Even if they were stuck in the human world, getting tossed close to a backwater town in the middle of nowhere had its advantages.
From the dump, it seemed so small that, at first, Randall worried if there would even be many kids around with scarers assigned to them. The streets were fairly clear after dark, and they could easily step out in the open during the midnight hours when really only the distant highway roared with some activity. Most of the buildings were old, with faded signs and busted lights from forgotten days before the highway had been built and the world chose to pass the community by. Spanish moss littered every tree and long stalks of grass poked through cracks in the sidewalks. Like Tani had said, aside from a couple bars and a gas station, most places were closed—and free of humans. The only things they had to be careful for were the motion-activated lights near porch-steps and the occasional dog.
Even they weren't much of a problem since Tani had been hiding there long enough to know what to avoid. Randall let her guide him through the city—down short, narrow alleys; past homes; and over fences—to the local elementary school. It was a fairly decent walk, the facility practically on the other side of town, and he had found it surprisingly hard to keep up with her at times. He'd grown faster and far more agile than he had been in his teenage years, but Tani was fit out of necessity and knew the land well.
Like the rest of town, the school was old: A compact, single-story building of red brick stained green by the coils of foliage that grew around its base, with a playground whose equipment creaked against the mild, silent breeze and had clearly been painted multiple times over in attempt to hide their years of wear. Now came the hard part. There were cameras—just one posted on each corner of the building outside, nothing they couldn't sneak around, but there would be more. That left everything ahead up to him.
The two reptiles plastered themselves against the walls, sneaking around the perimeter to see where best to break in. At last, they came to a trio of wide windows partially covered in children's drawings. Inside, the classroom was lined with three rows of interfacing desks and divided into nooks for reading and other activities. However, Randall didn't see any of the telltale cubbies or pockets of popsicle-sticks that often marked the lowest grades.
They had to start somewhere. He'd brought along a stick of wire to pick the lock, but was caught off-guard as Tani reached out when he did to do the same. They blinked at each other in mild surprise, then their expressions turned to sheepish grins.
"Another trick you picked up out here?" he whispered, to which she nodded. He snorted, flicking his piece of wire between his fingers in a small, pointed gesture, "Well… I guess great minds think alike, huh?"
"Criminal minds, maybe." He knew she was only teasing, but he felt himself cringe all the same. "Where'd you learn to pick locks?"
"I still tinker," Randall shrugged. He thought of all the late nights spent at Monster's Inc. working on the scream extractor. Waternoose had given him a spare key for additional access and so that his comings and goings wouldn't be traced on his card, but there had still been plenty of times he'd been locked in or out of different parts of the factory—especially if other employees happened to be wandering around.
Making short work of the lock, he slipped inside with the young woman following after him. While he tended to the door next, Tani drew a finger to her chin in thought. "That's right; you were looking into engineering as a minor… How'd that go?"
"I double-minored," a faint, successful click followed the satisfaction in his tone, "Engineering and Scream Energy, with honors."
She smirked, "Not that you'd brag though, right? How about Scaring then?"
"Still the top of my class. I remember Fear Theory was a challenge though." His chest fell in a deep exhale, "Tactical courses got easier, but I'll admit I never got that science exactly like you could."
Randall was starting to feel bad for talking about it at all now, even if she did ask first. Having her back was still felt like a dream; however, it didn't chase away years of loathing and regret. If anything, a spark of anger flickered to life inside him as he was reminded how unfairtheir fates were.
"I'm sorry…"
She'd been so furious with him that maybe she'd never have wanted to speak to him again, but they both should've graduated from MU. Maybe they would've ended up at different or even competing companies, but they both should've been Scarers. Instead, they were unjustly banished thanks to the actions of two shared offenders.
Although he noticed Tani give him a reassuring, if sad smile, Randall opened the door and began to camouflage himself with their surroundings before she could reply. As expected, he quietly peered into the hall to find the red light of another camera at one end of it. "I'm going to check the lower grades. Stay put and keep watch, ok?"
Tani gave him another nod, folding her arms across her chest and turning to face the windows. There shouldn't have actually been anything to watch out for: There was just no sense in abandoning caution. Besides, she couldn't follow him. Although there were nooks carved out for the classroom entrances, the hall was empty. There wasn't any cover and he was concerned as it was that the cameras would catch sight of the doors seemingly opening and shutting on their own. Whatever the humans might make of it, he didn't want to raise suspicion. Maybe he was being paranoid, but considering everything that lead to him landing in this world, he felt it was justified.
Spacing himself from the papers strung along the walls to avoid disturbing them, the reptilian moved from door-to-door with a quick, silent tread. For the most part, all he needed to do was take a small peak through the glass of each or scan the work to see how old the children were. Minus adjustments for size and species, the school didn't appear to differ much beyond what he was used to in the monster world. There were the same bright stickers for passing grades, the same kinds of inspirational posters, and the same charts for quick reminders in math or spelling. Two halls down and the worksheets that directed his path were gradually replaced with simpler or more playful material, until at last he was surrounded by coloring sheets and finger paintings.
His throat tightened, but he was glad to see that the classes seemed larger than he initially thought. The pickings would already be slim, given how hard some children were to scare anymore. One clue: Just one clue was all he needed—he didn't care if the company that monster was from was all the way on the other side of his own world so long as it got them that far!
It was actually a lot to go through: Walking into each class, sorting out shelves of children's artwork, and placing them carefully back in the position his found them. It made sense, now that he thought about it. The younger they were, the less they seemed to express themselves through words. His own kid, the pigtailed terror that he'd meant to be his first test subject for the extractor, had her own rudimentary drawings taped all over her bedroom. He'd found his own poorly sketched likeness—and had sneered at it in contempt—a long time ago.
