Cabin Fever

The crime was discovered on the morning of March 5th at 10:15 am. Face went into what had been his bedroom, before the bed was dragged next door. He opened the top drawer of the night stand. Empty. He frowned and tried the other drawers. Nothing.

"Okay." Face marched into the kitchen where the others sat around the table. "Okay, which one of you jokers has it?"

"Has what?" Murdock asked. He was standing up, papers in in his hands as if giving some sort of speech to the others.

"The Playboy," Face said. "And, might I add, the notebook with all the IOUs in it."

"Face, we're trying to have an important conversation here," Hannibal said. He turned back to Murdock. "You're sure about the flour?"

"Weevil city." Murdock nodded. "All the bags in the second store room. So, once we use that up," he nodded at a bag of flour on a bench. "No more bread."

"Am I getting an answer?" Face asked.

"Sit down and shut up," Hannibal snapped at him. Face sat down, glaring at everybody. BA glared at him in return.

"BA's giving ya a number six, Face," Murdock said.

"What?"

"Scowl scale. That's a number six, 'pretty ticked off, but no actual violence is imminent'."

BA turned the scowl on Murdock. "What about this one, fool?"

"A twelve, but there's no body of water nearby, so -"

Hannibal banged his cup on the table, spilling his herbal tea. "Can we get back to the subject of not starving to death, Captain?"

Murdock sobered and glanced down at the paper. "Rats have got in store room number two. Anything in paper packets or boxes has been nibbled at." He glared at Hannibal. "Wow, if only there'd been some kind of animal around here that kills rats."

Hannibal scowled back. "We can do without the Monday morning quarter-backing, Captain."

"What about the poison and the traps?" Face asked. "We put them in there."

"Why would they eat poison when there's all that yummy food to eat?" Murdock said. "And they're too smart for traps. Okay all the canned stuff is okay, there's still frozen food, we'll make it, just. We just won't enjoy it much. Oh one bit of good news." He grinned at Face. "For some reason the rats haven't touched the oatmeal. There's plenty left."

Face groaned. Murdock sat down and started folding his papers into winged shapes that might have been planes or birds.

"No coffee." Hannibal said. "No tea," he glared at his cup. "Real tea. No sugar."

"No powdered milk." BA sighed.

"No chocolate." Murdock's voice shook.

"We ran out of chocolate before Christmas." Decker pointed out.

"It still hurts."

"No bread, no toast." Face said. He'd started appreciating some of the simpler things in life while he'd been here. And a piece of crisp hot toast, thickly spread with butter, well okay, stuff pretending to be butter, had been one of those things.

"If I never see another scoop of ice cream after I leave here it will be too soon." Decker growled. They all nodded in agreement.

"I'm going to eat nothing but fresh food for the rest of my life." Murdock vowed. He paused in his paper folding and went misty eyed just thinking of it. "Imagine it... apples, celery, carrots."

Face could have groaned at the thought of all that crispness. They had canned carrots here, it wasn't the same.

"Steak," Hannibal sighed, "fresh, not frozen, with a baked potato." BA groaned at the word potato. "Strawberries -" Hannibal stopped for a second, almost couldn't go on. "With heavy cream, sugar on top."

"And to finish," Face said, "Cappuccino." He closed his eyes, he could feel the froth tickling his top lip, smell the grated chocolate and then the intense hit of the espresso.

"Fresh peas," Decker said. "My dad used to grow them. My mom and me would pick them, then sit on the stoop and shell them, eat half of them."

"Eggs," BA said, making them all nod. They all went quiet, eyes far away.

"Okay, that's enough." Hannibal said. "Let's try not to dwell too much on that, there's still a long time to go, no use making ourselves crazier than we already are. Face, you were saying something about the Playboy?"

"Hmm...?" Face pulled himself back from a gorgeous vision of scrambled eggs, soft, lightly salted, a little black pepper, a little red pepper, all on top of a slice of thick, crispy golden brown toast. "Playboy? Um, oh yeah, whoever's got it, put it back inside of thirty minutes and I'll not say anything more about it."

