It was about ten in the morning when I got back to the park.

I hesitated at the entrance to my old campsite and looked around. I missed this site. It was one of the few concessions I had gotten out of Mr. Sada.

He’d had his construction crews build up this earthen hill all the way around my campsite. They used a bulldozer and just built it with leftover earth from Mr. Sada’s mansion.

It was fantastic.

My own little surrounded valley. It kept out the diesel engine thrumming that was near constant in the campground, and it helped cut down on how noisy everything else was too. Kids and ravens, those are the two biggest offenders.

Small children and ravens actually have quite a bit in common. They’re smart but act brainless, and shriek for little if any reason with disturbing regularity.

I watched one of the morning’s ravens for a minute, killing time to avoid facing Molls again. It was pecking at something shiny that looked like one of Molls’ scales and fluttering its wings when a BuyMort pod approached.

It hurriedly hovered over the area, scanned whatever random piece of garbage the corvid was interested in, and then beamed it away. As it left, the raven squawked and fluttered its wings, before it began violently preening.

It must have gotten a good sale.

I chuckled as it hopped away, seemingly content. With a heavy sigh, I turned to walk up the driveway to my old site. I wondered briefly what a raven economy looked like, but then I was getting yelled at before I even expected to.

Molls had appeared on the ridge to my side. “What do you want, you degenerate?”

I blinked up at her a few times, mouth agape. “What did I do?”

Her long tongue flickered out and back. “I can smell you haunting my site!” I noticed she had her arms already firmly crossed, and simply averted my gaze to the bird I had been watching.

An ad window full of various deodorizers flashed into my view. I shut it down, scowling.

“Well, this bird was being very interesting. I am sorry, I just stopped to watch it for a while. Didn’t mean to offend you by existing.” I took a minute to sniff my armpits. I was alright, actually, wonder what her problem was.

She seemed to hesitate at that, and even craned her neck and body to better see the raven I motioned to. The bird decided it didn’t care for the level of attention it had attained, and left on the wing, flapping away into the mid-morning sun. “You were just . . . watching a bird?”

I nodded. “Yes, I found a bird interesting.” Her eyes softened at that, and I started walking up the hill toward her. When I arrived, I unrolled the flesh paper to show her.

“I was coming to get you to sign this for Mr. Sada, and I stopped because I found a bird interesting. It looked like it was selling things to BuyMort, and that made me think.”

Molls’ scales shifted suddenly to a deep purple around the edges. She cocked her head at me. “It is always good to ponder the nature of BuyMort.” Then she turned and started slithering back down the hill to the Lincoln. “Very well, my things are in the domicile. You may approach.”

I followed her to my car, laid out the gummy paper on the hood for her and stepped back. She delved into the back seat of the car, bending over at the waist again, and I simply turned around. Once I heard her exit the car and start moving around to the hood, I glanced back to see her gazing at me with one eye narrowed. I turned back and nodded when I saw she had what looked like a pen in her hand.

“Yes, thank you,” I said.

Molls stopped and read over the contract before lifting her pen.

“I’m not pleased that you are acting as Mr. Sada’s representative, but I accept his terms. In exchange for food, shelter, and protection, I shall act as this camp’s guide to BuyMort, and aid in your spiritual growth. The hundred morties for rent is clearly a ceremonial number, so I don’t mind paying that, but it is unusual to charge a priest of BuyMort. If a closer relationship is desired between this fledgling affiliate and the church, that too will be possible.”

She bent again to find the signature area and her breasts moved. I looked upward immediately, suddenly interested in where that raven had gotten off to.

She called my attention back to the page. “It says here that you are to provide me with protection?” I glanced down and then scowled where she pointed.

The flesh paper did indeed have my name as the primary for every one of her required services, including security. Mr. Sada was signing me up for a lot of stuff I wasn’t positive I was on board with. When I noticed Molls staring at me, eyebrows peaked in annoyance, I stepped back and raised my hands.

“You met Phyllis. She’s the muscle around here, go to her if you have a problem. I know you don’t want to deal with me.”

She glanced me up and down, and then signed her name with the pen. It turned out to not be a pen at all, but a soft laser that seared the flesh paper with a brand. Her handwriting was exquisite, and I felt a pang of jealousy. My own handwriting had always been chicken scratch. She straightened back up and crossed her arms again. “Well. You are a pervert who leers at me.”

“I am not a pervert, and I was taken by surprise. I did not mean to stare and upset you.” I spoke directly to her face, without allowing any twitch of movement from my eyes.

“So you say.” Molls eyes narrowed and her scales shifted color again, this time toward pink. She slithered around to the rear of the car with a single swift motion and opened the back door, before sliding inside. Her tail wrapped around the handle and she turned back to look at me, coiled and wrapped upon herself. “I’ll be expecting dinner tonight, by seven PM. You are dismissed.” Then she hauled the door shut.

I opened my mouth, hung that way for half a second, and gave up instead. I nodded, turned on my heel, and marched off back to Mr. Sada’s. As I exited my former campsite, I noticed the ravens again, being weird. There was a small group of them, sitting in the shade of the Joshua tree grove near Phyllis’ site, and all of them were staring directly at me.

