Independence Day

[Bloodthirstybutcher]

It’s been six months since Christmas Eve on I-80, so I thought it’d be fun to check in on our grumpy tow truck driver and his new little pet. If you haven’t read the first part I’ve linked it here: https://shrunken-women-board.com/phpBB3 ... f=9&t=4809

[Bloodthirstybutcher]

Independence Day

By BTB



Another day, another piece of my soul dies.

Ok, perhaps I'm being a little dramatic.

Still, it never ceases to amaze me how anyone could run their car off the freeway into a cornfield on a cloudless summer day. Oh yeah, that's right. The latest 30 second dance sensation on TikTok takes precedence over a clean driving record. Insert eye roll here.

Christ, I'm glad to be home. Before I even get my keys out of my pocket I'm fantasizing about taking off my boots, collapsing into my easy chair, and sitting in front of the air conditioner at full blast. Even though I managed to get out of another double shift, I'm still getting home much later than I should have. It's been a hot, muggy, miserable day and the only other person I want to see is on the other side of that door. The jingle from my keys and the sound of the lock turning is usually enough to bring my little friend running like a cat wanting to be fed as soon as it's owner walks through the door.

Ok, bad analogy.

It's not like that with little Claire. From the moment she sees me, the giant smile on her tiny face could easily light up a room. Her arms stretched out above her head, eagerly awaiting me to pick her up. Equally, I can't wait to hold her in my hands and hear her infectious giggle when I nuzzle the tip of my nose against her ticklish stomach. It doesn't matter how much grease and mud I have caked on me from a day filled with neglected maintenance and stalled engines. She's just... happy to see me, and I her.

But... she's not there. In fact, she's nowhere to be seen. Dread starts to grow in the pit of my stomach.

"Claire? Claaaaire? Where are you? Come to Sonny." I whistle and pat my knees, then realize just how stupid and demeaning the gesture is. She's not a dog for christsakes.

Stay calm.

She's just playing or something.

Don't jump to conclusions.

Don't expect the worst.

Ever since I brought her home on that cold Christmas Eve night over six months ago, Claire has been the lone bright spot in the monotony of my existence. From the moment I rescued her from that discarded plastic soda fountain cup, the only shelter she could find in that bitter wind, I knew she was something special. Since I found her in he parking lot of a Sinclair truck stop, I've been calling her Claire ever since. She seems to like it.

My steps forward from the door are slow and deliberately placed. Claire could dart out from under the furniture at any time and I don't want to risk stepping on her. God, what a horrendous thought. As I tiptoe further into the apartment, it's only the first of many that gestate in my anxious mind. I'm very, very worried.

Over the last month or so, I've been allowing Claire to have free reign of the apartment instead of keeping her cooped up inside of her little hamster cage all day while I'm at work. She just had to promise not to make a mess and to hide if, for whatever reason, someone else came in through that door. She's done so well up until now.

The cage itself is not as dire as it sounds. It's there more for her safety than anything else. She has plenty of toys, balls that jingle when you roll them and the like, and I've made it as cozy as possible in there for her. It just broke my heart so much to see her pressed up against the glass with that haunting pout of hers when I'd leave for the day. Strangely, it was just as difficult to see her excitement when I'd return. I was just as excited to see her, if not more so... even if my stoic demeanor doesn't show it. Does she understand the concept of time? Does she worry if I'll ever come back? Worst of all, does she think I'm abandoning her. Sure, it's nice to be wanted, but not at the expense of feeling like I'm holding someone else captive.

Listen to me, "someone else." If you'd have told me a year ago that I'd be talking about a runt like it was another person, I'd have laughed in your face... or spit in it. I've only seen them as a nuisance for so long...

...ever since...

Claire is different... she's special, and not just to me. She's not like the others... she's extremely intelligent. Well... sort of. If you'd ever seen how excited she gets chasing her favorite little light up ball around the carpet you'd probably think I was grading on the curve. But I tell you it's true... there's something about her...

...she's learning. Baby steps for sure, but I tell you she is!

