Episode 7: Lost Tapes
The resolution on the camera was a bit dodgy, but it would do.
Bea smiled at the camera. A red dot beeped in one of the corners, and white lines traced the corners of the screen. She was in an electronic store, holding the camera to her face.
Her uncle got into frame. "What're you doin' that for?"
"Don't you get it?" Then she said into the camera, "It's okay, he's an outsider, don't you mind him."
"Aren't you even gonna explain to me why you dragged me here to get these cameras?" He asked as he gave the money to the cashier off frame. "Go ahead an' keep the change there."
"Uncle C, it's for science." Whispering into the camera she clarified, "I hear Crick say this all the time, it works. Speaking of Crick, why don't we catch up with her at our apartment, shall we?" She covered the lens with her hand.
…
"I said it's not a date! It's not a date, okay? Leave it alone." Cricket shoved an extra shirt into a pack in her bedroom. She was all ready to go. Bea had positioned the camera on a shelf, hidden by a jar with a firefly in it. The frame covered a good portion of her room. On the opposite wall another shelf buzzed with various life forms in jars and glass habitats. Cricket was becoming quite the collector.
"Tell me, tell me how it's not a date." Bea pressed, laid down on Cricket's bed.
"I told you, Silas and I are going to investigate something." She zipped up the last pocket of the pack and fixed one of the gloves on her hand. In the mirror, she resembled some of the most kick butt characters from her favorite TV shows. With her black jacket, now sewn back together, her gloves, and her hair pulled back with three bobby pins.
"Uh, duh, yeah you are." Bea's head hung upside down over the side of the bed. She pressed her hands on her chest. "Investigating your true feelings for each other!" She gushed, stealing a mischievous glance at her hidden camera.
"That's not how it is!" Cricket snapped. "Okay, I'm leaving in twenty minutes, do you need anything else?"
The firefly in the jar blocked the view for a few seconds, but it soon buzzed off.
"No. Except to go with you two." Bea begged. "Please, please let me go."
"Definitely not." Cricket studied the big cast on Bea's left leg. That would be there for a good long while. "And you know why."
"Uuugghh, but it's been so boring! And the doctor said I can still walk around. It's just a twisted ankle. It'll be better in three weeks, tops." Bea waved her leg up and down.
"Sure you can walk," Cricket agreed, "but can you run? Can you fight? I think not." She left the room. Bea took out the second camera from her pocket, already recording, and the image turned into that of her face.
"She bought it."
…
Bea kept her main camera focused on her while she explained the situation. The upward angle was a most unflattering one. She walked the halls of the complex, explaining her plan.
"Alrighty so… Cricket's going through this 'kick butt' phase where she apparently isn't scared of anything anymore, which is great, don't get me wrong, but this is also her first date. Her first date that isn't a prank though."
Bea descended the stairs. The camera bounced as she did so. "My original plan was to only get one camera, for a reason I'll explain to you later, but I got the other one ultimately because I cannot physically not talk to a person for that long, and- but I need to be a sneaky sneak while I trail Cricket and her new boyfriend. I ship it B T dubs. I call it Silet, hashtag Silet. Connor's doing something, Lolo's doing something, everyone's doing something, so it's just me and you. And that's fine. It'll be like a documentary of Crick's first time knowingly and willingly defeating a monster- other than ole Nessie two days ago- and- but also it's her first date and I need it on tape. So, yeah." Bea took a leap off the last few steps and walked hurriedly to the lounge where she heard some voices. As she neared, some voices became clearer. The camera caught the view of the L- shaped couch in the lobby, TV still absent and the chords hanging off the wall. A guy walking past stared curiously for a second at the lens.
When Bea got to the doorway to the lounge, she hid the camera behind her back but angled the lens so it would catch the scene. Cricket was talking to Joel who was blending a mysterious beige substance in a blender. As always, he let her do all the talking.
"Is it supposed to be chunky?" Cricket stared at the liquefying 'drink' with intense distress. Joel narrowed his eyes and watched the slosh spin in the container.
A tremor shook her body and her teeth chattered. "Pull yourself together. Joel drinks a whole blender full of this every morning, it's edible, don't be a baby. It… it is edible, right? The protein shake?" She asked him, pointing at the gruesome gunk.
She got silence in return. Joel's nostrils flared as he sniffed the substance and pressed the button to stop blending. Cricket held her cup out and Joel filled it to the brim. A congealed drop streamed down the cup, releasing a small cloud of fumes. In fact, the cup radiated a soft yellow- green glow. She jumped and moved her finger away from the drop, unwilling to come in contact with it. Cricket gulped, holding the cup as far away as her arm would extend. "Thanks. I've got to get into the habit of having one of these every day from now on." She laughed nervously. But all she did was hold it and look like she was dreading every second of her life she had to watch it fester. It was an uncomfortable silence for her, having Joel stare at her, then the cup.
