CHARACTERS: Sunny Zelensky, Planchette Mun

TAGS & TRIGGERS: fluff, wlw, cryptid hunt, cryptid creatures, 2010s, goth, punk, snow, winter

DECEMBER 20, 2012

11:29 PM
15, MANSON ROAD

NORMAL, SASKATCHEWAN, CANADA

Sunny sits in front of me looking all-of-a-sudden very serious, though the bright blue and pinks of her braids and the stuffed dog on her lap do take away from the effect slightly. "Planchette," she says, tone flat so I know she means business, "we need to do something. We're both getting cabin fever."

"You're getting cabin fever," I amend, adjusting a pillow behind my back. She glares at me, disgruntled. "I'm used to this, remember? I don't need to go for a walk every midnight to 'clear my head' or whatever you do."

"'Cause you're boring," she mumbles, moving the stuffed dog's paws to tap against her legs. "We're supposed to be, like, cryptid hunters. Not cryptid sit-around-and-read-books-and-do-nothing-ers."

"What are we supposed to do?" I ask, not bothering to hide my exasperation. "We haven't got a single call or a single lead or a single sighting–" I see her open her mouth and quickly correct myself, "from someone who isn't a known pothead or a compulsive liar. It's too cold to go outside, anyway."

Sunny glances to the window as if only just considering this idea. There's snow piled up on the windowsill and weighing down my mother's prized hanging baskets, but it stopped falling around an hour ago, just before she came over to my house. "Not that cold anymore. The snow's melting." It isn't. "Planchette, come on..." She pouts at me, trying to look sad, holding up the dog plushie. "You can't just rot in your room." I'm sure I can – and I would be, if she weren't here, which I'm not quite sure I appreciate.

I give up. "Where would we even go?"

"I thought you'd never ask," Sunny beams, tossing the plushie over at me (I place it carefully by its friends, beside the pile of pillows next to me) and leaning forwards for more emphasis, pigtails swinging as if trying to escape their spiked hairties. "So, some guy did actually call me–" I raise an eyebrow, "and yes, he was sober, and he was scared, and he thought he saw something in that big lake under the ice. Like, have you seen how thick it is? It probably wasn't dangerous 'cause it was pretty far down, apparently, but I think we should check it out."

"Who actually was it?"

Sunny thinks for a second, tapping her fingers against her fluffy socks. "His name was Niko, Nikolai, something like that. He was, like, fifteen. Poor kid," she adds automatically, like she knows she's supposed to say it.

I don't recognise the name, but she wasn't exactly certain about it, and it's not like I know everyone in Saskatchewan. That's Sunny's job. I'm less inclined to believe a child than someone older – the most believable clients are rough-around-the-edges guys with strong accents who wouldn't believe in a ghost unless it hit them in the face – but Sunny said he sounded sincere, so he did sound sincere. "That's pretty far out, though, isn't it? The lake, I mean."

"Yeah, uh, it's kind of inaccessible. We can't take your wheelchair."

"And we can't drive?"

"A little bit, until we get into the forest itself... crutches should be fine for a while, though, right?"

"Sure." Not really. I've got pretty bad blisters already, from going down to my dad's house yesterday – at least there are pavements there. Thank god for gloves. "Let's go."

DECEMBER 21, 2012

12:34 AM

PINELOCK NATURE RESERVE

NORMAL, SASKATCHEWAN, CANADA

"Here we are," Sunny announces, stopping the car suddenly with a squeal of brakes. I should know to brace myself by now, but I'm still taken by surprise when she parks the car without a second of warning. She turns in her seat to look at me with the pseudo-serious look on her face barely masking her excitement while I slip my arms through the loops in my crutches. "It's not that far from here," she promises, grinning; and even though all previous experience tells me that it is, in fact, fairly far from here, I'm inclined to believe her when she looks so animated. Looking for weird stuff is her natural environment, where she looks most comfortable – who am I to ruin that by doubting her?

