Cabin Fever Part 7 Chapter 3

Three

Face paused outside of Murdock's bedroom door and listened. He heard Murdock snoring and gave a sigh of relief. He checked his watch. Three a.m. No nightmare so far, but they often came late in the night.

Worrying about Murdock sleeping was keeping Face from sleeping. He pointed his flashlight and left the bedroom area. They'd started using flashlights to move around during the night, because of the generator. BA had spent days nursing the machine, but he still wasn't happy with it. Worst of all, he said it was now using fuel more quickly than before, throwing off their calculations about how long the fuel would last. This forced them to start thinking much harder about economising.

Face went to the radio room and settled down. He switched on the desk lamp and started tuning in the radio. In a few moments he heard a familiar voice.

"Hello, Templeton." Shila said.

"Hi." Face smiled. It was good to talk to someone besides the team and Decker. Decker had been talking to him a lot lately, which made Face wonder what he was up to. Just feeling lonely maybe, but why he'd latched onto Face to relieve that loneliness, Face couldn't imagine.

"How's Murdock?" Shila asked.

"Not so bad the last couple of days," Face said. He felt a stab of guilt about talking to a stranger about Murdock's problems, but he needed to talk to someone. "Though he seems kind of low. He's not even-" He stopped. Perhaps he shouldn't mention to Shila that he'd noticed Murdock hadn't been borrowing the Playboy very often recently. Face was worried that Murdock's reduced libido was a symptom of depression. But Shila might focus instead on the whole 'Templeton Peck the porn baron' aspect.

"Not even what?"

"Oh, not even - um- pretending to be a pirate or something."

She laughed. God, that was such a pretty sound. He didn't want to talk about Murdock suddenly. He just wanted to make her laugh some more.

"So, did I ever tell you about when the team were hired by a wig making firm?"

"I don't think so."

"Yeah, they hired us, because a bad guy was making things pretty hairy for them." He smiled as he heard her giggle. "They wanted us to give him the brush off."

"Go on," she said, sounding like she was loving it.

"Well the bad guy stole a truck load of their wigs. So we sprang into action and started combing the area."

Her laughter bubbled through the speaker. Face sat back in his seat, grinning. He felt the tension of the last few days start to drain away.

"So what are you up to, Shila? How's life?"

"Oh just trying to keep up the New Year's resolutions."

"Yeah, me too, I resolved to give up smoking cigars. That one's going okay." That made him think about the one cigar Hannibal had left. If Face stole it would Hannibal kill him or only maim him? "And I'm doing great on not spending too much time hanging out at the beach."

"I decided to go back to my ballroom dancing classes." Shila said. "I haven't been for months. But what else is there to do in January?"

"Dancing?"

"Yes. I forgot how much fun it is. And good exercise. Can you dance?"

"Dance? Me? Of course. I'm known on the team as Templeton 'the hoofer' Peck." Okay, he thought, that's a lie I'm going to pay for later. He dug the hole a little deeper. "When I get out of here I'm going to take you dancing." As soon as I learn to dance.

"That would be great." She sounded sincere, but also dubious.

"I know what you're thinking. When I get out of here I'm on a one way trip to the slammer. But believe me, Hannibal will figure something out."

"Templeton -"

"I mean you must have read up on us by now, the number of times we've escaped from this guy Decker -"

"Templeton," she interrupted. "Can you not talk about that? It's just, well I may not be a police officer, but I do work for them."

"Oh, yeah, sorry," Face said, sobering.

"And if you tell me anything about any, um, plans you have, well I'm supposed to tell Captain Baker."

Face sat back and bit his lip. Had he been letting himself get a bit too comfortable with her? She worked for the police after all. He leant forward.

"I'm sorry. I don't want to put you in a bad position. I promise I won't bring it up again."

"Okay." She sounded happier.

"So, how's your novel doing?" Face said, changing the subject. But her response was hardly less awkward.

"Um, okay I guess."

"Shila," Face hesitated, and then went on. "How come you'll talk to Murdock about your writing but not me?"

She hesitated too. "Well, Murdock just seems more into that kind of thing and I sort of think you'd laugh."

"Of course I wouldn't laugh. Why do you think I'd laugh?"

"I just think you, with the way you look and everything, you seem like the sort of person who must have been the cool, popular guy at school and dated the... ah cheerleaders, and laughed at girls - at kids like, well, kids who liked to read and... that kind of thing."

There was an infinity of sadness in her voice. Memories of too much hurt.

"Oh, Shila, I might have been that guy, when I was younger, but I hope I'm not that shallow any more." Face wished for nothing more at that moment than to be able to reach out and take her hand. "Come on, we've talked a lot now, don't you think you can trust me?"

There was a long silence. "Okay, well the idea for the novel I came up with a long time ago, it all about -"

The light went off and the radio went dead.

"Oh for crying out loud!"

~~~~

"A chain reaction?" Hannibal said. He poured coffees for the chilled looking team and Decker.

"Yeah," BA said. He had a blackened and oily looking piece of machinery on the kitchen table in front of him. "The first part started to fail and that put extra strain on the other parts. So even when the first one finally failed and got replaced the other parts was already damaged. So another one starts to fail too and, well, same cycle just starts over again." BA sipped the coffee, mostly for the heat. He wasn't a coffee drinker, but it wasn't so bad with a lot of creamer.

"Viscous circle." Face said.

"Yeah," BA said. "And there's no way to tell which part will fail next. Or if it will at all." He shrugged. "I guess I could strip it right down and rebuild it with the spares, but I dunno. If I don't get it right, then we're really in trouble."

"We've got faith in you, big guy." Murdock said.

"Thanks, man. But generators ain't my speciality. If I mess up, it could end up not working at all." He sighed. Usually he would enjoy a challenge like this, but not now. Not when he literally held all their lives in his hands.

"What about the emergency backup?" Decker asked.

"I'm gonna set things up so we can switch over easy, but that one just ain't designed to run a place this size long term. It would fritz out too. And it needs refuelling more often, every coupla hours. Someone would need to stay up all night to keep it fed."

"I think we're going to have to have someone on watch anyway," Hannibal said. "If Face hadn't been up we'd have had no clue the big generator had gone out again." He shook his head. "Unless you can rig up an alarm, BA, we need to start a night watch."

BA sighed. Hannibal was right. He wasn't sure if they could freeze to death before morning came, even if the generator went off ten minutes after they all went to bed. But he didn't feel like gambling on it. He got the feeling that between now and the spring he wasn't going to get one good night's sleep.

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