Frank

It had been ten hour hike. Ten freaking hours! He hadn’t had to do something like this in two years, not since the last time they’d uncovered an interstitial hole. He was aching in places he’d thought had disappeared in college. What this actually was, despite Flores assertion, was definitely a job for Tasmin the Tiger Girl and Dr. Burnes, I Presume. They were the specialists in roughing it.

Frank sighed, brushed leaves out of his face while the gloom deepened.

Unfortunately, those two were still being held somewhere in Mali, or maybe across the border in Niger by now with what the French had faxed back, and the calculations they got from the university suggested strongly the next conjunction was going to happen two weeks early. Damn those two, they’d better be damn miserable and have sand up every one of their cracks by now.

Frank was certainly as miserable as could be. Rubbing at the now red bites from mosquitoes and God else knows what. He scrutinized a bump on his skin, like a tiny volcano. Was that from a chigger?

Sure he’d applied plenty of Deet, but the beasts still got him. And, to his annoyance, the others didn’t seem to be nearly bothered so much. Damn but insects loved feasting on his flesh. He’d have to go over every inch of himself later, to make sure he hadn’t attracted a deer tick. Last thing he needed was to get Lyme disease from this two day hike.

He pressed his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose, as he had to do every minute or so out here.

“You look like you’re just about dead, Frank,” Benny commented, watching him as he stumbled into the camp a good twenty minutes after the rest of the group had. “We’re practically all settled. What took you so long?”

Well, he had told them not to wait up.

“I had to check the sky,” he told the man who appeared a bit too smug in his unnaturally adept camping acumen. “You know how exact we need to be. And we just got here in time. I think. I hope.”

“That’s okay!” called Gary from across the small clearing. “I set up your tent. And started the fire. Dinner should be ready in twenty.”

Frank muttered thanks at the man’s cluelessness and headed for his tent. Once inside, he dumped his portable telescope, collapsed onto his sleeping bag, turned over and breathed the dank forest air in and out until it calmed and sounded the least bit normal. And also replayed the layout of the constellations in his head. They were perfect. The only concern was whether the sunspots would remain active long enough. Odd were good, based on the observatory predictions they’d gotten when they arrived in Green Bay.

And then he passed right out.

“Hey, wake up Frank!” somebody called out. “Dinner’s ready!”

Great, Frank thought as he pulled his aching bones up from his sleeping bag on the cold hard ground. Camp food. He’d have done better with the lunch truck back when he was working summers at Schells.

Before he left the tent, Frank checked his exposed skin. Thankfully no ticks though. Just a swathe of mosquito bites and some bumps that was probably from the black fly swarm they’d had to get through when they crossed the one of the creek. He sprayed some more repellent, rubbed it in and winced. Damn, but those bites stung.

The sooner they’d had this done the better.

He stumbled out of his tent to find a log set up for him at the campfire. He glanced around at the others, each painted orange/red by the warm and flickering glow. Benny looked at peace, as usual, eyes closed. Nora was spraying herself again. At least he wasn’t the only one the bugs had attacked en masse. She finished and pulled the sleeves of her hooded jacket back down to cover her own red spotted arms. Ah, his partner in misery.

Gary looked more than a little distracted, glancing back and forth.

“Something on your mind, new guy?” he asked.

Gary shrugged.

“It’s been a while since I went camping,” he replied with a wistful expression on his face. “There’s something about being out in the woods. Like getting closer to …”

Frank glanced over at Benny. Raised his eyebrows. Benny shrugged. He turned back to Gary.

“What would you like Frank?” the man asked as he reached into their food pack. “wieners or go fancy?”

“Fancy?” Frank asked. They were out in the middle of nowhere. What was fancy here, pine nuts?

“We can put together a kebab for you,” Gary noted. “Nora and I picked up some goodies at the Piggly Wiggly in Merrill while you were gassing up.

“Fancy,” Frank decided. “Let’s go all kebab then!”

He chose a kebab, which included baby corns, tiny potatoes, sausage slices and Zucchini.

“Whose idea was this?” he asked. “Surely not yours or Nora’s?”

Gary pointed to Benny.

“Better than mystery meat on a stick, don’t you think?” Benny said as he passed one over. “Those things are not good for your system.

“Can’t argue with you there,” Frank replied.