Chương 25: 2.6.5 Pierce Townsend

Interlude 2. 6. 5: Pierce Townsend Pierce Townsend September 2015"Are you sure we should do this?" I asked Dennis as we packed our backpacks.

"We're fine, dude," he replied, packing his flint and skinning knife. He was the best in the class at that, not that our class was very big.

"What if we run into pokemon?"

"Don't be a pussy, Pierce. We can chase off a single spearow. We do that often enough over the farm anyway. Besides, it's not about beating a pokemon; it's about convincing it that we're not worth the effort. They aren't stupid; they'll leave us alone if we show them that we aren't food." Dennis, Jose, Elijah and I were the only boys who were sixteen in the whole town, came with the whole "only two thousand people live here" thing. It fucking sucked.

We were that awkward age where we were too young to get included on the grownup stuff but too old to hang out with the ankle-biters. We wanted to do all the cool shit, too. Pokemon were real! And all we got to do was occasionally stand around near the farm, watching for fucking spearow. Ranger Tom, back when he was around, kept us out of the rangers.

He taught us how to fish and hunt and pitch tents and shit, but never took us out on his supply runs to Truckee because he said he wouldn't know what to tell our parents if something happened to us. It was bullshit. We were as good as any of them. Sure, the crustle was fucking terrifying, but it wasn't like any of the other, "real" rangers managed to accomplish anything either. Shane had to give the drilbur a pep talk to take it down. And that wasn't the norm; that was a freak accident.

Sabrina said that the crustle probably only showed up because it evolved recently or something. Out in the forest? That was different, just some pidgey and spearow and the occasional caterpie. Or, that was what Dennis said. We were all disappointed with being called too young for the rangers, but he took it personally. He'd always had a chip on his shoulder, ever since his dad developed a drinking problem and he had to take care of Olive.

"Come on, Pierce," he called.

"Jose snuck a bottle of Jack from the store. We'll just go out hunting, roast some meat, and have a good time."

"How'd he manage that?"

"Guilermo was updating the job board yesterday," the tanned boy shrugged with a lazy grin.

"Shit, it's easy. You just gotta act like you're there for something else, pretend you belong. It's all in the swagger, you know? I bet he hasn't even noticed yet."

"You know alcohol's scarce now, right? He might notice."

"So what, bro? He won't know who took it so it doesn't matter. If he didn't want it stolen, he should've kept his stash in the back."

"I still don't think getting drunk in the forest is a good idea. What if something happens?"

"Fuck, man, then don't drink. You can be our designated sober guy and be all responsible and shit." I sighed. It was always like this. Dennis and Jose got up to something and dragged Elijah and I along. Against my reservations, I smiled. These idiots were my friends, the only ones I could have. Small towns sucked.

"Fine, let's go get drunk."

"That's the spirit, bro!" Jose crowed, clapping me on the shoulder.

"You'll see, ain't nothing to it. The rangers are just talking themselves up. So long as we don't go too deep, it'll be fine."

"Come on, Jose. Least you could do is not jinx us." X The woods around Carnelian Bay had been chopped down to create a bit of distance between the forest and the wall. Jose said it was like giving the forest a wax, like he knew what that was like on a woman. The four of us pretended we were a squad out on a scouting expedition. We each had a bow or crossbow because bullets were expensive but that didn't matter. Shane did just fine with a regular crossbow so no one was saying we should've nicked the guns.

Dennis was "captain" and he made little hand signs to usher us in different directions. Half those signs weren't even things we agreed on but it was all in good fun. We took potshots at random shit, to see who had the best aim. That was Jose, the guy had eyes like a hawk. That changed at around ten in the morning. Dennis found the tracks of a deer. Judging by the height of the bent stalks and branches, it was a fairly small one. When we followed it, we found a fawn that had been separated from its herd.

Its hide still had that dappled look, though the pattern was obviously starting to fade. Dennis called for us to stalk it.

"You sure, Dennis?" Elijah called. He was a short, black kid who came up to Truckee with his dad to deliver supplies before shit went down. He was a quiet kid who was always down for whatever.

"We're not supposed to hunt stuff that's too young."

"Yeah, well, according to them, we're too young," Dennis scoffed. I couldn't see his face but I knew his eyes were rolling like pinballs.

"For fuck's sake, who gives a damn? Too young to go out, too young to hunt. That thing's more than big enough to split between the four of us, dude."

"Fine, whatever. I've got some salt in my backpack."

"Yeah, it'll go nice with whiskey, trust me. And when we bring the leftovers back, they'll have to stop treating us like kids. Now, come on, follow me." Slowly, we began to close in. It felt pretty cool and Dennis wasn't wrong. That thing was barely a fawn. Any fawn born this year would be about three to four months old by now. In deer years, that was probably like a teenager so this should be fair game. I could already taste the roast meat. Venison had this gamy flavor that made it better than beef in my opinion.

