Devil's Soul

Chapter 38 (family road trips are a blast)

I had always liked the idea of family road trips, but without a car, I might as well have been fantasizing about trips to the moon. Plus, my family consisted of just my mom, and my road trip fantasies weren't complete without siblings. People with siblings have told me that I'm lucky to not have them because siblings fight. And apparently when you stick siblings together in a car for several hours, the fights increase exponentially. Nonetheless, the idea of driving across the country with a mom, dad, brother, and sister had always seemed so magical to me.

I say "had" because this fantasy was abruptly tainted by the strange people that were now standing in for my family.

I'd had a hard time convincing Rumpels to allow the boy, who turned out to be named Sasha, to ride in the back of the car. Rumpels didn't completely understand what had happened or who had attacked him, but he'd seen Sasha pull away from him when I'd illuminated the area with headlights. He had not been keen on letting the "monster boy" ride in the car with us. Fortunately, at that point, Sasha looked like a pretty innocent child with pathetic blue eyes that could not be reckoned with. He claimed to be unable to go back to his family, and Rumpels wasn't completely heartless. He agreed, but only after showing Sasha his gun and warning him to not try anything. Sasha was surprisingly unperturbed by the gun, but he took the warning seriously.

The end result was Sasha sleeping in the back, with the lights on in the car, just as a precaution. Only apparently he wasn't sleeping because Rumpels was talking quite loudly and animatedly about water polo and its nonexistent relationship with horses. Sasha finally sat up and interrupted Rumpels, "Can't you shut up?! Some of us are trying to sleep here!"

I glanced over my shoulder, just to make sure Sasha wasn't losing his humanity again. Nope. His eyes were still baby blue. He was just being a ten-year-old boy.

"Watch your language," Rumpels retorted.

"What? You think 'shut up' is a bad word? How do you like this one? Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck,..." He continued on like that for quite a while, and Rumpels grew more and more disgruntled.

"Stop that!"

"...fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck..."

Rumpels launched himself toward Sasha as far as he could, which wasn't far since he was sitting in the front seat, wearing a seat belt. Rumpels flailed his arms. It wasn't clear if he was trying to hit Sasha or grab him or what, but whatever he was trying to do, he wasn't making much progress. Sasha easily jumped out of the way (he wasn't wearing a seat belt), and continued merrily with his chant. The boy was actually beginning to laugh now. He'd been angry before, but now he was enjoying this fun game.

I was glad Sasha and Rumpels were learning to get along, but if this went on any longer, I was going to have that word ringing in my head for the rest of eternity.

"It's not funny! Just be quiet and put your seat belt on. I refuse to get pulled over by the police because you decided to live out your days as a foul-mouthed monkey!" Rumpels protested, finally realizing that his flailing wasn't doing much good.

"...fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck..."

"Okay!" I said loudly. "I think it's time for us to find a motel!"

This news didn't stop either of them, and they were still going at each other, even as I pulled in front of the motel lobby.

"Rumpels," I said over Sasha, who was now chanting almost mechanically as he stared out the window.

Rumpels peeled his glare away from the disinterested Sasha to look at me.

"I want you to go inside and get a room for your loving family," I instructed.