Roy held his hands up, and his faithful crew obeyed, falling instantly silent.
"I think we've given him enough to process for one night," he boomed. As he blinked, Emmit noticed that only one eyelid had been stained black by the touch of one of the creatures. "Everyone turn in. Reverend, you're on watch tonight."
The handsome black man, the Reverend, only nodded dutifully.
"We're going Link hunting tomorrow," Roy said, standing and beginning to tug layers of clothing off. "The newcomer and I were attacked by a pretty big swarm, and you know they didn't go far. We can't have a siege on our hands. Get plenty of rest."
Emmit stared at his damp shoes, the dark material still shining wetly in the firelight. He had a strong feeling in his gut that he wouldn't be sleeping much, if it all, on his first night in the mysterious cabin in the middle of frozen nowhere.
Chapter 4: Under the Shifting Stars
Emmit was awake long after the others had fallen asleep. He lay on the hard floor, curled up in what was essentially just a pile of used laundry with his neck muscles already beginning to protest. The other men— the man with the crippled arm, who was nicknamed Muddy, the young kid Roy had called "Pup", the tattooed and exceedingly shady Poke, and Roy himself, were all unconscious and trading snores back and forth. Emmit felt like he was trying to sleep on the dirty floor of a lumber mill.
How the fuck do these guys sleep? A time warp? Zombies outside? I don't think I'll ever sleep again.
He abandoned the notion of getting any rest and sat up, yawning despite his alertness. Roy was the chieftain of the small clan, so his place was nearest to the fire, which was still strong enough to heat the room but was beginning to die down to a muted orange specter of a flame. Poke had been in the "time warp" second longest, so he was entitled to the opposite side of the fireplace. Pup and Muddy were crumpled on their piles of clothes as close as they could get without invading anyone's space, leaving Emmit, as the newbie, to freeze by the rickety door. The Reverend had bundled himself up, grabbed one of the large wooden clubs with a pointed rock lashed to the end, and headed quietly outside. There, without once coming back in to warm up, he had stayed.
Emmit's brain began to buzz and whir once again as he plunged a mental hand into the black bag of his memories and tried to grab whatever he could. The pieces were coming together now; he still found it hard to believe that he had gone into a bank with a gun (he didn't even own a gun, or so he thought) and pointed it at people, innocent people, and tried to steal the money he needed to avoid joining the growing ranks of the homeless. He had been down and out before. He'd spent at least a week sleeping in an ex-coworker's car once, while he was in between jobs. No, there was something more than money, something more severe than being homeless that would have driven him to that desperate measure.
It'll come.
Looking around at the humanoid snoring lumps of blankets, he decided he'd rather go outside and try to speak to the Reverend than sit in here alone and confused. Of all the men imprisoned in the cabin, the Reverend somehow seemed to stick out like a polished tooth in an otherwise rotten smile. He didn't have that feel about him, that dirty, criminal feel that the other men had. Emmit knew that he was in no place to pass judgment on anyone for being a criminal, but sometimes, you could just tell about someone. The things they said or the way they said them, the clothes they wore, the tattoos they chose to wear. Sometimes, you could meet someone for the very first time and know immediately that they were trouble. The opposite was true for the Reverend, and, he hoped, for himself as well.
I could use someone in my corner here.
Emmit nodded at his own thought, listening to the wood crackling in the fireplace during the brief pauses between snores. Talking to the Reverend felt right. Now, more than ever, he needed a friend. Trying to talk to Roy or Poke, Muddy or Pup, that would be like a vegetarian trying to relate to a big game hunter. They didn't feel like his kind of people, even if Roy had saved his life.
Emmit began to dig through what served as his "bed", pulling out random articles of clothing and pulling them on. He found several stained pairs of sweatpants and pajama pants, and three long sleeved shirts. He forced a grubby sweater on as the last layer of protection against the cold, a dark blue one emblazoned with a giant golden M logo. Then, after a few moments of silent frustration trying to figure out how the handmade doorknob worked, Emmit cracked it just enough to slip his bulky body outside into the stinging night air.
The Reverend stood silently scanning the woods, the club slung across his shoulders and supporting his arms. He looked like an eccentric artist's interpretation of Christ crucified, his eyes bright and alert and his jaw set. As Emmit crept up silently beside him, he wasn't startled in the slightest. He spoke without even turning his head.
"Usually, I'm the only one who volunteers for guard duty," he said quietly, squinting into the shadows. "Can't sleep?"
"I don't even feel tired," Emmit said, joining him in watching the bleak forest. There was no movement that he could see, and though the wind was as calm as it was cold, it still made a mournful moan as it rattled the branches of the trees together. "Which is crazy to me, given how things have gone lately."
The
