The Garden of Heathen

Strategy

Aussie appeared again, fully clothed, furiously towel drying her hair. Gertie regretted the shirt she picked for her because her wet hair had left almost transparent spots on the front and back. She glared at Gally to make sure he was behaving himself, and he just stared her down in return. She noticed his freckles slowly disappear however and lifted her hand to give him another good smack, but he pushed her away before she could.

Aussie flung the towel over the stall to dry and raked her fingers through her damp hair. It was usually pin straight and limp as an overdone noodle, but when it was wet it was practically alive. Her hair tie was wet and lying in the pile of her wet, blood stained clothes in the shower. She waved her hands in surrender, not about to deal with that right then.

"Oh, Gertie!" Aussie finally noticed her as she still attempted to antagonize Gally. "Did he tell you what happened?"

"Vaguely," Gertie grunted. "Very vaguely!"

"Well, it's horrible but I need you to come look at it. I need your professional opinion," Aussie told her, pushing back a tendril of hair that had fallen in her face.

"My opinion on what, a dead goat?" Gertie asked.

"Oh, no," Aussie assured her. "Not just a dead goat, a murdered goat."

Gertie stared up at her in disbelief, waiting for her to give some sign of joking, and she glanced at Gally to see if he would roll his eyes or give something away, but both of them looked dead serious.

"Oh yikes."

"Are you sure you wanna go back there?" Gally asked Aussie.

"No," Aussie blurted with a hint of a laugh, knowing full well how ridiculous it was. "But I have a suspicion and I just- I gotta know if I'm right."

"Ok," Gally sighed before heading back to scene of the crime, Aussie and Gertie trailing along with him.

"What the..." Gertie whispered when they came across the blood trail again.

"It's really bad, so just try to brace yourself," Gally told her.

Gertie was already unnerved. How badly could a goat die here with no predators?

Her eyes landed on the broken tree before Gally tapped her shoulder and pointed at the real massacre. She'd forgotten that they did live in a place with predators. Large ones that could knock over trees and fling bits of goat in them as well.

Grievers.

It wasn't the sight of blood and guts that bothered Gertie, those things never had. It was the thought of one of monsters being that close to them, that they didn't just stay in the maze anymore.

"You ok?" Gally asked her.

She swallowed hard and nodded. Joan was keeping a small crowd of girls who had come to investigate Aussie's scream back, but Georgia was closely examining things. Gertie joined her.

Gally noticed that Aussie wasn't by his side anymore and looked around for her. She was off near the broken trees and appeared to be searching for something.

"What are you doing?" He asked as he caught up with her.

"Something doesn't add up here," she said as she continued to meander aimlessly, staring at the ground.

"Like what?"

She straightened up and faced him, not flinching when he moved a tendril of hair out of her face as she started talking.

"I know it looks like a griever was here, but I don't think there was," she said. "I think it's staged."

"Aussie, will you come help me with the girls here?" Joan called.