Chapter 27: Blasted

At first it didn't hurt. But then I was flying through the air, tumbling head over heels, and smashing into a power-line pole.

“Ow,” I said. Because getting struck by lightning–from a chicken–and then being smashed against a power line pole… yeah, that really hurt.

I crumpled to the ground on my butt and blinked a few times. Teddy raced to get between me and the chicken. The bird definitely seemed fixated on me. If anything, the rooster’s feathers had fluffed up even more, making it look even more pissed off.

I guess the damn thing missed the fact that Teddy was the one that shot the arrow at him. The damn bird decided it didn't like gnomes, or it hated pointy red hats… whatever. The sucker was out to get me. Luckily, I wasn't lodged or indented in anything, so I rolled up to my feet and started to run my little ass off as fast as I could. And not like they did when they were chased by that Jurassic Park T-Rex, running (well, driving) in a straight line. I zigged and zagged, weaving behind cars, racing past the rubble of former houses, and then almost getting blasted yet again by the damn chicken because the thing seemed to have preternatural aiming skills.

Suddenly there was a loud thwack sound, and I looked over to see that Teddy had his bow up again. It hadn't hit the chicken, presumably, but he was—as usual—putting himself in danger to protect somebody else.

I pulled my frying pan out of my inventory, gave it a cursory flick in my hand, and then rounded the trunk of the tree I was hiding behind, to send myself hurling towards the electro chicken. Is shot off another blast of lightning before I got there, barely missing Teddy. But I did catch it unawares, and slammed my frying pan into the back of its extremely small head.

And oooouuuuch!

Whatever force field thingy it had that was evaporating Teddy's arrows like mosquitoes on a bug zapper, must be pretty powerful. Instead of my frying pan making contact with the things head, I had a second where I was held in place, there was a sizzling, and then I rocketed back across the street, smashing yet again into the exact same power line pole as before.

I know I don't have a brain, but now I really had a headache. Not some sound reverbing through my head. My head really hurt.

I toppled to the ground, landing on my hands and knees, my head feeling like it was going to crack right off my body.

Holy fucking shitba—

Something grabbed hold of me, and suddenly I was being carried through the air by something I couldn't see. It only took me a couple seconds before I realized it was Teddy, obscured by his cloak of invisibility.

My head was still throbbing–well kind of buzzing, I guess–and I didn't seem to be able to talk right then. But if I could have, I would have been telling Teddy that he’d made a good move by running.

The chicken Bu-bu-BUCK-AK-ed again, and a bolt of lightning smashed into a tree not even a foot away from where we were running.

Luckily for us, Teddy zagged right behind a house, and didn't stop to catch his breath, running this way and that until we were a good quarter mile away from the electro chicken.

As he finally slowed down, we heard distant booms, the chicken letting loose with the lightning. But the sounds weren't getting closer.

“Well,” he said, gasping to catch his breath and lowering me to the ground, “definitely no chicken nuggets for us.”

I cracked up laughing. Jesus…

“But if we had succeeded,” I patted him on the shoulder as he knelt, lowering his head, still winded. “What kind of sauce would we have dipped him in?”

Teddy raised his head and looked at me. “I don't know, what?”

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I smiled triumphantly. “Electrifying barbecue.”

Teddy let out a little laugh and shook his head. “Nah, probably Bu-bu-BUCK-AK ranch.”

I shook my head at Teddy and opened my mouth to tell him that was pretty pathetic… but then I realized…

I shook my head.

Slowly I turned my head to one side, looking down the street. I turned my head again and looked the other way. And then I turned back to Teddy, his eyes widening, and his eyebrows rising up his forehead.

“I can turn my head!”

Teddy, still trying to catch his breath, smiled and nodded.

“I can turn my mother fucking head!!!”

***

I was getting happier and happier as we were walking back to the pizzeria. Far off in the distance we heard another thunderous boom from the electro chicken.

“Hey Clyde!” Teddy yelled into the distance. “Calm it down!”

“Clyde?” I asked, feeling a rush of elation as I turned my head to say it. I even looked up.

Teddy shrugged, looking down at me and grinning. “I had an Aunt Clyde, the chicken acts just like her.”

“Her name was Clyde?”