Bea whispered into the camera, "Every day, Crick? Are you out of your mind? You'll have the worst breath, Silas won't kiss you after that! Oh jeez!"
From the bottom of the cup, a small stream of the sludge ran out and fell to the ground. It had dissolved through the bottom. Cricket stepped away to avoid the splash, but there was none. It was like Jell-O. Joel quickly scooped the cup up in his specially made metal one, complete with a lid. He gave it to Cricket, and she mumbled a thank you.
"But you know what? I, I just remembered I had a very filling meal, so I will just have to save this for the trip. But thank you very much." Cricket screwed the top on, cutting off the flow of the dread- inducing fog emanating from the substance. And she stuffed it in her pocket and patted it. "Mmm, I'll enjoy this later." She said with hollow appreciation.
Bea snickered. "Yeah, fake sincerity has never been her thing. Well, good. Now she can have good breath for when the moment co-"
"Bea, who are you talking to?" Cricket asked, abruptly ending the period of light- heartedness.
"Talking? I wasn't-" Bea fumbled. Some footsteps sounded off frame. "Un-cle- C!" She enunciated every syllable and secretively angled the camera toward her uncle who was casually walking to his desk, eating a candy bar. He was momentarily surprised and his eyes darted around.
"I was talking to Uncle C, isn't that right?" Bea angled the camera back to her face where she locked eyes with him, unblinking, and giving the most generic, most eerie smile. The camera focused on him again.
"Ahhh… sure." He said shrugging, and went to his desk.
"Nailed it." Bea whispered.
"So you don't need anything else before I go?" asked her sister.
This time when Bea spoke it was obvious she was acting, feigning resignation at the unwavering decision to leave her out of the adventure. "Ah, no. You have fun though, Crick."
"I'll try- and hey, maybe that lady'll be back tonight, that could be fun." Cricket offered to cheer her up.
"Maybe." Bea agreed. She watched her exit the double doors. "Byyyyyyeeeee." She said. As soon as the doors closed, Bea whipped the camera up to her face. "And that's where the other camera comes in."
…
She pushed her way out of the lobby doors and into the woods, still talking to her inanimate friend. "You see, for the last two nights this really mean lady has come to have a talk with our uncle. Each one so far has been utterly priceless. She's complained about every possible thing someone could find to complain about. Now, I've been planning this night for the last two hours because meticulousness is key, and I knew immediately that that conversation was one I couldn't miss in case she came back tonight, sooo…"
…
The view switched to that of the lobby. The secondary camera was balanced somewhere near the ceiling, with a perfect view of Cisco's desk. A portion of a blade from the ceiling fan was visible, giving the impression that Bea had somehow gotten it balanced on the fan.
Cisco turned a page on his magazine, while unbeknownst to him, the ceiling fan was monitoring his every move.
…
"I found somewhere to put it where he wouldn't see it, so I won't have missed a thing when Crick and I come back." Dark shadows dappled Bea's body. She turned the camera around to catch the view of the West forest. It bobbed as she walked. "Now, where did they go…? I thought I saw Crick heading this way. Or was it more…" She pointed the camera right, "that way?"
Over to the left some rustling was heard. "Ooh, it's that way!" Bea squeaked excitedly. She started walking loudly, trampling the shrubs under her. Multiple branches and leaves flew into frame. Bea stopped herself. "Oh, oh, right, I need to be quiet. Sneaky sneak style, here we go." She made her way to the rustling noises much quieter this time. "This dumb cast." She cursed. She crouched down and her hand moved some braches from the view of the lens. Beyond it, Cricket and Silas were talking twenty feet away.
"It was a good thing you pulled your hair back, for battling anything a clear line of sight is necessary." Silas told her while adjusting the aim on his crossbow. He had his back to the camera.
"Okay. Do you think this worm will be hard to catch?"
"Who, the metal-melting worm? No, not a chance. It's eaten an upwards of eight cars over the last two and a half days. After it digests the metal, it spits it back out in random shapes. Those will be scattered around the forest. If we find one, that means we're close. Finding it is not the issue though. It's finally putting an end to its rampage that will be the real zinger."
"And how do you know all of this again?" She asked. Her eyes were clouded over with anxiety. She tried loading an arrow into her own crossbow Silas had lent her. It was a lighter frame, lighter- colored wood, and much newer, with green tipped arrows.
