Collision by Stefne Miller

to. Honest to goodness, I have no imagination, at least not one creative enough to make up stories like that.”
    “No wonder you like it over there so much. You never know what’s going to happen next. How can boring ol’ America compete with that?”
    “It makes for an interesting life. That’s for certain. Missions work is exciting, and it has batty things like fire shooting out of the sky and stuff, but most of the time and most of the missions concentrate on meeting academic needs, teaching AIDS awareness and how to prevent transmission, or they work in medical teams, things like that. The biggest need there isn’t fighting witchdoctors; it’s taking care of the war orphans and meeting their needs.”
    “I could sit and listen to you talk about your life for hours, but I won’t. Not tonight anyway, which leads me to my last question.”
    “Okay.”
    “What the hell are we doing sleeping out here tonight? I’m so freaked out right now that if I hear one sound, I’m going to crap my pants.”
    “This was your brilliant idea, remember?”
    “That was before you went and talked about demon possessions and corpses climbing out of their graves and plowing the fields.”
    “Don’t worry. I’ll protect you.”
    “I’m the guy. Aren’t I supposed to be protecting you?”
    “It’s the twenty-first century. It can go both ways.”
    “Well, help me keep my man card and let’s just say we’ll protect each other.”
    “If that’s what you want.”
    “That’s what I want.”
    “Consider it done.”
    “Thank you. How do you say that in Acholi?”
    “ Ero kamano .”
    “ Ero kamano .”
    “You’re welcome.”
    Kei opened the sleeping bag and wiggled her way inside while I lay on top of my bag.
    “Here’s the deal,” I said, turning onto my side and propping myself onto my elbow. “Just play dead.”
    “Play dead?”
    “Yep. I’ve heard it works, especially when it comes to bears.”
    “And who exactly reports this, and how do you know that people who have been killed by bears weren’t, in fact, playing dead when the creature chose to attack?”
    “I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about that.”
    “Then ponder it a bit and get back to me.”
    I lay onto my back again and tried to keep my mind from going crazy with possible death scenarios.
    “So here we lay,” she said, “both seemingly contemplating our deaths at the hand of some sort of wild beast that’s presumably roaming the forest at night, looking to devour a carrot top and her pansy of a friend. Even I’m starting to get frightened.”
    “Glad to hear I’m not alone.”
    “Teamwork, Cabot. As long as we stick together, I’m sure we can tackle anything we come up against, even a ridiculous bear.”
    “Teamwork, huh?”
    “Yes. We’d be brilliant. I’m certain.”
    “I think I agree.”
    “Very well.” She turned onto her side and smiled over at me. “Good night then.”
    “Good night.”
    I’m pretty sure we were both asleep in minutes. I know I was anyway. Maybe it was all the running or all the cleaning. Or maybe it was the fact that my heart rate hadn’t slowed back to normal since the second she walked into the kitchen and I laid eyes on her the first time.
    I woke to a drop of something wet on my nose. The first thing I thought of was bear drool, and I was afraid to open my eyes. I figured I should follow my own advice and play dead. But within seconds, several more drops slapped against my face. I opened my eyes but could barely make out anything. It was too dark, and the moon was covered by clouds.
    I searched around for the flashlight as water drops fell on me with more force and in larger amounts. Finally, I found it, turned it on, and flashed it toward Kei. She was all the way inside her bag. All I could see was some red hair sticking out the top.
    “Kei?”
    She didn’t respond.
    “Kei,” I said more loudly as I wiped water off my face, which was now drenched.
    “If there’s a bear out there, I’m