The Fields Tinged with Red

The Fields Tinged with Red-3

He'd shown the first signs of actually being drunk around 6 pm and it had only gotten worse since, with him having stripped down to just his jeans and tattoos and begun to stalk the house like a wild man, one minute singing to “Cotton Eye Joe” by Rednex (emanating tinny and monotone from the boombox he’d found in the basement and plied with D batteries from the junk drawer) for the 20th time and the next bellowing taunts and challenges to “Silent Jim”—the raptor’s official name now—from the back deck. Nor had he forgotten about the rifle—at least not for very long—although it was hoped that Nick and Selena’s stealthy intervention early in the evening (in which they’d emptied the clip and hid the bullets in an old VHS case) had mitigated the threat. Still, Nick had to wonder as the man grew increasingly belligerent and paranoid—going so far at one point as to wander into the field shouting “Boom! Boom!” as he pointed the rifle at the weird lights in the sky and fancied himself shooting them down.

Still, it was the breaking of the kerosene lamp that had finally rallied them; in part because there’d only been two for the entire house and in part because it had started a small but dangerous fire not three feet from the curtains—a fire that had to be beat out even as he mocked their ineffectiveness and continued his tirade; a tirade that by that point had become not so much a rant as a veritable call to arms.

“Becuz what it comes down to,” he was saying, as they poured him into bed and removed the lantern from his room, “uldimedly, is the weak vers’ the strong. It’s always been th’weak vers’ the strong. You know? Amirite?”

“You’re right, buddy. You’re right on the money.” Nick pulled the blankets over him boots and all and headed for the door. “You get some sleep now, hear? We’re going to have a full day tomorrow reinforcing that barn. You just sleep tight and don’t let the velociraptors bite, okay? Just count ‘em as they go over that fence in time. 1 ... 2 ... 3 ...”

And then he swung the door shut and leaned against it, exhaling, listening. Then he looked at Selena as she reloaded the gun and just knew that she was thinking the same; which was that they’d let that go on far too long and didn’t dare let it happen again. Ever.

“It’s all just fox’s and rabbits, fox’s and rabbits,” said Teddy inside the room, gibbering. Nonsensical. “And you’re the f*****g rabbits.”

At which Nick slid down the door and onto his side and tried not to think about the raptor or Teddy or the Flashback or any of it. At which he curled into a ball, into a fetal position, tighter and tighter, rocking himself gently, and slept where he lay.

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