Page 24 of Touchdown
Noah passed me an egg warm from being cupped in his hand. I curled my fingers around it with exquisite care. The last thing I wanted to do was to crack one of our dozen precious eggs before it reached its final destination.
There's always more than one way to achieve your objective. Can't locate the enemy by sight? Encourage them to keep making noise so you can pick them up by ear.
Pelting them with rotten eggs would have done it. Even if I failed to connect, the whiff of sulfur wouldn't miss their noses.
Alas. Eggs delivered fresh today wouldn't have had a chance to spoil. Chickens sit on these things for weeks before they go bad, don't they?
Well, all I could do was all I could do. At the moment, the best I could do was to fling my egg as hard as I could in the right direction.
Hmm.
I heard something when it hit, but then again I was listening for it. Did they? If so, I could hear no reaction. More likely, the stupid egg had flown right over their heads.
Noah was already handing me the next one.
The drizzle was softening again. Maybe that was a shadow over there shifting suspiciously? Or maybe not. Either way, it was something to shoot for.
Nothing.
Noah handed me the next egg. Aim, throw, wait.
No reaction.
Three eggs of the dozen gone already. Come on. Four eggs. Five.
“What's that?” It was the loud guy. The soft echoes from his boom didn't distract me this time. “You heard that?”
I flung the sixth egg.
“Fuck!”
Fuck, yes. Now we were dialing the volume up where I needed it.
“What the fuck?”
“Ewwwww.”
Heh. From the sound of it, I'd finally connected.
You'd think getting splatted with a raw egg would be enough to make them turn the lights back on. Seriously. This was biological warfare. What if I'd just delivered a toxic dose of airborne salmonella or something?
Apparently, they were too smart to worry about that. No lights flicked on.
Fuck 'em. I didn't need their stupid lights. I'd take aim for their voices.
“Can,” I said to Noah, and a fresh twenty-four-ounce can of peaches landed in my palm.
After throwing eggs, it felt good. Hard and solid. Something you could propel over a distance.
I fired it like a grenade with a short fuse. Same spin as what I put on the first one. Even without a headlamp to aim at, I could hope and pray and—
The resulting scream was satisfyingly high-pitched. “You motherfucking piece of shit! You just wait until I get my hands on your skinny ass...”
I laughed with triumph. “Are you believing this, Noah? They must think you're the guy with the gifted arm.”
“Yeah, no. My ass is not skinny.” He was laughing too. “Nice throw.”
“Thanks.”
