Where the Dead Things Bloom [55: Keep Moving]

Nessy's eyes fluttered open, immediately squinting against the light filtering through the quilted walls of Jim's spare bedroom. She groaned, rolling onto her side and pressing her paws against her temples.

"Urgh... my head feels like it's being used as a drum kit for a death metal band," she whined, slowly pushing herself upright. Taking in the unfamiliar surroundings, she blinked in confusion. "Where the heck are we? Bed, Bath, Infinity and Beyond?"

Krysanthea, who had been sitting nearby, looked up from polishing her claws. "You're awake. Finally."

"How long was I out?" Nessy asked, rubbing her eyes.

"About eighteen hours," I answered, sitting down beside her on the mattress. "How do you feel?"

"Like someone hollowed out my skull and filled it with verrrry angry bees," she muttered, then perked up suddenly. "Got any coffee? I need my fix."

"Absolutely not," Krysanthea said firmly. "You're banned from coffee. Permanently.”

“Whyyy?” Nessy whined.

“You know why,” Kristi replied sharply.

“It was for the greater good of the pack vibes,” Nessy let out.

“I hope that you realize that I’m this close to chewing your face off, dog,” Kristi growled, showing a tiny empty space between her black talons. “I’m already batshit terrified of this place and you handcuffed me to a cart for hours.”

“Sorrykins Kristikins,” Nessy bit her lower lip, nudging the raptor with her messy curly-haired head. “I didn’t mean to… I was…”

“I get it,” Kristi gave the husky-girl a pet with an eye roll. “But that doesn’t make me any less angry at you. Don’t do that again.”

“Kay,” Nessy said.

“No ‘kay’,” Kristi said sternly.

“I won’t do it again,” Nessy flopped into the raptor, blinking tears from her eyes. “I’m sorrriiiiiii…”

Krysanthea sighed, hugging the husky. 

Nessy looked around again from the raptor-girl’s embrace, squinting at the room constructed from bedding materials. "So where exactly are we?"

"Bedshire," I explained. "A town inside the bedding department. People who've escaped the store's influence and damaged their uniforms live here."

"Neat!" Nessy said. "So what's the plan now? Besides keeping me away from the devil's brew, apparently."

“Same as before,” I shrugged. “Rescuing souls.”

"There's someone called the Cartographer who might be able to help, but we have to wait for an appointment,” Kristi said. 

Nessy nodded rapidly, then immediately regretted the movement. "Ugh, this headache is killing me. Got any pain meds around here?"

"I don't think painkillers would work for magic caffeine withdrawal," Krysanthea pointed out.

“Nuuuu,” Nessy whined, blinking more tears. “I cannot exist like this. My brain is bad soup.”

"Maybe there's another… magical solution," I suggested, remembering our shared dream. "What about your music? Riffweld might help with the headache."

"Hey, that's not a bad idea," Nessy perked up slightly. "I do feel more awesome when I'm singing." She looked around. "Is my bag… here?"

I handed her the backpack. “Yes.”

Nessy dug into the backpack and somehow pulled my grandfather's guitar out of it.

“Whatthefuck,” Kristi sputtered. “How’d that fit in there?!”

“It’s a backpack with extradimensional storage extension,” Nessy explained. “After I got the zoomie-beads from Kale, I went back to the RV and grabbed all of the magic glass apples and this guitar. It’s easier to Riffweld songs with a guitar.”

“You think you can sing away a headache?” Kristi asked.

"Maybe,” Nessy shrugged. “Let's see…”

She began strumming.

“Oh, coffee, you jolt my weary soul,
Ignite my heart, make my spirit whole.
Your bitter fire, my morning blaze,
Chased the fog from endless days.

But Kristi’s banned you, cruel decree,
Left my head to throb and plea.
Yet my song’s a brew, my voice a spark,
It lifts me up through pain and dark,”

She sang, swaying.

We listened to her music. It somehow felt like a refreshing cup of coffee, without any actual drinking involved. I could even smell coffee beans.

By the time the husky-girl finished the song, her tail was wagging again, and the pained squint had disappeared from her eyes.

"Wow, that actually worked!" She clapped. "Head's still a bit fuzzy, but the stabbing pain is thankfully gone, yay.”

“So you can get rid of a headache,” I contemplated. “It’s not just Charisma-magic then. Could you use Riffweld for anything then? Could you heal a bruise, repair a cut, open a closed door, make someone faster or stronger?”

“Maybe,” Nessy bobbed, sliding the guitar back into her backpack.

“What was that banging noise?” Kristi asked.

“What banging noise?” the husky asked.

“Like metal grating and banging on metal,” the raptor clarified. “Or a metal roar… I could have sworn there was something in the background of ‘Oh, coffee, my pulse, my vibrant hum. My song’s the buzz where you once sprung.’”

“Uhhhhh,” Nessy said, sniffing herself. “Ughh. Something in the Astral… getting into the song vibe, messing with it. I think that it might be the Magnetic Lynx looking for me. She… she’s in the store, I think.”

“She’s in the store?!” Kristi snarled. “So that thing can get into the store but we can’t get out? How do we even stop something like that?!”

“I dunno,” Nessy shrugged, looking nervous. “This place doesn’t look like it’ll be able to keep her away. She’ll pull at the metal poles to tear right through the sheets with flying metal bits.”

“Sounds like we should go then,” I said.

“Gotta keep moving, yes,” Nessy nodded. “Bad idea to sleep here. This isn’t our domain and therefore the Lynx can smell where we are.”

