Chet was disappointed.

Not in the absolute haul in biological cargo they pulled together. But the fact that he hadn’t used his taser grenade yet. But as his eyelids drooped and his hands slipped when helped Sonya, he realized that maybe it was a good thing he didn’t have an opportunity to test it yet.

“Gonna check the other side and see if there’s that rope Sonya mentioned,” Walker yelled out.

Chet and Sonya voiced they heard him as they finished packing things. Chet snuck what he hoped was a discrete glance at Sonya. She had removed the batteries of her flashlight and was fishing through her backpack for spares.

“So, how’d you meet Walker anyway?” He inquired.

She pushed her face deeper into the bag as her search for batteries continued. Her search for the batteries continued while Chet watched. After several more seconds of frantic searching, she pulled out her prize: two batteries.

“Sorry, not very organized in there.” She stuffed the batteries into the flashlight and clicked it on.

“We met in Archipelago, he was getting supplies and after I helped him out with directions he invited me along.”

Chet raised his eyebrows, “Just like that?”

He wasn’t surprised. Walker had “wants to fit in” plastered all over him. That wasn’t a slight against him, there were a few things under the surface he could only guess at.

“Yup, crazy right?” Sonya turned to look at Walker standing at the far end of the cavern.

Chet stared at the back of her head.

“We make a good team though,” Chet replied.

“And since every team needs a good team name, I have a few in mind.”

Chet ignored the rolling of pupils through the eyelid as he pulled up behind her with the crates.

“The Terrible Tigers”

“Unoriginal,” she replied.

“The Tranquil Trumpeteers?”

She sighed, “No brass instruments.”

“The Tyrannical Threesome?”

“That implies that we're all having sex. I don’t want people to think I’m fucking yo…” She hit the brakes.

Her voice dropped to a whisper, “What does that look like to you?”

Chet’s lopsided grin stayed plastered on his face but his body stiffened.

“What?”

“By Walker, he’s acting weird.”

She tiptoed toward him, about fifteen yards separated them, and Walker next to…

Chet focused his flashlight on the mass beside Walker, “Is that-”

Instead of responding, Sonya reached behind her to arm herself with a chrome revolver. Chet kept his eyes trained on the mass while he slung his backpack to the ground and pulled out the taser grenade while Sonya inched forward, firearm raised.

Something was off about Walker. He had just finished pulling on what Chet guessed was their way out of the cavern and was now staring at his hands.

Chet winced as a Walker wailed. A guttural sound echoed inside Chet’s skull. A sound that if Chet got out of here alive, would echo for nights.

The mass was unfolding itself.

Sonya shouted at Walker to get out of there.

It wiggled side to side to unveil two shrunken forelimbs and two hind limbs that may have well-been toothpicks compared to its girth. With each ineffectual slam by Walker, mucus squirted out its back.

Chet gripped the handle of the taser grenade and skirted the wall.

Both were about ten yards from Walker, close enough for Chet to make out the withered skin that hung off its wrinkled head. His mind raced. He could throw the grenade but there was still a chance it could hit himself, Walker, or Sonya. However, now would be the best time to get a solid connection between it and the taser barbs. An almost equal chance to hit Walker as well.

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Due to the dark complexion, setting, and the fact that it looked like a frog- it was most likely connected to the Welting Frogs that habituated the cavern.

This meant the fact that Walker was now covered in its juices…

A tingle ran down his spine as his lats and forearms tensed.

It hopped.

Or tried to, as its forelimbs failed to sustain the jump, causing it to crash against the stone floor. Its body sloshed into itself to reveal the bones that sat just below the skin. A rumbling gargle emanated from the beast as it struggled to roll onto its legs.

Sonya rushed to Walker’s side and turned him over. Walker’s arms had swollen purple and dripped white pus. Chet leaned in closer and gagged.

Sonya’s hands floated above Walker’s chest, unsure whether she could touch his soaked body. He tore his eyes away from Walker and back to the clumsy giant.

Chet nudged Sonya’s leg as the frog crashed into the wall across from where they stood. The roots blocked most of Chet’s vision, but he could still make out the voluptuous body of the amphibian.

“Shoot the frog.”

Sonya had taken off her leather jacket and was wiping Chet’s arms with it.

He kicked her foot this time, “Turn that shit into pudding.”

Sonya didn’t turn around, “We need to get Walker out of here. He’s going into shock.”

“Tell me how we are going to get him up the rope with that thing roaming around?”

