Vash and Wolfwood were locked in a furious tug-of-war over the canteen, each vying for the last few precious drops of water within. When Vash finally managed to wrest the prize from the other man's grip, he held it up in a triumphant pose (sending Milly into a fit of giggles).
Before Vash could bring the canteen to his lips, however, Wolfwood lunged forward and knocked him into the aisle. The narrow space was barely wide enough to fit one of them and when they fell together in a tangled heap of knees and elbows Meryl had to hurriedly back out of the way or risk joining the pileup.
"Vash, knock it off," hissed Meryl. She wanted to swat at him but hesitated when she realized it would be too difficult to be sure of which man she was hitting.
"He started it!"
"I did not!"
"It's mine!"
"Big Girl gave it to me!"
Meryl was about to give the order to stop again when a someone started swatting at her. Or at least, at her knees.
"Hey, keep it down!" snapped the driver, holding his baseball cap by its bill and whacking blindly at the wrestling pair behind him. "Quit it, or I'll kick all four of you off!"
To Meryl's surprise, Vash and Wolfwood hurriedly untangled themselves and leapt to their feet, standing almost at attention at her elbow.
"Sorry!" they said, in unison, and for a moment there was finally silence.
Then Wolfwood elbowed Vash in the sternum and seized the canteen, draining its last as Vash abruptly doubled over and wheezed for breath.
Alarmed at the pained whine that was hissing out between Vash's teeth, Meryl ducked down to see his face, afraid that Wolfwood might have struck his injury, again. He looked pained, eyes clenched shut and mouth twisted into a grimace, and Meryl touched his shoulder worriedly.
One eye popped open and caught her gaze.
"Gotcha," Vash whispered, grinning.
Meryl suppressed the initial urge to punch him in the side herself and straightened, annoyed. Wolfwood had fallen back into his seat with a contented sigh, and now he tossed the empty canteen back to Vash (who turned it upside down and shook it, glumly).
"So, tell me," said Wolfwood, amiably. "Are you three all good Christian folk?"
Only Milly nodded.
"Mama always took us to church on Sundays," she told him, proudly. "But I've been sort of... busy, lately..." She looked guiltily at Meryl, as though hoping her partner would corroborate the story.
"That's okay, honey," Wolfwood assured her. "Faith isn't restricted to pews and pulpits. You keep prayin' and He'll hear you, even if you're not in His house to do it."
Milly looked relieved. "Yes, Mr. Priest, I will!"
"How about you?" Wolfwood asked, gesturing to Meryl.
"No," said Meryl. It came out flat, more so than she had intended, but she still wasn't sure she was buying into the man's supposed priestliness (preacherhood?) in the first place.
Vash turned to look at her, surprised. "Really?"
"What of it?" asked Meryl, frowning.
"Nothing," Vash said, shrugging. "It's just... you take the Lord's name in vain an awful lot for a non-believer." He flashed her a brilliant Idiot grin and Wolfwood gave an unexpected bark of laughter. Meryl glared at them both, but Wolfwood just waved off her scowl.
"And you?" he asked Vash, finally.
Vash just shrugged again, and Wolfwood threw up his hands in defeat.
"Ah, well, to each their own," sighed the preacher. "At least I still have one little lamb left to shepherd, eh, honey?" He winked at Milly (again) and she went pink (again).
Meryl tried very hard not to roll her eyes or grit her teeth or sigh resignedly, and she hoped she had managed to not-do at least one of those things. But much more of this honey business and Milly would be stuck in a constant state of perma-blush.
Now Milly was looking anywhere but at Wolfwood, and when she finally got around to looking at Meryl again, her eyes went wide in surprise.
"Oh, Ma'am, I nearly forgot!" said Milly, hurriedly retrieving the rubbing alcohol and a small amount of gauze from her medical bag. She seized Meryl by the chin again and this time Meryl didn't fight it, letting the younger woman scrub away at her cheek until she was satisfied that no floor-gunk remained. "There," said Milly, beaming. "All better!"
"Thanks Milly," Meryl told her, grateful to have her skin cleaned again, albeit nearly rubbed raw from the effort required to do so.
At the sound of a match striking, Meryl turned back to Wolfwood to find the preacher lighting that same battered cigarette that had hung from his lips when they found him out in the desert. Furious, Meryl reached out to pull it from his lips and his eyes went wide.
