Right Out of a Comic Book Who: Jasper and Juniper (NPCs) and Corey Where: The streets, then Corey's house, then the hotel When: Morning
Jasper had already half filled his pockets with odds and ends. Verity wasn't that hard to figure out, in theory. He went where he could find things to tinker with. Sure, he was looking for those people who'd gone missing, but Jasper couldn't think of any particular reason following what looked like interesting bits of metal wouldn't work. What else would those people be looking for? Food, maybe, but the world had plenty of grocery stores near hardware stores, and then you could do two errands at once. He shoved a bit of broken bicycle chain into his sweatshirt pocket and straightened, head up. He might miss a sign of Verity. Or he might miss a monster. In preparation for that, he had a railroad spike and a snapped off bit of railing shoved into his belt. He glanced back at Juniper just for a moment before he turned his attention back on finding Verity. And damn, was he in trouble.
For her part, Juniper was only here because she followed Jasper. She didn't have any idea where they were going, or why they were going this way, or what was in Jasper's head at all, really. She just knew she hadn't wanted to be left alone in two big, empty suites with Rowan and Liah gone, and then Jasper leaving. He walked faster than she did, and she'd wound up having to scramble over and around things just to keep up. Really, she was starting to get a bit frustrated with it all, and more than a little cranky, and they'd really only been outside about an hour. Even the comparative joy of being outside, for once, had palled under their lack of water or snacks or even a few moments to rest.
Then there were the monsters. She really didn't think much about them, being a naturally brave sort of child, but when she actually saw one slinking down the sidewalk towards them, she froze in terror, perched on top of a car and completely exposed.
Juniper's occasional observations and constant little steps, while Jasper didn't pay very much attention, had been part of the landscape all along, and he noticed their absence. He stopped and turned without much concern, saw her still, and realized something had to be up. Juniper didn't stop moving very often. It took a long moment of scanning for him to spot the monster. The railroad spike and his hand met halfway as he began walking toward the little girl. Jasper had no reason to know how to approach anything dangerous. Verity had kept him out of the way. He just kept his eyes on the thing.
The monster was a deep shade of brown, mottled with gray along its underside and purple along its back, and it actually blended in with the shadows of the broken shops and houses pretty well. It was low to the ground, literally creeping, with bright yellow eyes fixed on them and two long tails curling and uncurling behind it. Juniper hiccoughed fearfully, her own tail straight out behind her, and the stuffed animal it habitually carried dropped to the roof of the car she was sitting on with an audible thunk.
That was when the creature bolted towards her. She shrieked, a rather earsplitting sort of sound, and scrambled aside, towards the dubious safety of Jasper.
Jasper had brought sharp metal things along determinedly, but he found he had no intention of using them. How could he hurt a monster when some of them used to be people's little brothers? That said, he couldn't let it hurt Juniper, either, being as she was someone's little sister. Scanning the area, Jasper noted that the door of the car in front of him was a bit ajar. That'd do. He narrowed his eyes and threw the door open. It'd been a pretty large car, and that would give the creature some pause. He would have picked Juniper up, but he wasn't strong like Verity was, so he just grabbed her hand and turned to run, eerily silent as ever.
The monster yowled at the car door, sounding catlike to go with its general shape, and scrabbled at it with its claws a moment, then managed to vault over it to continue pursuit. Juniper was by now sobbing in terror, and she clung to Jasper's hand with two of hers. The toy was all but forgotten.
Then there was the sound of heavy boots from around a corner, and a barked, "Stand down!" from a very deep, rough voice. The monster skidded to a stop with another complaining yowl, but it had rather obviously stopped the chase.
And about ten yards away from the fleeing children was a very tall, rather ugly, older man with a pair of shotguns and a long, patched coat.
Jasper stopped at the voice. He wasn't built for running any distance at all, much more of a sprinter. Besides, people were a pretty rare commodity, and he had to at least look and see, even if this might be one of those bad guys Verity had talked about. Once he'd looked, he noted the guns and stopped completely. He didn't think he could stop a bullet, and those were made of heavy, thick metal that'd be really hard to crush. Hopefully they could avoid that sort of altercation. Besides, the man looked sort of like the kind of guys on the kind of comic books he and Verity liked to read and he had to hide from his counselor because they glorified violence. He might be nice. Jasper looked up at the man levelly, not thinking to pull Juniper behind him. She was smart enough to know where to go.
