“It’s not just barbed, its razor barbed,” said the man as he scoped the desert landscape with field glasses.
“Of course it’s barbed, you don’t need glasses to tell you that” said the woman standing in the shadow of a giant Saguaro cactus near him. Her hand went to her brow and she peered from under it. “But is it electrified?”
The man tossed the binoculars to the woman. “Razor barbs are worse. They explode. And shoot a thousand tiny blades from each barb that –“
“Don’t tell me about blade damage,” she said, and waved a hand missing the thumb and index fingers in the man’s face, “Remember?”
He lifted his peaked military hat and wiped the sweat off his forehead. “Feels like 110,” he said. “It hasn’t been this hot as long as I can remember.”
“You’re wearing that damn uniform buttoned to the neck,” said the woman, “I’m sweating just looking at you.”
“You don’t understand, you never did,” he said, “A military man stays ready.”
“Ready for what?” she said, “There’s no cavalry coming to the rescue.”
“And your insolence is intolerable,” he said and turned away from her. “It must be the damn heat.”
A desert rat scampered in the open ground near them.
“Get in the shadow,” she said, and grabbed his arm. “Be quick.”
The both of them bellied up to the giant Saguaro and the woman scanned the sky with the binoculars.
“It’s a drone,” she said, and stomped the ground several times. The rat ran from the shelter of the cactus and dashed from spot to spot across the desert floor, but no path to safety was found.
A teaser explosion rocked the ground and frenzied the rat. It zipped back and forth, and leaped into the air toward a brittle piece of sagebrush and headed back towards the Saguaro.
“Don’t move,” she said and pressed her hand against the man’s back and forced him closer to the Saguaro. “Don’t even breathe.”
The rat stopped near the man’s foot. It wheezed as it gasped for breath.
“Kick it,” she whispered, but he didn’t move. “Kick the thing!”
Seconds passed, and finally the man opened his eyes and looked down. “I just had my boots cleaned.”
“Damn you,” said the woman. The toe of her shoe caught the rat and booted it out into the sun.
The drone hovered like an eagle gliding in the sky, enjoying the game, knowing its shadow caused terror and nothing could move undetected by its sharp eyes.
A thick arm of the Saguaro, that had probably taken thirty years to form into its grand muscular pose, along with a portion of the magnificent flowering crown atop the giant desert cactus, was blown away by the second blast. The rat’s carcass shot through the air and impaled on a spiny cactus thorn that remained on the trunk. It twitched momentarily as it bled, and then was still.
“It’s monstrous,” said the man, and he turned his head away.
“It’s dinner,” said the woman, “if we live.”
The drone circled like a buzzard now, but there was no wind, and nothing moved. Its shadow crossed close to the couple, but the wide Saguaro they hid within gave them protection for the moment, and the drone continued on, again as an eagle, down the barb wire fence line till it was past the horizon.
“Your plans have been inefficient,” said the man. He buttoned his tunic collar. “I have been a victim of that, forever.”
“You blame everything on everyone but yourself,” she said, “You were a strutting egoist, nothing more.”
“Whatever you think is no longer important,” he said and turned from the woman and looked to the fence once again. “That fence is all that matters to me in this world.”
“We’ve tried to cross it so many times,” she said, “it’s impossible.”
“Oh contraire, I must say.”
“Where is your head at?” she said, “How many times do we have to be shot at and have bombs dropped on us? We are not getting near that fence. Your old friend has seen to that.”
“I have a new plan,” he said.
“Like the one given by your vaulted bodyguards, who were the first ones to go? Ram it at the fence up the middle!”
“It should have worked,” he said, “it works in football all the time. A flying V.”
“What’s your latest plan, Einstein?”
“Don’t call me that! He was scum.”
“He figured out the universe and you couldn’t figure out what day it was without an astrologer – a stupid astrologer at that. I hated her pompous ways, acting like she had an ear in the throne room of god. She only heard from hell.”
“That astrologer gave me my biggest victories.”
“And look where she led you. Perhaps the biggest loser in all history.”
“We were atop the world.”
“You climbed there, step by step, on corpses.”
“We made it out.”
“To where? Here?” She laughed. “Only your twisted mind would call this “out.”
The man removed his hat and combed his hair over to the side and back. It was black and damp, so it glistened in the scorching sunlight. He stuck the comb on a cactus thistle, and pulled his pistol from its black holster and checked the chambers. All full. He glanced at the woman and straightened the medals on his jacket.
“I brought you to the mountaintop with me,” he said, “we will get through that fence to freedom on the other side, and will again regain the mountaintop.”
The woman gazed at the barbed wire. She sat against the Saguaro and broke a piece from a rib on the shattered side. She put it to her lips and chewed the fleshy pulp, then took the stringy remains from her mouth and rubbed them across her brow as protection from the sun. “I want to die,” she said, “Why can’t I just die here?”
The man grabbed the woman by the scarf wrapped around her neck. He pulled it tight and lifted her to her feet. He clutched her close to his face and she stretched on her toes to prevent being choked. “Because we are one - in body and soul.”
The woman began to cry but they were dry sobs, she had no tears. The man eased off and let her stand. He brushed the sandy dust from her hair. “There is only one drone,” he said, “one of us will make it out, and for the other, the misery will be over.” He patted her head. “Let’s go.”
They walked slowly toward the barbed wire fence. The woman looked to the south. But nothing appeared. “What do you want me to do?” she said, “It will be here in moments.”
“I wanted to split up, but I think we can make it before the beast comes.” He pulled her along to the barbed wire.
“Do it quick,” she said.
He aimed his pistol and fired where a strand met the heavy, braced post and was held in place with a batten. It fell to the ground. He shot two more battens and there was finally only one low-lying strand left. “We can step over,” he said.
“Shoot it,” she said, “I don’t trust anything. Why hasn’t that monster come?”
He lifted her over the strand. “We are free, Eva!”
The woman’s mouth began a smile, but turned to horror as a massive rift opened in the ground inches beyond them. The head of a colossal snake that reached to the sky shot out of the rift, and with a mile-long mouth filled with thousands of dagger teeth, picked up the man and shook him till he separated from a leg and fell to the ground.
The woman screamed and ran, but the serpent’s teeth snapped and caught an arm below the elbow. She threw herself on the man, and cradled his head. “Adolph, Adolph, we will make it next time.”
The serpent poised above the pair, its mouth ready to chew and swallow them both, but it dissolved before them, and the remnants formed a man as tall as a Saguaro. He looked at his nails and brushed them on the red lapel of the velvet jacket he was wearing.
“Another day, another try,” said the stranger.” Pity, you don’t get better.”
“What do you want, Lucifer?” said the man.
Lucifer laughed. “Nothing, Mein Fuhrer, nothing. See you shortly.” He flipped his hand at them and disappeared in a cloud of dust.
Adolph lifted his head and raised himself up. He looked down at himself and he was whole, as was Eva, whom he assisted in standing.
The two looked out to the horizon.
“It’s barbed,” Adolf said, “razor barbed.”
“I know,” Eva said, “but is it electrified?”
‘It’s hot,” Adolf said, “must be 120.”