Trigger Warnings: mention of death, blood, and gore.
It was colder than an old man's ass, a discomfort caused by the Northern England air that had found a way to seep through the thousands of layers Emmaline had bundled herself in. She also wasn't a fan of its scent, which might have held a pleasant undertone of honey if it wasn't masked by fresh animal droppings and dusty straw.
"This sucks," she grumbled, pressing her wrapped arms deeper into her cushioned chest - the slick, chocolate toned fabric of her coat making an unattractive sound as it rubbed against itself.
One moment, Emmaline and her friends were meandering towards the nearest town, the hours they'd spent on their feet finally beginning to weigh down on them to the point where snails could run circles around them; the next, an elderly sheep herder had been kind enough to pull over and gruffly offer them a ride in the back of his truck. It was an act she didn't experience nearly enough back in New York, which very well could have been because she'd grown accustomed to the do-it-yourself attitude that she'd been exposed to since infancy, making the more than likely typical courtesy an incredibly rare gesture.
"Suck it up, buttercup," said Jack, sending her that stupid grin of his while expertly concealing its side gap, the wrinkles around his nose the only indicator that he was just as bothered by their surroundings as she was.
"I'd rather not."
"It's not that bad," added David, posture stiff from resting his back against the faded wood that kept the truck's occupants on board.
"'Not that bad?'" Emmaline repeated, staring at their primary peacekeeper as if he were wearing blinders. "We're sitting on God knows what and surrounded by smelly wool!" As if to further prove her point, one of the ewes turned their head - snot infested snout uncomfortably close - before exhaling a burst of foul, musty breath into her face. "I feel like I'm going to pass out."
"Would you rather walk?" he asked, giving her that I-know-you're-not-that-stupid look that he had mastered specifically for her and Jack.
When it came to David and his ridiculous puppy eyes (practically everything about him screamed Golden Retriever, from his optimistic outlook on life to his strong disliking of being left alone), Emmaline always found herself in a pickle. On one hand, he was right about how lucky they were to have picked up the pace of their trip. On the other hand, she hated admitting when she was wrong - loathed it. She'd never verbally acknowledge this, but her tell - dramatic groaning and an over-the-top eye roll - was the closest anyone would get to drawing any sort of admittance out of her.
Shifting her chin up towards the dreary, late afternoon sky, Emmaline lazily remarked, "Looks like it's going to rain."
"No way," scoffed Jack.
The dense, blue-grayness spanning above them begged to differ.
"Mmm-hmm," she half-heartedly argued, focused on inspecting a particularly threatening-looking cloud. Before it had morphed into a boring blob of nothing, it had looked like a gaping mouth filled with razor-sharp canines - ready to take a massive bite from the hill-infested land.
"Just because you took a meteorology class, it doesn't mean you can magically predict the weather."
College had been a rather thrilling experience for the childhood friends; a chance to branch off from the expectations their families wanted them to follow, form their own opinions, and listen to others when they told their stories. It was also a way for Emmaline to ponder more upon her beliefs, political and religious - away from her mom's plans to have her marry a kind man who regularly attended their synagogue and her dad's hope that she'd "come to her senses" so she could spend the next twenty plus years raising her hypothetical husband's offspring. Ultimately, this led to her officially leaving Judaism towards the end of her freshman year, though her family didn't need to know that. Maybe it was to be expected that at least one of Ethel and Marvin Wests' children would denounce the religion they were raised in, seeing as her dad had been Catholic before converting to her mom's faith.
"It's called common sense," said Emmaline, fascinated by what appeared to be a vibrating Flower Power sticker. "You should use it sometime."
"Really?"
"Yes!"
"Children," David playfully warned, "don't fight."
As per usual, Emmaline and Jack snapped their heads in his direction. With zero hesitation, Emmaline exclaimed, "He started it!" while Jack protested over her, "She started it!" There was a pause, filled by the sound of tires rolling on pavement and the chilly breeze racing beside them, lips quivering before they burst into laughter - bodies clumsily leaning in towards another.
"You're a smart-ass, you know that?" she teased, nudging him as her smile continued to grow.
"Well, if I'm a smart-ass, then you're -"
"A bitch," Emmaline and Jack said in unison.
"Neither of you let me forget it."
