The smell of roasting coffee filled the small diner. It was late October, and the sun was just about to set as a pair of officers slumped over the diner’s counter. One was a battered man, a leg replaced by a metal contraption. He had a stone cold stare at his dark roast. The other, a dark skinned woman with a helmet on her head. She looked on the verge of passing out. Not another living soul resided in the diner besides the officers, and the lady brewing them another pot of coffee.
It was Halloween night, and the two had been out on patrol for 7 hours already, with 5 more to go. All was quiet, until the helmeted officer’s head hit the counter.
“Jett, get up. Drink your coffee. You’re not getting out of this that easily…” A hand began to shake the tired officer up.
“I’m up..I’m up…”
“Are you really?”
“Yeah, Charlie… I am..” Jett sighed and raised her head from the table. Charlie was already up on his feet and fixing his uniform. She could hear radio chatter in her ear, but her brain was still catching back up to reality.
“C’mon, we need to head to Shamrock Road. Oliver asked for backup and we’re the closest available officers.” He took out his wallet and began to pay for the duo’s coffee.
“Backup? Joan and Oliver just went over there for a noise complaint. They’ll be fine.” Jett got up from the counter and let out a groan, stretching her tired limbs. Once the drawn out stretch was finished, she looked at Charlie with a smile, one he didn’t return.
“This isn’t a request, rookie, this is an order. So get over it…” She could visibly see the annoyance on Charlie’s face. He turned away and headed towards the cruiser parked outside. Her smile soon faded as he left the diner. The shoddy diner lighting flickered as she checked her gear over and began to walk after him. In the end she didn’t have much to complain about, it gave her something to do than just driving around New Era listening through Charlie’s CD collection. She could only listen to The Distance by CAKE so many times. As she stepped outside, she could feel something hitting the top of her helmet. It was raining.
The drive was smooth, accompanied by American Pie courtesy of Charlie. Jett’s arm cradled her head as she watched the rain hit the windshield of the police cruiser. Shamrock Road didn’t have much in terms of attractions. It was part of the residential district. Nothing but houses and an apartment complex that usually always had vacancies.It wasn’t a bad street though, in fact officers rarely got called there. That’s part of the reason that Jett didn’t feel the need to assist Oliver and Joan. The lion and rabbit were more than capable of handling it. But here she was, listening to Charlie hum the words to a song that was too long for its own good as they turned on the road. Umbrellas and kids in costumes passed the duo by as they continued down the long road.
After passing the bustling apartments, a candy paradise for kids, Charlie and Jett continued down the road for a bit until they saw the black and white paint job of another cruiser. The radio went silent as Charlie turned it off and continued to hum the song. He pulled into the parking spot next to it, right in front of a two story brick house. Compared to the other houses on the road, it was dead. There wasn’t a single decoration on the outside, nor were any lights on inside the large house. The blinds were shut tight, causing the windows to look like black voids into the abyss. The recent arrivals could see a lone rabbit sitting in the police cruiser beside them, its door ajar as a prosthetic leg and a rabbit’s foot hung out of it sideways. Oliver was staring over at them with a frown on his face. He always looked tired for the most part, but Jett had a feeling something was different this time.
Charlie was the first to get out, a grunt accompanied the sound of rain as his boots hit the wet concrete driveway. Jett could see him scanning the area, the older officer always did like to take extra precaution. Made sense considering neither of them could see Oliver’s partner. It’s not like Joan was hard to miss, he’s a big pink lion.
“Looks clear. Let’s go…” Charlie began to make his way towards Oliver. Jett followed suit and groaned as she felt the rain hit her helmet once again. Everything was soaked at this point; and as she shut the car door behind her, Jett’s hand was now covered in water from how much the cruiser had collected just sitting in the driveway.
The closer the duo got to their fellow officer, the more they could see him shake. He didn’t greet them with a wave and instead curled up into even more of a ball in his seat. His gun was out of its holster and in his hand.
“Everything alright Oliver? Heard you radioed for backup and we hurried over here…” Charlie looked at Oliver with a stern expression, his eyes focused on the gun. Jett didn’t say a word, she let him do most of the consoling. She knew how Oliver got, and the last thing she wanted to do was make him panic more.
“N-no…..no e-everything is not alright Charlie. Joan…..Joan….” Oliver was starting to shake more.
