My feet rustle through the underbrush of a Midwest forest in summer. This time, I don’t care if the monster hears me.
On the contrary, I want it to hear me.
I want it to know that its hunter is coming.
That its time is at an end.
That I will end it.
With my trusty walking staff, I part the plants this way and that. I search for tendrils of leaves and bark and wood, for the runners my monster sends along the ground to find prey.
I will not be prey.
My weapons—strapped to my calves and forearms, hanging from my belt, slashed in a scabbard over my back—thump in agreement. Speckled sunlight dots the ground, and the fresh, clean scent of the woods wafts around me.
No dead bodies yet.
But there will be, if my monster hides in this woodland.
Leaves of three, let it be. Leaves of five, let it thrive.
Except these leaves of five will kill you if you let the plant—the monster—thrive.
Which is what happened here.
Or, what I suspect happened. In the past two weeks, no fewer than five hikers have disappeared in this thought-to-be-safe forest.
So, the citizens called me in, monster hunter extraordinaire.
I even gave them a discount when they told me what happened.
This is likely the same species that killed my family ten long years ago. It’s unlikely that it’s the same one that killed my family, but you never know. Maybe today’s the day I get lucky.
If not, I have a vendetta against this specific type of monster. One might even say that it’s my nemesis.
About ten feet away, the leaves of the ground cover swish.
That wasn’t from a summer breeze. I creep toward the movement. My fingers itch for my weapons, but I rely on my supernatural instincts and reflexes to decide which weapon—or weapons—to pull.
A rodent head with a scar splitting its face pops up between the leaves. Sitting back on its hind legs, the battered chipmunk peers at me.
My hands fall to my sides. With a sigh, I wave the creature away. Its bones stick out beneath its ragged fur. “Go ahead, li’l fella. Go on home.”
It cocks its head. Its brow furrows.
Oh, no.
It’s about to happen.
“You searchin’ for death?” the chipmunk asks. Based on my experience, no one can understand the chipmunk’s cheeps, squeaks, and chirrups but me.
Which is, you know, a thing, I guess.
“Yes. You know where I can find it?” In a way, I am searching for death, just not mine.
Squeee-eak! “Follow me.”
It’s not the first time animals have spoken to me. I wouldn’t say that I mind.
No, I would say that I hate it. I’m not looking for friends, and the animals don’t always understand that.
They almost never understand that.
But this haggard little chipmunk scurries through the undergrowth of the forest without a look or a word back.
Fine by me. I like being alone. Being alone is being free.
Deeper and deeper into the forest I go. The canopy thickens, and the woodland darkens around me. Despite it being something like two in the afternoon, it’s dusk here.
The air is heavier too. Thicker. Harder to breathe.
My weapons beat against me, eager for the battle. Waves of heat pulse off them. The monster won’t be far away now.
The chipmunk veers to the left.
The reek of decaying bodies slams into me. Good thing I’m used to it. Otherwise, I might be bent over, retching into that sapling over there.
Straight ahead, a massive oak tree climbs into the forest’s canopy.
And the largest Virginia Creeper I’ve ever seen climbs its trunk. It extends out over its branches.
It strangles that ancient tree.
It encases corpses in its tangled vines.
One. Two. Three. Four.
Four bodies.
Where’s the fifth?
I nestle my feet into the underbrush and stalk toward that monster plant.
Its leaves have drooped. The monster is tired.
Probably from killing all those people.
Unnnph! Unph! Muffled groans come from my right.
Keeping one eye on the center of the Creeper, I ease toward those groans.
In a snarl of vines on the right side of the plant, a man stands.
Those vines form a cage around him. Some have even stuffed themselves into his mouth.
Gray eyes wild with fear, the man grasps the leafy bars of his prison. He begs for my help.
I almost roll my eyes. That’s why I’m here. To help you. I just have to figure out how.
The man’s gaze darts to the side, toward the center of the creature, then back to me. Over and over again.
Is he trying to warn me? Seriously? Talk about mansplaining. Can’t he see my weapons? Can’t he figure out what I am?
Not if he’s new to this world, a more reasonable voice inside my head reminds me.
Looking up at me from a cushion of fallen leaves, the chipmunk tilts her head. “You gonna kill it now? It kills everything.”
I frown. Animals aren’t usually so eager for death. In fact, that’s how I get rid of them most of the time. I tell them what I am and they run for the hills. “Why are you so desperate to kill it?”
