American. Heero, still dripping wet and clutching his gun in the hand that wasn't clutching the towel, nodded curtly. Yes, he was indeed also pissed.
"Sorry, guys," Duo whimpered, a sheepish, please-don't-hurt-me-for-I-know-not-what-I-do smile fixed in place. "I went to get the cereal out of the pantry and the thing came out from under the door. It went right over my foot!"
The others were not impressed.
"You guys know I can't handle snakes! C'mon, Quat, you saw it, back me up here!" he pleaded, looking to the blonde for support.
Quatre, slumped at the table with an enormous mug of coffee, glanced blearily in their general direction. Poor thing, he'd made the mistake of sitting down once he was awake. Now sleep threatened once again. "Murrr...?"
"Some help you are," Duo muttered.
I crossed the room and hoisted my best friend to his feet. Giving him a shake, I spoke simple words his fogged mind could process. "You. Wake up. No sleep. Dogs. Cows. Chickens. Must feed."
"Very funny," he growled, and snatched up the mug for a refill. "I'm trying to either sleep away the memory of dressing in drag or drown it in caffeine, and you have the nerve to joke!"
I shrugged. I supposed that the night before was just one of those times that being a professional performer came in handy. It wasn't my fault that I was better prepared for the situation than they were.
Looking to get out of Quatre's way, I meandered over to the table and took a seat beside Wufei, who was still trying to finish brushing his teeth while shooting the occasional glare at Duo. He had what was left of the morning paper clutched in one hand, ragged around the edges from the teeth of the dog that had carried it in.
"Beautiful Strangers Win Farm Fair Karaoke Contest!" announced the headlines. "Mysterious Teen Singers Claim Prize and Vanish Without a Trace!" Photographic evidence of the performance graced the front page. Wufie did not look amused. I wisely kept silent and let it go.
Reaching for a plate of toast I paused, watching a fuzzy green caterpillar inch across the table. How cute. In another few weeks it would be a beautiful butterfly. The wonders of nature never cease to amaze me.
Thwack!
I stared as Wufei lifted the rolled newspaper from the surface of the table.
He examined with distaste the small green smear on the paper, the toothbrush hanging out one side of his mouth, and then pitched the entire thing over his shoulder into the wastebasket. "Disgusting."
I sighed. My friends were rapidly losing patience with life in the country, and I was sorry to say that I could not blame them. They were conditioned for sidewalks, not corn stalks. Livestock, dirt, snakes and insects had no place in the lives of former mecha pilots.
It was only through my experiences with the sometimes wild life of the circus that I did not share their frame of mind. I now suppose that waking up with an escaped lemur in your trailer nibbling the hem of your costume pants can prepare one for anything.
Awhile later, when Quatre was sufficiently awake and the animals (including Duo) had been fed, Heero returned from upstairs. He was dry and dressed, with an old transistor radio under one arm. It appeared to have been repaired with duct tape and a rusty coat hanger.
"The barometer has dropped and the humidity is rising," he explained as he fiddled with the salvaged radio. "I want to find a meteorological station and make sure there is no severe weather approaching."
"It's more important to know whether there will be weather, than what the weather will be," Quatre muttered from the direction of the sink where he was attempting to deal with the morning's dirty dishes. I gave him an amused look. He had lately been occupying himself reading the children's books from his niece's room. It was probably good for him.
Heero snorted and flipped on the radio. Amid much antenna shuffling and static, we managed to pick up a weather station.
"...and now for today's forecast... highs near ninety... west winds, gusting fifteen to twenty miles per hour... possible patchy hail... chance of rain, eighty percent..."
Heero stood, the light of resolve in his eyes. "As I suspected. Perfect conditions for strong thunderstorms. We must prepare."
Duo yawned, heading for the stairs. "I'll prepare my bed. Rain makes me tired."