"Hey!" barked Wolfwood. "What the hell?"
Meryl hurried to find a way to extinguish the cigarette before too much smoke could permeate the already unpleasant atmosphere inside the shuttle. The driver's window was open a crack; just enough to fit it when Meryl moved forward to lean over the man's shoulder and throw the cigarette out onto the sand.
The furious scowl Wolfwood turned on her now was the first believable expression Meryl had seen from him.
"That was my last one!"
"You can't smoke that in here!" hissed Meryl. "There's barely enough fresh air to breathe as it is, you want to fill everyone's lungs with that shit?"
Wolfwood looked ready to reach out and throttle her, but Milly put a hand on his shoulder and he turned, surprised. His anger vanished in an instant as he saw the gentle concern in the younger woman's expression.
"There are children here," Milly told him, quietly. Wolfwood stared at her for a moment, evidently stunned, before his face split into a sheepish grin.
"Right!" he said, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand as he gave a bark of laughter. "I'm sorry, honey, I don't know what I was thinking!"
Milly was more pink than ever, but Meryl was still stuck on the rapid changes in the man's demeanor. From goofy to anger in an instant, then back to buffoonery just as quickly. It was all too horribly familiar; she had enough of a headache dealing with Vash and his Idiot and man-in-red personas (not to mention that dangerous other). The last thing she needed was this lousy preacher and his own other in the mix...
She didn't like it.
"So anyway, what were we talking about?" asked Wolfwood, clearly trying to move quickly past the sudden outburst that had revealed such a short temper.
"Still just wondering how you ended up out here," Vash reminded him. He sounded casually curious, but Meryl could hear just a hint of man in red in his tone and she frowned at him.
"Yeah, I guess I got pretty lucky you folks stopped by!" Wolfwood laughed.
"Very lucky," Meryl agreed, still frowning as she turned her attention back to the other man. "You weren't exactly on our way."
"Mr. Vash spotted you," Milly explained. "He convinced the driver to take a detour to find you."
"Then it seems I owe you a great debt," said Wolfwood, addressing Vash with an oddly solemn tone, which immediately vanished as he grinned and added, "I'll put in an extra good word for you upstairs!"
Milly laughed, but Vash was undeterred.
"Well sure, but we still don't know how you got all the way out here to begin with!" This further prompting came with a laugh, but Meryl saw nothing genuine in the grin that accompanied the sound.
"Okay, okay already!" Wolfwood laughed, with his own Idiot grin still in place. If he was put off by Vash's continued line of questioning, he didn't show it. "I'm on a pilgrimage, of sorts."
"Where to?" asked Milly, interestedly, before Meryl had the chance to ask, Where from? Which was, she was pretty sure, what Vash wanted to know.
"Oh, here and there," Wolfwood said airily, waving one hand carelessly. "All over, really. Anywhere I can make a double-dollar or two."
"Aren't churches traditionally non-profit affairs?" asked Meryl, now doubting the man's claimed profession more than ever. Wolfwood just turned a wry look on her.
"Prayer alone won't keep the lights on, Stryfe," he pointed out. "Or fill empty bellies."
Meryl shared Milly's puzzled glance, but she couldn't quite decipher the look on Vash's face. Wolfwood seemed to take the silence as encouragement enough to continue.
"My church back in December doubles as an orphanage," he explained. "We don't have much of a congregation to give alms, and folks in the city don't seem to be too charitable these days. So I took to the road and I send back whatever I can."
Milly's eyes had glazed over, but Meryl knew it wasn't for any lack of interest in the conversation; the younger woman was already doing the mental arithmetic necessary to calculate just how much of their paycheck they could afford to send home with him.
Meryl sighed, but she wasn't going to dissuade her.
"Hey, where is this shuttle headed, anyway?" asked Wolfwood, glancing around.
"May City," supplied Vash, cheerfully. That slight edge was gone from his voice and Meryl assumed he was done grilling the preacher, at least for now.
"I suppose that'll do," Wolfwood said, shrugging. "Let's hope I have a little better luck there!"
The shuttle slowed abruptly and Meryl, still standing in the aisle, nearly went flying. Vash put a firm hand on her waist to keep her steady, and while everyone else on the shuttle was looking towards the driver in confusion, Meryl saw Wolfwood's eyes drawn to the gloved fingers still resting at her side.