The chipmunk scowls at the massive Virginia Creeper. The oak beneath it is dying while the Creeper is thriving.
Thriving to the point of feasting on meat, not sunlight and earth.
It must be killed.
The chipmunk chirps. Each chirp falls down an octave at the end, filled with sorrow. “I lived there with my family. Beneath the oak. When the Creeper took over, it pushed us out. But we couldn’t find a new home in time.” The chipmunk glares at the treetops. “Flying death took them from me.”
That explains the chipmunk’s gaunt appearance.
With a sigh, I remove five sunflower seeds from the leather snack pouch attached to my belt. I bend down and offer them to the animal. “For your trouble.”
The chipmunk grabs them and sticks them into her cheeks.
Sccchww-issh-ishh-ish. The monster disguised as a harmless plant shakes itself awake.
A muffled scream erupts from the captured man.
I ignore it.
Yes, the plant is sentient.
Yes, it’s waking up.
Yes, it’s going to attack.
From the top of the Creeper grows a branch like a whip with leaves. It swirls around and around until it creates a head with eyes, nose, and mouth, at least of a certain leafy, viny variety. Except for the cage around the man, the rest of the Virginia Creeper congeals into a humanoid body attached to the earth. Like Medusa’s snakes, vines wave around its head. They cluster around those corpses.
My frown deepens. I’ve killed this species before. They’ve never become that humanoid. Something’s changed.
Not a problem for me to figure out. Not right now.
“Hunter, how dare you disturb me, here in my forest?” the monster’s deep voice rumbles.
My heart drops. That’s not the voice that echoes through my nightmares. No, this voice is too low to be that of the specific monster I seek.
Oh, well. One down, about a bajillion of this species to go.
“I’m sorry, but when did you lay claim to this forest? Last I heard it was for everyone.” In a single fluid movement, I drop my staff, reach behind my shoulder, and tear out my sword. It scrapes against its scabbard. “Never mind. Let’s get on with it, no witty banter needed. You know why I’m here. Shall we?” In smooth figure eights, I brandish my blade, a bright shade of silver in the near dark of this monstrous woodland.
From the man’s prison, a branch shoots out. The wood at its tip is sharpened like a stake.
I slice it off.
From that same direction, a vine comes.
And another.
And another.
My blade severs them all. I laugh. “Is that all you’ve got?”
A flurry of sharpened stakes hurtles toward me.
I launch into my own flurry, one of swipes and slashes. I smile. This is what I live for, this fight, this dance with death.
My parents would be so proud, that their daughter who was supposed to go to college and live a normal life is a high school dropout who spends her time skulking around, hunting monsters.
Maybe they shouldn’t have died.
On the tips of my toes, I twirl and whirl, my sword a blur.
And I work my way closer to the center of the monster. I don’t have to kill the roots—I have a potion for that, a sort of monster herbicide, all natural, of course—but I do have to cut off the entire plant from its root system.
At least, that’s how I deal with the non-humanoid version of this monster.
A wall of vines springs up before me.
Guess the monster noticed where I’m headed.
I slash my sword through it.
The vines seal every gash I make.
I’d climb up and over their wall, but to go into those vines is certain death. I’d end up like those hikers, trapped first and dead later.
I could use the potion coating my blades, the one my magic activates, but it’s too early in the fight for that. Once activated, the potion drains my magic. Without my magic, both the potion and I are useless.
No, waiting’s the name of the game.
For now.
“Over here!” my chipmunk squeaks. On her two back legs, she stands by the imprisoned man. She grasps a woody stem of his cage and gnaws through it, her beady eyes glued to me.
Ugh, fine. I’ll free the man first. The monster’s busy repairing itself after all my damage, and I can’t get through its wall anyway.
Or, I need a few minutes to think about how to get through its wall.
Listening—and half-watching—for any sign of the Virginia Creeper attacking, I run to the man and my chipmunk. I wave him backward. “Get outta the way.”
The man obeys. This time, his gray eyes aren’t wide with fear. No, they’ve hardened with resolve.
Maybe this man won’t be as useless as he looks.
My sword slices through the vines.
They fall apart.
The monster must have given up on containing the man.
I mean, magical monster hunters like myself are far more delicious than mere humans. I can’t blame the creature for focusing on me instead.
Once I free the man, he stands there staring at the growing and growing plant-monster.
I shoo him away. “Go already. Do you want to end up like your friends up there?” I gesture to the decaying bodies swaying amid the treetops. On cue, a summer breeze delivers their stench to us.
