Eight Legs Too Many

Chapter 17: Shiori has an awkward encounter with a park ranger

Shiori stared frantically into the gloom. "Devland!" she called—and then, she repeated his name, louder, so the sound echoed through the trees:

"DEVLAND!"

No answer.

Shit, thought Shiori, shit, shit, shit!

She stared over the cliff edge, searching for some sign of life, but the impending darkness, coupled with the dense foliage and even denser octopus rain, made seeing anything—much less the mutilated corpses of a tiger and a human—almost impossible.

He wasn't supposed to die today, she thought numbly. His death day wasn't supposed to be for another two weeks!

But maybe Fate, or the servants of the underworld, or whoever came up with these calendar deadlines—maybe they weren't very particular about being exactly on time. Maybe a couple weeks, give or take, didn't matter.

Unbidden, tears sprang to her eyes.

How stupid, she thought. She'd known him less than a week. It wasn't like she'd developed feelings for him. He'd been trying to use her after all, and he'd forced her to interact with more strangers in a single week than Shiori had spoken to in the last two years.

She would not cry.

She wouldn't.

Except... it was hard to ignore how, for two shining days, she'd felt just a bit less alone in his presence. An odd sense of camaraderie had sprung up between them, despite the fact that he and Death had dragged her on this journey against her will. Once you'd gotten used to the feeling of being less alone, it was hard not to want to continue.

And overall, he wasn't a bad person. He had saved her life just now. He might have done some questionable things in Death's service, but surely he hadn't done anything that meant he deserved to die...

"Ugh," said Shiori wetly. Crying inside of a hazmat suit was the worst. She couldn't wipe her eyes on her sleeve, much less blow her nose, and the face shield was fogging up dreadfully.

If it hadn't been for the tigers, Shiori didn't know how long she might have stayed there, shivering on the cliff edge, trying to find some glimpse of Devland's mangled body down below. But she was distracted by an orange shadow slinking its way down the cliff.

This tiger was hungrier and leaner than its counterparts. He—Shiori didn't know for sure it was a male, but she thought she saw some dangly bits—glared at her menacingly, his eyes glinting green through the darkness.

Shiori leapt to her feet. At the same moment, the tiger bounded forward. Shiori grabbed a narrow tree trunk, using it as leverage to swing her body out of his way. The tiger missed her by inches, then spun, angling his scrawny body toward her for another pass. In a feat of dexterity that surprised even her, Shiori swung forward off the tree, kicked the tiger in the face—he let out a startled yowl—and bolted past him, down the mountain.

By now, the octopuses were layered an inch thick. Shiori soon lost her balance. She found she was practically sledding down a river of octopuses, trying desperately to grab at passing trees to slow her course. A snarl behind her told her the tiger was hot on her trail. Any moment now, she would collide with a tree and that would be the end of her. An ignominious end to an already ignominious day.

A shout reached Shiori's ears. Still whizzing down the hill, her body cushioned by octopuses, Shiori tried to track down the source of the noise. Ahead loomed a cabin—a cabin she was approaching with alarming speed. A car was parked beside it, and the road leading up to the cabin was paved.