"You," Heero corrected, catching him by the braid, "will help me find candles, matches, and water bottles. Strong storms across open woods and fields are not to be so lightly dismissed. High winds can give rise to tornadoes in the blink of an eye. Which reminds me. Quatre, does this home have a fallout shelter?"
When they had gone, Duo leaving only under volatile protest, Wufei and I swapped glances.
"Is it just me," Wufei remarked, casually smashing an intruding mosquito, "or is Yuy just itching for an emergency?"
I nodded silently. It did seem as though Heero were grasping at straws. Oh, well. Maybe gearing up for a twister, no matter how slight the chances of one actually occurring might be, would serve to keep him preoccupied.
"Just let him have his fun," Quatre wisely advised, wringing out the dish towel. Satisfied, he hung it over the protruding faucet and reached to adjust the curtains around the large kitchen window. "As long as it makes him happy and doesn't endanger anything."
"I think it's endangering his sanity," Wufei muttered, but let it be.
Quatre appeared not to have heard, peering out the window at the yard beyond. I noticed that his eye had suddenly developed a twitch. "Aw, look... a dead owl... with a bullet hole... "
Wufie looked unimpressed. "I wonder where that came from."
O.O.O.O.O
By the time the owl had been properly laid to rest beside the unfortunate chicken Wufei had accidentally decapitated, Heero had succeeded in turning the kitchen into an emergency base. The radio had been given a semipermanent place of honor in the center of the table. A cardboard box containing candles, an oil lantern, and a small box of matches had been found and placed at hand, further filled with a flashlight, bottled water and a package of wheat crackers.
Duo had shoved a mound of blankets and pillows underneath the heavy wooden table and was curled up in them rereading a worn comic he had brought from home.
Heero was preparing to board up the kitchen windows.
Oh, yes, I thought, watching our Japanese partner carefully judging width and thickness. He's cracking. The lack of tension or danger is driving him irrational.
Quatre, in the interest of preventing nail holes in the walls of his sister's kitchen, immediately put a stop to the boarding up.
"Why don't you just leave the wood and nails right here by the window, and if the... uh, storm gets bad you can quickly put them up?" he suggested innocently, unobtrusively taking away Heero's hammer.
"Seeing as how there isn't a cloud in the sky," Duo remarked rather loudly from his nest under the table.
Heero shot the table a nasty look. "Make yourself useful and go get some blankets for someone other than yourself. We will have need of them should flying debris become a factor."
"Oh, what ever," Duo growled, crawling out and stomping up the stairs once more. "Where are they?"
"There are spare quilts in the closet of our guest room."
"You know, you're almost like a Boy scout. Just insane."
The tail of the braid disappeared into the upstairs hallway before Heero could find anything to throw at it, so he pretended not to take offence. "If there is anything more you can think of to add to the emergency supplies," he told the rest of us, "do not hesitate to do so."
After a minute of contemplation, Quatre threw in a package of jelly filled cookies and the tin of instant coffee. Wufei sighed, but went to the cabinet anyway and contributed the small clock that had been sitting on the counter. Heero placed it beside the radio.
I was pondering on what else was needed when a panicked scream echoed down the stairs.
"TROWA!"
Maxwell.
Without thinking I leapt to my feet and charged towards the source of the call, the other three pilots a mere second behind me. Heero was already prepping his gun as we raced up the narrow stairs and into the guest bedroom he shared with the braided boy.
Duo was backed up against the closet door, a fat grey and black-banded raccoon sniffing at his ankles. The mesh screen over the window sported a huge hole. A chewed pizza box and the remains of several crusts scattered over the floor attested to the cause of the break in.
Heero lowered his gun as Quatre finally broke the silence.
"Aw... it's cute."
"Trowa!" Duo yelped, trying to shift out of the coon's reach as it stretched up to put a paw on his knee. "Do something!"
"Like what?" I asked. It didn't look to be causing any trouble.
He looked at me like I was dense. "Like get it out of here before it tears my freakin' leg off!"
