“Your lips are like butterflies,” I blurted out.
He laughed.
“What?” I asked.
I was so embarrassed I couldn’t think of anything else to do, so I leaned in and kissed him. He flinched in surprise but almost immediately kissed me back. It wasn’t like any kiss I’d ever had, probably because I was so stoned.
First off, I think we kissed for about an hour, nonstop, just two faces pressed together. Then, something kicked in, and we started really going at it, the passion we’d each been exhibiting for random topics of conversation now focused on each other’s bodies. I don’t think I’ve ever been as “there” before as I was then. At the same time, it was like being carried by a current, but I didn’t even try to keep my head above water.
One moment, we were talking about stupid shit, the next we were kissing. Our tongues explored each other’s mouths; our hands explored each other’s bodies. I was beginning to strip when he pulled back and stopped me.
“Um,” he said, flushed. “We’re stoned.”
“Yeah.” I was dreamy and ready. I tried to pull my shirt over my head.
“No, I mean.” He frowned and shook his head, struggling to focus. “We can’t go, you know, all the way. We’re high. It would be like if we were drunk.”
“I have no idea what you’re saying.”
“I’m saying it wouldn’t be right.”
Too embarrassed and rejected to answer, I pulled my shirt back down.
“I mean, I want to,” Quasi said. “Really, really want to, but—”
“It’s OK,” I said, even though it really wasn’t.
“Can we just, like, cuddle or something?” He laughed.
“Sure.” We settled into a snuggle, which I will admit sucked. But after a little while, it got pretty good. Not great, but pretty good.
CHAPTER THREE
I don’t know how late it was when I finally turned in—past my bedtime, I know that. Quasi and C Note and the others had gotten a ride back to their hotel from some roadies who came and got them. The concert was the next day. I was stoned and happy in a way I hadn’t been in I don’t know how long, totally over the rejection craziness and feeling liked. You know, like-liked. I drifted off until some noise woke me.
My eyes opened to darkness. Emily was snoring softly beside me. I wasn’t sure if I’d dreamed what I thought I’d heard, or what. I stared into the void, and then I heard it again. I stumbled to the edge of the tent, unzipped it, and poked my head out. I was instantly blinded by a flash of light. It faded, and I blinked hard to recover my night vision. There was another flash farther away, followed by a sizzling sound.
Most people in this situation might go back in their tents and tell themselves they were dreaming. Or maybe they’d just pretend this wasn’t happening. Or call the police or something. But I was stoned. And if I’d learned one thing in my time dealing with supernatural events, it’s that…well, I guess I hadn’t learned anything because I got out of the tent and ran toward the source of the light and noise.
A few campfires were smoldering, but it was dark out here. I had run for about ten feet before I crashed into a picnic table, which, let’s be honest, was pretty good odds. I hobbled in the direction I thought the light burst had come from.
They resembled Roman candles but slower. Every time one of them popped up, I was able to see enough to make some forward progress, but then I lost my night vision and stumbled in the darkness until another one burst into the sky. Finally, I got close to what seemed to be the source.
It was a battle. Two groups of figures formed ragged lines. The nearest line had its back to me. They were darkened, shadowy. I couldn’t easily discern physical details, but whenever an arc of fire from the other side erupted, I was able to make the closest guys out a little better. They had beards and shaggy coats. Very shaggy. I remembered when Emily’s friend had said he wanted to smoke pot with bigfoot, because these guys were pretty bigfoot-like. The other group was farther away. I couldn’t see them as well.
A fresh fireball sprang from another line of about three guys and hurtled toward the shaggy dudes. A couple looked hurt and weren’t moving too fast. When the fire was almost on them, one ran out and jumped in front of it. It was the strangest thing. I guess he was trying to protect the wounded ones. The fire hit the guy in the chest, and he fell back. Because of the fire, I was able to get a good look at the guy. He wasn’t just a really hairy guy. He was a bigfoot.
But here’s the weird thing. OK, well it was all weird, but here’s one specific weird thing: when I saw the guy fall and ran forward, I hit something. It was like stepping into water, except it wasn’t wet. I struggled to move forward, pushing against the thickened air. I don’t know if it was keeping the bigfoots in place or slowing down the fireballs or what.
The bigfoots didn’t look like they’d last much longer. Another one fell, which left only two standing. They were still taking turns intercepting fireballs, but they were weakening. One of them went down and slumped on the ground with the other three. I fought through the slowness to try to get closer, but before I could, the last bigfoot went down. The slowness disappeared—like a rubber band stretching and then snapping—and I jerked forward.
Before I could get to either group, the farther-away line rushed to the bigfoots and surrounded them. There was a pop of light and sound, and they were all gone.
I hobbled to where they’d been, but there wasn’t any sign of them I could see. There was a smell, though, a bad, bad smell. It reeked of singed fur and a mixture of patchouli and dirty butt, like there’d been a hippie orgy on this spot. I pinched my nose and looked for clues as to what had been going on, but it was too dark.
So I made my way back to the campgrounds, tripping and running into things, until I got to the tent. I unzipped it and went back inside. Emily was still asleep. She didn’t even grunt as I crawled back beside her on the blow-up mattress. I lay there, thinking about what I’d seen, trying to make sense of it.
