Undraland (4 page)

Humans?

When I did not back down, he continued making fun of me. “Help her! She’s being ‘taken against her will’ from wild Werebears who were trying to kill her! Life’s so unfair! She’s blonde and beautiful, so her loud mouth must be right.”

“You shut up!” I yelled, unconcerned that I sounded like a child. My breath was shallow, but my fury was unswerving. “You set my life on fire! There’s no trace of me anywhere but where I stand right now!”

He turned to face me, using his height to appear much older and wiser, though he only looked to be about mid to late twenties. “Better that than you disappear altogether.”

I sneered at his calm calculation of such a hurtful thing. “Like you care what happens to me. So you get demoted or whatever happens to you if, God forbid, I get to stay in one place longer than a year and die happy.”

He squinted his left eye at me, sizing me up. “People would care if you died. Your Uncle Alrik is the one who recommended me to your parents.”

My mouth hung open until Jens reached out and moved my chin upward to shut it. I batted his hand away, which for some reason made him smile in that charming punch-me-in-the-face kind of way. “How do you know Uncle Rick?”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “That’s who I’m taking you to.” He motioned to the car in a sweeping gesture made to mock me. “Are you ready to get going, your highness?”

I showed him a choice finger and snarled, “Don’t you talk to me.” Then I stomped to the Buick and shut myself inside, staring resolutely out the window.

Five.

Weredogs and Gnomes

I thought not speaking to each other would be more peaceful, but Jens responded by turning on the radio to a country station and blasting the most overly emotional song I’d ever heard. He sang along, like we were on a Sunday afternoon cruise just to kill time. “Don’t you just love the twang of it?” he asked, switching his cadence to that of a good old country boy. “The whole singing about your problems thing. It’s so… what’s the word? Emotionally balanced.” He took a bite out of a greasy hamburger that stank like it was fried on the same surface as day-old fish and grinned in the rearview mirror at me.

I knew he was baiting me, but I refused to ask him how he knew my Uncle Rick.

It was seven hours of remaining firm in my silence before Jens turned off the freeway and onto a side street. I was proud of myself that I’d remained strong in my vow that I would no longer speak to him. I was reintroduced to life without country music when he shut off the radio to better focus on the nighttime driving down the residential streets. Oh, how sweet the sound. I swore off cowboy boots and rodeos right then and there.

We motored slowly past the burned-out shell of a commercial building. Jens gasped and swore as he peeled into the abandoned parking lot. He flung his body out the door and stood outside, taking in the damage that was apparently news to him. “No!” he yelled to the remnants of the building. His hands were in his hair, taking his stress out on the black, messy tresses. His thick eyebrows bunched together as he tried to make sense of the charbroiled destination.

His angst worried me. As I knew nothing of his plan or our destination, I couldn’t offer any help. I had to look to him to know when I should feel alleviated or scared.

Holding tight to my vow of silence, I got out of the car and stood beside him. Parts of the roof had caved in, letting us and nature peer straight in to the guts of the wreckage. The building was blackened on the inside and barely standing on the outside. I had questions, sure, but Jens was too preoccupied to offer any answers. He walked around the rubble, reading the damage to see where the fire started. His eyes fell on a smattering of something that looked like gold dust on bits of the blackened wreckage. He slid his phone out of his pocket and punched in a number. “Hey, Tuck. Did you hit Alrik’s bowling alley?” Jens exhaled, a relieved smile surfacing. After a few more perfunctory comments, he hung up. “It’s okay. It’s one of our fires,” he confirmed, as if I was supposed to know what that meant. I couldn’t tell if he was talking for my benefit or just thinking aloud. His shoulders relaxed and rolled back, the defensive stance mutating to mere observation. “No one died. It was preemptive. A cover-up.”

I nodded uncertainly and left him to his search for whatever and walked around the parking lot to stretch my legs. I was uncertain of what to make of Jens, and even more unsure of our environment. Even though we were in the middle of an urban city, the night felt empty, and the world vast with its void. The normal rustle of nature seemed hushed either out of respect for the broken building, or in fear of something else lurking under the sparse expanse of stars.

I made an executive decision right then and there to nix scary movies out of my life. Reality was getting a little too harrowing on its own.

Dry and dead bushes were at the outer edges of the lot, so I kept myself occupied picking the trash out of them and tossing it all in the plastic bag Jens had gotten fast food in a while back. I hate the stink of sliders. It’s like he was purposefully doing all the things that irritate me.