“Calm down. Oliver, I need you to put the gun up and tell Jett and I what happened okay? We can’t help if we don’t know the story.” Charlie didn’t dare get any closer to the rabbit. Not with the gun out. Jett could see Oliver’s breathing get heavier as he took long deep breaths. The gun slowly lowered from his side until it gently slipped back into the holster. The tension of the situation diminished so much that Jett couldn’t help but let off a sigh of relief.
“Right…right…sorry.” Oliver began to let his guard down more.
Charlie shook his head. “Nothing to be sorry for, now let’s try that again, what’s wrong.” The rabbit closed his eyes and tried to collect himself just a bit more before he answered.
“J-Joan and I. We…We came here to follow up on a noise complaint. A couple walking they said…they said they heard banging coming from a nearby house. T-his one…” Oliver nodded towards the house the trio stood outside of.
“Sounds like a domestic dispute.” Jett commented. Charlie looked over his shoulder at her and put a finger up to his mouth so she got the memo to shut up. She held her lips together tightly.
“Go on” Charlie looked back to Oliver
“When we got here, all of the lights were off and the driveway was empty. I-It didn’t seem like anyone was home. Joan asked me to stay in the car while he went to deal with it, since it looked like a faulty claim. And we couldn’t ask the neighbors when they;d be back since…” Oliver pointed behind Jett and Charlie with a simple head nod.
As the duo turned around they’d notice that there was a dense patch of trees behind them, the lights of the house just past these woods couldn’t be seen. Across the road from the house was a rundown building, the windows were boarded up and the parking lot was littered with rubble and trash. It wasn’t a nice section of Shamrock Road that was for certain. Jett gave Charlie a concerned look, but it was just met with his usual tired expression. He looked back to Oliver and nodded for him to continue.
“We were already suspicious it was a prank call like I said, so I watched Joan head to the door, knock a few times, and then I watched it open. He just…walked right into the house.” Oliver shook his head and looked Charlie dead in the eyes. “That was an hour ago Charlie. He hasn’t come out in an hour and the house has stayed silent. I-I-I I didn’t know what to do. So I called for backup.” The rabbit was starting to get worked up again. He looked towards the house, and his shaking only worsened. “S-Something must have happened to him, why else would he take an hour to check a house? You know Joan. He’s lazy when he can be. This isn’t being lazy, if anything he’s being more thorough than you Charlie.” The bunny looked back to his fellow officer.
Charlie thought for a moment. He looked away as he processed all this information. “Or he went inside to check around, sat down for a moment, and fell asleep.” He sighed and shook his head in disappointment. “Look Oliver, I get that you’re nervous but why not just go in and check for yourself? Why waste our time on assumptions.” He didn’t seem too thrilled now that he had heard the full story.
“Charlie I would have. But…I can feel something isn’t right, like I said. Doesn’t help that while I was waiting for you I swore I saw something moving in one of the windows. Whatever it was didn’t look human. Joan wouldn’t scare me like this just for a nap.” Oliver frowned back at Charlie.
Jett just kept quiet. The hair beneath her helmet was unusually calm, and had been ever since they arrived. It was starting to make her nervous. As her superior complained to the bunny’s lack of action, Jett could make out a black cat creeping along the edge of the house. It was heading right towards the porch. The feline carefully sniffed the grass in front of it before taking a few more steps and repeating the pattern. It wasn’t long before the cat made its way right in front of the door to the house. As if it was sensing the cats motion, the door gently swung. Jett looked over to Charlie and Oliver, still chatting about proper procedures, and then looked back to the cat. It was gone. The door was closed shut again and claw marks could be seen embedded into the wood of the door.
“What the fuck…” Jett put her hand on her gun holster and approached the house, Charlie and Oliver’s discussion dissolved into garble thanks to the soft rain around her. The hair on her head began to squirm beneath her helmet, bunching up at the back of her helmet. It was if it could sense something wrong, or more than likely it was just scared. The rookie stepped up onto the concrete porch, her gun now out of its holster as she stared at the door’s handle. She reached for it, and before her hand even touched it, the door began to open.
Before Jett’s very eyes, the door opened up to a black abyss. Her eyes couldn’t make out anything in the darkness within the house. Her gun raised up, and almost immediately after a green tentacle-like vine shot out of the darkness and wrapped around her waist. It coiled around her like a snake and began pulling her into the house.
