Page 21 of Born to be Wilder

Doris slowly slid to the floor, clutching the marshmallows to her chest like a shield. “Is it serial killers? We’re all alone out here!”

“I am too beautiful to die bloody in a Winnebago!” Alice hissed, sliding to the floor beneath the table. Reaching up over her head, she grabbed an empty wine bottle from the table and brandished it like a medieval club. “If they want this body, they’re going to have to work for it.”

Marge was already in a tactical crouch. She slunk along the floor, then grabbed a long, awning crank that looked like a bayonet in the dim light. “You picked the wrong RV! I’m a… Navy SEAL!” she lied, barking at the closed door. “I have survived two tours of duty! I am trained in seven different ways to neutralize a target with a blunt object! I have a high-capacity assault rifle, and I can hit a target at fifteen hundred yards!” She made a mock reloading sound with her mouth that was surprisingly convincing. “If you want to find out what happens when civilians face the full weight of the United States military, then open this door and prepare to meet your maker!”

“Marge, don’t taunt them! You don’t actually have a rifle,” I whispered, creeping low across the floor toward the window.

“They don’t know that!” she whispered back.

I peeled back the curtain an inch, my heart pounding against my ribs as I prepared to see the face of a man in a hockey mask staring back at me. Instead, I saw something wearing a different kind of mask.

Raccoons.

Not one or two. A full, heaving mass of gray-and-black shapes pushing and shoving each other as they fought over our leftovers. They were on the grill. They were on the steps. One very bold individual was sitting on top of Marge’s good cooler, growling as another reached for its precious used tinfoil.

“Oh my God,” I breathed. “Raccoons. Like... a dozen of them.”

The tension in the RV deflated like a balloon. Alice lowered the wine bottle.

“Raccoons? That’s who I’m yelling at?” Marge stomped to the window and pushed up beside me to look. Her jaw tightened as she surveyed the carnage. “Oh, you little bastards.” Then she spun around and pointed at all of us. “Who left the food out?”

We all looked at each other.

“I thought Doris grabbed it,” I said.

Doris pointed at Alice. “I thought she grabbed it.”

“I grabbed the dishes,” Alice defended. “Someone else was supposed to grab the food.”

“The law of camping!” Marge shouted. “Rule number one: Secure the perimeter! Secure the rations!”

“Okay, it doesn’t matter who didn’t grab it. What matters is, what the hell do we do now? We’re surrounded by raccoons.”

Marge gasped, her grip tightening around her pole. “My jerky! They’ve got my jerky! That stuff is eighteen dollars a bag now! That’s highway robbery… and now real robbery! Look at them tearing it apart and not even savoring the flavors.” She gritted her teeth. “Bastards.”

Outside, a violent screech erupted. It sounded like two cats in a street fight.

“They’re fighting over it!” Doris shrieked, peering out the window from where she kneeled on the floor. Then she dropped down, back pressed against the wall as her eyes flashed wide. “Oh my gosh. What if they have rabies?”

“They aren’t rabid, Doris. They’re just hungry.”

“You don’t know that! I live on a ranch part of the year, and they always say raccoons are the primary carriers. They’re going to bite through the tires, smash the windows, and then they’re going to come for us!”

“They aren’t zombies, Doris. We’re safe in here,” Alice said, though she stepped further away from the door. “Right? We’re safe in here?”

Doris shook her head. “Safe? Of course not! Listen to them! They’re violent!”

As if on cue, the sounds of nails skittering across the top of the RV pulled our gazes up. Alice grabbed the bottle of wine again, and Doris lifted a spatula, our gazes following the sounds as they scurried overhead. The scratching sounds were frantic, and the chattering had turned into a full-blown turf war.

“We should drive away,” Doris pleaded. “Just start Bertha up and go. We can sleep on the side of the road. I can’t close my eyes tonight with the sound of rabid raccoons eating our expensive jerky just over my head. Please. Let’s just drive. Right now.”

“Hey! My cooler is still out there! We can’t just abandon it,” Marge argued. “That’s my good one I got last year when I renewed my AARP membership.”

“So it was free,” Alice countered. “And you get one every year when you renew. You have, like, six hundred AARP coolers. I’m with Doris. Let’s go and just let the trash pandas have it.”

“No.” Marge set her jaw tighter than a steel trap. “And we can't drive away anyway. Remember? We hauled the picnic table around behind Bertha so she'd block the grill smoke off us at dinner. Now it's wedged right behind the bumper, and I'm not plowing forward through those pines and kissing my deposit goodbye. We're blocked in.”

“Great job, Marge,” Alice deadpanned. “Now we’re stuck.”