The meeting broke up.

~~~~

Face checked the nightstand forty minutes later. Still empty. Right. Right. That's the way they wanted to play it, huh? He was going to... well what the hell was he going to do? Beat a confession out of one of them?

Right. He was going to... not speak to any of them, that's what. Not a single word. Not a single sound would pass his lips all day. That would show them... he frowned. He wasn't sure exactly what it would show them, but it would show them something, that was for sure.

"Hey, Face," Murdock said as Face stalked back into the kitchen. "Shila's on the radio."

Damn.

"Hi there, what's this, huh? Day shift?" Face said, sitting down, smiling at the microphone.

"I swapped shifts to cover someone out sick."

"Well nice to talk to you in daylight. And we actually have some daylight, more every day!" Face laughed. "I guess this means spring is coming."

"Yes." She didn't sound all that happy about it, Face thought. And Face understood. Of course he was looking forward to getting out of here, back to civilization and fresh food. But that meant the end of this. Sure, he wanted to meet her, but what then? What then for both of them?

"I - I guess I should make sure I'm in practice for the dancing." She gave an awkward little laugh.

"Yes, the dancing." Ah yes. Face had forgotten all about the dancing.

~~~~

Face walked into the rec room to find Hannibal unloading the books from the bookshelf and piling them up.

"Hannibal, you can, um, you can dance can't you? You know, waltzes, foxtrots, all that stuff."

"Sure." Hannibal said. He smiled, looking as if he was reliving some good memories. "The ladies love that. I'm surprised you never learnt."

"Yeah, that's the thing. I need to." Face said. He blushed. "Very quickly"

Hannibal looked at him for a moment and Face looked away, then looked back and frowned.

"If you're too busy -"

"No," Hannibal said quickly. "Just let me chop this bookcase up and then I'm hot to trot."

~~~~

"We're gonna have to stop heating the bedrooms," BA said, walking into the kitchen. They all spent a lot of time in the kitchen now. It was the warmest place in the station.

"So instead of saying goodnight we'll say goodbye?" Face asked. He looked sulky. He was sulky. Three days now since the Playboy had vanished and no-one had owned up.

"We can make the dining room into a dorm," BA said. "We eat in here all the time anyway."

"Right," Hannibal said. "Time to shut off the under floor vents to everywhere but the rec room, dining room and maybe the radio room and infirmary. Bring as much of the food from the dry store into here as we can fit. Bring in everything but the frozen food. And put the exercise bikes and weights into the rec room. Anything else?"

They all sat there, thinking. They'd already stopped using the washing machines and were washing their clothes in kitchen buckets, then putting them through the hand cranked wringer they'd brought in from the laundry. Pressing them just wasn't an option.

"Are any of the electric heaters on at all now?" Hannibal asked.

"The bathroom," BA said. "It don't have no floor vents."

"Okay, then we have to minimise the amount of time they're on. We all need to get in there and shower and shave at the same time in the morning."

"Hey," Face said. "Maybe when we need the head we could we all go in a pack like girls do."

Hannibal frowned at him, clearly not appreciating the sarcasm.

"Put the radio on its battery pack and stick to short once a day check-ins with the Mounties," Decker suggested. He gave Face an apologetic look. "I suppose there's no reason the check in can't be during the night."

Face sighed. He couldn't really object. 'Oh I want to use some of the power we need to keep us alive so I can talk to a woman.' That wasn't going to cut much ice.

"Anything else?" Hannibal asked. "Right. There's a nice bench in the laboratory beside the radio room that's just begging to meet the axe. BA, can you put the radio on the battery? Face, Murdock, can you start moving the beds into the dining room? Decker?"

"I'll start moving the food into here."

"Okay, good." Hannibal stood up and they all followed. "Guys," Hannibal went on. "I know this is tough, but I know we've all been through worse than this. We're going to make it." He was rewarded with a few weak smiles. "Okay, let's get to work."

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© Elizabeth Charles 2006