Sheila couldn’t see a fucking thing. The mob at the bottom of the hill had turned en masse but what they were seeing, and clearly considering shooting at, was an absolute mystery to her and she hated it. Of course the dog had run off down the slope while a bunch of bullet-launching nutjobs were at the nadir waiting for it. And of course Steve had launched himself after, a moronic hero trailing his own blood through the trees. And of course here she was, alone at the top of the hill, ready to go, and completely out of the loop.
The mob wasn’t watching her. She could have been one-woman-banding a hundred and six trombones and they wouldn’t have raised a hair. Their raptness made her even more curious about what was happening down there- but that only drew more attention to her predicament, being that here she was, without being able to see the most important part of whatever scene was unfolding, with no quick way of rectifying that, and no way at all of rectifying it while also staying aware of any shifts in the situation’s governing behavior. Fucking Steve, she thought. Fucking dog.
Rob, meanwhile, was now squatting and peering, a distinct air of discovery in his eyes that if she hadn’t known any better would have indicated he could see something. If she moved, she might see it too, but she’d also lose the security of having already staked her claim to this spot. She felt enveloped in confusion and chose to act, moving towards Rob and planning, when it came to that, to try and get back to her perfectly sighted spot before anyone else had gotten much of a move on.
As she did, the angle started to clear. There was the dog- she could see it clearly at least- and something else, another animal next to it. She crouched and saw Steve next to a wagon and that the animal was a mule, attached to the wagon.
“What is that?”
“A wagon with a mule attached.” She felt like she might have deserved that one. Clarity was of the utmost importance in their current situation and she hadn’t ascribed, so the answer was both accurate and appropriate but umbrage still creeped into her reply.
“No shit, but why?”
“I do not know,” Rob said, shifting backwards so that the crest of the hill hid him from the militia’s view, “But I would like to.” And with that he set out duckwalking across the gap, careful not to rise up, before entering the trees precisely where Steve had followed the dog.
Now, you have some idea of what’s happening down there because you’ve been told. Rob may or may not, but his inner life is questionable at best so who’s to say what makes him curious. It’s enough to posit that the situation changed and he feels a need to know why before agglomerating it into some larger narrative about the government black site where the aliens are kept under the direction of your favorite faked-death celebrity. But for Sheila, this is a real quandary which is not necessarily made much better by the reaction of the mob: by all indications a sort of restrained interest. Sheila, we would say, is potentially right to be concerned about anything this personal death squad finds distracting. What is she to do?
In her worst moments this would be an opportunity to spray the masses in a hurricane of bullets. A better opportunity will not present itself, according to the most recent polling data, and this must factor in. So, however, does right now the likelihood that from this position Steve almost certainly dies and Rob runs away, leaving her now alone to face reprisal. Even if we assume she manages to kill half of her attackers in one fell swoop of righteous fury she’s still not any better off, during the attendant assault response, than she would have been fighting in a blaze of tandem glory with Steve.
In her best moments she might consider that Steve, somewhat more diplomatic than she, might by the end of this have it all under control and that she, Sheila, Killer of At Least One, might be most well-served by remaining literally above the fray. But this takes away some of her situational agency, and I think we can all agree that’s not the state of mind Sheila is in right now. It’s also a gamble based on words, and we should all remember that Sheila did not wake up naturally this morning. So what to do? What to expect? What would you do? Ignore how they arrived at this place: they did, we said so, and if you’ll recall the contract here that’s as good as putting your hands on the stone. So, what would you do? It’s worth thinking about, because it’s probably not what Sheila did.
“Hey! Fuckers!” she shouted, letting her words roll mobward down the hill. As one they turned, an enormous flock of human-shaped birds. “What’s going on? I can’t see.”
“Man in a wagon,” a voice piped up.
“With a mule!” another chimed.
“Talking to your man,” said a third. A fourth fired a single bullet in Sheila’s direction, which came nowhere near her, and she witnessed a short scuffle among the group.
“Sorry about that,” said the first voice, at which point the mob turned back to look at Steve and, apparently, a man in a wagon with a mule. Sheila was taken aback. She was also, she realized, ignored, which was, as usual, fascinating. She took a step forward and nobody reacted. She took another step forward and was again rewarded with an absolute absence of action. One by one she took tiny, careful steps down the slope of the newly bald mountain and at no point did anyone so much as sniff in her direction.
Her senses were heightened, the implied danger in what she was doing was palpable in the air, despite the fact that as she drew closer and closer its real likelihood diminished. She could smell vaporized tree in the air, and a faint whiff from the shot which had been fired at her, and moisture and dirt. The colors, usually strong but muted by fog or distance or both, were vivid and electric. She felt high, a sensation she’d more or less entirely forgotten. And then, against all odds and sense and after an interminable number of tiny sideways steps down a muddy rubbled hill, she stood side by side with the people who had done it. She might have been one of them. The one major difference was that as she eyed them warily, they pointedly did not eye her. Their eyes, which she noted was not necessarily heads x2, were all rapt and riveted on Steve with, as they said, a mule and a cart and a man.
Sheila couldn’t hear, but it was her house just up the bank there and she’d lived for a while in it, and she’d be damned if that man wasn’t a trader. Why the mob beside her was so entranced was a kettle of fish for a different can, but that they were seemed to offer her an opportunity. She didn’t quite know what to do with it. She considered attempting to kill them all, but she didn’t feel she had the right tools for the job and she was fairly certain that attempting to do that with the wrong tools was one surefire way to snap the spell. She could, in theory, use the time to run away but one: fuck that and two: Steve was over there, with his stupid dog, and Rob was god knew where and even in some far-flung universe where she abandoned her home to these inbred shits she wasn’t going to do it alone. She glared at Steve. Of course he was talking to the guy. He had his arm on the footboard now, in full salesman mode, and Sheila felt herself brimming with annoyance. Of all times. Also, how?! Look around? Look to your right you oblivious idiot. What are you doing?! This, of all times, is obviously not THE time.
Then she took a breath and realized that it must be. After all, no one was moving. They were all barely breathing. It was chaos. She stepped forward, and nobody moved. Again, and there was still the same curious but predictable absence of reaction. Again, and again, and again, until she found herself at the front of the pack standing next to a man holding a rocket launcher and wearing- against the trend of his contemporaries- a large, cowboy-hat safety helmet.
“I assume you’re the leader,” she said, watching Steve.
“Damn right,” the man replied, watching Steve.
“I assume you want to go over there,” she said, glancing up.
“Damn right,” the man replied, not.
And together they walked across the distance to where Steve stood, and the schnauzer sat, and the man in the mule cart guffawed and beckoned with the promise of utilitarian improvement.