The ground is solid but littered with twigs and small pebbles: a hell I've learned to navigate in the two or three years I've lived in the countryside. At least it's not mud, I think reluctantly, gripping the furred handles of the crutches tight as I pull myself up and steady myself, finding balance easily between my real leg and the two fake ones. Sunny watches out of the corner of her eye, making sure I'm standing before she bounds ahead like an excitable dog. "This way!"

I can keep up with her on a good day, but today is a freezing-cold-and-I-already-have-blisters-on-my-hands day and I'm struggling; she does glance behind every so often to check I'm still there, stopping for a moment or two before starting again. At least she doesn't treat me differently than she does anyone else, I think dryly, though it can be a bit of a pain when she's running off ahead and I'm still by the car.

The lake, when I eventually catch up to Sunny, is completely frozen over. The whole area is frosty, grass crunchy underfoot and surrounded by shining silvery trees. The lake itself looks solid, but that could be deceiving – I definitely won't be going anywhere near it, and I'm about to share that sentiment with Sunny, except she immediately does the opposite of what you're supposed to do with a frozen lake and tries to walk across it. Miraculously, it holds.

"So," I call to her, my voice the only thing rising above her boots on the frozen water; all else is silent, "what are we even looking for?"

Now Sunny's kneeling, tights wetting on the surface of the lake, palms flat against it for so long I'm afraid they'll be bright blue when she lifts them up. "A thing," she answers.

I move gingerly closer to the edge of the flat ice, not daring to place a crutch even an inch away from it – I know I'd go flying immediately. It's a wonder I still go anywhere with Sunny, with all the things I can't do; although I do have certain skills (like critical thinking and common sense) which she sometimes seems to lack. "Any more specifics?"

She answers me when she's nearly flat against the floor, pressing her face to it as though it's glass and not a sheet of ice over a frozen lake in the middle of December. I sit down on the edge of the lake and tap my crutches against it.

"Well, that's kind of all he said. It's a shape underwater, and– oh!" She sits up suddenly, looking excited, eyes wide. "Do you think it might be, like, the Loch Ness monster, but in Canada? How cool would that be?"

It would be cool, if it were real, I think about saying. If we could find substantial evidence of anything. All we've had are fake sightings, gut feelings, blurred photographs, and the occasional 'real-life monster' which always turns out to be either a moose or a coyote or once, embarrassingly, a stray cat (the cat was sweet, so it can be forgiven). But I nod at her. "Cool. See anything?"

"Naw." She lies back down – God, she must be half-frozen, but she doesn't show it – and frowns into the cloudy water beneath its icy glaze. "Just fish. Maybe."

I tap the ice again. "I'm freezing."

"I know."

"It's snowing," I nag.

"I know," she answers automatically, distracted.

Irritated, I pick at my tights, tearing holes in them to expose an extra layer of leggings underneath, for the cold. Despite my long cape-like jacket that my mother (affectionately) says makes me look like some sort of witch and the many layers under it, including two sets of gloves and a pair of armwarmers, I'm becoming cemented to the icy ground and want nothing more than to A) move so I can actually see what's going on in the lake and get involved with whatever Sunny's doing now or B) get back into the car and turn the heating on up to maximum.

"Sunny!" My tone is sharper, annoyance building as I push myself up from the ground using my crutches.

"Yeah?" She's intently focused, now tapping the ice, flat against it. I'd feel bad for her if I wasn't so frustrated. Why doesn't she just look at me for half a second? Has she even realised I'm not there?

The sky is darkening quickly, the moon slipping behind a cloud so the fair amount of light we did have is swept away. "I'm seriously cold. Can't we come back in the morning?"

"No!" Sunny finally sits up, the front of her jumper-under-jacket combo soaked with melted ice. Snow is beginning to settle on the soles of her heavy boots. "It could have gone by tomorrow! Why don't you just help me look from there or something, I really think–"

Something cracks behind me. Louder than just the wind; it sounds more like a tree branch snapping off. I turn towards the sound, tuning her out. I hear her sigh, lower herself back down to the ice in a slightly different place. Thinking I'm just being a pain again, ignoring her, being unhelpful. But there's something there.

