Grulg took a path perpendicular to the one we had followed. If anything, he seemed to be leading us into even deeper woods. Soon, the shadows thickened as the canopy above us grew denser. Within a short while, our coverings became unnecessary even though it was the middle of the Canadian day.
Finally Grulg stopped. We were in a clearing, but the surrounding trees all leaned inward, providing the place with a perpetual twilight feel.
“Secret place.” Grulg gestured around him. “Only Grulg know.” I was tempted to point out to our grammatically challenged guide that it wasn’t exactly a secret anymore, but I didn’t exactly think that would endear him to me.
“So what’s this about, Grulg?” I asked.
He stood up straight as he answered. Both Sally and I had to crane our necks to look him in the eye. “Grulg honorable warrior. Live with honor. Fight with honor. Kill with honor.”
I tried (and failed) to suppress a gulp at that last part. Maybe Grulg had led us all the way out there to avenge his leader. Even with Sally backing me up, I wasn’t too sure on our odds if such was the case.
“No one is saying otherwise, Grulg,” Sally said in a soothing voice.
“Grulg know that, she-T’lunta.”
I snickered, and she shot me a glare.
“Grulg proud and loyal,” he continued, ignoring our idiocy. “If peace come, then Grulg honor peace. If war come, then Grulg crush his enemies until Grulg win or Grulg killed.”
“Nobody wants that last part,” I said.
Grulg growled at me. “Stupid T’lunta not understand.” Great! Now I was being insulted by a giant, shit-flinging monkey. “Grulg not care. Grulg do as told. War, peace, it all same to Grulg. But this ... this not honorable.”
“What isn’t?” I asked.
He growled again, then walked over and backhanded a small tree, shattering it. I backed up a step, wondering if this was going to get messy. Sally didn’t seem overly perturbed, though. She was one stone cold ice queen.
“You can tell us, Grulg,” she said. “It’s okay.”
That seemed to calm Grulg down. Chalk one up to the whole beauty and the beast concept. Forget music – Sally's marvelous rack could apparently soothe the savage beast.
“Turd,” spat Grulg. “He no act with honor.”
Aha. Now we were getting somewhere. James had said that Turd’s behavior was out of sorts. Now one of his own followers was ratting him out. Considering theirs was a caste-based society, it said something for Grulg actually to be speaking out against his superiors.
“Let me guess,” I surmised. “This has to do with setting me up to take a beating yesterday.”
Grulg gave a look that suggested his opinion of me was slipping several notches, and then actually chuckled. “No, T’lunta. Leaders should be able to fight. Also, Turd not give you beating. I was told that you give him one.”
“Okay then,” I replied with a sigh, “but what about the whole setting me up part? Doesn’t that strike you as a bit treacherous?”
This time he leaned back his head and full out laughed. He sounded like a broken garbage disposal.
“Way to make an impression, Bill,” Sally whispered out of the side of her mouth. Bitch!
Finally Grulg’s laughter subsided. “Funny T’lunta. Strength, speed, intelligence ... all these things make good leader. Treachery just mean he smarter.”
“Well, good. Now that we’ve established Turd’s credentials as a fucking genius...”
Sally interrupted my tirade. “Grulg, what the Freewill is trying to ask, is what about Turd’s behavior is dishonorable?”
He nodded at her. “Grulg show you. T’lunta follow again.”
“We already followed you,” I protested.
“Grulg lead you away because you no stop chattering. Sound like ... what you call them ... squirrels.”
Thus admonished by a giant talking gorilla, we put our respective coverings back on and once more followed Mighty Joe Young through the forest.
♦ ♦ ♦
“You want me to what?” Sally asked.
“Jump in,” Grulg repeated.
“Why?”
“Cover scent. Grulg’s tribe not smell you.”
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” I said, pushing my way past her. “Stop being such a fucking princess.” I wasn’t too big on this plan either, but I could tolerate getting a little dirty if it would help us gain some leverage over Turd.
I jumped into the pungent smelling pit and began rolling around to coat myself. When I was done, I got out and walked over to her.
“See? Was that so bad? A little mud won’t kill you.”
Sally gave me a look that was practically overflowing with pity. “That’s not mud, moron.”
“It’s not?”
“No, stupid.”
“T’lunta smell good now,” Grulg commented. “Now she-T’lunta turn.”
“No fucking...” but she didn’t get a chance to finish. I shoved her in, mid-complaint. I took enough of her shit as it was. It was finally her turn.
