Mile High with a Vampire - Episode 3

What happens when you combine a psychic nanobot vampire and a pilot who's an idiot with rock hard abs? This dang book. This week we cover them swimming in a river in eastern Canada and getting banged up but not in the way you'd imagine.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to Storytime with Uncle Beanbag, Mile High with a Vampire, Episode 3. It's Friday evening. I'm off work. I'm sitting down to record, and I have a wonderful sunset sarsparella from the Jones Soda Company. So I guess let's just dive in. It was very strange for Quinn to be carrying the large man as she was. As a mortal, she'd had to give up carrying her own son Parker around the time he turned four. That's because she's weak as fuck. He got too heavy for her to manage after that, and yet now she was carting a much larger male around like he weighed nothing. It got stranger still when his arms suddenly snaked around her hips and he began to nuzzle the back of her leg just below her ass. Okay. It's an interesting way of Well, I mean, it described before Jet's fucking sex fantasy, how he was trying just to keep, you know, his hands from dragging and shit. At least she thought he was nuzzling her, or was he kissing her leg, sucking on the oddly sensitive skin, sending little shockwaves of pleasure through her body? What the fuck? What are you doing, Jet? This was not part of that. Good lord. Stumbling to a halt. She started to look over her shoulder to see what the hell the man thought he was doing, and then paused and went still, her head lifting and nose and ears straining. What is it? Why are you stopping? Oh sorry, this is Jet. I thought that was her. What is it? Why are you stopping? Jet asked, his arms drooping away and his voice oddly raspy. Do you smell water? Quinn asked, her original reason for stopping forgotten as she sniffed the air. Smell water, Jet sounded bewildered by the question, but then said no. I do, she murmured, turning in a low circle. I hear it too. You hear it? He echoed with bewilderment. How can you hear water? I understand Jet can't fucking hear water. And because she's a Nanobot vampire she has heightened senses. But how the fuck do you think you hear water, Jet with your fucking ears? Have you never heard a string go or a faucet? How do you hear water? Fuck you. Rapids, Quinn said with certainty, and then started moving again, setting out in the direction she was sure the sound and smell were coming from. Of course, I mean it's a fucking stream. You can hear the fucking water, Jet. Lilia had said to use her mind and use strength to save Jet and anyone else who might be in the path of the injured immortal women. While at first Quinn had just been running willy-nilly in the direction Kira had indicated there was some sort of town or camp. The moment she'd smell water on the air, her brain had kicked in. Why? I'm hoping Lindsay Sands is going to explain that, but that doesn't make any sense to me right now. Moving through water was supposed to make it harder to track a puss a pussin. It reminds me of the Minecraft things. He means dedicated Ram, but a poesson, you know, fuck. Let me try that again. Moving through water was supposed to make it well, actually, let me stop for a second because when they get up there, the the developers did not know how to handle that type of situation. And then there was another girl later on who asked if they wanted to join her dad's Minecraft server. And they kind of pushed her off, and it it kind of makes me sad that the way they handle the situation, because they weren't prepared for that. They're obviously, you know, the devs were not used to human interaction on that scale. The easiest way to say something like that, if it would have come up, would have been, you know, we're not supposed to play favorites because we are the developers of this. We won't be joining your the server officially, but now that you've made your server known to us, we might stop in and take a look from time to time to see how you're doing. Just keep playing our game and having fun. That would be an awesome way to handle it. But instead, they just kind of went, uh no, uh uh no. And it you can see like when they say that shit, that the girl's like expression goes like sullen. Because she's kind of an awkward, I don't know if she is on the spectrum or not, but she's kind of an awkward um girl who is probably like 12 or 13. And uh, you know, I just feel bad for that. And that's one thing, like growing up with my dad, he worked at a handicapped school, and I got exposed to that really early on, um, with handicapped kids of various stages of you know being able to communicate, but like having physical and and handicaps where they couldn't go around or couldn't move around, to the point where they were almost completely brain dead. They were just a body existing, and everything in between, and I'm really appreciative of that because working with him and volunteering with him, well, call it volunteering, but it was more like forced, like you're coming with me, you know, you don't have a choice. But I'm glad I did because it allowed me to see these people as people still, even though they have issues and even though that they ha are like mentally not as uh capable as other people or like physically not as capable, they're still people, they still deserve respect and just still deserve to be treated right. So these devs, um, I know they didn't really know how to handle it, and they just didn't handle it at all, instead of being very diplomatic about it. Back to moving through water was supposed to make it harder to track a per a