“For initiation,” Liana answered, and she threw the stick halves into the Gouda river. “Also you look gorgeous.”
“Oh.” She smiled. “Well thanks. I don’t do this often.”
“I can tell.”
Patricia stopped. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Liana spun on her heel. “It was meant to mean that I’ve spent so much time adventuring and living with you, it was within my capacity to insinuate that, based on your lifestyle and daily habits—”
“All right all right,” Patricia pushed Liana lightly.
“Oh it’s fisty-cuffs, is it?” Liana posed for battle, though her face was all in good humor.
Patricia dismissed her with a back-handed wave. “Girl, I would lay you down where you stand, but this outfit took two hours to find.”
“Aww, why won’t you let me let you fight me!?” Liana cried.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
“Let’s not end on that note Mr. Doug.” The tour moved on. They rounded a corner of jeweled cave wall, entering a sphincter of lapis lazuli. A hall of chrome and prisms met them.
“Here,” the guide stated, “is where the dreams are amplified. They lose a lot of weight in the process, but can be then heard more vividly by those of the target realm.”
“Where’s the nightmares?” Mr. Doug asked. The tour members became spooked.
“Nightmares are more of an end result,” the guide answered patiently. He removed his checkered hat to exhibit his explanation. “We only produce dreams and broadcast dreams. It’s not our responsibility when certain dreams corrupt mid-transmission.”
“Corrupt how? How-how-how are they being corrupt?”
“Mr. Doug I’d rather you didn’t keep asking these lame questions.”
“I will when you give me an answer. I wanna know why these dreams turn into nightmares shouldn’t you know why?”
The guide frowned, the blush in his cheeks growing redder. “Mr. Doug it is not our concern when dreams are broken, corrupt, or given to the wrong people. It is only our business to produce and distribute them. End of story!”
“B-but nightmares, I’m talking about nightmares don’t you get it? They’re scary. I didn’t like that, and I’m sure no one else does.”
“No,” one of the tour members stated. “Not me.”
“I did,” another protested.
“Come along folks,” the guide said with a wave of his cane. The tour moved on.
But Mr. Doug lingered. He stared into the multi-chromatic walls that bent around the hall. Dreams were being spun within them by thousands of tiny, sort of triple-armed taffy machines. Mr. Doug’s nose sniffed as he frowned down at the many many yarns of soft pastel rainbow, in search of whatever he thought a nightmare might look like.
Then he found it. A brown thread. “Ah! Ahh! Aha! There’s a nightmare alright if I ever saw one.” He then thought he might save someone a troubled sleep, and tried reaching into the wall where the brown thread swerved.
His fingers touched a yarn, and he felt himself jolt.
Umar Vanjal Doug was born a healthy five waltzes later to the lucky sculptor Umar Hogao Doug, who birthed him from his chest on his way to market with his wares. The neighbors, in celebration, danced in the pathways to welcome and commemorate the new Umar Vanjal Doug.
Umar stood on two moist and fragile legs. He gazed upward, and let out a sputtering cry, followed by a string of foreign words. The onlookers cheered, and his father lifted him to his shoulder.
However, tragically, the party would crumble to a funeral, as a wasp flew itself straight into Umar Vanjal Doug’s breathing hole, and after forcing itself further in, stung relentlessly into his trachea. Umar’s father was terrified to watch helplessly, as Umar choked and bled from his mouth.
“I’d rather not end the tour on this note either Mr. Doug,” the guide said sharply, “but mind me, if we have any further trouble with your tampering manners, you will be cut short on the tour’s entirety. Understand me Mr. Doug?”
Mr. Doug gaped. “I had a father… He had me for… a long time. I was spoken to, I was—”
“Understand me Mr. Doug!?”
“N-wh…” he blinked, surprised to find his old spectacles on his old nose. The multi-chromatic wall of the dream hallway met his vision. That and the quite red face of the tour guide, who held his cane with menace. “Y-eah.”
Poopers the clown stepped off the trapeze. He landed head-down in a vat of wet cement. The audience cheered for the clown’s final performance. Le Cirque du Mort had surged from the underground once suicide had been internationally decriminalized. It consisted entirely of acrobats, clowns, lion tamers and the likes who had a death-wish, and neither feared, nor were instructed to avoid, accidental death.
