Jennifer’s eyes grew bright for a moment. Shitty Ritchie was disgusting, but he was onto something. Jennifer loved the gross fact game. She was the champion of it.
Tim dove right in. He pulled out his ever-present notebook and went for it. “According to the FDA, your favorite chocolate bar may contain eight insect legs and oregano can legallycontain up to one-thousand-two-hundred-and fifty bug fragments per ten grams!”
Jennifer giggled. It was soft, but it was audible.
We kept going.
“Wombats crap out cube shaped poop,” Candy Vargo announced.
“Shitty Ritchie can do that too!” he shrieked. “And the average person farts around twenty times per day. HOWEVER, Shitty Ritchie farts over a hundred times a day. Shall I fart for you?”
“NO,” I said in my outdoor voice. “We’re good. Thank you, but no.” Getting asphyxiated wasn’t on the agenda. Plus, it was my turn for a fact. “It’s physically impossible to lick your elbow.”
This led to everyone trying it—even Jennifer. She was coming back to us slowly but surely. And… no one could lick their elbow.
Gideon chimed in. It wasn’t his normal MO, but this was not a regular game. It was a life or death one. “A sea cucumber, when attacked, can turn itself inside out, dumping all of its internal organs out of its rear end to confuse or entangle predators.”
“Impressive,” Shitty Ritchie said with a thumbs up.
“Icky,” I added with a wince. “Did you know it’s impossible to hum while holding your breath?”
Again, everyone gave it a try. Again, no one succeeded.
Jennifer laughed. For real. The color had come back to her cheeks and the lash marks were knitting together and healing.
“I’ve got a few,” she said, with a giggle. “A normal jar of peanut butter contains on average two bugs.”
I gagged. This game led me to banning so many of my favorite foods from my diet.
She wasn’t done. “Over a human lifetime, a person spends about one year on the crapper!”
“Speaking of toilets,” Shitty Ritchie said, “sperm is ejaculated at about twenty-eight miles per hour! That is slightly faster than Usain Bolt’s top running speed!”
“What in the actual fuck does that have to do with a toilet?” Candy asked, perturbed.
“Nothing,” Shitty Ritchie admitted with a cackle of laughter. “I just thought it was an excellent segue.”
“Guys,” Jennifer said, extended her hand for Tim to help her to her feet. She glanced around the room. “Cheese Dick is never gone for long. I think we should leave.”
“Agreed,” Gideon said. “Do you feel strong enough?”
“Gettin’ there,” she said with a forced smile. “But gettin’ out of here would be smart. Cheese Dick is evil.”
The question that had been forefront in my mind the entire time came out of my mouth. “Alana Catherine. Where is she?”
Jennifer closed her eyes for a moment and my stomach felt like it dropped to my toes.
“Another one came,” she said with a shudder. “Looked just like Cheese Dick, but was colder—meaner if that’s possible. Said that Alana Catherine belonged to It.”
Gideon growled low and deep. His tension was so fierce it made the cave seem much smaller than it was. Even the zamirs began to moan.
“Cheese Dick and the twin of Cheese Dick battled. It was bad—real dang bad. The twin won by a longshot,” Jennifer told us. “Cheese Dick was missin’ Its arms and one leg. The twin opened the cage and took Alana Catherine.”
I felt like I was going to throw up. I prayed to everything that I could think of that the motorcycles would take us to Alana Catherine next.
“Did the twin say anything about where It was going?” Gideon asked, most likely knowing that It hadn’t, but he wasn’t about to let a single stone be unturned.
Jennifer shook her head. “No. But It did say It was now the only Higher Power.”