person in the woods. Oh, I did it again. Moving through water was supposed to make it harder to track a person in the woods, wasn't it? It actually doesn't work that way, but and yeah, that's the myth. At least she read a story once where it worked to avoid dogs tracking the heroine. Surely it would work for mortals too. At least that's what Quinn was hoping. She also hoped they were lucky enough that if the women lost their trail, she would just wander wait she if the women lost their trail, they would just wander around the woods until help could get to them. That's not gonna work if they're have bloodlust. Rather than pick up their trail further along and track them to where other mortals might be. Quinn was moving a little more slowly than she had before. Sorry, I'm just thinking about handicapped kids now and all the good experiences I had with them, and how Quinn might be going that way. Or jet. Oh boy. She was still running, but not full out as she had sought the river. She believed lay ahead of them. I thought it said she beveled, lay ahead of them, but it says believed. She didn't want to charge through a bush and ride off a cliff into rapids or something. So felt a little caution was necessary, but in the end she didn't have worried. The trees did fall away rather abruptly, but then she found herself on a rocky cliff or outcropping that extended a good ten feet before dropping into the rushing river below. I'm gonna take it, all this is going on while Jet's having his fantasies, or maybe just after because he did respond in Jet's perspective of the last chapter, he never respond to anything. So I'm just going to say Quinn is completely fucking brain dead and cannot use her psychic vampire abilities to tap into his mind. But Lilia probably can. I don't know how far the range of it is, but maybe she's gonna confront him Lilia will confront him about it later. I don't know. With trees no longer blocking out the moon and stars, it was much brighter along the river, almost as good as daylight to her eyes. Even Jet should be able to see pretty well here. She thought she moved to the edge of the outcropping. Oh. She thought as she moved to the edge of the outcropping, I was wondering why she thought she moved. I was like, Aren't you aren't you fucking moving? She thought as she moved to the edge of the outcropping and peered down at the white water rushing by six or seven people low. Rapids, as she thought, and then ran quite a distance man, it's Friday. I'm gonna take another sip of Sasperella shit. They ran for quite a distance before following the curving river to a calmer section ahead. Are you gonna put me down? Quinn glanced towards Fuck. Quinn glanced toward the butt next to her face as if it had spoken. Give it a pat, Quinn, come on. And then stepped back from the cliff edge. Turned and bent at the waist to set the big man on the ground. She wasn't surprised when he immediately swayed on his feet, his face slowly paling as the blood rushed from where it had no doubt been pooling in his hanging head. Expecting that reaction, she grasped his arms to help him steady and waited patiently for him to regain his footing, her gaze moving over him as she did. Maybe it's just because it's like been a hard week. I I'm having trouble reading right now. Shit. Jet, it's in quotation marks, so I don't think it's actually anybody speaking. I think it's just her going, you know, stupid nickname, your stupid name. Jet Lassiter was a big man. She put him at six and a half feet or so, which made him about a foot and a half taller than her. Quinn and her twin sister Pet oh fuck. She calls her s her pet name for her twin sister is Pet. Because it was what, Petronella last time? Bizarre fucking name. But I mean I've heard it before, but still. Quinn and her twin sister Pet were both five foot two, but that was the only one wearing shoes. They both refused to measure their height barefoot. Five foot two sounded better than the five foot flat she suspected they really were, and both of them loathed being so small. I have a friend who's six foot uh six feet on the dot, and he says he's five foot twelve. And I'm five like ten and a half, so I'll say I'm you know five eleven, but I guess when you're that short, it uh it really matters. My grandmother, I think I said last episode or one of them was four nine. So she was she was tiny. And my grandfather, who married her, was six foot. So hmm. Smiling faintly at her own thoughts, Quinn took in the man's short dark brown hair and then stopped with surprise on his eyes. What the fuck am I reading? Quinn took in the man's short dark brown hair and then stopped with surprise on his eyes. Oh, she's looking at his eyes and she's surprised while she's looking at his eyes. Okay. She'd never seen oh, here we go. Here we go. So Jet was remarking about how she had silver flakes or gray flakes or whatever in her dark brown eyes. And now we're coming with Quinn's perspective on this. She'd never seen eyes the shade his uh she'd never seen eyes the shade his were except in medical text. What the fuck does that mean? What the fuck? Is he jaundiced? I don't understand. They were a bright green blue that was rather stunning and made more so by the long lashes framing them. What medical text are you reading that have bright, bright green blue eyes in them? I don't what the fuck does that mean, Lindsay? No context, just that. Okay. Oh yeah, those were the eyes of a killer, Quinn thought, and had no doubt women fell at this man's feet and drove. Realizing she was staring, she forced her gaze to lower, following his straight nose to a wide mouth with a thin upper