. . .

The Strand sisters and our pack filed into the main living area of Jim's apartment.

Katerina kept her distance, eyeing Nessy warily, while Kaledoniya bounced forward with her usual energy.

"The doggo is awake!" she declared. "Welcome back to the land of the conscious!"

"Thanks... I think?" Nessy replied.

I gave Nessy a quick summary of everything she'd missed—Bedshire, Jim, the Cartographer with her week-long waiting list, and our growing favor debt to the pillow city.

"Well, that won't do," Nessy declared, setting down the guitar and reaching for her backpack. "Let me see what I've got in here from my manager days."

She rapidly dug into the bag, pulling out and spilling out a chaotic assortment of items: the damaged artifacts I'd collected, several G-Supercenter employee uniforms (presumably the Strand sisters' confiscated ones), employee badges, a small collection of sewing needles and colorful thread, duct tape, multiple rolls of zip ties (which earned her a glare from Katerina), the dented infinite coffee thermos, and a dark wallet with the white capital letter [G] embossed on it.

"Aha!" she exclaimed, grabbing the sewing kit and the uniforms. "First things first—let's fix our employment situation."

"What are you doing?" Krysanthea asked as Nessy began arranging the uniforms.

"We're gonna damage and repair these," Nessy explained, picking up a pair of scissors from the sewing kit. “The uniforms are handy when we go outside of Bedshire.”

"Sounds workable," Katerina admitted grudgingly. “I thought your insane plan to work here was useless.”

"Nah." Nessy grinned, cutting a precise line through the center of one uniform's hidden eye area that made the fabric hiss. "Uniform acquisition and some pretend work had to happen. The Store had and still has to believe that we were gonna work for her. Just gotta slice through the unborn eyes, then sew em’ shut. The badges will need to be cut in half and then taped back together. Help me out!”

The raptors set out to demolish and repair their uniforms and badges under Nessy’s directions.

By the time we finished, each of us had a modified uniform that looked mostly intact but had been subtly sabotaged to prevent the store's influence. 

"Perfect!" Nessy declared, holding up her handiwork. "Now we can work without becoming zombies."

"Work? I thought we were trying to escape!" Katerina said.

"We are," Nessy nodded, "but we'll need resources. Plus, a steady job gives us access to more parts of the store, and I know for a fact that managers can access dimensional gates."

"How do you know that?" Krysanthea asked.

“Was a manager,” Nessy tapped her nose, pulling a glass fruit from her pocket and chewing on it. "Was told such by the management office. Qualified personnel can use special doors to move to different sections of the store. I can smell our RV—it's several dimensions away, but it's still here, somewhere in the store's infinite sprawl. Pretending to take jobs in a specific section of the shop will get us there way faster.”

“That’s good to know,” Kat said.

The G-wallet caught my attention. "What's in there?" I asked, pointing to it.

"Oh!" Nessy's tail wagged as she grabbed the wallet. "My five weeks of manager salary! I was really good at my job, despite the raptor-torment lunacy at the end. I got a ton of raises!"

She opened the wallet, revealing what looked like a gold credit card and a bunch of discount coupons.

"Let's get breakfast," she declared. "My treat. I'll pay off our favor debt too—no sense being indebted to the mattress people."

We donned our modified uniforms and headed to the same diner from the previous night. The register-haired waitress recognized us, greeting us with a mechanical chime as we were seated.

"Coffee for—" Nessy began.

"NO!" Krysanthea and I barked in unison, making Nessy pout.

"Feh! Fine," the husky grumbled. "Orange juice for me. And whatever breakfast special is biggest."

After placing our orders, Nessy leaned in, lowering her voice as she pulled another Bulwichu fruit from her pocket, chewing on it. "So, here's what I know. The store is infinite, but it's organized in sections. Each section is like its own infinite pocket dimension. Our RV is in one of those pockets. The Magnetic Lynx is here somewhere too—getting closer. We need to get back to our RV and drive around to confuse the trail.”

"How do we find the RV?" I asked.

"We'll need to locate a staff access point," Nessy explained. "They look like normal doors marked 'Employees Only,' but they can take you anywhere in the store if you have the right clearance."

"And do we have the right clearance?" Krysanthea asked.

Nessy grinned, pulling out her taped-together manager badge. "I do. Or at least I did. It’ll probably still work. The eye isn’t dead, it’s just injured.”

“It’s not dead?” Kat sputtered.

“Nah,” Nessy shook her head. “Given enough work hours it’ll heal back up or grow another eye on the uniform. Work gives life to the uniform and the uniform binds a person more to the store. Like a particular knot of rope that gradually chokes you.”

Our food arrived—enormous plates of eggs, pancakes, bacon, and toast. Nessy tore into hers with gusto, ravenous after her extended sleep.

When the bill came, she pulled out her G-wallet and handed over a store credit card. The waitress swiped it through what looked like a small cash register growing from her wrist.

"That'll be 76.76 G-Store credits," the waitress announced.

“Bill me for the meal and for what my pack leader owes too, yeah?” Nessy waved a hand at me.

“No problem,” the waitress said. The total flashed on the cash register and Nessy paid it.

As we departed from Bedford and crossed the moat, Nessy sniffed the air.

“Fuck,” she let out.

“What?” Kristi spun to the husky.

“The Lynx is getting effing close,” Nessy let out with a shudder. “She’s somehow figured out how to move between departments! We have to run!”