"Might I point out that it is not showing any signs of ferocity, and also that it wouldn't be climbing on you if you didn't smell like a food source. In fact, it wouldn't be in the house at all if some people would properly dispose of their garbage..."
However, I did oblige him. Very carefully I snuck in and took the raccoon by the scruff of the neck as it was climbing Duo's leg. Before it could so much as growl I had a second hand under its rear paws and was putting it back out the window onto a branch of the large oak tree that grew near the side of the house. (Don't try this at home, kids. Wild animals are dangerous and should only be handled by trained professionals. This concludes your public service announcement. Thank you.)
"There." I quickly removed the damaged screen and closed the window firmly. "Now go back to bed like a good little nocturnal mammal."
"Duo no baka!" Heero yelled, turning to thump his partner in the head with the butt of his handgun. "You never listen! Why don't you ever listen? I told you last night to throw those pizza scraps away!"
"You only said it would attract mice!" Duo wailed, quailing and covering his head from the blows. "You didn't say a crazy raccoon would bust in and try to hump my leg!"
"What use to the mission would you be if it bit you and your health was compromised? It could have given you distemper, or rabies, or... or... or anything! You could have contracted any number of incapacitating diseases!"
"You think I don't know that? Stop hitting me!"
"Throw away the box! Do it now!"
With a loud sigh of annoyance, Quatre threw up his hands in defeat and went back downstairs. "That's great. If anyone needs me, I'll be someplace quiet."
Wufei and I followed, leaving Heero to lecture and Duo to whine. The argument could still be heard from the kitchen. With an outright growl of annoyance Quatre pulled the phone across the cabinet and began to dial. I had a feeling that even his famed patience and understanding were wearing thin.
"...Hello, sis? Yeah, it's me again. Uh, listen, I just need to know where in town we could buy a screen. ...Yes, like a window screen. ...No, no, nothing's wrong... no... no, I do not sound stressed!"
Wufei went outside.
I went into the living room and took Thumper out of his laundry basket. He needed the exercise, and anyway the kitchen had just become a no-no place; a danger zone, if you will, until Quatre got off the phone and had a chance to breathe. For some reason he tends to get very defensive when anyone comments on his state of mental or emotional stability, or lack thereof.
O.O.O.O.O
"So we need a new screen, bread, milk that has already been pasteurized... and a new parakeet," Quatre sighed a few hours later as he looked over the shopping list. He was now much less annoyed, but feeling a bit down over the bird issue. I took it as an assumption that his sister still did not know that it had been eaten. "Maybe I'll get lucky and Katie won't notice the difference."
"We also need batteries," Heero called from the other room. "Size C. For the radio."
"And rabbit food," I put in, "while you're at the pet store."
"Alright." Quatre wrote the items down and tucked the list into his vest. "Duo, do you need anything?"
Duo had just come in from the barn. I was a bit startled to notice that he was wearing what looked a rubber fly-fishing suit. A fish net on a long pole was clutched determinedly in his grasp. In the other hand was a large burlap sack.
"No thanks, Q-man," he said, scanning the kitchen floor with a critical eye. He opened the pantry door and peered under the table and behind the cabinets. "I got everything I need right here... unless you happen to find some heavy-duty traps at the hardware place."
Quatre looked nonplused. "Uh... okay. Do you want to come along? You can even drive if you want to..."
Heero nearly choked on the ice cube in his mouth. He never let Duo behind the wheel of the Hummer, and attested that the day it happened Wufei would jump the fence and marry Treize Kushrenada.
"No, thanks." Duo clutched the handle of the net more tightly. "I'm gonna stick around with Trowa and see if I can't catch the rest of these damn snakes. One came out from behind the toilet earlier. Scared the piss outa me."
We all had to laugh. Bless Duo and his inherent ability to alleviate tension with a single sentence. So it was decided. While the others, deftly avoiding the bees, piled into the Hummer and went into town, Duo and I remained to guard the fort.
