Aaron Ackles (wanderingaaron) wrote in thefield, @ 2009-06-28 11:03:00 |
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Entry tags: | aaron, adnan, coop, delilah, z - 1st tribe - day 26 |
The Sky Is Falling!
Who: Aaron, Adnan, Coop and Delilah
Where: Camp
When: Just after dawn
What: Fleeing for their lives
Rating: G
Aaron was not sleeping. Of course not. The carts were not exactly water tight and there were no walls protecting himself and his squirming, hissing sleeping bag from getting soaked by the occassional gust of wind. Even the sound of the rain pelting the bed of the cart was loud enough to keep him blinking with gritty eyes. Hood up, jacket zipped, he was still cold and wet. The water was starting to run over the ground, seeking a way back to the body of water it had likely sprung from. Lightening flashed and thunder rolled but after a while he was sure that dawn that broken. It was just hard to tell under the shroud of the storm. The rain seemed to abate for a while and it was hard to miss the fact that Ken had escorted a new arrival into camp. She was clad in a bright red dress that seemed pristine and out of place here. He was sure the dress was probably billowy on a good day but today it was soaked and she was holding the strapless thing up with hands across her chest. The most amazing thing was that a soaked and scruffy looking brown dog seemed to be huffing and snuffling through the camp as well. He poked his head into every lean-to and it made Aaron inch a little closer to his sleeping bag. Rumor had it that cats and dogs didn't mix well.
The first place Delilah had run was the trees. She'd been sleeping, minding her own damn business under Quinn's old blanket -- something nobody had begrudged her, which she was grateful for -- and all of the sudden she was soaked and sputtering. She'd gotten up and dashed for cover somewhere, getting down to belly-crawl into the brush. It had worked for a little while, keeping her from getting pelted for the most part, though there was no way to stay dry. And it was cold. She was going to be sick again by morning if she didn't find some way to conserve body heat. But then the hail had started, and the brush wasn't doing much good at keeping that off of her. She sat up, arms over her head, and looked desperately around. There was someone under one of the carts, and she made a mad dash for it, scrambling underneath in the mud, just to have something solid over her head.
Coop was just stunned. When the very nice colonel lead her in to camp, she'd somehow expected military barracks. Tents, chairs, crates. Exactly what you usually see in the movies. She'd expected shiny faced, buttoned up young men barking commands and responses to one another or perhaps a bunch of lazy veterans oiling their guns in tipped-back folding chairs. Nothing like that presented itself. At it's absolute roughest, it was a survivalist camp. A go-into-the-bush-and-carve-out-an-existe
She was so overwhelmed she didn't even have it in her to control her dog who, with the flood to his senses in this experience, was all over the place. Ken had said something about having to go check on the spring and had vanished back the way they had come. For a few minutes Coop just stood there, peering in to the sodden firepit. She didn't quite have the energy to go and introduce herself to some of the faces peering out of the strange slanted huts. Uncharacteristically, she just stood there in shock until something hard struck her bare shoulder. "Ow!" she jumped and whirled, thinking someone had throw a rock at her. All of a sudden she became away of a rattling as ice pellets started to fall all around her. Gasping, she threw her skinny arms over her head and looked around wildly for a place to get under cover.
Adnan didn't really mind the rain, if one could phrase it that way. He wasn't terrified of storms, and he'd been soaked to the skin plenty of times in his past. Wind, he could deal with. But when the hail started? That was something different. Because hail hurt. He'd been in the shadow of one of the carts, huddled and trying to keep the bulk of the wind off of him. There'd been a lull, and he too had seen Kenneth bring the girl in the red dress in. He hadn't gotten a good look at her through the rain, and then he'd felt the tell-tale sharp pains of hail. He got to his feet and looked around for shelter. The lean-tos were stuffed full, no doubt ... and the girl was just standing there. Not about to abandon her, Adnan ran to her side and grabbed her hand. "Come with me!" he said over the growing roar, and started to pull her toward the closest cart.