The man’s forehead wrinkles, but he doesn’t react to that foul odor. He must be nose-blind to it after who knows how long being trapped here with the corpses. “My friends? Oh, no, those aren’t my friends. I don’t know them at all.”
“Okay, fine, but you should still go.”
“And leave you here, with that thing?” He points at my monster.
“I’ve got this. This is what I do. You go. That is what you do.” Is this man a fool? Or does he think me a damsel in distress despite me saving him? Despite all my weapons? Despite my awe-inspiring fighting skills?
Crrr-rash! A branch slams down between us. Its wood splinters.
Speaking of which, guess it’s fight time again.
I stride to that wall of leaves and vines.
It crumbles away to nothing.
The Virginia Creeper beckons me forward. High above me, those bodies sway back and forth in the monster’s vine-hair. “I’ve heard about you, you know.” The creature’s voice grates against me, so much do I wish it were the voice from my nightmares, the voice of the monster that slayed my family.
I wedge my sword into the ground, cross my arms, and jut a hip out. “Oh, yeah? All good, I hope.”
In that viny face, the leaves spread into a smile of sorts. “I heard that you screamed like a little baby when your parents and siblings died.”
“Considering I was all of eight years old, I don’t think that’s the insult you think it is.” Still, the memory stings. Maybe it wouldn’t if I didn’t relive the whole thing most nights.
The monster cocks its head-like appendage. “I bet you’ll taste exquisite, just like your family did.”
I snort. “You can’t fool me. You didn’t kill my family. Believe me, I wish you did. But alas, my search continues.”
“Yes, but I know who did kill your family. We…talk.”
I nudge the hilt of my sword back and forth, its tip lodged deep in the forest floor. “So, what? I let you go, and you tell me where my target is?”
The creature’s smile widens to a grin with leaves for teeth. Curly lime-green tendrils drip down between them. “Who said anything about a deal?”
The monster surges forward. It rips itself off that poor old oak tree. It takes branches with it.
It swings those branches at me.
Too many for my sword. I tear my blade out of the earth and thrust it into the scabbard across my back. Using all the strength in my thunderous thighs, I jump up, up, up.
Air gusts against me.
Boughs slash beneath my feet.
All except one.
It catches the ankle of my left foot.
It tilts me to the side.
It throws me off balance.
I tumble through the air.
The unforgiving ground swells.
To catch me.
To break me.
To shatter me.
I smash into a cradle of strong arms.
“Oof,” the man I rescued grunts.
“Guess we’re even now.” I leap out of his arms and tug him down to the forest floor.
Shhwhoo! A bough whistles through the air, right where our heads were an instant before.
Gotta get closer to the beast. In a crouch, I sprint forward.
A leafy branch comes at me.
I hop.
Another one.
I duck.
A third one, this one as broad as my muscular thigh.
I jump on top of it. I ride it like a surfboard.
The monster lifts it up, up, up.
Stinging nettle. I know what’s coming next.
I drop to my stomach and wrap my arms and legs around the bough.
It zigs and zags.
It dashes and darts.
It shakes and swings.
Through it all, I hold on.
So do my weapons to my body, secured for these situations.
Not that I’ve ever ridden a branch before, but you know. For roller coasters and the like.
And yes, one time, I hunted a monster on a literal roller coaster. It wasn’t this species but a fully humanoid one.
Don’t worry. I won.
And I will win this.
I just have to figure out how.
The monster flips the branch over.
Upside-down, I hang on.
Upside-down, I whistle through the air.
Upside-down, I head down, down, down.
Three…two…one…
Drop!
I release the bough.
Back first, I crash into the ground cover of the forest floor. It cushions my fall.
Mostly.
Sllll-am! The branch smashes into the underbrush next to me. Pollen puffs out around us, and that clean, green scent of the woods almost blocks out the stench of the decaying bodies.
The Creeper winds up again. Above me, there’s nothing but oak leaves and bark and the occasional spiky Creeper leaf.
Through the air, that oak branch zooms.
Hisses.
Drops.
I roll over.
The bough smashes into the ground where I used to be.
We repeat this process over and over. The monster’s herding me farther and farther away.
And closer and closer to a dense shrub that will entangle me if I roll into it.
That will capture me for the Creeper.
Grrrr-reat.
“Hey! Hey, over here!” the man shouts. Maybe ten paces away, he jumps up and down.
At his feet, a certain chipmunk does the same. And squeaks with all her might.
