Salem, Oregon, September 201-
Body Bag
"I blew it again, didn't I Raina?"
Raina nodded, peeling back the remains of the body bag the coroner's assistants had somehow managed to shoehorn Mike into. Being just over seven feet tall, his feet had ruptured the bottom of the bag.
She then changed her mind and shook her head.
Only to change her mind again, and nodded …and then finally…
Shrugged.
Mike's eyes rolled up to meet hers from where his head now rested on her lap where she sat in the open doorway of the air-ambulance she'd landed on the Merston High School football field at the height of the active shooter situation for obvious reasons.
"Well, aside from your niece being torn to pieces by Officer, what was his—
"Her." Mike said firmly, "Officer Sargent is a "her". That's what they told us at the diversity briefing when they transferred her out of Traffic."
"Yeah. Right. Sargent." Raina gave Mike a puzzled frown, "Ummmmm… any first name?"
"Nope. Just Sargent. I looked on the duty roster."
"Anyway, when they brought you out in that body bag, I thought you'd really done it this time until they started to try loading you into the coroner's meat wagon." The tall, slim woman with electric blue hair in the flight suit almost but not quite stifled a giggle. "You should have seen their faces not five minutes ago after your feet tore out the bottom of the bag when you sat up with half your face torn off. Shit got real interesting when your head fell off and started swearing!"
"Oh God, I'll never hear the end of it in the locker room. That is, if I didn't get myself canned for walking right into the line of fire when I should have waited for backup. But what else could I do? Ms. Goode walked right in front of the guy yammerin' at me somethin' about it bein' all my fault – I couldn't just stand there and let it happen!"
Raina re-adjusted the power cable that she'd slid into the hidden sockets beneath his ears and then the ones on the sides of her neck, "Mike, she's all right, traumatized but all right, and no, it wasn't your fault – don't go borrowing trouble if it's not yours. You did the right thing even if the Steins will probably have your hide for ruining all their hard work rebuilding you!"
"Worse," Mike groaned, "They'll give up and send me the bill for me and the rest of us. Where's Puck? Where's Maggie? Are they all right? That asshole didn't…"
"You don't remember?"
"All I remember is standin' up, gettin' shot, and then fallin' over."
"Maggie's all right. She was in the hall behind you – even though she was supposed to be in her assigned classroom behind a locked door until the all clear bell rang – I'm letting her stay the night with her friend Draculaura who got a very bad fright."
"An' Puck?"
"Officer Sargent brought me her head. Her translator told me that she attacked Officer Sargent when Officer Sargent tried to investigate your body, so Officer Sargent accepted it as a challenge to a duel—" Fingers anchoring the loose flap of face so that it didn't tear further, Raina held Mike's head up so that he could see the pile of what was left of his niece laid out on a blanket roughly in the order which it belonged, "Now it's Humpty Dumpty time. Is she in the Meadow with you?"
"Yeah. Gone fishin'."
"Good." Raina sighed, adding, "I was hoping you'd say that." Resting Mike's head back on her lap, she reached into the First Aid kit that lay open beside her and pulled out a roll of surgical tape and a pair of scissors. "Hold still, I'm going to stabilize what's left of your face until I can airlift you and Puck to the Steins – Tepes has cleared my flight plan and will keep the press away from us for as long as he can – seems you're a bit of a hero in these here parts, pardner – you didn't just take down one shooter, but two."
"Great." Mike's head grumbled. "That's just what we need, attention – what, two??"
"Oh, shut up, misiaczek, my little teddy bear – we'll talk about it later!" Raina firmly slapped a length of surgical tape over his mouth, "I'm just glad either asshole didn't mess you up to the point where we couldn't retrieve you!"
Ruby and Marlys - Twizzlers
Ruby and Marlys crawled out from under their desks as the all clear bell rang at their elementary school a block over from Merston – lockdown was over.
Must have been some sort of drill.
Only for some reason, the teacher told them that they were all to go home early today once everybody picked up all the crayons and put them away.
"Cool!" Marlys said, sneaking a stale Twizzler from her dress pocket before passing it to Ruby as the two little girls picked up and put away all the spilled crayons, "I get to stay with you extra-long today until momma gets off work. Bet your dad'll pick us up in his big ol' truck!"
Ruby was too busy rolling the chemical red candy around in her mandibles as she gnawed on her fair share to say anything beyond a non-committal, happy rattle, anticipating Klondike bars.
A Dog's Life
Panting, Jeremy F. rolled over onto his back in a jingle of dog tags on the Stein's back porch in a patch of afternoon sunlight. Thoroughly enjoying his new rudimentary digestive track, he farted.
Silent but deadly.
The man-gone-dog paddled his legs, half-asleep and chasing yellow dream rabbits as usual.
Only to give a sudden snuffling snort, quickly standing up on all fours, tongue lolling.
Flopping back on his haunches, Jeremy F. then began a long, thoughtful scratch behind one ear with one large back foot.
Duuuuuude, dog or not, like, maybe it was, like, time he got a job?
Thoroughly exhausted, Jeremy F. flopped over on his side, sound asleep once more.
Nahhhhhh. Tomorrow, dude. Tomorrow.
Jeff, sometime around sundown.
Jeff woke up face down in a pile of leaves in a light rain, smelling terrible, head the clearest it had been in a long time.
He took a whiff of his soiled white hoodie, blood.
Fresh blood.
Nice.
He had awakened from a very nice dream about a girl.
A tall blonde.
With cat ears.
And a lot of blood.
Jeff loved dreams like that.
Thoroughly enjoying himself, he decided to go back to Sanctuary and eat Fruit Loops.
And maybe take a shower.