“GHAH! CHARLIE!!! OLIVER!!!” The rookie screamed out as she aimed the gun at the vine in front of her and let out a shot. It punctured the green appendage and caused plant-like puss to pulse out of the wound. It’s grip didn’t fade though, and before Jett could get another shot in. She was tripped off her feet and dragged into the house. The last thing she heard before the door slammed shut behind her was the sound of her fellow officers shouting out her name.
Charlie’s shoulder slammed into the door soon after it closed, over and over again as he tried to break it down. It wasn’t doing any good. He could feel the door giving in but something on the other side was keeping it shut tightly. “Gh. No use. I can’t break it down. Oliver, care to explain to me what the hell that was?” The older officer grunted in frustration as he twisted the doorknob with zero results. The door wasn’t going to budge.
“I don’t know! That didn’t happen to Joan. He just walked in.” Oliver’s panic turned to dread as he realized what that meant. Joan had been taken by it too. He held onto his stomach, hunching over as he tried to hold his nerves together. His body wanted to throw up, but he tried his best to regress the sensation.
On the other side of the door things were not going much better for Jett. She screamed out as her body was dragged across the house’s carpets. Dead organic matter and leaves were strewn all around. On top of that the wet smell of mold filled the officers nose. She kept a hold on her gun as she was whipped around corners and slammed into door frames. The helmet she was wearing came in handy as the vine treated her like a delivery man treats a fragile package. The brief moments Jett could catch her breath from being slammed into the walls, she could see vines coating the interior walls of the house. Dozens of vines were breaking into the ceiling where the rotting drywall had given in and even more were coming out of holes in the walls. It was almost like the vines were holding the house together. The officer winced as she bumped right into a table, the radio on her shoulder getting the full force of the attack. It smashed into pieces. Before Jett could even cry out in pain from the hit, the vine whipped her around a corner and slammed her hard into a rotting wall. It gave in instantly, and her body tumbled into another room. The vine around her leg began to tremble and disengaged, retreating back through the hole it created with Jett’s body
The guard closed her eyes and began to cough on the silica dust from the drywall, confused as to why the vine let her go now of all times. When she opened her eyes it was clear why. The room was full of smoke. Jett’s eyes widened, because where there was smoke, there was a big fat pink lion.
“Joan? Joan, are you here?” Jett shakily stood up and took off her helmet. The tentacles on her head began to stretch out and fall onto her shoulders as they rubbed Jett affectionately for once. It was as if it had been scared for her safety and glad she was ok. She rubbed them back and readjusted her grip on the pistol. The smoke was pouring out of the room thanks to the new hole, and her vision was getting better and better. Amid her coughs from the smoke, Jett could see that unlike the rest of the house, not a single vine dared to set foot in this room. The only explanation the guard could think of was that the smoke reminded the plant of fire. Joan must have been using his ability to stay safe, but if that was the case why didn’t he walk on out?
After a bit more coughing and a lot more smoke leaving the room, Jett could see something finally. There was a couch on the far side of the room, old and nearly falling to pieces. And on top of it was their missing lion. His eyes were closed as smoke bellowed from his mouth. Jett lowered her gun and rushed over to him.*
“Hey! Why the hell are you laying down? Oliver’s been worried sick.” Jett grabbed the guard by the collar, to her it seemed like the lion had just passed out after fighting off the plant. She began shaking the lion, who’s eyes began to open as a growl escaped his maw.
“Ugh!! Calm the hell down, hentai hair…” Joan winced as he reached down and held his side. Jett let go of him and the lion slumped back onto the couch. “Fuck…better not have opened the wound again.” Joan moved his hands away from his side. Blood had soaked his uniform, a nasty cut had ripped open the fabric and gave him a huge gash.
“Shit. The plant got you that bad?” Jett got on her knees and began to examine the wound. She placed her gun on the ground and pulled open the cut in Joan’s uniform to get a better look at it. Blood coated her hands as she made sure the deep gash didn’t hit anything important or penetrate too far into his flesh. It wasn’t terrible, but it must have hurt like hell.
“You say that like I’ve never been badly wounded before.” The lion gave a light chuckle before it turned into a groan. Jett really wished she had brought the medical supplies from the cruiser, since she could have patched it up and sterilized it. But now wasn’t the time to worry about that. Joan was still slowly losing blood. Jett began to take off her vest, throwing it down beside her pistol as she undid the buttons of her uniform top and quickly disrobed. Her black tank top was all that remained as she tied the sleeves together into a makeshift sling.
