“What are you waiting for, deary?” Without the obstruction of any walls and echoes to muffle and warp the voice, it became brutally obvious that it was Stabby Mclaughterty, not Rancher Nan at all.

Firstly, the old lady spoke with a rough and phlegmy garble, not the shrill falsetto approximation of a stereotypical grandma. And the fact that he thought his half-hearted getup would even fool her for a second bent her mouth into an unimpressed frown.

Secondly, Rancher Nan was portly and wrinkled with a pillowy chest and saggy cheeks, not a stick-thin man.

And thirdly, his knife-hands were showing through the torn and tattered bed sheets. A dead giveaway if nothing else. And they were crusted brown from dried blood.

“Oh, deary. Do come in. So I can pay you for the gummy fruits and you can be on your way,” Stabby continued with the charade, like it was still fooling anyone.

“Yeah, sure,” Haru said.

“Then what are you waiting for?”

She took a step back, quiet as a mouse. “Raisins.”

“Raisins?”

Mhm. Raisins, yo. Tons of raisins.”

“I don’t understand, deary.”

“You don’t have to.” She was almost on the stairs.

That was, until her foot stepped on a particularly creaky board.

Stabby Mclaughterty sat up in bed. “Where are you going?” he said, dropping the shrill falsetto voice entirely.

Haru bolted. Thundered down the steps. The floor above rumbled as Stabby followed after her, huffing as he stood atop the stairs, draped in an oversized nightdress like a gaudy lamp. He threw himself down the stairs. She yelped. Flung herself out of the way as a flurry of limbs crashed into the drywall.

The front door was down the hallway. Haru dashed for freedom. Her feet slapped the hardwood floor as she ran.

“I’M GONNA STAB YOU, GIRLY!” Stabby shouted.

A mad scramble was right behind her. The floor shook like a stampede. The footfalls grew louder. Stabby was going to run into her, knifepoint first certainly. So Haru banked hard to the left, into the kitchen. And the man with knives for hands slammed into the front door.

Blood gushed out from Stabby’s nose like an open faucet. It ran and dribbled down his chin. He wiped his upper lips with a sleeve. Snarled at the girl as he approached her, brandishing his knife-hands.

“You done did it now, girly,” Stabby said. Haru was cornered in the kitchen. Nowhere to run. The only way out was past Stabby Mclaughterty, and that man had knives for hands. “Like the old crone that was to putter around this place. Quite the wrinkly whale, she was. Full of so much blubber and spunk. That old cow took many a stabs before she tipped over dead. But you though. Oh ho ho ho! Stabby Mclaughterty is gonna carve you up like a Christmas turkey,”—Haru bumped into the wood stove—“gut up like a fish,”—The water in the kettle was still boiling hot—“and tan your stinking hide out in the sun.”

Haru glanced around quickly. Looked for everything and anything to gain an edge to secure a win from this deadly madman. A velocimantis from outside was pecking at the kitchen window expectantly. A hot kettle was within her immediate reach. And she still had her basket full of golden gummy fruits, now a spoiled clump of goop. It was not much but it was all she got. And there was no more time to plan.

Stabby was stalking over, hunched like a lion. His knife-hands were up and ready to rip and tear. A wide-eyed mania pulled his face into an aggressive smile, as friendly as a shark.

“Any last words?” he asked as he raised a knife-hand high, prepared to slash it down.

“This!” Haru grabbed the kettle from the stovetop and threw it at his head.

On his guard though, and the throw was particularly weak, Stabby managed to swat it away easily. “Ha! That's all you—,” he said as much until the kettle popped open and splashed boiling water on his feet.

He jumped up, yelping like a wounded hyena. Haru scrambled. She threw her basket of gummy slop as well. The viscous, honey-coloured substance dripped from his head down to his shoulders. He staggered back, hollering in pain, banged up against the window.

But the glass did not shatter though. And with the gummy goop runnier than before, Stabby was going to quickly scrap it off. So, acting swiftly, Haru barreled into the man at full speed. Stabby gasped as her shoulder jabbed into his stomach, throwing him back and the glass on the window finally shattered. The girl wheeled, amazed that the gamble worked. And the velocimantis, attracted to the sweet goop on Stabby, opened its mandibles and clasped onto his head.

His limbs flailed and jerked madly as the velocimantis crunched into his skull. Brain matter squelched and popped and squirted down the window sill as it munched away hungrily. Blood was everywhere. Pushed around as his feet slipped about in his own crimson puddle. He tried to stab at the velocimantis but the blades only glanced off its carapace. Haru curled her toes when the screams jumped up several octaves, enough to explode glass. Then he went quiet. And the body of Stabby Mclaughterty went slack, dropped dead on the floor. His head was a half-eaten apple, his face contorted into a permanent look of horror. Vengeance had never looked so deliciously sweet.

“Haha!” Haru exclaimed gleefully. “Another win for little ol’ me.” And she spat on Stabby’s corpse. “That’s for calling me girly and ruining my job. Like, who’s gonna pay me now, yo?”

The velocimantis chirped, its mandibles still wet with bloodshed.

“Should I?”

It bobbed its head up and down enthusiastically.

“Technically it is legitimate salvage, with Rancher Nan stabbed to death and all that. It’s not like she’s going to miss any of her stuff.”

A sad trill twittered from its mandibles.

Haru tapped on her chin, thinking. “You know, I think I know somebody who would like you very much. And if you promise not to eat me, I can take you to her.”

The entire homestead filled with happy tunes as the velocimantis sang like a bird, and covered the sounds of looting as Haru searched high and low for where the rancher hid her bouillons.

With a big sack of legitimate salvage, and on the back of her new velocimantis friend, Haru returned from the horror show at the ranch.

KD was still where they laid from last time, sort of paralyzed though only from the waist down from the way that they sat up. A heap of golden gummy fruit cores littered their lap. Pulp and juice speckled their face. Meanwhile Hachita sat opposite them, arms and legs crossed, looking more like a tent than a person.

“Haru!” KD waved at her. “Welcome back!”

“How did the delivery go?” Hachita asked.

Haru went on to explain her run-in with Stabby, her escape from the minty forest, Stabby impersonating Rancher Nan after he stabbed her to death, and how she ultimately killed the madman in the end.

“And now you have absorbed his essence,” KD said.

Hachita was not as delighted as KD, though. There had to be a frown behind her high collar. After all, Haru defied her order to stay on the path. Had she not been resourceful and cunning, she could have become another one of his victims in the woods of Thormoor Park.

Haru dismounted from the velocimantis and offered its reins to Hachita. “Here.”

The park ranger stared at the reins warily. “I don’t know…”

“I promise you it’s legitimate salvage. Just like everything else that I have with me,” Haru added. “And this boy here may or may not have a taste for human flesh now.”

Hachita stood up and, with a cautious hand, caressed the insectoid steed under its chin. An instant connection was made as the velocimantis nuzzled into the touch as it trilled happily. “This one’s a girl.”

“So, what do you say?”

“Well at least you’re okay, and the killer is dealt with.” And she took the reins to her new travel companion.