Schmuck Bait

[Fiori]

By this point, Shawn was getting pretty good at setting up makeshift survival shelters. Granted it always helped when you had access to a ready-made campsite.

((Shawn Bellamy continued from Shawn's Marvellous Medicine))

This particular campsite also came with its fair share of intrigue, with a few telltale signs of an interesting story having played out recently. First of course was the burial mound, a sentimental if ultimately pointless gesture within the context of their situation. All but one of them were going to end up as maggot food on this godless island hundreds of miles from home, so why waste time and energy trying to disguise that?

Then there were the damaged trees and blackened snow nearby, suggesting that a conflict of some kind had taken place there, and a particularly explosive one at that. After the assignments he'd seen so far, he didn't think any of them would be armed with anything that came even close to that level of devastation. So much for this being about who of them was the fittest, when he has to make do with a pair of copper rods whilst some fucker out there got a rocket launcher.

Oh well, at least now he was better armed, especially with his latest acquisition. He'd almost missed it entirely, tripping over the damn thing as he approached the campsite the previous night. A machete of all things, just laying discarded in the snow. It struck him as odd that anyone would chuck a thing like that, though given the nearby explosion he suspected that whoever it belonged to didn't need it anymore. The thought alone chilled him to the bone, or maybe that was just the weather getting to him, who could say.

Still, waste not, want not. He was making good use of it at that very moment, sat on a log sharpening another stake to join the others on the pile beside him. Having an actual blade to do this made his job infinitely easier, having sharpened twice as many in half the time it normally took him to make a batch. He still hadn't a clue if any of the traps he'd set up made much of a difference, after all he had no way of telling if any had been set off.

Well, there was one death mentioned in that morning's announcement that made him raise an eyebrow. Andrew Lapson, the stoner he bumped into on day 1. Apparently he'd taken his life under suspiciously vague circumstances, leaving him curious as to what could've happened to the guy to lead to such a decision.

Shawn didn't ponder too deeply though, shrugging the thought off as he sharpened his stake. One less competitor to worry about. With his latest batch at the ready, he stood up from the log and made his way over to a small pit he dug nearby, kneeling down to finish setting up his latest trap. This one was just like the others he'd made, albeit with a notable inclusion in the form of some tantalizing bait: The spare bag he took from the infirmary, filled with rocks and foliage to look nice and packed to the brim. Abandoned, alone, just begging for someone to pick it up.

And just in front of that bag, hidden beneath a layer of snow and leaves, was a little surprise waiting for whoever decided to investigate it.

His trap set, Shawn dusted his hands off and got back up, his pickaxe slung over his shoulder and machete tucked away into his bag. Along with dozens of sharpened stakes in need of new homes.

It was time to get back to work.

((Shawn Bellamy continued in FUBAR))