Asmodeus cackles while he adds more wood to his fire. Like… did he even have matches? Or kindling?
“If we piss in a circle around this area, we will tell the wildlife that we have claimed it,” Asmodeus states.
And then he says shit like that, which reminds me that there’s something very strange about him.
“Did anyone bring any food?” Landon asks as he sinks down on a log that Asmodeus prepared for him.
“I have one chocolate bar,” Lex says. “But it’s a fun-size one. It’s less fun when I’m so hungry.”
“We’re going to starve,” Landon decides. “All I have is cat food.”
“Maybe if you packed some food instead of a library, we’d have something to eat,” Lex says, like they’re already turning on each other when we haven’t evenknownwe’re lost for more than twenty minutes.
“You’re not going to starve to death. The human body can go weeks without food,” I assure him.
This is evidently not what Landon wants to hear since he falls over like he’s perishing right now.
“Wow, you guys really would never have made it in the wilderness,” Asmodeus says. “I’ll have dinner ready in twenty.”
He whips a gun off his shoulder and shoots into the dark, making everyone jump.
“What the fuck, Deus? What are you shooting at? Can you evensee?” Landon asks.
“Dinner,” Asmodeus announces before trotting off into the dark alone.
“I get that he’s a bit strange, but does anyone else feel more nervous when he’s gone? Like… we’re going to get murdered out here and he might be our only hope,” Lex says.
“Right?” Everyone is silent for a moment before Landon looks at August. “By dinner… he meant like… he’s running off to get us Burger King or something, right?”
Asmodeus trots back with a rabbit in hand.
“Did you just murder a rabbit?” Landon asks, horror written across his face.
“Well, I wasn’t going to cook it alive,” he says as he slaps it down away from our camp and starts skinning and gutting itright there, which makes Lex run and Landon shake August in desperation.
“We need to get out of here. I’m not eating that! I’ll never eat that!” Landon declares. “Lex, let’s split the candy bar.”
“You just claimed you were near starvation, and now you won’t eat a rabbit?” Asmodeus asks in confusion. He’s prepared the rabbit in what has to be record time and is now making himself a little stand to roast the meat over, while I feel like I’ve contributed nothing useful.
“That poor bun bun,” Landon says as Zacia licks her chops. She’s not too remorseful about the end of a rabbit’s life.
Asmodeus even pulls out some seasonings, which he apparently packed instead of food, and sprinkles them onto the rabbit while Landon asks August what he did to deserve this punishment.
“Do you want fish instead?” Asmodeus asks. “Would that make you whine less?”
“You’re not wandering off to the river in the dark and fishing,” I say, putting my foot down. “There is…” I swallow hard, also not quite sure I want to try the rabbit, “perfectly fine meat right here… if he’s hungry enough, he’ll eat it.”
“Ellison, being sassy is my thing,” Landon tells me. “Mkay?”
“Ready for consumption,” Asmodeus says, handing each person a stick with rabbit meat on it.
Landon waves it off and Lex hesitantly holds his meat stick without any sign that he’s going to eat it.
“So… how old were you when you were left in the wilderness for forty-some nights?” I ask, quite curious as I stare at my own stick of meat. I’m not exactly an… adventurous kind of man. I ate duck once… and I survived. But never rabbit or venison.
Asmodeus tears right into his piece. “I was twelve. We were supposed to go out in pairs, so another one went out with me, but he was mauled by a bear on the second day. I got the bearoff him and he lived, but he failed the test and was banished. Oddly enough… I never saw him again… I’m sure he was fine. The elders refused to send me out with another, telling me if I wanted to have a partner out there, I would have kept him safe and wouldn’t have let the bear maul him in the first place, which is quite true.”
I raise an eyebrow, wondering how atwelve-year-old could be expected to fend off a bear.