Since she was frightened beyond reason, Juniper wasn't really being very "smart" right now. However, she did see Jasper as the only safe thing she had right now, so she just clung to his arm and half-hid behind him. Only the cat-monster was behind them, so that didn't really help her feel any safer.
The big guy frowned deeply at them both, startled indeed by seeing a pair of kids wandering around out in the hell that was Detroit, and stalked towards them. It was hard to read the concern in his lined face, but it was there. "The blazes are you kids doing out here?" he demanded, dropping to one knee in front of them. Even then, he was still taller than even Jasper was. "You two okay?"
No, he didn't seem dangerous. From Verity's blathering, unfocused claims, Jasper had been able to deduce that the other group were a bunch of Road Warrior-type nutjobs who'd shoot at you soon as look at you, and despite having two perfectly ready guns, the old guy didn't seem to have any interest in firing. Jasper had no trouble looking him in the eye, but he still couldn't bring himself to speak. The words wouldn't come. He looked down at Juny, decided she was fine, glanced back at the monster, didn't see any danger there, and finally looked back at the man.
Hyperventilating, Juniper wasn't of much use, either, hugging close to Jasper's side and looking up at the intruder in unspeaking terror. The big man looked between the two-- one panicked and one calm but silent-- and decided, "Guess not. C'mon, you two shouldn't be out here. It ain't safe." Just what he'd do with a couple of kids, he had no idea, but getting them indoors seemed more important than figuring out what to do with them long-term, at least for now. He straightened up again and whistled for the big cat, who made a grumbling, muttering sort of sound before padding over to him-- giving the kids a wide berth more out of annoyance with them than obedience.
Looking down again, he added, "Name's Corey. That's Blitz. He won't hurtcha, now that I told him not to." Juniper didn't really seem to believe him, shrinking against Jasper even more when the monster came into her field of vision.
Jasper really wanted to talk, more than he had in a while. They had to find Verity. But if he tried to turn around and keep walking, it wasn't like annoying Rowan. He'd probably just be thrown over the man's shoulder. Well, he'd have needed to take Juniper home soon anyway. Next time he'd have to shake her. And he was tired himself, annoying as that was. It was warm and the air was kind of heavy, and walking down the street wasn't easy when there were big bits of debris and nauseatingly vile bodies and things to avoid. So Jasper assented, and turned his attention on the monster. He'd never had a pet, but hardly by choice, and as weird as it looked, it was also sort of soft and pretty.
Corey waited a moment for there to be some kind of verbal response... but there wasn't. There was a nod, though, so he took that, and just made an annoyed sort of sound and turned around to start them off in the direction of his house-- which wasn't the direction of the hotel. It was, actually, rather the opposite direction. He didn't know where they were from, and his house was secure, for now. Maybe once the younger one had calmed down, he could get answers out of her.
Blitz slunk around the children, disturbed by the sounds of the younger one's crying, eying them warily until he got up to Corey's side. He bent even as he walked to stroke the creature which, now that it was out in the light, showed itself to have a double-row of tentacles curled neatly along its back.
Jasper was transfixed by the cat for the moment, watching it move. Under Verity's tutelage he'd learned to make very good note of space and movement and how just about everything used their place in the world to get from point A to B, and how. Those tentacles had a purpose, and he wanted to know what it was. Jasper didn't really have a destination in mind, anyway. They might find Verity this way, and the other missing people he was vaguely aware of. He only knew Verity had told him not to worry because he would be with friends.
Since Juniper was too frightened and distracted to really tell which way they were going, they just went. The wrong way. She only snapped to attention on the direction when Corey was climbing the porch steps to his house-- his ramshackle, falling-apart-looking, old house in a poor neighborhood. The street had been largely cleared of dead cars and entirely cleared of dead bodies, making it seem oddly normal, if just very dirty and poor-looking.
