by Tina Chan
Kristi woke up to people quietly chatting. She squinted her eyes open and saw Troop looking at her.
“What do you want?” she asked, her voice raspy from sleep.
“Nothing.” He averted his eyes to the scenery passing by outside.
She let out a yawn for good measure and took a sip of water.
Chelsa twisted around in her seat to face them. “Only half an hour left.”
Kristi felt her pulse quicken, anticipating meeting Stevey once more. Tendrils of doubt rooted themselves in a corner of her mind as she recalled the nightmare she had in which Stevey turned into a monstrous creature. She cleared her head of such thoughts.
“Stevey’s just an old, harmless guy that is a bit crazy,” she reassured herself.
Chelsa overheard Kristi and said, “Very crazy.”
“Is Stevey really as eccentric as you guys keep on making him to be?” Troop asked.
Kristi let out a small laugh. “You don’t know Stevey until you’ve met him.”
Chelsa’s electro-slate buzzed, announcing someone had sent her an instafication. She read the message and a grimace crossed over her face.
“What’s wrong?” Finn asked.
“Zala. She wants to have an update about how ‘things’ are going. I don’t know how I should respond to Officer Zala’s request.”
“Tell her we’re being uncooperative and don’t want to listen to you. Also let her know we’re planning on heading to New Anchorage,” Kristi added, thinking of the city furthest away from them as she could think of.
“Alright,” Chelsa said, typing back a reply. “But eventually she’s going to find out something’s not right. Zala’s not stupid.”
“We’ll worry about that later,” Troop said.
“That should be your new motto.” Kristi kicked back her feet. “Do now, worry later.”
The van slowed and came to a stop. The driver turned off the engines.
“We’re at the rest station of segment 9 of Route 56.”
Kristi barreled out the door, clambering over Ghost and inhaled a lungful of fresh air. She walked around to get the blood circulating to her legs.
“I never knew walking in a circle could feel so good.”
“It’s all in relativity,” Troop said.
“Whatever. A lot of things are all in relativity.” She stretched out her stiff legs and let out a breath as the blood rushed to the tips of her toes.
The driver unloaded the backpacks from the van and drove away. Kristi distributed energy bars to everyone and powered on her electro-slate. Then she entered in the latitude and longitude of Stevey’s home into the GPS and they set off.
Finding Stevey’s shack wasn’t as hard as Kristi had anticipated. She had been expecting a ten-mile hike through the wilderness; in reality, Stevey’s cabin was within five miles of the rest stop. It was just buried deep inside the forest, meaning progress was slow, as they had to fight through bramble thickets, tripping roots, craggy rocks and even a swarm of wasps.
Finn had a difficult time maneuvering through the uneven terrain, but he managed to keep up.
“I think I see Stevey’s place.” He jerked his head to the right.
Kristi scanned the area and made out the wooden cabin camouflaged among the trees. “Nice spotting. I probably would’ve missed it.”
“Try not to be too demanding with your questions when you meet Stevey,” Chelsa advised. “He seems to be a bit paranoid and doesn’t like to be put under pressure. Also, don’t be alarmed by his appearance and discursiveness.”
“Alright,” Troop said. “From what I’ve heard, I’m expecting Stevey to be this bizarre man with a bad taste in clothing.”
“Sounds about right,” Kristi said.
She pushed her way through some pine branches and looked around for any signs of Stevey. Aside from his apparently empty cabin, there was no presence of any human being.
“Stevey!” she called out. “Dr. Hanson told us to find you.”
No reply. But there was a rustle from the bushes to their left. Five heads swiveled towards the source of the sound. Ghost let out a growl and pounced in the general direction. A fox burst out from the undergrowth and bounded away.
“Hello?” Chelsa called out.
The branches overhead rustled in response. It turned out to be only two squirrels bickering.
“Maybe he’s not here,” Finn said.
“There’s no reason why he would leave this place.” Chelsa shaded her eyes, swinging her head from side to side. “Stevey! Are you around?”
“Yes.”
They jumped at Stevey’s voice. Stevey came lurching out from his cabin. I guess he was in his cabin the whole time after all, Kristi thought.
