Rachel and I look around, seeing where the sound had come from. The left? The right? Maybe behind us?
"What the fuck was that sound?" I ask.
"I think... It was a tiger." Rachel stammers.
After she had said that, a green tiger approached us. Wait. Green? What type of tiger is green, is this a new species? It circles around us for a little bit before stopping in front of the both of us. It sounded as if its bones were cracking and it were transforming into something.
It ran off into the bushes quickly, and Rachel and I stayed put; in a shocked state. I gripped her hand tighter and just looked in the direction the green tiger went.
We slowly walked over that way, careful as to not be seen. All of the sudden, a person gasps and the boy with the green hair from the roller rink hops out from the bush.
"How... How'd you-"
"Don't worry. I don't bite." He jogs up to us.
"Well come on." Gar takes Rachels hand.
She looks back at me and I just smirk and wiggle my eyebrows, watching the cute scene in front of me. We all run in some direction, to a destination I'm unsure of. But, because this kid literally turned into a fucking tiger, I follow him; and also he has Rachel, so... I can't really leave her.
•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•
"It's not too far from here." Gar was telling us. "We'll just warm up for a bit."
"What's not far from here? Where are we going?" Rachel asked.
"Yeah, where the fuck are you taking us. Mr. Mystery Man." I sass.
"Someplace you can chill." He told us.
"We can't chill. You don't understand I- I'm changing, and I can feel it. And it's getting worse." Rachel says.
'That's puberty summed up for you.' I chuckle at my joke.
"Well, no worse than the crew I live with. Trust me." Gar says. "We're, uh, special too."
"I'm not special. I'm dangerous." She responds. "You saw what I did back there. I-"
"And you saw what I did back there." He cuts her off.
"Which, may I add, was fucking cool." I speak up.
"Thanks." He smiles at me. "I never caught your name?"
"Oh, it's Emily. But you can call me Em." I extend my hand to him.
"I'm Garfield, but you can calk me Gar. It's nice to meet you, Em." He takes my hand.
"It's nice to meet you, too, Gar."
"You guys aren't scared of me, right?" He hesitantly asked.
"No. No. I blew a roof off a church." Rach says.
"And I killed someone." I add. "And you're still helping us, so..."
"Wait, you killed someone?" Rachel asked me.
"A story for a different time." I wave her off.
"I got green hair." We laugh at that.
"Freaks all around, I guess." He adds.
A few gunshots go off in the distance and it scared the crap outta me. I put my hand on my heart and tried to regain my steady breathing.
"That scared the tits off of me." I exclaim.
Gar and Rachel stand up and make their ways to the door, Gar gesturing for me to follow. I get up so fast, it was like I was never even sitting on the log of wood.
"Don't you bitches dare leave me." I yell to them.
"Wouldn't dream of it." Rachel yelled back.
We come up on a few guys carrying guns and beer cans. I look to the ground and see a deer with a bullet in its chest, but it was still alive. Must of missed a vital organ or tendon.
Anyway, Rachel and I race up in front of the dying animal and make sure they don't kill it. People are sick to do this as a fun sport or some shit, makes me want to vomit.
"Leave it alone." Rachel tells the guys.
"What the hell. Where'd you two come from?" The dorky looking one in orange asked.
"She said, leave it alone. Don't make her say it again." I say.
"Go home, girls. Go on. Get!" The idiot in the black exclaimed.
"I'm not a fucking dog. If anyone's the animal here it's you!" I lowly tell him.
At this point, Gar starts growling behind the two guys. I cross my arms and smirk, ready to watch them run and scream like little boys. Because, let's face it, little girls are more tough than these twigs.
He walks up to them in his tiger form and the guys back up with terrified looks on their faces. As he gets a bit closer, the guys fall backwards by my feet. The one in the black jacket shot his friend in the arm and I had to cover my mouth to stop from laughing.
"You shot me!" The guy in orange exclaimed, hiding his arm.
"Get outta here!" Rachel told the guys.
They start running for the hills, probably crying like little babies too. Damn it, I should have filmed this. It would have gone viral, missed opportunity.
Rachel and I turn around and crouch beside the dying deer. She starts comforting it with her words and I pet it, wanting it to know it has someone with it before it dies. Rachel held her hand above the bullet wound.
"I should have done more than roar." Gar said, coming over to us.
"You did good, Gar." I smile.
"The truth is, i've never bitten anybody before. Blood grosses me out." He stays standing.
"It's dead." Rachel said, on the verge of tears.
"You okay?" Gar asked her, crouching beside her.
"It's gonna be alright, Rach. You did the best that you could, you gave it comfort so it didn't die alone." I calmly sooth.
She starts to cry and I just look at Gar as to tell him to go hug her, it was his chance to get in the good books; if he isn't already in them.
"I'm sorry." She says.
"Rachel," Gar starts. "There is nothing evil about you. Nothing at all."
"You don't know that." She shakes her head.
"Yeah, I do. I have a pretty good instinct about this kind of thing. Come on." He gets up and starts walking away.
•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•
"Whoa. You live there?" Rachel asked, staring at this big ass mansion.