♦ ♦ ♦
After managing to convince Sally to not kill me, a long and painful ordeal if ever there was one, Grulg led us back in the direction of his tribe. Soon, we could see more crude huts through the trees, but I didn’t see any Sasquatches wandering amongst them.
“Others sleep now. This way,” Grulg whispered, leading us toward one end of the makeshift village.
At the far end was a hut several times larger than the others. Skulls lined a crude walkway leading up to it. Grulg didn’t need to tell me this was Turd’s place. No matter the people or the culture, there were always those who had to flaunt their swag. Grulg took us on a roundabout way toward the rear of the hut, keeping us out of sight from the rest of the village.
Once at the back, he lowered his voice so that we could barely hear it. “Turd inside recovering from battle. Stay quiet.”
Typically, when someone tells me there’s a turd waiting for me somewhere, I’m not too enthusiastic about going, but since the fate of the world was potentially resting on this...
Grulg reached over to the wall and pulled up a loose section of leaves. It made an opening just big enough for Sally and me to fit through. I gave her a shrug, then made my way inside, hoping against hope that I would make it back out again in one piece.
♦ ♦ ♦
Ugh! And I thought we smelled bad. Forget a few air fresheners – this place would require a tanker truck full of Lysol before it smelled anywhere close to habitable.
We emerged in a pantry of sorts. Crude shelves filled with wooden bowls lined the walls. I didn’t bother to look in any of them, though, being pretty sure whatever they were filled with was still moving. I motioned for Sally to follow and, staying low, crept forward in the dark.
Though larger than the other huts, the construction was still primitive. We passed one foul smelling room with a large hole dug into the earth beneath it ... no doubt Turd’s personal latrine. Hell, for all I knew, it could’ve been his bathtub, too. A partition of sticks and leaves stood in front of us. Peering around it, I saw the main living area before me. Even in the gloom of the hut, I could see fine, and what I saw caused me to grit my teeth in anger.
Peeking around to look, Sally whispered, “Damn, Turd got game.”
Turd slept on a thick bed of moss off in one corner. Surrounding him, also sleeping, were several Sasquatch females. I highly doubted they were his sisters.
I turned back to Sally. “For someone whose mate just offed herself, he looks...”
“Shhh!”
“Huh?” I asked.
“Just listen,” she whispered back to me.
“I don’t hear...” but then I did. What the?!
I tried to focus in on the sound. It was ... music. Even odder, it was music that definitely did not belong here. “Is that ... Limp Bizkit?”
“Sounds like it to me,” Sally confirmed. She again peeked around the divider. After a second, she pulled back and said, “
Look closely at Turd.”
I did as told. He still looked pretty battered from our battle the previous day. The beating he’d taken definitely hadn’t done anything to make him any less ugly. However, his breathing was strong, indicating he was just asleep. A few moments later, he let loose with a rippling fart, momentarily drowning out the music.
Oh, yeah, the music. I looked closer. At first, I didn’t see anything, but then something caught my eye. It was a white ... wire, it seemed. It crossed his chest, then separated into two, each one leading toward opposite sides of Turd’s head. The other end led to something that was stuck in one of the skulls strapped across his chest. I strained my eyes and that’s when I saw it – a little corner of white plastic in the mouth of the skull.
I pulled back and faced Sally. “Is it me, or does that fucker have an iPod?”
“And shitty taste in music,” she added.
Ignoring her, I continued, “Aren’t these the same assholes who are trying to start a war with us because they hate technology?”
“Yep.”
“Okay, thanks. Just trying to make sure I’m not the stupid one here.”
“Well...”
“Not helping, Sally,” I snarled, a wee bit louder than I should have.
Make that a lot louder than I should have. There came a screech from the main room. I looked around the corner to see one of the females sitting upright and looking in our direction. She screamed again, rousing all of the tent’s occupants.
Sally and I were covered from head to toe in Bigfoot excrement, but that didn’t even begin to describe just how deep in shit we were.
The Great White North
I turned to tell Sally to run but, low and behold, she was already making her way back toward where we’d come in. I took a split second to think bad thoughts in her direction before following her lead.
I emerged from the back of Turd’s abode to find her standing with Grulg.
“Go!” he whispered.
“What about you...” I started to ask, but apparently he was way ahead of me there.
