"So what kind of name is Howie? It sounds weird."
"Sid..." Manny whispered through clenched teeth. "Shut up."
If Howie was offended, he certainly did not show it. "Howie's not my real name. My real name is actually Howard, but Uncle Dee-Dee gave me the name Howie, and it sort of just stuck."
"So you guys nicknamed each other?" Manny asked.
"Kinda, yeah."
Sid made a disgusted noise. "Howard? That's just about as bad as Manfred." This comment earned him a hit upside the head.
"What part of 'Shut your mouth' do you not understand?" Manny asked angrily.
"Mannyyyyyyyyyyyyy!" Sid whined.
Howie chuckled. "You guys are funny. I could stand here all day watching your banter."
"But sadly, we don't have all day. Let's just find our herd without any huge distractions," Manny said.
Sid turned to Howie. "I told you he's a killjoy."
"I thought fat guys were supposed to be the happiest out of all their friends," Howie remarked, confused.
Manny groaned. "I'm not fat! The fur just makes me poofy!"
"Then if I shave you, you would be skinny?" Howie questioned innocently.
The older mammoth rolled his eyes. "Don't even think about it. You youngsters think up the craziest ideas."
"Aw, fine," Howie sighed, disappointed. He then walked forward and asked a random zombie gazelle passing by. "Excuse me, but have you seen a living group of animals walking by? Or at least a zombie saber?"
"I saw a saber earlier going by in that direction," the gazelle replied, pointing to her left. "I'm not sure if he's the one you're looking for though."
"Oh, well thanks anyway. It's a start, at least." Howie went back to Manny and Sid. "There aren't many sabers down here, so there's a good chance that the saber was Uncle Dee-Dee. Come on now." He started walking in the direction the gazelle pointed to.
Sid looked over at Manny. "He's pretty innocent."
"Yeah," Manny eyed Sid, raising an eyebrow. "As innocent as you."
Sid frowned. "Hey! Even I wouldn't ask if I could shave your fur! Hey Howie, wait up!" Sid chased after the zombie.
A small nostalgic smile threatened to show itself, but Manny managed to force it back down. He shook his head. What am I thinking? Howie's just another mammoth. It's probably just a coincidence.
"Manny!" Sid shouted from up ahead. "Hurry up!"
Manny inwardly rolled his eyes and followed.
Diego frowned. Something was off, and he was almost sure it wasn't just him; the atmosphere had been oddly quiet for a while now. He called to Tanner, telling him to stop (The wolf gladly conceded; he had wanted to take a break for a while already), and turned to face the herd, who were all confused to why Diego suddenly seemed so on edge. The tiger quickly scanned through the group, and realized the problem he had sensed. He looked around, and when he couldn't find what – or who – he was looking for, his suspicions became confirmed.
The herd, plus Tanner, were informed of the tiger's instinctive worries when the latter uttered darkly, and quite scarily, "Where. Are. Those. Two. Idiot. Possums?"
"This was your fault!"
"Nuh uh! It was yours!"
"Was not!"
"Was too!"
"ARRRRGGGGHHHH!" Crash lunged for Eddie, and they rolled around on the ground for a while until they decided to stop, having lost their breath. They'd resume fighting once they found everyone else. But for now, they had bigger problems on their hands. They were lost.
It had all started when the two of them had gotten into another slap fight (for a reason that neither of them could remember), and Diego, who had decided that he found whatever they did to be annoying, had threatened to break their "weak spines" if they fought in front of him again. So there they sat on their niece's back, pouting and avoiding eye contact with each other. They told their sister that they were bored as heck, but the latter merely shrugged and told them to just bear with it. With nothing better to do, they started a poke fight. The innocent pokes eventually became gentle slaps and the gentle slaps eventually became rough shoves. Eddie accidentally shoved too hard at one point, and Crash fell off of Peaches. However, he wasn't about to go down alone, so he grabbed Eddie by the waist with his tail and pulled his brother down along with him. Both of them fell headfirst and got knocked unconscious. And when they woke up, they were all alone with nobody nearby that they knew. Naturally, they started bickering on whose fault it was, and, well, you know the rest.
"We could just go around and ask these zombie guys if they've seen the others," Eddie suggested.
Crash scoffed in return. "Yeah, like that's gonna get us very far."
"At least I'm trying to come up with ideas!"
"I know you're trying to pick a fight with me, and it's working really well!"
"Oh yeah?!" Eddie shoved Crash.
Crash shoved him back. "Yeah!"
A shove fight would've ensued once again if Eddie didn't notice something nearby. "Hey! It's a plant! And I thought this place was lifeless!"
The apparent plant was a strange one; contrasting the bright colors of every flower and tree, this plant had a shade of a disgustingly dark purple with wilted leaves. It had two petals that were attached to each other, and were shaped like an open mouth. yes, this is the infamous Venus flytrap. Clearly not having considered if it was a wise decision to make, Eddie scurried over to the plant and poked it. The plant responded by reaching down and plucked the possum right up with its mouth and clamped it shut.