The monster turns its vine-head.
I hurl to my feet, rip my trusty sword out of its scabbard, and race for the monster.
Those branches come at me. They seek to strike me, to throw me, to kill me.
I hit another gear. I run even faster.
The Creeper’s vines shoot along the ground. They try to trip me.
Like a football player, I hop through them. My speed increases. The magic that makes me what I am flows. It pulses in my veins. It electrifies my nerves. It steels my muscles.
“Gaah’zerya,” I whisper the spell. The potion coating my blade lights up in a purplish fog. Its effects will last no more than five minutes, and my own magic fuels it. I’ll have to end this now.
With a leap that no one but a hunter can finish, I land on the leafy leg of the monster.
I slash. With the potion in its system, the Creeper won’t be able to swallow me whole. Not for a few minutes at least.
Time to make the most of it.
A hand of leaves and vines swings down at me.
Grasping the ropy vines of the monster’s “leg,” I spin to the side.
Then I crawl up, up, up.
Like I’m an ant, the monster swipes at me over and over again.
Unlike an ant, I twist and twirl.
Unlike an ant, I dodge.
Unlike an ant, I gash the bark of the Virginia Creeper with my sword. Here and there, my blade cuts through tangled vines.
It’s not enough.
I should go back down. I should separate the plant-monster from its roots.
But some instinct insists that I go up, that I stab its heart like it’s a vampire. Who am I to disagree with my hunter instincts?
Up the thigh, over the hip, up the stomach, over the waist I go, climbing and stabbing and slashing.
And don’t forget dodging and ducking and darting.
At last, I reach the heart—or where the heart would be on a human.
I thrust my blade into it.
My sword sinks in, all the way to the hilt.
Nothing happens.
I rip my sword out, straight through the vines of the monster’s chest cavity.
Nothing happens.
Like Santa Claus turned evil, the Virginia Creeper laughs a deep belly laugh. “You knew better, my little monster hunter. I have no heart to stab.” It lowers its giant face to mine. The lime-green tendrils between its leaf-teeth wiggle, and the bodies stuck in its vines-for-hair swing back and forth. Their stench pummels me. “And soon your little potion will run out and the feast can begin.”
I cling to the monster’s torso. My fingers grasp the edge of the hole I created in its chest. The cleaved vines prick.
What to do, what to do? I can stab that heart area some more, do what my instincts demand, but that hasn’t worked so far. Who’s to say it’ll work upon a third, fourth, tenth try?
I can climb back down and hack at its feet.
But that’ll take time that I don’t have, and it’s not guaranteed to work. I’ve never seen this species this humanoid before. Something’s changed.
I’ll have to kill it in a different way.
Rough, viny fingers wrap around me.
They pin my arms to my sides.
They glue my legs together.
They pluck me off the Creeper’s chest.
Oops. Guess I’m out of time.
Like a toy airplane, the Virginia Creeper whirls me through the air.
My sword flies from my fingers.
With its leaf of a tongue flapping around its too broad mouth, the monster sings, “Ho, hum, diddily-dum. Look what I have found. It’s a little hunter-chum. Ho, hum, diddily-dum. Up, down, around goes the little hunter-chum. Where she’ll stop, only I can know. Ho, hum, diddily-dum.”
To the rhythm of that song, the creature whips me through the air, up and down and around. Branches of non-monster trees and plants scrape and slap and cut. Blood trickles out, and my head spins. My superhuman healing can’t keep up with my injuries.
Crrr-rack!
I stop whirling. In the air, I hover, closer to the treetops than the forest floor.
The vine-fingers around me squeeze. I struggle for every breath.
Its left hand still around me, the Virginia Creeper bends over.
With my sword, the man I freed hacks at the vines connecting the monster to its roots. He’s made it through half the creature’s left foot already.
“I will crush you!” The Virginia Creeper lifts that left foot of leaves and vines. Woody stalks and bright tendrils connect it to the ground, to its roots.
The man slides beneath that enormous foot. All the way down its length, he slashes with my sword.
He nearly disconnects the monster’s left foot entirely.
Around me, the Virginia Creeper’s fingers loosen.
The fingers of its left hand loosen. The monster’s connection to its root system fades.
The hole in its face that serves for a mouth bends into a frown.
That frown morphs into a chilling smile. The vines that extend from its head like Medusa’s snakes squeeze the bodies.
And squeeze.
And squeeze.
The corpses become dust. The Creeper grins.