Aaron's head whipped up to look at the roof of the cart even as he pulled Delilah further under the bed. "You alright?" he asked her, even as he helped her readjust the black, white and grey plaid comforter around her shoulders He looped a fold of it up over her damp curls and rubbed her shoulders in a business-like, warm-you-up-quick kind of way. He was fully aware of the dangers of exposure. Over her shoulder, he spotted Adnan as he ran out to collect the new girl as golfballs of ice began to fall in earnest. "Over here," he called out to them. "There's room under here!"
Delilah nodded, even though she wasn't terribly alright, and pulled the wet blanket around herself. She didn't protest anything about being rubbed down, already starting to shiver. There were a couple of spots on her that felt like they were going to be bruised goose-eggs in the morning. She looked over as Aaron called to someone and scooted closer to him to make room. It looked like they had a couple of people incoming.
Coop jumped when someone's icy hand curled around her fingers. She'd almost pulled out of the stranger's grasp but he was pulling her out of the hail before she had the chance to say yay or nay. Half stumbling over her own numb feet, she squelched across the sand behind the tall and dark haired man. She could see there were people huddled beneath the cart and it all came together. She didn't need any helping pushes from Adnan. Diving for cover she immediately moved as far over without popping out the other side as she could, making room for her rescuer.
Adnan was glad she didn't actually fight him, though if she'd just arrived, he could sympathize with any disorientation she might have. He made sure she was under the cart before he ducked down into hit himself, landing in a hard sit, and letting out the breath he didn't know he was holding. He pushed dark hair off of his forehead and looked around at his shelter-mates. "Everybody okay?" he asked, glancing them all over. The last thing they needed was someone who got hit in the head or the eye or something with one of those monsters.
Aaron nodded. He'd been under cover the whole time, after all. Sure, some chilly rainwater was still working it's way between the slates on the cart's bed, but other than that he was fine. "Yeah, I'm alright. Delilah? You get hit by any of those?" He didn't think she'd gotten too badly clobbered but he ducked his head to make her face out in the gloom underneath the cart.
"I think a couple of them on my back, but I'm fine," Delilah answered Aaron out loud, looking back at him and offering a faint smile. She wasn't quite so cold since there were four people under the cart, but she still clung to the blanket as she looked to her other side. "Are you both all right?" she passed the question back. The girl looked utterly unfamiliar, and she had to wonder a bit where she'd come from.
"I think so," Coop managed to say, sounding far more composed than she actually felt. "Don't know where my dog went, though." Peering out through the falling chunks of ice as she rubbed the sore spot on her shoulder, she thought she saw his wagging tail protruding from one of the huts. She turned to thank her rescuer who's concerned face brought her up short but just the slightest fraction of a second. His eyes were dark, almost as dark as her own but warmer. In her sodden and confused state, she felt the tug of that warmth. "I'm ok, thank you," she told him, heartfelt.
Adnan was looking at her when she turned her face to him, and he realized immediately that she was beautiful. Even drenched and scared. Which was probably an inappropriate thing to focus in on, but there it was anyway. He didn't say anything for a beat, taking in the way her eyes looked black in the gloom of their shelter. Then he blinked and found his voice again. "Good," he told her with a nod, eyes ticking to the others as well so that they would be included in that statement. "I'm Adnan, I don't believe I've officially met any of you." His gaze drifted back to the newcomer. He kind of wanted her name first.
With one arm sliding around Delilah to try to still her quaking shivers, Aaron stretched out his hand to the man who was a dark as he himself was fair. "Aaron Ackles, formerly of the Yukon. Nice to meet you." He'd noticed Adnan, of course. It was hard to miss the fact that large, capable looking men kept arriving in this place. Later on, if the weather cleared, Aaron intended to get his bows and arrows from Arlo and have some practice sessions. He wondered how Adnan would feel about learning the bow. A conversation they could have later.
Delilah leaned gratefully into Aaron. She was really relying on men a lot to keep her warm, it was probably a bad pattern. But he was nice and she'd enjoyed wandering around with him the other day, so she would most certainly take the support. "I'm Delilah," she told the darker man -- Adnan, it sounded Persian to her -- as he and Aaron shook hands. "Pasternak," she added in her own accent, giving a nod to both him and the dark-haired woman he'd dragged in with him. "Nice to meet you both." Even if the circumstances were deplorable.