Meryl frowned and quickly pushed Vash's hand away, turning to look out the windshield as the driver eventually brought the shuttle to a halt. She didn't see anything worth stopping for, but the driver stood (Meryl ducked down so the smaller man could be seen over her head) and called out, "Let's take a breather. Stretch your legs, get some water. Whatever."
The driver sat again rather than exiting the shuttle, but everyone else seemed to stand at once. Meryl was ushered quickly out the door as all the passengers behind her surged forward, eager for a chance to escape the stuffiness of the shuttle interior. A young man shoved past Meryl as soon as her toes cleared the last step and he ran off as far as he could manage before stopping to relieve himself in the sand.
Meryl made a face and turned away; he hadn't made it quite far enough for her liking...
The rest of the passengers were filing out at a more reasonable speed now, each one squinting in the suns as they emerged from the vehicle and descended the shuttle steps. Meryl watched with mild interest (that was a lot of people to squeeze into a vehicle that size) but something was bothering her.
The group was composed almost entirely of men, save her and Milly and the old ladies, but that wasn't so odd...
Until she realized they were all armed.
Every man there had a gun strapped to his hip, and as people began shedding layers in the sun, shoulder holsters were revealed on at least half of them.
What the hell?
Meryl waited near the door for Milly to exit the shuttle, in a hurry to share this troubling observation, but when the younger woman appeared she seemed to be worried about something already. Meryl opened her mouth to speak, but Milly handed off their empty canteen.
"Here, Ma'am. I think the driver needs some help, will you fill this for me?"
"Of course," said Meryl, automatically. She briefly forgot her earlier concern, wondering what the driver might need help with. "Is there something—"
"This one too!"
Vash had followed Milly off the shuttle and now he shoved his canteen into Meryl's chest. Unprepared for the force of it (the shove rocked her back onto her heels), Meryl fumbled at the canteen as it fell. The cap was still unscrewed and she barely caught it in time to keep its open mouth from the sand.
"Your fault it's empty, you fill it," ordered Vash, sternly.
"My fault?" demanded Meryl, but Vash was gone before she could shove it back at him, bounding away and out of reach with an Idiot grin plastered all over his face.
Wolfwood was the last to exit the shuttle, holding his jacket thrown over one shoulder as he waited patiently for the two old women he had earlier displaced to slowly lower their slippered feet onto the sand. He watched Vash disappear around the front of the shuttle and glanced briefly at Meryl with his eyebrows raised, as if to ask, Is he always like this?
She scowled back at him, Yes.
It wasn't quite true, but Wolfwood didn't need to know that. The longer he believed Vash an Idiot, the better.
Wolfwood just grinned and winked at Meryl as he pulled his jacket on again and followed Vash around the shuttle and out of sight.
Left with no allies to warn about the walking armory they'd stumbled into, Meryl just sighed, resignation warring with annoyance. At least no one seemed interested in starting anything out here in the middle of nowhere; everyone appeared to be more concerned with jockeying for position in the long line forming at the back of the shuttle, and Meryl fell in with the rest of the crowd.
For practical reasons, the water tank could only be stored on the roof of the vehicle, but under the suns' constant onslaught the contents almost boiled. Water was water, but Meryl would give her left arm for something cold.
At least some of the line for the water spigot was in the shade... Though Meryl was one of the last to join the queue, and she was going to be standing in the sun for quite awhile.
As luck would have it, she ended up standing behind a tall man whose broad shoulders did offer some small measure of protection from the suns. Meryl shifted a few iches to the side and moved as near to him as she dared, trying to take better advantage of the shadow he cast (without coming across as overly creepy, should he turn around to find her there).
From this strange, too-near vantage point, Meryl could see straight down into the man's boot where a small pistol was hidden, companion to the larger revolver on his belt. She sighed resignedly again (very quietly, so as not to be discovered).
With nothing to do now but wait, Meryl scanned the crowd for Vash. Most of the shuttle passengers were in the water line with her and the rest were milling around alone or in pairs, most likely waiting for someone to return with a full canteen to share.
Meryl spotted Vash sitting in the sand in the shadow of the shuttle, leaning back against the front tire. Wolfwood sat next to him and though Meryl could see Vash's lips moving, both men were too far away for her to make out any of their conversation. Occasionally she would hear a familiar booming laugh that accompanied a broad grin, and Meryl was certain that Vash was still playing the part of the Idiot.