lip, thinner upper lip, before dropping farther to take in his wide shoulders and what she could see of his muscular chest beneath the dress shirt, tie, and leather aviator jacket he wore. Oh, so why the f oh it's because of the cover. I for some reason I thought he was bare shirted because of the cover he's bare shirted. That makes sense that you would be wearing like a professional shirt and have the aviator jacket over it, kind of like a a standard airline pilot. Her gaze just continued down his long long legs, encased in black dress pants, when Jet sighed and turned to move to the edge of the rocky outcropping and peered down at the water racing past below. Yeah, we're gonna get their fucking descriptions of how attractive they find the other person. I mean we already got Jet's sex fantasy, now we're gonna get Quinn's sex fantasy. There's no way in hell we can cross the river here, Quinn dragged her gaze away from the man's tightly rounded ass and up to the back of his head at those grim words. Oh, I think he's the one who's saying it. So I'll just cover it either way. There's no way in hell we can cross the river here. Then move to his move to his side to peer down at the violent water below. Fucking god I just have hard words brain damage time, you know? Sasmerella. No, she agreed, then pointed out, but it calms down some further along. Jet followed her gesture to the point where she pointed downstream. Oh I put too many pointed in there. I'm not gonna correct myself. But his expression was troubled as he took it in. Finally he said, The water's moving pretty fast here. It might look calm ahead, but there could be undercurrents. Quinn frowned at the suggestion. You know, that kind of reminds me though of the strid, which is a section of water in England. I'm not sure exactly where. I think like middle country part of it, where it's cut through the rock over a very long time and has extremely deep pools in it, and it's very oxygenated water, so the density is a lot less than normal. So if you end up falling into the strid, you're not getting out because you get sucked down immediately below, you're not floating, there's no getting out, and the water is moving so fast it basically just pounds you to the bottom until you die. And they do dig bodies and and out of there every once in a while. So strid, it's an interesting place, fucking scary, especially since it's really not much wider than like a computer desk the in most places, and so you could just easily slip right in. And you see videos of people who are looking at it and then are jumping from one side to the other, and I'm like, fuck me, dude. One slip, you're just gone forever. You they can't rescue you because you know you can't grip the rope down there because you're just being battered, and they can't send divers in after you. They have to basically take equipment in and fish you out. Ridiculous. I don't trust water I can't stand up in. I've been up on seas and I've been up on deep rivers, on boats and whatnot, but I really don't trust water that I can't stand up in. I don't know, maybe I'm afraid of drowning. You know what? I'm just gonna start. I think this is where I'm at. Quinn frowned at the suggestion, but then heaved and resigned a sigh. I think we have oh, this is her. I think we have to take what I think we have to take the chance. We need to lose Kira and the others. I can't run forever without becoming a possible threat to you, myself. Okay, that makes sense. I'm just it's just broken up really strangely. Quinn regretted those words almost at once. She didn't want the man singers a crazed bloodlusting creature like Annika Marta, Nika, and possibly even Kira had now become, but it was something she was starting to worry about as she began to experience the mild cramps that had warned her of a need for blood. What? Uh it doesn't say where the cramps are. I'm wondering if it's uh menstrual cramps, but maybe not. Would be interesting if you get menstrual cramps and then you need blood. Hoping to keep him from thinking too hard on what she said, she added, and I don't want to lead them straight to the other mortals. We need to put some distance between them and us, enough that help can get there before anyone is hurt. Quinn left a whole lot out that time. What? Quinn left a whole lot out that time. Yeah. Like information? I don't know what that means. Oh, like her fear that she would fail at this. That they would either that they either wouldn't get away at all or that she'd get jet to civilization only fine. She'd led others straight to a bunch of unsuspecting mortals who would be sheep to the slaughter. The idea is to escape the hell. This is Jet. What fucking hell? Oh I just saw the fucking triggering word again. Stick with me. The idea is to escape the sheep hires, not drown in trying to escape them. Jet said solemnly Fuck you, Lindsay. Use a different fucking word. Quinn's mouth flattened at the term sheep hires. It wasn't the first time he'd used it, and it didn't suggest he thought much of immortals, which included her now. But Quinn could hardly blame him. She was struggling with accepting what she herself what she was herself. Okay. They she was struggling with accepting what she was herself. Okay, I I said that's super odd. They called themselves and her now immortals, but it felt like little more than a nicety to her. To her way of thinking, it it walked like a duck and quacked like a duck, it was probably a duck. And much to her distress, now she had fangs and needed to take in blood to survive. A vampire. Or maybe Count Ducula. A duck vampire? You could have made a reference to that, Lindsay, if