"Well about three years ago it ate my friend's car. I found it and scared it off in time before it tried to eat him too. So now it's just a thing I do. I figured I had the experience to take it down, so why not?"
Cricket fumbled for a few more seconds before he took it in his own hands and loaded with incredible ease, snapping the arrow into position. Then he gave it back to her, and she stared at it and gulped. He shot his arrow at a tree and reloaded within two seconds. "And that right there is something you'll learn to do in time."
"So… I've been meaning to ask… what happened between you and the Werevamps? You said you had a history with them?" Cricket pried at the subject as delicately as she could.
He sighed.
Bea's hushed voice drowned out Silas's. She used a high pitched voice to imitate her sister, and a lower pitch to play Silas.
*High pitched* "I've never met someone as immeasurably handsome as you!"
*Low pitched* "You are the most charming woman I've ever laid eyes on!" Silas got on one knee to tie his shoe while he talked. Both faces were serious, which made Bea's interpretation of the conversation that much more ridiculous. "Marry me!"
*High pitch* "Oh I thought you'd never ask! Yes!"
An involuntary loud snort came out of her mouth, and she quickly covered it with her hand. In an instant, Silas had shot an arrow in the direction of the noise, eyes wide and cold. The camera shuffled around, as Bea had flattened herself against the grass to avoid the arrow.
"Wh… what does the worm sound like?" Cricket's timid voice piped up while Silas's heavy footsteps came closer to Bea.
"It's this screechy type call. You can hear it from a mile away." He didn't quiet his voice as Cricket had.
"Then what's that over there?"
The footsteps stopped. "It's… it could… sorry, I need to calm down." He was mere foot from Bea's position. She had the camera angled to her face, eyes darting around. She moved the camera so the lens could catch their legs as they left in search of the worm. Cricket's were brisk and she left frame quickly. Silas's lingered for a short while, but he too left. The footsteps vanished and blended in with the natural sounds of the woods. Bea got back up and dusted herself off. When she got the camera facing her again, she had dust on her face and a twig sticking out of her hair. She looked behind her, moving out of the way of the camera's view. An arrow stuck out of a tree, having splintered the wood around it. It had nearly hit her.
"Ooh, a souvenir!" She plucked the arrow from the tree. "… I'm so proud of her, y'know. Look at her, out here with a boy, chasing away some worm." She went on, stepping over the bushes and tailing the duo. She was quite obviously limping from the cast that was hindering any type of stealthy movement.
…
"Joel, check the mail, will ya'? I'm still waiting for my package to get here." Cisco ordered, not bothering to take his eyes off his magazine. His feet were propped up on his desk, and Joel had been partially in frame, sweeping. He set the broom down and went to go check the mail box. The sound of the door opening and closing was just as loud as it ever was, a simple creak and ringing of a bell. Everything was idle except the soft red of the light at the top left corner of the frame that beeped to indicate that it was filming. The timer at the bottom right read 1 hour and 44 minutes. But the next sound was a percussive swing and bang as someone stalked inside. When she entered frame, the uneventful mood of the lobby shifted. The woman was of a tall, sturdy frame with wide hips. She wore high waisted jeans, a purple capped sleeve shirt with ruffles down the front, various rings adorned her fingers, and she held an inconveniently large designer bag. Her hair was bright brown with clean cut streaks of blonde and cut in a bob style, with the longest strands at the front of her face. When Cisco saw her, he dropped his magazine.
"Wait, no, Joel come back! Joel come back-"
She cut him off. "Sir, I would like to speak to someone who works here!" She started, and Cisco sighed and buried his hands in his face. He was the epitome of a broken man right then.
"I work here, ma'am. We've seen each other at the same time at the same place for the last two nights."
"Alright then. I am unhappy."
His monotonous tone reflected a rehearsed script that he was inclined to recite when confronted with an "unhappy" customer. "Ma'am, we are delighted to assist you in any way we can. May I ask what the trouble is?" He asked, through his hands.
"Your communal living space is unacceptable!" She stated.
Cisco thought she would have an earful to say the least, but hearing no more he lifted his head, losing his professional lingo. "Wu'what's wrong with it?"
"Other people sit on the couches!"
He stared at her with disbelief. "That's because it's a communal area, ma'am."
"Don't get technical with me! I don't know where other people have been. And I do not want my backside touching where other people's backsides have touched. I won't have it!"
He shook his head. "Then don't sit on the couches. That's all I've got for you."
"But that is where I visit my mother who lives here every other month, how'm I to do that now?"
Cisco sunk his head deeper into his hands. "What do you want me to do about it?"
"Assigned seats of course! It's the only way I'll keep visiting her."