True to his word, Duo immediately went off to hunt for snakes. I went back to the living room for a nice long nap on the sofa, taking Thumper out of the basket again. He had proven himself the sweetest little rabbit; affectionate, always willing to be held or petted. He settled on my chest right away and folded into a little sleeping ball.
Resting my hand on his soft, warm back fur, I too drifted off. Little did I know just how much I would be in need of rest before the night was through….
O.O.O.O.O
"Trowa… psst, Trowa!"
My eyes fluttered open. Duo was inches from my face, poking very insistently at the side of my head with one finger. I noticed that Thumper had moved to the end of the sofa and was sitting on my leg, a half-severed shoelace hanging out of his mouth.
"…Duo, what is it?"
"Now don't panic," the braided one said in a low voice, "but it's underneath you. Just get up slowly and I'll take care of everything."
"What?" I shook my head and half sat up, pulling my shoestring out of reach of Thumper's fuzzy lips. "What are you talking about? Another snake?"
Duo nodded quickly. "Yeah. I almost had it, then the little snot went under the couch. Put the rabbit away and help me lift it up."
With a sigh I abandoned my nap and resigned myself to playing snake wrangler. Tucking Thumper safely into the basket and lifting it out of reach of the snakes, we set to work. I propped up the sofa. Duo dove under with a war cry, net in hand, and reappeared a moment later with his quarry. "Gotcha!"
I peered into the burlap bag as he opened it to deposit his catch. There were already five or six slithering serpents inside. Duo had been busy for the last… how long had I been asleep? Looking at the clock, I was shocked to find that I had been out for nearly two hours.
Outside the window, the trees and bushes were fluttering, tossing restlessly in the steadily increasing wind. Dark clouds were moving in, blocking out the sun and casting the landscape in a kind of grey twilight. It looked as though Heero might get his storm after.
"So that's one, two, three... how many more do you think are still loose, Trowa?" Duo frowned, gazing as steadily as he could into the bag. I could see that he was still not wild about the job, but eager to get it done and over with.
"Well," I began, "if there were ten, twelve, fifteen snakes to start with, and I caught one last night, and Quatre caught one this morning, and we count the one that was in the fish bowl..."
"And Heero got one out of the bird cage," Duo added, counting on his fingers. "And the six that I've got now. Okay, then, that makes... from one to six still left. Better get back to it, then."
He shouldered the sack and tucked the net under one arm, ready to resume capture.
Not sure what to do with myself, I went into the kitchen. It was almost four o'clock, and I hadn't had any lunch. As far as I knew, neither had Duo. Maybe I would make sandwiches and a salad, something light to last us until dinner.
I was washing lettuce at the sink, watching the horizon grow darker and darker with towering indigo thunder-heads, when the phone rang.
"Hello?"
"...Trowa?" the voice on the other end of the line yelled through massive amounts of static. "It's Quat!"
"Quatre? Where are you? Are you almost home, because if you are I'd be happy to start dinner or –"
"Trowa, listen! I'm on a payphone in the back of the hardware store. I can only talk for a second, I'm afraid the phone's going to go out. You guys have some seriously nasty weather headed your way. The power's out all over town."
"What?"
"Yeah, it's pouring. Thunder, lightning, wind, hail– the whole nine yards. We're going to lay low here until it slacks off a little and make a run for it. They have a TV down here, weather network says there's another big line of storms right behind this one, so we'll try to make it back before–"
And the line went dead.
This changed circumstances somewhat. Drying my hands, I sorted through Heero's stock of emergency gear and switched on the radio.
"...the National Weather Service has issued a tornado watch for each of the following counties until seven o'clock p.m. eastern standard time: Grant, Jefferson, Delaware, Franklin, Central, Ross, Jay, Rush, Clearwater..."
Well, that settled it. According to the phone directory lying on the counter, we were in Rush County. The sky outside was nearly black. The time for evasive action was at hand.
