KvsW- Casefile [004][GRASSMAN]

A week or so later...

Chris and Dave had recovered from their wounds in short order, and had set to work establishing their new agency. Which they quickly discovered that they had no idea where to really start. So, they put out some ads on the internet, paid for a voicemail service, and reserved a vanity number for their hotline. To their delight, 1-800-NUGGETS was available for the taking. After that, they ended up was making a thread on /k/ showcasing their latest work in kebab removal.

As expected, most of the responses were calling them faggots and claiming the picture was photoshopped, but more than a few actually took it seriously, and their little hotline was already starting to see activity from /k/ommandos across the country. Activity spiked tenfold when someone crossposted a link to /x/. Of course, hardly anybody could actually afford to pay them anything, but seeing as how neither of them were strapped for cash in the first place, they didn't mind very much.

"So, we don't have any more potential cases in Michigan right now," said Chris, scanning e-mails, "but there's quite a few around the rest of the country."

"Like what?" asked Dave, busy cleaning his guns with loving tender care.

"Well, you got the usual suspects, sasquatch, the jersey devil, ayy lmao's down in New Mexico, el Chupacabra... some noguns britbong claims he saw the Loch Ness monster and wants us to stab it with sharpened butter knives..."

Dave snorted. "Anything more concrete than that?"

"Well... there's this one /k/ommando out in Ohio, has a SHTF bunker with a farm, claims something keeps running off into the woods with his cows and goats. Sent us a fuzzy video of something running off into the woods while he shoots at it." She turned the laptop towards Dave and played the video.
The first few seconds of the video were dark, and there were the telltale sounds of the camera being set down on a hard surface. Then, floodlights came on, illuminating a section of trees as bright as day. Something large and brown practically dove into the thicker foliage, out of sight. The /k/ommando in question then ran in front of the camera, completely naked. He dumped thirty rounds into the treeline, screaming "EEEEEH MACARENA MOTHERFUCKER!" After running out of bullets, he turned around, revealing a rather impressive erection to the camera. And that's where Chris cut it, right on that frame.

Chris snapped her fingers. "Hey, eyes up here. He's not wearing a skirt, so it's gay if you stare any longer."

Dave blinked several times and looked away from the screen. "Okay, so that looked real enough. Did he provide any more intel on what he thinks it might be?"

"Nope. Just gave us his address, posted a couple of pics of his compound, attached the video, and said, 'this big furry nigger keeps stealing my cows and goats, come shoot it,' in all caps."

"Straight to the point, I like it. So, road trip time?"

"I don't see why not. Maybe we can convince this guy to pay us in potatoes so we can make a vodka still?"

"You really know how to tap into a man's inner Stalker."

They loaded up the stationwagon with their hardware and set off south for Ohio. It should have been a simple 5 hour drive to the /k/ommando's SHTF farm, but it ended up taking a full 9 hours because the stationwagon refused to go faster than 45 miles per hour on the interstate. To pass the time, Dave had acquired the complete works of the Red Army Choir on a CD, and passed the hours singing along in his broken russian and terrible accent, making Chris wish for a bad case of tinnitus.

They drove through the night and arrived in the early morning at the /k/ommando's compound. A quick little drive up a narrow dirt road lead them into a clearing, with a small farmhouse and a barn, and a fenced in area with a few livestock milling about. Chris put the car into park and wailed on the horn a few times.

The /k/ommando came out of the house, obviously groggy and holding a double barreled shotgun, wearing a wifebeater shirt and a pair of ratty boxers. "Who the fuck are you?" he shouted.

"We're /K/ommandos Vs Wild, you're the one who requested us, yeah?"

"Oh, right. Got here bright and early, did ya? Come on in, I'll treat you to some breakfast." He turned on his heel and retreated back into the farmhouse. Chris and Dave dismounted and followed him inside.

The man was cracking eggs and frying up omelettes by the time they walked inside. "The name's Jackie, thanks for making the trip."