Crash, having witnessed the whole ordeal, panicked and rushed over to the flytrap. "Eddie! Can you hear me, brother?!" he asked frantically, obviously forgetting their altercation 30 seconds ago.
No answer from Eddie could be heard, either because he was passed out, the plant prevented any sounds from the inside, or he just didn't hear Eddie. Lacking the knowledge on what should be done, Crash did the only thing he could think of doing. He grabbed Eddie's tail, which was sticking out of the flytrap's mouth, and pulled as hard as he could. He could've sworn he heard his brother's pained scream from inside the plant.
"Let go, you...you stupid plant!" Crash panted exhaustedly. The flytrap had a strong grip. Things didn't look too good until a grey paw suddenly pushed Crash out of the way, grabbed Eddie's tail and, with a strong yank, pulled him free from the plant's digestive juices.
"Where were you guys?! Can't anyone go one day without worrying about you two?!" Shira sighed frustratedly, glaring at the slimy Eddie and the extremely relieved Crash.
"Shira! Oh my god, thank whoever's up there you're here! I thought Eddie really would've been digested alive!" Crash couldn't remember the last time he had thanked someone so gratefully in his life.
Shira rolled her eyes. "Yeah, well, you wouldn't have been worrying like that if you just stayed put."
"Wh...Where are the others?" Eddie asked, dazed from his narrow escape from certain death.
"I told them that I would look for you guys and that if anything big happened, I would report back to them. So they're waiting for us back at the place where we found out you guys were missing. You ought to thank Diego; he was the first one who noticed that you guys were gone."
Crash smirked. "Yeah. Of course you would say it was him," he said suggestively, back to his normal self.
Shira gave a small glare. "I'm only saying that because it's true. Let's just hurry up and go back. Ellie is worried sick and Peaches is feeling extremely guilty for not noticing that you guys got off her back at some point." She was about to take a step forward when a much bigger plant (which wasn't a Venus flytrap this time), equipped with vines, emerged from the ground, used one of its vines to grab Shira by the leg, hoisted her up into the air, and swallowed her whole. All of this happened in just a second, and for a moment, Crash and Eddie stood there, blinking dumbly. Only when a muffled voice from inside the plant cry out, "GET THE OTHERS!" did they hurry off to get help.
Ellie was pacing nervously. What could be taking Shira so long?
Peaches was finding the ground much more interesting than usual, and lowered her eyes to hide her tears of guilt, causing Louis to constantly look over to her with concern in his eyes.
Diego looked around, not used to being caught in such an uncomfortable air. He glanced at Tanner, who shook his head, as if to say, You're taking care of this. I'm not.
"Guys, this zombie land is dangerous, but it's not as dangerous as you guys think it is. There's a good chance that the possums are okay, and I'm betting that they're heading back with Shira right this moment. And if anything actually did happen, Shira would've came back by now and told us the problem," the tiger said awkwardly, not really having the habit of comforting others.
Ellie stopped pacing, but Peaches didn't look up. "If I was more careful, we wouldn't be in this mess," she said quietly. "I still can't believe that I had no idea that my uncles fell off my back during who-knows-when. I mean, how hard is it to realize that something has fallen off of you?"
"GUYS!"
Peaches' head finally jerked up, wondering if she heard right. She was positive she did, once she saw two small, furry things quickly approach them.
Ellie scooped them up with her trunk and squeezed them into an embrace. "I was so worried! Don't you guys ever wander off alone again!" She quickly let them go though, once she saw that they were choking them.
"Sh...Shira!" Crash wheezed, trying to catch his breath.
Diego's ears shot up. He had wondered why Shira wasn't with Crash and Eddie, but only reassured himself that she was just lagging behind, though that was very unlikely. And it was even more unlikely now that the two possum pranksters were being so frantic, apparently about something involving the female saber. "What about Shira?" he asked, trying to remain calm and keep that nagging feeling of panic down.
"She got swallowed by a gigantic, weird-looking plant!" Eddie explained as fast as he could.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait... What?" Tanner entered the conversation. "A carnivorous plant? Really? Where'd you come up with that?"
"We're not coming up with anything! It's true!" Crash exclaimed desperately. "Come on, I think it's that exact same plant that we ran into in the dinosaur world! Don't you remember that, Ellie?!"
Ellie's eyes widened. Of course she remembered! "Guys, they're telling the truth! We have to act pronto!" She hurried off with the possums in tow.
Ellie's confirmation was more than enough to convince the others (although Tanner was still slightly skeptical) that the possums weren't lying, and ran as fast as they could after Ellie, hoping that they weren't too late in saving Shira.
You know, I'm proud of this. I don't think I've ever written anything with as many details as this. Yeah, I'm generally a simplistic writer.
And also, CLIFFHANGER! You know why? Because about 95% of the stories I read on here (and the other 5% are simply one-shots) have at least one cliffhanger in a chapter. So I'm deciding that this is the perfect chance to do that myself. People said it's fun. And guess what? It is. :D Plus, I'm in an evil mood this week. I actually managed to put a fake love letter in my friend's locker on Friday. Can't get too much evilness ever. =w=
Review if you want the next chapter soon!