He had cleaned up a bit since she last saw him. At least his plaid shirt didn’t have any mysterious stains on it this time. His hair, however, was as untamed as ever.
“Stevey has visitors!” he slurred happily.
He stumbled toward them in an alarming manner. Kristi suspected he had been drinking from his uncoordinated walk. Her suspicions were confirmed when he came closer and the odor of alcohol wafted off him.
“We should probably sober him up a bit,” she said. “I highly doubt he’s in any condition to answer any questions we have for him.”
Stevey tripped over a rock and stayed on the ground. He attempted to push himself up, but must have decided the effort was too much because he hazily looked at Kristi through bloodshot eyes.
“Troop, can you help me carry Stevey inside his cabin?” Kristi asked.
“Sure.”
Troop grabbed Stevey from underneath one armpit and Kristi the other. Together, they half carried, half hauled Stevey inside. Meanwhile, Chelsa got a fire going in the fireplace and turned on the dim lights. Finn held the door open for Troop and Kristi dragging Stevey up the ramshackle stairs and onto the threadbare couch.
“How much did you drink?” Kristi demanded.
“Stevey didn’t drink,” he garbled.
He had hardly finished his sentence when he spewed up some vomit. Luckily, Chelsa was prepared for this and had a bucket on hand. Stevey let out a groan and lay back down. Threads of spittle trailed down his cheeks.
“Finn, can you go find if there’s a first aid kit somewhere? There might be some detoxification pills,” Chelsa said.
“Onto it.”
“You better hope Dr. Hanson isn’t watching this,” Kristi said, forgetting Stevey probably didn’t know there were cameras installed in his cabin for his own safety.
Stevey let out a giggle, “Dr. Hanson doesn’t know. Dr. Hanson doesn’t know many things. You don’t know many things. Did you know cats sleep for two thirds of the day? Did you know 98% of your body’s atoms are replaced annually? Did you—” His stream of facts was cut off as he heaved up another bout of vomit.
Kristi opened some of the windows to get rid of the revolting smell and tried to coax the ceiling fan to life in vain.
“Found some detoxification pills,” Finn said, holdinga small white container.
Troop took the container from Finn and read the label. “These expired last year. Do you think we should still use them?”
“Normally, I would say no,” Chelsa said. “But I think we can make an exception in this case. We’re rather short on time and the faster Stevey flushes the alcohol out of his body the faster we can be on our way.”
Troop unscrewed the cap and dumped a small, red pill into his palm and knelt down beside Stevey’s head. “Stevey, can you do us a favor and swallow this? You’ll feel much better later on if you do.”
Stevey squinted at the detoxification pill. Then he threw up some more, causing Troop to jump back and Chelsa to leap forward with the bucket.
“Promise Stevey will feel better?” he asked.
“Promise,” Troop said. Then under his breath he mumbled, “Though you probably won’t feel so great when all that liquor is leaving your body at once.”
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br /> “Give me the pill,” Stevey ordered. He held out his hand for the pill. Troop gave it to him and Stevey swallowed the pill dry.
Within five minutes, Stevey was chucking up like heck. Stevey must’ve drunk a huge amount of alcohol at the rate he was retching. Finn managed to get the ancient fan working reluctantly; unfortunately, the fan did little to disperse the smell of puke. The smell turned Kristi’s stomach into a queasy mess and she feared she would start barfing herself if she didn’t get out of here soon.
“Excuse me,” Kristi said, pushing past Chelsa and Troop. “I think I’ll go outside for some fresh air, if you don’t mind.”
“Go on,” Troop said. “If anyone else wants to go outside, feel free to. I think I have this situation under control.”
Ghost padded after Kristi outside. She could only imagine how awful the stench must have been for Ghost, whose nose was hundreds of times more sensitive than hers.
The sky grew dark within minutes and Kristi had a feeling they wouldn’t be getting any answers from Stevey that day. The questions would have to wait until the next day. She set up the tent something she was proud she could now accomplish) and waited for everyone else to come out.
Ten, fifteen, then twenty minutes passed and Kristi decided she was too tired to stay up any longer; before she knew it, she was fast asleep.
chapter thirty-three
[ Troop ]