Poopers, however, had been the exception. Holding no intent to take his life, Poopers had been the driving factor behind the scenes that kept spirits up amongst the circus cast between performances. Occasionally he’d make an appearance, but his main event was staged in the after hours, and his humor was so ironically laden in PG inappropriateness, it never failed to perk up even the mopey lion tamer Charles.
However, on the night he stepped off the trapeze, it had come to a surprise to everyone, especially the ring master. To his great dismay and economic horror, following Poopers’s sacrifice was each and every other cast member. Athletes, the strong woman, all two-dozen acrobats, Charles, and the other clowns. Even Qualm the elephant bludgeoned her own head in with a tent stake mallet, and died from internal bleeding because the on-site vet had given himself a lethal injection.
“This tree,” Olga said. She patted a stout, hunched bulbous tree, whose bark was covered in scales of thick wooden plates. It had two different leaves, one set being broad and round as dinner plates, the other being long and slender, like a hairpiece draped over the round leaves like syrup. Olga ran a lavender hand down the scaly bark. “I want this tree.” She was alone.
A passerby heard her, and came peddling over on a floating bicycle. She had a pair of goggles strapped to the brim of her fez, and a pair of pink translucent dragonfly wings buzzed behind her. “This plane has many interesting trees,” she said. “I favor the hourglass palms. May I ask why you prefer this humble tree?”
“It is not the species I prefer, but the individual.” Olga gestured to the many similar stout trees in the forest she walked in. “And no, you may not ask.”
“Fair enough.” The passerby proceeded down the forest path, her cycle making light squeaks as it floated steadily. Olga committed the tree to her memory, then departed.
Her stream of consciousness manifested in a maze of walkways, overpasses, bridges and boardwalks. Thin boomerang-like platforms and stairways were cluttered by several overlapping instances of others. Their appearance varied to such a degree they blended together like snowflakes, forming a soft spread of multicolored presence. Olga phased through thousands of others as she strolled towards an elevating platform, and rode it fifty six stories up. On the way up she passed colosseums, theaters, galleries and cafés, as well as hook-up joints, game rooms, libraries and museums, and a few public performers putting on a mind-warping display for the new ones.
At last, Olga’s lavender legs stepped off the platform, carrying her to a gallery in her name. It was in the same location as three other galleries, and she had to wait for the doorway to blink from one to the next before it showed hers. She entered. The room was a spacious preserve. Fields for miles, distant mountains, all dark with flora. Rain fell from a deep red sky. Olga approached a single building, letting the raindrops land and run off her lavender skin. It was a narrow cottage, with individual clouds of smoke puffing up from the yellow brick chimney. She went to the side of the house, and dug a hole in the field. There, she planted a near-exact copy of that stout scale-barked tree.
Its ebony horns punctured the low basement ceiling upon its summoning. Wafts of darkness shrouded its eye sockets, from which an unholy blood-light leered. Its cloven hooves, heavy set and black as pitch, charred the threadbare rug, scuffing the pink chalk pentagram. With a moment’s pause, the demon lowered its head, then glanced up at the twin holes in the ceiling. “Oops,” it mused. The glare of its eyes swiveled towards the small human sitting on a bed. “Should I sit down?”
“S-sure,” the human said, nodding, not looking away.
The demon’s long claw pulled a fold-up chair from the make-shift closet, and sat down in it backwards, its towering mass looming over the chair back. The horns still scraped the ceiling. “Hi,” its voice rumbled, sounding itself to the human’s ears from all directions. “I’m Kar. Short for… well, just call me Kar. Anyway what’s the deal?”
“Um…” The human was lost for words. Awe sat plastered on their face.
Kar smacked its jaw. “Power? You want power? Money? Somebody dead? What?”
Now the human’s face grew flushed. “Uhh… m-my name’s Max.”
“Okay. Hi Max.”
“I…” the human seemed very hesitant.
The room vanished, plunging the human into void, almost as if falling. In an encompassing cloud, the demon surrounded. Its voice was louder, speaking so deeply it was felt, rather than heard. “Look human, I’m kinda busy, so if you don’t know what you want…”
“I just wanna hang out!” the human peeped.
The room returned. Kar’s formless face clicked back a tad. “Hang? Like, what, watch tv or something?”
