Free Z-Burbia 5: The Bleeding Heartland by Jake Bible

land of Wind-Whipped Words. Which is not a real place, in case you were wondering. I’d hate for folks to try to book a vacation in the Land of Wind-Whipped Words based on my recommendation.
    “Jace!”
    Great, now the fucking snowstorm is talking to me.
    “JACE!”
    Hold on, I know that voice.
    “Stuart!” I yell back.
    “Jace!” he shouts as I see a shape stumble out of the white towards me.
    “Stuart!” I cry as I limp over to him. “Am I glad to see you!”
    We get to each other and from the look on his face, I must be in about as bad of shape as he is. He has a nasty gash across his forehead and there is frozen, matted blood covering most of the left side of his head above his ear. He’s clutching his left arm up against his chest, and I can see that his left shoulder is drooping way lower than it should.
    Oh, and he’s missing a boot. His right boot. That’s gotta be fucking cold, but it explains the stumbling.
    “How bad is it?” he asks as we hunch over and huddle up against the wind. “My head hurts like a bitch.”
    “You got a little banged up,” I say.
    “You too, buddy,” Stuart says. “That leg has to hurt like hell.”
    I look down at my left leg. “Huh?”
    “The other one,” he says. “Better hope that hasn’t hit an artery.”
    I look down at my right leg and see the problem. Right smack dab in the middle of my thigh, a blood coated sliver of shiny RV, about four inches of it, is staring back at me. The blood is frozen and clotted around it, and I know from its position that it didn’t hit an artery or vein or whatever would cause me to bleed out. Oh, lucky me!
    “I should leave that there,” I say.
    “Good call,” Stuart replies.
    “Where is everyone else?” I ask, my teeth chattering so hard I’m afraid I’m going to bite my tongue off.
    “I don’t know,” Stuart replies. “I only found you because you were talking to yourself so loud I could hear you over the wind. Apparently wind-whipped words all lead to Jace.”
    “You heard that?” I ask. “Shit.”
    “We can’t stay here,” he says.
    “No shit, Sergeant Obvious.”
    “That’s Gunnery Sergeant Obvious,” Stuart grins. His lips look blue, so it’s a blue grin.
    “Which way?” I ask. “I can’t see shit.”
    “I came from that way,” he says, and points, then looks about. “I think. Shit, this snow is so thick I can’t even see my tracks anymore. We are going to fucking freeze to death if we don’t find shelter.”
    “The RV,” I say. “We have to get back to the RV.”
    “But which fucking way, Jace?” Stuart snaps. “If we wander off we could end up going the wrong way and be even more fucked.”
    “We’re fucked if we stand right here,” I say.
    “So we wander.”
    “We wander.”
    We wander.
    I try to put my arm around Stuart’s shoulders for some support since my leg is not in the greatest shape, but he nixes that idea in point zero seconds.
    “I dislocated my shoulder,” he says. “You’re on your own, Long Pork.”
    Wow, never thought being called Long Pork would be a relief. That’s how much I hate the name Short Pork.
    We stumble our way through the storm. The freezing cold keeps my leg numb—not that I’d recommend hypothermia as a pain management system. Vicodin is really the way to go. Or whiskey. Mmmm, whiskey.
    “I’d love some whiskey, too, Jace, but we don’t have any,” Stuart says. “So shut the fuck up.”
    “Gotcha,” I nod. “Shutting up.”
    More stumbling, with a healthy dash of limping, and we both know we are totally lost. I can see the panic in Stuart’s eyes as he glances over at me. He has little icicles hanging from his eyelashes, which I would totally make fun of if it wasn’t for the fact that I’m having to look through my own eyelash icicles. Plus, my lips are frozen shut. Hey, at least I can’t accidentally talk out loud now. Neither can Stuart, since I can see his lips are just as blue and frozen as mine.
    Which makes me wonder