Chapter 8

The entire formula is a function of whether the square inch in question is skin or nylon, and if it is nylon, what then is the true texture of the square inch hidden beneath it?
—Steve Martin, “Shopgirl”

Somewhere, a small dog started barking. As is so often the case with small dogs, there was nothing that could be seen, heard, or sensed in any other way by man. It is a matter for debate whether or not there was something only within the dog’s range of senses setting it off or whether it is just the dog’s own overactive paranoia.

Whatever the cause, it is universally agreed that it is quite annoying.

Ryan woke up at the disturbance. He looked around, then touched his eyes to check that they were open. Or at least, he tried to. One arm seemed to be pinned by a weight; the other one was as well, but Ryan was able to identify it as his own body. He shifted slightly to allow himself to unearth it, and winced in the dark as blood began flowing to it again.

As he waited for the pins and needles to subside, some memories began creeping back. Ryan could remember being woken up another time, earlier, by Josie.

Ryan couldn’t have been asleep for more than a few hours before Josie had stumbled, in the dark, over to his chair and shook him awake.

“Whuizzit?” he asked sleepily.

“I had a bad dream,” Josie whispered.

Out of a sense for chivalry Ryan had done his best, in his sleep-deprived state of mind, to comfort her. He ended up on the bed with her in his arms. He realized two things just as he heard her start to snore again: first, that she was on his arm; second, that she was naked. Currently nothing could be done about either thing, so he had curled his body around hers for warmth in the cold desert night and had fallen asleep.

All of this came back to Ryan as, one of his arms having been restored to working order, he tried to determine what had woken him up. The movement disturbed Josie, and she mumbled something and snuggled closer. He glanced down at her at just the right moment; the light of the pale silver moon caught off her skin and, metaphorically, blinded Ryan, just for that second.

To him, though, that second lasted a lifetime.

Josie woke up the next morning to a bright and awful sun; it seemed to be hammering bricks into her eyes, which, inexplicably, felt like they were pinecones, set on fire by a vengeful god. She groaned and tried to sit up, instantly regretting it. She collapsed back on the bed. Ryan stirred, then his eyes slowly rose, one after the other.

Slowly, he pushed himself onto his hands, then into a sitting position. He swung his legs off the bed and stretched, then turned back to Josie, who was holding her head in her hands in an attempt to keep it from splitting end to end.

“Had a bit too much to drink last night, did we?” he asked jovially.

Josie paused from her task to glare at him, clearly sending the message, that, were circumstances different, he would now be looking for his teeth.

“C’fee,” she hissed between her teeth. “C’fee!”

“All right,” said Ryan, “but I shall expect something in return.”

“C’fee!”

“We can discuss it later.”

Ryan got up, stretched again, then grabbed his sword which he had set leaning against a wall. His eye was caught by something as he did so, a glint of red. He stared at it; he knew what it was.

It was a breastplate, well-crafted, with etchings in the steel. However, it looked like it had been neglected for a long, long time; it was almost a solid piece of rust. The odd thing was, though, that it gleamed in a way that no rust should.

Ryan picked it up slowly, then buckled it on over his tunic. He slung his sword over his shoulder and headed into the bar of the inn. He got some of the strongest, blackest coffee he could, then headed back to the room. When he came in he found that Josie had managed to move on from the horizontal position and was now sitting cross-legged on the bed. Her face brightened as he walked in.

“C’fee?” she asked, with as much eagerness as she could muster.

“Indeed.”

Josie took the mug out of his hands and drank a deep draft of it, despite that it was scalding hot. She lowered the mug from her face after she was done and, beginning to feel reinvigorated, focused on Ryan’s new piece of armor.

“Where’d that come from?”

Ryan glanced down.

“Oh… I had it delivered to the room yesterday,” he said, quite truthfully.

That was as much conversation as Josie could manage for now, and silence reigned again. Just to give himself something to do, Ryan began collecting the clothes Josie had shed the night before. He couldn’t imagine what she had been doing; some high spirit or another had gotten a piece of clothing wedged in a shutter[1].

After a few minutes or so Ryan had managed to collect the set, which he deposited in a pile in front of the bed. Josie gave him a look of gratitude.

“Pass me my shirt, would you?” she asked.

Ryan hesitated, simply on aesthetic grounds; however, he didn’t hesitate for long, and handed it over.

“Thanks.” Josie slipped it over her head and wriggled into it.

“Are we leaving today?”

“Yeah, we should try to leave soon,” replied Ryan.

In the next hour Josie had gotten dressed, the two breakfasted, stocked up on some supplies for the road, and began heading towards the town’s exit.

Before they began the journey, Ryan asked Josie if she felt up to it.

“Never felt better,” she responded.

They set off across the burning desert.

They walked for a few hours across the sand under the relentless sand.

Nothing happened.

A few hours later, nothing continued to happen.

Inevitably, they took a break.

In between sparing sips of the precious water, both Ryan and Jose were very careful not to make eye contact. This meant, of course, that they made more eye contact then they would normally[2]. After each meeting, they would each glance away quickly, turning slightly red.

After this had gone on for about ten minutes, Ryan stood back up.

“Well, it’s not far now,” he said.

“What’re you talking about, mister? It’s another two days walking, at least!” Josie exclaimed.

“Oh, yes… Of course. Uh. Touch of the heat?” Ryan said, as If looking for an excuse.

“Yes, that must have been it,” said Josie, still suspicious.

Ryan coughed.

“We should keep going.”

Josie nodded.

They kept going.

In another few hours, the sun had begun sinking down beyond the distant mountains, now just sticking up over the heat haze of the horizon, which itself was starting to fade in the chill of the desert night.

The winds started to pick up, blowing the sand, stinging all exposed skin. They put whatever spare clothes they had with them on, both to protect their flesh and to keep themselves warm.

The winds blew harder, until eventually it was no longer possible to see more than a few feet ahead of them. The last rays of the setting sun glinted off the sand, turning the air into a moving river of red sand waves.

“Stay behind me!” shouted Ryan back to Josie.

Her eyes nearly closed, Josie was able to keep him in sight until, abruptly, he vanished.

She felt panic rising and half-ran, half-stumbled forward. She felt the sand under her feet begin to slip as she fell back and then forwards until she, too, had been swallowed by the desert.

An indeterminate amount of time later, Josie’s eyes snapped open. They saw nothing. She turned her head, and saw nothing. She turned her head once more, in the opposite direction, and saw the back of Ryan’s head, extremely close to hers.

So… There was some light, then, coming from gods-knew-where.

“That’s right.”

Josie flinched. While she had stopped paying attention, Ryan had propped his head up on his elbows.

“Wait… What’d you say?” she asked, now confused.

“Never mind,” he said affably.

Josie made the effort to sit up halfway.

“Where are we?” she asked, waving an arm around in the vague direction of “where.”

Ryan moved his lips as if rehearsing what to say.

“I think you might say… Home. Yes. This is my home.”

Josie’s mouth dropped open, but she shut it quickly and narrowed her eyes.

“Your home is a dark hole under the desert?”

“Not… Exactly.” Ryan stood up. “Follow me.”

Josie got to her feet and followed him. What other choice did she have?

[1] Never you mind which piece.
[2] It always works like this.