…
Bea kept the camera pointed at her, and for the first time since turning it on, she was looking away, lost in thought. Her bright eyes were glazed over in deep concentration. "She… she had it tough. Her love of bugs got her teased, like a lot, in school. Crick used to be a talker. She liked science, it was all she would ever talk about. So… this is big. He could be good for her. And, I think… this is the first time she's going on an adventure… with someone who's not me."
Bea shook her head, smiling. She blinked several times before her eyes got that same mischievous glimmer in them. "But enough about the past, let's get on with the present! Ole Crick thought she could leave me behind, but I'm harder to get rid of than glitter! Seriously though, you can't even shower that stuff off."
"Woah!" A loud metal cling was heard at her feet and she hit the ground hard. Getting to her knees and rubbing her head, she pointed the camera to the source of her trip. On the forest floor lay a perfectly square cube of metal two feet by two feet. A thin layer of slime coated it. "Eeww, it's on my feet!" She kicked. "Uhh…" She stood up and faced the lens towards her. "What did Silas say about metal shapes? Somethin' 'bout the worm?"
Off to the right was a paralyzing humanoid scream. Bea jumped, and the camera nearly fumbled out of her hands. "What in the name of lasagna… worm? Wormy? Is that you?" The view tilted around for a while while Bea searched for the source.
"That's the worm."
"That's the worm?"
"Ooh, it's Crick and her boyfriend! Gotta hide!" Bea dove into some bushes. She found a space for the camera to get a glimpse of the scene. Cricket and Silas emerged from the trees. Cricket was shaking, arrow bouncing around on her crossbow. But Silas was silent, watching his surroundings intently. He clenched and unclenched his hands around the polished wood of his weapon.
Cricket gulped. "Uh, so, what did you have planned to help it?"
"Huh? Help what?" He was too concentrated to pay attention to her.
"The worm. It's eating cars for a reason." Her eyes darted around as she watched for movement.
"I haven't thought that far ahead yet." He shook his head, eyes going to his crossbow. But the tiny bit of lost focus had been everything.
Out of nowhere, a brown spikey ball tumbled heavily through the trees. "Move!" Silas dove out of the way of the ball, but Cricket wasn't fast enough. The ball unfurled as it reached her revealing a pair of glowing fleshy pink eyes that bulged out of its head. Its jaw unhinged and it hovered over her. The camera only caught a side view of the worm. It had many rows of white teeth, and two pink mandibles lining the top and bottom of its mouth that each moved in a different pattern. It had seven pairs of short stubby legs, with the ones nearest its soft glowing eyes being much larger than the rest. Its back looked like an oversized pinecone, and its underbelly was light brown and squishy, divided by sections, each connected with a pair of legs.
Cricket stumbled backward. Silas called to her, "Go for its stomach, that's where it's most vulnerable!" He stayed where he was for a time.
Meanwhile, Cricket was trying to aim her crossbow at its underbelly without it killing her. An acid- like substance drooled out of its mouth. Gobs of the stuff fell from its mandibles and landed on the ground, where it sizzled and dissolved holes in the dirt.
From her hiding spot, Bea fretted. "C'mon, Crick, you can do it. Oh, Silas, I hope you know what you're doing."
The former Werevampolfire hunter watched for a while, waiting for his partner to shoot. When it was apparent that she could not, he dove into action, shooting it in the back. The arrow barely made a dent in its scales. It turned around and screamed. Rolling into a ball, the worm tore in his direction. Silas expertly avoided it and shot again. The arrow hit one of the narrow strips of flesh exposed on its back as its scales moved around.
The worm arched its back, howling. Silas reloaded and shot at its stomach. But it dodged and sped off into the forest. His stare lingered on the trampled underbrush in its wake before running to Cricket's side. He kneeled down. "Are you okay?"
"She'd better be or I'm pummeling ya." Bea growled.
"Um, yeah I'm okay…" She trailed off when she met his eyes. He inspected her arms and legs for injuries. Then he looked at her.
"Ooh. Now kiss now kiss now kiss." Bea whispered excitedly. "Jeez Crick, you're staring." Her sister's cheeks turned red and she laughed nervously. Silas lifted an eyebrow. He clasped her hands with his and helped her up.
"Don't worry about it, newbie. Everyone has slipups at first, but you'll get the hang of it." He reassured her. She blushed at the sight of their hands holding and tried to answer him. Her cheeks flushed and instead she looked away.
"Darn it! If not right then when, Crick? That was the perfect opportunity, wasted." Bea fumed. "It's almost like I didn't even have a good reason to buy this twenty five dollar camcorder!"
