Luna hops up the stairs one at a time to get back up, only to immediately be cut off by the slightly shorter woman. Peggy stands smugly in front of Luna before gesturing back towards the den, her gaudy bracelets clinking against one another. She turns away from Luna as she talks, crossing her arms in the process.
“Penn’s got something for you to do, and I figure you aren’t doing anything important so you can just go and do it.”
Luna sighs as she follows suit after Peggy, shaking her head slowly.
“Well no but I just had a really bad d-”
Peggy clicks her tongue sharply at Luna, turning to face her with a stern expression in front of the living room entrance.
“Look, I don’t know what you did at your little minimum wage job to mess it up, but you blew it honey. And you expect to be given a break for messin up? At a job flippin’ burgers?”
The seething resentment Luna had for Peggy was merely thrown onto the kindling that was the remains of her good will against the world.
“Oh yeah, because when was the last time you ACTUALLY had a job doing anything other than pitching a tent and mining for gold?”
Peggy smirks defiantly, shaking her head. “Why you little stupid cow, I’ve never had a job being a miner. What would make you like, say such a silly, silly thing?”
Luna simply stares at her for a brief moment before shaking her head.“Nevermind. You know what would be a nice change of pace? If you guys were on my side, just once. I at least held that job for like, two years without missing a day of work or even causing any issues. Isn’t that worth something?”
Peggy tilts her head slightly, raising a brow towards her. “If you think that deserves a cookie, then you really are dumber than you look.”
“It’s more than your precious son has done.” Luna added with intense disdain.
Penn speaks up from the living room, turning his head to look out the side of his loveseat.
“Ey! Don’t be talkin’ bout my boy like that or else your ass will be sleeping in the woods. Now, get over here. In front of me. I got a job for you. Maybe with some luck, you won’t lose this one too.”
Luna looks back to Peggy who grins condescendingly and lightly prances to go sit at her husband’s side, leaning into an arm. Luna raises a hand to smear her facial features in frustration before walking over to stand in front of Penn, blocking his view to the glass panel TV.
“No-no-no you stupid girl… Off to the side.” Penn gestures with his free hand quickly for her to move.
Luna takes precisely one step to the side and keeps her eyes locked on the insufferable couple.
“Much better. Now in case you didn’t know, it’s Christmas.
Luna’s expression flatlines. “I am...keenly aware of that, yes.”
Penn continues, seemingly unphased by the interruption. “I’ve got everythin’ I need for a proper Christmas. Beer in the fridge, Rocketball in front of me, my wife by my side and a nice warm fire. Or rather, I would, but I’m missin’ one of these things.”
Luna does a quick assessment of the room at large and spots the dying fire currently in the fireplace mantel.
“Don’t we have air conditioning?”
Penn points sharply at Luna.
“NOT THE POINT. The point I’m getting at is that we’re outta firewood, and I want you to trudge out there and get some. No muss, no fuss.”
“By go get it, do you mean go out and buy some and-”
“Pssshaww no. What are you nuts? I’ve got an ax in the garage. Go out and chop some.”
Luna visibly recoils at that, frowning at the suggestion. “Let me get this straight. You want me to go out into the freezing forest in the middle of a snowy night, with an ax, and chop up some firewood that you don’t even need? You are the one with the car. Why not just go to a store and buy one?
Penn snorts as he shoves the last of his Badger Burger into his mouth, licking his fingers to clear any excess juices from it. “Because it just ain’t Christmas without some fire an’ we have one every year. No more backtalk, just get dressed and get going. I want you back here before midnight and Christmas proper starts.”
Luna crosses her arms and taps a finger on the inside of her elbow before speaking again. “You know...that’s a really short deadline. Maybe if I had an extra hand out there, I might get out of that forest faster and get you your firewood on time. Maybe one person to carry the wood and another to chop it down?”
Penn, who had been only looking at Luna in side glances, finally turns to look at her fully. “An extra hand like who?”
“Well if you and...Mrs. Oswald are busy, maybe Percy can help?”
Penn frowns begrudgingly, turning his head from side to side as he mentally wrestles with the idea. It was clear that he didn’t want to make the call, but eventually, he relents, bringing a hand next to his mouth and calling out.
“‘EY CHAMP! YOUR OLD MAN NEEDS YA!”
Luna could hear a muffled grunt of annoyance as a small thumping of footsteps moves over her head, goes to the stairs and tromps down them, pushing the door open fussily. A fair-skinned kid in his late teens, steps into the doorway looking thoroughly displeased. The male looks like a born athlete with a broad chest, a chiseled chin and long blond hair that is unkempt, but still attractive. He approaches his dad in a white t-shirt and designer blue jeans; his hands jammed into the back pockets of the latter.