Thankfully for him, just as he hoped, she was far from the only child to manifest her fears into her art. Finally, after over an hour of searching, he found an illustration of a monster. Better still, it was someone he recognized from Fear Co, Monster's Inc.'s main rival. The two scare companies dominated the market in Monstropolis! His luck was at last turning around!
Right back to Monstropolis… He wasn't sure yet if immediately returning to the highly populated city would be a good or bad thing. On one hand, he and Tani could blend in with the crowds: On the other, that'd be a lot of people to risk spotting them. He could make it back to his own home, collect anything he needed, and get right back to work, but only if Waternoose managed to stop Sullivan and Wazowski without double-crossing him.
One thing at a time, Randall reminded himself, hurriedly matching the crudely written name on the drawing to the student records he found on the teacher's desk. There wasn't much information to go by, but Tani said she could get a phonebook: They could find an address through that and narrow things down from there. He took some scrap from the trash to write down all that he had found for later and left, the warm feeling of success rising in his chest to combat the dull ache that sometimes struck against his skull from his still healing injuries.
When he returned to his fellow reptile, he found her crouched down in the floor. For a moment, he forgot he was invisible to all but his own eyes and snuck up behind her. He placed a hand on Tani's shoulder and she flinched—lips curled back in a threatening hiss—until she realized it was him and calmed down. He kept his voice low, "What is it?"
"Teenagers," she answered, almost as if the word disgusted her, "Just a few of them, around that tree over there."
With a jerk of her head and a finger slightly elevated above the windowsill, she motioned in the direction of the treeline just beyond the playground. Randall peered over it to spot four silhouettes meandering around. He held back a grimace. Of course, just when things were going so well…
Unless they came up with a solid plan, they'd be difficult to scare off. Still, knowing that, he was almost surprised that the once chaotic woman next to him didn't seem to want to try nonetheless. "You don't like teens?"
"They're the worst," she grumbled, "Put a bunch of them together in a town like this with nothing to do and all you'll get is problems. They remind me of me, but with alcohol."
As if on cue, there was there a crash in the distance. Tani winced in response and Randall recognized the noise as a smashed glass bottle. There may not have been much for them to do, but with a little fire in their guts and fog in their minds, it wouldn't matter. Both monsters knew that well enough from their college days.
Remaining camouflaged, Randall crept back up and slowly opened the window, never taking his eyes off of the cluster of teens all the while. Scaring was a poor option. Any other direct confrontation was out of the question. Humans might not have been toxic as they once thought, but he wasn't about to risk fighting a group of them—especially in his current state. With no idea how long they'd hang around, there had to be another way.
"Do you see a car anywhere?" Tani asked.
He looked around. It lacked the sharper details that often distinguished monster vehicles, but he spotted one. "It's parked off to the right."
Tani adjusted herself in her seat, examining her claws. It was a small action, but one that brought flashbacks to his mind of scrapes in the walls outside of his dorm or in their Scaring in Motion classroom. He didn't know what she had in mind, but a guess was enough to worry him. It seemed that chaotic streak of hers hadn't entirely gone with age.
Nevertheless, with no plan of his own, he had to let her have her way a bit. Both Tani and Randall attached themselves to the wall after shimmying out of the window and back into the open air—scaling the bricks to avoid rustling the bushes close-by as they moved. "Think you can distract them you a bit?" she mumbled under her breath.
"For a minute..." If he kept his distance, sure. He'd already been mistaken once for an alligator: He imagined it wouldn't be hard to trick the group if he played that act in full. Last time though, he'd also nearly gotten his head split open as a result—and who know if they had anything on them even more dangerous than a shovel.
"You draw them away. I'll start cutting wires. We can outrun them then."
They split off. Randall moved first, slinking around the playground until he skirted the edge of the nearby woods—about fifteen meters from the human teens, close enough that he could make out muffled bits of their conversation. He kept low on his stomach as he moved through the grass, shifting the color of his scales enough to appear as a dark, barely visible blur. In the distance, he could already see Tani in action, popping open the hood of the vehicle. He timed the harsh beat of his tail against a nearby trunk in time with her movement, in a small attempt to cancel out the mechanical clank.
It worked. The loud strike against the bark echoed around him, silencing the teens and putting them all on alert—toward his direction. He scurried further back and repeated the motion, making sure he was well enough hidden in the undergrowth that, even if they caught a small glimpse of him, they couldn't pinpoint his exact location.
"What was that?!"
"Is that an animal?"
On the opposite end of the playground, through the tall stalks of grass, Randall could see Tani quick at work herself. Although he couldn't exactly tell what she was tearing apart, his memory again went back to their college days to bubble up bits of lost knowledge he hadn't given much thought to all those years ago. I guess it pays to be a mechanic's daughter.
"You check it out."
"Why me?"
"Why not you? Don't be a chicken!"
He saw a pair of legs fumble his way. Randall didn't wait for the youth to get close before darting off again, only this time in fairly plain view, crossing right in front of the human before submerging himself back into the shadows of the trees. To the teen, all he saw was a large, dark blot course past him. He fell back with a curse, kicking his feet against the dirt as he scrambled back to his group.
"It's huge!" he shouted, "Whatever it is, it's huge!"
"Could it be a gator?"
"Didn't you say one broke into your neighbor's house this week?!"
That was the end of that. He saw Tani duck behind the vehicle, signaling him with a low, but wild wave of her hand. Belly still scraping the ground, Randall took the first chance he could to escape the trees and loop around the playground over to her. The empty parking lot ahead was all they had left to conquer, but with the teens still in a panicked search for a nonexistent threat, they had already crossed it before shouts began to follow after them as they escaped into the city.
…