She couldn't see Wolfwood's face, but he didn't seem to be laughing along anymore and Meryl wondered what part he was playing now...
The line moved slowly and Meryl shuffled forward automatically (still trying to hide in the shadow of the man in front of her), but she was more focused on watching Vash speaking animatedly with Wolfwood, until her attention was drawn abruptly elsewhere.
"Mama, I'm hungry."
The complaint was loud enough to bring pause to more than a few conversations, and nearly everyone within earshot turned to find its source.
A young girl—maybe five years old?—was clutching at her stomach and moaning. Meryl recognized the girl and her mother, and another, older daughter from the evening before; she had somehow missed them in her earlier headcount of female passengers.
Now the younger of the two girls was whining again, "I'm hungry."
"Can't we have something to eat?" asked the elder, hesitantly. "I'm hungry, too..."
"Come on now, just wait a little longer," said the woman. She bent down and hugged the girls close to her body, her arms around their shoulders. Her long hair fell forward to hide her face as she asked, "Be patient for Mommy, okay?"
The woman was obviously embarrassed and desperately trying to hush her daughters.
She was also terribly thin, clearly giving up whatever food she did have for her children.
"We'll have a great big meal as soon as we get there, I promise!" said the woman, and her voice was pleading for calm with every word.
"But I'm hungry now," moaned the younger girl, tugging at her mother's skirts with both hands.
Meryl looked away, trying to pretend she could give the woman some privacy and not be an audience to her daughters making a scene. Others in the line for water were doing the same, turning to face the shuttle or looking determinedly at their shoes.
"You guys are hungry, too, huh?"
Meryl glanced up again at the sound of Wolfwood's voice. He had approached the mother and daughters, and now he sat down on his haunches in front of the girls. They looked appropriately skittish, as far as Meryl was concerned, to have a stranger—and a veritable giant—suddenly appear in their midst, but Meryl could see Wolfwood was grinning like a loon and the girls seemed to warm to him soon enough.
She couldn't hear the rest of the conversation (Wolfwood was evidently in secret discussion with the girls), but Meryl watched him carefully allocate three small ration bars between himself and the two sisters. They took the food, delighted, and the mother thanked Wolfwood for his generosity.
"My pleasure, Ma'am," he said, standing. He bowed to her, explaining, "I am but a humble servant of the Lord." Wolfwood reached out for a handshake, and even from this distance Meryl could see him palm the third ration bar and pass it across to the woman. She stared at their clasped hands for a moment, stunned, before her fingers closed over the bar as she drew back again. Wolfwood gave her the slightest of nods, and she returned it before ushering her daughters off again.
"Come on, you two," she said, her voice much lighter now as she smiled down at the girls. They all disappeared around the front of the shuttle. "Wasn't that wonderful?"
Meryl was nearing the front of the line, coming close enough to hear snippets of conversation from most other groups, and from where she stood now she could hear Wolfwood's contented sigh as he spun on his heel, wearing what might have been the first real smile Meryl had seen from him. He took a few steps toward the shade where he had previously been sitting with Vash but he stopped short, looking surprised.
"Well hell, son, you can smile like that," said Wolfwood, suddenly grinning.
Meryl glanced to Vash's face in time to see one of his genuine smiles, and she thought maybe he had just seen the same new sincerity in Wolfwood that she had. But then that beautiful smile was gone as Vash frowned, confused.
"Like what?" he asked. Wolfwood came to sit next to him in the sand, and Meryl lost a clear line of sight on Vash. She shifted slightly to her left and leaned out a few more iches, still careful to keep one foot in the line of passengers waiting for water, until she could see Vash's face again.
"Like you mean it," Wolfwood told him.
Meryl was certain her own face would mirror the surprise she saw in Vash's.
"You're always smiling this big, goofy grin, but it's so empty it's awful to look at," Wolfwood went on, frowning. "Like you're hurting like crazy, and trying to hide it."
Vash still looked stunned, but Meryl knew exactly what Wolfwood meant, and what he had seen. She had seen it a hundred times since the first, when the Idiot just suddenly wasn't, and something real was left in his place.
And she had seen the hurt, too; she had seen the grief and guilt when they sat together and mourned the dead, but it took a steamer crash for her to really understand how deeply that hurt ran in him.
