LJ Idol Season 10 - Week 14: Campfire Stories
Aaron Gilbert braced for the blast of warm air as he let himself out of the big old office building, and was surprised when he strode out into relatively cool sunshine. The sun coming through his boss's window had looked like it was cruelly baking, but maybe that was only the mood he was in.
There weren't enough people on Aaron's team to do all of the water chemistry modeling that needed to be done for the state, and Aaron thought his boss leaned too hard to him, in particular. All the tough questions seemed to be funneled to him or to the consultants that they contracted with for vast sums. And everyone else in the office got away with a reasonable-seeming workload. He blew out a sigh as he walked to his truck. He was not going to let himself sink into the mindset of "it's not fair" today. It was probably just luck of the draw that he got the toughest water-bodies to deal with.
But then, to top it all off, his boss had also let slip that the rest of the team planned a lunch to celebrate the newest team-member's birthday, which was where they were now. Unlike his boss, who had to stay at the office for a teleconference with the feds, Aaron hadn't even gotten an invite to the birthday lunch. Damnit, he wasn't that person anymore who got overlooked or left behind for the fun times. He actually liked these coworkers and thought maybe it was mutual. He hoped it had been an honest oversight on their part. Sometimes people accidentally emailed Aaron Gilman in Waste management instead of him, because of the way Outlook was set up.
Well, he thought, he'd brought his own lunch today anyway. Aaron was organized like that these days, and it was a nice day to listen to the radio and eat in his truck. Besides, he wanted to check on his truck anyway, because there had been a rash of parking-lot burglaries lately, and even a pair of vehicle thefts. It surprised everyone, because their building was a big, relatively-busy one. But the parking lots were sprawling, and they were near a major road, so the opportunity for crime was there. Still, it seemed like more than a coincidence that the two stolen vehicles had both been people in the water restoration group. He wondered if the rumors were true that neither of them had locked their car doors.
Aaron was relieved to see his truck, parked beside the fringe of trees at the edge of the lot like always. It could be particularly awkward if it were broken into or stolen, if the result was a police search of the truck. He really needed to deal with those items still in his locked toolbox from last month. But he wasn't going to think about negative things like that over this lunch break. He was going to enjoy the breeze through open truck windows and try to relax for half an hour. It was better to be the Aaron who was over the way people had treated him in the past, moving forward with positivity.
Aaron didn't look closely into the back seat of his king cab as he hoisted himself into the drivers seat and adjusted his radio and windows. So he was still pondering his desire for positivity and looking out at the trees when something very heavy crashed into his skull with a great deal of force, causing him to lose consciousness and slump over into the middle of the cab.
***
Aaron woke first to the perception of a throbbing head, and then to the realization that shifting his unnatural position wasn't working. He drifted in and out, with muddled thoughts of wanting to shift his arms, of the smell of a campfire, and the nagging feeling that he wasn't supposed to be camping under pines tonight. A woman was talking, her voice urgent.
"No, you guys, I think this is perfect," she was saying, "He's part of the problem all right. I bet he could tell us more than we've already figured out!"
Aaron was muzzily thinking that it was too cool to be out here without his sleeping bag, trying to figure out why he hadn't zipped into it, when the words he was hearing caught up with him and things snapped into painful place.
"Jen, we can't hurt people!" The man's voice was angry. "People are going to think of this as. . . as terrorism! Even if some collateral damage were okay, it shouldn't come until after we break the story of what they've been doing. This could ruin everything!"
Aaron wasn't camping. Someone had attacked him in his truck at lunch. Someone actually was targeting people in the office! As the adrenaline hit his system, he reached to clear his mind, to get into that place of calculated action he'd only dropped into a few times before. He thought about his anger before at people who had hurt his feelings callously before. Now these people had physically assaulted him. They had no idea what they'd gotten themselves into.
He forced his muscles that wanted to tense and bunch to relax, hoping his captors hadn't noticed any change in him. He opened one eye just a crack and took in everything that he could. It was night. The voices and the campfire were in front of him. Pine forest stretched as far as the firelight allowed him to see. He could just make out a late model sedan at the edge of his vision to the left. There must be at least a dirt road nearby. He lay partially on his side on a carpet of pine needles and brush, some of it poking uncomfortably through his clothes. His wrists were bound with a tight zip tie.
"Well I don't know what else I could have done!" the woman's voice from before continued, louder. "He came and got in his truck while I was rifling through it, and it seemed like he was going to stay a while. But this guys is definitely one of them. He was at the public meeting for the Suwannee. He's responsible for some of their cooked numbers and if he would cooperate with us, I'm sure we could prove it!"
