Strange Yarns

Crickets & Twig - Deleted Yarn

I hadn't noticed Sally Crickets until just then. She was underneath a rocky overhang, her knees curled to her chest. Her face was still blue and her clothes slashed, but she was alive or alive-ish at least.

The vomit boy smiled his toothy smile at Sally, "gOt yOu! aNd nOw tHaT dAdDy'S sEeN i gOt HIs pReCiOuS lItTle gIrL, I gUeSs iT's tImE tO gEt hIm tOo." His sloppy head tilted up towards the sky that looked super evil, "hE'Ll lOvE aNoThEr oNE, hE wIll! eNjOy tHe dEaD pLaCe, dWeEbS."

And with that the Vomit Boy slopped over the slick black boulders off into whatever the frik this place is.

So...

It was just me and Sally.

I had always hoped for some time alone, just the two of us... but this wasn't exactly how I imagined it. It's not like I had a chance before, but now Sally Crickets is never going to like me.

I had to come up with something to say. It was already super awkward, but what's the best opener for the person who thinks you just murdered them? Maybe it was nerves, or maybe now that I'm a ghost I'm also like the biggest idiot in the world, but I said, "What's shaking, baby?"

Her eyes were cold and scared, which made me feel cold and scared.

"What just came out of you, Twig?" Sally Crickets said with ice in her voice. Usually she talked with this cool hippie lilt... not now though.

"I don't know. A puke-ghost maybe..." I tried to explain and as you can see I'm not the best explainer in the world, so I jumped right into, "I am so so double-so so sorry!"

"It made you attack me... didn't it?"

I nodded.

"We're dead?"

I shrugged. I mean it's pretty obvious, but I'm not going to be like Duh! I'm classier than that.

Sally started nodding, her face looked the way my buddy Chester's does when he's figuring out a strategy when we're playing Settlers of Catan. She lifted her shirt over her belly button, she had stab wounds, but they weren't bleeding. Just deep maroon gashes.

"Okay! We're dead!" Sally said, "And that thing is going to try to kill my dad. You know what that means?"

I nodded, "Totally!"

I totally had no idea what it meant.

"It means that if that thing could get out of- where ever the hell we are- and plans to do it again... Then we can get out too."

Whoa!

She was right!

Maybe we weren't dead. Maybe we were in some alternate death universe where everything is black slimey rocks with a sky that bleeds...

Or if we were actually dead, then we could still get back home and be ghosts. I mean, I know I'd miss out on being old and having a family and driving a car and shaving and getting to any of the bases, but flying and moving through walls would be pretty neat.

"Twig!" she snapped me out of my fantasy where I was a super-hero ghost, "Let's go!"

"Where?"

She pointed to the puke puddles, "We follow Pukey McPukerson and we get out! C'mon! He's way ahead of us." She spit in her hands, rubbed them together, and started climbing the black boulders.

Sally Crickets. Coolest girl in the world.

Crickets

Listen, you know me, I'm not the kinda girl that usually reads Cosmo or Seventeen or any of those stupid fashion magazine's where Kammy Kaladain and other celebutards give you advice on boys and fashion, but my after-school job is working front desk at The Ivory Arms and sometimes guests leave those magazines and what better thing is there to do? In all those rags I've never read any advice regarding not staying mad at your crush when that crush stabbed you to death.