"I have never once called you that!" objected David, gaze wide.
"Of course not. You're too nice. That's why we have Jack."
"Hey," Jack protested, "I'm nice. . . . Sometimes."
"Sure. And I'm sweet as -" The wind was knocked out of her when a ball of poof roughly bumped her abdomen. "Get off me!" she growled, wiggling as she attempted to push the creature back towards its flock, only to receive a round of confused bleats for her efforts. "Oh, 'baa' to you, too!"
"No, no, no," chuckled Jack, reaching out to help Emmaline gain some more space. "She's trying to tell you something! She said: 'baa, baa!'"
Blinking a pair of foggy, pitch-black beads, the ewe let out a disgruntled cry.
"Oh. I get it. 'Baa, baa, baa!"
With a large, toothy grin, David let out an ungraceful chortle. When his pissed off friend glared at him, her hardly-there eyebrows angrily drawn downwards, his lips became a thin line, shaking from what he fought to suppress.
Trying her best to not give into what was happily bubbling in her stomach, Emmaline resorted to puffing out her cheeks to blow a solitary strand of auburn hair from her forehead. "Funny. Real funny."
Leaning as far forward as he was able to, David said with a hint of mirth, "Hey, hey, hey!"
"Yeah?" answered Jack.
"'Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba-Barbara Ann! Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba-Barbara Ann!'"
Despite how frustrated she felt about their current situation, and knowing full well what he was trying to do, Emmaline couldn't help but push it all aside.
This was their thing; had been since the first time their parents had left them alone so that they could finish talking to their friends without having their sleeves pulled every five seconds. Hidden between ancient pews coated in Pine-sol, one of them would start singing whatever song came to mind, the others soon joining in as if they'd spent their entire lives rehearsing it. There was a high chance that they weren't the only ones who did this, but Emmaline liked to think it was their own distinctive language – that nobody else could come close to understanding them.
Together, her and Jack enthusiastically echoed, "'Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba-Barbara Ann!'"
They continued to moronically belt the rest of the Beach Boys' "Barbra Ann;" Emmaline accompanied David's off-pitch back-up vocals by slapping her thighs, certain that Jack's mockingly high-pitched notes could only be detected by dogs (the poor things).
She could have sworn that she'd heard shouting, but chose to ignore it, thinking it was someone they had passed. But then she heard it again - much louder and significantly more aggravated: "Hey!"
Emmaline wasn't sure who was the first to do so, but their singing gradually died off, replaced by shushing and swishing limbs.
"You'll frighten the sheep!" snapped the sheep herder, crossly staring at them via his rear-view mirror.
"Sorry!" Jack called out.
"We're sorry," David tagged on.
"Really, really sorry," finished Emmaline.
The way their shoulders jerked up and down only served to further irritate their driver, especially when he spotted the silly smiles they all wore.
"Bloody hitchhikers," he grumbled, causing them to reel in foolish amusement.
"Baa humbug!" muttered Emmaline, the tip of her tongue resting between her teeth.
"What's that?!"
David was quick to assure the sheep herder, "Nothing!" (The last thing they needed was to be kicked off nowhere near the crossroads he'd promised he'd take them because they'd gone too far with their jests.)
"Maybe we should have tried 'Be a Pepper,'" she hummed, grinning ear-to-ear when the expected reaction was easily drawn from the man sitting across from her.
"Come on, not again," David groaned. "When will you let that go?"
"Until you no longer look like the Dr. Pepper guy."
It was true. The two looked eerily similar, with their shaggy hair, arched brows, and tremendously soulful eyes. What mostly set them apart, though, was their age and how they carried themselves. While David had yet to turn twenty-three and walked as if he never had anything to worry about, the Dr. Pepper guy was nearing his thirties and moved with the agile elegance of an experienced dancer.
Emmaline had lost her mind when she saw the ad a few years prior, the annoyingly cheerful tune preventing her from studying for a difficult biology exam - the whiplash having cracked her neck when she tumbled off the couch in shock.
"Holy shit! Margo, turn it up!" she'd commanded her youngest sibling, limbs a tangled mess and creased notes about different types of cells scattered across the living room floor.