As soon as I emerged from the driveway and entered their field of vision, they started acting like normal ravens again, pecking at the ground and cawing for no particular reason. One of them in the back continued watching me though. That one ducked his head and opened his beak at me. Getting the shotgun reloaded jumped a little higher on my list as I walked past those birds.

Once out on the desert road behind the campground, my walk became almost pleasant. My new shoes were definitely better than nothing, and I was about to be done with working for Mr. Sada for the day.

Maybe I’d try selling some dead ravens, see what those were worth.

Also, I had to figure out how to feed Molls. What did a Nah’Gh priest eat? Based on the hints of teeth I had seen when she spoke, I assumed meat. Fuck, I needed to go back and ask her. That should be fun.

When I arrived back at Mr. Sada’s, I dropped off the skin paper contract and ducked out back to bump fists with Doofus. I left before Hobb could chase me off, or Mr. Sada could figure out something else for me to do.

While walking back to the campground, I daydreamed about what to find Molls for dinner, and ended up making myself hungry again. That oatmeal really sucked. Hungry again and it wasn’t even noon. It was then I had my worst idea yet. I decided to go to the office and raid all the snacks.

This office was shitty. And when I say shitty, I mean Mr. Sada literally used one of those mobile offices that travel around with construction companies. He bought it off the company he used to build the campground, and just redesigned the inside. Customers had to walk up a few steps, or an incredibly long and inconvenient doubled-back ramp that I know for a fact our wheelchair customers, few though they were, hated.

It was carpeted but uncovered, so the underside of the carpet swelled in the rain and shrank in the heat. The ramp was covered in mildewed, lumpy carpeting that definitely didn’t help a wheelchair access the building.

I should have noticed that the carpet was missing but walking to the office was such a zombified experience for me that I just kept going.

Once you were up the steps, a rattling metal and glass door allowed access and a tarnished copper bell announced your presence with a single dull thud as the door hit it.

Broken and trashy, our specialty.

The office counter was an inappropriate chunk of particle board that had been lazily formed into a functional station to hold a credit card machine on. It was splintered at each of the corners, in that way that only particle board can be, where it’s both blunt force trauma and a guaranteed collection of new splinters if you run into it. Anyway, that little delight took up a single corner of the building and created a separated area for the staff to work and ring up guests.

Beyond that, the walls were filled with composite wood peg boards, hung with the typical garbage. Corn chips, popcorn, and a variety of drinks all flavored with corn syrup. Marshmallows, chocolate, graham crackers, and little bamboo spits to cook 'em on. Fire starters, mini-bottles of propane, teeny shampoo and soaps for the showers.

You know, campground shit.

Then beyond that was a small room that Mr. Sada never let anyone into. We had seen behind the door though, and it was just his bathroom. He made us use the campground bathrooms, of course.

I should have known something was off when I couldn’t smell the wheelchair ramp’s carpet as I climbed the stairs. Usually the mold stink is overpowering, flavoring your approach to the office on check-in. I always thought it was good preparation for the experience we offered.

As I stepped inside, the four slime creatures that had been eating all of my snacks began to gyrate and whip around their tentacles, each making excited burbles and squealing fart sounds. I Immediately scrambled backwards and locked the door with a single motion, eyes wide. Fucking slimes!

None of them came for me though, and as I stood outside the office waiting to see a slime in pursuit, I started feeling silly. I stepped back up to the door and peeked inside, just in time to see the last of the group squeeze its way through Mr. Sada’s bathroom door, using the cracks on all four sides to slide inside.

I hurriedly unlocked the office again and stepped in, leaving the door propped open behind myself just in case I wanted to run for my life one more time. As I walked through the stripped shop, I avoided a small, slime covered hunk of the outside ramp’s carpet on the floor. It looked like one of them had been digesting it and spit it out for some reason. Perhaps as they ran.

I reached Mr. Sada’s door and used my key to open it, being careful not to touch any of it with my bare hands. The entire door was dripping with caustic slime, and the wood was shriveling and smoking. Using the key, I slowly pushed at the door and peered into the widening crack.

The slimes were funneling themselves into the toilet.

I stared, confused, as the last slime flowed up and into the bowl, and began making loud slurping noises as it channeled its body down into the pipe. As the door opened wide enough, it noticed me and began to vibrate and splash, making odd gibbering farts. I frowned and swung the door wider, just in time for it to spit a glob of itself at me.

It was a tiny droplet of slime, to be fair, but I shrieked and ducked anyway. The droplet flew through the empty shop behind me and splattered against the shell of the silent BuyMort pod that had arrived to purchase the slimy chunk of carpet in the office.

They had left it for me as a trap. I turned just in time to see it beam away the partially digested carpet and take the acidic slime across its shell. The pod immediately began doing that erratic bob and weave thing they did when attacked and warped in a monster for me to deal with.

I glanced back at the slime, to see it slurp down into the toilet and vanish.

When I turned back, a massive black and orange beetle nearly filled the room. It was the size of a large bull and sported a series of pronged horns at the front of its head. Multiple racks of antlers jutted toward me and commanded my attention. Its horns were jet black and pointed, and nearly reached the sides of the building. Each was visibly sharp at the end, and fat blue sparks openly jumped between their points.