* * *
I must’ve drifted off eventually, because Emily woke me up by singing. Worse, she was exercising: stretching, doing sit-ups, all that crap. I swear to God. I rolled off the mattress and thumped to the ground.
“Morning!” She huffed, chipper as a squirrel. If I’d had a gun…
I grunted and crawled to the door. The cooler was outside. It had water in it, if I could only make it. I unzipped the tent door and made it to my feet long enough to stumble through and get to the cooler. The ice was melted, but I would’ve drunk it straight from the cooler, no matter how dirty it was, if there hadn’t still been some water bottles inside.
I won’t go into a long description of exactly how bad the taste in my mouth was, but suffice to say it was disgusting. Like I’d licked roadkill soaked in exhaust fumes.
Emily came out, dressed and looking perky. I realized I’d forgotten to even undress for bed.
“I’m going for a jog before breakfast. Want to come along?”
I shook my head and finished the water bottle. “I’m going to stay here and kill whatever’s growing in my mouth.”
She smiled like that made sense to her and took off. I downed another bottle of water and thought about nothing.
It took me a little while to climb out of the proverbial pit I’d woken up in and reach a state of being that was simply feeling bad, as opposed to feeling like I’d licked an ashtray. But when I finally achieved it, I remembered what I was pretty sure I hadn’t dreamed the night before and made my way back to the field.
It was difficult to pinpoint exactly where I’d been, since I’d been stoned and stumbling in the dark, but I did my best. Past the campgrounds, there was a ring of bushes where they’d made their stand. Past them was another line of trees where the other guys had been. I went over there first and looked around. The grass looked trampled down, but that was about all I could tell. The weird thing was that over where the bigfoots had been, though, the grass was nearly undisturbed. Even where I w
as sure at least one of them had been lying down, I couldn’t see any sign they’d been there.
I looked through the bushes, just in case. It seemed like the thing to do. I parted the leaves and branches until I saw something that looked out of place lying on the grass. It resembled an astrolabe, a word I only knew because I’d once spent a few days watching pirate movies on Netflix and researched everything I could on Wikipedia about old-time sailing, like you do… When I reached for it, energy surged through my fingers as though I’d been shocked, but it didn’t hurt, so I didn’t drop it.
The artifact was round with a dial on one side and a curved back that also reminded me of a giant pocket-watch. It was bigger than a watch, though, a little bigger than my palm. I considered turning the gear or trying to open the thing, but visions of interdimensional teleportation flashed through my mind, and I decided to put it in my pocket and wait until I had some idea what it was. And I knew only one way to do that.
Luckily I had cell service. Though I hated to do it, I dialed Nathan’s number. Nathan Venator was the Hero of Baltimore, a job passed down to him when his father disappeared. What that meant was Nathan was like a cop, except for supernatural things.
He answered on the third ring.
“Already bored?”
“I wish. Listen, I need some advice.”
“Wait until the third date to sleep with him.”
“Ha-ha. I’m serious.”
“Well then definitely wait. That’s how you get used, girlfriend.”
I cut the chitchat, which was prescient in a way that made me uncomfortable. “What do you know about bigfoots?”
That changed his tone. “Why?”
I told him about the battle I’d seen.
“Bigfoots aren’t usually aggressive,” he said. “Passivity is kind of their thing.”
“They weren’t really fighting back.”
“Hmm.”
“There’s another thing. I found something.” I told him about the gadget the bigfoots had left behind.
He panted with excitement. “Don’t mess with it. Put it somewhere safe and leave it until I can get there.”
“Oh, I don’t know if you have to come here. This is supposed to be my vacation, Nathan.”
“Well then quit wandering into battles.”
He hung up. I hid the artifact as well as I could. Then I returned to the tent and gathered my clothes and toiletries, but mostly my courage, and went to the showers. With the way I felt, the Mexican prison that was the bathrooms barely fazed me. Luckily there wasn’t anyone else around, and the water felt amazing. Maybe there was a little pot still in my system. I kept my shoes on, though.
By the time I’d finished, Emily was back. Her hair was wet; somehow she’d showered without me noticing. I suspected she had a secret shower stashed somewhere, one that was clean and didn’t have mold or bugs. Then I started thinking some not nice things about her being blonde and pretty and how people always liked her even when she was a pain in the ass. I decided I better get ahold of myself.
* * *
Today was the first day of the concert, and Shizknit wasn’t playing yet. Emily and I packed up our chairs and the cooler and went to the venue anyway to listen to some of the other bands. Probably my favorite was one called Lucero, which seemed like a straightforward rock band with some punk and country influences. Most of their songs were love songs that just hit me the right way.
We partied until the early afternoon, and then there was a break while everyone went to the vendors for lunch. There wasn’t a band scheduled for a couple hours, but someone was setting up anyway. We’d brought snacks, so while most of the rest of the audience was filtering away, we pushed closer to the front. We got close enough to see that it was Quasi, C Note, and Bevan. They’d set up stools and had acoustic guitars and not much else. Some people were yelling out, “Shizknit,” but Quasi held up his hand.