"Yeah, well what if you killed him already! You can't just hit people with heavy flashlights! His breathing was not all that regular before. I think we need to dump him and his truck somewhere where he'll be found pretty soon and wash our hands of all this."
No indication of any other people in the vicinity. Aaron figured he needed to act quickly before the situation got messier. As curious as he was about the motives of the two, he was more interested in survival. His knees has started out partially drawn towards his chest, so it wasn't a far reach to get his hands down to his feet, and to pull the end of one shoelace out between his hands. These people had clearly not watched very many survival youtube videos. His head still throbbed unmercifully, but Aaron was pretty sure he would be free within a few minutes.
From the looks of the trees and brush around him, Aaron guessed they were out in the national forest, no more than a few hours from town at the most. It could be a very long walk to help, though. He was going to have to have a vehicle.
"Well, I'm not ready to give up!" She was almost yelling now, so Aaron imagined they must be pretty confident in the remoteness of their location. At least they'd been organized about that part of whatever they were trying to do. He managed to snap the tie just like they did in the videos and to roll numbly into a crouch, senses tingling, as she continued. "Wether he knows it or not, something doesn't add up with the way they are calculating these numbers, and I am tired of waiting for public records requests and official responses. Something has to be done!"
Apparently no one had seen Aaron move. He almost couldn't believe his luck. The guy was right about one thing- these people were in way over their heads with his attempted kidnapping. They had no clue. And apparently they had no clue about some hazy conspiracy at work, too, which Aaron found himself vaguely interested in.
Then another voice came through the night, another man, moving toward the fire from off to the right, where Aaron could now just make out the silhouette of his truck. "Uh guys, did you say that this dude was some kind of hunter or something in his spare time, because I just popped the lock on his truck toolbox, and, uh, there's some freaky stuff in there. Bloody stuff, guys. A knife and this weird thing. I dunno, maybe it could have to do with skinning animals?"
Aaron's curiosity evaporated. They'd found his tools. And there were three of them. Well, given what he had heard from them so far, he still liked his odds. It was just too bad the poor idiots probably wouldn't really have the chance to learn anything from him.
_________________________
tonithegreat hopes you enjoy this rare departure into something like suspense/horror. It was hard to keep it punchy when the characters were crying out to be developed more! She may have been inspired by actual vehicle thefts at a workplace.
This entry was composed for therealljidol, Season 10. Check out that community for lots of great writing from all kinds of folks. I highly recommend it.
If you enjoyed this piece, please remember me in idol-land and vote for it when the polls go up!
There weren't enough people on Aaron's team to do all of the water chemistry modeling that needed to be done for the state, and Aaron thought his boss leaned too hard to him, in particular. All the tough questions seemed to be funneled to him or to the consultants that they contracted with for vast sums. And everyone else in the office got away with a reasonable-seeming workload. He blew out a sigh as he walked to his truck. He was not going to let himself sink into the mindset of "it's not fair" today. It was probably just luck of the draw that he got the toughest water-bodies to deal with.
But then, to top it all off, his boss had also let slip that the rest of the team planned a lunch to celebrate the newest team-member's birthday, which was where they were now. Unlike his boss, who had to stay at the office for a teleconference with the feds, Aaron hadn't even gotten an invite to the birthday lunch. Damnit, he wasn't that person anymore who got overlooked or left behind for the fun times. He actually liked these coworkers and thought maybe it was mutual. He hoped it had been an honest oversight on their part. Sometimes people accidentally emailed Aaron Gilman in Waste management instead of him, because of the way Outlook was set up.
Well, he thought, he'd brought his own lunch today anyway. Aaron was organized like that these days, and it was a nice day to listen to the radio and eat in his truck. Besides, he wanted to check on his truck anyway, because there had been a rash of parking-lot burglaries lately, and even a pair of vehicle thefts. It surprised everyone, because their building was a big, relatively-busy one. But the parking lots were sprawling, and they were near a major road, so the opportunity for crime was there. Still, it seemed like more than a coincidence that the two stolen vehicles had both been people in the water restoration group. He wondered if the rumors were true that neither of them had locked their car doors.
Aaron was relieved to see his truck, parked beside the fringe of trees at the edge of the lot like always. It could be particularly awkward if it were broken into or stolen, if the result was a police search of the truck. He really needed to deal with those items still in his locked toolbox from last month. But he wasn't going to think about negative things like that over this lunch break. He was going to enjoy the breeze through open truck windows and try to relax for half an hour. It was better to be the Aaron who was over the way people had treated him in the past, moving forward with positivity.
Aaron didn't look closely into the back seat of his king cab as he hoisted himself into the drivers seat and adjusted his radio and windows. So he was still pondering his desire for positivity and looking out at the trees when something very heavy crashed into his skull with a great deal of force, causing him to lose consciousness and slump over into the middle of the cab.
