Chapter 6: Wake Up

Ripley's POV

Her phone was ringing.

Ripley's phone was ringing over and over and over again.

She scrubbed the sleep out of her eyes and reached for it.

"Hello?" she answered sleepily.

"Oh, thank the Goddess," Cory breathed a sigh of relief. "I was so afraid when I didn't hear from you. I knew I should have walked you to your car last night. I'm so sorry I didn't."

"Don't worry about that. I just got in late. I ran into some friends from high school and they wanted to catch up. I was out late," Ripley laughed.

"What friends?" he asked.

Ripley furrowed her brow at the tone of his voice. "Sarah, Katie, and Beth."

"Oh. How nice. How were they doing?" Cory continued.

"Good. They were good." Ripley had Cory on speaker while she went through her notifications. She had fifteen missed texts from Cory, starting with 'Good morning, beautiful' and ending with 'im calling the cops if u dont answer me'. She also had thirteen missed calls, all from Cory.

She must have slept harder than she thought.

"I'd really like to see you again tonight," Cory told her.

Ripley choked back the strange feeling that twisted in her gut.

"I'd like that, too," she told him.

She wanted this, she reminded herself. Hadn't she been dreaming of what it would be like to love him for years now?

But Jake.

Not Jake.

She didn't even know Jake.

"Perfect," Cory answered. "I'll pick you up tonight at seven."

"I'll see you then," Ripley replied.

Cory hung up the phone, and Ripley crawled out of bed. She never made it to the hardware store yesterday.

Ripley's phone rang again, right as she pulled a t-shirt with the name of a band she hadn't listened to in years printed across the front.

Ripley swore that if it was Cory again, she was going to throw her phone across the room.

Checking it, she noted it wasn't Cory. It was Father Kieran.

"Father?" she answered.

"Aye, dear. How are ya?" he asked, Irish accent lilting his words.

"I'm doing just fine. How are you doing?"

"Well, I've certainly been better. I got a call about a creature in your neck of the woods," he told her.

Ripley nearly sighed with relief. It would be nice to have something other than repairing the toilet and oiling hinges to keep her mind off the slaughter of her parents. It didn't hurt that it also pushed aside all thoughts of Jake and the inexplicable pull he had on her.

"What's up?" she asked.

"You ever hear of a wee beast called a wendigo?" he asked.

"Ugh, yes," Ripley groaned. She hated cannibals.

"About ninety miles from ya, there's one lurking in some state park. I'd check it out myself, but I'm otherwise engaged." There was a quiet chuckle from him, and a giggle from some girl in the background.

The Father had a habit of inviting the lovely temple attendants back to his office for additional tutoring. Tutoring sessions that had little to do with the Goddess and much more to do with his carnal appetite. He was a handsome man, in his early forties, and he had no shortage of interested students.

"I'm on it," Ripley chuckled. The call ended.

The thing about wendigos was that they were just as susceptible to a gunshot wound as a regular person. It was easy work if she could get a good shot in.

Father Kieran texted her some coordinates and a little bit more information. Ripley planned to head in that direction tomorrow. She would make her repairs today, stock up the truck, and tell Cory tonight that she would be unreachable for the next couple of days.

Ripley climbed in the truck again. She swore she might as well live in it instead of anywhere else. She crammed a couple of empty cups from fast food restaurants into a plastic bag so she could throw them away. She kept an overnight bag perpetually packed in the back seat, she had no need to pack anything other than a few more supplies.

Cory seemed so clingy now. What would she tell him tonight? She planned to tell him it was a work trip, but surely that would bring about more questions. He had visited her before when she was on a hunt, but it was different then. They hadn't been an item, there hadn't been the same expectations.

She chewed on her lip as she considered how to handle it all.

Ripley waved to a passing car as she turned into the parking lot.

The hardware store was grimy. It was coated in dust. Ripley always felt like it had been forgotten for a few years and then suddenly reopened, all of the aged stock still sitting on the shelves.

