Animal Nature

Chapter 37

There was the little matter of a dead body in the school to deal with. David had suggested leaving it there, but Shyanne didn't want anyone tracing the gun back to her. After David sneaked down to the locker room to put on his gym clothes, leaving Shy alone for a nightmarish ten minutes, they carried Heath's body down the back stairwell and into the school parking lot, out to the dumpster just behind the cafeteria, pausing at every doorway and corner.

It was a miracle no one saw them.

Or not a miracle – Shy realized now how much more she could hear, how she could smell if anyone was close.

The plastic sacks inside the dumpster cushioned the falling body. They stared down at him, bare ass facing up in the moonlight.

"We'll leave him here for now. Tomorrow we can get some trash bags and hide him. The trash truck will come, and no more problem," David said.

Shy had her doubts, but she didn't have any other ideas. "Should we go back and try to find the bullet?" she asked, then, "How did no one hear the gunshot?"

"The music is so loud in the gym, you could set off a bomb and no one would hear it. Or they might hear it, and then when they didn't hear it again, they figure it's all safe." David shook his head. "Humans are funny like that."

Shy found herself smiling, imagining that someday she would be able to say things like that. Humans. She was already thinking of a dozen experiments to perform on herself, and the journal she would need to start keeping.

David's hand threaded through hers. "Do you still want to go to the dance?" he asked.

"After all that?" Shy glanced at the dumpster. Then she squeezed David's hand. "Yeah, kind of." What she really wanted to do was go someplace private with David... but she wasn't sure she trusted herself. "But you don't have a costume."

"I have my costume in the car," he said, and tugged her towards where he had parked.

They laughed at the fake-looking wolf's head mask, and the baggy fur suit. Shy hid her gun in his glove compartment, although she decided to keep the knife on her, just in case. Then they ran all the way back to the front door, and into the gym. Mara waved at them, still covered in red paint, and they joined a group of people they barely knew.

Once upon a time, Shy would have been too shy to go on the dance floor, but tonight she danced until the very last song.

THE END

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It's done!  Thanks to everyone who's been reading this -  I hope it was a fun ride!

I do have some plans for a sequel - I've always planned to make this a trilogy, with other books being titled "Animal Attraction" and "Animal Instinct."  But I haven't started writing them yet... so it may be a bit of a wait until I actually get it done...