And Wolfwood had seen it in a matter of hours.
A frown tightened around her mouth and eyes and it took Meryl some time to realize that the sudden low thrum of tension in her gut wasn't the familiar tug of anger.
It was jealousy.
"Oi! Fill up, or get out of the way, girl!"
Meryl jumped, realizing she had finally reached the front of the water line while semi-eavesdropping and spying on Vash and Wolfwood, both of whom had turned at the outburst from the old woman in line behind her (and a secondary outburst from the old woman behind her: "Enid, shush!").
Fumbling with the cap of one canteen, Meryl ducked quickly out of sight again, but between Wolfwood's smirk and Vash's pointedly-raised eyebrows just before she lost eye contact, Meryl was pretty sure they knew exactly what she had been doing.
After managing to fill both canteens (Vash's didn't have a carry-strap and Meryl made the mistake of filling it first, having to then hold it awkwardly under one arm as she filled the other), Meryl circled the shuttle in the opposite direction, too embarrassed to face either man, now. Eventually she would have to return the canteen, but it could wait until she was less flustered, at least.
"Oh, Ma'am, there you are, good!"
Meryl saw Milly hurrying down the shuttle steps and she could see a small hint of anxiety on the other woman's face.
"What's wrong?" asked Meryl.
"Well..." Milly hesitated. "You better come look, Ma'am."
Milly led Meryl up into the shuttle, where the driver had unfolded a battered old map across his lap, its lettered print faded almost to nothing. He looked up at Meryl's arrival and scowled.
"I'm not lost," he snapped.
"Oh boy," muttered Meryl.
"We're just not quite sure where we are," Milly explained, as though this was any different from lost.
"Hey, look," said the driver, defensively. "It was your boyfriend who took us so far off route in the first place, you want to blame somebody, blame him!"
"My what?" demanded Meryl, just as shrilly as any of the inverse, His WHAT? she had shrieked in the past.
"I think we're somewhere around here," Milly said quickly, before Meryl could properly dispute the driver's accusation. The younger woman pointed at an area of the map that was heavily shaded over with a thick pen. "Somewhere along that edge, anyway. What does this marking mean?" Milly asked the driver.
"Just to stay out," said the driver, shaking his head. "It's an old map, I don't know if anyone really knows why anymore. I haven't driven this route much... But normally we wouldn't be anywhere near that place!"
This last was directed at Meryl with another furious scowl, which she returned in equal measure.
From behind Milly's broad shoulders, there came a quiet, "Excuse me," but if anything followed, it was drowned out by a rapid hammering on a nearby window.
"Hey! Hey!"
Meryl turned, watching one glass window pane rattling in its frame under the assault. She moved toward it, spotting one of the old women—Edith?—scowling up at them from below.
"Enid, shush," said the other woman, coming aboard the shuttle and into view as Milly moved out of her way. Now she addressed Milly and Meryl tiredly, "Sorry dears, but it's awfully hot out here. Could we have our fans back?"
"Oh! Of course, Ma'am," said Milly, automatically searching her pockets.
"They have them," Meryl reminded her, hooking a thumb over her shoulder, no direction in particular. Milly still seemed to know what she meant, and nodded.
Meryl began to peer out the unopened windows, looking for Vash and Wolfwood, but they were sitting too close to the shuttle for her to see them from inside. She pulled down the window just behind the driver's seat and poked her head out, pleased to find Vash sitting directly below her.
"Hey, Vash," Meryl called. He glanced up, as did Wolfwood, and Meryl addressed the preacher, too. "I need those fans back."
"What?" asked Vash, puzzled.
"The hand fans," explained Meryl, miming the action.
Wolfwood nodded and pulled one of the lacy fans from his pocket, handing it up to Meryl, but Vash just shrugged. "I dropped it."
"What? Where!" demanded Meryl. She had climbed partway through the window just so she could reach down for the fan Wolfwood offered and now she teetered half in and half out, balanced with the sharp edge of the windowsill digging into her stomach.
"Relax, it's on the shuttle somewhere," Vash assured her. Then, frowning: "Probably."
"Thanks a lot, Vash, very helpful," sighed Meryl. She retreated into the shuttle but Vash called out as soon as she had pulled her head and shoulders back through the window.