Elijah wasn't the only one who carried a bit extra. There were wild herbs mom dried and sold for stones. I could use those to season the venison. We were as close as we could expect to get, probably around thirty yards or so. We played a quick game of rock-paper-scissors. I won so I got to take the first shot. I raised my bow and took a step forward. A loud crack filled the air as I happened to step on a dry branch. The fawn bolted.

"Pierce, you fat fuck!" Dennis swore.

"I'm not fat," I grumbled as I hastily loosed my arrows. We all did, but the fawn was too fast and small. It became a tawny blur in the foliage, dashing off to who knew where.

"After it!" Jose hollered. We crashed through the underbrush. I winced as twigs rubbed against me, jabbing me unpleasantly even through my jacket. Already, I could feel my breath coming in short gasps. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it Everyone was ahead of me, almost leaving me behind. I couldn't help it. I'd never been very athletic and they were so much faster than me.

The only way I could keep track of the fawn was by running after Dennis, the next fastest, and hoping he had eyes on it. That was why I wasn't ready when he came to a sudden stop. My momentum almost tackled him to the ground but I managed to redirect myself, only glancing past him in favor of a tree. I still rolled my ankle though, the painful sting making me cry out.

"What the hell?" I yelped.

"Why'd you sto–""Shut the fuck up, Pierce!" Dennis hissed in a harsh whisper. Slowly, I turned to see what my friends were looking at and froze. I felt a cold chill crawl down my spine. In front of me were deer, an entire herd of them. No, that wasn't right. There were deer, and then there were deer. Adult whitetail deer mingled with an even mix of beige and cream-colored creatures of roughly the same size. They had curled, looping horns that formed the silhouette of large eyes. Stantler.

I recognized them immediately. The deer had formed a herd with stantler. Or the pokemon had taken charge of them somehow. Why? Did they keep the dumb deer like humans kept dogs? I didn't know. All I knew was that there was a row of pokemon staring us down as the fawn ran between them. Everyone said stantler were shit pokemon. They were worthless. I couldn't think of a single Heart Gold playthrough when I had one on my team. Usually, I didn't even bother catching one for the dex entry.

They could Intimidate, but weren't real threats. Even now that they were real, the rangers said they mostly kept out of the way and didn't want any trouble. But that was if we had pokemon of our own. We all dreamed of having one of course, like Shane, or even better, with a cooler partner than a linoone. It was probably in the back of all our minds, how if we hung around the forest enough, we could stumble on a rare, baby pokemon. Then, we could really contribute to the town.

People would stop trying to treat us like we were kids. Shane wouldn't be able to stop us from going out on a ranging like he did. If we got a really good starter, we could even overtake Shane and Rocket pretty fast; it wasn't like linoone were strong or anything. Those wishes vanished like morning dew. A cloud of dread settled over us. The biggest stantler stepped forward, its hoof settling softly against the mossy soil.

Both males and females had antlers, I remembered, but that had to be a buck, what with its size. The black, pupil-like growths on his horns glowed, rooting us in place. I tried with everything I had but I couldn't look away. It was as though those horns had become eyes in truth, large and piercing. They glared into my soul. I felt helpless and vulnerable, like a frog on a dissection table. All thoughts fled my mind. It was like a cloud of sheer, unshakeable terror settled in my brain.

The stantler changed, from a slightly larger deer to a beast fresh out of my nightmares. His horns became eyes. His black pupils became slitted. And when he reared up, I saw the opening maw of a great, demonic beast. His hooves grasped for me, morphing into fanged fingers reaching out from the maw of oblivion to drag me into the abyss. His bellow rumbled through me like the grumbling stomach of a predator.

"A-Ahhhh!" I screamed as the hold over me vanished and a warm wetness trickled down my leg. I scrambled back, heedless of the ankle I'd rolled. I wasn't alone. We shrieked in terror as we ran the other way. Everything else was forgotten. Branches whipped into my face as I ran but I didn't have the presence of mind to brush them aside. I'd dropped my bow but couldn't go back. I couldn't even imagine pointing it at those eyes again. Elijah, Dennis, and Jose barreled past me.

I wanted to call for them to stop, to give me a second to catch up, but my breath caught in my throat. I was breathing too heavily and my mouth had gone dry. I tasted blood as each gulp of air came in ragged gasps. I didn't know how far we ran. The woods grew darker as the canopy thickened above us. The trail markers, ribbons of bright, sky-blue tape slapped onto trees, were gone.

