Granny Thayer, Demon Slayer || Collab with CMF_Wright

Chapter 13: The Alpha

Long, long ago, before such modern inventions as the plow, the cellphone, and the wererabbit, cavepeople grunted their first words to express their primal urges. Must eat the steak. Must squish the spider. And even more commonly: Must make the woohoo. But it is a well-known fact that, since the beginning of time, a single primal urge has outshone all others:

Must touch the fluffy.

"BUNNY!" Saya squealed. She darted toward the wide-eyed rabbit, but Violet grabbed her shoulder to stop her.

"Saya, be respectful!" Violet scolded, even as her fingers twitched with the desire to stroke those furry ears. "A sensei's a sensei, no matter how cute, cuddly, and—Raj!"

Raj snatched his hand back just before touching the rabbit's head. He scrambled to his feet and shoved his fists in his pockets. "You're right, Violet," he agreed sheepishly. "One should never touch another person without permission, no matter how fluffy their ears are."

Saya pouted. "But—but how can I resist?"

'Meow,' Jiggles agreed, licking his lips.

"FORTY-THREE SECONDS!" screamed the loudspeakers.

Luckily, rabbits did not share the human fascination with touching the fluffy, probably because their schedule was already full, oscillating between the urges to run, hide, eat, poop, and hump all the things. In this particular case, the urge to run predominated, and a streak of white bolted out of the room.

The rest of the team raced after the bunny as he zigged down the hall and zagged toward the bathroom. LB wiggled under the door of the second stall, gnawed off a portion of zombified wall, and slipped through the hole to freedom.

Saya frowned at the tiny hole where he had disappeared. "Well, that's great for him, but will he actually save us? Or will he just join his friends in the forest?"

"He wouldn't abandon us," Violet assured the rest of the group. She felt quite certain she was right. Something about LB reminded her of Arty—moaning and groaning, but always dependable.

Bart glared at the hole where LB had disappeared. "Well, if he doesn't come back for the rest of us, I'm charging him the pet rate."

"FIVE POINT EIGHT SECONDS!" blasted the loudspeakers.

"Oh, dear," said Violet. "That's very little time. I wonder how LB will—"

But then Violet stopped wondering, because a hundred poisonous gas machines exploded all around them. Clouds of green smoke coiled through the air. Violet could only watch—bizarrely unaffected but more helpless than ever—as Raj, Saya, and Bart coughed and slipped to their knees. Even Jiggles curled up on the floor, trilled a questioning meow, and dropped his chin onto his paws.

Panic swelled in Violet's chest... but only for a moment. Then her eyelids drooped, and she too slumped to the ground. Barely conscious and unable to move, Violet distantly registered the sounds from the mayor's megaphone. There was hacking laughter—a gasp—a thump.

Then the tinny rattle of a key in the door...

The next thing Violet knew, she was on her hands and knees outside the motel, coughing violently. The motel had transformed into a billowing green mushroom, and lime mist fogged the air, obscuring the bodies sprawled across the ground.

Violet scrambled to her feet and glanced around her, frantically searching for the rest of her team. Raj sat ten feet away, rubbing his eyes. As Violet shot him a relieved smile, Bart came into view, wearing a blue cap with a green oval on the front that read, Outwit, Outplay, Outlast: Survivor.