Where in the sweet-hells was it!?
If Vlad Plasmius hadn't been hovering above the snow, it would've buried him up to his knees. Despite never touching the ground, he was freezing, his breath hitching as his heart-core sputtered below an uncomfortable temperature and he sneezed when frost collected on his nose – the billowing ice normally melted as soon as it touched his burning skin, but now it was gathering a thick shell and his blue hands could hardly move from their spot near his rifle's trigger.
It was a pathetic show.
An unreal feeling.
Reluctantly Vlad admitted he was out of his element. In his excitement to get the job done and the hunt over as soon as possible, he had neglected the proper gear.
'I was sure I wouldn't need it,' he fumed, wanting nothing more than his expensive arctic parka. 'It's probably just a huge, fat rabbit.' Now wouldn't that have been funny? Imagining his final prey to be a fluffy, rabid wolpertinger was assuming. He'd spent half the day culling the population of rabbits in his forested backyard, and his trio of ghostly vulture friends had happily picked the fresh, frozen flesh clean from the little glimmering bones.
But of course his so called 'friends,' left as soon as he ran out of rabbit for them to eat, claiming that they had guard-duty elsewhere; but Vlad knew they had simply grown bored. He had promised them an "exciting hunt," with an unidentified ecto-entity as the prey, but instead they watched for hours as he shot nothing but living rabbits, simply scouting for new sprouting grass for their barren nests. Vlad couldn't be angry that his vulture-friends had left; he was embarrassed he'd found nothing at all.
Vlad would've been happy to slay a giant rabbit, on the off chance if was the ghost he was looking for. But after shooting so many for hours and hours, he'd run out of heads to shoot.
When he couldn't find a single rabbit hiding in the snow after an additional hour of flying, he decided to call it quits.
His vulture friends would've laughed at him if he'd told them he'd only managed to get rabbits.
"I should talk to Skulker," he muttered, but the ghost had been nowhere to be found when he sent his message-drones into the Ghost Zone – typical, on the day Vlad needed him most, he couldn't find the ghost.
He turned tail, and reluctantly walked home.
There was something stirring on the air and it wasn't the whistling of greasy pine needle tea. A fourth can of coffee was pressed to her clenched lips, her body quivered as if cold, and her muscles rolled with a tense rush loaned by excessive caffeine; but neither sensation stole her attention.
Danny felt terrible. The baby wouldn't stop crying, a nasty bruise had swelled atop his head – just a small one, from when she'd leaned too hard against the convenience store wall. She didn't expect him to stop crying any time soon, and didn't blame him; Danny felt like a monster, briefly able to understand why news outlets across the entire planet had referred to her as such on occasion.
A baby got hurt on her watch, and she felt terrible, incompetent, and useless - a bitter venomous package all rolled up into one. She massaged the lump with an icy touch as gently as she could - apparently the baby was alive enough to mind the pain. It was strange, it looked and floated like a ghost, but didn't have the durability of one...
"Well, it is a baby, dumbass," Danny concluded. She cracked open a fifth can of coffee, taking stock of her surroundings. She was in the same woods she had left, but as she looked down at her muddy moccasins boots, she noticed the chaotic, mindless trail of prints left winding around each and every tree trunk, she realized she was hopelessly lost.
She'd made such a mess. Normally, she traveled more discreetly, as not to attract attention.
The mere idea of being watched made her skin itch.
If Vlad where here with her, this never would've happened - he helped keep her head on straight.
She should've been more careful.
She shouldn't've been such a mess.
Danny poured out her freshly cracked can of coffee, watching sourly as the liquid became undistinguishable from the mud beneath her feet, the metal crushed under a boot.
No use going home if she couldn't find it.
And, she didn't really want to find it, if she was being honest with herself.
No more trees, or pine needle tea. She would be happy to deal with that.
Danny gave herself a new mission: "Get your shit together."
And to do that she needed more modern amenities.
The baby was still crying, but the noise had grown very quiet as he tired, yet eerie streaks of tears pooled down his small, quivering face.
