My best friend is an idiot crushing on a jerk. Instead of eating peanut butter cups at his house on Halloween, I'm throwing rocks at Skurdulka's house. That's how it started.
I actually lay eyes on a shapeshifting cryptid and I'm not going to live...
I put a finger to my lips. Turning slowly back to the window, I delicately lifted the edge of the curtain and peered through.
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Only rooftop and trees looked back at me.
I opened the curtains wider, looking in every direction. But all I saw was the slope of the shingles and the almost-leafless tree at the edge. "I don't see anything."
Ash sighed. "Good."
Pudge still sat up on the foot of the bed, looking uncharacteristically alert. The old dog slept about 20 hours a day—he didn't wake up for nothing.
Quietly unlocking the window, I slid it up an inch.
"What are you doing?" Ash repeated, louder.
"I wanna see what's—"
Something fluttered past me, just grazing my cheek and flipping the curtain.
Pudge barked twice, chuffed, and then fell silent.
I turned slowly, bracing to see a tiger or a wolf or an eight-foot-tall humanoid serial killer strangling poor Pudge. But Skurdulka stood at the end of the bed in human form, gently scratching Pudge's ear with one long finger. They looked almost the same but--not. They wore a long, hooded black jacket, making them look broader and taller than ever. Low and shadowed in the hood, their face was a black void.
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"God damn." Puffing out a sigh, I attempted a laugh. I sounded worse than Pudge. "Aren't you supposed to get invited in or something?"
"That's vampires," The dark hood intoned, unamused.
I wondered, not for the first time, about the existence of other legendary creatures, but I didn't think now was the time to ask. As I cautiously returned to the bed, Skurdulka's hooded face swiveled to follow. I squeezed close to Ash.
"What are you doing here?" I whispered.
The cryptid's head tilted. "Inconvenient to go traipsing through other people's houses uninvited, isn't it?"
"Um. Sorry." I glanced nervously at Pudge, contentedly sniffing Skurdulka's hand and enjoying a head-scratch. Skurdulka's long fingers slipped under Pudge's wrinkly chin. Around his neck. "Look, I know you're mad, but—please, leave Pudge out of it."