“Alright, tough guy, work with me here. Lift up a little.” Jett brought her uniform shirt over his head. With a grunt, the lion obeyed and lifted his back off the couch. The sling soon traveled down to his wound. Once Jett adjusted it properly, she tightened the knot she had made in the sleeves tight, the shirt soaking in the blood on the gash and putting pressure on the wound. “There. That should work for now.” She sighed and bent down to pick back up her vest. She placed it over her tank top and picked up her pistol.
“And here I thought you wouldn’t give me the shirt off your back, hah.” Joan gave off a smile and tried to set up more.
“Can you stand? We need to get out of here.” Jett asked.
“Yeah I think so. Though, there’s no way we’re just going to walk out. That plant is still out for blood.”
“We’ve got your smoke, we’ll be fine. Charlie and Oliver are probably out there waiting on us still.”
“Jett, I’ve been using my power for about an hour now, I’m completely drained. In fact, the only reason I’m still alive is because I blocked the door and let the smoke fill this room.” The lion reached up for Jett’s assistance at standing. She obliged and slowly but surely helped him to his feet as they continued to talk. Her hair patted Joan on the shoulder to tell him he’s done good so far.
“You blocked the door?” Jett looked over to the door. There was another chair in front of it, and a dresser had been pushed in front of said chair,
Joan looked at it as well, confused as to why it was still standing. The smoke had been so thick before he couldn’t…Joan paused. He could see clearly again. “Jett how did you…” he saw the hole in the wall, and the smoke he had worked so hard to create was funneling out of it and dissipating into the rest of the house. The plant had been pushed back some, but it wasn’t going to be long before it returned again. “Nevermind. You better start thinking of a plan. your hard head put us in a time crunch. This smoke won’t last forever now.”
Jett looked at the hole and watched as smoke continued to pour out of the room. “Yeah yeah yeah, a plan right…” Jett looked around the room for a second and began to try and use her wits for once. Even in a dire situation like this, she was having trouble.
The front door to the house was a mess now, slam after slam from Charlie’s brute force entry attempt had done a number to it. The culprit was now sitting on the porch. Out of breath and nearly out of strength. Oliver was right next to him, a frown on his face once more. He had looked around the large house for any other entry point. His efforts were in vain. The back door was covered in vines and moss and the pair couldn’t get close.
“What now? I can’t reach Jett on her radio, and I’ve already tried that with Joan…” Oliver looked over to Charlie. Charlie looked back at him and huffed.
“Stay right here. I might have something in the cruiser.” The officer got up and began to slowly walk towards his car, leaving Oliver at the porch alone. The bunny began to get a really bad feeling in his guts again, he began rubbing at the top of his arm where his prosthetic was, rubbing the forearm area in a soothing manner to try to calm himself down, he stared ahead, his mind was running with either the worst possible scenarios or any idea of how else to help. The house behind him began to creak again. It had lost its captive not long ago to the same smoke as before. The vines behind the door began to slip away, allowing the damaged door to slowly open. A vine, the same one with two gunshot wounds in it, began to crawl towards Oliver, its prey unaware as he was still staring ahead. With one quick snap, the tentacle wrapped tightly around Oliver’s midsection like Jett’s before him and quickly tried pulling him in.
“Huh? GHAAH!!!” Oliver dug his feet against the ledge of the patio, his hands reaching down to join them in their efforts as he used all his strength to hold on. He felt like the vine was going to rip him in half; and the more he dug into the concrete ledge the more he could feel the vine fighting back. Oliver closed his eyes. He couldn’t hold on for much longer. This was it. Swept away just like Jett.
The sound of metal clanking against concrete rang in the rabbit’s ear. The vine stopped tugging and went slack on his body. Slowly, he opened his eyes and turned around. There stood Charlie, his foot on top of what remained of the vine with a hatchet in his hand. He looked out of breath, and the hatchet was covered in plant juice. Oliver could see the bleeding vine retreat into the dark house as Charlie held out a hand for him. “….there…huff…now, get up. Grab your gun. We’re going to do some yard work.” The older officer let out a sigh as Oliver grabbed his hand and made it to his feet. The rabbit had never been happier to see him and nodded with a renewed vigor. The two made their way inside, vines moving out of their way as Charlie held out his plant-blood soaked Hatchet.