you knew anything from pop culture from like the 19 what eighties, 1990s. I remember really liking that show. It was like an offshoot of Scrooge McDuck or the Donald Duck Gain or something. But I don't remember much about the show. It was around when I was a kid, but um it was also like the book Benicula, too, which is about the bunny that sucks the juice out of vegetables. I remember that one, and some of the vegetables in their fridge were like pale because they had all the juice sucked out of them. And the rabbit was a vegetable vampire. Is Benicula the first vegetarian vampire? Huh. Beats Twilight by quite a while. Blueing out a slow, depressed breath, Queen turned away from the water to scan the tree land behind them, hoping to rise within her when she spotted a downed tree just inside the woods some twenty feet farther along. She hurried over to examine the tree. It was big, the trunk was so large she couldn't wrap her arms around it, but it also had its branches still attached. There were none for the lower twelve feet or so, though, and really they didn't need to move more than ten feet to hold their weight. Not sure what the buck she's getting at, but alright. She was sure. The problem was going to be breaking off the rest of the tree from what she needed. It wasn't like she had an axe. You are a fucking vampire. Just punch the goddamn tree. Your hand will be fine. Well, maybe not, because a bear took out Kira. Grimacing Quinn moved along the tree trunk. It hadn't fallen flat when it toppled. The upper end had landed on a rocky outcropping that jutted about four feet out of the ground. The rock's base was about three feet in diameter, but narrowed to a finer point at the top where it disappeared into the tree trunk. What on earth are you doing? Jet asked with alarm, rushing to stand at the base of the outcropping when she started to climb to get onto the tree trunk. Logs float, Quinn pointed out as she pulled herself on top of the tree. Yeah, so? Jet asked, eyeing her with concern, as she straightened on the tree trunk and then sidestepped until she was standing on the upper half of the tree that stuck out past the outcropping. So, she said, and then pushed paused to smile at him brilliantly before leaping into the air and coming down hard on the tree. Okay, yeah, I'm guessing she's jumping on it. Quinn had never jumped before. Quinn had never jumped before? Are you fucking serious? I don't know how old she is. She's gotta be like in her 30s, and she's never fucking jumped before. Like at all. I you know, it's like racist stereotyping, but blacks can't swim. Can Asians not jump? That's not true because I watch Kung Fu movies where Asians jump all the time. You're trying to tell me that Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was all wire work? Absolutely not, man. Chao Yun Fat and Michelle Yo and Zhang Zhi can definitely jump like that and you know scramble around bamboo. That's a really good movie, too. You should go about watch that again. I watched it recently and it still holds up. It was one of the first movies, too, that I saw. I think it's called Wuxia, the genre in China where it when it came to America, it was subtitled. And so it was all in I want to say Mandarin, maybe Cantonese, I'm not sure. I can't tell the difference in the dialects, unfortunately. But it was really cool to see this Wuxia film all subtitled in Chinese and to not have one piece of English in it. And I was hoping more films would come out like that. And some did, but there's another film kind of like that where it has a lot of martial arts stuff in it, um, with uh setting in French in Gebadon, uh the Beast of Gebedon, the werewolf that uh the supposed werewolf that killed a lot of the villagers there and then stopped and disappeared. This would have been before the French Revolution. And in L'Époque de la Loupe, which is the Brotherhood of the Wolf, which is the story that takes place about that, uh, Mark de Coscos is in it. He's the guy who was doing Iron Chef America because his. Uncle, I think, was one of the Japanese Iron Chefs, and Mark DeCostos is like an accomplished martial artist who's been in a lot of TV parts and everything, but he was in the Pax de la Loupe, which is in French, and I really love watching the entire French um version of it. But the only version I can find to stream online is in fucking English. And I don't want to watch the Beast of Jabadon movie in English. I want to watch it in French because I like the way that the French language sound language sounds and goes. And um it's just really fucking pretty. So uh anyways. So you know, Crushing Tiger Hidden Dragon, watch that. Love Pox de la Loup, the Brotherhood of the Wolf, watch that. Um Brotherhood of the Wolf is not nearly as good, but it's still a nice movie. Quinny never jumped before. Not since she'd been turned, at least. So she has jumped before. What the fuck? What the fuck? Why would you put that in there and make me go off on Wuosha films and French cinema? It was something else she hadn't tested yet, how high she could jump or how hard she would come down. Much to her alarm, it was very high and very hard. She sailed up in the air a good twelve feet and then plummeted down at an alarming rate. That wouldn't matter much. I know she's not achieving terminal velocity, which is like thirty-two feet per second per second, but she's not coming down that much further if she only jumped up twelve feet or faster if she only jumped up twelve feet. She can handle it. Judging by Jet's expression as she descended, Quinn was not the only one dismayed by what hap was happening. That wasn't very encouraging, but