A Long Night

The Usual Suspects Copyright Mr. Simon Barber

Used with Permission

“And what might this be” the Southern Georgian rabbit Katrina Schmidt asked as she settled down, quite closely to the Cranium Island shrew Alpha Rote. They were on South Island, having just finished a morning ten mile hike with full packs. Ten miles on South Island meant walking around its sandy shore more than once and by now the sun was up and baking them all.

Looking up from her diagram Alpha mentally shifted gears, slowing her normal mile a second thought process’s to something more in line with what was considered normal. “It is stun gun” she explained. “Is to stun enemy. Not kill.”

Katrina looked over the delicious looking shrews shoulder, trying to make some kind of sense of the lines and numbers in the others journal. “You do not like killing, do you Alpha” she asked softly, letting her body angle just such that her scent would drift over the shrews damaged sense of smell. A sense of smell made ragged because of constant exposure to harsh, most often deadly chemicals. Along with the ozone created by her Cranium Island laboratories machines.

“Not since marry Nancy” the shrew admitted. “Learn great game is wrong. Can not stop others, can stop self.” She reached up, rubbing her forehead. This constant slow speech was already causing her brain to hurt. Even after nearly a full school year she couldn’t keep it up long, it was as though a great pressure of thought was building up within her skull, demanding to be released. “Find other ways stop evil ones.”

Katrina leaned away a bit, giving her prey room so she would feel that things were still in control. It was near the end of the school year, only three weeks left in fact and Katrina was fast losing her battle against trying to steal Alpha away from her most times absent wife. It bothered the rabbit, but as hard as she tried she could not stop herself. ‘Oh God. If it is your will. Please find a way to stop me’ she prayed. Katrina was a very religious young lady but her heart was a completely different thing. Softly she slipped her left paw over Alpha’s tail. It was something that she had learned that the shrew greatly loved, to have her tail manipulated gently. “It works how” she asked, diverting Alpha’s attention.

“Two pins fired high speed at attacker” Alpha answered, slipping into her love of all things technical. When she did, the rest of the world slipped away somewhat. “Two tiny wires attached un-spool from weapon. When hits target releases great amount of voltage. It stuns target but not long term harm if not used too often. Or over heart.”

Understanding came to Katrina and though it wasn’t something she was entirely interested in, it did intrigue her. “How though will you build a generator small enough to fit in a pistol” she asked, her fingers now sliding across the furless part of Alpha’s tail-root.

“Is.. Problem” Alpha answered, her words separated by a soft gasp of pleasure. “Must design.. Small power plant.“ Alpha’s mind though was no longer on her project, but upon the intense pleasure Katrina was giving her from such a small action. “Katrina” she gasped, turning to face the rabbit. “I...” Her words were lost as the rabbit kissed her.

Whatever would have happened never did, as Miss Blande’s voice calling that their break was over shattered the mood. Alpha pulled away, red faced under her fur while Katrina simply made a face. “I apologize” the rabbit whispered.

“No... After year. You. I, Nancy. We talk yes?”

“We talk” the rabbit agreed, standing, then helping Alpha to stand as well. They walked to the cliffs edge, looking down at their instructor who stood over fifty feet below them.

“Envelope, under the three stones” the feline called. “Twelve minutes.” She then turned and jogged towards a curve in the path, quickly out of their view.

Elizabeth and Megan already had the envelope open by the time Alpha and Katrina reached them. “On company time” was all the nutria asked as she offered the paper to Katrina.

“On company time” the rabbit admitted. “Alpha Rote has become deathly ill after returning from Cranium Island. You must carry her body to...” She looked over at the shocked shrew. “Says you ate something from home that liked you more” she explained.

“Happens” the shrew admitted.

“Eleven minutes” Megan noted after looking at her own water resistant stopwatch. “To make a stretcher, then reach the aircraft and a waiting cure or Alpha dies.” Without another word she simply pulled her blouse off, turning it inside out. Following her lead Katrina did the same while Elizabeth searched and quickly located two usable lengths of wood by the simple act of breaking two saplings off near the ground. The Nutria her dorm had discovered long ago, had immense physical strength when she needed it.