It's something extremely uncommon for her kind, at least least to my knowledge. While she still struggles with speech, she seems to understand much of what I say, or at least she's trying to. Any other runt I've come across over the years has made a gerbil look like Hawking. They're pests, and the world treats them as such... but then there's Claire. As the lump in my throat rises, I fear I've lost her.

Is she just hiding somewhere? Did my sonofabitch landlord find her when letting himself in to change the furnace filter? Is she hurt?! Jesus... did she find her way onto the kitchen counter and fall down the garbage disposal?!

Did she just... leave me?

Told ya things would escalate quickly. So much for taking my own advice.

"Claire? Claire?!"

My careful footsteps are quickly replaced by a much more frantic pace. I check the more horrifying places she could be first, the toilet... the trash... the aforementioned garbage disposal. I need to rule out the the unthinkable first. Though slightly relieved she hadn't met her gruesome end in any of the places I've mentioned, it does little to put my mind at ease. I still can't find her.

Then I worry that something may have fallen over, at minimum trapping her, at worse...

No! Stop!

She's ok.

She's gonna be ok.


I'm gonna be ok.


Had it been a few months ago, the prospect of Claire being trapped would have been far more likely. I'll admit it... my place was a sty. Beer cans everywhere. Weeks worth of empty takeout containers piled up on the coffee table. Disorganization that would make the average hoarder turn their noses up at me. I'm a bachelor... so sue me. It's not like I had anything to look forward to before Claire. Nothing but the ice cold six pack waiting for me in the otherwise barren fridge. Come to think of it, I don't even drink that much anymore. Huh.

Everything changed when Claire came home with me. I cleaned the place up. Not so much for me, but for her. I couldn't very well put my tiny friend in danger with my less than appropriate homemaking skills. If you've ever cut yourself on aluminum before, we'll... just think of what that would do to to someone who's delicate skin is probably thinner than paper. It didn't take long before the empty cans were gone, the trash was dealt with. I even dusted, if you can believe it!

I have to do better. I have to be better. For her.

My place is unrecognizable now. Not quite ready for the cover of Better Homes and Gardens, but a vast improvement. I've also spent a great deal of time trying to runt-proof my home so that something like what I'm dreading in this very moment would not happen. But as I stare out into my efficient single bedroom, everything seems to be in place.

"Claire, sweetie? Are you ok?"

I check under the bed, the sofa, behind the fridge... she's nowhere to be found. The whole ordeal reminds me of when my sister caught the contagion. When she too disappeared. Memories of my parents ripping the house apart as they searched for her creep back into my thoughts, just as I'm about to launch into at any moment.

Maybe Claire did decide to go, to leave me behind.

I wouldn't blame her. I'm not exactly the model of optimism. And she certainly wouldn't be the first to abandon me, as evidenced by my sibling. I know it wasn't her fault. I know the disease robbed her of her mind just as much as her size. I'm just not sure I can go through that again. You never realize just how attached to someone... hell, why beat around the bush... how much you need them until they're gone.

Blah blah blah pave paradise, put up a parking lot bopbopbopbop.

Meanwhile, outside the tangled mass of horrifying thoughts and random song lyrics living rent free in the fear factory inside my skull, my chest tightens with what I'm now convinced is a reality I'm not ready to face.

Oh my god.

I've lost her.

I collapse onto the floor of my bedroom, I don't even make it to the bed. I know this feeling all too well. My breath quickens. I'm hyperventilating. The panic attack is on the verge of taking me. Outside I can hear fireworks exploding, the loudest ones only adding to the fear that grips me like a steel vice. When a particularly loud one goes off it literally rattles my windows and walls... and that's when I hear it. A tiny, muted scream.

I freeze.

It's her, I'd know her voice anywhere. And that scream... oh no! She is in trouble.

"Claire!"

Only then do I notice something else, something that I couldn't have in my panicked scramble through the apartment. One of my low-cut, Vans knock-off shoes is looking pretty lonely. I can just see the heel of its twin peeking out from beneath the narrow raise between the floor and the bottom of the nightstand.