Looks like it just powered up.
I tear a dagger out of its holster and mutter, “Gaah’zerya.” That purple light shines, but it’s far weaker this time, wispy instead of a dense fog. My magic’s running out.
With only one foot connected to its roots, the monster wobbles. Its time is running out.
Which will run out first, my magic or its time?
The creature’s vine-fingers spasm.
I jerk out of the monster’s hold, then sprint up its forearm.
A dead vine swings to me. Somehow, its dull yellow-brown color sparkles in the eerie green of the sunlight filtering through the leaves of a monster Virginia Creeper.
I grab it and swi-iiiiing.
I end up right back at the heart. Or rather, at the hole over the place where the creature’s heart should be.
Okay, fine, instincts. The heart it is. My bespelled dagger back in its sheath, I sit on the edge of the gaping maw that I created.
The monster hops and jumps, dodges and dances. It crushes the ground cover and underbrush and even a few half-grown saplings of the forest.
It does not crush the relentless man skidding and scurrying, slicing and cutting.
It does not throw me overboard.
The creature squats down.
My fingers wrap around the edge of the hole over its heart. My monster-butt-kicking boots sway above the abyss that is the inside of the beast.
With its giant viny hands, the Creeper swipes at the man.
He evades its attacks. Good for him.
Hope he can keep it up a bit longer. Cuz here goes nothing. On instinct alone, I drop into that hole over where the creature’s heart should have been.
Inside that abyss, I fall.
And fall.
And fall.
At least I’ve had a lot of practice with that today?
“Oof!” Butt first, I land on something hard and bumpy. Or is it lumpy?
My eyes adjust to the dark, but my night vision isn’t as spectacular as usual, thanks to my dwindling magic.
Turns out a tangle of woody vines broke my fall. It creates a platform of sorts, down here, maybe fifteen feet above the trampled ground.
Why did the monster Virginia Creeper grow a platform here? Who knows. Maybe it’s structural support or something.
Or maybe it’s a trap for humans.
Or a holding cell.
I smother the shiver.
High, high, high above me dangles a disco ball that matches this platform. Wood twists in and out and around itself, over and over and over again. It’s like knots on top of knots on top of knots that eventually form a misshapen sphere.
The beast lied. It does have a heart, and there it is.
It’s my turn to hack away.
Up the woven branches that create the inside of the gargantuan Virginia Creeper, I climb.
Up.
And up.
And up.
And up.
Finally, I’m level with that heart of a disco ball. Or is it that disco ball of a heart?
Doesn’t matter. With all that remains of my hunter magic, I leap.
I collide with the heart. It’s longer and wider than I am tall, and I dig my fingers and boots into the vines.
The heart swings back and forth beneath me. It tries to throw me off.
Like a bug to the windshield of a speeding car, I cling to it.
My body adjusts to that rocking motion. I work my bespelled dagger out of its holster. Those purple wisps have faded to a faint glow.
There’s no time to waste. I drill the fingers of one hand deep into the woody vines of the heart.
My other hand grasps the shimmering dagger.
With it, I slice and slash and gash.
And yes, I hack.
“Nooooo,” the monster screams.
A giant hand of leaves and vines strikes the hole I slid through. The whole chest cavity vibrates.
I keep slicing and slashing and gashing and hacking.
At last, my dagger cuts through the entire heart.
The vines connecting it to the Virginia Creeper wither.
They die.
They disintegrate.
The heart falls.
With it, I fall.
I release my blade—don’t wanna fall on it—and grapple with the heart. If I can get on top of it, maybe it can break my fall onto that woody platform far below.
All around me, vines twist away from the inside of the Virginia Creeper’s body. They go from green and verdant to brown and dead in the blink of an eye. Rank and unyielding, the reek of death follows them.
This time, I caused it.
Clinging to the side of the heart I killed, I reach for one of those dead vines.
It turns to dust.
I clasp another.
It fractures.
The wooden platform swells.
I bend and wrestle and climb. Somehow, I reach the top of the heart.
A vine swings toward me, this one with leaves.
This one alive.
I grab it.
It holds.
My feet leave the surface of the tumbling heart.
Snnnn-nap! My vine breaks. Its leaves turn yellow, then brown. Dry and dead, they splinter away from the vine and flutter through the air.
Several feet below me, the heart plummets on its own.
At least I’ve got that wooden platform. I’m close enough now that the fall shouldn’t kill me, even with my almost nonexistent magic.
The platform vibrates.