She owed him better, and patted him gently, surprised to find that his tears scalded her fingers like a mild acid. He looked up with tired bloodshot eyes and Danny looked back with her own - they shared the same livid red.
"I'll do better, kiddo." Perhaps it'd been unfair of her to refer to him as a brat.
But she still wasn't going to name him.
'Not yet.' Danny did her best to squash down that simple, errant thought.
'It's not safe.'
But she held the baby closer against her chest, cooing as she combed his flaming wisp of hair. Tiny robin fingers greedily clung to the front of her wolf-pelt jacket and both of them smiled at the other.
Danny walked anywhere, but the woods. A sunrise slowly followed suit.
Amity Mall was a lot smaller than Danny remembered.
But then again, when was the last time she'd been shopping for anything besides food?
It wasn't often at all.
Fortunately, the food court area seemed to take up two-thirds of the mall, leaving just a handful of stores to occupy the remaining scattered spaces.
To Danny's disappointment, none of the food vendors appeared to sell coffee. As much as she adored all her pilfered, sugary coffee, there was nothing like a simple, black cup of hot joe.
She was invisible, holding the baby out in front of her, whom was also invisible. It took in the sights with hungry fascination, its tears long forgotten.
Now what to do?
Danny looked down at her wolf-pelt, watching in delight as the baby preened at the fur like a cat.
"With any luck you'll earn your own one day, kiddo," she cooed.
She was good at mindlessly wandering, at home in the empty corridors of the unpopular mall. There was no one else she could bump into and she relaxed her guard. Perhaps the lack of foot traffic was normal for a weekend?
Taking in the poor selections of storefronts, Danny decided she wasn't going to come back, unless she needed clothes, for some reason…
The most interesting window-display featured candles in front, so Danny ducked inside, reflexively stuffing several candles into her eldritch stomach. Ironically she bumped into a display of leather purses when she was done.
She snorted, passing the purses by, that was one thing she would never need again.
Coming to a selection of expensive cashmere sweaters she frowned at the idea of wearing one. A sweater was much too hot for her body, which ran cold, but the squirming baby against her chest was a reminder that she wasn't just shopping for herself.
With a grumble, she tucked the smallest sweater she could find into the unholy vacuum of her belly, and the insulating material churned in her stomach like spoiled meat. Danny swore she tasted dryer lint, or what she imagined to be a fuzzy carpet or a dusty rug.
She typically only stole what she could handle. She checked sweaters off that list. It was like chewing a giant ball of wool.
Danny browsed slowly through the store, enjoying her time as she had nothing else to do. A hat here and there, a hairbrush and a touch of makeup blush for later, ribbons to tie back her hair...
Now if only the store sold something more useful than clothes and fashion accessories, she'd be in heaven.
She toyed with the idea of visiting a supermarket, or large department store. The temping image of a power drill came to mind, and the urge to start a new invention made her all the more restless.
Somewhere, there was a place with tools and materials she could use to build things. There wasn't much to be done with clothes and makeup.
The baby too, seemed less enthused by the idea of clothes. He squirmed, on the verge of screaming as he took in yet another rack of boring clothing. Sensing the ensuing tantrum, she quickly swiped herself an outfit and headed to a changing room.
Danny quickly slipped on a white tee-shirt with a generic red logo, paired with blue jeans with deep pockets. Her muddied moccasins where traded in for red tennis shoes. Her wolf-pelt, boots, and other articles pilfered from the woods slipped into her metaphorical bottomless purse-belly with ease, which included a small steel axe she'd managed to keep as a souvenir from her cabin.
The steel tasted sharp, and satisfyingly, like scrapping the last spoon of batter from a mixing bowl.
Danny materialized, becoming visible against the mirror's surface.
She took in her new appearance by the dressing room mirror, the baby dressed in his new, adorable lime sweater, and she allowed herself a triumphant grin.
Danny, save for the glowing baby strapped to her chest, looked like a normal teenager.