Walker groaned; his fingers reached for Sonya. She cringed and pulled away from him to leave Walker’s hands grasping for air to stand by Chet. Chet was not unfamiliar with the shame covering her face. Fortunately, she got over it and re-pulled out the same revolver. The cavern rumbled. Droplets from the ceiling splashed at their feet. The hulking mass appeared mere yards away with a crunch.

Sonya fired.

Synovial fluids erupted from the frog’s moist skin. Connective tissue hung from the exit wound and slapped against its body. A horrible gurgle emanated from the beast.

Sonya fired.

Red mixed with green dripped off the walls.

Sonya fired, but the bullet sunk into the frog that was quickly filling up his vision. The sweat on Chet’s body was quickly replaced by water as he dove into the pool beneath. Silent musings suffocated Chet before he was thrown out of the shallow water just as quickly as he entered it.

Unfortunately, a root stopped his volatile movement by colliding with his head. Chet rubbed the back of his skull. He coughed “fuck,” as he struggled to one knee. His bulbous muscles bulged, but the stone soon reclaimed his groggy ass. Based on the way his eyelids drooped and how the room teeter-tottered, his cognitive function was, as many would put it, fucked.

Time hadn’t slowed, but rather fell in drips.

The mucus-and-blood eruptions continued as Sonya unloaded bullet after bullet into the frog and reloaded bullet after bullet into her revolver. Chet squinted; his brain was a lawnmower that refused to start. Her revolver was quite shiny, wasn’t it?

Shiny like…

Like…

He stared at his hands, one a dark shade of red, one not a dark shade of red.

Not shiny.

What could be shiny?

He surveyed the room with lazy eyes. Sonya was still shooting the frog that was not beginning to resemble a smoothie. Not shiny. Slumped over a root, Walker was waffling down red mushrooms. Not shiny. And like a burrito rolling on a plate, a metallic pineapple rolled into Walker. Ah, shiny.

Chet hobbled to his feet and shuffled toward Walker. Every few seconds, an aneurism-inducing pop caused his blossoming headache to flare up. How many bullets did this bitch have?

It had been a while, he should refocus on how close he was to Walker now.

About six feet.

Three.

One.

He loomed over the now-trembling Walker, who faced away and to the right of himself, lay slumped over the root that once held his meal. At their feet sat the shiny object. Chet stared at it. “Are you using… that?” His words came out slurred. The trembling stopped. He saw it coming, Walker had clutched the metal-pineapple by its handle and swung it. He observed the incoming assault of the blunt instrument with mild curiosity. Chet knew that he should be moving out of the way, or trying to block it, but his mind and body were speaking two different languages.

The impact carried enough force into his left tricep to push over the already unstable Chet. The liquid that filled his throat had barely enough time to be coughed out before something sturdy slammed into his solar plexus. Addle-brained he was, Chet had wrestled in enough shoddy backyards to know how to use his size.

The Chet-sized hole that he left in the pool was quickly replaced by water as he leaped out of the water. He angled his jump so it would be toward his right which just so happened to be the edge of the pool. Without taking a breath he turned to see Walker pulling the slick metallic pineapple out of the water.

In the back of Chet’s mind, he was vaguely aware that this much jostling couldn’t be good for the circuitry.

However, the front of Chet’s mind was focused on leaning forward, spreading his arms out like a father going in for a hug, and barreling into the hips of Walker’s hunched frame. Both plunged underwater, however, Chet recovered quickly. After a brief struggle, he sunk his left knee into Walker’s chest and wrapped his gloved hands around Walker’s submerged neck.

Walker was a bucking bull that he struggled to stay atop of. Bubbles frothed the surface of the irritated water as Walker screamed. An impressive fist flew into his neck, but nothing short of a bullet could have made Chet let go at that moment. Walker’s bandaged fist, now soaked with water, gripped his esophagus. He gurgled on his saliva as he leaned his body weight squarely on Walker’s solar plexus.

As the bubbles resided, and the rounds between thrashing lengthened, Chet kept his grip on Walker.

“Let him…”

He rapidly blinked, his mind churning.

Someone was shouting.

“STOP, he’s out!” It was Sonya. He shook his head, not in the sense he disagreed, but in the sense to shake the fog out of his head.

He lifted his knee off Walker’s chest and pulled Walker into the air and onto the stone.

“He’s gone insane…” Chet panted. It was hard to breathe, Walker must’ve knocked the air out of him. “He…” He choked out laughter between coughs. “He’s got some meat hooks I’ll tell you that.”

Sonya stared at him, her revolver not quite pointed at him, but not quite pointed at the ground.