Slurp gargled and groaned in protest. He ambled and shambled along ahead of Pugsley. Tara thought the zombie was trying to run away, but Pugsley just kept laughing and going on about how excited their pet was to see more of the woods around Nevermore.
"Did you ever have any pets growing up?" Pugsley wondered.
"Me? Oh, yeah," Tara sighed. "We had the usual rotation of dogs and cats, you know how it goes. You'd think pet ownership would be easy in a small town like Jericho, but... our pets always managed to go missing. We could never keep anything more than a year or two."
"Huh, weird," Pugsley noted. "Same for my family."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"I don't even wanna know what kind of weird things you folks kept," Tara rolled her eyes. Up ahead, Pugsley's zombie stopped short and started sniffing the air. Or was it about to sneeze? Tara held back just in case.
"Nothing as cool as Slurp, that's for sure!" Pugsley grinned. "What's the matter, boy? Tired?"
"Well, he doesn't have very many ligaments," Tara noted critically. "Maybe it's best if we head back."
"Aw, think we have to?" Pugsley groaned.
Tara mulled something over in her mind. She had a theory she wanted to test regarding Pugsley and his strange whims.
"If we go back now, I'll have enough energy left to do one last activity," she told him. She cringed inwardly at her own awkwardness, but Pugsley didn't seem fazed by her odd choice of words.
"Well... what did you have in mind?" he asked, sounding tempted. Slurp hacked and gurgled behind him.
"I don't know," Tara shrugged. "Nothing too exciting, but... I'm not ready to go back to my room yet. If there's more graffiti waiting for me, I'll lose my marbles."
"Yeah, they're not even using real blood," Pugsley tsked disapprovingly. "Super disappointing. Shows a lack of commitment on their parts."
Tara giggled. She glanced between Slurp and Pugsley. If she didn't know better, she might have thought the zombie was watching them through its cloudy, decayed eyes. Well... eye. The one on the left was too deteriorated to qualify as more than a moldering socket.
"Tell you what," Pugsley proposed. "Wanna see my contraband fireworks collection?"
"That sounds perfect," Tara sighed.
"Nice. Come on Slurp! Let's go, boy!" Pugsley called, tugging the chain and dragging his pet forward as they turned back.
Slurp growled and snapped, but stumbled along without much of a choice in the matter. Tara kept glancing back. The more she looked at the zombie, the more convinced she became that it was staring at her.
"I think Slurp wants my brain," she announced. "You can't have my brain, Slurp."
"Yeah, Slurp, her brain's off-limits," Pugsley agreed.
Slurp groaned, almost as if in direct response.
"That feeling's back," Tara noted with a little frown. "The one I had by the skull tree."
"Oh, the one you couldn't put into words?" Pugsley recalled.
"Yeah. I think it's like... some kind of familiar feeling," Tara frowned. She glanced around the woods, trying to figure out what could be inspiring the strange ambiance.
"Like deja vu?" Pugsley asked, shooting in the dark to help her articulate the feeling.
"No, not at all," Tara mused. "More like... okay, this is super specific, but it's the only thing that feels close. It feels like this one time my best friend's cousin was in town. And I ran into him in the supermarket without knowing who he was, but we started talking and the whole time, I kept thinking I'd met him somewhere before. Come to find out, he just had the exact same nose as my best friend."
"Huh. Think you recognize Slurp from somewhere?" Pugsley offered.
Tara turned back one more time, features contorted with disgust while thick, slimy drool oozed from Slurp's distended, disintegrating jaw. The zombie didn't even have a nose, just a gaping hole where one should have been.
"Uh... not at all," Tara said authoritatively. "I mean, I guess it's technically possible he could be related to... literally anyone I've ever met. How long has he been dead again?"
"Story said thirty years," Pugsley shrugged.
"Yeah, it's definitely a feeling I'm getting from Slurp," Tara sighed. "But I doubt I'll ever get closure on it... so I guess I'll just ignore it."
"I mean, we could always ask my sister," Pugsley suggested.
"Wednesday? What for?"
"She's a psychic, you know. A raven! And she totally learned to control her ability over the summer!"
"Huh, well... I'd be lying if I said I wasn't curious," Tara admitted. "Think she'd be willing to try?"
"Of course! Wednesday loves mysteries," Pugsley grinned. "Although... I'm not so sure how she'd react to Slurp. Last time she found out I had a pet, she cut it in half on sight."
"Oh my god, I'm so sorry to hear that!" Tara gasped with reflexive horror.
"Nah it was fine!" Pugsley assured her. "After that, I had two pets for a while."
"Oh."
Tara's stomach squirmed and she decided not to interrogate the strange story further.
"Well, it's up to you, Pugsley," she told him decisively. "I'll be fine either way, I promise."
"I'll bring it up to her without specifics and test the water," Pugsley said.
"That's uncharacteristically cautious of you," Tara noted suspiciously.
"You'd have to be brain-dead to approach Wednesday without caution," Pugsley shuddered. "I may be a dope, but even I'm not that dumb."
"I don't think you're a dope," Tara protested.
"Really?"
"Yeah. I think you're sweet, and adventurous. And I think people are jerks, and they would rather see your willingness to take risks as a lack of intelligence than as courage," Tara reasoned passionately. "I think it's cool that you're spontaneous. You're always saying and doing things other people would be too scared to even consider. It's fun. You're fun, Pugsley."
Pugsley was grinning from ear to ear, but before he could respond, Slurp lunged at him with a snarl and an outstretched tongue.
"No, Slurp!" Tara scowled.
"Bad Slurp!" Pugsley admonished him.
Between the sparks and the telekinesis, Slurp was rendered completely immobile.