Since Juniper had finally gotten it through her head, during the half an hour of brisk walking that left her stumbling and exhausted and with a scraped knee or two, that they weren't going to be eaten by the cat-monster, and gun-man wasn't going to shoot them. But she was drawing the line at going into his house. "That's not the hotel!" she cried, a little shrilly, and dug in her heels, refusing to go another step.
Corey looked back over his shoulder. "Didn't know there was a hotel. Should've said something about that before we came all this way."
Jasper looked back and shrugged. Sure it wasn't the hotel. They'd get to the hotel eventually. He was only disappointed that they hadn't seen his brother yet, or any signs that someone had gone through in search of neat metal bits and extra tools. But they were somewhere new, and maybe they could get food to bring back or pick up the trail of Verity or the other missing people. The world was full of possibilities, right? Even if it was mostly empty of people. Jasper didn't exactly approve of the lack of cars everywhere. They were great to hide behind and take parts from, and Verity often was where there were cars. He frowned a bit, not paying either of them much attention, now.
"Is that where you're from?" Corey asked as Jasper turned away to look over the street, standing on his porch with one hand on his hip and the other still holding his rifle. "Some hotel? Shit...." Was he going to have to take them all the way across town, to one of the hotel districts? Did they even know where their hotel was? This was going to be even more trouble than he thought it'd be.
"Don't swear!" Juniper ordered, in a kind of desperate attempt at normalcy, even though the big man scared her just a little.
Corey smirked a bit. Cute kid. "No swearing... right. Well, if you wanna wait out here by yourselves, guess that's up to you. I'll be out in a minute." He turned back to the door to unlock it. Despite the poor exterior of the house, it had about four locks to undo, each with different keys.
That caught Jasper's eye again. He liked locks. He wasn't as fast with them as Verity, but he got through the tougher ones more often. Taking them apart bit by bit was a much better puzzle than the stupid ones you could buy from educational stores or play with in the waiting room at the psychiatrist's office. These all had keys right here, though, which almost felt like cheating. He'd have liked to play with them. It would have made him feel more like Verity wasn't far away. He didn't see any reason to wait outside in the sun. Jasper was as pale as his brother. He walked up on the porch.
Since Juniper was going where Jasper went, she climbed the steps, too, though she did it with much feet-dragging and clinging to Jasper. "You'll make sure he doesn't shoot us, right?" she whimpered at Jasper.
"I'm not going to shoot anyone," Corey snorted, since obviously he could hear that, too. "I'm going to feed you, and reload my rifles, and pack an overnight bag, and then take you home." He pushed the door open, glancing over his shoulder at the two with a jaundiced eye, as Blitz went inside ahead of them. "You do know how to get home from here... right? Or at least which way it is?"
Jasper jabbed his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the hotel without hesitation. He could keep a very good map in his head. Noting Juniper still looked nervous, he got on one knee and reached back to pull her into a piggy-back ride. He couldn't keep it up too long, but it might calm her down and at least he'd know exactly where she was if she got scared again and wanted to panic.
That level of confidence in a kid's gesture was reassuring. No kid that age would be that confident unless he was very sure about his answer. Corey looked at him for a moment, just looked, thinking that it was probably some sort of sign that he'd run into these children at all. Just what that sign was, he didn't know. He finally went inside, too, on the heels of Blitz, and beckoned them after him. "Careful of the cats," he said, and leaned his rifles against the wall before closing the door behind them-- and locking every single lock again. Juniper looked nervous at the sound of deadbolts thumping home, but she didn't say anything more.
"You kids got names?" Corey asked as he started across the cluttered living room, towards the kitchen.
Another reason he needed Verity back. Jasper actually opened his mouth a little, but he still couldn't quite say anything. The words almost got to the tip of his tongue, but there they stalled, and he couldn't do a thing about it. At a bit of a loss, he dug under his shirt to pull out the odd little charm necklace, his fingers on the heavy bead of mottled red stone. Sure, it probably would take a mineralogist or jeweler to recognize it without help and then a whole different leap of logic would be necessary to realize it indicated a child's name, but it was all he had to help.
