as yeti was trying to remember the details of the story of arthur and victoria, and ho it had ended. the truck stopped.
yeti heard voices from the cab, and after about a minute, he heard a squeaking as the back door of the truck was opened.
then he heard some creaking and clattering as boxes were opened and their lids dropped on the floor of the truck.
yeti’s box was the last to be opened. he looked up an saw zombi, or his twin brother, looking down at him.
“get up if you want to get out,” zombi said, and turned away.
yeti pushed himself up and out of the box and scrambled out of the truck past the lids and empty boxes.
where are we, he wondered ? paris? san francisco? hong kong? tokyo?
outside it was starting to get dark, but it was not so dark that yeti could not see where they were - in the middle of nowhere. an empty plain. there was a long unpainted wooden building off to the right, but it was unlit and had a couple of broken windows and looked deserted.
in jumping down from the truck, yeti misjudged the height and stumbled when he landed and sprawled on his face in the dirt.
the other freed prisoners laughed, as did zombi, and a big stout fellow with his thumbs in his belt - the belt also held a pistol - whom yeti took to be the driver .
“saved the best for last,” zombi said as yeti picked himself up, and the prisoners and the driver laughed again.
“definitely one for the doctor,” the driver said. he looked away from yeti at the other prisoners, about eighteen of them, who were huddled together off to his right. “you,” he said to a tall skinny man with a big nose. “get over here.”
the skinny man obeyed and the driver looked the remaining prisoners over. he pointed to a short fellow. “what about him?” he asked zombi.
zombi shrugged. “lateef might take him. he hasn’t been that fussy lately.”
“all right.’ the driver agreed. he pointed to wooden building and told the seventeen prisoners, “go over to the barracks over there and wait up. we will get you something to eat.”
the seventeen prisoners departed, and moved away, stating close together in a mumbling herd.
“what about us?” yeti asked. “do we get something to eat?”
“doctor delta will feed you,” zombi said. “when he gets here.”
“what if he doesn’t get here?” the skinny man asked.
“he will be here,” zombi said. “don’t worry .” he nodded to the driver and the two of them headed in the direction of the building called they had called the “barracks”. leaving yeti and the skinny man with the big nose alone, in the gathering dusk.
“what is your name?” yeti asked the skinny man, wishing to be friendly, as he always did.
“i have many names,” the skinny man replied. “i have had many names, many names through the ages.”
haven’t we all? yeti thought, but aloud he said, “but what name would you like me to address you as?”
“how about ‘hate to get up in the morning’?”
“that is kind of a mouthful. shall i call you ‘hate’ for short?”
“i am afraid “that would give a misleading impression of my true nature, which is actually quite amiable and conciliatory. you may call me ‘lazybones’ , or if you wish to observe civilized proprieties even under these distressing circumstances, ‘mister lazybones’.”
“very well, then, mister lazybones, as you may have noticed, our captors seem to have left us here with little interest as to whether we stay or go. as there is no guarantee that they - or the mysterious doctor delta - will see fit to feed us if we stay, or that they will not feed us to some other hungry creatures if we do, and as we have no reason to stay here except to be fed, i suggest we attempt to go, and see what happens.”
“that is very well said, my young friend,” mister lazybones replied with a sigh, “and impeccably logical. despite my inherently vacillating nature, i see no choice but to agree wth you. let us then depart.”
yeti and mister lazybones moved away from the truck, in the opposite direction from the barracks, hoping to find the road the truck must have traveled on.
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