Page 9 of Blade
Wasn’t that a book?
I’d heard people make fun of it before, but I’d never actually seen it.
No.
Stay on point, moron.
“Let’s get this off me and then you can help me get water because you like helping stupid people.” Hopefully. Not eating me could be considered helpful. “Then I’m going to get clean because I wasn’t kidding about that sand problem.”
Wiggling on the sandy ground hadn’t helped that situation.
I now had sand in my crack and I wasn’t into that kind of sensation.
“We’re not close enough to the ocean for this to be a problem, but it seems like no one told Mother Nature that.” North Carolina was so weird. It seemed to have every climate and every type of weird creature imaginable. “I don’t know how they have grass here because the beach doesn’t have grass.”
Maybe I just hadn’t taken enough science classes growing up?
I’d been mostly homeschooled because we’d moved around so much. Monster hunting wasn’t a nine-to-five kind of job, but I’d always thought I’d gotten a pretty good education. “I think I’m going to start a list of all the questions I come up with, so I can research them. There’s no point in dying and not knowing how this sandy grass issue works.”
I was starting to run out of reasonable rambling but my murder kitty seemed to like it best when I chattered, so I was going to keep going no matter what.
“It’s not a bad area as long as I ignore the sand.” I wasn’t sure I could ignore the sand, though. “It’s got cute little towns dotted around the area and lots of farms.”
What else had I seen?
“They have a small local water park thing. It’s too big to be called a local pool, and it’s got slides and I’m pretty sure I saw a lazy river. I’d have loved hanging out there when I was a kid.” It still looked like fun. “I think I’ve got until I turn thirty to be too old for something like that, though. So maybe I’ll use this as a cosmic warning to keep having fun just in case.”
I needed to learn something from this, so that didn’t seem too bad.
“I’ve been driving around looking for…jobs…yes, we’re going to call them jobs…but I’m starting to think I need to focus on planning my trips around fun middle-of-nowhere kind of activities like that random water park down the street.” It had to be safer at the very least.
Because I had the rope off and a murder kitty still standing over me.
Yeah, that would definitely be a safer travel plan unless I somehow ended up at a haunted water park or one with some kind of creature living in the bottom of the pool.
“Are you ready to help me get water, kitty?” Would he eat me if I sat up?
Could I sit up?
I’d wiggled the rope down to my feet but I wasn’t sure what my next move should be. “Part of me was really glad I hadn’t consumed enough liquids this morning to piss myself when you scared the fuck out of me, but now my throat is dry and I think I swallowed some sand when I landed.”
I wasn’t still stuck in the tree, though, and that was what I was going to focus on.
“You’ve been my good helper so far, and now your new special friend needs water from his backpack.” Nothing. “Um. Thank you for keeping me safe and for watching over me while I got free. That was very good of you.”
Now what?
We seemed to be in some kind of stalemate but I wasn’t sure what we were debating. My death didn’t seem to be it, but that wasn’t narrowing down the problem much.
“I can figure this out. I’m actually very smart in practical situations even if I’m not showing you that right now.” If hehadbeen monster Lassie, I’d have said that look was pure skepticism, but he couldn’t have been that smart. “Hey, one bad day doesn’t mean I’m an idiot.”
Okay, a bad six months might but I didn’t have to admit that.
“You haven’t eaten me yet. You helped me get down. You seem to like the way I smell.” Oh. “Well, shit. We ended up with a damned near feral cat living with us when I was a kid because my mother fed it and told it how sweet it was. He hated everyone but refused to leave and I ended up dodging his claws for three years.”
Had I somehow adopted a monster?
God…I really was my mother’s child.