"His name is Jasper," Juniper helped out, still half-hiding behind Jasper himself. "I'm Juniper."
Corey snorted again, a little amused by the twin J-names. And noun names. "Different," he commented, then disappeared into the kitchen, Blitz following him. He poured out cat food first, and hefted Blitz out of the way so the actual cats could eat, first. The cats that weren't really there, but which he saw nonetheless. "You'll get yours in a minute," he told the monster, holding her against his hip while Blitz made more grumbling noises. "You kids want some spaghettios or somethin' before we head out?" It was the only remotely child-friendly food he thought he had, that wouldn't take forever to prepare.
Jasper was a big fan of spaghettios, and he'd completely forgotten to eat before leaving. Maybe they'd be the ones with the little meatballs. The ones he'd tried to convince September were baby mice once when he was feeling mean. Of course, September had just told him he was gross, kicked him in the shins, and eaten his lunch anyway. He was a hard kid to rattle. Jasper touched the little leaf on his necklace gently as he looked up and nodded. Having established that yes, he did want a snack, he walked a few steps closer to Blitz, wondering whose turn it was now, wondering what would happen if he touched the animal.
It took Corey a minute to remember oh, right, kid didn't talk, and he looked up just in time to miss the kid nod. Juniper looked a bit eager, though, so he figured that was good enough. "Coming right up." He got into his pantry, stuffed to the gills with cans and packaged food that wouldn't go bad, and got out a can of the stuff to stuff in the microwave-- yes, his microwave. He'd set it up to run on a car battery. That had been a fun experiment.
"I'll be right back. Go ahead and take that out whenever it's done." He had a little packing to do for this overnight trip. He was pretty sure he wouldn't get back to the house before dark, and he'd learned by now not to be out after dark. The cats started after him as he stepped towards the bedroom, so he put down Blitz. "Blitz, you can eat now," he told her, and disappeared deeper into the house.
The cat-monster noticed Jasper's attention where her master didn't, and eyed him warily.
He liked Blitz. Blitz should be his friend and help him look for Verity. Maybe cats could track by scent. He eyed the animal back. Jasper had been taught about approaching strange pets as much as any other child. He extended his hand about halfway to be sniffed. Cats were less friendly than dogs, as a rule, but all of them liked to be petted. Jasper's had very little personal experience with any animal, growing up in a completely pet-free house and lacking any friends with kittens or puppies he could visit. Aside from a few therapy animals if he happened to go see his counselor on the right day, the monster wasn't much more mysterious than any cat.
Considering Blitz was only half-tame, that might not've been the smartest idea. But Corey called back, "Stand down!" as soon as he sensed the impending violence. Blitz flattened her ears and looked sideways, in Corey's direction, but refrained from snapping at the offered hand. Instead, she sidled away and crouched at the untouched cat food to start chomping down on it, herself, since the imaginary cats hadn't taken any. It wasn't as interesting as hunting down food, but it tasted better, and was more regular.
Juniper hung back, finally letting Jasper go as he approached what, to her, was still a dangerous monster. "Jasper... be careful."
He'd never been too careful about self preservation, in the grand scheme of things. Verity would always pull him out of trouble, and until then, what reason was there not to go poke the interesting aspects of his surroundings? He frowned very slightly as the cat retreated. Fine then. He went to examine the microwave instead. It wouldn't keep running very long like that. Well, someone who could rig up a car battery as a power source probably knew to go charge it every so often.
The ancient van in Corey's garage made a pretty good charger for the various batteries he used around the house, whenever the generator went down. Which it often did. The microwave finished, beeping once, before Corey came back out. Blitz flicked an ear at it, now washing her face after scarfing down all the cat food Corey had left out, but otherwise didn't do anything. Juniper wasn't quite tall enough to get at the microwave, up above the stove, but she occupied herself looking for spoons. "Get it out, Jasper," she said, apparently feeling a little more comfortable now that the cat-monster hadn't taken off anyone's hands, and the tall guy was gone for the moment.