"No problem. We saw the video, a bit fuzzy but we got the general idea," said Dave. "Maybe you could tell us about it all from the beginning though?"

"Sure, over breakfast. Here-" he set down two plates on a little table by the kitchen, sweeping spent shell casings off the top, letting them clatter on the floor. He scraped the omelettes onto the plates. They were somehow both burned and still runny on the inside. But neither of them were about to complain.

Jackie ducked his head into a refrigerator. "Want some vodka?


"Don't you think it's a bit early to be drinking?" asked Dave.

Jackie stared at him like he'd grown a second head. "You sound like my ex-wife." He poured a glass for himself and sat down opposite the pair. "Alright, I don't have a lot of time, you see. Shit to take care of, animals to feed, fences to patrol, et cetera. I'll give you the rundown of what I know."

Dave and Chris leaned in slightly, paying attention.

"Okay, so this all starts off about two weeks ago. I got my compound here, I do checks on everything, and I count my animals to make sure none have wandered off or been stolen. Starts when I find that I'm missing a cow. So I go looking for holes in the fence, thinking there's one and the cow's just run off. I'm right, there's a hole in the fence. But it's a big fucking hole, with posts torn out of the ground."

He gestured outside; the fence that was surrounding the livestock was indeed a rather hefty one, with metal bars and chain link, at least fifteen feet high..

"No way a cow did that, so the next day I'm on high alert. And yet somehow I lose another cow, and a goat, after patching the fence. And this continues, day after day. Something breaks down my fence, steals some cows and goats, and there's no trace of 'em in the morning. Half of my fucking herd goes missing like this. Until the night before last, when I finally catch the sonofabitch redhanded. Tossing my fucking goats over the fence and into the woods like they're baseballs or something."

Chris's brow was furrowed the whole time. The story sounded insane, but she believed every word of it.

"I had enough of that shit, so I get my camera, turn on the floodlights, and you seen the rest on the video. Dives right through the hole in the fence. Didn't see 'em last night, though. So maybe I scared 'em off. But I don't wanna take the chance."
Jackie indicated to the pair that he was finished talking by chugging down his glass of vodka.

"Okay," said Dave, running through the story in his head, "Now that we got all that, maybe you could also give us a better description than what you gave in the e-mail?"

"Nope. I meant what I said because that's what I saw. Big furry nigger stealing my goats and cows and jumping away like a basketball star. I'd call it a Sasquatch but everyone knows they're slow and lumbering and shit, they wouldn't sprint like that, I don't think."

"Alright, we'd have liked more actionable intel, but I suppose that'll do for now," said Dave. "Would you mind us camping out on your land for a day or two to scope things out?"

"I don't mind one bit. Hell, if you can catch this fucker, you'll have earned a free invite to stay in my bunker when the nukes go off." He stood up and pushed his chair in, cracking his knuckles and popping his back. "Alright, well this was fun, but now I gotta go tend the land. And you two have some work to do as well. Let me know when you find something." Jackie grabbed an AR-15 from a shelf and walked outside at a brisk pace.

Dave turned to Chris, who was still in thought. "What do you think?" he asked her.

"Dunno. Maybe we're dealing with an actual bigfoot here and not one of the many thousands of hoaxes of it?"

"One way to find out, eh? Let's get the gear from the car."

They went back to the stationwagon to fetch a couple of severely overstuffed duffel bags, and to don all of their gear. Dave put on his plate carrier and a woodland patterned BDU jacket over it, and his hip holsters over his matching pants. He took his lever action rifle from the trunk last, and held it in his free hand.

Chris, on the other hand, had a MOLLE vest with a few clips of 7.62x39 stuffed into the pouches, over a long sleeved dark grey shirt and faded jeans. Since her AK had caught fire on their last hunt, she had brought along just her SKS, and its bayonet was stuffed into her boot. She tied her long hair into a quick ponytail and picked up her duffel bag. "Ready now. Lead on," she said to Dave.