Quinn had little time to worry over it before she slammed under the top of the tree, heard a loud crack and screech, and then found herself plummeting to the ground with the end of the tree she'd snapped off. Fortunately, it was only four feet off the ground. Unfortunately, she didn't manage to keep her feet under her and fell to the side into the shattered end of the tree trunk. Ooh. Is she gonna be cut up and is she gonna be is this gonna be the scene where she sucks Jet off? Are you all excuse me, Jet boys? Are you alright? Jet was at her side at once helping her up. I'm fine, Quinn said, wincing and straightening uh sent pain through her stomach. Let's get this log down to the water. We can hang on it onto it and use it to go down river a ways and then you're hurt, Jen interrupted, his voice grim. Yeah, this is where she's gonna suck him off. She's gonna drink his blood, and he's gonna basically cum his pants. Sighing, Quinn stopped trying to distract him and glanced down to see the blood spreading out around a tear in her blouse, or had been spreading out, she thought. The bleeding had apparently already stopped because the stain was larger than a hand but wasn't getting any bigger. Turning away from him, she tugged her top out of her dress pants and pulled it up so she could look at what she'd done to herself. It was a nasty scrape, a good six inches wide and deep enough to be painful, but it was already healing, and using blood to do it, she thought unhappily. How bad is it? Quinn let her top drop back into place, but it was too late. Jedd had walked around in front of her even as he'd asked the question and got a look before the clock covered it. Stying at the concern on his face, she moved around to the end of the log without branches, saying, I'm fine, let's just get this log in the water and get moving. Much to her relief. After the briefest of hesitations, he let the subject go and joined her to examine the log. It had dropped off the outcropping when the trunk had snapped. Quinn walked around it and then gave a push with one foot. Fortunately, huge as it was, it moved easily enough. We'll have to carry it downstream. Jet murdered. Mur Jet murdered. Muttered. And Jet could murder somebody too. I wouldn't give a fuck at this point in the story. It would bring some fun shit into it. Now, that'd be interesting if Jet would like murder the first person they come across and then like feed his blood to her if she gets passed out or whatever. It's never gonna happen. Lindsay doesn't have that type of balls to write a story like that. She's got an audience to pander to, and I'm apparently not one of them. By her guess, it was a good eighty feet and she didn't think they could manage it. She might be stronger. Oh skipping shit again. So we'll have to we'll have to carry it downstream, Jet muttered, glancing towards the water and probably judging how far they'd have to carry it to get to where the water was calmer. By her guess, it was a good eighty feet and she didn't think they could manage it. Why not? I don't understand that part of it, but okay. She might be stronger than she had been as a mortal, but Hulk type strength was needed here, and she was quite sure she wasn't that strong. You just broke a fucking tree in half that had fallen over. You can pick it up or you can drag it eighty feet. I'm confident you can do that. Suck off your soon-to-be what? Never use it. Suck him off, use your fucking strength to drag it down there, and then you can just fucking coast down the rapids. Come on, Quinn. I think we should just roll it to the edge of the clip and then it'll run downstream to the calmer water and you can roll it in. Then I'll catch it when it reaches me. Jet considered the opinion, but after a moment he shook his head. We don't know how strong the current is. It could hurtle you at a speed and hurt you. Or you might miss it and it just sailed past you and we'll be right back where we started. Quinn scowled, her gaze moving over the tree with concern. She might have hurt herself or nothing if they couldn't get it in the river. My friend Abs again with your fucking friend Abs, but this is the first time he's verbally mentioned her. My friend Abs can lift the back end of a car, Jet announced suddenly. Is that it? I mean I wouldn't expect to lift a car, but strongmen can lift the back end of a car. That's not that impressive. You're a vampire. You know, you can lift a lot more than that. Quinn peered at him blankly. We grew up together. She was mortal, but isn't immortal now, he explained. Lindsay, I beg you, use a fucking different word than solemnly. Why are you so obsessed with that word? I'm forty-two pages in, and this is like twelve times you've used it. Fuck you. Choose better words. There's there's like an entire thesaurus of other shit that would fit, but you're just fixated on this one fucking word for some reason. And she can lift the back of a car Ah, sorry, Jets boys. And she can lift the back of a car a good two feet off the ground. Cars weigh a couple tons. This log can't weigh more than seven or eight hundred pounds. Surely we can manage it together. Quim's Quim Quim, you know, mewling Quim, Avengers, Loki, whatever the fuck. Quinn stared at him silently, a dozen questions suddenly rolling through her head. Like how close a friend was this abs and what kind? And why on earth had she even tried to lift the back end of a car? Why not? Why aren't you testing your strength, Quinn? Why aren't you interested to see what your limitations are? But when Jette bent to grasp one end of the log and it and strained to lift it, she held her questions and