"We can stop if you want." Silas offered. Cricket let go of his hands like they were a hot stove.
"What? No, no! I have to learn to protect myself." She insisted. Her cheeks lost their pinkness.
"Okay then. Well, the worm went that way; it's a good place to start." Silas started for the trail left by the ball, pulling the arrows he'd shot out of trees as he went.
"This love story's getting off track. I've got to help it along somehow." Bea decided. The duo moved out of frame soon enough and when they did, the redhead scrambled out of the bushes. Something caught on a branch and she tripped. Shaking her cast, which was tangled in the bushes, she cursed. It came free and she was on her way.
…
"And your coffee's a joke! The cream just disappears after two minutes!" She put her hands on her hips.
Cisco's expression was a mixture of anger, disbelief, and utter shock. "It… it, it's a hot drink lady. It melts things, nothing's 'disappeared'."
"But the picture above the counter has whipped topping on it. How come that hasn't melted by now too?"
"Ma'am I would rather not try to insult your intelligent by explaining the difference between a picture and the real thing."
"I want the topping to stay on top, is that too much to ask?"
Cisco narrowed his eyes.
…
"This is a swanky doodle, so I thought I'd show you." Bea was pointing the camera at a tree, where someone had etched a symbol. It was an isosceles triangle with a line bisecting it, and a symmetrical curved line at either end of the tip sloping down ward to make a frown. "I saw another one a little while ago. It could be a tag. Tags are cool. I once saw a tv show about a turf war and they used spray paint to tag a gas station. I've done art with spray paint, I used my favorite color, sunset color. And even though it helps with getting a misty texture, it's not that great for accuracy. You have to have a big canvas to work with spray paint, plus the right kind of canvas, paper is usually not good unless it's the really thick kind- Man, you're a good listener! See I told you I'm a talker!" She laughed.
A sharp cry darkened the mood. "Woah, what's going on? Crick?" The sound came from beyond her small clearing. "I'm fallin' behind, I'm gonna miss everything!" She hobbled as fast as she could toward the fight.
Moving some leafy branches out of her way, she witnessed the most intense fight she'd ever seen in person. This time, Cricket was handling herself quite well. The worm's back arched and it screamed. The arrow piercing the only exposed spot on its back had broken in half, giving it more room to imbed itself deeper in its flesh every time its scales contracted.
Cricket and Silas were more of a team this time, with Silas taking the lead and his apprentice taking up the rear, going for distance shots instead of taking the worm head on.
It rolled into a ball and threw up dirt in its wake as it barreled toward them. They leapt out of the way, and Cricket skid along the ground as she let an arrow loose. The shot missed, but her aim was getting better. The worm screamed at her and slid closer. But Silas fired while its back was turned and nicked the arrow imbedded in its flesh. It compacted its body into a ball and rolled around aimlessly. The pain was hindering its ability to sense its direction, and it collided with tree after tree.
"Intense." Bea breathed. The worm's immense shape came closer and closer to her. Uncomfortably close. "Woah!" She exclaimed and took a few steps back, but she misjudged how close it would get and it ended up crashing into her. The camera fell from her hands, left facing the forest floor. Darkness.
Bea groaned. The sound of the worm crunching dry leaves and churning soil became fainter and fainter until it was gone.
"It's getting away! Follow it!" Silas ordered.
"No wait! I hear something. Over there." Cricket's light footsteps were heard getting closer. A loud clank shook the camera as Cricket stepped on it.
"Wha- Bea?! What on earth are you doing here?"
"Bea? Oh, you mean your sister?"
There was a long pause. The camera was lifted off the ground and turned toward Silas's face. He studied it, turning it over in his hands and wiping the dirt from it.
"Uhh… for… science?"
"I specifically told you to stay home!" Cricket scorned.
Silas turned the lens over to the girls. Bea was dusting off her cast, on the spot where Connor had signed it "Conman :]". Other names dotted the cast such as Hunter, Jacob, Sierra, Payton, Devin, Erin, Ryan…
"Bea, go home." She ordered.
"But I wanted to see your da-"
"Shh! Shh! Don't say that, for the last time this is not a-" She lowered her tone. "-date."
"Is everything okay?" Asked Silas, walking over to them.
Cricket glanced at the camera. "Everything's great. She was just leaving."
"You found my camera!" Bea took it in her hands and pointed it around. "Don't make me go home! What if the worm comes back and it's just me? And- and, what if I could document your first victory? Then you could watch it over and over again." She pleaded.
Cricket crossed her arms and looked up.
"Crick, I came to watch you. Moral support and all that. You've got this."
Cricket breathed in, and let it all out. "…fine. If only because it's not safe to be by yourself."