They went hiking into the woods. For the most part, the land was flat and even, but densely forested, with a few hills and clearings breaking things up. They hiked for a mile or two outside of Jackie's compound, eventually settling on a nice clearing by a brook. They set up their camp with a tent and a few noise traps made from soup cans. Chris wanted to dig out some static defenses, especially a few punji spike pits, but Dave ended up talking her out of it, citing that he might fall in if he went for a piss in the middle of the night.

Without an internet connection, they soon found themselves rather bored. They'd walked all over the immediate area, scouring for further clues, but nothing of substance had come up. Chris ended up tying her bayonet to a stick and trying to stab trout in the brook. Dave went for another once-over of the land and the area around the compound before it got dark. When he returned to the campsite, he found Chris triumphantly cooking a fat trout over a campfire.

As night fell and they shared in the spoils of her hunt, Dave broke out his harmonica and attempted to play the opening bars to "Smoke on the Water."

Chris smirked at the poor display of musical ability. "Stick to the karaoke, man."
Dave just shrugged and tucked the little instrument back into his pocket. "You did state profusely on the drive over that you hated my singing voice."

"Yeah, but you're even worse with the harmonica."

"Har har."

A period of silence passed, with surprisingly little awkwardness. They listened to the crackling of their campfire, and the sounds of insects and nocturnal birds in the trees. Dave lay down on his back, looking up at the stars while Chris fiddled with her weapon.

"Hey, Chris?" asked Dave from his prone position. "What if this turns out to be nothing?"

"Well, then we go back to Michigan and keep looking about for more promising cases."

"What if all those turn out to be nothing as well? What if we just hit a really lucky fluke, and we never encounter another cryptid again? What would you think of all that wasted time?"

She stopped messing with her rifle for a moment to give it some thought. "Well... first off, I wouldn't call any of that time wasted. I mean, didn't that one dude say that time doing something you love is never time wasted? Literally all I do for fun is camp and shoot guns and shitpost."

"Uh-huh."

"And secondly, don't some people dream of doing what we're doing right now, but getting to do it all the time? After all, people go backpacking through fucking Europe to 'find themselves,' whatever hippie bullshit that is. Maybe this is our version of that. If it is, there are worse people to have around for it."

"I'm touched, I could almost shed a tear."

She chuckled. "Don't be a dipshit when I'm giving you a compliment. Because I do mean it. You can be a massive cockgargling faggot a lot of the time... but overall, you're pretty cool, to me at least."

Dave propped himself up on his elbows to look at her with a smirk. "Look who's all tsundere all of a sudden."

"Shut up... baka..."

There was another easy period of silence, broken by Chris yawning.

"Tired?"

"Yeah, a bit," she said, stretching and getting up on her knees.

"Maybe we should hit the hay for now. After all, we have a bunch of noise traps set up. Anything approaches, and we'll know it's coming."

She nodded. "Yeah, we'll just keep the guns close at hand." She made her way over to the tent and crawled inside.

Dave grunted and set up his duffel bag as a pillow behind his head. His rifle lay across his lap.

Chris poked her head out of the tent. "You're going to sleep outside?"

"Well, yeah, isn't that how we've been doings things up to this point?"

"But what if it starts raining?"

"There's no rain in the forecast, I checked. Just clear skies for the next week."

"Alright... if you insist... just letting you know you don't have to sleep out in the open."

"Mhmm." Dave seemed to remain oblivious to her hint, and she pulled her head back inside the tent.

She tossed and turned in her sleeping bag for a little bit. "Hey, Dave?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you take any of it personally?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I know I'm a bit... verbally abusive sometimes... okay, a lot of the time... but... you don't take it personally, right?"

"Of course not. Why would I?"

"I don't know..."

"Then don't worry about it. It's totally fine."

She exhaled with a bit of relief, and turned onto her side, closing her eyes. "Goodnight, Dave."

"You too, Chris."

Chris tried to fall asleep, listening to the crickets and owls, turning on one side and then the other. But she still found herself awake, thinking of Dave out in the open. She stuck her head outside the tent again.