“T’LUNTA SPIES!” he screeched and then swung a meaty fist. It purposely went over my head and smashed into the closest tree, sending splinters flying.
I turned to run, but Sally hesitated for a moment. “Thanks, and sorry about this,” she quietly said to him. Without further warning, she swung an uppercut, connecting squarely with Grulg’s groin. Eight feet of solid muscle or not, you get your nuts turned into mashed potatoes and you’re going down. Grulg was no exception. A high pitched keen came out of his mouth as he dropped to his knees, his hands cradling his pulverized privates. Once down, Sally grabbed his head and brought her knee up into it like a pint-sized pile driver. Grulg flew backwards and landed on his back, stunned.
“Now we go,” Sally said, then took off running.
“What the hell was that for?!” I yelled as I caught up to her.
“Keep your fucking voice down,” she hissed, running as quickly as the dense foliage would allow. “Just because they can’t smell us, doesn’t mean they’re deaf.”
“Fine,” I replied, lowering my tone. “Why’d you take down Grulg?”
“Don’t be an idiot your entire life. He’s one of their warriors. There’s no way they’d let him get away with just pointing and saying they went that-a-way. I saved his life by kicking his ass and I’m sure he knows it.
“Did you really have to nail him in the balls? I mean ... ouch.”
“I do whatever works, and that was the fastest, most believable way to knock him down. Now shut up and keep running.”
♦ ♦ ♦
Some days I really didn’t mind being a vampire. Don’t get me wrong – if I wasn’t an undead freak, I wouldn’t be drenched in shit and running for my life in a frozen foreign wasteland from a pack of giant monkeys. Since I was, though, at least there were some perks to the job. Superhuman speed, strength, and especially endurance were really awesome things to have when being pursued by angry monsters.
Sally and I ran aimlessly for what felt like miles. Hell, for all I knew, it was miles. It’s hard to tell when the only things you could see in any direction were trees and more trees. All I know is that eventually, Sally slowed down. She motioned for me to zip it, then stood there listening for a few moments. Since her senses were more acute than mine, I was happy to let her do the honors. Besides, if she made a mistake and we got caught, then at least I’d get to blame her before we were torn limb from limb. Sometimes it’s the little victories that make life worth living.
“I don’t hear anything,” she finally said.
“Awesome. Think we lost them?”
“Hard to say. These guys can be pretty quiet when they want to be. This is their backyard, after all. The thing is, I’m not entirely sure they were ever actually following us.”
“Grulg?” I asked.
“Yep.”
“Makes sense. It doesn’t help him if we’re caught.”
“Not to mention, we might rat him out to save our own asses.”
“No we wouldn’t.”
“Speak for yourself,” she said matter of factly. Say what you will about Sally, but she’s a survivor. At the very least, if she’s going down she’s taking everyone else with her.
I took a moment to look around. Endless forest stretched in all directions. I found myself wishing I had joined the boy scouts that one summer like my parents had wanted, rather than just sitting in my bedroom playing Nintendo for two months straight. “Where are we?”
“The woods,” Sally blithely answered. Yep, ask a stupid question...
“I meant do you have any idea where we are compared to, say, our camp?”
“Do I look like a fucking GPS to you?”
“Only if it stands for ‘gives people syphilis,’” I snapped. “Seriously, can’t you smell where the other vampires are or something?”
“All I can smell is shit, and since we’re covered with it that doesn’t exactly help us.”
“Speaking of which...” I pulled off my ski mask again. Gah! It was getting kind of hard to breathe in that thing. Thank God for short Canadian days. The sky was already starting to darken, so we were probably okay. “Ah! That’s a bit better.”
“For you, maybe. Now I have to look at your face.”
“Hey, at least they didn’t see ours. Good thing we were covered up back there. Although you might want to ditch the hoodie. There’s still enough pink showing where it’d probably be easy to ID you.”
“I guess you’re right. It’s not like dry cleaning is really going to help it at this point.” She stripped it off, sadly revealing herself to be wearing a shirt underneath, and tossed it into the bushes. “At least I can’t freeze to death.”
She did have a point. A human lost in the wilderness would be toast. A vampire, well, the worst we’d probably have to deal with would be an extended walk ... assuming, of course, we didn’t meet up with another angry moose.
♦ ♦ ♦
The Tome of Bill Series: Books 1-4 (Bill The Vampire, Scary Dead Things, The Mourning Woods, Holier Than Thou) Page 80