None of them knew each other? Had they all arrived today as well? She remembered the colonel hurriedly explaining a few things to her but she'd been in such shock, not just because of the fact that she wasn't in the desert anymore, but by being doused awake from her typical deep sleep. Now that she was out of the rain and forced to focus on the here and now, her teeth were also starting to chatter. She was a slightly built woman. Her arms were thin, bare and covered with goosebumps. "I'm Coop. Um...I was in New Mexico just...just a little while ago." Bewilderment showed in her dark eyes and she shook her head as if denying her current reality.
Coop. Oftentimes American names sounded odd to his ears, but Adnan had enough experience to be sure that had to be a nickname. Not that it mattered. He was just going to remember it. With a very slight hesitation, he followed Aaron's example and put an arm around her to draw her in closer. He was cold too, but had considerably more muscle-mass than she did. There wasn't anything more effective than sharing body heat, and their situation kind of put decorum aside. "It's not always this bad," he said to her in the meantime, more to have something to say than anything else. Adnan rubbed her arms, halfway ready to get slapped.
"Nice to meet you both," he said in Adnan and Coop's direction. Aaron nodded in agreement with Adnan's observation. "I've been here a few more days longer than Adnan here and this is the worst storm I've seen." He was grim as he peered out from under the cart. The water was steely gray and much more choppy than it had been the day before. "I'm starting to worry the others who've been here longer might be right. We're shifting seasons." He looked at Delilah, who'd arrived around the same time he had. "What do you think?"
The redhead nodded a touch under her blanket-hood. "It seems like it. It's getting colder," she said, glancing out at the world herself. It looked awful, and she could only pray that it wouldn't last long. It would take them long enough to dry out as it was, and if it stayed as cold as it was ... gods. "We need more lean-tos," she murmured, mostly to herself. Though they weren't terribly sturdy, at least you could sit up all the way under them, which wasn't exactly the case with the carts. She glanced over as an unhappy animal sound emenated from Aaron's sleeping bad, and remembered the feral cats.
Coop was already wide eyed and horrified by the whole experience. The thought of being stuck here with no phone to call for help, no shoes to walk out for help. No clothing to keep herself warm. She didn't even mind being pulled in against Adnan's chest. She glanced up at him and gave him a quick but undeniably grateful smile. "Sounds like you guys need a long house more than a lean-to," she offered. Notably, she didn't lump herself into that need because she, obviously, was going home. She had a load to get in. Family who would miss her. A truck that wasn't entirely paid off yet. She just couldn't stay there.
Adnan smiled faintly. "We're working on it," he said quietly, still rubbing at her arms. She was a small thing, all limbs. Like a doe. He'd had some wonderful experiences with deer in his time on the road, and had come to view them as uncannily beautiful creatures. Or had back home, anyway. In any case, he forcibly turned his mind away from Coop's legs and back to the matter at hand. He noted that Aaron looked sturdy enough, though he couldn't remember if the priest had mentioned him in his list of people or not. In any case, he made a note to approach him later about his building projects.
Aaron nodded. "I got a lean-to up yesterday but I didn't have the heart to keep it for myself. Nerfertiti helped me out and she mentioned she and Lucien, that guy who arrived the same day as you, Adnan, they were sleeping in the bushes." He peered out at the storm and shook his head. "Glad they had the shelter this morning. Not a moment too soon." He'd start to work on a new one just as soon as he could. Glancing down, he decided he'd set one up for Delilah. "You still need a place, don't you Delilah?" She had bedding now, he saw. A blanket to go with the pillow she'd dragged with her on the long walk from the woods. People were starting to accumulate things. He had his tools now. That was worth mentioning. "I lucked out the other day when I found my tools."
Delilah was watching the hail bounce off of wood and bury itself in the sand while Aaron talked. The vibration of his voice in his chest was kind of soothing, and she was warming up a bit. She blinked at his question and glanced up at him. "Um ... yes, I do," she answered, looking over at the other two people under the cart. She was sure that everybody did. she didn't mention that she'd bedded down with Rook the other night, and just let herself wonder where he was. She hoped he was under something solid. "Especially if the nights are going to keep getting colder."
