The Shady Adventures of Fabian

Chapter 37

A moment later, as he crested a small hill, he almost smacked right into Brandon.

"No luck in this tree, sir. I searched it pretty thoroughly, although a couple branches broke under me and I fell to the ground twice. Say, why are you running? Did you encounter more zombies?"

"Zombies? No. I, uh, came to tell you the good news. I found the cat."

"That's wonderful! Where is it?"

"There's a guy back there who's holding it for me. But truth be told he's being kind of a jerk about handing it over. Now I could easily charm him into giving me the cat, but it occurred to me this would be an excellent opportunity for you to practice your diplomacy skills. So I figured rather than let you miss out on a valuable learning experience, I'd instead do the noble thing and let you talk to him. And if he won't listen to reason you can fight him."

"Surely it won't come to that," Brandon said. "Once I explain to him that it belongs to a nice lady who loves it to pieces I'm sure he'll be reasonable. Plus, we can always offer to split the reward with him."

"No we will not be splitting any rewards!" Fabian sputtered. "That money is mine! You hear me? Okay, if you want to offer to split it just to get him to hand it over I guess that would be all right, but we're double crossing him at the first opportunity we get. Now hurry and go talk to him. He's not too far behind me."

Balooga the Mighty emerged over the top of the hill with the cat sitting on his shoulder.

"Pardon me, sir," Brandon said.

"Get out of my way, boy," Balooga the Mighty said as he grabbed Brandon's face with his palm and shoved him to the ground.

"Are you just going to lay there and take that from him, Scrote?" Fabian asked. "That's pathetic. Get up and fight him."

"Okay, sir," Brandon said as he stood up and attempted to charge at the much larger man.

Balooga the Mighty grabbed Brandon by the throat, lifted him off the ground, and flung him to the side. He landed in a heap about twenty feet away.

Fabian had spotted a slightly thicker grove of trees on the other side of the hill and took advantage of Brandon's distraction to run and hide in it. He had just manage to conceal himself underneath an exceptionally large fern when he heard the sound of loud footsteps come crashing into the grove somewhere nearby.

"I know you're in here, you puddle of orc vomit. And when I find you I'm going to give you compound fractures in every bone in your body."

Fabian attempted to shrink down even further underneath the fern and tried to be as quiet as possible.

"Hey, what are you doing down here?" Druvidia asked as she suddenly materialized beside him.

Fabian almost let out a surprised yelp, but barely managed to stifle it. "Shh!" he hissed. "I'm hiding from a crazed psychopath. Keep your voice down."

"Oh, well, I just figured you'd want my zombie report. There's an enormous herd of them just a couple hills over to the west."

"I've got bigger concerns than zombies right now," Fabian whispered. "Now stop flapping your lips, woman. Can't you see I'm trying to stay unnoticed."

"Where is young Brandon?" Druvidia asked. "I can sense he is nearby, but without being in my forest I cannot pinpoint his exact location."

"I thought I told you to shut your mouth," Fabian said. "Scrote's fine. Don't worry about him. He's a big boy and can take care of himself."

"You left him out there alone to face this crazy person you're hiding from, didn't you?" Druvidia said.

"No. Well, I mean I guess sort of. But it wasn't intentional. I really thought he could take this guy. And then when it became obvious he couldn't I utilized the opportunity at hand to escape. It's smart strategic thinking really."

Druvidia got a blank expression on her face and then emerged from out of the fern. "Hey, big scary man!" she shouted. "He's over here!"

"You're a real ballbreaker, you know that?" Fabian said as he wiggled out from under the bush. He ran smack into a large solid body.

"There you are!" Balooga the Mighty yelled. "I'm going to set this cat in a nearby tree branch so I can beat your brains out properly. I intend to take my time and enjoy this."

"Yeah? Well, you're going to have to catch me first, asshole." Fabian dropped to the ground and wiggled between the larger man's legs. He leaped back to his feet once he was in the clear and took off running again.

It took the giant man a moment to realize what had happened and resume the pursuit. By this time Fabian had managed to gain a decent lead.

"He's going to catch you, you know," Druvidia said as she materialized right next to him. "It's only a matter of time. Then he's going to beat you senseless. That will be fun to watch. I'd like to see your legs snapped in half."

"Shut up, lady. You almost got me killed back there."

"That was the idea," she said.

"I happen to be rather fond of my skin and I'm not going to let some giant oaf like that take me down. And I'm certainly not going to let some stupid tree spirit lead to my demise. Now why don't you make yourself useful. Where did you say that zombie herd was?"

"To the west. About two or three hills over."

"All right, perfect," Fabian said as he changed course.

"You're running toward the zombies, you idiot," Druvidia said.

"Exactly," Fabian replied. He could already hear the moans and grunts and shuffling sounds of the herd as he reached the bottom of the third hill. There was a tree at the top of it and he scrambled up it as quickly as he could. From the top of it he could see and endless ocean of zombies ahead stretching as far as the eye could see.

A couple minutes later Balooga the Mighty came running up the hill. He raced past the tree underneath Fabian and ran smack into the zombie herd. He was instantly surrounded by hundreds of walking corpses who began ripping chunks out of him with their teeth and bare hands. He screamed in agony for a solid minute before he finally went silent.

"Now there's a beautiful sound," Fabian said as he wiggled back down the tree. "He had a lot of meat on him. That should satiate a few zombies for a while." He dusted himself off and looked out over the enormous herd of zombies. "Never thought I'd be glad to see a giant pack of rotten carcasses. Life's funny like that, huh? Now let's go back to that grove and grab that cat and get the hell out of here."