The human shrugged. “I dunno… I was lonely, but didn’t wanna leave the house or deal with other people, so…”
The demon leaned closer. “Well sure, I guess. But it will cost you.”
Max perked up a bit. “Wh-really? Wait what’ll it cost to hang out?”
“Um.” The demon placed a nightly claw against its darkness-dripping fangs. “I dunno. Never done this request before. Murder costs your humanity… money costs happiness… I guess hanging out with me will cost you your day’s time.”
“Deal.”
They started with browsing art on tumblr. The human sat criss-cross applesauce with a laptop in front. The demon sat beside the human on the bed to watch and comment. An hour passed. Then the demon reached over to show the human a vine compilation of persons being stupid, and the human in turn found one about pet hedgehogs.
“How ‘bout a board game?” the human suggested.
“Which?”
“I have candy land.”
“That one’s gambling,” the demon said with its eyes. “Do you really wanna gamble with a demon?”
The human didn’t think on that one long. “Nah. I have chess too.”
“Ok.”
The human got down to pull a dusty chessboard out from under the bed. They played it on the floor, the demon now matching the human’s criss-cross posture. The demon won by a lot, twice. “I’ve played this a lot, though the stakes are usually higher.”
“Is there a game you haven’t played?” the human asked.
The demon nodded its form. “Well sure, there’s new games coming out all the time.”
“How about Pandemic?” the human asked. “It’s a co-op game.”
They played Pandemic and lost. The demon was intrigued by the bio-terrorist game option, but for lack of sufficient players had submitted to the role of epidemiologist. After losing, playing again, and just barely scraping a victory, they turned on the SEGA Genesis and played Midnight Resistance. After that, the human got up to go to the bathroom upstairs.
Kar stayed to admire the human’s many figurines on display in the make-shift closet’s shelves. “Who’s this?” it asked when Max returned, pointing at one of the figures with a dagger of midnight.
“That’s Cringer from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. My cousin gave it to me because they heard I like cats.”
“Do you?” the demon asked.
The human nodded. “I do.”
“Me too. But not really Cringer. I mean I guess a little, but… I dunno, I always thought he was kinda annoying.”
“Show me. I’ve never heard of He-Man.”
Youtube was opened up, and an episode of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe was put on. Whenever Skeletor showed up, the human leaned forward in a hungry gesture. At the end, the demon concurred that Cringer was not a character worth possessing a figurine of. Skeletor, on the other hand,
“Oh man, lemme show you my shrine.” Max scrambled back off the bed to push some clothes around in the closet. A cardboard box pedestal held a small platoon of varied Skeletors, backed by a Skeletor poster. One of the skeletors looked nothing like Skeletor at all, with goofy white-boned grin, fire-engine red boots, and a matching scarf.
Kar laughed. “Wow you sure like Skeletor.”
“Shush. Don’t tell anyone.”
“Ok.”
The human replaced the clothes, and returned to the bed. Half the day was gone already. “Running out of things to do now,” Max said with a mix of wist and ennui.
“Human,” the demon said. “I’m a fucking demon, c’mon let’s go look at hell or something.”
A doorway opened out of the bedroom wall, letting all the light out of the room, dimming the screen of the laptop and the nearly-expired scent candles placed around the pink chalk pentagram. Kar floated towards the doorway, a claw extended invitingly.
They were back in time for supper. Max never recovered from the things seen, which in a way was a good thing because man, there was some really crazy shit in that doorway. Enough to really shake your world up.
After coming back down from eating dinner, Max asked the demon if it was cool with hugging.
“Sure, why not.” They hugged.
Then after snugging and watching cartoons the human fell asleep on the demon, and had a nightmare about Cringer.
The demon tucked Max in and left through the pentagram.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Herfst kicked a watering can. It was empty. He kicked it again, watching its rusty husk clank down the rocky bluff. “Herfst!” he coughed. The watering can hit a ponderosa pine, halting at the tree’s puzzle-bark trunk. Herfst left it down there, at the bottom of the bluff, just shy of the trickling mountain stream.
Behind him, a skeleton in pumpkin-orange workout duds came jogging up to him. “What’s up gnome dude?” the skeleton asked Herfst.
Herfst pointed at the watering can, and spat a “Herfst!” of disgust.