"Sunny," I say again, less forcefully but louder than last time, keeping my eyes fixed on the place I heard the sound: somewhere in the woods, away from the path, away from us but not far enough. Human, maybe, but that scares me more than the prospect of a bear or oddly large fox. All I have is my camera, because – despite the fact Sunny is fixed in her belief that we will, one-hundred-percent, find a ghost or spirit or cryptid creature of some kind – all she wants is a photo, really. What would we possibly need to defend ourselves against, hunting for ghosts and Nessie and Mothman and malicious spirits trapped under the ice?

At least I have my crutches, though what good they'd do in a fight when I only have one leg to support myself on, I have no idea. "Sunny!" I yell, but I'm being given the silent treatment. There's another crack. Closer.

Screw this. I start to move, but it's way more difficult without the moon to help and I can't get my torch out of my pocket without stopping. Sunny finally looks up, sees my hurry, and stands up, calling back reluctantly: "What is it?"

"I think there's something in there," I say, pointing at the woods; and then I immediately feel slightly stupid for my panic. Maybe I was overestimating the size of the branches breaking, the size of whatever this might be. "I think it's getting late." I try sound stern-ish, composed; there's another, louder snap and this attempt falls through, I flinch.

"Was that it?" Sunny is speaking very quietly, excitedly, pulling her camera over her head in anticipation. All arguments seem to have been forgotten, which I can appreciate, but only briefly. The sound of splintering is becoming more frequent and closer to us, until it's right at the edge and I'm yanking hard at Sunny's sleeve because I really don't care what this is, I don't want to find out, we have no way to defend ourselves whatever it is. Closer, closer. Something tears the final branches away from where I was standing before, metres from the lake, from where we stand right now: me behind Sunny, who has her instant camera ready, a hand on mine to discourage it from tugging at her clothing. The creature lumbers out.

I think it's a bear at first, and I'm half-relieved, because a bear is a fairly easy problem to solve – but the muzzle is different, the arms longer, huge blunt claws extending from two front paws. It's slightly more lengthy and less wide than a grizzly, too, like all the ordinary girth from a bear was placed to make its arms and snout longer. The thing turns to face us. Sunny lifts the camera and takes a picture. It doesn't notice the flash and instead shuffles awkwardly on its hind legs towards the lake. "Oh my God," Sunny says, and I think that sums it up pretty well. The camera goes off again twice. I begin to move back to the car, wrists aching from gripping the handles of my crutches so tightly. I feel a hand on my arm.

"We can't just leave it!" Sunny hisses, excited, and I know it's all she can do to contain herself from squealing aloud. "It might be gone tomorrow!"

"We can't stay here all night," I mutter back, eyes still fixated on the huge bear thing in front of me. "What if it's hostile? It didn't see us before–"

"You worry too much." She grins. "There's plenty of stuff in the car."

I give her a look, try to protest, but she's already won.

"Fine."

Sunny beams. "Stay there," she instructs, rushing back through the path where we came from, to the car and then back, coming back with a blanket from the backseat, a half-eaten chocolate bar and a probably lukewarm bottle of water. "What did I tell you?"

With a bit of cajoling, I can get her to bring the car a little closer, too, and let us both camp in it, instead. The creature stays by the lake, sometimes dipping into the trees but never noticing us. I begin to relax. We make a tiny nest in the backseat out of coats and hats and the tatty blanket she found, watching it through the windows, occasionally interrupted by the flash of Sunny's camera. She stares and writes things down in a notebook from the glove compartment and takes photos, and I can't help thinking this is amazing and I'm glad we're not dead and it hasn't noticed us, and Sunny's glad of that too, but she wouldn't mind as much, as long as she got to see it and got proof she did. She stays up all night, somehow, but I drift off around three or four, chin resting on the back of the seat with Sunny's hand next to me, writing or clicking away with the camera. It's not ideal, but there are worse places to be. At least I have good company.