Of course she found somewhere I wouldn't think to look. She's so small. There's probably a million places within these walls that I would never think to hide unless I were her. Another boom actually rattles the glass within the picture frames mounted on the walls. Another small, pitiful scream escapes from the very spot where I'm now focused.

Oh no.

Oh no.

I'm such an idiot.

The fucking fireworks.

Here I am, about ready to throw myself a pity party to rival Mardi Gras... to allow myself to slip into a complete existential meltdown. I didn't even think about the fucking fireworks. But... Claire has to be in her twenties... has she never experienced a Fourth of July before? The more I think about it... that stretch of interstate is pretty stark. There isn't a proper town for miles from that truck stop.

Dear god, what she must be going through!

As gently and slowly as I can, I pinch the heel of the shoe between my fingers and slowly slide it out from under the nightstand. I can't immediately see that one of my socks has been stuffed inside, and that something is moving underneath it.

No. Not just moving... shivering.

I'm as cautious as a surgeon when I begin to roll the sock back... and there she is. Poor little Claire. Knees pulled up to her chest, eyes winced shut, hands covering her ears. No wonder she didn't know I was home. She had tried to insulate herself from the sounds of war going on outside the apartment. Suddenly I'm reminded of all those public service announcements about bringing your pets inside during the Fourth. They never seem to tell you what to do when that isn't enough. I can't help but hang my head in shame. I'm a terrible pet owner.

Another series of explosions goes off, this time what sounds like an entire packet of Black Cats. Claire screams again, bloodcurdling and throat-scarring. It chills me to the bone. I watch on in horror as she tries to push herself even further into the toe of the shoe, even though there's nowhere left to go.

All I can think to do is place the tip of my finger as softly as possible onto one of her hands at the sides of her head. Her eyes open with a start, red and damp with tears. She's even more relieved to see me than I am her.

"Ssssssooooooonnnneeeeeey!"

I've never heard Claire say my name with so much desperation. It feels like knives in my chest. I wasn't here. She has no idea what's happening outside... and I wasn't here. I've seen her afraid before, the night I found her for one, the first few times I had to leave her alone in the apartment while I went to work for another. I've tried to explain why I have to leave during the day so many times, but work is a concept completely alien to her. We should all be so lucky.

Neither of those experiences compare to the fear I saw her in her eyes that night.

Did she think something had happened to me? Was she just as worried about me as I was for her?

In an instant, Claire is crawling out from her makeshift bunker and wrapping herself around my finger. Using her arms and legs, she pulls the rest of my digits around her, hiding within the palm of my hand for safety. She's still shaking.


She didn't leave me. She still needs me.


It's a selfish thought to have in the moment, I know. But I need her just as much.

If not more.

"Sssss-cay-re! Cuh-lay-re! Cuh-lay-re sssss-cay-re!" She cries the words over and over as she nuzzles into my dirty hand. She still struggles to form words, but she's learned so many in the short time we've been together. She's so damn smart... I'm so proud of her. Sorry, I know... not really relevant right now.

"It's ok, Claire. It's ok." I chant the words to her like a skipping record, hoping to god she'll believe them. As I lift her to up to my face, I can feel just how delicate she is. It's something I notice every time I hold her, but Claire's fragile state only amplifies it. The softness of her long blonde hair. Her tiny hands and feet, the way she uses her frail little limbs to pull my fingers in tighter around her. The slight hint of warm tears channeling into the crevices as she buries her face into the lines of my palm. Her skin is so fine, even smoother than the silk tunic she's wearing. A lovely paisley number that I pieced together for her after cutting up one of my old neckties.

I sit down on the edge of the bed and cup my other hand over Claire to provide a bit of a canopy before trying to open the other. At the moment, she isn't having any of it. Each finger I try to release from her hold is immediately pulled back in to ensure her concealment. If I didn't feel so guilty about putting her in this position the first place, I'd have to admit that her reactions would be incredibly adorable.

A series of crackles from just outside the window makes the poor little thing yelp again. She's balled up in the fetal position now, absolutely terrified. I can feel it... her trauma... her emotions, right through my skin. We've become that connected.