"Hey, Dave," she started, "About you sleeping outside, when I- hmmph!"

She found herself cut short by Dave's hand clasping over her mouth. She was about to bite down on it when she noticed he wasn't even looking at her, rather he was looking off into the darkness. Then she noticed the sound.

plink plink plink
plink
plinkplink plinkplink

The sound of pebbles rattling inside tin cans.

She ducked back inside the tent to grab her SKS.

Before she could climb back out, something massive slammed into the side of the tent and sent it flying with her inside. A massive weight pinned her to the ground. Dazed and confused, she heard Dave struggling with something. Then she heard a THUMP, like a body hitting the ground. Followed by the telltale noise of something being dragged away through leaves.

"Dave! Daaaave!" There came no response.

She pushed at whatever was pinning her to the ground, but it wouldn't budge. Both of her legs were trapped. However, she was able to reach the bayonet in her boot. She cut away the fabric of the tent to see what was holding her down.

"Holy shit! Oh my fucking god!"

It was a dead cow, or rather, what was left of one, skinned, gutted and headless. The stench of blood made her gag, and she redoubled her efforts to free herself.
Chris struggled for a while, slowly inching her legs out from under the animal's mutilated corpse. When she finally pulled them free, they were numb, but otherwise still functional.

She stumbled over to grab her rifle and flashlight from the ruined tent, then went plodding off into the night.

"Same shit different day," she muttered to herself, following the trail of disturbed leaves. "This is starting to become like a song and dance routine..."

She went along trudging through the leaves, tracking beast that had taken Dave. There was no blood she could see, so she hoped that he he was still alive at that point.

Then the trail stopped. Right in the middle of the forest. She looked around, confused, thinking that maybe she just hadn't been paying close enough attention, but even after searching it still came up that the tracks just suddenly stopped.

She cupped her hands to her mouth. "Daaaaave!" She spun about, looking for any indication of where the beast might have headed. "Where did you fucking take him? Where the fuck are you, you sasquatch piece of shit?!"

She felt indescribable dread rising up through her gut, gripping at her chest. Terrible thoughts found their way into her head. 'You'll never find him out here. Even if you did, all you'd find is his body, mangled like that cow...' She didn't want to let those thoughts take hold, to give them credence. She picked a direction and started jogging, scanning with her flashlight.

"Daaaave!"

Meanwhile...

Dave was just barely on the edge of consciousness, only vaguely aware as to what was happening to him. He had the sensation of being pulled by the legs, dragged across the ground. Then he felt himself being lifted up off the ground and put over something's shoulder. Past that, everything else just a blur right up until he regained his senses.

The first thing he noticed was that he was upside down. Hanging from his feet, in fact. His arms were bound at his sides by some sort of crude rope as well, preventing him from moving about.

He was in some sort of cave, dimly lit by a small fire near the center. Something large was squatting in front of the fire, its massive shadow dancing on the wall due to the flames. It seemed to be holding a piece of meat over the fire... the thigh of something, probably from a goat. Further off in the cave, he saw piles of animal corpses, which would have served as the source of the piece of meat. The stench was nearly overwhelming.

He gagged slightly, and the large figure turned around suddenly. It stood up to its full height, and Dave estimated it was at least eight feet tall.

It stalked over to him, goat leg still in hand. It appeared to be covered in thick, wiry fur at a first glance, but as it neared, Dave noticed that it wasn't fur, but bits of grass and moss woven together to form a cloak. It bent down so its face was level with his, and blew hot air out of its nostrils. It resembled a great ape, perhaps a gorilla mixed with an orangutan, but bony and lanky. The cloak did a good job of hiding the creature's malnourished frame.

It blew more hot air in his face, then with clawlike fingers, tore a small chunk off the goat's leg and held it up Dave's mouth. It easily forced his jaw open and pushed the mostly raw meat inside, causing him to choke and spit it up.

That seemed to annoy the creature, and it flicked him in the side of the head hard enough to make him dizzy. Then it repeated the process.


