Bad Compony

by ReadStart

3. - A Rock and a Road Trip

Sarge had his back against a Vodnik when we found him, with one hand reaching for his gun and the other on his earpiece. He was still standing… but not for a good reason.

“Oh, Phwew—thank God! Sarge!” Sweets said as he stumbled in ahead of me. “There you are! You had us worried for a second with… er—what’s with the ‘Pompeii’ look you got going o-Oh, what the fuck!”

I didn’t react as colorfully as him—but I was chilled to the bone upon seeing our CO turned into stone.

“Oh… Ha—hah… Ahhh, what the fuck gives with this week, eh?” He started to go hysterical while frantically scanning the trees around us. “First, we find the dud, then we get sent to find the real thing, get fucked over, lose a buddy, land fuck-where over Neverland, and now were fighting off mythical bullshit.”

I stopped watching the tree line to talk to him. “Mythical?”

“Yeah, mythical; as in ‘it shouldn’t fucking exist!’” he shouted through clenched teeth. “If memory serves correctly, it sounded like Sarge described a Cockatrice before leaving us. Supposedly, it's a bird-cryptid that acts like a fucking bootleg Medusa. And we'll be a trifecta of petrified looking statues if it sees us first!”

“And... you know all of this because…”

“What? You never read any Shakespeare?”

A rustling sound came from the bushes to our left. After aiming at it, we saw that it was just Hags.

“'Right, so what’d I miss? Any fig—wait… no, is that–"

“–The late Samuel Redford.” Sweets answered. “Yeah, it’s him—only more stone-cold now... I already miss not being threatened to shut up.”

"Now's not the time to start morning him! We gotta focus on killing this thing!" I reminded them. "keep your backs to the van, and keep your eyes peeled!"

"Good call Preston! You're already a natural in the stereotypical leadership role," Sweets continued to smart-talk.

“Noooo, God why… Wait—shit, are we, like, gonna have to fight that… Greek, snake-chick, or somethin’? ‘Cause I ain’t lookin’ forward to that.”

“Hags; If it flies, just shoot it.”

“Woah, hold up… I know that thing isn't supposed ta fly, Pres. You sure about that? Sweets?”

“For the love of—just shoot anything that moves!” he yelped. “How is that hard to understand now!”

We started scanning with while glued to the van, with Sweet’s head on the loosest swivel out of all of us. But we weren’t watching the van itself. I heard the flapping of wings start from behind the van and something landed with a metal clank as it landed on the roof. It scared Sweets nearly bone-white as he screamed while turning around, tripping over a root while backing up.

“Shit! Don’t look at it! Don’t… Shit I did! No, no, no, no… Fuck! My foot— It’s happening! Ahhgh!”

“Can’t see it from back here, Pres!” Hags had dived behind the back of the van for cover.

I found myself behind a side-view mirror to block line of sight—but I could still see Sweets on the ground. Whatever was happening, it was spreading up his legs fast. It's as if he was slowly being dipped in concrete.

“Oh God, ohhhh God! Marlow! Aww—just shoot me or the bird now, damn it!”

I wasn't about to let Sweets die that easily. So, I thought if I was quick enough, at worst my toes would go a bit stiff. It was enough of a plan to execute.

I saw it sitting on the turret’s machine gun as I peeked out. It snapped its beady red eyes onto me instantly—I felt my feet starting to feel… chalky. As I continued to look at it, I understood Sarge’s description; It was an angry mess of chicken and lizard parts mashed together. And worst of all—it hissed at me too.

I shot at it six times—but there wasn’t much to aim at by the third round. With its fluff and scales all over the place, by some miracle, the stone started thawing on me. And it melted from Sweets too. Hags and I hustled over to pull him up.

"Oh, geez… ahh—thanks, Pres. I owe you a Hell of a lot for that. Hah… I thought I was–"

“–Dead?”

We dropped Sweets as Sarge spoke up. Sarge. His death hadn’t even started to set in with us yet, and now he was resurrected. He cracked a smile out of his fleshed-out face as he slowly managed to regain movement.

“Ahh, damn—my back hasn’t felt this good in years…”

“Jesus Christ… It’s… you’re like, Jesus, Red!” Hags gawked.

“How are you… you were covered—no, you were stone!” Sweets cried out. “Did you ever feel like you died?”

“Hell, whatever it was, I wish I didn’t. Lord, I would’ve paid to see you three stooges fumble for that damn chicken!”

“Oh, real funny—but did you see... a light? Or... anything to interact with while you were out? Great scott, you just beat death, Sarge!”

He paused for a sec before grabbing a cigar from a pouch and lighting it, speaking once he had a good puff from it.