"Hey wait! Where's my canteen?"
Annoyed, Meryl retrieved the canteen and leaned out through the window again, holding it out to him.
"Here, take your stupid—oh, crap." She had over-filled Vash's canteen while she was fumbling with the spigot earlier and now whatever water was left in the threads of the screw-cap leaked out, spilling across the metal surface and making it slippery under Meryl's fingers. It fell from her hand and directly into Vash's face.
"Ow!"
"I'm so sorry!" gasped Meryl.
Wolfwood burst out laughing as Vash leapt to his feet, staggering away with his hands over his face.
"That was an accident, I swear," Meryl said, quickly.
Vash glared up at her with one watering eye, his hand still covering the other where the canteen had struck him. "You did that on purpose!" he accused.
"I did not!" Meryl snapped, any real remorse gone in the face of unfair allegations. "You should really get a strap for it," she added.
"Ow," Vash said again, apparently ignoring her advice. "That was really heavy."
"Yeah, it's heavy because it's full," she told him, tartly. "You're welcome."
Wolfwood was still trying to smother a grin when Meryl turned back to the shuttle interior. She dropped to her hands and knees and ducked down to peer under the seats, hoping to spot the lost hand fan before running into any more floor-gunk under her palms.
She combed the whole area where Vash and Wolfwood had been wrestling earlier but couldn't find it; she was ready to give it up as a lost cause (she was pretty sure the knees of her leggings were stuck to something) when there was a blood-curdling scream from somewhere outside the shuttle.
In her hurry to stand and investigate the sound, Meryl immediately struck her head on the seat frame above her. She swore profusely as she crawled backward into the aisle again and sat up on her heels, gingerly rubbing the back of her head.
"Ma'am?"
"I'm coming!" called Meryl, standing again to run for the front of the shuttle. A few steps later she lost her balance as one foot refused to find traction and she gave a yelp, relieved to catch herself on the nearest seat back instead of face-planting in the aisle (again). Glancing down, she scowled at the half-open hand fan under her toes.
Meryl snatched up the fan and righted herself, racing for the door. She scrambled down the shuttle steps and hurriedly pushed a hand fan into each old woman's grasp ("Hey! This isn't mine!" "Enid, shush, I have yours.").
Meryl spotted a man in the distance, waving his arms frantically in the air about fifty yarz away. She and Milly raced toward him, and, unsurprisingly, Vash caught up to them in a matter of moments. Though Meryl was startled to see Wolfwood hot on his heels.
"Hey, over here!" the man shouted. "Help, please! My friend's been shot!"
Meryl's gut twisted up at the words. She had known it would happen eventually; you can't have that many guns in one place without some idiot getting an itchy trigger finger. She knew something would go wrong, she just knew it, and now everything was sure to go all to hell.
Except...
"I didn't hear gunfire," Meryl gasped, breathing hard at a full sprint just to keep up with the rest.
"Nor I," said Wolfwood, annoyingly not out of breath.
The other man ran to meet them halfway and Meryl realized he was barely out of his teens, looking pale and panicked. He led them into a shallow valley between dunes where another passenger lay collapsed on the sand; Meryl recognized him as the broad-shouldered man she stood behind in the water line. He was on his back, so Meryl reasoned he must have seen his attacker coming, but his revolver was still in its holster and the wound in his shoulder sure as hell didn't look like a gunshot.
The left side of his shirt was completely burned away, exposing the blackened flesh beneath, and Milly knelt next to him immediately, checking for a pulse.
"Oh god," said the younger man, looking down at his friend and wringing his hands. "Is he okay?"
"What happened?" asked Wolfwood.
"I don't know!" said the man, his voice squeaking in his panic. "He wandered off to take a piss, and when he didn't come back I went looking for him! I found him like this, I didn't know what to do..."
"He's alive," Milly said. "Just unconscious. And this wound isn't life-threatening, but... I'm not really sure what it is." She grimaced as she carefully pulled back the charred bits of fabric around his shoulder. "Something pierced the skin here, but not a bullet. Whatever it was cauterized the wound as it went, and severely burned the surrounding area as well."
"Who do you think did it?" asked the younger man, glancing around anxiously.
"There's no one around but other passengers," said Milly, giving Meryl a worried glance.
