Cursed Souls Blood, Brains & Rock'n'roll

Chapter 18 Long road not to home

Jeffrey was moving at a turtle's speed. Perhaps it was because he was a turtle himself. And it is probable that he had no name, especially not a name as absurd as "Jeffrey". Of course, that name was only absurd to a turtle. To a human, "Jeffrey" is as normal as "Bob" or "Theodore" or "Quetzacoatl."

Anyway, the turtle with the very strange for a turtle name "Jeffrey" was slowly crawling towards a great goal. Why he needed to get to this great goal, Jeffrey had no idea. He just crawled and crawled, trying not to become someone's lunch along the way. Although anyone who has ever tried to eat a live turtle in his life immediately became immune to such thoughts for many years to come. Not only does the turtle shell complicate the process of eating the animal, but the turtle can also bring an unpleasant surprise by trying to bite its opponent in response to such aggressive actions. Fair play has never been honored by the turtle family. That's why they prefer to hide in their shell and wait for the right moment to strike from undercover. Therefore, the most important rule of fighting with a turtle strictly forbids you to stick various parts of your body into the turtle shell.

If Jeffrey's brain was a little bigger, he would surely ask himself why the hell he spent half his life crawling towards some abstract goal. And if Jeffrey had a little knowledge of the animal world, he would know such a concept as "genetic memory". However, this concept could only explain his own actions, but it didn't answer the question that arose soon after learning about "genetic memory": why did any of his obviously crazy turtle ancestors decide to go somewhere stubbornly all their lives?

Fortunately for Jeffrey, his brain was quite tiny. Because, as you know, big brains cause big problems. If anyone doesn't believe that, they can ask the Neanderthals. Slowly shuffling his short legs, Jeffrey climbed out of the thicket of tall grass onto the asphalt road. Because of his lack of a decent brain, Jeffrey didn't even realize that he should have looked around before he did that.

A turtle flew at the speed of a space rocket out from under the wheels of a passing hatchback. Jeffrey had to thank whoever had thought shells would look funny on turtles.

Alan's smiling face was the first thing Will saw when he woke up. It was blurry and fuzzy, as if someone had forgotten to adjust the sharpening filter.

"Did I say something inappropriate in my dream?" Will asked worriedly.

"Nothing," Alan answered, smiling stupidly.

"What time is it?"

"It's almost twelve," Simon, who was sitting on the other side of Alan, answered, wrapped head to toe in a curtain.

Will shook his head, shaking off the last vestiges of sleep, and glanced at the front seats.

"Aren't you driving?"

"Brains..."

"I asked him to let me do it," Alice explained, keeping her eyes on the road and her hands on the steering wheel. "I thought I needed something to occupy myself and my head. I wanted to distract myself from all these recent events. Not to think every five minutes about vampires, zombies, and werewolves. And to forget about the crazy old man who'd almost shot me. And not think about the fact that my apartment is a mess right now, and there are probably some special agents going through my laundry right now, scraping baby Charlie's remains off the wall. Plus, I didn't show up for work today, and my boss threatened to fire me if I didn't show up at my office tomorrow. And I'm pretty sure the universe won't let me even think about that possibility tomorrow, not to mention make it a reality. When he calls tomorrow, I'll have to..."

"Alice, can I borrow your cell phone for a second?" Alan asked suddenly, pulling his face forward.

"Why?"