“…Naw, didn't go through any gates. Last thing I remember was a 10-piece bargain-bucket-reject eyin’ me down. Next thing—thawing out just now.” He took a quick look around before walking out of his spot. “How long was I out anyway?”

“’ Bout four minutes,” Hags chirped.

“Hmph. Well, glad to see y’all can work without me holding your hands… but thanks, all of y'all.” He looked at all of us with a humble nod before moving on. “Now, about this ride—we gotta get all this riggin’ crap off before we do anything.”

“So, get to it?” I guessed again.

“Yep. And uh… let’s not talk about whatever the fuck that was, alright?”

“Ah, already back at it—classic Redford” Sweets commended. We started to rip off the chute before he turned to me to whisper, “Let’s do this before we get skull-fucked by a Grue next.”

---

“This a box of 7.62?” Sarge asked.

Hags looked at the ammo box Sarge was pointing to. "Not exactly. I dumped lotta bullets in there. Thinkin’ ‘bout it, I think there’s a few ‘nades in there too…”

“Hags, you’re killin’ me. Get that brass sorted out soon before you pull a damn pin lookin’ in there for a mag!”

By this time, we’d loaded the van with enough gear to invade a small country. Bullets, guns, grenades, mortars, and rockets galore. Gas and water came second, along with first aid. We tossed a radio set with a car battery in there as well, along with a mess of spare parts. Unfortunately, we were stuck with only a few Soviet-era MRE’s for now.

Concerning boomsticks, they were piled over everything else, loaded and all hopefully set on safe. We’d lost our issued rifles while running to board the plane on the runway earlier—but we found satisfaction in the substitutes lying around. For Sarge, it was an AKS-74u with a suppressor, and an M9 he never dropped. Sweets had the MG-3 that he jumped from the plane with. Hags was comfy with a USAS-12, a bandolier of frags, and an RPG now strapped on his back. I found up an AEK with a GP-30 grenade launcher mounted to it. The pistol that I still had felt like a keepsake at that point.

I should mention that we were all a bit guilty of taking a few things off the dead guys. Hags… strangely took a lot of socks for himself—but the rest of us looked for fresh armor plates, kits, and magazines. I changed my boots out for a pair on a Russian. Mine were blood-soaked after the point-blank fighting through the plane; not a very good look if you needed to make first impressions.

Sweetwater was tasked with listing off all gear in the van; hearing him list off arms was the only part I listened to. He mentioned 37 in total, including KORD HMGs, .50 cal AMR rifles, and an FGM Javelin guided missile of all things. We had… far more than what was good for us to mess with—but it was better in our hands than no one's at least.

“And… ok, the list is done!" Sweets jumped out of the back of the car and slapped the side of the van. “Tank’s filled too, with plenty of juice more to spare. Now, are we heading out soon, Sarge?”

“No shit. I found some trail up East from here. Lots of horse tracks on it too. We’ll follow it down to wherever before that Sunsets.” Sarge shuffled us around, “Sweets, get on the gun. Hags, watch the rear; Pres, you’re upfront with me.”

As we took up our spots, Sarge pulled me aside as I climbed in the driver’s seat. “Marlow, I know good to drive—but keep one Hell of an eye out on the path. There ain’t no tellin’ how friendly the rest of fairyland here is..."

---

The Vodnik started up without issue and handled good enough in the woods where it fit. There was a road we found that cut through the trail, although calling it a road was optimistic. This “clearing” wasn’t more than a dirt strip. I drove on it fast enough to avoid any complaints about going slow.

But seeing this as a bit of downtime, I just had to ask Sarge about what happened by the van. No one else had yet, even Sweets.

“So—about that ‘bird’ back there–” I started.

He didn’t even look at me as he said my name, “–Marlow…”

“Uh… yes?”

“Don’t ask.”

“What? Come on,” I blurted out, “That thing almost killed us out there, and you want us to ignore it? How does that make sense?"

“Hell, it’s not even the fact I almost got waxed… or polished, that don't wanna bring up. It’s—the whole thing… I, just—look, that was just fuckin’ magic. There ain’t anything else it can be. I—we both had or skin turn to stone! What fuckin’ science is that supposed to be under? Wizology? How am I even supposed to talk about it? I’d need a pointy-ass hat and a wand to even begin–”

“–You seriously think it was real magic?” I asked. “Like, wizards and spells… and stuff?

“Sure wasn’t just smoke and mirrors.”

“But… this—that’s impossible. Magic is just magic—it can’t be real. There’s nothing that comes close to this shit back home!”