Her mom would have chewed her out for using foul language in front of her baby sister, but when she noticed the cause of it, she let it slide - choosing to put a pause on the dishes she was in the middle of drying to stare at the peppy commercial that her daughters couldn't stop freaking out over.
Emmaline had spent the next hour switching between calling Jack and David, bursting at the seams as she talked a million miles an hour. ("Doppelgangers exist! I swear they do!") When David managed to catch the tail end of it a few hours later, the phone ringing seconds before her parents cut off her access to it until the following morning, neither her nor Jack ever let him live it down.
Loud, metallic chopping echoed throughout the countryside; a noise Emmaline hadn't expected to hear outside of a major city. Glancing around, she eventually spotted a small dot in the distance that gradually increased in size.
"Is that a helicopter?" she asked.
"You mean a man-made object doing what it was invented to do?"
"Fuck off, Jack. That's not what I meant. It's just. . . . Isn't it a bit weird for one to be this far out?"
Having followed her line of sight, only able to see it once it had neared the truck, David said, "Remember when we went to summer camp? Out by Rockland County?"
A bunch of vivid memories from June 1971 came rushing back to her: the canoe her and her then crush failed to navigate across the lake flipping over because he'd dared her to stand on her seat; the painful sunburn that had landed her in the nurse's cabin for a couple days because she couldn't stop crying; the phone call the administrators made to her parents when she punched a boy in the nose for picking on her bunkmate. . . .
"Sort of," she said, rubbing the back of her neck.
"There were at least a couple helicopters that flew over us a day, even though we weren't near home."
"I. . . guess."
Still, it seemed a bit odd. Then again, there was a chance that she was much more of a city kid than she thought: lungs filled with loads of exhaust fumes; constantly coming across drivers who were a traffic jam away from losing their temper; not having to look at a single map of the MTA since she was seven to know where she was heading; and all that jazz.
Off in the distance, Emmaline could see the sun beginning to set, painting the greenery a dewy-pink – its shade reminding her of the shimmering grapefruits her mom tried and failed to get her to eat on multiple occasions. "You think we'll find a place to stay before it gets too dark?"
Jack made a sound of agreement, distrustfully examining the sheep standing before him. "I swear, if we have to sleep outside again -"
"We won't," promised David.
"You said that last time."
"It could have been worse."
"You're right," Emmaline began, expression stoic. "Because I love it when bugs bite me while I'm trying to sleep."
"How do you know they were bugs?" snidely asked Jack.
"Gee, I don't know. Maybe it's because we were covered in mosquitoes?" Making sure that David was on the receiving end of a steely look, Emmaline forewarned, "If you give me more of your look-on-the-bright-side crap, you'll end up wishing you'd never made a peep."
"I wasn't going to," he argued.
A shiver ran down her spine. "I can still feel their creepy legs on my skin." Something icy brushed across her cheek, yanking a startled shriek from Emmaline. "You fucking -"
"Asshole," finished Jack, flipping her long braid off her shoulder. "I know, I know."
"What does that make me?" David wondered, further fueling a fire he couldn't wait to finally die out.
"A boatn' pepper," began Jack.
"A tootin' pepper," Emmaline chimed in.
"A cookin' pepper."
"A good-lookin' pepper," she said, suggestively fluttering her lashes.
"I think I might want to be a pepper, too."
"As would I!"
Though he groaned, there was still a bit of the light-hearted laughter that only his closest friends could draw from him when they put their heads together. "You're horrible," David mumbled, grinning. "Absolutely horrible."
A loud thump drew Emmaline out of a slumber she didn't know she'd fallen under - a chocked gasp getting stuck in her throat as she jolted to attention. The world had taken on a deep, purple hue that harmoniously blended with an equally rich blue. It felt as if they'd somehow found their way inside of a Monet painting. All it was missing was a collection of ethereal waterlilies and wavy brushstrokes.
"End of the line," said Jack, a wet sheen in his brown gaze.
Just as he'd pointed out, Emmaline noticed they'd stopped at the start of a crossroad – exactly what had been agreed upon. Considering how grumpy the sheep herder had been over the past forty minutes, it was a miracle they hadn't majorly pissed him off to the point of being told to forget about sending him a postcard a few miles back.
