He thought it must be around noon as the sun was already far overhead. Its rays splashed through the deep green canopy of the trees onto the scraggy forest floor below. One of those splashes shone directly in Foghorn’s eyes, and he had to squint from having just woken up and to temper the terrible pain he had in his head. Though, his adrenaline spiked when he heard another step twenty yards away.
He couldn’t piece together who could be out in these woods looking for him. There’d be no reason for Thom to have followed him. That interloping sleuth from Bikini likely made off with the Cutlass and u-turned south to wherever Thom landed his pretend spaceship.
The footsteps stopped, and Foghorn froze. The forest took on an eerie quiet, like the silence right before a hunter presses their trigger and the entire landscape booms from the sound of death.
“I know you’re fucking laying behind that tree,” a man said, a voice with some years behind it. “Come on out all slow-like. Got my shotgun pointed right your way.”
Foghorn had no idea who the voice belonged to. “You gonna shoot me if I do?”
“Gonna shoot you if you don’t.”
Without much option other than to show himself, Foghorn propped himself on one knee, stood, and came out slowly from behind the tree. Despite having both his empty hands raised, he said, “I ain’t armed.”
“What the hell you doing out here?” The man asked through a grayed, overgrown beard.
Foghorn didn’t recognize him, but the man’s voice matched the look of him. He was old, very old, old enough to likely clearly remember a time when phones were still connected to wires like Foghorn had seen in a museum as a kid. His outfit looked like it came from that time, too – a pair of faded jeans and a bright red and gold Starter Jacket with the first logo of the Valencia Stars printed below its zippered collar.
As far as Foghorn was concerned, there wasn't many folks worse in the world than old-timers who cheered for Valencia, aside from maybe wrinkly fools who cheered for San Fernando. Both lots of them were masochists to their core.
“Ran out of gas over on the I-5.” The lie came quickly to Foghorn. He’d spent far too much time hanging out with the underbelly of society to not have an alibi ready. “Thought I’d run into a house or farm without much trouble.” Foghorn pointed to the 12-gauge pointed at his chest. “Looks like I was wrong about that.”
“What outfit you with?” The old man seemed to ignore what Foghorn had said or had somehow seen right through the lie. “Who sent ya?”
“Outfit?” Foghorn stammered. “I don’t … .”
“Don’t god-damn play dumb.” The old man took a step forward. “You an undercover copper or just some pecker from Yellow Springs?”
The old man must have seen the gears cranking in Foghorn’s head at the mention of Yellow Springs, because before Foghorn could come up with another lie, he added, “Collins is sending frickin’ greenies after me now? I oughtta send him your head covered in pigshit to remind him just who he’s dealing with. Last I heard he liked getting pigshit delivered.”
The old man laughed, the high-pitch cackle sending several nearby sparrows scattering from their high perches.
Foghorn thought fast. “I don’t work for Collins. And Collins doesn’t work for Yellow Springs anymore.”
“Fired?” The old man smiled.
“No, he’s in Bikini.”
The smile evaporated from the old man’s face, and he raised his gun higher. “You think making jokes is gonna get you out of your pickle?”
Foghorn realized his mistake. The old man must have spent the last 15 years out here in the woods without any updates from the outside world. He wouldn’t have heard about Collins’ move to Bikini or that Bikini was a place with a BBA organization and not a woman’s bathing suit.
“Not what I meant, sir.” Foghorn added the sir as he found most old codgers liked being called that. “Bikini’s an island in the Pacific where they moved the Seattle Storm. Collins is running them now.”
The old man shook his head, like he was trying to shuffle around information in his head and make it all fit somehow.
“Who the hell's running Yellow Springs then as I keep gettin' letters postmarked from that pigsty that I just toss in the burn barrel without reading?" The old man flicked the hand that had been clutching his shotgun's trigger. "Ah, that don't matter now. Just tell me who the hell you're with then? The feds?”
"Definitely not the Feds." Foghorn allowed himself to relax just a bit. “Sacramento.”
“Well, that’s fuckin’ worse.”
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