Bea squealed with delight.
"But!" Her sister interjected, "You have to listen to everything I say."
"No problem. Lead the way, Worm Slayer!"
…
"And what's the deal with your décor? It's depressing! Have you ever tried renovating this place?!"
He shot up, his hand bumping a cup full of pencils that fell onto the floor. "That's like the first legitimate complaint I've ever heard from you!"
"So will you do something about it?" She asked annoyingly.
He faltered. "I don't currently have the funds, y'see my nieces are staying with me-"
"What, so now that you have family issues now my needs are put on hold? Me? The customer?" She dramatically put a hand on her chest.
Cisco opened his mouth, ready for a retort.
…
"So this creature is another one of the ones not documented in the Journal. I only know what Silas has told me about it. It consumes metal and regurgitates it back out into shapes…" Cricket had been talking into the camera for a good half hour straight about her new technique, what she knew so far of the Journal, and now about the worm. She'd let her guard down and no longer seemed irritated that Bea had decided to follow them. They trailed farther behind Silas who was searching for any sign of the worm.
"I tripped over a metal thing! It was all slimy."
"Yes that means it's fresh. It has acid that helps to liquefy the metal before its body contracts and the metal gets fused into any number of shapes. That's my theory anyway. The problem is I can't further study it and never will. It's dangerous, it eats people." Cricket brought her crossbow into frame, and fiddled with the arrow. "I never thought I'd be doing anything other than studying these things. Who knew I'd have to hurt them."
"Oh," Bea said somberly. "That's a bummer. Where does it come from?"
"Its origin? No idea. Silas?"
The camera panned to Silas who was well ahead of them, scouring the trees. "I don't know. I've never found traces of a den of any kind."
"Yeah but where do you think it came from?" Bea asked. "Like how it was born?"
"I have no idea." He admitted. "It's too heavy to have come from a nest in the trees, it's not aquatic and it tends to stay near caves."
"Okay. So how are you gonna quote on quote 'stop it from eating cars'?" This was a heavier question.
"The only permanent way there is." He said without turning around. "The sooner it's destroyed the sooner everyone will be safe from it."
Cricket squirmed at this. "That's what I was afraid of."
"Everyone stop!" Silas ordered after twenty minutes of silence save for Bea softly beatboxing a steady rhythm that she synced to Cricket's footsteps whether she tried to slow down or speed up. The camera shot to him. He held his fist up. Halt. "It's close." All movement ceased. The only moving thing was the soft beep of the red dot at the corner of the frame. It read 2:54:41.
Some leaves rustled off to the right. A scream echoed off the trees.
"I can't have you too close to it. Stay here, we'll scout ahead." She said to Bea.
"Aw, what?" She complained off frame. "But you said-"
"I said for you to do whatever I say. And I'm telling you stay put. Play with the camera until we get back."
"No, at least take it with you! I want to see everything. Please." She pleaded with her sister.
"…Okay." Cricket's face neared the camera and she took it in her hands, narrowing her eyes at it. Then she turned the lens around and said to Silas. "Let's go do what we have to do." He nodded and they headed for the worm.
…
"This crossbow's getting heavier by the second." Cricket said grimly.
"It gets easier with time." He reassured her.
She brought Bea's camera closer to her face, but it took her a while to say anything. "Silas won't open up about his past with the Werevamps, I tried asking about it and all he told me was that he didn't like discussing it with other people. Guess that's a story for another day. And about the killing thing…" She sighed. "If this is what it takes to learn to protect myself, then this is what I have to do. Like Silas said: it gets easier with time. If he believes it… I trust him." She said the last part with a tinge of uncertainty.
The sound of two pairs of footsteps had slowly become one, something Cricket had been too busy having a one way conversation to notice it. She stopped. The camera fell to her side. She spun around. "Silas?"
No answer. She took a few steps in one direction, and then a few steps back. "Silas?" She called again, a hint of agitation in her voice. "Did we get split up? Oh no, oh no."
A loud hiss came from the trees in front of her. The camera lens captured the whole scene. The worm slithered out of the shadows. Its back now dripped oddly colored liquid where the arrow had pierced its flesh. Its mandibles vibrated as its vocal chords produced the chill- inducing noise, acid dripping all over the floor. It stopped near her, and drew back. It hissed again, coiling its body. Cricket took a step back, and the lens caught a glimpse of her face. Instead of being scared, she was staring curiously at it, brow furrowed. The next moment it let out a screech, the lens flipped back to it, and it lunged for her. Cricket screamed as the worm's mandibles closed around her wrist and the camera along with it. It opened and closed its jaws, unhinging them as it did so. When small streams of light could stream through its mouth, the camera caught what the inside of the infamous car- eating worm looked like. Rows of secondary teeth lined its throat, designed to crush hard metal. However, they did not crush the human it was swallowing. It didn't need to. Its stomach was spotted brown and lined with slime. Columns of it hung from the roof. Through some parts of its stomach walls, bumps poked through, presumably the frame of an exoskeleton.
