Decoy and Retrofit: Chapter 2

They barreled down the road as fast as they could for ten minutes. When they finally turned into a patchy area near the woods to slow into a stop, Noel was gasping as if he’d run a race, palms damp and heart pounding. Next to him, Griffin gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles.

“Well, we fucked up,” Griffin panted, slamming the truck into park. “Fuck.”

Noel nodded blindly. The shock was beginning to wear off, and the reality of what had happened was trickling into his brain.

Griffin was still talking. “What did we lose?” he asked. “I know we lost something.”

Noel didn’t know what to say. He still honestly couldn’t believe it himself.

“Was it the generator?”

When Noel didn’t answer, Griffin let out an annoyed grunt and jumped to the ground before stomping to the back of the truck. Noel stared out the window in silence, watching the trees blow back and forth in the gentle breeze above them.

“Where the fuck is the freezer.”

Noel slowly closed his eyes and breathed through his nose. “Griff…”

Griffin rushed back into the cab like a whirlwind. He slammed the door closed, locked it shut, then fell back down in his seat.

He sat there, arms crossed, staring straight through the windshield, a muscle twitching in his jaw. Then he raised his boot and planted it on the horn, hard.

It blared through the forest for a solid minute before Noel turned to him.

“Griff–”

“What the fuck were you doing that you let the truck get attacked?” Griffin interrupted, his eyes blazing with indignation.

Noel flattened his mouth. “I thought you could take care of yourself!”

“What, you wanted me to shoot some hicks armed with shovels?” yelled Griffin. “Fuck off, Noel. What the fuck were you doing that was more important than staying with the truck?”

Of course, Noel couldn’t answer him.

They stared at each other in angry silence until Griffin let out a massive, angry noise. Before Noel could stop him, he grabbed his rifle and jumped out of the truck.

Noel watched as Griffin stormed off into the woods without looking back.

***

Griffin Wells was not a mystery.

He wore his emotions on his sleeve, every expression on his face as clear as if he had voiced them for himself. As a kid, he had been quick to anger, stubborn to a fault–and apparently, not much had changed.

Noel waited for him to come back to the truck. He waited at first in the cab, and then outside, lying in the grass to watch the way the clouds moved through the sky.

At some point, he faded out, and he wasn’t surprised that he did.

The Outlie was back, white and misty, slipping through his thoughts. Noel didn’t know why, but being here now felt different from the other times. Like he had escaped briefly from the eroding tide, only to fall back into the punishing crash of the surf.

Others flitted past, and he reached out to them. He felt who they were–their individuality and their minds–and searched for hints that he needed. He was always bad at communicating his own thoughts in the Outlie. He got overwhelmed, caught along in the undertow, consumed by the infinite scale of consciousness.

But he needed to tell them. He needed to tell someone that they had a wardog. He needed to talk to Susan Wells.

None of them responded.

***

Noel woke up to nightfall and a campfire.

It was a strong fire, crackling comfortably and clean of heavy smoke. Noel watched it from where he lay, propped up on the ground, feeling the tight sensation of heat as it rolled over his face.

Griffin was standing on the other side of the fire, his back to Noel, coat pulled tight around his shoulders. Noel watched him from the firelight as he poked something cooking on the coals. Meat, Noel realized as he smelled cooking venison in the smoke. Griffin had gone hunting.

Griffin was flipping over the food with a stick, pausing to tuck a strand of hair behind his ear. Taking a swig from a bottle of beer.

“Where’d we get the booze?” Noel cracked out.

Griffin turned. He kept eye contact with Noel as he swished the bottle in his hands, his expression unreadable. “Found it under the seat,” he said finally, looking back to the fire.

“Oh,” said Noel. “Lucky find.”

“Yeah,” said Griffin.

They settled into silence, Griffin pacing around the fire, Noel waiting for the Outlie to fade from his brain. It was still there, irritatingly enough, clinging on like it wanted a second chance.

“Hey.” Griffin’s voice came from somewhere far off. “Eat.”

Noel blinked himself back onto Planet Earth. Griffin had handed him a dusty bottle and a slab of something wrapped in aluminium foil, which Noel recognized as their wrappers from the military rations. It was still hot, so he gingerly unwrapped it with his alien hand, the searing heat barely reaching his synapses.

The flank of meat was cooked, juicy, and absolutely riddled with bullet holes. Noel stared at it and fought down a laugh.

“Shut up,” Griffin growled from the fire.

“I didn’t say anything!” Noel choked out.

“I can hear you thinking, asshole. Eat your food, or I will.”

Noel didn’t realize how hungry he was until he was in the middle of tearing the meat off the bone and licking his fingers clean. He took a swig of beer, which was stronger and less horrible than he’d thought it would be.

“That’s actually not bad,” Noel said, tipping the bottle back.

“Yeah, this brewery is pretty good,” Griffin said distantly. “Must have been expensive.”

That was a concept, Griffin enjoying beer. The Griffin that Noel knew hated beer, but here he was, drinking it now with a straight face.

“Since when did you stop exclusively drinking wine coolers?” Noel teased.

Griffin glanced up through his hair, dangling long in front of his narrow eyes. “Since when did you dye your hair blue?” he shot back.

Touché. Noel just grinned, something warm and nostalgic pumping through his chest. “Well, I think I look a bit different from when you last saw me.”

“A bit,” Griffin said.

Griffin looked different, too. “Your hair is so long now,” Noel said, slouching back on his elbows. “Remember when you dyed it black? You looked like a vampire back then.”

And yes, that was the expression he had missed. The flush rising to Griffin’s face, the way his mouth flattened out in embarrassment. He was always cute like this, when he got riled up.

“I can talk about your awkward teenage self, too, Phan,” Griffin threatened, gesturing with his bullet-ridden deer haunch. “Do you want me to do that?”

Noel grinned. “You can’t shame me, Griff,” he said cheekily. “Do you still play the guitar?”

It was a question that, unlike the beer and the hair, Noel actually wanted an answer to. The image of Griffin playing guitar in his garage, hunched over on an amp, his eyebrows furrowed as he strummed out a melody, struck Noel like a lightning bolt. That was a Griffin defined in his memory, fourteen years old and memorizing chords.

Griffin was silent for a minute, cross-legged in his skirt, his hair loose and soft as he sat across the fire.

“No,” said Griffin. “I don’t.”

“Oh,” Noel heard himself say. “Too bad.”

They finished their dinner in silence, the crackling fire filling the void around them. Noel stared into the flames as he ate, analyzing their predicament, trying to consider what to do now that he had something worth protecting.

This childhood friend of his–this irrational, irritating, violent childhood friend–had fallen back into his life. He made Noel feel panicked.

“Get some sleep,” Noel was saying, tossing the bones into the fire. “We’ve got places to go tomorrow.”

“Why?” asked Griffin. “Do you have a plan?”

Noel thought of his covert phone call at Burger King, the silence in the Outlie, and the rapidly defrosting alien murder dog in the backseat of the car.

“Something like that.”

To be continued in Chapter 3.