"No one here could have done this," said Vash, speaking for the first time since they had arrived on the scene. Something cold and electric jolted down Meryl's spine at the sound of his voice; it was still the calm, low tone of the man in red but there was something more far more ominous to it than usual and she looked up to see him frowning severely.
"You know what this is?" asked Meryl, quietly enough that only Vash would hear it.
He glanced down at her and his eyes flashed something sharp and grave enough to match his voice. Meryl's insides froze but his gaze softened, fractionally, before it could cut her.
"What the hell is that?" demanded Wolfwood, forestalling any answer Vash might have given her.
Meryl looked away, turning to where Wolfwood was pointing now, at the top of a high dune another thirty yarz away. Some kind of creature had appeared there, the size of a Thomas but crouched low to the ground, and before Meryl could get a good look at it Vash's revolver had gone off next to her ear.
The creature toppled sideways and Meryl thought maybe Vash had killed it, until it righted itself again and began to charge down the slope toward them at a breakneck pace, traveling rapidly over the sand with a strange hissing noise.
"What the hell?" muttered Meryl, taking an automatic step backward in retreat. Milly appeared at her side with the massive stun-gun in hand and fired two of its bolts. The claws snapped open and slammed into the creature, sending it flying back and out of sight.
There was a brief moment of silence, broken by Wolfwood's impressed, "Damn, honey. Nice shot!"
Milly looked back over her shoulder with a pleased smile, pink all over, just as a dozen more of the creatures appeared over the dunes.
"Get back on the shuttle," ordered Meryl. "Everyone back on the shuttle, now!" Only a handful of people had followed them out this far to satisfy their own curiosity and all of them seemed to have high-tailed it at the appearance of the first creature.
The younger man now hesitated, uncertain. "But—Danny!"
"I've got him," said Wolfwood, already hoisting the injured man over his shoulder as his friend dithered for another few useless seconds. "Go," barked Wolfwood. "Hurry!"
Meryl pushed the young man ahead of her and heard more shouting as they approached the shuttle. She watched the passengers still outside begin to stand and board the shuttle in a hurry, urged on by those who had returned. The two old ladies just stood watching the commotion, bemused, making no move to follow.
"What's going on?" demanded the crankier of the pair (Edie?). "Oi, you lot, what's—"
"Time to go, grandma!" interrupted Vash. He seized both women as he ran past, carrying one under each arm as he raced to the door and up the steps.
Meryl climbed up behind him and Vash deposited his charges in the front seat ("I'M GOING TO SKIN THAT LITTLE PUNK—" "Enid, not now!") before pushing Meryl out of the way to help Wolfwood carry the injured man into the shuttle. Milly brought up the rear, firing the last two stun-gun bolts at the oncoming herd of creatures before climbing aboard after Wolfwood.
Vash's shove had sent Meryl into the driver's lap and the small man was squirming under her, trying to push her off, shouting, "What's happening? What the hell's going on?"
"Drive, now!" barked Wolfwood.
"No, wait," said Meryl, scrambling out of the driver's lap and squeezing past Milly to jump onto the sand outside to look for any remaining passengers. "Is that everyone? Is everyone on?"
Meryl heard the engine roar to life behind her and turned on her heel in time to see the shuttle lurch into motion.
"What the hell are you doing?" she demanded, jogging alongside as it slowly gained speed. "Stop!"
The driver glanced at her once, shaking his head as he tightened his grip on the steering wheel.
"On or off, lady! I'm not sticking around here to end up like that guy!" He hooked a thumb over his shoulder toward the injured man Vash and Wolfwood had carried aboard.
"Wait! There could still be passengers out here!" Meryl had one hand on the open door frame, trying to keep up with the increasing pace as she scanned the immediate area. Aside from the oncoming mass of the creatures—there were dozens now!—Meryl saw nothing, and reluctantly she swung both feet back onto the shuttle's lowest step before it could drive off without her. She fervently hoped everyone was aboard; by the time they tried to do an accurate headcount, it would be far too late for anyone left behind.
"Wait, please!"
Meryl barely heard the shrill plea, but it jolted a quiet cry of alarm from her lips and her stomach gave an awful lurch. She leapt from the shuttle again, hitting the sand running as she looked frantically for the source of the panicked shriek.