"Come on." He nods his head towards the place and starts going over to it.
We get over to a stairwell outside that, most likely, leads to a basement. I wish I had my own basement and not just a couch.
"We're going down here?" Rachel inquires.
"Oh, yeah. Cool, huh? Come on."
"Fuck yeah, it's cool!" I exclaim, hitting Rachel's shoulder as we walk down.
"So, what is this place?"
"I call it," Gar turns the lights on, "Nirvana."
Everything in the room started lighting up, arcade stations, televisions, lamps, anything that used power turned on. There were also so many cool signs all over the walls, and they looked old; a good old.
"Holy shit." Rachel whispered.
"You want a pop? I got everything. Root beer? Orange crush? Grape crush?" He asked, going into his fridge.
"Grape." She told him.
"Do you have Coke?" I ask.
"Diet? Zero? Vanilla? Cherry?" He starts listing.
"Vanilla, please." I say.
"That's an original. 1948. You ever see it?" Gar asked Rachel, as she was standing in front of an 'Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein' sign.
"Aren't you a little young to be watching something so old?" She asked, whipping her head to face his direction.
"You mean classic." Gar and I say at the same time.
We look at each other and laugh a bit. I turn around a look at everything else inside the room.
"I've got every 'Abbott and Costello meet a monster'" He says, excited.
"No way! We should watch them all!" I say, just as excited.
"Yeah, you two are geeks, aren't ya?" She mutters.
"About classic films," Gar starts.
"Vinyl," I continue.
"And video games?" We say together.
"Yeah, check, check, and check." He finishes.
Gar comes up behind me and puts a vanilla Coke in my hands. I thank him and put the open bottle to my lips and take a swig.
"So where'd you get all this stuff?" Rachel asked Gar.
"You know. Around." He takes the stretchy action figure out of her hands and passes a grape crush to her.
"It's vintage." He tells her, putting it down.
"I- I don't get out that much." Gar says, sounding somewhat ashamed.
"Yeah." Rachel responds.
Rachel starts staring at a picture frame, so I join her to see what it is. I took a good look at it and noticed it was Gar, only he didn't have green hair. I also realized that he was standing with two other people; probably his parents.
"Yeah, they uh, they died." He sadly says.
"My mom died, too." Rachel tells him. "She was all I had."
"So, who were the people you were with at the roller rink?" He quizzes.
"You know, just people." She shrugs it off.
I turn to Rachel and give a 'seriously?' look, sort of asking with my eyes why she didn't just tell the truth. I look to Gar and smile.
"The guy was my brother. And the woman was..." I trail off. "A friend."
"So, if your parents are gone, um, who lives here?" She asks.
"That is a complicated answer." He awkwardly laughs.
"Gar!" Someone outside exclaimed.
"Uh-oh." We all turn towards the voice.
"Who is that?" Rachel and I ask.
"The complicated answer." He says.
"Shit." I worriedly breath out.
"Gar! You down there?" The voice booms again.
"Now you two need to hide."
"Hide? From what?" Rachel questions.
"Probably the complicated answer, Rachel!" I whisper exclaim.
"Just hide. Please." His voice squeaks
He moves us into a closet that barely fit the two of us inside, so it was pretty cramped. As soon as he shut the door I could hear heavy footsteps coming down the stairs and I did not want to meet this person, and it seems Gar is afraid to introduce us.
"Hey, Cliff. What's up, dude?" Gar asks.
"Who are you talking to?" The guy, Cliff, asks back.
"Uh, myself." He says in a 'duh' tone. "Come on Gar. You beat Super Mario World you can beat this" Gar whispers.
"Oh, where were you today?" Cliff asked.
"Down here. Duh."
"Bullshit. You went into town again." Cliff states matter of factly.
"My controller broke and I had to get a new one. Okay?" Gar stands up. "I knew I could get there and back before Chief came home."
'Who the hell is Chief?' I think to myself.
"Oh, shit. Kid!" Cliff whines.
"Relax. No one followed me. Kept a low profile." Gar slowly states.
"You wanna keep a low profile, you wear a hat." He says.
"Funny!" He sarcastically laughs. "You know, that's a good joke. I heard another good joke. Why was the robot mad?" He paused. "Because someone kept pushing his buttons."
Cliff laughs. "Keep pushing them, there'll be a green tiger-skin rug in my bedroom." He monotonely says. "Dinner. One hour. Come tell Larry what you want, brat."
I had been covering my mouth this whole time for two reasons. One: I don't want to be heard in case I accidentally speak or breath loud, and two: these guys are so funny that I feel I'm gonna burst out laughing any minute now.
"I was not put on this Earth to babysit." I hear Cliff say as he leaves.
As soon as the door closed Gar turned around and pulled his headphones off, indicating Cliff had fully left and the three of us were in the clear. I take my hand off of my mouth and let out a sigh of relief.
"That was close. Three players?" Gar asked, holding up his remote.
All of the sudden the closet door opens to reveal a metal man robot person thing. It scared the absolute crap outta me, though. So much so that Rachel and I let out two consecutive screams.
•°•°•°•°•
Long chapter check! ✌
Next chapter coming out soon
*EDITED*