Arena 5 by Logan Jacobs

Author:Logan Jacobs [Jacobs, Logan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-05-30T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

The storm continued to rage as we raced away from the hive of mutated scorpions near the rocky butte. The wind buffeted the trailer and made it hard for me to steer and keep the truck in anything resembling a straight line. I was barely doing fifty miles an hour because of the sheets of rain that slammed into the windshield and the desert sand that had become a muddy morass that our all-terrain tires struggled to find traction in.

Inside the cab it was cramped and humid. Tempest sat in the passenger chair while Nova, Aurora, and PoLarr were crammed next to each other behind us. Because of her very long legs, PoLarr had stretched them up through the space between the driver and passenger seats. She wiggled her toes absently and for some reason it struck me as stupidly adorable, especially when juxtaposed with our current condition.

“This little piggy went to market, and this one stayed home,” I said jokingly as I reached down and tugged on her big and index toe while I recited the children’s rhyme. She burst out in unexpected giggles.

“My toes are very sensitive,” she said and curled her feet into toe fists.

“That is good to know,” I winked as I tossed a look her way. “We have an extra pair of boots for you, right?”

“Yeah,” PoLarr answered. “They are just in the back. We all have a full spare set of clothes.”

“Thank god, sugar,” Aurora drawled. Her eyes still blazed bright from the life-force she had drained not long ago but the excitement of the confrontation had begun to fade. “I do believe I’m starting to rust.”

I burst out laughing, and it soon caught on. I imagine we looked like a caravan of escaped mental patients as we drove our tricked out space semi-trailer through a desert hurricane after having fought scorpions the size of a couch. But it was such in the Crucible of Carnage. After a few seconds our laughter faded, but it had served its purpose to help us release the valve on our stress and anxiety.

“Who is Leroy Jenkins?” Tempest asked. “Friend of yours or what?”

“You could say that,” I chuckled.

“Tempest, it is indeed a very long and, as Marc certainly tells it, a very long story,” Nova groaned and patted me on the shoulder.

“Three words,” PoLarr added. “Dolemidian Lure Spiders.”

“Gah!” Tempest uttered as she physically recoiled. “Those nightmare things make the scorpions seem like ladybugs.”

“Our handsome hero here,” Aurora bragged while her finger played delicately in my wet and tousled hair, “defeated about ten of them soon after her became a champion with that little flaming wood chipper thingy.”

“Get the fuck out of here!” Tempest exclaimed. “You did not.”

“I did too,” I answered without taking my eyes off the road. A swell of pride filled my chest.

“He’s been rushing head first into overwhelming odds like some kind of stupidly brave and reckless fool ever since,” Nova commented. “I happened to be watching it live when it happened. I was equal parts amazed and slightly aroused.

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