Jasper pulled the sleeves of his sweatshirt down over his hands, doubting that their host was too careful about only using microwave safe bowls. He took the soupy pasta out gingerly, feeling the heat through the cloth. It smelled good, though. Jasper liked to add pepper usually, but he didn't want to go poking around in this kitchen. He didn't know where things were, and that always annoyed him. He had yet to really get used to the hotel kitchen. He set the bowl on the table, figuring they'd just both eat out of it.
That was about what Juniper figured, too. She climbed up onto the other chair at the table-- there were only two-- and offered Jasper a spoon quietly. Sometimes his silence made her chatter all the more, and sometimes it made her go quiet, too. Right now was apparently a quiet time. The cat monster sniffed in the direction of the meal, but apparently decided she didn't want any, because she got up and stalked off to where Corey was finishing up packing his backpack in the bedroom, with an extra set of clothes, a blanket, his portable medkit, some tools, and extra ammunition-- plus the long, curved knife in its sheath strapped across the back, and the crowbar sticking out of the side pocket. All he lacked now was dinner, for himself and the cats, who might pop up where he least expected them.
He came back out into the kitchen as the kids were just starting to eat, and absently closed the mircowave door. "That cook okay?" he grunted, getting into the cupboard himself to get out a can or two for the road.
Jasper looked over and nodded. Small gestures like that he could manage, as long as he didn't think too hard about it first. Otherwise he'd have to steel himself and the ideas he was trying to convey would get all knotted and muddled up and he wouldn't manage to communicate a thing. The spaghettios were definitely alright, though. Not cold in the middle at all, and they did have the delicious little meatballs in them. He studied Corey absently for a moment, his first impression that the man seemed to have walked out of one of Verity's comic books totally unabated.
Again, Corey missed the nod, but he didn't really notice, either. The question had been perfunctory, something he felt he ought to ask rather than something he actually cared about getting an answer for. He packed away a cup of chicken soup, a can of beans he could roast over someone's fireplace, a ziplock of more cat food just in case Blitz couldn't hunt for herself, and filled a large canteen with water before deciding he was done, and finally started paying attention to the kids again.
By then Juniper had devoured a good half of the spaghettios, since though she'd had a snack before they left, that snack had been a long time ago. She watched Corey out of the corner of her eye, which actually amused him a little. He made a brief, sudden movement-- just a jerk of a hand-- and she jumped. He chuckled, and she glared at him.
That was when he realized she kept switching hands for her spoon, between the four he'd seen but discounted as something that hadn't really existed. He blinked a few times, then asked Jasper, though he was looking at Juniper, "Does she really have four arms, or am I seeing things?"
Jasper nodded. He almost tried to say that she had a tail, but he didn't even bother with that fight. Juniper could demonstrate if she wanted to. Jasper had stopped thinking of Juny's mutation as strange, or Rowan's, either. He was as adaptable as any kid, and when he was around people every day, they just didn't come across as weird. He was eating more slowly, relishing the warm food. Verity usually just made sandwiches, since he was such a lame cook, and if there were any tasty canned dinners left in the hotel, he hadn't seen them.
The little girl took care of that all on her own, curling her tail up and around the back of the chair. "I got a tail, too." This gave Jasper time to eat, himself, without her getting in the way. "My brother calls me a monkey. But monkeys don't have extra arms. He's just being a dork."
"Huh." Corey hadn't seen any physical mutations yet-- not in people. But then, he hadn't seen very many people, almost none of them, in fact. Alive, anyway. He'd seen plenty of the dead ones, but none of them had been changed in any visible way, that he'd seen. Frowning, he shook his head a little, and went back to the cupboard for a bag of trail mix, for the road. The way those kids were going at it-- especially the littler one-- they must've been hungry. As much as he hated to use up so much food on people who weren't him, well... they were kids. "So you live at a hotel. With her brother." The two didn't look related, so he was guessing at the moment that Jasper's family was gone.