Back inside the House, Jett was on the floor with Joan going over their equipment. There was still a fair amount of time before the smoke was completely gone. The two had the standard equipment. Two tasers, two flashlights, their guns, pepper spray, and two batons. They weren’t working with many options. Joan leaned back onto his hands and sighed. “Never thought I’d die to a plant. I did my best to avoid eating them for this very reason.” The lion tried to produce a bit more smoke, but ended up coughing instead. With the amount of smoke he was producing he was in danger of basically filling his lungs up.
“Shut up, Joan. You aren’t going to die. We can use the tasers on the plant. That’ll work right?” Jett grabbed them and checked to see that they were loaded.
“Nope. Plants don’t have central nervous systems, or nervous systems in general.” Joan responded.
“Damn it. We could just beat it down with the batons then? It’d work better than shooting it. I tried.”
“That’s not much of a plan though. That’s just hoping we can hit it enough that it’ll leave us alone. And you said you shot at it right? It still threw you into a wall.” Joan brought up great points, and Jett couldn’t help but admit that.
Movement could be heard near the hole in the wall, the rotting house creaked as whatever was making the noise got closer. Jett and Joan could hear vines moving about in the ceiling above them. The lion looked down at the baton and winced as he bent down and grabbed one. “Alright yeah, it’s a good plan. It’s better than no plan at all.”
“It better be. Because I think our time just ran out. Here I’ll help you up.” Jett gathered their things together and put away everything but her baton. She stood up and offered Joan her hand. The lion let out a gasp as he clutched his side and used her hand to get up off the floor. Jett slung his arm over her shoulder and started walking towards the hole in the wall. It wasn’t big enough for them to walk through while standing, but Jett wasn’t planning on crouching down to get through. The noise was getting closer, the smoke had nearly left the room at this point, and Jett got into a running stance. The last bit made Joan tense up.
“Wait, I didn’t agree to this! I’m not running through a wall.” Joan complained. Despite this complaint he got in a running stance too, still leaning on Jett.
“If we crawl we don’t have a chance to get away. Now shut up and use that extra weight to your advantage.” Jett lowered her head and took a deep breath. Joan rolled his eyes at the fat comment.
“Fine.” He looked towards the wall with a steady gaze. The noise was even closer now. The seconds felt like minutes as vines made a ruckus above the duo. A cluster could be seen passing by the hole in the wall, and that was their cue.
“Now!!!” Jett charged forward, shouting out as Joan was forced along with her. The damp wall was no match for the two guards as it came crashing down with a mushy plap against their body. Their rampage didn’t stop, as both of them continued to run forward with their eyes closed, their batons began to smack the air in front of them. Everything was going well, until they slammed directly into a blonde officer. Jett and Joan opened their eyes as they both fell on top of the officer. His hatchet had thankfully been knocked out of his hands as he looked up at the two idiots on top of him.
“What in the world are you two doing????” Charlie yelled out, pushing the lion and woman off of him with a surprising amount of force. Oliver stood behind the dog pile, his hands over his mouth in shock.
“Oh my god Joan!!! You’re ok!!!” His eyes began to water a bit as he rushed over and hugged his fellow officer tightly. The lion was still a bit stunned but laughed as he hugged Oliver back.
“For the most part yeah. Watch the wound bud.” Joan pushed Oliver away gently, still gripping onto his side with jett’s bloody shirt slung over it.
“Oh god. It got you bad. We need to get you to a hospital. Pronto.” Oliver backed off and began to inspect the makeshift bandage. He didn’t want to pull it back and possibly make it worse. Jett got up off the floor and helped Charlie back up to his feet. The older officer begrudgingly accepted the help.
“Tch. Glad to see you’re ok, rookie.” He put a hand on her shoulder. Jett’s hair bounced around happily. It was excited to see Charlie as well. “Next time, don’t go investigating without telling us first.”
Jett nodded. “Right…”
Charlie nodded back and looked towards the officers. The plant had retreated far back into the house by the looks of it, and all of the officers were now accounted for. This place looked abandoned and Charlie didn’t want to spend another second in this house of horrors. “Let’s get out of here. I don’t get paid enough to deal with killer plants. We’ll radio in about this to the higher ups and torch the place. Seems like it’s been abandoned for far too long.” Charlie looked around as his fellow officers nodded in agreement. Seeing that everyone was on board, he turned around to pick the hatchet back up again.