The creature tried to feed Dave again and again and again, until he fell unconscious from a combination of being smacked in the side of the head over and over, and vomiting several times in succession.

The creature seemed perplexed, as if it didn't understand why the human wouldn't accept its special brand of hospitality. It shoved the remainder of the goat meat into its maw, crunching on the bone, and cut Dave down, letting him fall into a heap on the cave floor.

It dragged him over near the little fire and started pulling off the ropes around him, and then set to work on taking off all of his clothing, tossing them over to another corner of the cave. It covered him up with a mat of woven grass and moss, similar to the cloak that it wore. It left Dave there as it went to the entrance of the cave and exited.

Elsewhere...

Day was breaking and Chris was still no closer to finding any trace of Dave or the creature. She returned to the campsite, finding everything as she had left it. The dead and gutted cow was still there, lying on top of her smashed tent. Dave's rifle and pack were resting on the ground, left behind.

She sat down beside the pack, watching the sun crest over the trees, resting her head in her hands.

"Goddammit... goddammit, Dave... please don't be dead..."

The thoughts she was having earlier started to return, and this time she couldn't stop them. She started to talk to herself.

"This was always a bad fucking idea... I forced you into this, didn't I? You were trying to impress me or something... fuck, why did you have to try... why didn't I just say no..."

She resolved that since she couldn't find him herself, she was going to have to go to the police. But she put as little faith in their abilities to find him as she did in her own.

She heard branches snapping a short distance away, and she broke away from her depressed musing. She crawled as quietly as she could away from the campsite, concealing herself in a nearby thicket. No sooner as she'd done that, she heard a loud thump as the creature landed on the ground.

'The trees,' thought Chris, watching intently, holding her breath, 'That's how it got away from me, it took to the trees...'

In the morning light, she saw its lanky frame, covered up with the grass cloak. Despite the lack of visible muscle mass, it picked up the cow carcass like it was nothing, and shouldered it.

The famed Ohio Grassman, in all its terrible glory, leapt back into the trees, carrying the dead cow.

Chris sprang out of the thicket and sprinted as hard as she could determined to not lose sight of the beast. She had a hard time of it, though, dealing with the uneven terrain and the Grassman's unnatural speed in the trees. Still, she sprinted on, intent on finding Dave, the thought of him still being alive driving her on.

For a very long time, longer than she even thought herself able to, she sprinted and ran and huffed, chasing the beast. She ran and ran until eventually her legs collapsed from underneath her, leaving her a panting mess, staring ahead from her prone position as the beast escaped.

She started to cry, unable to will herself to get up, fully exhausted, her muscles aching and burning. But even so, she started to crawl, her face pointed upwards at the trees, following a barel visible trail of broken branches in the canopy.

"I'm going... to fucking... murder... the shit... out of you," she muttered under her breath between gasps. Over and over, like a mantra. Like a prayer to the /k/ube. She crawled forwards, bayonet in hand.

The /k/ube must have heard her prayer, for she found the strength to keep crawling, then to get up, then to stumble forwards. Stumbling, stumbling... falling? Falling!

"SHIIIIIIT!"

"Oof! Fuck! Sonuvabitch!"

Chris rolled down into the pit, bouncing off of the stone walls, sliding down further and further until she hit the bottom. She groaned in pain, utterly miserable.

But she was still conscious, aware that she had fallen into a cave of some sort... one with a strange amount of light...

She struggled to her feet, bayonet still in hand, and saw the Grassman before her. But it didn't seem to have noticed her, because it was much more focused on something else.

She froze up in terror when it all came together.

Dave.

Unresponsive.

Naked.

Face down.

Ass up.

About to be mounted by an apparently EXTREMELY horny sasquatch.

With the fury of a thousand drunken Valkyries, Chris let out her warrior shriek and charged the Grassman, jumping on its back, sinking her blade into it.

The beast leapt up, howling and hooting like a chimpanzee, attempting to shake her off. But she held fast, and continued stabbing.