She still ran alongside but she slowed enough to let the shuttle barely pass her, revealing the harried woman with her daughters in tow, dragging the younger girl forward by the hand. The second girl was keeping pace with her mother, and all three seemed to be in tears, running desperately toward Meryl and the departing shuttle.
"Please," gasped the mother. "Please help us!"
Meryl reached up to slam one fist repeatedly on the hot metal siding of the rear of the shuttle, shouting at someone, anyone, for them to stop. She could see the worried faces of other passengers looking out at her, occasionally turning away to say some something, to someone. She wondered if they were telling the driver to slow down.
She wondered if they were telling him to drive faster.
The wide back window of the shuttle suddenly shattered outwards in a hail of gunfire. The girls screamed and the younger tripped and fell, sobbing.
"Helen!" shrieked the mother, halting abruptly.
"Don't stop!" Meryl ordered, dropping back to lift the girl into her arms. "Run!" Relief washed over her to see Vash through the shattered window, using the butt of his gun to break the remaining shards of glass around the frame.
"Come on, hurry!" urged Vash, leaning out of the window at the waist, both arms outstretched. "Hand up the girls!"
The mother reached him first and helped boost her elder daughter up into his arms. Vash quickly bundled the girl through the window, reaching out again as Meryl put on a burst of speed to come within range and offer up the younger girl into his hands.
"You're next," Vash told the other woman, once her daughters were stowed safely aboard the shuttle behind him.
Meryl could see the woman was flagging, exhausted, and unable to keep up with the shuttle's increasing pace. Even if they could close the distance it wasn't as though she could actually lift the woman, at least to any helpful degree; Meryl grimaced as only one other solution came to mind.
She bent to put her hands under the other woman's backside and shoved. The woman gave a startled scream as she lost her footing, but Meryl had propelled her far enough forward that Vash could lean out and catch her wrist. He dragged her up, hand over hand, until he could get his arm around her back and haul her bodily through the window.
A pair of tanned young men suddenly appeared at the window in Vash's absence, guns in hand, whooping enthusiastically and firing at random, as far as Meryl could tell. She assumed—hoped—they were aiming for the pursuing creatures, but from the look of things she was glad Vash had managed to pull the mother and girls inside first; now she herself was the only potential target for friendly fire.
Meryl gave a yelp when a few shots did come alarmingly close as one man's hand was jostled by another, a third man trying to squeeze out the window and join in the excitement. She had to dance awkwardly to one side as a spray of bullets pelted the sand near her feet and it slowed her pace enough that she would be hard-pressed to make up the lost ground.
"Stop, dammit!"
Meryl could hear Vash bark the order from somewhere further inside the shuttle and she watched the men in the window disappear again, yanked forcefully backward with identical bewildered looks on their faces. Vash was there an instant later but the shuttle was starting to pick up speed and Meryl was falling behind.
He hurriedly climbed out through the window (not an easy feat, for someone his size) and stood on the rear bumper, holding onto the frame with one hand and turning to stretch out toward her with the other, adding the absurd length of his arm span to his reach.
Now Vash was so close that Meryl's fingertips could touch his, just barely, but she could hear the strange hissing sound of the creatures' movement growing louder behind her and she chanced a quick glance over one shoulder.
Those morons at the back of the shuttle had actually managed to bring down some number of the oncoming horde, but a handful of creatures remained well ahead of the rest and they were closing on her much more quickly than she would have liked...
And they weren't just going to overtake her, she realized. They were moving fast enough to catch up to the shuttle.
Vash realized it too; Meryl could see it on his face. His eyes went wide and when he caught her gaze again and held it, her heart sank to see his earlier determination turn to an expression of such tortured indecision.
For an agonizingly long moment he still reached out for her, and Meryl was struck with the sudden terrible awareness that if Vash caught her hand now, he would never let go. And then they'd all be in trouble.
When he finally gritted his teeth and drew the revolver instead, Meryl was almost relieved. Five rapid shots flew overhead and she knew the shuttle was sure to get away safely.
Meryl's sides ached and she was wheezing for breath and it was a blessing to slow from her panicked sprint. It would have been too late by the time Vash could holster the gun again, anyway, and she just shook her head when he still tried to reach for her, even at this impossible distance.
She wished she could tell him it was okay, that it wasn't his fault. Any words now would be lost to the wind and the lengthening span of sand between them, so she just willed Vash to see it in her eyes instead.
You made the right choice.