“Short for Claudia. She was a real asshole.” We walked a few more steps. “She lived across the street from my grandma, and the second we would arrive Aunt Clyde would come over, throw open the door and start screaming at us—torturing us. Even my grandma’s dogs used to bark their heads off at her like she was the antichrist.

I nodded, and felt a little giddy at that too. Finding something funny now was always a good thing. “Clyde it is, then.”

***

There was somebody sitting on the steps leading up to the pizzeria. She was dressed in all black, with high heels, a slinky silk dress that came down to just above her demurely crossed knees, and black hose.

She looked familiar, but I was drawing a blank. She was older than us.

I pulled up my stats box, and saw the name Leanne Biddle.

The name rang a bell in my head, but I couldn’t linger on that. Because the very next line of the stats box read that she was a level 74 vampire.

Fuck me…

“Miss Biddle?” Teddy said, smoothly pulling his bow and an arrow out of his inventory. Not so smoothly, I fumbled and pulled out my frying pan. “Can I help you?”

Teddy sounded so calm. Oz was only a level 52 vampire. This woman was over 20 levels past that. This was bad, really bad.

I saw a twinkle in her eye as she filed down a nail with a nail file, and suddenly it hit me who she was.

“Miss Biddle?!?!” She was the school librarian. Not that our school had that big of a library, since it was mostly just rows of desktop computers for the students use.

Oh boy. I was having a really hard time trying to get my head around the sleek, all-in-black vampire lounging before me, and the rather nerdy librarian that had helped me find the single pamphlet that I've used to write my senior theme for Mrs. Galiseski's class. It had been on pornography, so I'd also cited Porn Hamster and Pornhub. I’d gotten the loan 100% on my theme that year, much to the top 10 students of my class’ dismay.

The nail file in her hand disappeared as if by magic. Obviously she put it into her inventory. She glanced at us, sitting up straighter, pushing out her chest and giving us an ample view of her… what's the more civilized way of saying cleavage?

Décolletage.

“Teddy Grimm,” Miss Biddle purred, “are you one of the occupants of this fine establishment behind me?”

Teddy raised his bow, notching his arrow and aiming it straight for her. “That I am.”

The front door to the pizzeria swung open, Wood and Ellie standing there, Ellie with her Negan bat and Wood holding a pointed wooden stake in his hand.

“Don't invite her in!” Ellie said, panic in her voice.

“Wasn't planning on it,” Teddy said.

Where the hell was Oz? Not that he was strong enough to fight her—or maybe he was. That was the whole idea of having him move closer to us.

Miss Biddle leaned forward and stared at me. “I bet you're wondering where your pet vampire is about now, aren't you?”

Okay, that was creepy. Could she read my mind?

Her eyes brightened as she really looked at me. “Oh, a garden gnome possessed by a minor class dweeb. Don't see that every day.”

Even though I didn't have a circulatory system, or skin, I literally felt my face warm with embarrassment.

She leaned back against the stairs, and returned her stare back to Teddy. Teddy looked like he was ready to murder her right then and there.

“What did you do to Oz?” Ellie hissed, raising her bat, ready to pummel.

Miss Biddle leaned her head back and gave Ellie a cloying smile. “Don't get your panties in a wad. If you give me what I want, I'll tell you where I left him.”

I flicked my frying pan over a couple times, warming up my wrist. I was getting pissed. “You tell us where Oz is, and you leave right now, we won't separate that head of yours from the rest of you.”

That seemed to get her attention, because she snapped her head back up and stared at me. One second she was leaning back, the next second she had me by the throat, pulling me up in the sky, her fangs bared. Her blue eyes were lit up like neon.

I didn't hesitate, I swung my frying pan at her head, and cracked her skull a good one. I'm pretty sure I dislocated her jaw. But since she's a vampire, she shook her head once and it reattached to where it was supposed to be. I saw blood trickle from the side of her mouth, and then she looked back up at me.

Next second she threw me up in the air, back over her head like I was the bouquet at a wedding. I flew over the pizzeria, and then up over and onto Ellie's roof, where I landed unceremoniously in the gutter of the drain pipe.

It was more disorienting than actually painful, but as I tried to get up, I found I was lodged into that gutter.

Shitshitshitshitshit!

Not again…