The skeleton nodded. “I getcha bro. None of us needs that kind of shit in our lives. Or in my case, hah, my uh…” it looked at itself. “…can’t think of a good— y’know what never mind I’mma go work these bones to the marrow.” It jogged valiantly on, toppling right off the edge of the bluff and landing in seventeen different places at the bottom. The skull hit the watering can, which reeked of urine. “Aw aww! Eww!”
“Herfst!” Herfst called in sympathy. Then he left.
You take a seat in the booth, finding the silk cushions soft yet structured. The air smells strongly of spices and hot foods. Abdullah takes a seat across from you. His transparent eyelids close for a moment as he stares at you.
“It is most kind of you to invite me to dinner,” he begins.
You nod, raising your brow. “Most kind to join me, Abs. Mind if I call you that?”
“My name is Abdullah, but you may call me Abs if it so fits your preference.”
Score. You scooch forward. “So what’re you into?” you ask, trying to sound casual.
Abdullah sits like a statue, his little lizard hands folded into one another, their spindly fingers locked around one another. Finally, “I am most interested in the history of human civilization. Particularly in ancient cultures and surviving indigenous peoples.”
“Cool!” you say, because that’s actually pretty cool. Nonetheless, you find it difficult to listen to him as he sits with his chest exposed. Your eyes run up and down his scaly bod. For a saur, he’d be considered a bit chubby. His legs are so short and low to the ground that his feet stick out to either side of his chair.
The server shows up to drop off a menu. You pick it up, looking for a meal that you can eat that would also please Abdullah. The Saurian Selection has all kinds of slabs of spiced raw meat. Mostly pork. “So Abs,” you ask, eyeing the raw salmon filet, “What’re you getting?”
“I have selected the Ham Hunk.”
“Hunk?”
He pointed a long finger to the menu. It was a big ol’ hunk of uncooked ham, warmed to body temperature. You look up to see him displaying a mouthful of razor sharp teeth. A deliberate effort to smile like a human.
You shoot him one back. “I’m getting salmon sushi.”
“I do not believe this establishment serves japanese cuisine.”
“No, but it has raw salmon. That’s like, pretty much sushi.”
“I see.”
He’s totally impressed, you decide. You lean back and prop your arm up on the booth back, which is kinda awkward since these booths are so tall, so you’ve just like, got your hand up there. Whatev’s. “Yeah,” you say, “I tend to eat stuff raw all the time. Cookie dough especially—”
“I have changed my mind.” Abdullah says. “I will also have raw salmon filet.”
You nod, as if you’ve already had it here before. “Sweet,” you say.
“Yes.”
A creeping three minutes goes by without event or conversation. Then the server shows up to take orders. The server prompts you for a beverage, and after a quick scan through the saurian selection you order a glass of fish blood. Abdullah orders a vanilla chai latte. You rapidly change your order just before the server leaves.
“So Abs,” you blurt, “what do you like to do for fun?”
“My recreation is conversing with humans, drinking chai tea, and reading primary documents of history.”
“Wow, I love doing at least one of those things!” You scoot further, taking your hand off the back of the booth. “How often do you drink chai?”
“Six times, every day. It is my only weakness.”
“Gee you must really like chai tea.”
“It is a rather strong addiction, but I am not ashamed of it.” He sits silent for a beat. “I much prefer it to hookah.”
“Me too.” You’ve never tried hookah, but would love to. “Hookah’s just, bleh.”
“It is quite harsh on my larynx, but the flavor is quite pleasant otherwise.”
“Totally.” New subject. “So, what’s your favorite thing about humans?”
“They are capable of original thought.” His transparent eyelids blink. “Also they do not mock my addiction to chai tea. I am quite the xenophile.”
“Really…?” you purr. “Would you ever, like, I dunno, kiss a human?”
“I am incapable of kissing, but I have made an attempt none the less.”
“Ever fallen in love?”
“No.”
“Ever… wanted to sleep with someone?”
“I sleep with humans frequently when in cold or temperate climates.”
You perk right the fuck up to that. “Yeah?” you ask feverishly. “You got someone to sleep with tonight? It’s like, gonna be cold. I heard it on the weather channel” you don’t watch tv
Abdullah stares for a moment. “No. I have been utilizing an electric heat pad as of late. They are most convenient, but I find them unreliable in the event of a local brown out.”
