Chapter 2: Buried Treasure.
Trevor's hands shook uncontrollably as he sat in his truck in the parking lot of his workplace. Holy fucking shit... Holy fucking shit... What the fuck did I just do? he thought to himself. He leaned forward, resting his head on the steering wheel.
What had just happened? He was probably going to jail. It was like he didn't have control. Never in Trevor's wildest imagination would he have ever done something like that. Well, maybe in his imagination, but he wouldn't have acted on it like he just did. He just assaulted a total stranger in the gas station with a fucking fire extinguisher. And that voice. Who was that? What was that? Shit... Pull yourself together, Trevor.
Trevor let out a small yelp, shooting upright as someone knocked on the driver's side window of his truck. Breathing quickly and trying to regain his composure, he realized it was just Becky Lynn, his boss's skanky wife. Trevor smiled sheepishly and rolled down his window. The short, curvy, female bear smiled and leaned on his door, intentionally showing off her cleavage, quite obvious and visible with the v-neck black company tee shirt she was wearing. Trevor wasn't sure why, but since he first met her when he started working there seven years ago, she just would not leave him alone. It was well known amongst Trevor and his co-workers that Becky Lynn pretty much flirted with everybody in the building, and outside the building, and pretty much anything with a pulse. How his boss, James, didn't realize this, Trevor had no idea. Maybe his boss was just that much of a dumb ass. The ferret smiled and glanced sideways at Becky's rather large breasts, then quickly at her.
“Uhhh. Hi Becky, how's it going?”
Becky smiled and spoke with a thick Georgian accent. “Well hey there sugar. What are you doin' here on your day off? Come on down here to see me? Or did my mean ol' hubby call you in on your day off?”
Trevor nervously gripped his steering wheel. “Umm. Yeah, James called me in to go check out that seized property. He needs a map of it drawn up so it can go to auction.”
Becky eyed Trevor up in a rather unnerving manner. “Ooooo, well ain't that just exciting! You heading out there now?”
He chuckled and shook his head. “Nah, it's actually kinda boring. But yeah, figured better now than later.”
“Ask her to come along, you haven't gotten any in ages. She obviously wants to jump your bones...”
Trevor's eyes went wide. “What?!”
Becky leaned back a little and looked at him rather perplexed. “I didn't say nothin', sugar. You feelin' alright? You wanna come in and I'll give you a back rub or something?” She smiled suggestively.
Becky moved as Trevor opened his truck door and got out, and walked towards the building.
“Ummm, Yeah, I'm fine, I think I got a bad sandwich from the gas station, I'll be alright. I just gotta grab some equipment. I really should be getting out to the site and getting that finished, it's almost noon and James really wants that map by tomorrow. Thanks anyways, Becky. You have a nice afternoon.”
Becky stood there in the parking lot looking rather confused. She twirled a finger in her shoulder length bleached hair. “Well.. Alright, you have a good one too, sugar. Maybe I'll see you later.”
Trevor looked down at the small GPS device he was using. After punching in a few boundary points, he put the device back in a canvas messenger bag he was carrying. After noting a few points down on his clipboard, he starting walking again. All around him seemed to stretch off for miles. Yep, this property was a whole lot of nothing, just rocks and the occasional cactus. After wandering around for a few hours, periodically setting coordinates on his GPS and taking note of them, he was pretty sure he had all the data he needed to draft up a decent map. Stowing his things back in his bag, he turned around to start making the trek back to his truck.
“Well then, glad that's finally do-Gaaah!” Trevor was cut off mid-sentence as he tripped and pitched forward, landing flat. He laid there on the ground for a few moments, making mental checks of whether or not he had injured anything. He slowly got back up onto his feet and came to the conclusion that aside from a scrape on his hand, he was relatively unscathed. Looking down at the ground momentarily, he spotted the offending object he had tripped over. It was about a foot long length of chain buried in the sand and dirt.
“Huh, I wonder how that got there.” Trevor said as he reached down to pick it up. Upon grasping it and attempting to pick it up, he realized the chain was in fact, much longer and buried maybe an inch under the soil. He began pulling the chain up from the dirt and following it. After about six feet of chain, it ended, and was bolted to a piece of corrugated sheet metal buried in the dirt.
