Total pages in book: 46
Estimated words: 42861 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 214(@200wpm)___ 171(@250wpm)___ 143(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 42861 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 214(@200wpm)___ 171(@250wpm)___ 143(@300wpm)
I soon encounter the river and the slippery log of doom. This fallen tree haunts my dreams, but I can’t let it scare me off her trail. She needs me to find her, even if she thinks she doesn’t need anybody. I get on hands and knees and crawl across it as quickly as possible. Once on the other side, I straighten and prepare myself mentally for the next stage of the journey. I haven’t been further than this before. What lies beyond the thick trees is anybody’s guess. I put my hand on my holster, just to make myself feel better as I hunt around for signs of Strumpet moving through here. I find her spoor and push my way through the tight thicket she must have decided to wriggle through, cursing her all the way. I am being scratched by bushes and inconvenienced by insects. I can feel them dropping down from the branches above and wriggling over my clothes, using me as an impromptu road.
“Strumpet!” I call her name, not entirely sure why I continue to bother. She has her own agenda, and it does not include assuring me that she is safe. She’s supposed to be my bloody companion, but I feel as though I am hers. It feels like she is the one with the mission on the planet, and I am the one following her about, guarding her ineffectively.
Finally, after many hours of exploration and tracking, I hear a familiar:
Meheheheheh.
The relief that floods through me is a physical thing. She’s alive. And she sounds happy. I can hear her cheerful little bleats drifting to me on the wind as I make my way toward her with renewed vigor. This time, I’m putting her on a leash. You’re not allowed to tether goats. It’s cruel. But you can lead them.
I burst through the last barrier of bushes with a cry of triumph. “There you arhhhhhhhghh! Strumpet! No!”
What Strumpet is doing, or rather having done to her, is nothing short of lewd. She is not alone. She has found some company in the form of another goat. A male goat with big black stripes running over his body and what I am guessing is some kind of alien tracking device wrapped around one of his horns. I really need to fit Strumpet with one of those. I would have felt some trepidation at encountering an alien beast in the wild, but this goat is well occupied and hardly seems to notice I am there. He is too busy humping Strumpet.
The alien buck is having his way with her in short but vigorous bursts. For her part, Strumpet is standing there, alternating looking pleased with herself, and eating nonchalantly as if she was not engaged in intense alien debauchery.
“No!” I stamp my foot, which does precisely nothing to stop the proceedings.
“Hey! Cut it out!”
The buck arches his back and makes a very suggestive sound with his tongue, then descends from Strumpet only to inspect his handiwork with a good nostril dive into her nethers, at which point the entire process is repeated. These two are not just mating. They are breeding. I have no idea if that is even possible, but given my luck, Strumpet is going to shack up with some alien goat and have his babies, leaving me to fend for myself without so much as an emotional support goat to lean on.
“Okay, seriously guys. How many times… another one? Again? Really.”
He’s got to run out of alien goat semen eventually, surely. He must have ejaculated an entire vat of the stuff by now. After a couple of minutes of haplessly trying to intervene, I’m not even sure why I’m attempting to interfere. So Strumpet’s getting some. Why not. The rest of this mission has been a complete disaster. This may as well be too. But I try one last ditch effort. I try shaming her.
“Strumpet! That sort of thing leads to pregnancy. Do you know what pregnancy is? It’s when living creatures you don’t even know come out of your insides and then you have to look after them. And you swell up from your ankles to your eyebrows and you cry a lot at things you’d never usually cry at. It’s a mess. And now…”
I hear a grunting behind me. A sort of deep, booming, rough animal sound. It sounds like the end of the world clearing its throat.
“Brilliant,” I say, throwing up my arms. “Now I’m going to get fucking eaten as well. Absolutely fucking perfect.”
I turn around to see what is going to end my life on this perfectly spectacular, absolutely shitty day. I am expecting something with long, sharp teeth, and a big muscular body all the better to crush and destroy me with. My weapon is drawn without me realizing it. Maybe I was a better student than I or old Mikey thought I was, because I am ready to dispatch the threat without thought. In fact, I almost blow the head off the thing behind me before I realize what it is.