For the next hour or so, I sit on the bed, holding my little Claire. Whispering to her, trying to assure her that she's going to be alright and that there's nothing to be afraid of. And most importantly, that I'm here... and that I'd never let anything happen to her. While she still jumps at every successive boom coming from the streets, I can feel her shivering slowly decrease in intensity over time.

"Claire," I whisper as gently as a breeze, "can I see you now?"

At first I only see her tiny, shimmering eyes peek above the base of my thumb. They dart around the room, then back up at me. Her pouting stare has had a greater hold on my heart since we met than I do holding her entire being.

"You trust me, don't you?"

There's only a brief hesitation before I can make out a barely perceptible nod.

"You know I'd never let anything happen to you, right?"

Again, she nods, but sinks back into the comfort of my grasp. "Sc-ay-re... Cuh-lay-re."

I offer a pouting smile and an empathetic tilt of the head, "I know you're scared, sweetie. I know. I'm here to protect you. I'm sorry I didn't warn you about tonight. I can't imagine what you've been through. I know the sounds outside are scary, but I promise they can't hurt you... do you believe me?"

Without warning, some fuckhead decides to set off an m-80, one that totally catches me off guard. My body reacts as anyone would to a bomb going off. Claire squeals and retreats out of sight once again. Any progress I'd made with her... instantly voided thanks to some firebug and his illegal stash. As much as it pains me to do it, I know now that I'm gonna have to rip the proverbial bandage off.

I turn my fist palm up and force my fingers open, much to Claire's protest.

"Nuh-oooooo! Cuh-lay-re! Ssscuh-cuh-ay-re!"

Claire panics and crabwalks backwards across my hand. She tries to pull my pinky over herself, but I hold it flat and firm next to the others. She looks back at me with such hurt and terror in her eyes that I briefly think about giving in and letting her spend the rest of the night cocooned within my grip.

"It's ok, see! I'm still here... nothing happened. It's just a loud sound, that's all. The big ones even get me sometimes." I try to keep my voice at as comforting a whisper as I can. I need to remain calm. I need to show her that I'm not afraid... and in turn, that she needn't be either.

Claire pulls her legs up to her chest, obviously feeling exposed to the unseen terrors stomping around outside. She plants her face between her knees and covers her ears once again. She digs her tiny toes into the crack between my middle and ring fingers to brace herself for whatever end she thinks she's about to meet.

"Claire... I'm gonna ask you again... do you trust me?" I have to nudge one of her hands away from her head to make sure she heard me. She looks up at me again, looking absolutely broken... but she manages to force another nod.

"Ok... I want to show you something," the next words I say could make or break our entire relationship... but she needs to see. She needs to know. In my gut, I know she can handle it. "I'm going to take you outside with me."

My tiny friend's breathing quickens and I can tell she's about to break into an encore of "Claire Scare," but I give her a stern look and make sure not to look away.

"You're not in danger. I've got you. I love you more than anything in this miserable world, Claire. Just trust me, will ya?" It's the truth. I do love the little runt. God, I didn't even realize it untill I thought I'd lost her.

... pave paradise...

Nope. Not again. Shut up brain, stay focused.

Even though the fear hasn't left her face in the slightest, Claire is still.

"Are you ready?" I ask. I know she isn't... but she offers one last nod. I stand up from the bed, making sure to hold my diminutive friend as steadily as I can. I cup my other hand around her to make sure she's safe as I walk towards the sliding glass door.

There's a deck just outside my bedroom, sparsely decorated with a couple of chairs and small glass table. Claire will sit out here with me quite often while I sip a morning coffee on my days off. She usually wants to be wherever I am, which is just fine with me. She even has her own little lounge chair, courtesy of the people at Mattel. Thank god for online ordering because I can't imagine how awkward it would have been buying it in person. It's quite a bit too large for her, but that hasn't kept her from enjoying the miniature piece of furniture immensely. Perhaps because it's something of her own, hers and hers only.

The mood is significantly different than that now.

The door slides closed behind me and I take a seat in my usual spot. Claire is starting to tremble again, but I convince myself that it's from the cool night air. This is where I'd usually set her down on the side table, allowing her to roam freely under my supervision, but instead I hold her close to my chest. It's eerily calm for the moment. No crackling... no explosions.