“Well…” your palms are sweaty. “If you—”
The smell of fish overpowers your nostrils as a plate of salmon flesh is clunked down right in front of you. The colorful scales are still attached to the vibrant red meat. If your ex were here he’d doubtlessly make a comment on the filet’s color. You glance up at Abdullah, banishing Turbo from your thoughts again. Now’s the last time you wanna think of that dweeb.
Abdullah has already bent his neck down to tear a slab of salmon with his sharp row of saw teeth. Gracefully, he swallows it whole, not once even touching the meat with his hands or utensils.
You do the same, minus the grace. Your face comes up with the shine of fish juices running up and down your nose. Bits of reddish pink flesh stick to the sides of your mouth. The flavor is very strong. Could use some rice, or seaweed or heck anything on the side, but this dish is just a big ol’ hunk of meat with nothing on it. Oh well, when in rome…
“Ah hem.” Abdullah deliberately imitates a human throat-clear. “You have chosen to neglect your eating utensils. I fail to see the purpose.”
“Oh, y’know,” you say, licking your cheeks. “I prefer eating this way. Easier, and feels more right.”
Abdullah says nothing, staring at you. You watch his elongated reptilian pupils run up and down your face, which is starting to flush with salmon tint in growing self consciousness. Then, “I see. Please excuse me. I will not further question your customs.” He bent for another bite, making it look as natural as scratching one’s nose.
You consider going down again too, but… it’s just raw salmon with nothing on it. Not really bad-tasting, but after that first big mouthful your stomach has been growing somewhat disgruntled. Plus you can practically feel the other restaurant patrons watching you, whether or not anyone even noticed.
“Eh,” you say as you reach for a napkin. “I think I’m full.”
Chai tea arrives in front of both of you. Abdullah sips his with an exaggerated head-tilt characteristic of saurians. You lean your head way back too, lifting the steaming tea cup to your chin and slurping it tentatively. As your head comes back you find Abdullah leaning over half the table, eyes trained onto yours.
“Where are you from?”
You mutter your exact mail address and zip code, and list off any other places you might’ve lived before.
“I see.” Abdullah leans back. “I am familiar with the cultural subtleties of many of those locations, but I am not familiar with the display you have given me.”
He’s noticed. “I, y’know, it’s just the way I…” there’s no getting out of it. He’s got you in a box. “I’ll come clean, Abs. I wanted to get you to like me, so I did things like a saurian would to impress you.”
“I do not understand. Please explain the necessity of my favor.”
“I wanna sleep with you tonight.”
“Very well, you may accompany me to bed.”
Ah! This is happening! “R-really!?”
“I am most intrigued by your urgency to please me, and wish to observe this behavior to study its means.”
“Cool,” you say, looking anything but.
Abdullah insists on paying for everything, you box your salmon filet, and both of you take a trolley to a quaint but respectable apartment complex. Along the way you admit that you’ve been meaning to somehow coax him into taking you home with him. He admits this is rather unusual, but is purely curious of your endeavor and not even a little bit weirded out.
His apartment smells strongly of incense and old books. You follow his long, bejeweled tail past a wall of tomes and actual scrolls of parchment. He wasn’t kidding about reading primary documents. He first fixes himself a cup of chai in the kitchen, whose ceiling is liberally decorated with strung sticks of cinnamon. You accept a cup to be polite, then follow him to his bedroom.
The bed is an enormous gold pillow with a maroon comforter on top. Abdullah removes his robe and turban, revealing his long lizard body for a brief moment. Your eyes flick straight to his balls because you’re only human. They’re just a couple shallow lumps protruding from his scaly crotch region. Then he slips into a pair of poofy green pants, and sits down into the bed facing you. “Please join me. I can provide guest sleepwear should you need any.”
You accept, stripping your totally rad 90’s memorabilia outfit in exchange for a pair of big poofy yellow pants. Guess I’ll be sleeping topless, you think, not really caring. You take a seat next to Abdullah, and the bed that’s a pillow causes you to slide right down next to him.
“Before sleep,” he says, not lowering his voice, “I usually enjoy reading government documents from centuries ago.”
“Not gonna lie…” you start, when you realize that as boring as any historic document may be, hearing it read aloud in Abdullah’s excessively polite indian accent would make them infinitely more interesting. Besides, you’re a bit distracted at the moment by the fact that your bare skin is touching his bare scales, and they’re very soft. And refreshingly cold in the heat of the apartment. He must have the thermostat cranked high.