I didn't recognize where we were anymore but separating from them would have been even worse and I was too short of breath to shout for them to stop. Then it happened. The underbrush suddenly cleared to reveal a glade. There, Elijah tripped and tumbled over something I couldn't see. Dennis, right on his tail, followed. And before I knew it, neither could get up. At first, I thought they'd twisted their ankles. I slowly came to a stop.

Jose was further back, closer to me than Elijah, and had a bit more time to react. He hopped over something, a thin line that faintly caught the light, and stumbled onto the middle of the glade.

"What the hell? Get up!" he shouted.

"Let's go!"

"I'm trying!" Elijah grunted. He jerked but seemingly could not stand. When I drew nearer, I saw what had happened. There were thin, wispy lines against the boys' bodies. On the ground, barely covered by the forest's detritus, was a network of threads that was all but invisible at first glance. They were spider webs, I realized. I nervously glanced around and confirmed my fears: The glade was some giant arachnid's hunting ground. An ominous chittering filled the air.

It sounded almost like a bird's call, high pitched and sharp. Something clicked with each short note, like beaks clacking together. Or mandibles.

"What the fuck was that?" Jose muttered. We looked towards the sound, Dennis and Elijah craning their heads as best they were able. A flash of red and violet skittered above the treetops. Something was there and it sure as shit was no bird.

"Pierce! Jose!" Dennis barked.

"Get out your knife and cut us free!"

"R-Right!" I stammered and stumbled into the glade. Spider webs meant ariados probably. The rangers sometimes dealt with one and they said these things were shy. They were patient opportunists, not hunters. We needed to get free and run as fast as we could, before whatever was up there decided we weren't quite big enough to be problems. I pulled my knife and began to cut Elijah away while Jose reached for Dennis.

I kept my blade sharp, it was just about the only wilderness survival lesson I was decent at, but the silk was hard to cut. It was almost rubbery, as if it could be used to bungee jump off a cliff. Which, now that I thought about it, an ariados probably could do. My heart pounded in my chest. My hands trembled. My knife slipped from my sweat-soaked grip. No matter how I sawed back and forth, I was making no progress.

I didn't know what that spider was doing, but I was pretty sure I'd seen it running along the treetops. The flash of red I glimpsed didn't bode well for us. We were running out of time. Just when I thought that, a crimson shadow blurred at the edge of my vision.

"Gah!" Jose screamed as a spider the size of a large bar stool jumped onto his back. He toppled to the ground and must have landed on a sticky web because he couldn't bring his arm up to punch the spider off. The ariados' beady, violet eyes stared into me maliciously as its mandibles clutched down onto Jose's neck. But it didn't bite deep. Instead, it curled its abdomen like a hornet and stung him in the spine. Jose screamed in agony as the oversized spider's golden stinger sank deep.

A shimmering, violet fluid soaked out onto Jose's jacket, spilling over from whatever didn't make it into his body. He went rigid, as stiff as a corpse, before seemingly relaxing. He looked like a puppet with its strings cut, limp even as his eyes widened in terror.

"Ah… It hurts…" he slurred. He moaned like something out of a zombie movie. I remembered old textbooks saying how lots of bugs liquified prey from the inside out, like a fleshy bag of Capri-Sun. Already, his eyes were bloodshot. Even as I watched, sweat drenched his face and he turned red. Blood vessels burst and I could see him begin to cry little droplets of crimson. The ariados gazed at me impassively. It mocked me, daring me to move, challenging me to fight. I couldn't. My body moved before I could think.

I dropped my knife and stumbled to my feet, heading out of the glade.

"N-No, don't leave me, Pierce!" Elijah whimpered.

"I-I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" I stammered.

"Pierce! You fucking coward!" Dennis screamed.

"There's nothing I can do… Nothing…" I turned and fled. No way in hell could they expect me to wrestle a fully evolved pokemon. It took Shane Motherfucking Hayes and his pokemon to take down a crustle. No way. Fuck no. My friends were dead and I needed to get the hell out of here before that ariados decided I also belonged on the menu. I stumbled like a drunken fool on my rolled ankle. I crashed into damn near every tree.

Falling to my knees, I crawled away even as I saw the ariados twitch with a dismissive shrug before turning back to Jose's still-moaning form. It was such a human motion that it cut through the haze of fear I felt. I just… I understood then what Shane meant: Pokemon were intelligent, so damn smart that humans could hold full conversations with them if we tried. But they weren't human. They didn't share the same values we did. Hell, they probably didn't even have the same values from species to species.

We weren't alone on Earth anymore. I'd never been so terrified at the thought. Author's Note Very short chapter, but funny. First real interlude for this story and it's about a bunch of kids dying horribly. Or maybe not? Who knows? Spiders are known for saving food so they might be alive. Except Jose. His insides just got turned into half-digested slurry so he's very, very dead. Thank you for reading.

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