In a fit of desperation, it backed up to the cave wall and started slamming her against it. The tactic worked, and Chris slumped to the floor, the wind knocked out of her.

The Grassman, enraged at Chris's cockblocking efforts, grabbed her by the throat and lifted her, slowly tightening its grip, crushing her windpipe.

It was going to snap her neck. And then likely sodomize her corpse afterwards.

She couldn't allow that to happen. Bringing the bayonet back up, she stabbed it through the hand, making it howl in pain and drop her.

Unfortunately, this left her without a weapon. The beast extracted the blade frommotsnhand and tossed it away into a dark corner. It slowly advanced on her with hungry eyes.

Chris was too weak to do much else at this point. Her exertions were taking their toll. She crawled away from the creature, but there was nowhere to run...

She propped herself up against the cave wall at the far end, watching the Grassman stalk towards her to take its revenge. She only hoped it would kill her before anything else, to spare her the misery and humiliation.

She wondered why the cave floor was so comfortable for a moment, and saw she was sitting on Dave's discarded clothes. And her hand was resting atop something hard... and cold... something metallic...

Dave's 10mm revolver, still in the holster. She wrenched it free as the beast fell upon her, gripping her throat once more and lifting her off the ground.

She kicked her legs and gasped for air, to no avail. The beast held her higher, and squeezed her throat even harder, cutting off the bloodflow to her brain.

It was now or never for her.

With the last bit of her strength, she levelled the barrel of the revolver with the Grassman's right eye socket.

BANG

The beast stumbled back, releasing her from its iron grip. Chris fell to the floor, gasping.

The beast held a hand up to its now missing eye, as if trying to stem the bleeding. A moment later, it fell backwards, slowly at first, like some old tree that had been cut down at its base.

WHUMP

Chris crawled over to Dave, checking his pulse and breathing. She cried tears of joy upon finding he was still alive. She hugged him and held him close, not once minding his lack of clothes as she passed out from her exertions.

Dave slowly came to once more, feeling like charbroiled dog shit. His head was pounding. He was nauseated. He tasted his bile in his mouth. He was naked. He looked over and saw Chris beside him, her arms wrapped around him.

"What the fuck happened last night..." he asked to no one in particular.

Despite his lack of clothes, Dave made sure to check her over. There were marks on her throat, bruises turning a slight shade of purple. There were scrapes all over her hands and arms and face, but otherwise, she didn't seem very gravely injured.

He lightly tapped her cheek. "Chris, can you hear me?" That elicited a groan, and Dave decided it might be more prudent to dress himself before attempting to rouse her. He found his clothes nearby and hastily pulled them on. He found his revolver and put it back in its holster. He found a bayonet covered in blood and put it in his pocket. saw the body of Harambe's rapey cousin lying near the mouth of the cave, full of stab wounds, and its eye missing and a portion of the back of its skull blown out. Dave knew he hadn't been the one to do that.

Finally decent, he knelt beside Chris and lifted her torso up a bit, cradling her in his arms. "Hey, Chris... come on, wake up," he said quietly, holding her close.

She stirred again, groaning. "Five more fucking minutes..."

He smirked. He was content to give her that, though he had to get her out of that cave to get away from the stench of rotting flesh. Mustering his strength, he picked her up in a bridal carry, and with careful footing, brought her outside into the brightness of the daylight.

Chris really wasn't that heavy, especially since most of her gear was probably left behind at the campsite. He set her back down at the mouth of the cave, cradling her again.

She groaned with great displeasure and covered her eyes. "Fuck you, sun..."

Though for Dave, the sunlight did help make the situation more clear. She'd very obviously taken off in a hurry, armed only with a bayonet, likely in pursuit of him. Then she'd fallen down into the cave, and Harambe the Bigfoot had tried to strangle her to death.

That last part was harder to swallow. She nearly died trying to save him. It wasn't just a nebulous threat that could kill them, that they could fight off together, like the other times. He'd been incapacitated, useless. And the creature had almost choked the life out of her, leaving long purple bruises matching the contour of its fingers. And to top it off, he could see from her cheeks that she'd been crying.