***
Aaron woke first to the perception of a throbbing head, and then to the realization that shifting his unnatural position wasn't working. He drifted in and out, with muddled thoughts of wanting to shift his arms, of the smell of a campfire, and the nagging feeling that he wasn't supposed to be camping under pines tonight. A woman was talking, her voice urgent.
"No, you guys, I think this is perfect," she was saying, "He's part of the problem all right. I bet he could tell us more than we've already figured out!"
Aaron was muzzily thinking that it was too cool to be out here without his sleeping bag, trying to figure out why he hadn't zipped into it, when the words he was hearing caught up with him and things snapped into painful place.
"Jen, we can't hurt people!" The man's voice was angry. "People are going to think of this as. . . as terrorism! Even if some collateral damage were okay, it shouldn't come until after we break the story of what they've been doing. This could ruin everything!"
Aaron wasn't camping. Someone had attacked him in his truck at lunch. Someone actually was targeting people in the office! As the adrenaline hit his system, he reached to clear his mind, to get into that place of calculated action he'd only dropped into a few times before. He thought about his anger before at people who had hurt his feelings callously before. Now these people had physically assaulted him. They had no idea what they'd gotten themselves into.
He forced his muscles that wanted to tense and bunch to relax, hoping his captors hadn't noticed any change in him. He opened one eye just a crack and took in everything that he could. It was night. The voices and the campfire were in front of him. Pine forest stretched as far as the firelight allowed him to see. He could just make out a late model sedan at the edge of his vision to the left. There must be at least a dirt road nearby. He lay partially on his side on a carpet of pine needles and brush, some of it poking uncomfortably through his clothes. His wrists were bound with a tight zip tie.
"Well I don't know what else I could have done!" the woman's voice from before continued, louder. "He came and got in his truck while I was rifling through it, and it seemed like he was going to stay a while. But this guys is definitely one of them. He was at the public meeting for the Suwannee. He's responsible for some of their cooked numbers and if he would cooperate with us, I'm sure we could prove it!"
"Yeah, well what if you killed him already! You can't just hit people with heavy flashlights! His breathing was not all that regular before. I think we need to dump him and his truck somewhere where he'll be found pretty soon and wash our hands of all this."
No indication of any other people in the vicinity. Aaron figured he needed to act quickly before the situation got messier. As curious as he was about the motives of the two, he was more interested in survival. His knees has started out partially drawn towards his chest, so it wasn't a far reach to get his hands down to his feet, and to pull the end of one shoelace out between his hands. These people had clearly not watched very many survival youtube videos. His head still throbbed unmercifully, but Aaron was pretty sure he would be free within a few minutes.
From the looks of the trees and brush around him, Aaron guessed they were out in the national forest, no more than a few hours from town at the most. It could be a very long walk to help, though. He was going to have to have a vehicle.
"Well, I'm not ready to give up!" She was almost yelling now, so Aaron imagined they must be pretty confident in the remoteness of their location. At least they'd been organized about that part of whatever they were trying to do. He managed to snap the tie just like they did in the videos and to roll numbly into a crouch, senses tingling, as she continued. "Wether he knows it or not, something doesn't add up with the way they are calculating these numbers, and I am tired of waiting for public records requests and official responses. Something has to be done!"
Apparently no one had seen Aaron move. He almost couldn't believe his luck. The guy was right about one thing- these people were in way over their heads with his attempted kidnapping. They had no clue. And apparently they had no clue about some hazy conspiracy at work, too, which Aaron found himself vaguely interested in.
Then another voice came through the night, another man, moving toward the fire from off to the right, where Aaron could now just make out the silhouette of his truck. "Uh guys, did you say that this dude was some kind of hunter or something in his spare time, because I just popped the lock on his truck toolbox, and, uh, there's some freaky stuff in there. Bloody stuff, guys. A knife and this weird thing. I dunno, maybe it could have to do with skinning animals?"
Aaron's curiosity evaporated. They'd found his tools. And there were three of them. Well, given what he had heard from them so far, he still liked his odds. It was just too bad the poor idiots probably wouldn't really have the chance to learn anything from him.
_________________________
tonithegreat hopes you enjoy this rare departure into something like suspense/horror. It was hard to keep it punchy when the characters were crying out to be developed more! She may have been inspired by actual vehicle thefts at a workplace.
This entry was composed for therealljidol, Season 10. Check out that community for lots of great writing from all kinds of folks. I highly recommend it.
If you enjoyed this piece, please remember me in idol-land and vote for it when the polls go up!