moved to go to the opposite end to help. Much to her amazement, with the two of them working, they managed to get it off the ground. Actually, it wasn't even all that heavy to Quinn. In fact, she suspected she might have been able to carry it by herself, but she didn't want to hurt the man's self esteem. What I just fucking told you, Quinn. God damn it. She knew from her marriage that men had fragile egos that needed constant coseting, so once they had the log aloft and were moving with Jet at the front, she shifted closer to the center of the log to take more of the weight, but didn't suggest he let go. Only insecure assholes are like that. Proper men who are secure in themselves, who know themselves, don't have fragile egos. I'm one of those guys, yes, I used to have a fragile fucking ego. I don't anymore. I haven't for a very long time. I know my metal, I know the content of my character. I am not like this fucking guy. For one, I'm not a complete fucking moron. For two, I'm not a complete fucking moron. I couldn't think of anything else to say there. Cusseting, though, is a word I have not seen in a very long time. So I will congratulate Lindsay for using that, because she does have a little bit more of a vocabulary than I gave her credit for, but she still uses solemnly. A lot. I hate it. This looks like a good spot, Jess Jet Jet gasped once they'd gone several feet past the last of the rapids. How do you want to do this? Quinn glanced to the water, then toward what she could see of the river ahead. It curved out of sight another sixty feet up shore. Finally she sh shot Finally she suggested I guess we just sit in and set it in the water and hold on to it and ride down the river as far as we can, then steer it to the opposite bank and get out of there if we see rapids ahead. Or just go through the rapids. You can save 'em. She supposed Jed agreed with that plan when he grunted and started to wade into the water. It's gotta be really fucking cold too. I don't know what time of the year it is, but it's night. I don't think the sun's crested yet in eastern Canada. Yeah, that water's gotta be super fucking cold for him. He hadn't taken more than a handful of steps away from the shore before muttering, This is far enough, and pushing the log off his shoulder, forcing her to release her hold as well. Their height difference had forced Quinn to walk with her arms fully extended over her head to hold on to the log, but she hadn't minded, and almost felt guilty guilty. She almost felt guilty that she hadn't tried to carry it on her own when Jet released a groan of relief once the weight was off his shoulder. The log hit the surface of the river with a thwap that sent warmish water splashing over them both. It also sank briefly under the surface before popping right back up. The moment it did, Quinn grabbed the end next to her and began to walk it out to deeper water. Jet followed, rubbing his shoulders as he went, then slung his arm over the front of the log once the water had reached his chest. By that time the water was up to Quinn's chin. Get a good hold on the log and I'll push us off, Jet suggested, after glancing back to see her clasping it with one hand. Once Quinn had put her arm over the log Once Quinn had put her arm over the log, as he was doing a knottage, he pushed off, sending them moving downstream at a dulcitory there's another word that I'm very fucking surprised that she's using in the in the right context. Pace that made Quinn anxious rather than relieved. They needed to put as much distance between themselves and the pursuers as possible and stop to get the log and carry it What? And their stop to get the log and carry it to the water had already slowed them down. Okay. Glancing back the way they'd come, she had the spot where they left the woods with concern, but didn't see anyone. Even so, when her feet brushed over a boulder in the water, she planted them on the rock and pushed off, increasing their speed considerably. Jed immediately shifted his position so he was almost in a dead man's float on the river's surface, but with his arm holding onto the log he kept his face and a good portion of his chest out of the water. Is is it gonna be a wet dress shirt contest as soon as he comes out of the water for her? Is she gonna notice he's got like rock hard nipples? Speaking of rock hard nipples, there was an old commercial. There's a gas station around here called Maverick. I don't know if it's in other parts of the country, but I live in the southwest, Rocky Mountain West area. And I know it's around there. And back in the early 2000s, there was a commercial where they were uh basically river rafting and they had beer, and you know, one guy, his name's Josh, is like, oh, I've just bought the beer from Maverick and I put it in the water, it's ice cold, and I'm gonna grab one. Did anybody else want one? And they're like, Yeah, yeah, bring up the beer. So you hear him kind of like pull it out of the water while they're on the boat, and he takes a big drink out of it, and he's like, Oh, this beer's so cold from Maverick, it's it makes my nipples rock hard. And you know, he give goes over to give somebody else a beer and trips, and he's like, Oh no! And and you hear like a puncture sound and then hissing, and they're like, Josh, your nipples poked a hole in the raft, we're sinking, and it's like, oh god, no, and then it goes Maverick, and you know, it's a really funny commercial on that was played on the radio for a few years. I wish I could find it again. I know it exists out there somewhere, and I'm probably misremembering the details a little bit, but I do remember