"Shit!" Kyle lifted himself out of the dirt, spitting the flecks of grit from between his lips as he rolled over on his back and looked up some eight feet to the lip of the ledge he'd just blindly walked over. "Goddamnit. Goddamnit!"
He checked himself for injury and relaxed a bit when he found all was well. He lifted himself up and brushed the leaves from his unruly brown hair. Six hours; that's how long he had been lost, calling out into the cold darkness around him for his older brother John and hearing nothing in return but the sounds of night creatures.
He lifted a hand to his mouth and rubbed his drying lips, he was beginning to dehydrate. Looking left and then right he cupped his hands and shouted for the hundredth time, "Johnny! For fuck'sake answer me!"
The wind pitched some leaves around and then their came a sound of movement in the trees. Kyle froze, listening to the movement through the underbrush.
Why the fuck did I let that asshole bring me out here?
It had been the start of a beautiful Friday afternoon; the onset of a hassle-free weekend. Kyle had stripped out of his shirt and tie and hit the shower ASAP. Washing away the troubles of the office. He was 28, a lowly law clerk, and living for the weekend. No sooner had he worked up a good lather of sweat smelling ivory soap when head heard it, the distant thumping that grew more distinct as he shut off the water; Knocking, heavy knocking on his apartment door.
Kyle had managed to wrap himself in a towel and get to the door before Johnny had pounded it in. "Hey, little brother," his brother was massive, filling the door frame, his dark skin and prominent brow more like their father's every year. "Pack up. We're going camping."
Johnny was like that; spontaneous, insistent, and bigger than Kyle.
In fact, the two brothers had always been very opposite. Johnny was a jock; a linebacker from birth. He'd hated school and only gone as far as 12th grade before jumping into construction and getting his girlfriend pregnant. He liked drinking heavy and doing outdoorsy things like fishing, hunting, hiking, and camping. He also loved to force his "pussyfied" younger brother to go along with him once every few months. "Toughens you up," Johnny would say, slapping his younger brother's shoulder or pinching his cheek as they'd rocked down the highways out of greater Boston and into the Northeastern woodlands. Kyle had always been a city boy. From the first smack of the Doctor's palm at Boston General, he'd lived for the sounds of a big town with lots of people in it, ballgames, taxi cabs, city transit... He'd gone all the way in school, working his way through Harvard law by tending bar or hosting study groups for ten bucks a head.
Johnny had pushed his way into the little apartment, taking in the neatness of it. "You got yourself a woman?"
"No."
"Always look like this?"
"I have a maid service."
"Oh. Got a beer for me?"
Kyle tied the towel around his waist and padded into the kitchen, his wet feet making slapping sounds against the tile. He took out a bottle of Bud and handed it to his brother. "So, you ain't got a woman, huh?"
"Nope."
"Thought you were living with that lawyer chick you met at school."
"Broke it off, nine months ago."
"You didn't tell me that."