Running With Scissors Pt. 8

Original photo by Steve

RWS is a serial fantasy story that posts every Monday following Danielle, a regular girl stuck in an irregular world where unicorns serve as judge and jury, gnomes have infested the south district, and a minor god reports the weather on the nightly news. 

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Part 8

Gnomes, I learned, liked to mimic. They marched around behind Sam in a konga-line despite the fact that she went out of her way to step on large groups of them whenever she could. There was slime running freely in the street. People around the edges had started catching on, stomping or squishing any of the critters they could reach.

My phone rang. The dragon. I let it go to voice mail. I wasn't too sure killing them all was the best option, but they didn't seem to be running out of numbers either. The stream of small green bodies from the drain had yet to ebb.

They ran around in flowing groups, like schools of fish. They climbed up and over each other without any apparent personal survival instinct. When they started grabbing my jeans and crawling up, I jumped back and kicked them off. "Oh, yuck. Stop!"

They all yelled back in high-pitched chorus, "Stop!"

Someone beside me asked, "Can these things talk?"

I didn't really have a clue. "Sam?"

"Sam!" The gnomes echoed. That was getting old fast.

"They can communicate in larger groups, but individually they're pretty stupid."

"Stupid!"

Yeah, they were stupid alright. "So what are we supposed to do?"

Sam squished a small tower of gnomes. "I haven't figured that part out yet."

"Don't you guys have magic?"

"Melissa does, but these things are pretty impervious."

"Impervious!"

Yeah, ok. I was done with the call and repeat. "Hey, stop squishing them and form a circle. Get in a big circle and herd them together." I grabbed the lady who'd asked if they could talk and put her in place. "You, stand next to her. And you next. Like that, get people in line."

"People in line!"

Hey, more than one word that time, maybe this would work. My phone rang again. I ignored it to nudge gnomes together into the bigger group and at a certain point the mass shifted from enclosed chaos to organized movement like there was a queen bee suddenly running everything. "Hey," I said to the gnomes. "Hey, can you talk now?"

"We can talk!"

"Great. You guys can't stay here in the sewers. First, that's like way nasty--"

"Nasty!"

Maybe this wasn't working.

Sam kicked a gnome into the herd and asked. "What are you trying to do?"

"Not really sure. I thought we could ask them to leave or something."

"Huh. Not a bad plan."

"What do gnomes eat, anyway?"

"Happiness."

I offered her a skeptical look. "From the sewer?"

"I told you they were stupid, right? They thrive on happiness around them."

I crossed my arms. "Ok, so... the park maybe? People are happy there, right?"

"Sure. What are you thinking, follow-the-leader all the way to central park?"

"I don't have a clue."

My phone rang. I answered it. "Damnit, I'm in the middle of an inter--" The dragon jumped out of my phone. She was still a ghost, incorporeal and kinda creamy, but she took up the entire intersection. People screamed and ran. Sam started sideways and flicked her eyes between me and the dragon.

The gnomes all bowed down on the ground. "Dragon caller!"

I sighed.

Part 9 or All Chapters

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