"Duo," I yelled, piling the salad ingredients back into the fridge. Our late lunch would have to wait. "Come in here for a minute."
An ominous rumble of thunder, low and loud enough to make the windowpanes quiver, accompanied him into the kitchen. "Hey, Trowa, I got another one! Check out the size of this one!"
"Sorry, Duo, change of plans. I need you to take those outside and let them go. We have to get the windows closed and the animals in the barn."
He blinked at me, closing the sack once more. "Why?"
I blinked right back at him. "Have you not noticed the fact that it is about to storm, and violently? That we are, in fact, under a tornado watch?"
With a puzzled expression he went to the kitchen window, pulling back the lace curtains and peering at the sky. A jagged fork of lightning and another boom of thunder met his gaze. "Well, all be darned. I guess it is."
He really hadn't noticed. Apparently his one-track mind, the need to be so intently focused on a goal that he ignored everything but the battle in front of him, had not changed since our Gundam days. That thought in mind, I said a small prayer of thanks that at least now I did not have to worry about the camouflage netting blowing off of the Heavyarms in the gale.
In a matter of minutes we were out in the yard, moving things into the barn. As Duo busied himself gathering up Frisbees, baseball mitts, and the like that were scattered across the lawn, I looked to the dogs.
"Patch!" I whistled to the collie mix. Ears perked, he came galloping up. "Round 'em up, fella."
Barking ecstatically, he raced toward the milling flock of chickens that had been scratching around under the trees in the yard and began to herd them toward the hen house. Duo paused to watch, a funny look on his face.
"You know... I'm just gonna pretend that dog already knew how to do that, okay?"
I just smiled.
The cattle were far out into the pasture. I wasn't worried about the bull or the cows that didn't currently have calves, but the nursing mothers and their little ones concerned me. Luckily, a dirt bike and an old ATV in the barn met our needs. While Duo bravely distracted the bull on the four-wheeler, I took the bike and carefully guided the others into the large pen adjacent to the barn. Hopefully the side of the building would help to shelter them somewhat.
"Wa-hahahaha!" Duo crowed, running circles around the furious bull on the four-wheeler. "Think you're so bad, doncha, stupid cow? Well let's see you catch me now! What I wouldn't give for some M-80's!"
I sighed. That boy really did have a death wish.
By the time the cows were secure and the first heavy drops of rain had begun to fall, Patch had finished with the chickens and begun trying to herd the barn cats. Trusting that the dogs knew where to go to get out of the rain, Duo and I left the barn door ajar and returned to the house. We were now as ready as we would ever be.
"Just watch," Duo said confidently as we began lowering windows all over the house. "We go to all this trouble and it'll be like in the city. It gets all cloudy and thundery and it won't rain but a drop or two."
"I'm not sure..." I began, even as the skies opened and it began to pour buckets.
Duo shrugged. "Or not."
The last windows to be closed were those in the guest room Heero and Duo shared. I stood at the windowsill after closing them, watching rain sluice down the glass, marveling at the spectacle. In the city, the buildings blocked most of the wind. Not so here, where the trees whipped and danced wildly, completely at its mercy. Here you really got the full effect of the storm.
"It's raining, it's pouring," Duo began in a sing-song tone. Then he paused. "Did you hear something?"
"I hear rain on the roof," I answered sensibly. "I hear wind and thunder. I hear you."
"No, no, not that. That noise."
"What noise?"
"It was like, somethin' scratching."
We both stood silently in the guest room, listening, straining our ears. Sure enough, in the next lull in the pounding rain, we heard the sound again. It definitely resembled scratching, and it was close.
With a nod to Duo, I moved out into the room and swiftly but silently began to hunt for the cause of the noise. He followed right behind. We checked under the beds, in the closet, behind the chest of drawers. Not a clue as to the origins of the scratching could be found.
"Listen just one more time," Duo frowned, moving back to the spot we had been standing when the sound first divulged itself.
