Smack-dab, in the Middle of Nowhere (Waste Stories #1)

10. Meet the Farmers (Part 3)

Not too far away, a rabbit was wearing a hat. Although, explaining that it's a rabbit is technically a disservice, for it's no more a rabbit than a hamster is an octopus. But it was small and fluffy, and through an absence of any competition, had become known as a rabbit-like creature around these parts.

At this point, the rabbit-like creature wearing a hat was observing three figures. The first was a man it recognised as the Bringer of the Hat, and he was fleeing wildly and making a loud, high-pitched sound. Fleeing and screaming was something the rabbit-like creature understood, and so he quietly rooted for his large human friend.

Right behind the running figure was a shiny human with only one grentuputron eye (rabbit-like creatures have their own colours). It was shouting as well, and gaining quite quickly on the first figure.

The third figure was in the back, trying to keep up. The rabbit-like creature with the hat knew he would be the first to die if a Waste Beast was chasing them. You never had to be a fast runner in the Waste, only faster than the creatures you were with.

As the wind picked up around it, the rabbit-like creature observed the shiny human tackling the friendly human to the ground. Then it caught the scent of something tasty nearby, and decided that it had seen enough of the show.

It hopped away.

* * *

Now it was no longer now, it was later. And later, which is now known as now, Bert was pissed.

Phoenix groaned loudly, holding a defrosted slab of bloody meat to his swollen forehead. It was a few hours later, to be precise. Phoenix was in Smack-dab, having only just returned. Stumbling home had been more unconsciousy than he predicted.

"And you just ... told them?!" Bert growled, huffing and puffing, pacing angrily on the spot. The situation had just been explained to her, and she wasn't taking it well.

Meatsack hovered nearby, the trusty first aid box held tightly in his fingers. He'd already mummified Phoenix with bandages, and wasn't sure what to do next other than fret. He was very good at fretting.

Phoenix himself was covered head to boots in mud, dust and blood. His own blood, mostly. And a little steak juice, on account of the defrosting. He was bruised all to hell, and every time someone plugged up one of the holes in his skin, another one burst open and leaked just as much. It was like trying to save a sinking ship, which, coincidentally, is similar to how Bert currently viewed the man. Except it was a ship she wasn't going to go down with.

"In my defence, Bert, there was an Overlord stomping on my skull at the time," Phoenix mewed weakly, scrounging for some semblance of redemption. "That's prolly why I passed out for so long."

Her sapphire fire bore holes into his eyes. "Phoenix, how could you be so stupid? They didn't know about us, and now they do. And they think we murdered their trailer folk. We're supposed to be staying out of all this!"

Phoenix involuntarily flinched as she paced past him. The heat of her anger could have scraped paint off the walls (if there was any). "Look, I said already, I told them about Terrance and what he did."

"They just didn't believe you."

"Err ... no."

"And now they think there's some piss-weak bar with no defences, killing their folk."

"Yes." Phoenix was visibly shrinking.

"And an H-unit can run almost as fast as a vehicle, so they've probably already reached the Fort by now."

"...yes."

"And we know this new bandit lord has a truck to come back with."

"...yes..."