Fire Outage

“Damn it!” Jakob shouted. “It went out again. How the hell did the god-damned cavemen do this?” He hurled his lighter across the grass. It skipped once, twice, then jumped gracefully into its demise in the pond. “God damn it!”

Barry looked at the smoking pile of wet wood, to the pond, then to his beleaguered partner tromping off into the woods. It wasn't like they didn't have a camp stove. It was just the principle of the thing, he guessed. Jakob had always stylized himself as a great outdoors-man, despite having only set foot outside of a city a half dozen times in his whole life. Apparently watching YouTube tutorials didn't teach you everything you needed.

This was their first real outing together since they'd hooked up a few months before. Barry had seen Jakob's temper a handful of times, so he wasn't shocked at the outburst. If it was anything like before, his partner would come back in about ten minutes, tail between his legs, apologizing every thirty seconds for the next hour. Jakob was never actually violent, never directed his temper at Barry. A fair sight better than either of Barry's previous partners, so Jakob got a lot of slack.

Barry threw a bucket over the dying cinders of the fire, just to be on the safe side, then lit up his lantern and waited. After ten minutes, he started to get concerned. After twenty, the terror started to creep in. Sure, they were in a state park. But Jakob had just run off into the dark, into an unknown wilderness, with who knew what sort of pitfalls and threats. He hadn't even brought a light with him!

The trees suddenly seemed to be very crowding. The wind had a new edge to it, a chill that felt out of place in the summer. A twig snapped.

“Jakob?” Barry whispered.