“No, we’re the Knitters Union.”
“Knit like Shizknit?” I said. Emily shrugged.
The few of us who were left to watch—maybe fifty or seventy-five scattered around out of the hundreds, probably thousands, who’d filtered through during the day—clapped and cheered. The guys started playing a bunch of folk and bluegrass songs, which were good, though definitely different from what they usually played. A lot of the songs seemed silly and almost like children’s songs. They talked in between the songs and explained each song’s historical context. I recognized a few like “Big Rock Candy Mountain,” which they introduced as being about a homeless guy seducing a young man, and “Mercedes Benz,” which I knew from the radio, though they performed a very funky version with Bevan on bongos and C Note playing a wah-wah pedal.
They jammed and talked for about an hour. People drifted in and out. It was loose and fun. When they finished and thanked everyone, Emily and I stood up and screamed and waved until Quasi saw and motioned for us to come up. He helped us climb up on stage, which led to several other people trying to follow suit. Security had to come out and make a line to keep the rest of the audience off the stage while the guys picked up their instruments and took off.
When we got backstage, C Note flashed Quasi a dirty look. “You just about started a riot, dude.”
“Sorry,” Quasi said.
C Note stalked off and handed his guitar to a roadie.
“Sorry about that,” I said. “We didn’t mean to cause any trouble.”
Quasi shrugged. “I just hope there were some reporters around so we can make E TV. Emily and I exchanged looks. “That was a joke.”
“Oh,” I said.
He laughed. “Not a very good one. Are you guys hungry?”
“Starving,” Emily said, which wasn’t true. We’d both been snacking constantly. But we weren’t about to pass up an opportunity to have lunch with Shizknit.
* * *
We found this old, silver diner-type place, the kind that looked authentic and retro but usually had terrible food. C Note warmed up when Emily sat by him. They were all jokey and flirty. He started tickling her, and she batted his hands away. I don’t mean to sound like a prude, but I envied them because I just didn’t have Emily’s ease with people.
The waitress had a southern accent and looked like somebody’s sweet old grandmother, except she kept flirting with the guys. Quasi ordered chicken-fried steak.
“You want gravy on that, hon?” she asked.
“Does a bear poop in the woods?”
She acted as if that was the funniest thing ever.
“How about you, hon?” she asked me. I ordered the same because screw my gastrointestinal system, I guess.
“With gravy.”
Quasi nodded.
“What do you want to drink?”
“Gravy.” Quasi snickered. She started writing but a confused look settled onto her face and stopped. She flashed me a narrow-eyed glare. “Sorry. I got carried away. I’ll take a sweet tea.”
“They’re all sweet.” She stalked away.
“You pissed her off,” Quasi said.
“I have a way with words. So what was that all about, that acoustic set?” I asked, putting my hand on his. He didn’t really take it, just left it there, which made me wonder if I’d done something wrong. I took it away.
Quasi shrugged. “We just like to do something different. You get tired of playing the same songs all the time.”
“So where are you from, originally? The south?”
“I’m from in between Last Chance and Hard Times,” he said with a smirk. “Little towns in Arkansas.”
“What was that like?” I’d lived all my life in Baltimore, which is southern but only sort of.
He shrugged. “Boring. It’s all Jesus and high school sports.”
He kept looking away, avoiding eye contact, so I tried to keep it light. “How’d you get into music?”
“Marching band.” He grinned.
He was loosening up now. “Really?”
“Yeah, me and Bevan. He was friend
s with C Note and they started a band so they brought me in.”
“Was it hard? I mean, were people receptive?”
He glanced at me, which made me giddy. “They accused us of being devil worshipers.”
My jaw dropped. “No shit?”
“No shit. But we didn’t care. We’d rent out some old building like the Progressive Club with all our friends. There’d be ten of us, maybe, divided up into four or five bands. One of us might be in three bands—I might play guitar in one, bass in another. We’d charge five bucks a head or something like that and just jam all night.”
“Wow. That sounds awesome.”
He grinned. “And there’d be a church outside picketing if they found out about it. We’d put up flyers all over the high schools in the area. There was nothing to do but go to church, you see, and we were cutting into their numbers. That was five bucks that didn’t go into the collection plate.”
We both grew quiet for a moment.
“That’s effed up,” I finally said.
He shrugged, but at least he wasn’t avoiding my gaze now. I waited until no one was paying attention to us and leaned over.
“Is everything OK?” I asked.
We were kind of squeezed in, so he had to lean to the far side to look me in the face. “Yeah, is everything OK with you?”
I nodded. “You’re just acting kind of weird.”
He became serious. “Oh, sorry. I thought you might be mad at me for last night.”
I cocked my head to the side. “Why would I be mad?”
He had a pained look. “Because we, you know…” He whispered. “Made out.”
I laughed and punched him in the arm. “You didn’t like it?”
“Yeah!” He nodded and then stopped and acted as if he were considering it. I punched him again. “I just thought, you know, maybe you’d think I was taking advantage or something.”
Tall, Dark and Hairy (The Necro-Files Book 3) Page 5