rock hard nipples puncturing a hole in a river raft. So it's gonna be like that when he steps out of the water, she's gonna see that turkey's done for him, and she's gonna be like, oh, his nipples are fantastic. I wonder what the rest of them's like. I don't know. But according to the cover, he's got rock hard abs. Channing Tatum's abs are better though. Fuck you, Jet. You haven't been push er you haven't been pushing. You haven't been annoying me nearly as much this chapter. That's because we haven't really given you anything to do to annoy me yet, and we are gonna be probably switching to your perspective here at any moment. It wasn't until her knee banged against another boulder under the surface that she realized why. This wasn't a nice flat bottomed river. Quinn, you just walked into the river. You pushed off on a rock. Of course it's not a flat bottom river. There's fucking rapids! You don't get rapids in flat bottom rivers. Rapids are caused by rocks and descent. Fuck, she has no knowledge of hydrology. Engiology. Hydrogeology, whatever the fuck. Quinn's an idiot. I bet she's not even a good surgeon. Maybe that's why her hus I was gonna make the joke. Maybe that's why her husband attacked her son, but that's not true, because he was turned into a vampire. But I just can't imagine a woman like her being a good surgeon. There were obstacles looming under the surface. Yeah, I know. And they were likely to get banged up at this speed if they weren't careful. Like you just did. Copying jet, Quinn let her feet rise behind her and adjusted to hold on the log as much to keep her upper body out of the river as she could. Fortunately, that seemed to do the trick, or they were just lucky and their logs path avoided the worst of the underwater obstacles. That'd be nice if you got a branch right up your ass. The water slowed as the river widened, and Quinn alternate alternatively Oh it's written proper, I just can't fucking read it. The water slowed as the river widened, and Quinn alternately kicked her feet at times or pushed off passing boulders and kept their speed up as they floated along. At first, Quinn tried to figure out their next move once they were out of the water, but that was relatively simple. They could ride the river as far as they could to save energy, and then make their way to the inhabited area Kira had spotted ahead as quickly as they could. I know most settlements nowadays aren't built on rivers, but this is eastern Canada, so it's most likely the settlement they saw was built on this river at some point, or this river leads into another river that leads into that settlement. Because it's eastern Canada, it was settled relatively early in colonial Canadian history, so it's gotta be river adjacent or body of water adjacent in this area. At least that's what I'm assuming. I don't know for sure, but the majority of settlements were that way because the rivers were much easier to traverse and also provided water for the settlements. They would ride the river as far as they could to save energy and then make their way to the inhabited area, carry it spotted as quickly as they could. I already read that. Damn it. Once there, she'd call for help and hope that the rescuers reached them quicker than the Russians could catch up to them. Unfortunately, since she had no idea how long they'd be able to float downriver or where they would get out of the water, that's the best she could do when it came to planning, and her mind soon drifted to thoughts of her son Parker, her sister pet. I fucking hate she calls her pet or her pet pet. I hate she calls her sister pet. Nella would have been a better one instead of pet. And her life now and what she should do with it if she survived this escapade. You're gonna fucking survive, Quinn. There's no question you're going to survive. Jet's the one that you gotta be worried about. Returning to her old life pretend was impossible. Yeah. Everyone thought she died in a car crash with her husband's son and sister. Is Pet a vampire? Or is she dead? I don't think she's dead, because Quinn would have mentioned that twenty fucking thousand times. It's the same amount of time she's mentioned her son. Yes, I get it's very important to her. Petronella is probably a fucking vampire too. Is Jet gonna get doublemint twins? I highly doubt it's gonna go there, but it would be fucking funny if it did. I had a friend who dated one half of a twin couple uh in his twenties, and they would swap out, not for anything sexual, but on dates, and it was extremely hard to tell them apart. And he got really confused a couple times and couldn't tell that it was the other sister. I'm wondering if it's gonna be some weird type of situation like that, if she's gonna come into the picture and they're going to like swap out, but Jet's gonna know because he's not gonna be sexually attracted to the other one as much as he is to Quinn for some fucking weird reason, or he's gonna go double mint harem, you know, threesome type things, and maybe Jet's gonna convert to FLDS Mormonism and get a second wife. I don't fucking know. I don't know where this story's going, man. Like, I I thought for sure Quinn was gonna be tuning into all the Jet's sexual fantasies about her, but she's completely fucking oblivious to that. Just mentioning his long, long legs and eyes that she'd never seen outside of medical text for some fucking weird, bizarre reason. Why is that even included as a line in the story, Lindsay? What does that mean? I uh well I understand the context you're trying to put it in, but why would you put that there? What medical text only describes eyes like that? I've