“C’mon Dad! I was in the middle of something! Can’t it wait?”
Penn shakes his head, gesturing with a hand for him to stand next to Luna. “I just need you to bear with me for a moment, alright? It won’t take ya’ long to do.”
Penn clears his throat before continuing.
“Do me a favor and go help Luna chop some wood. Need some for the fire tonight.”
Percy looks at a nearby snowy window before looking back at his father.
“Are you crazy? It’s like, super cold and it’s still snowing from friggin’ yesterday! Why can’t she just do it and leave me alone?”
“Because she needs someone big and strong to help her. She can’t do it by herself.”
Percy shoots Luna a look of utter disdain while Luna merely rolls her eyes in return, despising the spiraling of words.
“C’mon champ, you can handle this.” Penn pleads.
Peggy speaks up next, gesturing towards the kitchen. “Awww Percykins… If you help the poor girl out, I’ll let you sneak a slice of cheesecake before dinner tomorrow, hmm? How does that sound?”
Percy snorts at the offer and turns his head, shaking it in refusal.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“It’s the middle of the woods in the middle of the night. Friggin’ seriously Dad? Any kind of like, nasty thing could be out there, like a cougar or a pack of wolves, and then what will I do?”
Penn raises a hand to his double chin and strokes it for a moment. “Tell ya what champ…”
Penn leans up in his chair and points towards the gun cabinet. “Go in there and pull out my .12 gauge. Third down from the top. Grab some shells and load ‘em up. That way if any dumb animal comes between me and my boy? Ya’ plug em. You shoot ‘em dead. That’ll teach ‘em. And if there’s any of it left, we can bring it back an’ get it all stuffed up for ya’. How does that sound, champ?”
Percy’s mood brightens significantly, nodding happily and heading over to the gun cabinet and undoing the combination lock on it. Luna starts to turn away to the coat rack near the door before a fat hand grabs her, preventing her from leaving. She turns to look back towards Penn with a raised, questioning brow.
“And don’t you be gettin’ hurt either. I ain’t spending a dime for you to go to the hospital, so you’d best be careful.”
Luna rips her arm from his grasp and storms out of the room, confident in the belief that the Oswalds might be the most self-absorbed family on earth.
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The forest outside of the Oswald home on Christmas Eve is almost completely silent, with the only exception being the occasional wind that tears through cloth and flesh alike. Without anyone tending to it, the snow had gotten high enough to sink an ankle into, making traveling physically taxing. The full moon provided enough light to make flashlights unnecessary but the denseness of the forest outside of some natural paths still limited visibility.
Luna waits patiently at the edge of the garage, holding the hand ax by the handle and turning the blade away from herself. Her fleece jacket helped keep some warmth, in addition to the mittens and scarf, but the sudden gusts of wind didn’t do the exposed skin on her face any favors. She had some experience with the tool, as this wasn’t the first time she had cut a tree down, but typically Penn just bought some pre-cut firewood at some place on his way home from work. He’d only reserve this punishment when he was either too lazy to go out and buy it, or if he simply wanted Luna to do something he deemed productive. She starts to lean up to see what was taking Percy so long, before the aforementioned teenager strolls out of the house, holding his father’s gun like a prize.
He puts the finishing touches on loading up the ammunition, shoving them in rather clumsily, pulling it out of his school’s varsity jacket. Percy had been on several trips to the shooting range and even on a few hunting trips, but his accuracy was generally very poor, much to his father’s frustration. He loads in the last shell he had as he walks up next to Luna, beaming with pride. She rolls her eyes at him and starts to walk in front of him, but after taking another glance at the shoulder-stocked shotgun, she takes a few cautious steps backward.
“Better idea...how about you lead?”
Percy pulls the gun up to his shoulder, resting his hands on both the support grip and the pistol grip and looks down the sight, pivoting his aim at some imaginary enemy before turning to look towards Luna.
“Like a natural leader should. Don’t get in my way.”
He racks the gun for dramatic effect, the shotgun in the proper position to fire.
“And I’m not going to help you cut down the tree either. You cut it down. I’ll keep watch for anything that moves.”
Luna rolls her eyes gestures towards the forest with a hand. “Fine with me. Let’s just go...and be careful with that thing alright?”
Percy starts to stride forward, clicking off the safety and making his way ahead at a somewhat agonizing pace, pivoting almost a full 90 degrees every few seconds, but never back towards her. The two continue heading up and out of sight of the house, the only sound being the heavy footfalls of snow-laden feet. It takes around a half an hour of quiet trudging for another conversation to start up, mostly because of the difficulty of a steep hill they were both climbing.