With Alpha securely bound to the stretcher by their backpack straps, and their backpacks carried by Elizabeth Katrina and Megan hurried down the pathway. They barely dodged two traps, both set most likely by the guides. Their last two yards were to be over loose stone. Stone both girls simply jumped side by side, clearing those stones and landing upon soft sand. Too soft sand, as it gave under their feet, instantly trapping both. Elizabeth though simply snatched the scratcher from their paws, dropping their packs within reach on the rocks and hurried to the hired water taxi that was their aircraft today.

“Thirty-eight seconds” Miss Blande noted as Elizabeth snatched the Nootnops Red sitting beside her, a paper tag saying CURE pasted upon it. Removing the cap with nothing but her paws Elizabeth returned from a still gasping Alpha to shove the bottle down her mouth, forcing the shrew to swallow its contents.

“Twenty-one seconds” Miss Blande reported over the coughing Alpha Rotes sounds, though Elizabeth was no longer near either of them. She was now near her two class mates, having returned to study the problem before her. Katrina was already chest deep in the sand and still sinking while Megan had thrown herself forward, sinking as well but not nearly as quickly.

“These are vibrating sands. Their movement caused by constant release of ancient volcanic gasses. Once trapped within them one is doomed unless another finds a way to pull them out. You have time to save but one” Miss Blande’s voice announced. “Choose, or lose both.”

In answer to that challenge the rabbit Katrina wiggled, throwing her arms around her expansive chest as she did so and sinking like a rock. In seconds her long ears vanished under the sands surface. With her choice made Elizabeth grabbed Megan’s arms and fighting the sands grip she managed, in time, to pull her friend from the sucking sand. Of Katrina there was nothing to be seen.

“And now there are but three” the feline noted as she walked up to the two shocked girls. “You were warned that our training is deadly dangerous.”

“She... she gave herself up. So I would live” Megan whispered. “As though life meant nothing to her.”

“She gave herself up yes. But why? We will never know, will we. Now recover your packs and prepare. We are going to Main Island next and mountain climbing.” As the girls quietly gathered their things Miss Blande recovered an old sign hidden behind a bush, shoving it into the soft sand between where the two girls had been trapped. ‘Danger. Sucking Sands’ was written on it in several languages.

“Katrina” Alpha asked, pure loss in her voice.

“These type of sands have been measured over one hundred feet deep Mrs. Rote” the feline instructor explained. “Three hundred in a very few places. This one is about eighty feet deep. By now your friend is ten feet or more down and very much dead. She made her choice, to save her friend. I can assure you that it will not be worth the trouble to recover her body or the others that she has joined. Due to the dryness of these sands her body will mummify rather quickly. Perhaps in thirty or so years she will drift to the surface. Then a grave will be made ready for her body. Now to the taxi, it is not yet lunch time and we have much yet to do.”

“NO” Alpha screamed, throwing herself at the place Katrina had been. She began digging with both paws, but as fast as she dug the simmering soft, dust dry sands fell back into her hole. With ten minutes of trying she never managed a hole deeper than three feet. Finally the shrew gave up, understanding that sometimes one lost, even off of Cranium Island. With her friends help she too escaped that deadly trap, staggering to her feet, tears in her eyes she made her way to the awaiting water taxi. “I never forget her” she told the waiting feline as she sat down. “Never.”

Alpha Rote woke in a sweat. A dream, it had to be a dream she realized. Throwing off her thin blanket she stood, looking into the bunk above her. There Katrina slept, the rabbit snoring ever so slightly. It had been a dream, a horrible, terrible dream. Sitting on her bed she tried to make sense of it. Why, why would she dream such a thing? She rarely dreamed non-technical dreams at all. Alpha was still trying to make sense of it hours later when Miss Blande walked to the open door. “Ten mile full pack” the feline announced none too gently. “Ladies, today we see what South Island has to show us.”

Alpha barely managed not to scream.