CHAPTER#26

It made her sad, thinking about how people treated their property. If you locked it away to keep it safe, could you ever truly enjoy it?

"Up ahead," Lily said, pointing at a large concrete wall that seemed to appear as if by magic. The road curved dramatically in places, and they found themselves in front of New Castle Storage Solutions.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," Beth muttered, forgetting she had an impressionable intern inside of the car. The front of New Castle had been designed to look like an actual castle. Tiny red flags flew at the top of the buttresses, and the gate was open, ready to accept moving trucks of all sizes. The old signs for the festival were still up, cleverly altered by someone with basic knowledge of paint and a cheap wood burning kit. Beth had forgotten all about the place, yet another memory she never had any need for.

"I kind of like it," Lily offered, startling Beth out of her reverie. Grabbing her briefcase, Beth got out of the car, followed closely by Lily. They walked along a side path that took them to a side building labeled Captain of the Guard.

A disinterested twenty-something sat in the air conditioned building, his eyes on a set of monitors that revealed that there was a whole lot of nothing going on. In the monitors, Beth saw the parking lot. Except for a few trucks parked near the back, hers was the only one in the lot.

"Can I help you?" He asked, swiveling in his chair. His dangling name tag revealed that his name was Randy, and that he had been with the company since This Morning. Clever, Beth thought.

"Hello, my name is Beth, and I am an estate agent for a Mr. Mike Radley." Beth handed over her card. "There is a storage unit in the possession of a previous client of mine who passed away. You see, her estate made arrangements to pay for all of her rental fees, and I was wondering if I could get some information from you regarding the potential illegal sale of some of these items."

Beth realized that Randy was staring at her tits. "Hey, eyes up here."

"Yeah, you kind of lost me there for a second. Are you some kind of lawyer or something?" Randy asked.

"In a manner of speaking, yes."

"Yeah, I'm afraid that's my boss's department." Randy's eyes lit from within, a mischievous grin crossing his lips. "You're gonna have to speak to him."

"Where is he?" Beth asked.

"He's on a cruise with his wife. He'll be back in a couple of weeks."

"I don't have a couple of weeks," Beth told him, narrowing her eyes.

"Yeah, well I'm not risking my job over it." Randy turned his attention back to the monitors.

"How about if I get the cops involved?" Beth threatened. "I do have a legal right to my clients records."

Randy slid his phone toward her. "His name is Buttweasel in my contacts, but you should call the sheriff Eric. Feel free to call him; I haven't seen him since 4th of July when we had dinner at grandma's house."

Beth stared at the phone, clenching her hands. She wanted to drag Randy across the counter, but didn't feel like getting arrested by a guy who went by the nickname Buttweasel. Lily's hand calmly gripped Beth's shoulder.

"Why don't you head outside, I'll see what I can do," Lily told her, winking. Beth rolled her eyes, storming out of the office to wait in the yard.

-

"How are you feeling?" Zel looked back at Mike over her shoulder. Mike had stumbled again, placing his full weight on her withers. He stood still for a few moments, sucking in deep breaths.

"Kinda shitty," he admitted. Already, he had a strong urge to ask her for more of that recovery potion. "I'll be fine for a few minutes, and then my body just wants to give out."

"That's your cells going through a refractory period," Zel explained. "Since your body is regenerating so rapidly, you'll get hit with brief periods of time where the energy in your body isn't converting fast enough." She stuck her hand in one of the many bags she had strapped to her body. "You are burning fat to replace what you have lost, but you don't really have all that much fat to lose. Eat this." She stuck a thick block into his hand.

"What is this?" Mike asked.

"Energy bar. I keep a stash of these on hand for emergencies. You should eat half of it now, that should help with the fatigue."

Mike inspected the energy bar. It looked like it had been cobbled together from mud and grass. "What is in this?"

"Only the good stuff. I've been in this forest for several years now, and I had to make do. A small bag of these provide enough nutrition to get through a couple weeks of winter, no problem."

"You didn't answer my question." Mike sniffed the bar. It smelled faintly of oatmeal. He bit into it, expecting to taste honey, oats, maybe even something nutty. Instead, it tasted like the inside of a lawn mower bag.

"Yeah, it's an acquired taste. Better than starving to death." Zel handed him a water skin. "It's better to wash it down right away. The aftertaste is kinda gross."

"Geez." Mike choked down half the bar, then sucked greedily at the water skin. The flavor quickly left his mouth, and the bar sat like a brick in his gut. "Couple weeks of this stuff?"

"Only once. The greenhouse is supposed to be like springtime year round, but there was a weird period a couple years back where a brutal winter blew through." Zel took the water skin back, slinging it over her shoulder. "Caught me off guard, and I had to go find shelter deep in the forest. Not a lot of caves built for people of my stature."