Of course, that wasn't the case, but it didn't stop her from washing her hands three or four times when she got home.

The toilet was probably the most frustrating thing she'd had to fix in a while. She unbolted it from the floor and wiggled it free of the wax seal.

Ripley then spent half an hour trying to scrape the old, crusty seal from the hole in the floor. Eventually, she decided to just melt it down with her hair dryer, which seemed fairly effective. She replaced the old seal with a brand new one, but it still didn't fix the problem.

She messed around with pieces and parts in the tank, but that clearly didn't fix the issue either. Eventually, she decided to replace some of the tubing that connected it to the plumbing, and that seemed to solve the issue.

Oiling the hinges didn't take much time, nor did tightening the pipes under the sink.

She faced the series of tasks much like she would any other hunt in her life. She started with identifying that a problem existed. Ripley followed up with thorough research and creating a battle plan. Then, she tackled tasks one by one, handling it until the job was done.

Ripley climbed into the shower, feeling quite satisfied with herself.

The dirt that washed off of her was gray, grimy, and gross. It was cleansing to watch it swirl down the drain. It brought clarity to her tumultuous mind.

She would see Cory tonight. She would be thankful for the opportunity to explore a new facet of their relationship. She would forget about the handsome stranger she met last night. She would leave tomorrow to hunt a dangerous creature and make the world a safer place by killing it and burning its corpse.

That was how the world worked.

A black Toyota Corolla pulled into the driveway. Ripley hurried out to meet him.

Climbing in, Ripley studied Cory. He seemed to be in a good mood, his earlier madness forgotten. That had to be what happened, right? He had simply lost his mind, that was the explanation for the clingy, possessive side that was beginning to peak through his personality.

They joked, laughing as he drove her. This was easy. This was the Cory she knew. He was easy going and silly and fun.

Cory had picked another restaurant along the same row of bars and restaurants as the night before. This time, it was a burger joint, a casual place with framed pictures of country artists all over the walls.

"I was worried you might have become one of those girls that's a vegetarian to stay skinny," he told her as he watched her take another bite of her burger.

"I just feel like I would have told you if that was a choice I made. I don't guess there's anything wrong with that, though," Ripley replied. She took a sip of her vanilla milkshake.

"Yeah, I mean it's never bad to keep an eye on your figure," he conceded.

Ripley furrowed her brow and ate a handful of fries. "Um, alright, changing gears here, I wanted to let you know I've got to go out of town for a couple of days."

"Oh, okay. Where are we going?" he asked.

"I'm headed to a state park. I've got to do a little work out there," she answered vaguely.

"Yeah, I'm coming with you," Cory shrugged like it was obvious.

"No, you're definitely not. It's not safe."

"What is it that you actually do?" Cory asked. "What are you doing that would be unsafe for me to go on a work trip with you?"

"That's not really relevant to this conversation, Cory," she told him.

"How is it not relevant? I'd love to know what you do for work. You didn't answer my question."

"The fact of the matter is that I'm going on a work trip and you can't come with me," Ripley told him. "I leave tomorrow."

Cory started to pout. "I just care about you," he whined.

"And I appreciate it. I take care of myself, that's all I can tell you," she assured him.

"So, what? Is it, like, something you don't want me to know? I saw a girl on the internet that was a traveling stripper, do you do that? Do they have strippers at state parks?"

"No," Ripley laughed. "It's not like that. And I don't think they have strippers at state parks."

Ripley felt confident boundaries had been set. She could tell he would back off a little now. And they hadn't even had to fight about it.

That was what was missing, that's why she felt weird.

Since they were going from friends to lovers, they just had to renegotiate the boundaries of the relationship. That was all.

The date ended with another passionless, chaste kiss when he dropped her off at her house. She watched him pull down the road, waiting until he turned at the stop sign.

Once she was confident he was gone, she set to work, loading up the tackle box in the truck with shotgun shells.