Bright Shadows 2: A Hinterlands Anthology

Driving Miss Pinch

Perpetual youth is a nightmare, not a dream. Presented for your consideration are 2 ladies in a car: an older girl and a younger woman. The passenger is an articulate zombie. The driver has no arms.

How ever will they find common ground?

**

Road Tripping

Katrina-Katrina was a junior scientist for her boss and mentor, Dr. Karl Josef Ryker. She emanated confident elegance while driving a scarlet, 3-wheeled, company car: a beloved perk. Lacking arms, Katrina-Katrina easily drove barefooted. Windows up. Soft jazz on the simulcast radio. Scenic highway. In a word: cruisin'!

Jimmy The Pinch, Karina-Katrina's strange companion, was riding shotgun. Imagine a monochromatic, 13-year-old, Latina tomboy with a waxy, mottled, and burnt sienna complexion.

In sharp contrast, Katrina-Katrina was a tall, willowy, and elfish Afro-Asian with long, black hair. Wearing matching outfits had been Katrina-Katrina's idea: denim vests, and denim skirts over denim shorts. However, the antique "girl" wore sneakers.

Katrina-Katrina had wanted to give the older girl a sense of belonging, of connection. After all, no matter how old she is, a child is still a child!

Both ladies preferred wearing ponytails, now with matching hair ties.

They had reached a "peace treaty" about body odor:

Katrina-Katrina stank like sweet buttermilk, accented with oregano. Meanwhile, Jimmy The Pinch stank like rancid soap blended with gummy, raw sourdough. Deal with it! Hence the closed windows.

Jimmy The Pinch's eerie, alto voice was both guttural and nasal. Katrina-Katrina was a smooth contralto.

Jimmy said, "I here 'cause Señor Ryker paid his debt via a, uh?"

"Trust fund."

"Sí. Trust fund."

"Understood."

"Never lived me in deep forest country, Katrina-Katrina. Will zebras eat me?"

"Relax, Miss Pinch. Zebras eat plants."

Jimmy was annoyed. "I know! I know! That's why I is a-feared!"

Katrina-Katrina mulled that awhile. The 103-year-old "fossilized girl" resembled an electrically powered corpse: a saponified lichen and zombie symbiont! Hence, zebras sounded scary! Weird, but logical!

"Hmm. Miss Pinch, we have deer and raccoons, and sometimes elk. Um. Bears, too. No zebras or elephants. So... I need mosquito repellant, while you need deer repellant."

"Beautiful," Jimmy grumped. "My new parfum: giant cat urine. Oh bliss. Oh joy."

Katrina-Katrina playfully teased, "We've half an hour's drive left! Plenty of time to learn 'proper' grammar!"

"You grin now, Señorita. Wait till I put the wiggly garter snake where he belong."

##

"And where's that, pray tell?"

"In your garter drawer, but of course!"

They both giggled after glancing sideward at each other.

"Interesting forest, Katrina-Katrina. But and however, long commute."

"It lets Karl, the boss man, decompress."

"Perhaps. Wastes biodiesel, though. This automobile being a hybrid, ¿sí?"

"Yes..."

"Plenty area. Solar cells all over? Maybe charge battery while the car, she is parked?"

"Ok... Makes more sense for an all-electric car... Still, it might help air conditioning and such."

Briefly, Katrina-Katrina drove while Jimmy stared out her window.

"Good country for the werewolf," Jimmy remarked nonchalantly.

Katrina-Katrina scowled. "That's just paranoid! There's no such thing as werewolves!"

Jimmy barely moved. She said, "Right... And there no, not the zombie. Yet here I is. Katrina-Katrina, I old."

The girl looked over at the increasingly nervous woman. "Tell me, por favor, how can creature like me live the nine decades — in one of biggest, human infested city — and nobody say 'boo?'"

Katrina-Katrina swallowed, but the lump in her throat refused to comply.

The reanimated girl pressed her point. "There is more of 'The Us' than 'The You' think. Grow up. You'll live longer."

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*

Suggested soundtrack

"Monster Mash," Bobby "Boris" Pickett

"Cruel Summer," Bananarama