“What the fuck is this?” Trevor asked aloud, as his inquisitive nature got the better of him. He quickly set about uncovering the large piece of metal. After a few minutes, he had brushed most of the dirt and rocks off the six-foot-by-six-foot sheet. Man, I really hope I don't find a body under here, he mused.
Trevor pulled on the chain bolted to the sheet, sliding it across the ground and uncovering a large hole and some wooden stairs. Peering down into the hole he saw that it went down about eight feet to what appeared to be a large buried metal cargo container, like one would see on transport ships. Reaching into his tool bag, he retrieved a flashlight. Hope the batteries in this thing still work... Fortunately, the flashlight did turn on. Trevor slowly made his way down the shoddily constructed stairs to the container. Peering inside, he realized that this room-sized shipping container was a lot bigger than it seemed, maybe ten feet wide and about twenty feet long. Inside, it was stacked, nearly to the ceiling, with all manner of assorted hard black plastic cases and wooden crates. Making his way inside, he looked around at all the various containers. Walking over to a smaller stack of them, he quickly located the metal clasps that held the plastic case closed that stood at the top of the pile. Unlatching them, he lifted the lid to the case.
“Now what the fuck is in he-- Holy... shit....” Trevor shined his flashlight over the contents of the case: a couple of AK-47's, and about a dozen assorted handguns.
Trevor took a few steps back from the case and looked around quickly. “Oh shit... Oh fuck... Buried shipping Connex full of guns... This is bad. Oh shit, Trevor, this is really bad.” He quickly whipped around and ran to the entrance and up the stairs. Tossing his flashlight back into his bag, he grabbed the chain and pulled the large piece of sheet metal back over the hole and began pushing dirt back over the piece of metal to conceal it.
Shit.. shit. What am I gonna do? Those militia guys, they must have buried these out here. The cops must not have found them when they raided the property... Well, why would they? The actual compound was a quarter mile from this place. Fuck, what am I supposed to do? Call the cops? Tell James? Fuck.. FUCK... Today is such a shitty day.
“The way I figure it, Finders Keepers. Heheh. It'd be such a waste to let some pencil dick public servants come out here and take all this beautiful machinery. You know they'd just destroy all of it.”
Trevor spun around to look at the empty desert. “Hello? Ahhh fuck; who are you?!” Trevor yelled. The silence of empty desert answered him. Reaching up, he rubbed his temples slowly. “Fuck.. Oh man, Trevor. You're fucking losing it, man.”
“You know, you shouldn't talk to yourself out loud. People will start thinking you're crazy or something.”
Trevor looked up and turned around slowly. Behind him, about six feet away stood the fox in the slick suit from the self-help infomercial the other night. Trevor stared in disbelief. “Yep.. That does it, you're off the fuckin' deep end.” Trevor said to himself and sighed.
The fox smiled and cocked a brow. “Well, I got some news for ya, Trevor. You're not. Okay, well, maybe a little bit. But if it makes you feel any better, most people are waaaay worse off than you are. Most of them aren't even aware that I exist.”
Trevor looked the fox up and down suspiciously. “And what exactly are you?”
The fox paced a few steps, looking up at the sky as he spoke. “Ain't it obvious, Trevor? I'm your conscience. You see, you've been ignoring me for a long time, and I'm kind of tired of it.”
Trevor pointed at the fox. “My conscience? You mean to tell me my conscience, you, have been making me do all this messed up shit? When I was talking with Becky? Just now, out here. You, you made me attack a stranger in the gas station. What the fuck, man?”
The fox chuckled and shook his head. “Made you? Hahah, nope. I merely made a suggestion, you followed up on it. Besides, you know it was the right thing to do.”
Trevor laughed in disbelief. “Right thing? Right thing to fucking do?! Ummm, I'm probably going to go to jail! Knocking some dude's teeth out with a fire extinguisher isn't exactly an activity smiled upon by civilized people!”
