The wind howled around the ruined farmhouse. There had been no comfort here but at least they'd had some cover for the night, but now they had to be on the move. He roused the team and, with them following, headed for the door.
He strained to hear over the storm, trying to determine if any danger waited for them outside. The sound of the door rattling on its hinges and the trees creaking and groaning outside made that impossible. He tried to open the door to get a quick look outside but the wind caught it and pulled it from his hands. The door crashed against the wall and scoured the leaves that had built up out on the step and sent them swirling around his legs.
He instinctively took a step back and came up against one of the others who was still moving forward and lost his balance. Flinging a hand out he managed to catch hold of the doorframe as he started to fall forward… The wind had stripped the step clear of leaves and left a writhing snarl of snakes in its place. He pushed hard on the frame found his footing and spun back around. Pulling on arms and pushing at shoulders he turned the men crowded behind him.
"Hey! Where'r we goin'?!"
"Leaves! Snakes!" he jerked away from the hand that was clutching at him. "We have to go out the other way!"
"All right! All right!" Casino barrel rolled Garrison so he faced the other way on the cot and he immediately sank back into fevered sleep. "Go that way then." He looked at the others who were ranged around the room and shook his head. "Jeeze! We ought a take up a collection and buy this guy some better dreams!"
Chief turned from the window where he'd been watching the storm. "Least he's doin' it in English this time."
The storm had taken the power and phones out just as they got back from their latest mission. They were soaked and exhausted when they got off the boat and climbed on the truck. Garrison insisted they be allowed to come back to the house to dry out and get warm but he couldn't talk himself out of the debriefing so he appropriated a jeep headed for HQ to do his duty. When he finally got back to the mansion, still dressed in sopping wet clothes, they'd just managed to take the chill off their quarters and he'd already come up with a sore throat and fever. Actor checked him over, dosed him with aspirin, and declared it wasn't serious enough to go back out into the storm to get over to the hospital, but since Warden's room was still just about as inviting as an icebox the con man insisted he bunk in with them where it was warm. The Lieutenant wasn't in any shape to argue and dropped as soon as the cot was made up. He slept through the night but now that the sun was up so was his fever and he'd gotten more than a little hard to handle.
"What was he goin' on about, then? Leaves turnin' inta snakes or somethin'?" Goniff asked over his cuppa and cheese toast.
"Who knows." Casino answered as he took a poker to the fire. "Just crazy dream stuff probably."
Chief curled his tongue around the matchstick he was chewing on and swapped it to the other side of his mouth. "If they can't find anywhere better snakes'll curl up under a pile a leaves to keep warm sometimes…" He studied the Warden a moment and wondered where he'd come across a sight like that and then turned his attention back to the weather outside.
Goniff went open-mouthed and shifted his gaze between their commander and the group's scout as the hand holding his cup sank back down towards his knee. "Blimey! There's a big pile a leaves in the corner a the back garden. You don't s'pose…."
Chief continued to stare out the window but one shoulder shrugged up and then dropped. "You could stick your hand in the middle of it and find out…."