“And with that,” I say to Bert and Angelica, “let’s put a cap on it because I desperately need to sleep.”

We’d been talking all night. It’s so early in the morning I wouldn’t be surprised to see the sun pop up in the next few moments, and I am exhausted.

“That’s not the ending, is it?” says Bert. “That can’t be it.”

“Of course it’s not,” says Angelica, then looks at me. “Right?”

I lean my head back, resting my neck. My side aches. I can’t feel my toes anymore.

“There’s a little bit more,” I say, flinching as I watch the steam of my breath dissipate into the air. “But it will have to wait until morning.”

Bert looks at his counterpart then back at me. “Sure but, just … does Xeno ever come back? Or is he wiggling around inside of you, still stuck in there?”

I tilt my head his way and raise an eyebrow. “First, Bert, you need to work on your phrasing. And second, I promise I will have an epic, exciting, and bloody-filled ending for you in the morning. Okay?” I put my head back down and focus on my breathing. Every inhale, every exhale hurts.

With my eyes closed, I feel something being draped over me. Scraps of clothing, I realize, to keep me warm. It doesn’t do much, but at least it’s a nice gesture from the man eaters I’m sharing a room with.

—•—•—•—

When I open my eyes, the decimated office space is illuminated by sunlight pouring in through the floor-to-ceiling window. The fire has been rekindled, and a slice of the meat is roasting on a makeshift spit fashioned from scraps of office furniture. With relief, I realize it's the last bit of meat I received from the other world—not human.

I had expected my leg to be gnawed off by now, but a quick inspection of my freezing limbs reveals I'm still intact, thankfully. However, the pain in my side continues to spread, and I can feel the rawness deeper in my bowels now. It's a terrifying realization that the internal bleeding hasn't stopped, and I may very well be on the very last leg of this long and arduous journey called life, no pun intended.

The two cannibals are not around. I readjust and try to pull myself to my feet but I can’t do it. The pain is too great I give up halfway through and just lie there, staring out the window over the Vegas skyline. Or what’s left of it. Finally, my two companions walk back into the office space carrying plastic containers of packed snow and ice.

“Hey, look who's up,” says Angelica, handing me a bottle. It’s half melted already. I nod to her and sip at it carefully, my head to the side.

They take their seats across the fire from me, as they always do. And by the looks on their faces, I can tell exactly what they want. But I’m in no mood to be a storyteller right now. In fact, I’m in no mood to do anything right now. But, telling my story is probably the only thing keeping me alive right now. I’ve not dealt with many cannibals, but the few I have suggest that a few instances of kindness does not secure my eternal standing. Not that I have much longer to live anyway.

Bert points to the roasting meat. “Don’t know why you like it cooked so much,” he says. “But I hope I did it right. You should really try it raw and wet once in a while. It’s much better that way,” he says. “More …” he searches for a word and lands on: “fresh.”

The definition of fresh is apparently relative in this context. And I’m suddenly reminded of a humorous scene with Gollum/Smeagol from Lord of the Rings.

“Thank you, Bert” I say, as the man plucks the meat off the stick and lays it on the arm of the couch for me. I look at it and my stomach growls. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Well,” says Angelica, cracking her neck left then right. “You have your breakfast. Out with it then. Let’s hear the story, old man.”

I touch the meat. It’s still too hot to consider and it feels like wood. So I take a sip of tainted water, clear my throat, and let out a long and painful sigh.

“Okay,” I say. “So, where did I leave off last night?”

“The Brits,” says Bert.

“Ah, right. Okay.” I clear my throat again. “So, the four Brits and I have a few interesting adventures together in the few weeks I’m with them. None of which are extremely crucial to this story, but I’ll summarize a few:

“First, I initially thought they would want me to send them off to paradise immediately, but they all chose to stay and help me until I could manage on my own. None of them had families, commitments, or much of anything else to cling to, so it made sense to them. Nerves Rob turned it into a kind of nobel quest to see my mission to build the single rider platform fulfilled. Everyone needs a little purpose, you see.” I say.

“Purpose,” says Bert, looking out the window, his eyes distant. In the time I’ve known him, I’ve never taken him for one with any capacity for deep thought. But the look in his eyes seems to deeply consider the notion carefully.

“We traveled around, scavenging for food mostly,” I say. “There was a violent scuffle at a gas station where we fought a gang of Harley Davidson bikers over fuel from an exposed tank under the pumps, and—”

"What's a Harley Davidson?" asks Bert.

“It's like a car,” says Angelica, “but with three wheels,” she pauses, “or two, maybe, I don’t know. But stop asking questions.”

“Sure,” I say. “Really rough guys, you’d two would have liked them. For the first few hours of the engagement, we’d barricaded ourselves behind a number of cars half buried in the earth, and the bikers took refuge behind what was left of the Shell Gas Station. Shots were fired, insults thrown.

I ended up convincing one representative from each side to come to the table—or hotdog station—and negotiate an agreement. That was an interesting conflict. Anyway, after that, we—”

“Wait,” says Bert. “You’re just going to gloss over that part? That sounds like an awesome fight.”

“It was,” I say. “But it has little to do with moving the story forward, so maybe next time.” I offer him a smile then continue. “After that, we decided to return to the crash site to see if we could determine any other way to wake Xeno up, but found nothing. Eventually, Dour Bob got hurt so I sent him off. Then Twitchy gave us all a sob story about how he couldn't go on without Bob, so I sent him too. A few days later, after fruitless experiments with the platform, the crystal, and failing to find food, the other two let me send them as well. Angry Sam didn't want to leave until my arm had healed, or at least until I could take off the cast. It wasn't more than a hairline fracture, so it healed quickly. Healing up didn’t seem to be enough to bring Xeno back, however, so I was still stuck.

“I told you,” says Bert to Angelica, referring to some previous conversation I wasn’t privy to.

She looks at him, then back at me seemingly unconvinced about something.

“Nerves Rob felt particularly guilty for asking me to send him, saying I reminded him of his brother back in Westham who died when he was younger,” I say. “But in the end, I was alone again. And that’s when I realized something.”

“What?” asks Bert. “What did you realize?”

“I realized I already knew someone who could possibly help me understand how to use this platform.”

“Who?” asks Bert. “Who was it?”

“It was Jim,” says Angelica. “Wasn't it?”

I nod, point at her. “That's right. Someone who was a supposed expert in alien communications.”

“Jim?” says Bert, his brow furrowed.

“You remember,” says Angelica. “He was the guy from—”

“I remember who he is, Angie, I’m just a little … shocked.” He looks at me. “But … you sought him out, despite what he did to you?”

“He did help me escape,” I remind him. “And I didn’t have many other options. So, one day, I packed everything up in our passenger van. Sam and Rob had already hefted the platform into the back for me before they left, and I drove back to Dugway.”

“Were you captured?” says Angelica.

“You have to remember,” I say, “Dugway proving grounds was a full blown town with a school and everything. Small, but big enough to drive around in without attracting much attention or suspicion. Lots of military personnel, yes, but also their families. People of all walks of life traveled through there. And most of them were blissfully unaware of the horrors that happened underground, mind you. Those jobs were reserved for a very compartmentalized group of individuals. And, because of the recent pole shift, and subsequent earthquake, things had changed a bit. Priorities had shifted. And that meant security was minimal. So I had no trouble getting into the town. Now, that doesn't mean there wasn’t any risk. Xeno had confirmed that the projects underground were still underway, mostly due to the small town avoiding the brunt of the quake. And if I made a wrong move, it could be catastrophic. There was definitely risk.

All I had to do now was find Jim without making a scene.