“However for this night I will instead do whatsoever you desire, so as not to interrupt your curious plot.”
“A-any… thing?”
He dips his head in a nod.
Agh. Your mouth is dry. ANYthing, his reptilian eyes say, especially that thing you’ve been wanting done all evening. You eye his poof pants, you eye your poof pants, then you run your view along Abdullah’s mouth. From this close, you notice his razor teeth kinda stick out a bit from his upper jaw. You imagine his clammy lizard tongue against the tender flank of your thigh, and shiver a bit.
You part your lips. “Watch cat videos” you blurt. Fuck, no!
Abdullah reaches a plain black laptop from an end table, brushing a couple crumbling fragments of parchment off the top of it, and brings it between your laps. His pencil-thin fingers fly across the keyboard, typing at literally inhuman speed. You don’t recognize the symbols on the keys, nor the matching characters appearing fast as copy-paste in the youtube search bar. All the same, a compilation of cats jumping into toilets comes up. Too late now, you think, hating yourself.
Five minutes in, you’re giggling at the stupid wet cats. Abdullah watches silently, occasionally sipping his chai tea. “The purpose of these videos alludes me,” he says.
You point at the number of views.
“I see. I understand now.”
After cats, you watch cute snake baby videos, then a youtube poop of the presidential debate, and so on. Abdullah watches each video to the end, commenting politely and thoughtfully, no matter how stupid the video. At some point you mention that you’re actually starving and that the salmon in the fridge is not gonna cut it. Abdullah fixes you up a quick dish of cinnamon curry and vegetables while you leaf through the ancient books in his bedroom.
Forty minutes to midnight, you’re feeling sleepy and resigned. Abdullah lowers the thermostat, then lifts the comforter so you can get in. Since the whole bed’s a pillow, there’s no clear orientation. You just kinda crawl in, and stick you head out near the end table. Abdullah scrambles in with you, wrapping his cold-blooded body around you. The coolness of his touch is relieving. The only sound is the flow of the wall heater.
“Thank you for accompanying me to sleep,” he says to your ear, still not lowering his voice.
You hesitate, then nuzzle him a bit. “I’m the one that wanted to.”
“It would seem we have a symbiotic relationship.” God he’s loud.
You nod in the dark, fondling his tail absently. A moment passes. “So, did you ever find out what I really wanted?”
“I believe it was fornication.”
“Yyyy… you’re not like, weirded out or nothing?”
“I am flattered and intrigued.” He rests his chin on your head.
“Okay.” You hear the heat shut off.
Silence.
“Honestly,” you say, “I thought that’s what I wanted, but now I think this is better.”
Horace Horsecollar’s hooves did not stop shaking as Donald had assured. “Ha,” he muttered through clammy lips. “‘Nothing more satisfying than the sound of a pump shotgun locked and loaded.’ My horse ass.” He trained the barrel to the shed door, fearing the idea of pulling the trigger more than the presence of the monster outside. The monster, Horace thought decidedly. The thing that shambled closer to that rickety, splintered door, which by all other means had the appearance of his old pal Mickey.
Not anymore, and especially if it received a hole between those telltale bowling ball ears. Horace heard it shuffling silently through the overgrown yard, making a shambling beeline for the old work shed. Horace prayed that Donald would return for him last second. Anything to avoid needing to do the unthinkable.
“It’s not Mickey…” Horace said to himself. The gun would not hold still. “It’s not even a person…” something scratched the door frame. “Like shooting cans out back with my pals!”
A fist drove itself through the shabby door, tearing a hole in the wood as though it were paper. Horace fired the shotgun, obliterating the hand. A second one came in, and delicately unlatched the hook. Then the door opened.
It shambled in. Minus one hand, Mickey looked just as he had when he’d been bit. Horace could still hear his voice, begging. Pleading for him to take his life. His hooves jerked the pump.
It jammed.
“Ohhhhh scalawag!” Horace threw the shotgun at the shuffling mouse, then ran backwards into the dimly lit shed. His head bonked against the oil lantern hung from the ceiling, and he tripped on a push mower. Horace fell into blackness, hearing only the sliding of Mickey’s shoes on the dirt-dusted floorboards.