I reached for a mangled shopping bag in the bracken, but stopped when I felt eyes on me. I could still hear Jens stomping around in the rubble, and the itch felt like it was coming from the street. I looked up slowly and saw a glowing pair of yellow eyes. As the body stepped forward, I made out the shape of a large dog. I’m terrible with breeds. What was Scooby-Doo? Well, the dog was as big as Scooby was next to Shaggy. So, you know, pretty friggin’ big.

Only this pup was nothing like Scoob. His brown fur was matted in parts, with a chunk on his left flank missing altogether. My breath felt too audible when his foaming maw snarled at me. I swallowed, and the sound seemed to echo, alerting him to my apprehension. A childish whimper caught in my throat when he decided to go for the big meal – me. Only he didn’t charge. It was like he was watching to make sure I stayed where I was, like he was waiting for backup.

The yellow eyes glowed with a predator’s precision as he stepped toward me, his snorting exhale like a boar’s. I froze, wondering if movement would make things worse.

And then there were three. Three sets of glowing yellow orbs found me, all belonging to Great Dane-type dogs. Their hackles were raised, their teeth bared and dripping with white foamy saliva that made me equally afraid and grossed out. Their bodies were pure muscle, and the angry marks on their fur from other fights only added to their intimidation factor.

“Jens!” I whispered. I meant to call for him, but my voice decided to wuss out on me.

I took a step backward toward the car, trying not to breathe in a way that might tip off the dogs that their next meal was a flight risk.

On the second step, they charged.

I am not ashamed to admit that I screamed like a child with three rhinos chasing her in an abandoned parking lot. I am also not ashamed to admit that I run like a Muppet, only slower.

I’m a little ashamed that I called out for Jens, hoping he forgave me enough for my silent treatment to come to my aid. In hindsight, there was some small part of me that was warning him to get in the car. The larger part of me was hoping he had some of that bear-whooping ninja action on tap I’d seen him unleash earlier. 

I thought he’d heard my warning and was running for the car, but he raced passed me and collided with the dogs, meeting two mid-air. There was a crash of barking, growling, ripping and snapping. I turned around, afraid when I heard an ominous crack of a neck that could only mean a swift death.

For the dog. It started as three on one, and Jens was winning, reducing them down to two. He was primal, as he had been with the psychotic bear. Despite my distrust of him, in that moment I marveled at his beastly fervor. He was both man and monster, and it was a beautiful thing.

And also a little terrifying. Jens wasn’t afraid of getting bitten. He went straight for the head, grabbing one of the giant Great Danes and bashing its cranium against a concrete barrier. The Franken-dog yelped like a baby, and my heart lurched as he twitched and went limp. Maybe the dogs weren’t as dangerous as I’d thought. Did Jens have to be so brutal?

“Lucy, what are you doing?” Jens yelled as he wrestled the last dog to the ground. His arms and legs were wrapped all the way around its torso, and he squeezed the thrashing mutt in his vice grip, making it look smaller and somehow less threatening. For a second, as it thrashed against Jens, I could almost imagine the whimpers were directed at me, begging me to save him from the hulking man. 

My heart went out to the poor baby, and before I could stop myself, I cried out, “Well, don’t hurt him!”

“Get in the car!”

Oh, yeah.
I spun around and bolted for the car, shutting myself in and sinking to the floor of the backseat. I rolled myself in a ball against the door furthest from the last of the mongrels. I hugged my knees in the fetal position, trying hard to think of the lead singer’s name from the Polyphonic Spree. His happy hippie songs always calmed me down when I was scared. I could change my train of thought from panic to a life where all my problems were gone because I was a carefree musician who wore flowing colorful robes and sung songs about clouds. Maybe I’d play the panpipes in his merry traveling band of nomadic musicians.

I screamed when Jens flung open the door and slumped down into the driver’s seat.

“It’s alright, Loos. It’s just me. What? Did you expect a dog could open the door?” I could see a hint of that same purple glitter I’d dusted off his upper lip in my apartment back under his nose again. Just a few specks, but eye-catching nonetheless. His forearm was bleeding, but he paid the injury no mind.

I tried to muscle past the panic and play the adult. I let the grip on my body go slack and slid up into the backseat as he started up the car. “Have you ever seen Tom and Jerry? Animals are capable of exceptional cruelty,” I informed him in all my sagely wisdom. He gave me a one-note obligatory laugh as he peeled out of the parking lot. “What were those things? Weredogs?”

