is good thinking. We are on a short time frame. How about we get one person on stake-cutting, one on pit-digging and the other on the Malayan Gates and…" he paused and frowned.
"Killing branch trap," said Ian.
Nathan was poring though the book.
"The holes, they're called Punji pits.”
Another argument ensued as to the correct pronunciation of "Punji.” Nathan settled this by remarking that the sun already looked low on the horizon. The entire complexion of their toil had changed, their labours now unleavened by play. At one point, several hours into their work, Nathan shot a glance at Ian. With wooden spikes arrayed before him in a semi-circle, he suggested a primeval armourer. Jeremy's bowed head rose occasionally as his shovel connected with the ground. Nathan had never before felt so much a part of something. He almost wished that what he had seen was the menace worthy of this feeling. Perhaps other boys had done this before, he thought. Maybe only the entrenching was eternal, and every other work of humanity pure ephemera.
He pictured a lost tribe of children digging atop hills behind towns everywhere in the world, a ringed fortification growing ever larger as it consumed young minds and ancient forest alike. One day, parents would awake to empty, silent houses. They would run shouting through the deserted streets in search of their offspring. But in the tree-shadows, heedless of these cries, would crouch a new race far beyond their control.
All three boys were required to heft the Malayan Gates into place. Ian insisted on a single test swing to validate its lethality. Bemoaning the lack of a live subject, he had made a crude scarecrow from old overalls filled with dirt. The boy set up the tripwire and release mechanism from a lying position, should the device be sprung accidentally. He could not get the dummy to do anything more than slouch dejectedly before the onrushing spikes, which removed its head in an explosion of cloth and dirt-brains. The trio's silence was broken by Jeremy.
"That is awesome.”
"It's like fishing," said Ian. "We keep the bait where they can see it.”
Nathan pushed the Malayan Gates back and forth.
"If I am the bait, then this is the hook," he said, smiling. "Let it come up here, we will make it pay for every inch of ground.”
He looked at Jeremy, who smiled back.
"It's not like playing war, is it?" he smiled. "I mean, it feels different.”
Nathan was relieved to have his thoughts expressed.
"No. It's like being scared and excited at the same time. I just want tonight to be over, but I don't want it to end either. Do you know what I mean?"
Ian picked up the dummy and tossed it upon the wooden spit-points of his trap, where it dangled like a rag-doll that had found its way to Hell. In answer to Nathan, he motioned to the waiting trench, a feral grin about his jaws.
They had arrayed spears close to hand by way of close-quarters defence. Each had cut the weapon according to their preference (in spite of Jeremy's insistence that they standardize lengths). A system of orientation was devised, with 12 o'clock being the waiting maw of the Malayan Gates, 3 o'clock the opening to their frontal trenches, the rock-rolling slope at 6 and the forest at 9. Jeremy brought up a pair of binoculars and scanned the perimeter every minute or so.
Nathan saw the sunset slowly drench the pines in gold. Hazy rivulets of pollen swept above their heads to the valley below and were put to yellow fire. He breathed deeply, marvelling yet again at the verdancy upon the air, a pungent aroma of new life. A slow red glow was deepening within the hollows of the cloud pillars facing dusk-ward.
Nathan smiled; clouds had been an early point of differentiation for him, an aid in marking him out. Their teacher had led the class outside to learn about cloud formations. She started by asking the kids to describe the shapes they saw there. The response came back: a donkey, a castle, an octopus, a kitten. Nathan was last to answer, oblivious to the many eyes judging his expression of pained concentration.
"It's like a spaceship," he said at once, "but one made of a great big animal that's not dead, it's just been hollowed out so people can live in it. It is telepathic too, so the pilots can communicate to it. People are starting to go missing in the lower decks though, because it is getting hungrier the more time it spends away from its home planet -" This continued for long minutes, the mumbling of his classmates slowly dying away as he revealed an entire infrastructure within the animal-craft. Intrigues and characters emerged the faster he talked; then lurking horrors battling for supremacy within the white-fleshed corridors. It marked him early as The Weird Kid, and helped in his gravitation towards his two best friends.
The younger Jeremy had sought him out later and interrogated him methodically.
