We crossed the lawn and reached the tree line—Griff swaggering as we neared the armed
guard who was standing next to a tree. I recognized this guard; he had been sitting, and then
leaving en masse, with the rest of the cool crowd that morning. By the look of disdain on his
face, he recognized me too.
Griff switched spots with the bothered guard and dragged a tree stump out of the woods for me to
sit on. The other guard glanced at Griff and looked like he was about to say something; deciding
against it, he shook his head and walked away.
Griff lit a cigarette and huffed a few puffs, still beaming. We were a foot inside the tree
line, half-hidden by dense green stuff. Deeper in, the forest was quiet, dark, and I couldn’t
see more than a few feet in before the brush blocked any further view. There were other guards
lined in the trees; I saw heads popping through the brush every once in a while.
“Is this what you do all day? Stand here?” I asked swatting mosquitoes away and rubbing my
arms. It was getting a bit chilly and buggy in the shade. I looked at the warm, bug-free house
with longing.
“Oh, no!” he exclaimed and pointed at a head that popped out about thirty feet away.
“Sometimes I get to stand over there too.”
In my head, I was trying to do long division: the approximate size of the property divided by
the thirty feet that separated each guard would equal the number of big men with guns that I had
to worry about—and then I remembered that my math skills were fictional. “How many of you are
there?”
“There’s just one of me, love,” he told me, wiggling his eyebrows. “But if you mean other
guards, I don’t know. It varies from day to day, from week to week. Since this morning,
probably thirty or forty, maybe more. This is the most that I’ve seen here so far.”
“Wouldn’t it be … better to stand in the sun?” I suggested, casually, after another chill or
bug tickled the hair on the back of my neck.
He shrugged. “Sure it would, but we’re not supposed to.” He pointed at the sky. “Too many
guys, too many guns, attracts too much attention if someone were to fly above us. You never know
who might be watching. These blokes are real paranoid about stuff like that.”
“What exactly are the guns for?”
“Keep people out, keep things in. Not really sure. I just know to point and shoot when I’m
ordered to.” Griff took another puff of his cigarette.
“You don’t know what you’re guarding?”
He glanced down the line of trees. “Nope. And I don’t want to know.”
I had a hard time believing this.
“Aren’t you curious to know why you have to stand here all day with a very big gun over your
shoulder?” I asked him.
Griff was starting to look uneasy.
“Love,” he said as he bent closer to me, “don’t ask any questions about what goes on around
here. I’ve gotten some pretty nasty stares for doing just that. Whatever these guys are up to,
it isn’t kosher, and they don’t react well when people meddle in their business.”
He leaned further in, his chilling voice becoming barely audible. “Listen, from what the kid
told me, you’re very lucky to still be alive. They could’ve just finished you off when they
realized what you saw. Count your blessings and do what you need to do to stay alive—play the
game, keep quiet, and pretend you don’t see anything.”
I gulped.
He took a second and finally forced his lips into a smile. “Just stick by me, and you’ll be
all right.”
“Thanks,” I replied in a whisper. In a small way, I was relieved—because of Griff, but more
so because, at last, I had the reaction that a normal person should have had: fear.
I was taking prolonged breaths to calm the drumming pulsation in my veins. Griff finished his
cigarette with an eventually relaxed smile.
“How did you come to be here?” I asked carefully, keeping my voice low.
“I knew a guy, who knew a guy,” he replied, winking at me.
“And now you work for Cameron,” I mused.
A puzzled look came over him. “Cameron? Who’s Cameron?”
“Uhh … sorry … I thought I heard someone mention that name. I must have been wrong.” I
really hated lying to Griff, but disappointing Cameron seemed like an even worse alternative.
Griff shrugged and didn’t seem to notice my blunder. “Nah, I work for Tiny.”
“Do you actually get paid for standing around all day?” I joked, trying to keep away from
topics I couldn’t talk about and that I didn’t want hear about.
He chuckled. “I wouldn’t do this unless I got paid. I’ve never been without booze or women
for this long. Hanging with these idiots all day only makes this job worse, and I thought I was
going to go crazy until I saw your face this morning.” He smiled warmly.
“Have you been doing this … job for very long?” I asked him.
“Couple months.”
“What were you doing before this?”