It was gone.
Before Charlie could even warn the others the hatchet came flying towards Oliver. The rabbit screamed out as he ducked out of the way and the blade stuck into the drywall behind him . The near death experience shook Oliver to the core, and just as he was about to throw up at last, vines began to pour out of the ceiling, the plaster and drywall crumbing as the four guard’s fell victim to their onslaught, The vines wrapped tightly around each of their necks and began to lift them off the ground. Jett’s hands began to dig into the strong plant fibers choking her, and the hair on top of her head began to mercilessly wail on her attacker to no results. Joan felt his breath leaving his body as he kicked and choked on his own saliva. Oliver felt the acid he was about to throw up return to his stomach as he reached towards Joan. Charlie gagged in pain as he saw all of his fellow officers get lifted higher and higher off the ground. Their life was fading fast, there was nothing they could do. As Charlie felt his eyes grow heavy, a voice called out from near the entrance of the house.
“Prickstine! What the hell are you doing to those officers???” The voice’s presence made the plant monster drop the police officers instantly. The room was full of gasping as each one of them began to pant and catch their breath. Charlie held onto his neck for dear life as he saw a tall man approach. He had dark skin and even darker round glasses, though considering this house had hardly any lighting besides the moonlight seeping in through the window, that wasn’t saying much. Charlie had to admit the man was well dressed, and as he extended his hand to help the officer up, Charlie took it and began to cough violently to clear his throat.
“Is this your plant?” Charlie looked at the man dead in the face with a frown. He wasn’t very happy about nearly being choked out.
“Yes it is. His name is Prickstine. It’s a pumpkin I grew out by the lake not too long ago. One day when I went to go check on it it had become sentient and I moved it here. It’s a spare house I planned to fix up. Turned it more into a greenhouse than an actual house once Prickstine came into my life.” The man explained, going around the room to help the other officers to their feet. Charlie’s stare was still on the man.
“Does it normally endanger the lives of anyone it comes into contact with? Because if so I think it’s safe to say this classifies as a public threat more than a pet plant.” Charlie looked at the vines watching him from the holes in the ceiling and then back to the well dressed man. “And that’s only because I’m ignoring how insane this actually is. Plants aren’t supposed to behave like this.” He continued his stern stare
“And last time I checked, people are not supposed to have tentacles for hair like your friend there. The world works in mysterious ways doesn’t it? But no. Prickstine wouldn’t hurt a fly. Unless the fly attacked him first.” As the man said this last bit, Charlie looked towards Joan. The first person to encounter the plant. He raised an eyebrow toward him. Joan scratched the back of his neck.
“Okay look…..I saw a sentient plant in a dark house. Did you expect me not to shoot it?” The lion gave a sheepish smile. Charlie put a hand over his own face.
“Christ…Let’s just get out of here.” He pointed towards the exit and the other officers nodded without saying a word. Nobody liked Charlie when he was upset, and saying anything else could have pushed him over the limit. The hand went away from his face as the others left and he looked at the man again. “Alright, but if another report comes in about this house, the pumpkin goes up in flames,you got that….whatever your name is…” Charlie crossed his arms.
“It’s Fraise, sir. And yes, I got that. It won’t happen again.” Fraise gave a sly smile as he put his hands in his pocket.
“Good. Just don’t expect us to fix your door with the damage that plant did to Joan.” Charlie began to walk towards the exit with the others, leaving Fraise all alone with Prickstine. He watched as the officers secured Joan into the cruiser. After ensuring the officer’s wouldn’t come back, he stopped watching and shut the broken door to retreat further back into the house. The plant’s vines followed him with interest as he made his way towards a set of stairs leading down to the basement. The scent of pumpkin filled the air as the vines became thicker and thicker the further down he went. At the bottom of the stairs, in the basement, was a massive pumpkin, coated in spikes. Dead animal carcasses were scattered around the floor. Most of them were smaller forest creatures. Some belonged to household pets. The vines threw out another corpse, the black cat Jett had seen earlier. It landed right at Fraise’s feet. He looked down at it and smiled, chuckling under his breath as he approached the spiky pumpkin and pet gently.
“Heheheh. Good boy.”