The camera's last glimpse of the outside showed Silas bolting through a line of shrubs. His legs slid from under him as he tried to slow down enough to help his companion. But the worm's mandibles closed, and Cricket's world was plunged into darkness.
…
"I am unhappy!" The woman repeated for the umpteenth time. Anyone who could possibly be in the lobby had vacated on account of the cringe- inducing back and forth going on between the manager and customer.
Cisco was reaching the end of his rope. He'd slumped down and his upper half was laying on the desk. He waved one hand around and peeked at her through the other. "Well, seeing as how your base and only personality trait is being unhappy I can only assume that by you feeling the need to express this fact yet again, you mean something more specific. So what is it now?"
"Why is this place so empty?!"
"You've scared everyone away." He said, monotonously.
"No, I mean where are all the other employees?" She waved her hands around. "All I ever see are you and that other guy. I wanna see the manager! You're not listening to me!"
His stood out to him. He got up. "…Oh yeah? You want to see the manager? I'm not good enough, right?" He had her.
"Absolutely not! You do not understand how this business works or apparently anything about the customer, you being the lowly employee that you are. I refuse to speak another word until I see the manager. " She crossed her arms.
Cisco hid a smirk. "Okay, if that's what you want." He turned around and took a few steps away, then strode up to the desk once again. "Good evening to you ma'am. I am the manager of this fine establishment and am delighted to assist you in any way I can." He said the next words smoothly. "How can I help you?"
"You… you-you're the-!" She turned as red as a tomato, a shade that was not very far off from her original color which was two day old salon spray tan. She gathered herself enough to give him a deadly scowl and see herself out.
When the door had closed, Cisco threw his fist in the air. "Ha ha! Yes!" He pointed at the door. "Yeah, that's right! I'm the flippin' manager. Have fun with your oversized bag and your cheap spray tan and your bad dye job, and your… your nine year old son's soccer game that you'll inappropriately cheer at the top of your lungs at. Everyone'll try to tell you it's not that intense of a game, but you won't listen, and you'll complain to the coach later on about the other parents being mean to you. You think you and the coach are friends, but you're not. Yeah."
At that moment, Joel barged in with a bar stool with the legs whittled into sharp points. He thrashed it around, knocking a one seat couch over.
"There's no need for the stool tonight Joel. She's already gone. And this time she's probably not coming back." Cisco said proudly. Joel put his weapon down and sighed deeply. Then he turned his head in the direction of the camera. Its strategic placement may have fooled Cisco, but almost nothing could get past him. He cocked his head at it while Cisco sat back in his chair and propped his legs up on the desk after a job well done. The timer on the screen read 3:23:12.
...
"I must be the dumbest person on the planet right now." Bea's face was lit up by the front- facing light on her phone. It had just started recording. "There was no need for two cameras, just the one! I always forget my phone has a recorder on it. Stupid." She smacked her forehead. "Well, I'm back anyways." She sat there for a moment, neither looking at her phone or anywhere else in particular.
"…I hope she isn't too mad at me. I… I know I can be a bit much sometimes. I don't think things through enough, I know that. But I never- I can never catch myself when I do it. It's always later when I think back on it that I realize… hmm…" She laughed. "That got deep." She smiled sadly at the camera, eyes half closed. "I'll have to delete this probably. Don't wanna take up a bunch of space on my phone." She stared into the lens for a while, lost in thought.
Her eyes fluttered, and she looked up. "Silas! You're back!" She jumped from her seat on the grassy floor and pointed her phone at him. His arms hung from his tired frame. He was heaving in and out, hair in a tattered mess, eyes a mix of anxiety, weariness, and desolation. In his hands were his crossbow, and Cricket's torn up pack. "Where's Crick? Is she cutting out its heart to bring home to Cisco?" Bea snorted. Then she sucked in a breath excitedly. "Well, I have a bit of news to confess to you that Crick is too scared to tell you herself…"
But Silas only glanced at her phone, the tiny red beeping light bouncing off his pupils, before staring off into space.
"Hey, what's wrong?" Bea walked over to him.