Close enough, though Jasper's fingers moved absently on the necklace, resting on the little "truth" charm that was the best stand-in for Verity. He didn't know how to communicate that there were a lot of people or that the hotel was a safe place. He'd seen a lot of new people come into the building, and it seemed like they should ask the nice man with the cat and guns and spaghettios. Jasper frowned, reached into his pocket, and drew out the Meany family photo from a year ago. He twitched a little like he did every time he looked at Mommy actually smiling and Dad looking all... Daddish, and him and September clinging to a sunburnt, exhausted-looking Verity.
"And with other people," Juniper answered for him, peering over at the picture with a sad sort of expression. "And Verity."
Corey looked between them, and then clumped over, his boots heavy even on the linoleum floor, to frown at the photo Jasper held. He wasn't good at the sympathy thing, so he just clapped Jasper on the back awkwardly and said, "Guess I'd better get you back to 'em, then. You two done?" Juniper didn't answer, looking at Jasper, since she'd eaten more of the spaghettios than he had anyhow.
Jasper nodded. This was troublesome enough. Verity didn't seem to be this way. He needed to get Juniper home where she wouldn't whine and Corey back so he could move in with everyone else and join the hotel gang, and he could just get back to saving his brother like he was supposed to be. Next time he wouldn't bring someone with such short legs, even if they had extra arms. Didn't quite make up for it. He packed his picture down again very carefully so it didn't get creased. Maybe once he got Verity back they could sneak back to their house to get more pictures, some toys, see if maybe September might still be there, try and bury Mommy...
"All right then. Off you get." Corey motioned for them to get off the chairs. Juniper snatched the bowl to scoop up the last of the meal, herself, unless Jasper got to it first, and then hopped down to set it in the sink, with a somewhat guilty expression. But she was hungry. And she was cranky. And she was five. Corey ignored that, rinsing off the bowl, and then headed for the door and his rifles, Blitz and his two cats on his heels. Or, well, Blitz. "Stick close to me and Blitz," he instructed, a bit absently. "She won't bite unless I tell her to, and I don't want to lose you if things get hairy."
The sounded like it was kind of a pun, which Jasper did approve of, in a general way. Those were the easiest jokes to tell and understand. But maybe Corey hadn't done it on purpose, and it wasn't like Jasper laughed anymore. He took Juniper's hand so she wouldn't try anything funny and fell into place behind the old man, taking note of where the house was. It was a neat house. Jury rigged for power, tame monsters, lots of food. A good place to remember. And Jasper didn't usually trust grown-ups to know their directions.
It had actually just been older slang than Jasper would recognize, but if he wanted to think it a pun, Corey wasn't in any place to correct him. He checked his rifles, pulled out a bullet from the front pocket of his backpack to reload the one shot he'd made over the course of the morning, and started unlocking the door again. As soon as it opened, Blitz and the hallucinatory cats bolted out, and Corey shook his head a little, motioning for the kids to follow suit. Juniper, less nervous now that she had food in her, just clung to Jasper's hand and went without any real complaint. Besides, they were going home. That was better than going to some scary man's house. Though at least the scary man had fed them.
Jasper was glad enough to walk behind Blitz. Even if she'd decided not to like him, which was the usual response to him, from animal or human, she was clearly tough. She'd be a problem for anything bigger and more dangerous, and with her and Corey's guns, they were pretty safe, he figured. Jasper returned his attention to signs of Verity, which he was mostly making up as he went along. If it seemed like a machine might have been cannibalized for parts or if a place seemed like it might house goofy car mechanics, then it was at least worth a moment of his attention, his eyes grave.
It was a long trip back, and interrupted more than once by Corey tugging the kids out of the road and into a doorway, either while a monster passed, he heard sounds from around a corner, or something completely unexplained that he just thought they needed out of sight from. Though they did see a few monsters, sometimes feeding, sometimes just passing through, sometimes napping in the shade of a building, nothing attacked them-- perhaps oddly, to the children, and certainly to Juniper's occasional spurts of panic, but Corey was used to it. The monsters who had territories near to his home all knew him, and those who didn't, once they'd gone out of his usual range, he dealt with as soon as he saw, usually by shouting at them or glaring, his silent communication letting them know he wasn't to be tangled with. Blitz growling warningly the one time one made an attempt anyhow turned the creature off.