"What does the creature use to power itself?"
Nathan replied that it would swim through currents of solar wind. Jeremy was vigorously shaking his head long before Nathan finished.
"No," he said simply, "that wouldn't work. It needs some kind of drive that goes into a sub-space mode.”
Jeremy's response had set the tone of their friendship forever more.
Nathan raised his eyes again to the cloud above. Only basalt cliffs were suggested there, free from infestation by monster or alien. The clouds shifted dreamily, serenity unassailed by fear. Their evocation of the eternal was no comfort to Nathan. Onwards they would roll in slowly diffusing strands of vapour until nothingness overtook them.
Is life like that? Nathan thought, just patterns of stuff forming and falling apart again? And if you're scared or being hunted by something, there's nothing that the clouds can tell you to help you out, because they're stupid and dying for no reason too.
He looked at Jeremy and Ian. They had broached this subject before. It was hard going to think about for too long. He thought of his dream of the hanging wave, how real the sand felt under his back, the salt-tang in the air as the wall of water curved ever upwards. A single tear sank through the collected dirt upon his cheek. For the first time in his short life, he saw that his consciousness was not the hub upon which the wheel of existence spun. His death would not still the clouds. This setting sun would dawn tomorrow on untold waking millions, arising to a day in which the death of Nathan Kinnaird did not figure. He sniffed loudly.
"Jesus, Nathan, what are you seeing up there?"
Nathan wiped his tear away with a guilty swipe.
"Nothing.”
"Well come and help us then," Jeremy said, flinging a clod of dirt upwards at his friend.
Much ceremony attended the lighting of the campfire. Ian had brought a packet of firestarters to form the base of an inflammable pyramid of twigs and newspaper. Jeremy was nervous around the flames. Nathan knew his stepfather had introduced the boy to fire by hanging him upside down over a backyard incinerator. This was just one of the many life lessons he sought to impress upon Jeremy.
On the few occasions he had met the man, he had seemed to Nathan all bulging eyes, protruding teeth and wild hair, more than earning Jeremy's pejorative of "The Troll.” When eventually slaked by beer, the Jeremy's stepfather's formidable thirst would darken his mood like a thunderhead beknighting a valley. It was then his mania for subjecting Jeremy to trials of worthiness would take hold in earnest. Needless to say, his stepson despised him with unfettered passion.
The firelight guttered low and crept up the pinewood. A spider, dislodged from its home by the heat, spun crazily upon the bark. Ian picked up a stick and flicked it into the fire where it was quickly scorched.
"We should do this in shifts," suggested Jeremy.
"I will take the first one," offered Ian quickly. "My watch has a countdown timer, so I can hand it over to the next sentry.”
Nathan murmured agreement. Jeremy was shuffling about in his knapsack and emerged carefully holding a plastic bag.
"I left this 'til last, so we could put it up close inside the traps.”
Jeremy revealed a mass of thick string from which small bells were strung every foot or so. Natha
n asked where he had got them.
"Courtesy of the Troll. He did not observe proper wallet security protocols.”
Ian had already grabbed one end and was delicately threading it all around their trench. There was a good nine or ten metres of the cord to play out around the trench rim. The bells chimed softly as Jeremy tested tension along the span. Ian then noted that the cord would have an unexpected secondary function as a tripwire. He expressed his pride.
"But we can't test it now. No way. We're in here until the morning.”
Nathan felt like a spiderling in its first web, glorying in every sticking point and killing place.
"Let's do a quick drill," he suggested.
The boys practiced running to a section of the trench and impaling an enemy. Soon Nathan felt as he did when playing Samurai Movie with Scott. Their practice wound down when the over-head spear twirl by Jeremy caught the back of Ian's head with the weapon's haft and floored him. There was no blood; Ian sat rubbing his head stoically.
By the time the mock attacks finally trailed off to nothing, the day had vanished from the forest again. They had never seen a fire before. Or more correctly, had never seen one not enclosed by relations wielding food on prongs at family camping trips. Whereas their torches blanched all in an anaemic wash, the fire was an endless skirmish between shadow and light.
"We should put on more wood," said Ian. "Build it up as much as we can.”
He stared