This wasn't supposed to be how it worked, was it? Wasn't he supposed to be the one risking his neck (quite literally) to save her?

She started to sit up by herself, taking her hand off her eyes, but still squinting in the brightness. It gave her the appearance of being royally pissed off, but even so she managed a smirk. "You know, I was running across half the state looking for your ass..."

"Heh... I can sorta tell... was that your handiwork back in the cave?" his voice was trembling a bit, but he tried to hide it.

"Mhm. Made sure the fucker won't ever get back up." She had slipped back into her old round-around-the-edges attitude by now. And she was much better at hiding her emotions than he was.

Dave nodded slightly. "Good... nice job... he, uh... looks like he gave you a hell of a fight..."

She just shrugged, and felt at her throat. "You saw what he looked like, so take from that what you will." She slowly climbed to her feet, gritting her teeth and exhaling through her nose.

"Are you alright?" Dave asked, standing up with her, an arm around her shoulder.

She brushed him off. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fucking fine. Just really goddamn sore." She stretched her legs several times, but it didn't help much. "Hey, do you have your GPS unit?"

"Yeah, I-"

"Good, then go ahead and mark our coordinates so we can hand them off to Farmer Brown, unless you feel like decapitating Mister Grassman back there and bringing in the head for the bounty."

He nodded and recorded their location, then slipped the little unit back into his pocket and returned to her side. She was popping a crick out of her back, and groaned with pleasure when it cracked.

"So, uh," Dave started. "You called it a Grassman?"

"Yeah, Ohio Grassman, the bigfoot variety in this region?"

"There are varieties of bigfoots?"

"Yeah, it's like... you know, fuck it, doesn't matter. Let's just head back to camp, get our reward, go home. Sound good?"

"Yeah, I... sounds good."

Chris followed her through the forest in silence, not really sure of what to say. It wasn't a comfortable silence like the night before. And it made him feel more and more like a useless piece of shit.

Nightfall.

The pair returned to the farmhouse of Jackie the /k/ommando. Dave knocked on the door.

"Think he's still awake-"

They were suddenly blinded by floodlights coming on all around them, and Dave was knocked back as the door was kicked open. Jackie came out, his AR-15 at the ready, before realizing the dazed and confused people knocking on his door were, in fact, not ATF agents sent to shoot his pupper. "Whoops, sorry guys, nearly ventilated ya!"

"You fucking asshole, you nearly made me shit myself!" cried Chris.

"I said I'm sorry. Now, what about the big furry nigger? Did you get it?"

"Yeah, we'd tell you all about it if you turned the fucking floodlights off!"

Jackie hit a light switch and watched the pair rub their eyes. "Man, you guys look like boiled shit."

"Right back at you, old man."

A quick summary of events followed over some well-earned glasses of vodka, and the pair passed off the coordinates to Jackie in case he wanted to have proof of their account. He seemed content to take them at their word, however. Elated at the news that his land was now free from cow and goat burgling gorillas, he took a celebratory photo with them to post on /k/ later. His crazed smile contrasted heavily with their scowls.

"Now, I wanna thank ya guys for all your efforts, but, I can't exactly afford to pay you. In cash, at least. But what I can do..."

An hour later, Dave and Chris were back on the road, the trunk of the stationwagon loaded down with a dozen large jugs filled with homemade vodka.

Dave was driving, and Chris was sleeping in the passenger's seat. Her face was illuminated every so often as they passed under streetlamps, and Dave couldn't help but look over at her. She wasn't sleeping very peacefully. She making facial expressions and shifting her position, as if she was in a very vivid dream. Something was bothering her, enough to give her a nightmare of some sort. But he wasn't going to ask her about it. One thing he'd learned about her early on, was that she was extremely cagey. She wasn't going to tell him, and any attempt to push the subject would earn him a punch to the nuts. So he just put it out of his mind.

He let out a solemn sigh, and just focused on the road, and the drive back home to Michigan.