Coop was still shivering and she took a moment to tuck the hem of her long dress more firmly around her legs. Why on earth had she taken her flip flops off before she'd laid down? She tilted her face up to look at Adnan. His voice was pleasant. Deep and quiet, she felt it through his body. "You don't have a lean-to either? How many people are here?" she asked, curious. How many people had been kidnapped and brought to this strange, confusing and empty place.
Adnan tried to count faces in his head. "Not yet, no. And ... twenty or so, I think," he answered, glancing at the others for confirmation. But something had caught his attention much more than their population count. "You found tools?" he asked Aaron, his arms settled comfortably around Coop now. "What kind?" Because that? Could be the most helpful thing that could've possibly be found.
"Ball peen hammer, needle nose pliers and standard monkey wrench. And about five hundred nails, I'd say." He reached up his mewling sleeping bag (it must be breakfast time, the kittens were being noisy) and produced a yellow leather workmans belt. Exactly the kind you saw on any construction site anywhere in America. "Pretty awesome, huh? Not a speck of rust on any of them." He said it with pride of ownership. You'd think he had cast the metal for those items his self.
Delilah could recognize that tools were useful, but part of her was far more interested in the kittens in Aaron's bag. The mewling noise made her want to stick her hand in there, but she valued her fingers. They just sounded cute. She shifted silently under her blanket, rearranging herself into more comfort.
Coop turned her face from Aaron to Adnan, then back again. "Well that's a good start, right? All you need now is a tape measure and a table saw and you're all set." Nevermind that a table saw needed an outlet. It was growing more obvious to Coop that she was not exactly fitting in with the situation. She was like a puzzle piece that looked the right size and shape but her pattern didn't match. She felt removed from what she had experienced, and like she was getting even further away the longer they sat here with the rattling so loud all around them.
Aaron could've held up rare steaks and beer and Adnan wouldn't have been happier. The man had a hammer. An actual viable hammer, with nails. It was manna from heaven, no doubt. He couldn't help but grin as he looked at the tool belt. The only thing lacking was a saw or an axe. But he could still work on making those. "That's fantastic," he said genuinely. "That's really great, that will help a lot." And now he was impatient for the rain and hail to stop, so they could go on and get started.
Aaron nodded enthusiastically. "I even found a great stone I've been using as a wedge to split logs, you know?" It was the simple solution he'd told Ken about. set the pointed end of the wedge against the middle of the log, use a mallet or hammer to pound the wedge deeper and deeper into the wood. Eventually, the log splits apart. Man's earliest tools were the best. The wedge, the lever, the pulley, the hammer. Invaluable in their situation. "So really it's a matter of finding hardwood that won't burn as easily as the disc tree stuff and coming up with a method of building the structures that we use as little nails as possible."
The sound and vibrations of Aaron's voice mixed with his warmth and the white noise of the hail was starting to make Delilah sleepy again. Which was probably ridiculous, considering, but it spoke to just how exhausted she really was. Her eyelids drooped a bit as her mind wandered off elsewhere. Back to her apartment in New York, when she used to open up the windows during rainstorms and just put towels down on the linoleum under them, to have that fresh smell come in. If she didn't have to go anywhere, she would put music on and dance around her place. It always worried the cat. Gods, but she wanted to go home.
Coop was thinking the same thing but she had no idea how much more so she'd wish she could go home until she'd been in this place herself a few days. She'd love to wake up in her sweltering cab, drenched in sweat. Leave Tripper to guard the truck while she ducked into the facilities for a proper shower. She'd buy a frosty coke for the road and get on it again. At some point, she had stopped quaking so badly and lay against Adnan's side, under his arm, as though all of her energy was being slowly sapped away. Any minute she might join Delilah in oblivion. She tried to listen as the two gentlemen discussed the tools but couldn't make herself focus.