Suddenly there was a pause. The rain slowed to a random smatter on the glass. The wind ceased its moaning. The thunder did not sound. It was enough. In the moment before the hail began, we heard the noise once more, loud and clear.
It was coming from above us.
Duo and I swapped curt nods and declared in unison: "Attic."
I was eerily reminded of a horror movie as we crept down the hall towards the attic. Thunder boomed continuously now. The wind howled like a thing possessed. Flash after vivid flash of lightning illuminated a sky and landscape so dark it was akin to that of night. The old wooden floorboards creaked and groaned beneath our feet.
I spared a moment to worry about Thumper, all alone in his basket downstairs.
Soon we had reached the end of the hall and were staring up at the entrance to the attic.
The attic door itself was one of the kind that folds up into the ceiling. When one wants to access the upper level, a thick cord is pulled and a ladder of sorts unfolds and descends to allow one to climb up. We stared silently at it.
"You go," Duo finally said. "I got your back."
"How about you go, and I'll cover you."
"You're the acrobat. You'll be able to get up easier."
"You're the stealth expert. You'll be able to get up quieter." Then I realized how foolish we sounded. Imagine, two highly trained professional terrorists arguing over who was to investigate some silly little noise in the attic of a farmhouse in the middle of absolute nowhere! I was glad Heero wasn't there to see this. "Alright, I'll go. Just hold the ladder steady."
"Roger."
Slowly and very quietly I unfolded the ladder. Duo, true to his word, held the bottom as I silently began to climb. One, two, three, four steps up... Very carefully I raised my head above the level of the attic floor.
The room was absolutely dark, the wan light from outdoors unable to fully penetrate the heavy fabric of the moth-eaten curtains. I stood still on the ladder, eyes nearly level with the dusty floorboards, willing my vision to adjust. Something did not feel right.
The air was stale, hot, heavy and oppressive as it had not been the day before when we were costume searching. There were shapes that were not shadows slowly moving, milling, breathing in the dark..
"There is something alive up here,"I muttered down to Duo in my lowest voice.
"What is it?" he whispered back impatiently. "Another damn raccoon?"
"I don't know," I replied softly. Somehow I didn't think so. I was getting a very bad feeling... Torn between looking for a light and slipping back down the ladder, I glanced back once more into the room.
A sudden flash of lightning lit the dim interior of the attic. For a split second I was almost blinded, then my world lit up and I saw what was sitting in front of me.
An enormous opossum, not five inches from my face, eyes slitted and teeth bared in an angry hiss.
"Oh." I said calmly. "Damn."
With a snarl the opossum lunged. Reflexes serving me well I sprang backwards off the ladder, nearly landing on Duo, and threw the entire apparatus back up into the ceiling. Grabbing Duo by the collar I retreated down the hall at a run, dragging the protesting American behind me.
"Trowa, what is it?"
"Just trust me– run first, explanation later!"
However, before we could gather our wits, or even so much as pause for breath, there was a crash. Behind us the ladder had once again come crashing down, this time under the weight of four or five large opossums.
"Close the doors!" I yelled, shoving Duo ahead of me. The poor boy looked confused and terrified at the same time. "Don't let them get into the bedrooms!"
And so we raced down the hall, slamming doors as we went, frantically attempting to stay one jump ahead of the jaws of a horde of crazed opossums that seemed to be growing larger by the moment. Stumbling down the stairs into the living room, I had just enough time to grab Thumper up out of his basket. He would be eaten if I left him.
Duo snatched up his snake net and we retreated into the kitchen, he scrambling onto the counter by the sink and I onto the table. The opossums were right behind, snapping and snarling at the base of our perches. I grabbed at a broom Quatre had left in the corner and managed to pull it to me, holding Thumper tightly to my chest. We could not reach the light switch or the fire-extinguisher.
We were, in short, trapped.