The fox rounded on Trevor and stared at him, his muzzle twisting into a giant white grin. “Oh come on Trevor, don't be so naïve. You really think he didn't deserve it? Of course not! If you did, you wouldn't have done it. Just because society frowns on something doesn't mean it isn't the right thing to do. You ever stop to think that maybe, just maybe, mainstream society is the one with the utterly fucked sense of right and wrong? Maybe that's why the whole world is going to shit? Maybe that's why people like that wolf exist. Because it's not 'smiled upon' for someone to put a shithead like that in his place, like he should have been a long time ago. Every single day you see them. Lowlifes and scumbags that -- for one reason or another – have just been able to do as they damn well pleased their whole lives. Because nobody cares. Apathy. This world is run by liars, and thieves and limp dick bureaucrats that have got the whole world distracted with their 4G cellphones and their pretty pictures for us to look at while they suck us dry. And down here, in the cracks between their high rise empires, people like you just go about your day. Completely oblivious to the truth. Hoping to make enough money so that some day, when you're too old and weak to work anymore, you'll have enough money pay for medications to try to extend your life another year or just to keep yourself comfortable while you watch television and wait to die. Now tell me, how pathetic is that? A fly splattered on a car windshield dies with more fucking dignity than you will.”
Trevor clasped his hands over his ears. “Enough! What the fuck am I supposed to do about that? Huh? So I'm just supposed to drop everything, and save the fucking world, is that it?!”
The fox looked up at the sky and chuckled. “You could start by paying more attention. Maybe listening to me a bit more. You could start by not being such a fucking pushover.”
Trevor huffed loudly. “Hey, I'm not a pushover.”
The fox spun around and yelled in a deafening roar. “YES YOU ARE!!”
“Okay, yes I am.” Trevor said timidly and took a step back as his ears swiveled down.
The fox winked at him. “See? Told ya so. Stop doing that. Grow a pair.”
Trevor sighed and looked up at the sky. “So what am I supposed to do then?”
The fox turned around and started walking away into open desert. “You know exactly what to do. You just gotta do it. I'll see you around, ferret. Same crazy time, same crazy channel.” The fox started laughing loudly as he walked away and then slowly vanished into nothingness.
Trevor stood there, staring out into empty desert. “Well buddy, that settles it. You have completely lost your mind.” Trevor shook his head slightly and then put his sunglasses back on. Turning around slowly, he hiked up his messenger bag and began the walk back to his truck.
About an hour later, Trevor pulled his truck into a parking spot at his work. Getting down out of his truck, he tried to think about his work to try to get his mind off what had happened out in the desert. Surprisingly enough, he hadn't really thought much about it on the way back. As he made his way across the parking lot, he saw Becky Lynn sitting on the hood of a black '76 Camaro that James had bought her as a birthday present the previous year. She looked up from a book she was reading and smiled when she saw who it was.
“Well hey Trevor, have fun out in the desert?” She beamed happily.
“Umm.. Yeah, actually, I did.” He smiled. “Hey, where's James? I need to go over some of this surveying data with him.”
Becky shook her head. “Sorry sugar, He left around noon with Chris, said they were going to the game at Divinity Stadium. He's prolly gonna be out late, always is when he goes to those damn football games.”
Trevor's smile faded very quickly. “Oh, he went to the game with Chris, did he?” Becky nodded.
Trevor turned around and began walking back to his truck. He'd like to say he was surprised, but the fact was, his boss pulled shit like this all the time. “Trevor can you do this? Trevor can you do that? Sorry Trevor, not gonna be able to give you that vacation you wanted. Sorry Trevor, no bonus this year. Maybe next time, Champ.” For all the fucking time and effort, and every time he had gone above and beyond for his boss, with no appreciation at all...
Trevor suddenly stopped halfway back to his truck. Inhaling deeply, his lips slowly curled into a mischievous grin. Turning around he yelled back to the Becky Lynn. “Hey Becky!”
The bear looked back up from her book. “Yeah, Trevor?”
He smiled suggestively and lifted a brow. “You wanna go get a few drinks and maybe swing by my place and uhhh, go over this data with me?”
Becky Lynn's face lit up like she had just been told she had won the lottery. “Oh, you sure as shit bet I do! Hold up one second! Lemme just grab my purse!”
Trevor chuckled as Becky ran around and got her purse out off the driver seat of the Camaro and came running across the parking lot to his truck. Yanking open the passenger side door and hopping up into Trevor's truck, she giggled loudly. “So what did you have in mind, sugar?” She asked and twirled her hair.
Trevor grinned widely and started up his truck. “Oh, I'm sure we can think of something...”