"I need you to do something for me, sweetie... can you please turn around. Do you think you can do that for me?" I stroke her silky hair and pet her back, trying to help her understand that everything is going to be alright. Claire shifts her feet and pivots her body around, only taking her eyes off me once she couldn't turn her head any further.

I continue to pet her, twisting her hair in my fingertips and running them up and down her back. I love that I can feel the tiny lumps that make up her spine. She's attempting to hide her feet between my fingers again.

"You're doing so good, Claire," I assure her, "you're such a good girl. I just need you to do one last thing for me. Just one last thing. Can you do that for me?"

Claire doesn't nod this time. She just balls up even tighter. I can only assume she thinks she doesn't have a choice in the matter... a thought that turns the knife in my chest. She always has a choice. If she'd have said no just now, I'd have taken her back inside. She could have spent the rest of the night hidden in a warm hand blanket, protected from the violent world forever more. I know she's strong, I know she can do this.

"Look up, little one... just look up."

As if on cue, a single fiery light rockets up from the ground from somewhere far out in the distance. It spins toward space at an unimaginable pace, exhausting its fuel in the futile effort to escape the earth's gravity. It seems to disappear for the longest second of my life. And then it happens...

A flower of color explodes, lighting up the sky in red and green. A loud pop follows since the mortar has blown up faster than the speed of sound travels. The burning flower spreads wider and fuller until it completes its magnificent bloom. Before the flaming particles of black powder fall back to earth, they crackle in shimmering flashes of white like the sun sparkling on the surface of a lake. Then there's nothing but black. Not even stars. The city's light pollution sees to that.

Claire is standing at the end of my hand. The moment the mortar blew, the tiny thing shot to her feet and stared at the sky in complete awe. Sure, the pop startled her at first, but she was far too captivated by the magic above to care. Suddenly, she hops down from my palm and slides down my extended gut to land on my lap. Her tiny legs carry her across my leg to my knee where she throws her hands over the edge of the table and pulls her self up. Once on top of the glass, the rapid pitter-patter of her bare feet slapping against the translucent surface is easily audible. She runs toward the edge, ignoring her lounge completely, reaching the precipice just in time to see three more rockets launch skyward.

Blue, white, and red in that order. A bright bouquet of patriotic excess that holds my little friend captive in its explosive grandeur. When the last spark of this latest round goes out, Claire seems to lose all strength in her legs and she falls to her knees. Her hands clasped together in her lap.

"Careful, sweetie... please be careful around the edge of the table, ok?"

The awestruck little thing turns back to look at me. Her eyes are as big as saucers and her jaw hangs as though she's lost the muscle to hold it up. There are tears streaming down her cheeks, but no longer out of fear.

"Sure beats your little light-up ball, don't it?"

The sound of another mortar being launched pulls her attention back to the skyline. Claire adjusts herself so she can comfortable let her legs dangle over the edge of the table. She kicks them back and forth in anticipation of what she might experience next. This time there's a series of blossoms. All the colors of the rainbow, but so much brighter in the night sky. Claire cups her hands over her mouth and makes a sound that lives somewhere between an "oooo" and a chuckle.

She looks back at me again, that smile that melts my heart every time I see it has returned. I smile back, admittedly trying to hold back my own tears that have begun welling in my eyes so I can maintain whatever bullshit macho exterior I feel I need to present. A quick kiss on the tip of my finger is planted square on top of her head, but before I can pull it away Claire gives it a quick, loving hug and a dainty kiss of her own on the tip of the nail.

Leaning back in my chair and locking my fingers behind my head, I stare up into the night sky like my miniature companion and take the first relaxing breath of the evening. It may not be as relaxing as the easy chair inside, but somehow... this is so much better.

"If you think this is good, my little friend... hold your breath for the grand finale!"







The End

[Rusco57]

That was great!! I hope you'll do more stories of Claire's adventures.

[Bloodthirstybutcher]

That was great!! I hope you'll do more stories of Claire's adventures.

Thank you! I already have an idea for the next part