"Trowa!" Duo yelled hysterically from his cabinet across the kitchen, whacking a bold beast that dared to climb the knobs with his net. "What the hell is wrong with these things?"
"I don't know!" I yelled back, utilizing my broom in the office of self-defense. I tried frantically to remember: was this normal opossum behavior? I knew that the creatures were aggressive, would fight viciously if cornered, but actively pursuing humans with the intent to harm? I believed this to be a bit much, but found that I could not argue with the twenty or so foaming marsupials mere feet below me.
"Rabies!" Duo was screaming, flailing crazily with his net. "Rabies!"
I knew we were in trouble. The opossums were rising. They continued to pour into the kitchen. Now there looked to be nearly thirty of them. Where were they all coming from?
Thumper was scared and shivering in my arms, my companion was rapidly losing it in the face of this highly unusual and terrifying dilemma, and I didn't know what to do. The threat of rabies was very real and most definitely not something to be laughed at.
Staggering backward as a opossum jumped for the tabletop, I knocked Heero's radio to the floor. In the darkness, it began to play.
"...I see, a bad moon risin'... I see, trouble on the way... I see, earthquakes and lightnin'... I see, a bad time today..."
The opossum rebounded and fell off the edge of the table. Much as I hate to admit it, I was becoming desperate. Thumper's life and our limbs were at stake. I had only once choice.
If I could somehow leap over the opossums and gain the kitchen door, I might be able to draw them out the front and out of the house. Duo could then leave the cabinet, find a better weapon, and hit them from the rear. It was a long shot, but one I had to take.
"...Don't go 'round tonight, it's bound to take your life... There's a bad moon on the rise..."
The opossums were attacking the radio. It was now, while they were distracted, or never. I took a deep breath, shifted Thumper gently as I could in my grasp, tensed, poised to jump–
And Quatre flipped on the kitchen light.
"What the Hell is going on in here?"
As one, the thirty two odd opossums turned to the doorway and the blonde standing in it, eyes squinched against the light, and let out the most unearthly sound I have ever heard, somewhat of a blend of hiss, snarl, and scream.
Quatre let out a very interesting scream of his own as he dove for the cabinets and leapt up beside Duo. My brows shot up to meet my uni-bang. I hadn't realized that Quatre even knew that kind of foul language.
"Quatre? What's wrong?"
Wufei and Heero came charging into the house. The opossums turned their ire upon them. I'm almost certain they screamed. Duo screamed, as a stray opossum managed to catch hold of the cuff of his pants.
Then the power went out.
I don't remember much of what happened after that. It has become something of a blur in my mind, the kind of foggy memory that only resurfaces when you find yourself alone in bed in the middle of a cold, dark night, wishing that someone would come in and turn the closet light on for you so the images will just go away.
The one clear image I can bring to light is Heero pulling out his gun and unloading it into the seething, shrieking mass of opossums, the sparks of the discharge bright in the darkness, and Quatre screaming something much like, "You're blowing holes in the F-ing floor!"
Wufei was shouting, Duo was still screaming, and the din the opossums were making could only be compared to Hell's own chorus. I recall swinging the broom with all my strength. It was pretty much utter chaos. There was nothing I could do but join in.
O.O.O.O.O
At some point I must have gotten off the table, for when the battle-shock wore off I was in the living room numbly clutching the broom, watching Heero and Wufei cart out load after load of stunned marsupials in the spare laundry hamper.
There were flashing colored lights out on the front lawn. Sheriff Hughes was there.
"Do whatever you want with 'em," Duo growled to the animal control officers loading the opossums into their truck.
The power was back on. Quatre was on the phone in the kitchen, holding Thumper in his lap. There was blood on the tile, which I hoped was from a opossum, and the room smelled like some sort of chemical gas. There were two empty canisters by the fridge. Ah, Heero must have had the genius idea to test his homemade chemical warfare on the invading opossums. That boy will never cease to amaze me.