He had Jasper point him which way to go at every cross-street, and by mid-afternoon there was a high rising building in sight, across the street from a parking structure Corey knew. He did, of course, know Detroit backwards and forwards, from driving its streets every day for garbage pick-up, and he remembered this hotel. Vaguely. It was a kind of nice one, and even now it looked in much better shape than the buildings around it.
Jasper was alright with acting without a particular stimuli, or neglecting to react to a legitimate cause. Defined a lot of his life, after all. It was one of the major ways he'd been diagnosed as abnormal, a hint of autism if he remembered. The monsters were becoming just part of the landscape to him, and he was still looking for a very little one that still had red curls even if its skin had gone almost black that sort of locomoted by hopping and held out very long fingers in front of it all the time. Verity didn't know he'd seen that. He tried not to frown when they approached the hotel. He hadn't intended to come back without his big brother. Stupid failed attempt.
"That where you live?" Corey asked, this time actually noting the frown and frowning, back. It was one of the first things he'd said to the kids, since they left the house. He had now and again scooped up the little girl to ride on his shoulders, which went a long way towards calming her down and kept her quiet, when she had tended to whine and complain. Right now he had her up there, digging one of her extra hands into his bag of trail mix, and she was looking eagerly towards the hotel. The adventure had gone on long enough, and she was ready for safety. And a nap.
Jasper nodded. This was as close to home as there was, without Verity, and he was hot and kind of worn down. He'd have to plan better next time, bring a big bottle of water and distance food, like beef jerky or something. And he had a rock in his shoe, he was pretty sure. He didn't want to stop everyone and his sneakers were a little long for him, so it was just annoying, not painful. He hoped Rowan would be home. Or Liah. He didn't usually like the way she fussed over him, but it was kind of nice to feel liked.
"Lets get you in, then," Corey said simply, and started across the street and the parking lot towards the building. He didn't approve of the surrounds: no one had cleared most of the cars away, to keep the street clear so you could see approaching danger; he could see half a dozen places where someone or something could be hiding, and no one inside would have any idea; though it seemed like there weren't any dead bodies around, so that was something, and the building itself looked at least minimally fortified, on the bottom level. He paused long enough to lift Juniper down, and the startted across the parking lot towards the front door.
Before he actually reached it, he stopped, startled by the feel of multiple sleeping monster-minds so close. He looked around, startled, but only saw a truck.
Jasper agreed, reluctantly. He'd try again in the afternoon, when the sun wasn't so high. He'd found some little bottles of sunscreen among the complimentary toiletry items Verity had found in an office off the lobby, where his toothbrush and stuff had come from. Jasper really hated sunburn, and he was terribly pale. It was best to just avoid the noon sun anyway. Jasper took Juniper's hand, figuring it was better that she have someone to cling to. If she started feeling cheerful again she'd go running all over the place. He stopped when Corey did, though, curious about this particular reaction to nothing.
After another glance around, Corey changed direction for the truck instead. If there were things inside the truck or the trailer parked next to it, he wanted to know about it-- they might be waiting for people to come out of the hotel, safe from other monsters or human discovery. As much as he hated killing things he could feel, inside his head, who hadn't done anything wrong except be hungry and smart, he'd do it to protect where some kids lived.
The trailer was safe, and all the doors to the truck were locked when he tried them. The cab was empty, just peering through the windows, which left the trailer. He tried the handle, for the door in the back, but it was locked, too. "There's somethin' in there," he finally explained for the curious and confused-looking kids' benefit. "Dunno what it is." He'd have to break the door down. A good kick could probably do it.
Jasper was more curious than confused. He'd never noticed this particular truck. On a street full of abandoned vehicles, there was nothing special about it, and he didn't even look out the windows a lot. Jasper was happy staying in the shadows. But Corey seemed to know a lot of useful things, and Jasper figured what he thought was interesting probably was. He dug around in his pocket for a bit of wire or a safety pin, but decided he needed something more heavy-duty for a car door. A piece of coat hanger might have been in any ten-year-old boy's pockets. They did horde. But Jasper was so deliberate about it. He slowly applied himself to the passenger-side door.
