Project Purple

56 - The Goatwench

She was a tight little figure emerging from the thick black woods and marching straight to the hut with her snowshoes. Making good time, too.

Henri stopped her sawing, aware of something very different in their space... Something was happening. It was their trainer in the Las Vegas desert, walking up to the hut with an exertion in her eyes that her officious expression wasn't able to conceal.

"Good morning, colonists," she said with forced gaiety, like this was the last place in the world she wished to be; like visiting backwoods lunatics, ones who eat their own; like visiting a house full of psychopaths, armed with a clipboard and a cheery disposition.

Buford and Tiffany huddled next to Henri, watching her deft approach in the snowshoes, ready for more slippery inveiglement from the little woman, who stared down at what Henri was chopping at with a look of surprise, and then pursed her lips.

"What's in God's name is that thing?"

Henri had been cutting at the shoulders of the decapitated creature; the saw's blunt end wiggling in the air, the other end wedged deeply into the knobby joint.

Henri shrugged, "Thing was asleep, had to drag it out of its burrow."

"Looks like something from the Jurrasic era. What is it, a monitor lizard?"

Henri just stared at her, and she sighed, as if running out of patience, "God ye good den, as well."

Tiffany stepped forward, "What do you want?"

Partridge almost lurched backwards like she had been slapped. Tiffany's voice was raw and fissured. But they were all beyond gaunt, beyond wounded.

"What do you mean, 'What do I want?' Partridge said, pretending some jollity. "It's Thanksgiving."

As if that answered everything.

"...The fourth Thursday of November? Celebrated in the United States as Thanksgiving? Football, stuffed fowl, cornucopias, loving relatives, and early American colonists."

Henri looked emptily at the other two, and their trainer shifted uneasily, not unaware of the incongruity of her appearance.

"That's you-Colonists."

More silence, and she unclipped herself from the fancy snowshoes, which Henri eyed with rapacious awe-Their own attempts at shoes had not been so successful. The woman had also brought out a clipboard and pen from her fanny pack, and as she stood there, taking in the condition of their colony, a sad understanding washed over her, a profound sorrow.

"At least you were budding colonists when I left you."

She walked up to the old Governor's hut that had been modified into their fort, then turned back to them, "Even if I'm the only official to show up-streaming reality show or not..." she waved an arm at the snow-clad trees that dotted the colony, now holding mostly broken electronics, "...I'll be assessing you."

And she did just that. With clipboard in hand, she walked to the hatch door of the fort and waited for someone to open it. With an exasperated sigh, she opened it herself and squirmed into the room as they stood dumbly, rooted in the snow.

It didn't take long before she returned with poorly concealed disappointment.

"It seems your team leader has some explaining to do."