"Yes... yes, I know it's late, but this is an emergency... there are holes in the floor, man! Holes!" Quatre sounded at his wit's end. And we all know what happens when that occurs. "I don't care if you're closed! Make an exception, I'm begging you! ...What? ...Yes... yes, I guess first thing in the morning will have to do... yes... no, price is not an issue... yes... yes... that's fine... thank you very much."
He looked ready to cry.
Crossing the kitchen I put one arm around his shoulder and began to pet his hair with the other hand, something that always worked on upset lion cubs in the circus. "There, there... it's alright..."
"No it isn't, Trowa, no it isn't!" he cried, squeezing Thumper alarmingly. "This is absolutely the worst vacation ever! It should be a crime that things are this bad! Nothing could ever be worse than this!"
"Calm down," I soothed, removing the rabbit from his clutching grasp. "It's not that bad..."
I was startled when Duo grabbed me from behind.
"Trowa, wake up!" he yelled, grabbing me by the collar and shaking me hard. "Denial is not just a river in Egypt! This sucks worse than anything has ever sucked before! Those guys out there with pest control just advised that we all get vaccinated for rabies!"
"...Injustice..." was all Wufei could utter. His hair was coming out of its tight tail. He had scratch marks on his face. He looked totally dazed.
"If only I'd had my flamethrower," Heero mourned quietly. His favorite green tank top had a huge rip down the front.
I noticed that the top leather had been torn from my left shoe. "Yeah, I guess you're right. This does suck."
For a long moment, there was silence as we all contemplated the tempting option of turning tail and running home.
And it was in this darkest moment, when all hope had faded, that Heero Yuy, son of the Battlefield, took up his pilot creed once more.
"We are officially on the offensive," he growled, staring at each of us in turn. The gun was back in his hand. "This has become a genuine, bona fide, grade A, high risk, red alert, four alarm emergency situation, and we will treat it as such! We are going to press on, and we are not going to allow such a simple rabble of giant, ill-organized rats to force us to fall apart! Am I very clear?"
Quatre sniffled.
"Am I very clear, soldier?!" Heero yelled.
"Hey, you can't talk to him like that!" Duo yelled back, pounced, and suddenly the fight was on.
However, Heero and Duo rolling in the floor appears much more normal to us than opossums in the same position. It was almost like a tension breaker. I chuckled. Quatre managed a chuckle. Wufei actually smiled.
So all was not a total loss.
O.O.O.O.O
Catherine always says that there is a reason and a moral for everything. I cannot find one in this case. "Never holiday in the country," perhaps. But, still... Everything eventually managed to work itself out, and some hours later we felt secure enough to disperse and seek out our own beds. The storm was winding itself down outside, and inside as well.
Heero and Duo had shaken hands over hot chocolate and ice-packs on black eyes and were friends again. Quatre no longer hovered on the edge of a breakdown. Wufei's cut cheek had been disinfected. And the entire house now sported enough handmade opossum traps to kill every single marsupial in North America.
As I climbed the stairs carrying Thumper's basket and tucked myself into bed, a single thought managed to cross my mind before I dropped into slumber. Only one day left. Just one.
Oh. And, it could have been worse.
It could have been skunks.
O.O.O.O.O
To Be Concluded
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(2nd) Author's Note: First and foremost... no opossums were killed outright in the writing of this fic. Secondly... and I hate to say this... college sucks as far as the writing thing goes. It's so busy! I was only able to finish this chapter by staying up way late and haring off to the library on scanty breaks during the day to write a few paragraphs before my next class. Once I even accidently deleted almost an hour of work from my new flash drive. I cried.
However. I will not allow something so petty to interfere with my passion! Just keep reminding me of that when I'm down, okay? I'll love you forever. Anyways. I'm done complaining. I'm sure some of you out there deal with issues just like this all the time. So...
Next time, in our fifth and final chapter... what will the last day of vacation hold for our intrepid young heroes? Will they escape this excursion alive?! Find out in the exciting conclusion!