“How big of a tree are we looking for? This should be far enough to find something decent.” Percy says aloud, still swinging his gun in any direction that looked remotely suspicious.
“Well..since you aren’t going to help and want to play first person shooter guy over there, something small enough I can carry by myself.”
“Playing?” Percy sounded amused. “You are just jealous that Dad takes me on hunting trips and not you. It’s why I get to use his guns. I actually know how.”
“There are literally a thousand other things I’d rather be doing than spending a weekend with Mr. Oswald.” Luna sarcastically quips. “You know the stag on the wall in the house is storebought right?”
Percy sneers in annoyance. “We’ll catch something sooner or later. We’ve already got the number of a stuffing guy that’ll mount it for us. Besides, you don’t know shit. All you do is sit in your room and watch stupid videos on the internet and talk about lame-ass wrestlers and video games. No wonder everyone thinks you are a basketcase. You have no friends and you have no life. It’s pathetic, honestly.”
Luna tightens her grip on the axe handle. “And what, you are going to judge me? Like what you do is any better? Tell you what, when you get that chip pried off of your shoulder and you spit out that silver spoon out of your mouth then, maybe, MAYBE you can tell me how pathetic I am. They don’t make saddles tall enough for your high horse.”
Percy stops walking now, spinning to face her and look very directly into the face of Luna, de-holstering his gun and holding it in one hand at his side. His voice turns cold and serious.
“Look you asshole. I don’t have to take that from you. My parents are awesome, and you are just too damn stupid and jealous to see it. At least mine are still around and actually do stuff. I bet yours were addicts or something. Real losers who couldn’t do anything but screw up. You know, my parents did you a huge favor by taking you in.”
Luna rolls her eyes again. “And yet I can’t help but disagree…”
She starts to say something else, but a soft orange light creeps through the nearby thicket of trees, immediately both of the teenager’s attention. Luna holds up a finger over her mouth as she slowly starts to walk over towards the source of the light, with Percy timidly gripping the gun by the center of the barrel and sneaking up behind her. The trees were a bit too close together to simply walk through, but there was a gap towards the bottom of them that afforded a decent amount of crawl space. Spotting this, Luna crouches down into the snow and goes prone, slinking up underneath the trees. Percy looks hesitant but soon follows, putting the safety on his gun before following behind Luna.
Down this low to the ground, the orange light fills the senses, but it wasn’t bright enough to be considered blinding. Luna and Percy crawl for a few moments before hitting a clearing a few dozen feet in diameter. The trees here formed a rough circle, and the ground here was stripped of both snow and grass, leaving the cold earth bare. In the center of it stand two men, one tall, bald, muscular and with a light skin tone while the second was a little shorter, a little darker and with short hair. Both were dressed in stock camo-hunting gear and both had dark orange eyes. Between the two of them is a large brown bear, lying flat on it’s stomach and unconscious judging by how wildly it’s limbs were splayed out. Underneath it was a tribal looking sigil that glowed the same shade of orange that drew Luna and Percy here in the first place.
The shorter of the two men speak, drawing out a ceremonial shiv with a small canine skull on it from his jacket.
“With this fang, I do your bidding my master, may your will provide strength to these beasts that do not deserve your brilliance. May your spirit enrich their soul.”
He holds the blade up, which crackles with a sinister orange energy before stabbing it directly into the bear’s head. He waits a second before drawing the dagger back out again, and with it comes a grey-ish blue wisp of smoke that seemingly gets pulled into the knife. The small skull on the shiv glows briefly before going quiet, the shorter man returning the weapon to his jacket. He and the taller man take a step back from the bear, who slowly starts to reanimate.
The bear eyes glow with the same orange tint than the men had, though it’s eye sockets were emitting a translucent orange smoke that faded after a foot or so from it’s source. As it stands, the creature’s muscles start to ripple and expand, causing the creature to grow in size, though the process causes several series of roaring convulsions. It’s fangs and claws also grow sharp and wicked, transforming the woodland creature into a nightmarish version of it’s previous self.
The taller man walks around the front of the bear which, even sitting, looked to be as tall as he was. He grabs the bear’s face and inspects it for some manner of imperfection for a moment before slapping it in the chin and turning to look at his accomplice.
“Dwayne, you have done well. The enthrallment is complete and this host looks most accommodating.”
Dwayne sounds just as pleased. “Don’t mention it. This should be the last one we need before we head ba-”
The bear’s nose sniffs the air for a few seconds before it reacts violently, lowering it’s head down to look at both Luna and Percy, who both freeze with fear. The bear’s lip pulls back in a snarl as the shorter man spots the bear’s behavior and rubs a hand over it’s head complacently.
