I
really didn’t think that I would find myself adding another entry
today, but it’s certainly not the strangest thing that’s happened
in the last few hours. I thought meeting Meryle and her introduction
to Ani was strange enough, but then again, this seems to be what I
get for questioning if my life was really going downhill.
After
hearing back from Meryle’s foster family, I decided to give her a
lift back home using dad’s old truck. Meryle spent the next ten
minutes pitching a fit about not wanting to leave Ani, who managed to
convince her that going home was for the best. He also decided,
without asking mind you, that Meryle could come over and play as long
as her foster parents were okay with it. Meryle gleefully accepted
the offer and began rushing me to take her home as soon as possible
so that she could talk to her foster parents. No doubt about when she
could swing by for another play-date.
During
the ride, Meryle was quite the chatter box. She has a very vast
knowledge of fairy tales and folklore stuffed away in that tiny head
of her's. The ride into town takes at least twenty minutes and I
barely could ever get a word in on the conversation. The kid just
couldn't shut up for even a moment. Don’t get me wrong, I do think
it’s kinda cute to see a kid ramble on about something their
interested in, but this seemed almost like an obsession. 'She’s
just excited.' I kept telling myself. It’s not every day that your
make believe world is justified by something as extraordinary as Ani.
The thing about Meryle is that I’m starting to believe that her
obsession with tall tales is coming from some desire to escape
reality, but for what reason, I have no idea. I suppose the cop in me
can’t help but pick this kid apart and try to find out what the
problem is. But like I said, it’s not every day that something like
Ani comes into your life and rocks your whole out-look on the world.
The only real difference between me and this kid is that I chose to
deny what was happening around me, but she’s embraced it. So well
in fact that she now believes that her perceptions about what is and
isn’t real were always right.
As
we started to get near the city, I decided that it would be wise to
try and get Meryle to understand why it was so important that nobody
knows about Ani. I could tell that she wasn’t expecting that, but I
had to say something. It took Meryle a few minutes to realize why it
might be bad if people knew something like Ani was living just
outside the city. When she started to get the picture, she began to
tell me that she understood why keeping Ani a secret would be a good
idea. I made her pinky swear not to tell anyone, and she agreed. I
then started to ask her how she got lost in the forest, thinking that
maybe our recent girl talk might have allowed her to spill the beans
to me on why she was alone in the woods for almost half a day. Meryle
looked away from me and began to hesitantly tell me something, until
I got my second surprise of the day.
Speeding
straight for us was a man on a motorcycle. I rolled down the window
to wave at him in the hopes he’d move over to the other side of the
road, but he ignored it. I blasted the horn, but it too failed to
have any effect on the rider. It was then that I realized that
whoever this was, he certainly had no intention of getting out of the
way. This guy was going to slam into us, that much was clear. What I
couldn’t understand was why. I was left with only one thought in my
mind, Dynatech. There were so many Dynatech employees still in the
city and plenty of them knew my face after I got captured. I sure as
hell wasn’t going to risk Meryle getting caught up in a fight with
one of those Grim infected monsters like Dornan, so I did what I
thought was best… I hit the gas, and hit it hard. Those Dynatech
goons were tough but they weren’t stupid. Dad’s old truck was
over a ton of good old fashioned steel speeding along at sixty miles
an hour. That shitty bike was not going to save this guy’s ass if I
smashed into him, and I knew he would chicken out. Meryle could tell
something was wrong with me, but wasn’t tall enough to see over the
dashboard at what had been keeping my attention. I told Meryle to
hold on as tight as she could. But then, I freaked. I didn’t
consider the fact that if this guy might really be a Grim, he could
transform and smash into us with little to no harm to himself. I
popped my head out of the window and shouted at the top of my lungs
for the guy to get the hell out of the way, hoping in vain that I was
completely wrong about everything. He refused to slow down, but
before I could slam on the breaks, our rider rocketed into the air
and sailed clean over the truck landing behind us with barely a thud
and little more than a trickle of sparks as his bike grazed against
the pavement.
I managed to stop the truck and pulled over to the side
of the street. After catching my breath and my nerves, I got out and
decided to find out just what the hell was going on. The rider
started to come back towards us slowly and came to a stop about
thirty feet away. He was certainly cautious, something that a lot of
those Grim monsters were not. He was a tall rugged man in his late
twenties, maybe early thirties, dark brown hair, unshaven, and
sporting a leather biker jacket and green slacks. He dismounted his
bike and began to walk over. The rider paused and asked if I was Kate
Walker. I started to reach for my gun behind me, when Meryle broke
the tension by enthusiastically waving at the rider saying, “Hi~
Mr. Masters!”
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