The hatch's hinges creaked when it was pulled down, the sudden change startling the more skittish sheep – their mud-clad hooves anxiously tapping the floor. Their owner stepped off to the side, giving them a look that reminded Emmaline of the ones her high school teachers would send her way whenever she was being a pill. Grabbing their luggage, they carefully stood and made their way towards the exit. First David, whose lanky legs limited the difficulty of getting down, followed by Jack, who took slightly longer than his taller friend.
Staring at the wooden barrier that was between her and the ground, Emmaline huffed. When she placed the heel of her dominant foot on the edge of the truck, readying herself for a tough landing, David stood before her - fingers lightly clutching the straps of his backpack.
"Need a hand?" he asked.
For a moment, she debated whether to risk rolling her ankles for the sake of being an independent woman, but the temptation of being treated like the protagonist of a Jane Austen novel eventually won her over.
Having been given a nod of confirmation, David grabbed her sides, catching most of her weight when her hiking boots hit the road.
"My hero," she dreamily sighed, lightly bumping him with her hip while Jack helped re-latch the hatch - the sound of it sharply clicking back into place momentarily overpowering the flock's mindless bleating.
With a shy smile that made him far too adorable for his own good, David's eyes kept shifting between her and his feet. "Ah, well. . . ."
Silence surrounded the group as they followed the elderly sheep herder towards a weathered sign that displayed three different directions, their lettering bold despite how ancient the rest of it looked. Pointing straight ahead, he announced, "That's East Procter." He swept his arms around them as if he was Willy Wonka presenting his chocolate factory, minus the twinkling wonderment. "And all about here are the moors."
"Huh," said Emmaline, glancing around their surroundings in a way that resembled someone who was witnessing the glories of nature for the first time. "So that's what they - umph!" The slight sting from David's elbow hadn't been hard enough to bruise, but damn was it uncomfortable. "Jerk," she muttered, gingerly rubbing the part of her ribs that kept arguing over how she should extract her revenge. (If only he had a bra she could freeze and a box of Saran Wrap, then he'd really be sorry.)
Either choosing to ignore this or completely oblivious of Emmaline's attempt at leaving a sarcastic remark, the sheep herder brought their attention towards a loop that would take him to the moors' exit. "I go this way."
Having sensed that their time together was near its end, Jack said, "Thanks for the ride, sir. You have lovely sheep."
"That's the best compliment you can come up with?" Emmaline whisper-hissed through a fake smile.
"Shh."
"You kids keep off the moors," the sheep herder cautioned. "Stick to the roads."
Too busy sending each other weirded-out looks, none of them were able to come up with a response to answer his vaguely ominous advice. (What were they? Dumb twenty-somethings who thought partying in an abandoned warehouse in the middle of nowhere was a good idea? Even Emmaline knew that was a recipe for disaster, the thing that got everybody - save for the last girl standing - killed.)
"Best of luck," he said before re-joining his patiently waiting Border Collie, its muzzle resting on the rolled-down passenger side window. He didn't bother to wait and see if they were well on their way before he re-ignited the engine, exhaust fumes burping from the truck's Tail Pipe when it revved to life.
David, who'd begun to wave good-bye but changed his mind half-way through, raised his voice to say, "Thanks again." Turning to the sheep, he added just for them, "I'm going to miss you."
"I won't," Emmaline said, tone sweetly condescending.
"That's mean."
"Yeah, well, what else is new?"
"Bye, girls," Jack bid farewell, watching as their former rid continued without them, leaving nothing but the smell of burnt oil in its wake.
"If I didn't know any better," she began, flicking an invisible speck of dust from her coat, "I'd swear the two of you formed a love affair with them."
"What can I say?" he said with a shit-eating grin. "I'm a ladies' man."
Throwing her head back, Emmaline let out an ugly, "Ha!"
After giving her temple a friendly plink, nails ghosting the bits of hair that had sneaked their way out of the rubber bands she'd used to help keep them in place, Jack buttoned his jacket before shoving his balled-up fists deep into its pockets. "You cold, David?"
"Yeah," David casually replied, sight still focused on the sheep herder's truck.
"Good."
No longer interested in what had taken most of his attention, he switched it onto his friend - looking at him as if he'd insulted his favorite thing in the entire universe. "Jack."
"David," he answered in a sing-song way.