“Well well well ...I believe we have company. What do we say we show them some hospitality Austin?” His hand continues to stroke over the creature’s head but once he finds the spot that he’d stabbed, his fingers start to glow with the same familiar orange energy as he leans in close to the bear’s ear.
“Kill. Eat.”
The monstrous ursine roars and tears after Luna and Percy, the two kids simultaneously panicking and scrambling to back to their feet. The manage to stand up and step back a few paces before the bear bursts through the thicket, immediately flattening several trees with sickening cracks. Both Luna and Percy back away in fear, with Percy slowly bringing his gun up to point at the monster. Just before Percy pulls the trigger, the bear lunges forward, prompting him to scramble back a few more feet and fire...only to hear a solid clicking noise. The safety is still engaged.
Luna steps in from the side and horizontally swings her ax with all of her might, catching the bear from the side and stepping in front of Percy to do so. She expected to hear at least some sort of noise when she attacked, but when Luna draws the weapon back in front of her, the top of the ax seemed to be missing its metal head, leaving only a broken mess of splinters in its place. Looking up, the missing part is currently embedded in the bear’s muzzle, it having bitten it clean off in the middle of the swing. Luna’s pupils shrink as she realizes what happened and starts pushing Percy back with a frightened hand.
“Run...Run...RUN!”
She tosses the ax handle aside as the bear spits out the ax’s now deformed head and roars in defiance. WIth Luna’s insistence, Percy sprints after Luna, the sound of the thundering bear right after them. The two weave and bob around any trees they could find while still going at full tilt, the bear chasing them merely blasting any offending flora in their way by running straight through it. The forest quickly became a blur as the only sounds Luna could hear was the sound of her heart in her throat and the furry freight train panting right behind her.
“ We gotta go faster! Or get off the ground! M-m-maybe it can’t climb. You have any ideas?” Luna yells, her legs already feeling the burn from the burst of activity and her voice growing raspy and tired. She starts to slow down considerably, Percy already gaining even footing with her. The two hit the hill they had climbed earlier and start sliding down it, both of them keeping their footing and accelerating to dangerous speeds. The bear hits the apex of the hill and continues to give chase, but skating along the snow had put a considerable amount of distance between the two parties.
The two hit the bottom of the hill and turn back to look at their pursuer gaining ground on them, shuffling through the heavy snow that the two managed to glide over. Percy looks down towards his gun and flicks the safety off on it and looks back towards the oncoming bear...and then towards Luna, his eyes wavering for a moment before turning cold. He slowly holsters up the gun and brings it up to firing position, lining up the sights. Seeing an easily climbable tree in the upcoming clearing, Luna turns to Percy and points towards it with a hopeful grin but the expression fades as Percy lines the gun up, not at the bear, but directly at Luna’s stomach.
Wordlessly, Percy fires his gun, the slug burrowing its way into Luna’s belly and thanks to the close range, exiting through the other side. Her heart stops as she mentally processes what just happened and why all the warmth suddenly drained from her body, both emotionally and physically. Blood billows from her midsection as her hands move to cover her fresh wound. She looks up towards Percy with questioning, glistening eyes.
“I don’t need to go faster than the bear. I just need to be faster than you.”
Luna’s body quivers as she struggles to stand, her ability to maintain balance over her lower half rapidly leaving her. Percy doesn’t take too much time to look over his handiwork before bolting himself, bypassing the tree Luna suggested. She struggles to breathe as the pain throbs into her; Luna holding one blood-soaked mitten reaching out towards stepbrother. The bear comes along immediately after Percy clears the area and uses one of it’s massive claws to swat Luna aside, a sickening crunch confirming the presence of broken bones. She spirals through the air almost perfectly, throwing her over Percy’s sprinting form and several dozen feet past that and into a clearing. She lands hard on her back and impacts the snow, the whole while holding her not-broken arm against her midsection to ease whatever pain she could. Her glasses fly off in the commotion, and her vision blurs, though she couldn’t tell how much the forming tears were helping.
Percy, surprised by the direction that Luna’s body was thrown, quickly sidesteps it and realizing his plan of letting the bear have Luna wasn’t going to work as well as he thought. He pulls up his gun and starts firing at the bear wholesale, racking the gun as each slug is buried into it. He leads the beast away, the racket of gunfire and feral snarling giving way to the serenity of the snow.
Luna tries to command her legs to move so she could stand or even just roll onto her side, but her body felt as if it was made out of lead. She lowers her head back into the snow, letting the cold cradle her as life drains out of her limbs and spills onto the snow. A heavy lump forms in her throat as she tries to call out for help, a wordless whisper the best she can muster. As her peripheral vision starts to fade, she gazes up towards the moon, content with it being the last thing she can before her consciousness slips away.