Corey took a moment to shove on the camper door, gauging its strength, then stepped back to consider the best angle for a kick. Then he caught sight of Jasper, leaned over to get a better look, and frowned. "Hey. Kid."
"Whatever." He still knew what that huddling over a lock meant, even though it wasn't a skill he had. He worked better kicking things, but picking a lock might disturb whatever was inside a bit less than kicking in the door. "You pick locks? Come do this one." Corey patted the camper invitingly.
No reason not to, though Jasper generally preferred actually breaking into cars. They had all sorts of neat things inside, from parts Verity would want and had taught him to appreciate to weird, neat little cues about people's lives. He generally couldn't make much of whate these things might mean, but they were there, and Jasper loved unexpected details he could hold in his hands. But he moved to the camper. The locks was a little easier and it popped open after only a bit of concentration.
And what it popped open to was a space heater-- not running at the moment-- and a trio of round, speckled eggs, far bigger than chicken eggs that Corey was used to seeing, nestled in a feather-prickled nest of blankets. Corey stared in surprise. "Well, that's different," he said after a moment, and reached in-- the camper was warm, even hot, from standing in the sun all morning-- to pluck one out and turn it over in his hands. "Somebody incubating these things?" he asked, though he wasn't sure the kids would know about it if someone was. Unless it was Juniper's brother, or something.
Jasper had heard something about eggs from Verity and nodded. He didn't know who. Some hotel person. The why of it was perfectly obvious. He reached in to touch an egg out of curiosity, noting its funny, chalky surface, its weight and shape, internalizing the structure. He didn't know anything about baby birds or lizards or dinosaurs or whatever might come out of giant eggs, but he could understand their homes and how they worked, in a general kind of way. He patted the egg softly before he withdrew his hand again.
This had to be a sign. There were monster eggs here, that someone was trying to raise, rather than eat. Someone with Corey's gift, or whatever it was, could be very useful here, possibly even welcome by whoever this was. Between the children and the eggs, did that mean he was supposed to be here?
He rebelled a little against the idea of leaving his safe haven, his supplies, and his territory. Annoyed, he set the egg he'd been holding down and-- after surreptitiously turning on the space heater, thinking it could use more heat sooner rather than later-- closed the door again. "Better get you kids inside."
Jasper turned his attention on the door, locking it back up again. Whoever was raising eggs wanted them to be safe, after all. He or Verity could always get into the car, and probably even drive it if they needed to. It'd take Jasper a little while, true, but he was pretty sure he could work through the wires and get the engine running, and Verity could just tell it to work. And then it'd be fine, just waiting for whoever the eggs were here for. He tucked a few strands of hair behind his ears, overwarm just from standing beside the open car.
Too disturbed to be amused by Jasper re-locking the door, Corey just cast his attention around for Blitz, called for her, and then ushered the kids-- once Jasper was finished-- to the door. Blitz trotted up to his side, twin tails flicking independently of each other, in different directions. One of her tentacles was unwound and wrapped around a broken bottle she'd found and apparently taken a liking to. Corey ignored her, patting the kids on the backs. "In you get, then. And try not to go wandering around by yourselves, without an adult. All right?"
Jasper knew enough to nod, though he had every intention of doing just that. He wondered if he could get a monster to do what he said. That'd make it safer to wander around outside, wouldn't it? Blitz was tough enough to scare off a lot of small to medium monsters. Maybe he could start leaving out cat food. They'd had a neighbor who'd made friends with a raccoon with cat food. And raccoons were kind of scary in a general way. If he could have his own monster, he'd be all set to find Verity, and help look after him, too. Verity didn't have any common sense at all.
"Good," Corey said, not even thinking to doubt it. When Juniper offered him his trail mix back, he waved her off for her to keep it, and turned to leave. Blitz paused, eying Jasper with her tails flicking, then turned to follow. Signs or not, he wasn't quite ready to give up his home. Not yet.