"You're not having a good time, are ya?" David said rather pitifully; apparently offended by the lack of enthusiasm he was receiving.
"Jesus," interrupted Emmaline, the tips of her fingers repeatedly stroking her palms. "My hands are freezing!" Turning on her heels, she brought out her arms to make it look as if she'd bring them in for a rough impact. Instead, she gently cupped David's cheeks, a pink tinge spreading beneath them when she slowly rubbed them along his face - the beginnings of stubble prickling her skin. "These are your own doing, Kessler."
"It's. . . just as much your fault as it is mine."
Placing her hands where they'd be warmest, mentally willing her jacket's slippery lining to hurry the hell up and do its job, Emmaline said, "Always ready with the facts, this one."
The first of the trio to start making their way towards East Procter, Jack piped-up without waiting for his friends to follow, "Remind me again how fun this place is."
"Keyword 'fun.'"
"Well, I like it here," David defended, as if that alone was enough to form a fully convincing argument.
"Right," Jack said with a nod. "Northern England first; Italy later."
"Right."
"I mean, we've got three months."
"Right."
A look of disgust crossed Jack when he peered down at his hand, rubbing the refinements of a gross fluid beneath his fingers. "Those sheep shit on my pack."
Whiskey eyes big with over-exaggerated concern, Emmaline reached out a hand to touch Jack's jawline. "Hold on. I think some of it got on your - Oh, wait. That's just your face." A squeal came from her when an arm abruptly wrapped around her shoulders to press her against a green coat. "Uncle, uncle!"
"I'm going to roll down that hill," Emmaline declared, stubborn determination covering every inch of her bouncing body.
Her sudden announcement drew nervous laughter from David. "No, you're not."
"Oh, yes I am."
"You'll hurt yourself," he worriedly said, realizing too little too late how it only served to spur her on, her legs gaining a spring when she began moving at a slightly faster speed.
"Or worse, the hill."
"Jack Goodman, ladies and gentlemen." Spinning around to walk backwards, she promised, "I won't go more than halfway up. And I'll roll painfully slow. Like it's my superpower."
"Don't be an - "
"Glad I have your support, David!" she called out, sprinting ahead - not stopping until she reached her latest destination.
Jack and David watched her sloppily drop her backpack before climbing a quarter of a way up the hill, plopping down on her ass to do exactly what she said she would. When she reached the makeshift barrier she'd placed at the bottom, she excitedly jumped back to her feet. "Suck my dick, boys!" she shouted before rushing back to where she'd been seconds ago, cackling the entire way.
"You know how they say women live longer than men?" asked Jack.
"Yeah?"
"I'm pretty sure we're going to outlive her."
"Don't tell her that," David fondly chuckled.
"She'll probably end up accidentally killing herself trying to prove us wrong."
"And then she'll come back to haunt us."
Giggling at the idea of her deciding to mess with them rather than move on, Jack scratched the tip of his nose while adding, "How much you wanna bet she'll whisper sex jokes in our ears?"
Emmaline instinctually yipped out a swear when she stumbled in her haste to climb the hill for a third time; knees grazing a stretch of grass when she managed to catch herself before moving on as if she hadn't nearly caused herself a significant deal of harm.
"Wouldn't put it past her."
There was a look, David noted, in Jack's gaze as he followed her movements. It was the kind that reminded him of the word "almost." Almost there, almost worked up the nerve; almost certain what happens next.
Though he knew that they were all friends, David swore that what the two of them shared spanned beyond the realm of friendship. They could banter with ease, but there were more than a few occasions where he couldn't keep up with them, feeling like he was peering at them from across a vast field that prevented him from matching their strides without feeling out of breath.
Was he jealous? Maybe a little. Of their friendship? Possibly. Or was it -
Something twinged in the center of his chest, demanding that he acknowledge its existence. It only lessened when he shook his head to clear it.
No. It couldn't be. He just wanted to be in on their interactions. That was all, and nothing more.
When it became clear that Emmaline was running out of steam, taking a moment to rest before resuming what currently held her interest, Jack mused, "Think we'll run into Debbie Klein when we're in Rome?"
"Why?" David asked, pausing to make sure he was prepared to fully observe his reactions. "Do you still like her?"
That seemed to capture Jack's complete attention. "Whatta you think?"
