Chapter 6 #3
My body unfroze as the spider gathered all its legs under it and advanced toward Goldie, where she sputtered in the stream as she swam to the side.
I raised my gun and fired. The first shot pinged off the cliff near the spider’s head, and it let out a horn blast sound that sent a few rocks falling from the top.
One nearly smashed the furry creature, who was now cowering in a small rocky alcove, shaking all over.
I fired again as I advanced, this time hitting the spider’s bulging abdomen.
Goo flew from the wound, and I fired again, and again.
The spider sent another horn blast of alarm, but it was weaker this time, and as I reached the far side of the stream directly across from it, I fired one last shot right into the spider’s ugly face.
It dropped in a hissing pile of blood and guts.
I dove into the stream where Goldie floundered.
Catching her around the waist, I pulled her with me toward the other side where the spider lay dead.
Or at least, I hoped it was dead. As soon as I got her onto the bank, I sent another few shots into the body.
Just to make sure. The spider didn’t move again.
Goldie groaned and clutched her side, where a long angry cut marred her scales.
“Are you okay?” My hands hovered over her helplessly. “What can I do?”
She said something in her language that I couldn’t understand.
She reached into her pouch with shaking fingers and withdrew a small container of paste.
She smeared it on her side and then let out a long exhale as she settled back in the grass.
In front of my eyes, in real time, the wound began to knit itself back together like fucking magic.
She’d disappeared into thin air, and she healed like something out of a science fiction movie. I brushed her hair off her forehead, and she grinned up at me weakly. “Goldie,” I whispered. “What are you?”
“Kaluma,” she said, the words falling easily from her tongue.
A growl rumbled the ground at my feet, and I immediately drew Goldie into my arms as I aimed my gun at the direction of the noise.
A massive furry creature, bigger than the damn spider I’d just killed, barreled toward me on all fours.
The head opened on a hinge, displaying rows of teeth like a shark. My finger depressed the trigger.
“No!” Goldie yelled, shoving on my chest. She shoved my arm, so my shot went high and wide.
She surged to her feet, swaying slightly, before throwing her hands out as she stepped in front of me. And in the path of a great white grizzly.
“Goldie!” I hollered.
She shouted a few words at the incoming monster, who, at the sight of her, drew up short with a huff and stomp of his clawed feet.
He pawed the ground and tossed his furry head with a mane that brushed the ground.
Goldie pointed to the small furry creature still cowering on the cliff and spoke again in her tongue.
The grizzly’s body posture changed, the aggression fading as it loped toward the small creature. I could only assume this was a parent and child as it gathered the small creature in its massive furry paws and clutched it to its chest.
Goldie took a wobbly step, and I wrapped an arm around her waist to steady her. “Hey, you’re okay. Take it easy.”
She placed a hand over mine at her hip and leaned back against me.
She seemed calm. Comfortable. And maybe that was why, when a group of three-foot-tall green aliens with bows bigger than them notched with arrows advanced toward us, I didn’t raise my gun.
I remained stiff and on guard. They had flat faces and narrow bodies with disproportionately thick legs.
Like tree trunks topped with thin branches.
They had one oval cluster eye, like a cyclops fly.
Goldie didn’t even tense, and that made sense, because when the arrow aliens noticed her, they dropped their weapons immediately, although they eyed me warily.
She spoke to them, and they spoke back. One of them approached the grizzly without fear and placed a hand on its massive furry side.
The grizzly huffed and bumped its furry snout against the alien’s side.
One of the green aliens, who bore a funny-looking hat on its round head, gestured to Goldie with a wave of its little two-fingered hand. She looked over her shoulder at me, gave me a smile, and then grabbed my hand.
We began to walk, following the little aliens, who quickly surrounded us in a circle. The grizzly brought up the rear, with its young trotting in front of it. I didn’t like being caged in. I squeezed Goldie’s hand. “Are you their prisoners?”
“No,” she said quickly, with a smile. “Ok-ay.”
“Okay,” I echoed. “If you say so.” They hadn’t taken my gun from me, which had to mean something.
Still, the one closest to me, the biggest at a whopping four feet, kept an arrow pointed at me. I bared my teeth at him, and he growled back. Well, okay. They weren’t meek, that was for sure. Maybe because they had this grizzly pet who could gut me with one swipe.
We approached the cliff face and walked through and entrance into a cave tunnel system that instantly made me feel claustrophobic. But I trusted Goldie. So I kept my hands in hers, and I followed dutifully behind.