“Well, we’re somewhere a bit different if you ain't noticed… look, if Sweetwater can’t even guess where we are, then we can’t expect anything here to be 'normal'.”

"Hey, er... sorry to eavesdrop—but your roof hatch is open…” Sweets came in on coms, “Anyway, I’m thinking the same thing here. If this something along the lines of a multiverse, or something insane—then forces at work here very well might be different than the ones in ours. What we’d call magic, might just be its own force, like magnetism or gravity–"

“–Thanks for the insight, Professor,” Sarge stopped him. “Shut it and keep scanning.”

"Well, please excuse my vast intellect, Sarge."

I thought about asking Hags about his thoughts. I assumed he was cleaning out his shotgun, from the muffled swearing coming from him. I knocked on the metal paneling behind me to get his attention.

“Hey, Hags, you got any ideas about what’s been going on here?" I radioed him.

“What?” he muffled back, “Ya mean ‘bout that mish-mashed chicken-shit thing?”

“Yeah. You… you can use your mic, right?”

There was a moment of silence before he got on the air. “Would y'all… rip me a new one if I said... I think it was magic?”

“Ha, no.” Sarge cracked a grin. “That’s my guess too.”

“Hey, same here!”

"God, Sweetwater—if we get jumped by something outa these fuckin’ trees, your ass is gonna be the first to go. So, if I were you, I’d really shut the Hell up and glue my eyes to those branches before I nail them to 'em!”

I didn’t expect Sweet’s silence as a response for the next 20 minutes.

“Alright... so, would you say that ‘magic’ explains our entire situation here?”

“Gah—just quit thinking ‘bout it. Our job—no, our life right now depends on getting out of here, not to be damn scientists about everything. If it looks like magic, just call it magic.”

“Hey, that’s right on, Red,” Hags chimed in, “And now that you mention it, our luck’s been pretty ‘magical’ in all that sense lately; Us still bein’ here and not good lookin’ corpses has been a magical test of, like, our comradery and/or friendships in and of itself.”

"That's... a pretty deep analysis there Hags. You... hit anything on the way down?" Sarge joked.

"Now that's a good one..."

"You know, after all of that, I don’t feel like a magician," I mentioned.

“You’d be one if you count killin’ as a trick,” Sarge added.

“Heh, yeah, I can see your stage name now; the Good ‘n’ Pretty Deadly Preston.” Hags coined. “And I’d be— Haggodini...”

---

The rest of the drive was fine, except for running over what I thought was a pile of sticks. It turned out to be another wood wolf. I had an issue convincing Sarge that I didn’t just run over a real dog, going as far to needing to ask for the other two to back me up.

But the rest of our trip was two hours of safe, yet mind-numbing, inactivity. Even Sarge decided to let Sweets relax and open his mouth while on the gun. To pass the time, a few ideas were tossed around our around about what would be at the end of that brown dirt road.

Sweets kept chattering about being somewhere else in the universe, and that we had a very real chance of making first-contact with aliens—if we ever crossed them. And after asking nicely, Sarge even gave him dibs to speak first with whatever we found. It was at least better him than Hags to represent mankind here.

Hags didn’t agree with that line of thought; possibly just because he could. But he did find a reason—the trees and plants looked the same here as on Earth. He surmised that we were just on a different part of Earth, not on a new one, and guessed that we might be in China. His explanation for the different sun was that it “just looked like that” over there. Sweets tried explaining to him how impossible that idea was, but after Hags called his alien fantasy “retarded,” they both stooped to name-calling. Sarge soon stepped in with his own theory: they were going to have bigger problems than being shot at by E.T. or the Chinese if they didn’t simmer down.

Personally, I was already leaning on Sweets’ side before we… well, as we crested over the last hill of the road, there was some solid evidence for his alien theory in our sights.

We found ourselves at the edge of the forest as the last bit of sunset faded away. There was a village in view. I say village—but there was… something massive over the place. We saw just glimpse of a massive, shiny tree-thing on the far side of the place before only its silhouette was visible against the night sky. Everything below it looked like cozy, peasant looking cottages—But this structure looked like it was pulled out of Candy Land, with glimmering walls and shimmering points taking up our vision for only moments.

"Woah, woah WOAH—Holy… shit!" Sweets freaked out, “We just—we all saw that, right? that was fucking huge! This is… guys, we’ve gotta go there now or I'm going to absolutely lose-"

"Calm. The. Fuck down, Sweets," Sarge ordered, "I’ll promise to take your ass by magic mountain later—but we’ve got somethin' else up ahead."

The only thing between us and the village below was a sign next to the road. A small purple-painted wooden board between two posts.