Shoulders relaxed, David answered, "I think she's a mediocre person with a good body."
"There's nothing," said Jack with more emphasis than necessary, "mediocre about Debbie Klein's body."
"She's a jerk!"
A hard-hitting slap landed before them, dust puffing around the boots of the person they belonged to. "Who's a jerk?" Emmaline asked, taking her usual spot between them.
"Debbie Klein."
At the mention of their former classmate's name, her facial expressions twisted in a way that made it look as if she'd smelled something rotten. "God, isn't she vapid?"
"That's a rather harsh thing to say about someone," argued Jack.
David noticed the flash of irritation that darted across her eyes. While her and Debbie hadn't interacted much since graduating high school, neither of the women had put more than the bare minimum amount of effort into disguising how much they disliked each other. He never could figure out what had been the cause of it, though, and never did get a straight answer, nor the same one, whenever he asked.
"Please," Emmaline said after releasing a disbelieving rasp of laughter. "She's horrible."
"So are you."
"And vile."
"Also, you."
Upon hearing this, Emmaline came to a complete stop, the warmth she provided David and Jack whooshing away. "Oh, no," she sarcastically gasped. "I'm vapid."
"You are not vapid," said David, sending a warning glance Jack's way.
"But I am," she argued, nonchalantly shrugging in the same way that someone would acknowledge they wouldn't be able to mow their lawn due to a fast approaching rainstorm. "Another thing to add to the list of reasons why I'm awful."
"You're neither of those things," David earnestly countered. "You have an. . . interesting personality."
Cue the obligatory, "Define 'interesting.'"
"Yeah, David," said Jack, standing beside an awaiting Emmaline - the random splattering of freckles on the bridge of her nose highlighted by the setting sun. "Define 'interesting.'"
"Well. . . . You're witty."
"Sure," Emmaline snorted, "that totally cancels out my vapidness."
"And you're a philosophy major."
"That's so not a personality trait."
At a loss, as he normally found himself when in a never-ending argument with her, David offered, "Let's just say you're way cooler than Debbie, then."
"Well, you're not wrong about that," she agreed, resuming her walk with a satisfied smile. "But I'm still a vapid bitch."
"Say, 'knock, knock,'" David said when they began to round yet another bend dotted with dry shrubbery, another gust of chilly wind having blown past them to collide with the mounds of Earth that kept it contained.
Deciding it best to humor him, and having not much else to do, Jack complied. "Knock, knock."
There was an excited twinkle in his gaze, the edges of his lips twitching, as he continued with, "Who's there?"
Visible confusion, from the furrow of his brows to the way his mouth moved in half-formed words, took over Jack before he unsurely asked, "Who?"
"Ha!" David triumphantly exclaimed. "Now, don't you get it?"
"What?"
"This again?" sighed Emmaline, picking at the strands of grass she'd plucked from the side of the road, letting the bits that were too small to do much with twirl towards the ground.
"None of you get that joke?" When this only served to draw blank stares from his friends, David decided to try another approach. "Alright: say, 'knock, knock.'"
What followed was a segment straight out of an Abbot and Castello bit. ("What?" "Say, 'knock, knock.'" "Who's there?" "No, no, no, no.")
"Wait, I get it," interrupted Emmaline, as if she'd just solved a puzzle that she hadn't been able to properly piece together for years. "He's an owl."
"No!"
They spotted the small village of East Procter shortly before it became too dark to see where they were going. It was a harmless looking place that had an old time-y quaintness about it, something that could have been easily plucked from the pages of a history book devoted to the 1700's. Smoke billowed from some of the buildings' chimneys, the light of blindingly bright lamps glowing from somewhere off to the left. All that was missing was a bunch of Puritans judgingly watching their approach, their hands folded in prayer or questioningly whispering as to whether they'd been sent by the devil to drag their souls to hell.
"Adorable," dryly remarked Emmaline.
"They better have an inn," Jack said. "I don't think I can walk much further."
Shivering, she mused, "Coffee would be nice."
"And some soup."
"With toasted bread and butter."
"God, yes."
Not wanting to wait a moment longer, Emmaline picked up her pace until she was practically sprinting.