“I honestly don’t know. There’s no such thing. Alrik warned me it would happen, but I guess I needed to see it to believe it. Weredogs. Never thought I’d see the day.”

“Werebears are no big deal, but Weredogs blow your mind?” The car swerved onto the left side of the road and then back, knocking my head on the car door. “Hey! Jens, are you doing alright?” 

“Uh-huh.”

Real reassuring.
His blood was dripping in a line down his elbow and pooling on the seat below. “You need to pull over and let me look at that.”

“Wanting to be a doctor and actually being one are two different things.”

“Wanting to stay alive and driving off the road because you’re stubborn are two different things, too.”

He paused before answering. “I can’t stop yet. Weres found you by your house, and now these dogs all the way out here? You’re being tracked. Not wise to stop until we’ve put more distance between us and them.” 

I threw up my arms, my adrenaline beginning to ebb. “Fine. Bleed to death. You’re so manly. Just pull over before you do, so I don’t die in here.”

Jens huffed, as if I was the one making his arm bleed. “Well, it’s not like you can’t be helpful in the car. Come on up here and take a look at it. I can’t do anything about it right now, and it’s getting annoying.”

“But I’m not a doctor,” I sassed him, taking in his eye roll with pleasure. I climbed with care into the front passenger’s seat, collecting the excess napkins that had fallen on the floor from the fast food. I blotted the injury, holding a wad of napkins to his arm until the wound started clotting. “How’s that?”

“I’m magically cured.”

His chest was moving slowly, and I wished aloud that he would just pull over. “I can drive, you know. If you pass out, we both die.”

Jens pretended my words had no validity. “I’m fine. Just get it to stop bleeding.”

I cocked his arm up above his heart to get the blood to stop flowing out of him so quickly. “Let me know if you’re going to faint. I’ll ready the smelling salts and prop up a pillow for you to land on in your delicate state.” 

“Shut up.” The corner of his mouth twitched, and I could tell he was trying not to smirk at me. I lowered his elbow to rest on the center console between us.

Twenty minutes later, I was still holding the napkin to his wound, which had long since clotted. Kinda forgot about it in my preoccupied state of staring out the window. I had questions and he had answers, but neither of us wanted to break the truced-out silence that had fallen between us. When his arm stiffened for whatever reason, I rubbed it without really thinking. In the silence, we were almost friends. It was when either of us opened our mouths that we ran into trouble.

“I can feel that, you know. You asking a million questions in your mind,” he pretended to grouse. He wouldn’t admit we were getting along, but I knew he could feel the tension abate by millimeters every few miles we drove down the highway. He leaned back in his seat as he drove.

“How about just one?” I made sure to keep my voice quiet and non-confrontational.

“I don’t believe you. I tell you what, if you can ask just one question, I’ll give you a dollar.”

“A whole shiny dollar all for myself? Take it easy, Moneybags.” I permitted a small smile, and one appeared on his lips, as well. He was devastatingly handsome, and I immediately chided myself for noticing. “Challenge accepted. And I’ll raise you one. If you can answer my question to the point where I’m satisfied, I’ll throw in my left shoe.”

He raised an eyebrow, glancing at me sideways in a playful rhythm we managed to fall into. There were Werebears, fires, Weredogs and who knows what else, but in the quietness of the car, the urgency of my fear began to fall to the wayside. Jens smirked at me. “What am I going to do with your left shoe? It doesn’t even have a match. Pass.”

“Okay. If you can answer me till I’m happy, I’ll answer one question of yours. Help you out with your girl troubles and whatnot.”

“What makes you think I have girl troubles?” he scoffed.

“Something about the way you stuff a girl in a car. Just a hunch.”

Jens sighed, gearing up for truth time. “Fine. For the record, I don’t have girl troubles, so I’ll pass on the prize of your left shoe and love advice.” He gripped the steering wheel, rubbing his thumb on the curve as he thought of where he’d best like to begin.

I kept the napkin pressed to his arm and waited patiently to see if he’d spill his guts without me having to actually use up my limited questions quota. My fingers gave his wound a gentle hug to let him know I wouldn’t interrupt.

“Okay. Where to start? I’m not from here. From your world.” He rolled his eyes at himself. “This sounds so cheesy and melodramatic.” He shook his head. “I’m a Tomten, Lucy. Here, grab my phone. I’ll show you.”