Penny didn’t know how long she’d been walking because the chronometer on her wrist seemed to have been affected by the slow-time bubble, when her hand had gotten engulfed by it. It had stopped and though she shook it and tapped it, the chronometer wouldn’t start again.
But though her watch was broken, her stomach wasn’t. It informed her that it was well past lunch time and almost time for dinner or “Last Meal” as the Kindred called it. She thought longingly of the dusty pack of snack food she’d seen at the start of her strange journey—why hadn’t she grabbed it when she had the chance?
Sure, it was old and doubtless way out of date, but it had been vacu-sealed which meant the contents—whatever they had been—were probably still good. Or at least edible. And there was nothing to eat here, in the empty corridor. Nothing but dust and a few discarded items here or there.
Penny was just beginning to wonder if she ought to go back for the dusty snack bag even though it was far behind her, when her eyes fell on a welcome sight.
Up ahead, in an abandoned storefront, she saw a full shelf—and the items it was filled with all appeared to be edible.
Putting on a burst of speed, Penny reached the empty store and stared eagerly at the shelf at the front. It was filled with colorful bags of the same kind of snack mix she’d seen earlier as well as some vacu-sealed packets of energy-jelly and even something that looked like either a candy bar or a jerky stick. Either one would be welcome to her empty stomach.
Best of all, none of the items looked compromised. None of them was even dusty. They sat there on the empty shelf, as colorful and bright as the day they’d been made, calling to her to come and try their delicious contents.
Penny looked around for a storekeeper—could it be that this one store in all the empty corridor was still open for business? But no—the rest of it was silent and deserted. There was nothing but a pile of old clothes lying in a heap in the corner. The items on the shelf appeared to be free for the taking.
Stomach growling, Penny reached for the candy bar or jerky stick. But just before her fingertips brushed it a screechy voice said in her ear,
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, dearie. Oh my, no—I certainly wouldn’t.”
Nine
“What?” Penny jerked her hand back and whirled around.
Standing right behind her was a little old woman. She had on a baggy brown dress that seemed to have a hundred pockets sewed all over the front and sides of it. From the pockets, various items protruded. Penny had no idea what any of the items were, but she didn’t take much time to study them because there was something much stranger than her dress about the little old woman.
She had a second head.
It was much smaller than normal and it perched like a wrinkled peach directly on top of her first head or main head in a nest of curly brownish-gray hair. At least, Penny assumed it was the old woman’s main head because when she spoke again, that was the head she used.
“I said I wouldn’t do that if I were you, dearie. Nobody steals from a Keeper and gets away with it, no they don’t,” the old woman said.
“No-no! No-no!” squeaked the top head, opening and shutting its bright little eyes rapidly.
“A…a Keeper?” Penny asked uncertainly. “What are you talking about? What’s that?”
“Looky here,” the old woman said and the wrinkled peach head on top said,
“Looky-looky! Looky-looky!”
Penny tried not to be distracted by the odd second head and instead watched what the old woman was doing.
She reached into one of her many pockets and pulled out something that looked like a bit of scrap metal. Leaning into the store, she threw the metal directly into the middle of the pile of discarded clothes Penny had noticed earlier when she was looking to see if there was a shopkeeper of some kind.
Immediately, the pile of clothes exploded outward and a huge, green, spider-like thing—as big as a Doberman pincher—came rushing at them. It scrambled up the shelf with horrible speed and came to rest at the top of it, balancing its fat, hairy body on several long, thick legs—each one of which was tipped with a chitinous claw.
Penny shrieked and stumbled backwards, landing on her behind in her haste to escape. She scrambled to her feet and started to run but the old woman was suddenly blocking her path.
“No, no, dearie,” she said calmly. “Don’t you worry—a Keeper won’t leave its store, no it won’t. Not unless you take from it. Of course,” she went on, going to stand not three feet from the menacing spider-thing which was still balancing on the top of the shelf and staring at Penny with eight bulbous eyes. “Of course, if you’d stolen one of the Keeper’s lures, then it would have chased you down and had you for its dinner, so it would.”
“It…it would?” Penny couldn’t believe the old woman was standing so close to the huge, hairy Keeper without being attacked. But the spider-thing just sat there on the top of the shelf, swaying from side to side, and hissing faintly through its jagged mandibles.
“Why, a‘course it would!” the old woman said.
“A’course! A’course!” squeaked her second head, opening and shutting its eyes.
“Hush, you.” The old woman swatted the little head gently, which only made it open and close its eyes more rapidly. “My twin,” she said to Penny, who was watching the display uncertainly. “She’s a pain in m’rump, so she is, but I’m stuck with her, ‘ent I?”
“Um…” Penny wasn’t