"Emma! Stop! You're going to" - David never got the chance to finish. Her feet slipped beneath her, butt roughly hitting the grass before sliding a few feet from where she'd landed, a screech of surprise leaving her before a round of exhausted giggles took its place - "fall."
"Nice tumble," had been the first thing Jack said upon helping her back on her feet.
"Thanks. Thought I'd see what it would feel like to -'' Emmaline had stopped rubbing her hands on her bottom when she felt something moist and clumpy. She couldn't see much, but from the green and brown that was supposed to be light blue fabric, she could only assume that she'd acquired a rather impressive grass stain. "Well, shit."
Emmaline didn't mind. . . . much. Her head hurt a little (or a lot), and so did her backside, but that wasn't anything that rest and headache pills couldn't fix. She would have gotten both sooner had it not been for David's insistence that they all take it slow from then on out. It was the thought of the cleaning she would have to do to get her jeans somewhat less dirty that irritated her, not to mention that her main pair of pants would sport an unattractive stain for the remainder of their vacation.
Darkness soon caught up to them, a thick haze of mist blocking most of the moonlight they could have used to help guide them to East Procter.
"Is that a pub?" David wondered aloud, a durable chunk of wood swaying above what was likely a door.
"I hope so." With the inky night came a new kind of chill, seeping into Emmaline's bones, making her wonder why she even bothered to wear long underwear if it would hardly do much in terms of warmth.
It was when finally made it into the heart of town, just past a flock of jumpy sheep, that it became clear as to what type of business it was.
"You're right," said Jack. "It is a pub."
"Drink, rest?" offered David, inching his way towards their best chance at momentary relaxation.
Emmaline shivered with delight, not the least bit shy in allowing herself to eagerly follow her friend's lead. "Rest sounds lovely."
"Enough to possibly sleep at a booth?" asked Jack, shifting in place while he watched them continue on without him.
"As long as we're inside, I could care less where I -"
Trailing off, Emmaline followed the laser focus that he'd set on above her head, leading her to spin around and to see what had cast such a suspicious glint across his eyes.
The yellow glow that softly radiated from the pub's windows illuminated what they had been unable to see up until now: a painting of a wolf's head on a pike, blood oozing out of where its neck should have been - scarlet tongue limply hanging out of its maw, eyes dead as a full moon shone up its matted, black fur. She wasn't much of a businesswoman, but Emmaline would have thought that an image like that would repel customers rather than draw them in.
Jack was the first to voice the unease Emmaline felt. "The Slaughtered Lamb?"
"That's kinda strange," agreed David much too casually for what had been presented to them.
"That is the understatement of the century," she deadpanned, not tearing her gaze away from the sign.
"Where's the lamb?" (It wasn't really a question, more of a demand for either her or David to have a concrete answer stored in the recesses of their brains.)
"It's probably inside getting cold. Come on."
Far from finished, and in no mood for how easily David brushed it off, Jack flicked his hand towards the image of death hanging above them. "No, really. What kind of ad is that for a pub?"
"I don't know, would you rather the Hilton?"
"Ideally, yes," answered Emmaline, rubbing her hands together as she continued to examine the Slaughtered Lamb's main focal point. "But. . . . " Deciding that her hunger was a greater need than acting suspicious of a sign that ultimately wouldn't harm her, she stood beside their fearless leader. "Pretty sure people would protest the Hilton if they decided to pull something like this."
Seeing that he was outmatched two to one, Jack finally gave in. "Alright, but whatever happens -"
Speaking over each other, Jack finished the sentence with "- it's your fault" while David humorously said, "- it's my fault."
"If you don't open that door, I'll use you as a battering ram," threatened Emmaline, beginning to allow herself not to worry about an object that held no true power over her.
Rolling his eyes, David wrapped his hand around the iron handle. "Alright, come on."
With a whoosh and a prehistoric creak, a warmth that none of them had felt since earlier on in the day washed over them. Emmaline could feel herself already melting into it, more than ready to curl up in the corner and doze for a few minutes while she waited for her order. (If this were anything close to how fat cats felt in beams of summer sunlight, she would happily come back as one in another life.)
The sound of the lively chatter dying out completely, however, made the surprisingly small space feel far colder than the world outside of the now closed door.
"Hey, David?" she whispered.
"Yeah?"
"I think you were right about that lamb."