The platform shakes.
The platform shatters.
Filthy fetid feces.
Pure trampled forest floor rises to greet the heart, then me.
It rises to smash us both.
I get my feet beneath me, hold my breath, then brace myself for the collision.
Hope that vine slowed me down enough.
A gust of wind blasts into me.
I shoot to the side.
Crrrrr-ackl-ackl-chhhhht-t-tt! The heart hits the ground. It explodes into a million pieces.
And I somersault through the air, uncontrolled.
Shoulder, then hip, I crash into a pillow of leaves. They puff up around me. Their smell—the natural, fresh perfume of the forest—embraces me.
In the corner of my eye, my chipmunk blinks.
No, she winks.
I’m sorry, what? Since when do chipmunks have magic powers?
The man I rescued stands over me, my sword at his side. He offers me his free hand.
Despite the leaves that cushioned my fall, my body aches. But hey, I’m not dead, so there’s that.
And I suppose I can accept his help. This one time.
I grasp his hand, and he pulls me to my feet. His rugged chin jerks toward the pile of dead Virginia Creeper, like someone waged war upon a weed in their backyard. “Is it over?”
I tilt my head at the heap of brittle brown vines and leaves. My world is a little wavy, thanks to my magic being nearly gone. Good thing my final potion doesn’t require any magic from me. “Yeah, I think so. Just gotta give it a little herbicide to seal the deal.”
In a circle of devastated forest that will become a meadow, I step forward.
Rrrr-rustle.
I turn around.
Pus-and-poison.
A four-foot monster cocks its head like a child asking where its parent went.
For a moment, I pity it.
Until the baby Virginia Creeper scoops up my chipmunk and squeeeeeezes.
Nope, not today. Any droplet of remorse evaporates.
I rip my sword out of the man’s grasp. I launch into a vicious leap, slash, land, dip, slash again.
With those two slashes, I slice through its heart and through the vines connecting it to its roots.
With those two slashes, I kill the baby monster. Its vines wilt and die.
It had no hope against me.
Out of that pile of dead plant, my chipmunk scurries.
She climbs up my leg, up the side of my body, over my back, and onto my shoulder. Her nails curl into my shirt and prick my flesh. They steady her upon me.
Apparently, she’s going to stay there. I won’t chase her away, not after she maybe saved my life.
Besides, there’s no such thing as too much magic on your side.
The man next to me slips a finger onto her head and scratches behind her ear. Like a dog, my chipmunk leans into his caress.
I hand her a couple sunflower seeds. “Thanks for the soft landing.”
She shoves them into her cheeks.
My chipmunk on my shoulder, I sheathe my sword, then retrieve the herbicide potion from the pouch on my belt. I sprinkle it over both sets of roots.
Over at the base of the poor old oak tree the Virginia Creeper all but killed, the man bends over. He extends his hands over its bark and rests his forehead against its massive trunk. He closes his eyes.
Is that a tear rolling down his cheek?
Dripping from his jaw?
Falling onto the bark?
The tree perks up.
From his touch or his tear?
Doesn’t matter. In the decade of being a monster hunter or monster hunter trainee, I’ve never seen anyone heal a plant. Humans and animals, sure. An insect here and there. But never a plant.
By the time the man stands up, that ancient oak is as good as new.
His gray eyes widen. He backs away from the tree. He gestures toward it. “Did I… Did I do that?”
“Seems like. I didn’t do it, and neither did she.” I tilt my head toward the chipmunk on my shoulder. She stares at him in awe. To her, I whisper, “You know, you can go back. Your home’s as good as new now. I won’t be offended.”
My guts in knots, I tuck the glass bottle of herbicide potion back into its pouch. Between the root systems of the two monsters, only a couple drops remain. I’ll have to brew some more before I start my next commission.
The chipmunk chirrups. Sadness fills her voice, but resolve lies beneath it, hard as the steel of my sword. “No. There’s no going back. What’s done is done. Moving forward is all there is.”
Hmmph. Easy for her to say. She got her revenge.
But I’ll get mine too. Some day.
I bundle the proof of my kill, then grab my trusty walking staff. With it, I wave at the man. My chipmunk bobs with the movement, but she doesn’t budge from my shoulder. “C’mon. Time to get our money.”
Together, the three of us saunter out of the forest, safe for another day.
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This story was inspired by the Virginia Creeper that is constantly (and I do mean constantly) taking over my yard. And also my driveway. And possibly my sanity. 😂