Adnan was nodding his agreement, kind of fired up by the idea. He hadn't even really thought about using wedges that way, but he was positive it was working better than anything else. "I've been thinking of the old fashioned way of fitting log cabins together?" he told Aaron, oblivious to how they were not holding the females' attentions. "I don't know what you call it in English, but it's ... a combination of fitted uneven surfaces, and holes for pegs. Very sturdy. They can be insulated with clay. On this surface, everything needs a flat, raised foundation, as well. For the soil and weight distribution." He glanced down at Coop and noted the faraway expression on her face. He had the most insane -- but quick, mercifully -- impulse to kiss her. Just a soft, affectionate thing. He frowned at himself internally and looked back up at Aaron. "But we can discuss it further," he offered, noting Delilah's dazed expression too.
Aaron grinned. "I bet you Cross and Rook would be in to helping us pull off a log cabin." Just the idea of one, a real log cabin with a floor and possibly shingles, made him feel warmer. Maybe it was the imagined effort of building such a thing, but it was still notable. "I think you're right about a raised foundation. I've been worried about the lean-tos. I don't think they're anchored well enough. I doubt they would hurt anyone if they collapsed but it would be awful if we had to spend our days rebuilding again and again." Delilah's weight seemed to be leaning more heavily against him and he, too glanced down at her. If she could sleep, more power to her.
The Russian girl let her eyes fall closed finally. She could just picture a giant log cabin, with room enough for all of them and maybe a fire pit in the middle of it. Could cabins have fire pits? Maybe a full fire place, now that would be something. She was awfully fond of fireplaces. The mental image was lulling, and soon enough her breathing had evened completely out and she was caught up in a light sleep. Something about being in the presence of a couple of men talking about building things reminded her of home and her brothers. Somewhere comfortable that was Not Here.
Coop was fighting the dragging need to lay her head on Adnan's shoulder and just let go of all of this nonsense. A few minutes ago she'd have given anything, maybe even Tripper, to dash back to reality. That was before Adnan had captured her hand. He clearly hadn't shaved in a few days. His clothes would benefit from a wash and he was damp and musky (but not in an unpleasant way) and she found that she didn't want to let go of him right away. If he was her dream guy, the rescuer in this nightmare, she wanted a bit more time with him. Drowsily, she blinked sleep away. "Can you make a log cabin without saws or axes? Or chisels?"
Adnan smiled a bit as Coop asked the question. "Not any way that I know of, but I'm working on finding the right kind of stones to make tools with. I think I've done it, I just want to experiment with a couple more types to make sure I've got the best one," he told her. Or her and Aaron both, since the other man was listening as well. He also thought he'd found a good one for cutting and shaving tools, but he would try those out on himself before he passed them along. Allah only knew what was in everything in this strange place. Still, he was pleased. Things seemed to be starting to come together. Perhaps they'd be ready for the next storm that wanted to come through.
Aaron looked impressed. "That's awesome! I wish I'd paid better attention during geology in school. I took it one year as a filler science credit. We found those heavy white round stones, the ones they use for steaming clams because they get red hot, right? And there's those blue cold stones in the grasslands," no need to discuss the stairs in too great a detail. "I'm starting to wonder if maybe the geological factors of this place might weigh heavily in some of our advancements. The clay has proven really easy to work with. Ryan's having no trouble curing pots over an open fire anymore." He gestured vaguely north west. "And since someone discovered that there's clay flats nearby, we're ok for that. We've got plenty to fill in the cracks between the logs."
"My mother is a potter," Coop offered. "I don't know much about how she does it, but I know a little." Maybe if someone pointed her toward this Ryan person later, she might be able to help him make his clay pots and jaws and bowls. It was worth a try, anyways. She did finally let her head rest on Adnan's shoulder. "Didn't think getting rained on would be so exhausting," she confessed apologetically to him.
Adnan didn't think that her exhaustion had anything to do with the rain, himself, but he didn't say so. He gave her a faint smile downward. "Don't worry about it at all," he told her. "Rest as much as you need." He looked back up at Aaron and nodded a touch. It all sounded good, and he made the mental note of Ryan's name as well. Maybe they could work something out. Everyone seemed to have a part to play. His gears were turning, and he was ready to talk to Helena again. And the rest of the council.