…
"I'm dead, I'm dead, this is what it's like to be dead, it's gross and slimy and dark, and I'm dead." Cricket mumbled between scared sobs. She sniffed. "What's this?" A few clicks and a bright light illuminated her face. She flinched from the sudden brightness, but then looked into the lens of the camera. Still recording. It was coated in a layer of slime, but she wiped it off, eyes wide. Her hair was plastered to her face by the digestive juices. Tears stained her face, and the ones that fell into the stomach acid sizzled when they came in contact with the liquid. "Thanks for the save, Bea." She patted the camera. She took a look around. "I… I'm inside it. This is the stomach cavity. There's limited oxygen in here and I estimate I'll run out in only a few minutes. My acid theory is holding up quite nicely." She spit out some juices that dripped from her face. After a while she said softly, "I don't wanna die here." She was rocked to one side, and let out a yelp.
"Ow! It's moving. According to my theory, this helps metal and… other potential material digest more quickly. I'd better turn the camera off soon. If for some reason this footage gets out, I do not want people to see," She paused to find the right words. "to see what follows. But I will say this: Bea? I'm so happy to have had you by my side all this time, and you will never…" She choked back a sob. "You will never, ever know how much your support through everything means to me." The moment was cut off by another bounce. She was thrown against the far wall of the worm's stomach.
"Agh! There's something underneath me, I just landed on it." Cricket fished Joel's 'protein shake' from her jacket pocket. She asked the camera, holding the cup up as if making a toast. "Last meal, huh?" She held the cup in between her knees and unscrewed the top. A cloud of green fog spilled out from it. "Oh, it's fermenting. That's great. Heh, what do ya think Joel would think if he'd never know if I drank this? Well here ya go." She angled the camera up to eye level. "I'll choke this thing down if it kills me; might be a better end than being digested alive." She shuddered. "This is for you, buddy." Cricket clinked the rim of the cup with the lens, and some of the liquid dripped and hit the stomach walls. The second it came in contact with the worm, it roared and Cricket was shaken back and forth.
When it settled down, she was covered in slime, but she no longer cared. A devious smile crept across her face.
…
"Okay so screw dying, basically." Cricket said quickly as she unskillfully dislodged the arrow from its place on her crossbow. It had been swallowed along with the worm. "Now, I've obviously never seen any textbook anatomical pictures of this worm's physiology, but like I've been saying, I have theories. I'm pulling all of my knowledge of different species of insect that most closely resemble this one and I'm figuring out where everything is. Come to think of it, it's always been my dream to explore the inside of an insect. Like if I was shrunk really really small, and was injected into a live bug. It was even a reoccurring dream of mine, and the insect was a praying mantis, my favorite bug. The female praying mantis that is. Although the males have to be pretty brave to get their heads torn off for the sake of reproduction and keeping their species alive- oh! Sorry about that, I don't normally go off on a tangent.
So what I have in mind is to open up a cavity in the worm's stomach and…" She pinned the camera between her chest and her neck so it could see everything. Her hands were in perfect view. In one hand she held the cup and with the other she used the arrow to dig a hole through the stomach tissue. "If I'm right, there should be… ah, aha." She murmured. "Here we go." And Cricket generously poured every last drop of the shake through the cavity. Instantly the worm shuddered and spat. Cricket's hands became tense and she clasped the green tipped arrow firmly, knuckles white. Its screams echoed through its body, causing Cricket to drop the camera. It landed face down. Dreadful sounds of convulsion and agonized roaring followed. The liquid goo inside the organ submerged the device, muting all noises from then on. The ruckus went on outside of this relatively peaceful pocket of space, the only sound other than blood pumping through the worm's body was the jiggling around of the camera's two double A batteries as the beast rampaged.
Then there was a sudden pop within its body, and all of the contents of its stomach were wretched out. Tumbling blindly, the recording device hit the cold ground face up. A new light reached the lens, the swaying of treetop branches above it while a layer of slime slowly thinned away on top. The worm became clearer to hear. It convulsed loudly one last time before lopping on its side with a thud, unmoving. A girl somewhere gasped as if her lungs had never tasted air before. She sloshed around until she was upright. Then she came into view. Cricket took a few seconds to simply stare at the piece of technology that had stayed trapped with her inside the literal belly of the beast, and then picked it up. She once again wiped stomach goo from her face, then stared directly into the lens.
"…And that's how it's done." She said to it, nodding. She admired its features for a moment, eyes lingering on the timer: 3:33:34 before she pressed "stop recording". It had seen enough for one day.
Hey all! So I finally had time between school, homework, and extra curricular activities to finish this episode. And I know it's slightly shorter than usual, but I promise I am now getting everything back on track!
(And please please please remember to leave a review, it would help me so much to know what you think!)