seen a lot of people with blue green eyes. Quinn's probably been around a bunch of people with green eyes and blue eyes, maybe even blue green eyes. I just want to continue on. I just want to finish the fucking story at this point, because I have no idea what the fuck's gonna happen. I know eventually they're gonna meet up and they're gonna fuck. Is Petronella gonna come into the story? Is her son Parker really dead? Is her husband really dead? We don't know for sure. We just know it's quin we know Quinn's side of it, and she doesn't know what the fuck's happening, so she has no fucking idea if they're alive or dead. Um yeah, everyone thought she died in a car crash with her husband, son, and sister. She couldn't even really return to her old profession for fear of being recognized. Yeah, that makes sense. Which meant she had to start over. Even after four years, Quinn wasn't sure how to go about that. Well, you have a guy right next to you who will help you figure that shit out. Which is why she'd been on this flight to Toronto, Canada. She was hoping that a few therapy sessions with Gregory Hewitt, a psychologist there, could help her figure that out. Is he a vampire psychologist or regular psychologist? Because if you drop on him that you're a robot robotic vampire, that's gonna be some weird fucking shit. He might want to get you committed. Stop kicking. Torn from her thoughts by those words, Quinn glanced to her surprise where Jet hung on the log ahead of her. I'm not kicking you. No, stop kicking your feet in the water to propel us forward, he explained. We're picking up too much speed and we don't know what's around this next bend. His words made her frown. Why would she think I don't Quinn, why would you why would you say I'm not kicking you? Obviously you're not kicking him. He knows you're not kicking him. His words made her frown. Okay, that's the first is that the first time we had a frown in this chapter? I don't know. It's not as bad as the other fucking word. In truth, Quinn had slid so far into her thoughts she'd forgotten to work at keeping them moving quickly. She hadn't kicked for well, judging by how far the moon had moved in the sky overhead, she guessed it may have been a good hour. She hadn't kicked for an hour. What? Well then why is she kicking? If she hadn't kicked for an hour, why is Jet telling her to stop kicking? That doesn't make any sense. Maybe a little less. I don't I don't I don't trust that. The time frame. The water's gotta be extremely fucking cold. Jet, even it is most physically capable, hypothermia sets in relatively quickly. He's not gonna last probably won't even last an hour in that temperature of water. But that's something Lindsay Sands is even fucking considered when she's riding, because Jet Thunderbuns is fucking, you know, God's gift of fucking Asian vampire women, I guess. He would be like near shivering to death. Yes, I understand you couldn't survive for a while in the water, but it's really gonna take a toll on him. Yet they were moving rather swiftly, extremely quickly, really, she thought, and then realizing that Jet was looking back at her expectantly, she said, I'm not kicking. His eyes widened slightly, and then cur he cursed and shifted so that his body was perpendicular to the log. Kick, he growled now, beginning to kick his legs in the water. The water's picking up speed. We must be approaching rapids. We need to get to the opposite bank and get out. Alright, so that just explains part of my rant. Quinn shifted around until she was perpendicular to the log like Jet, but she barely managed to kick she barely managed one kick before another curse came from Jet and made her glance around. They had reached the bend, and there were rapids ahead. They were too close now to move the log to shore before getting sucked into the rapids. Get away from the log, swim for shore, Jet yelled, releasing his hold on the tree trunk and striking out for land. Quinn stared at him with alarm, but couldn't make herself release her death grip on the log. She wasn't much of a swimmer. Dog paddling was the extent of her skills in the water, and dog paddling wasn't going to get her to shore. Does she need to breathe? As a robot vampire. I don't know. That's not covered yet. Maybe she does, maybe she doesn't. So she clung to the log watching silently as Jets swim. Well, the reason I bring that up is because in the Netflix BBC Dracula production, it was okay. I didn't quite like it. He gets locked under the water. Um was it when the Demeter crashed? I think that's when it crashed. Was it then? Yeah, so they have the whole sequence after the monastery or after Dracula's castle, where Jonathan Harker's in the monastery. And then no, he goes to the monastery, Dracula does, and kills the nuns. And then he goes on the Demeter and they talk about pineapples. And then yeah, he's taking her with him, the the one nun who later becomes the Van Helsing woman. The way that they did these things is very confusing to me. I I don't really care for it. I think it had a lot of potential, but I think it fell super flat. Anyways, Dracula is in a coffin under the water in stasis up until modern times when they fish him out. Am I remembering that right? I think they release him and he comes out of the water. But he doesn't need to breathe. He's in the water, he's immortal, he can stay in there and not breathe. Can Quinn do that as a nanobot vampire, or do you have to be a regular vampire to do that? Do vampires actually need to breathe? Does the blood carry oxygen to the rest of their systems? The nanobots need that to function with. They can't exactly create oxygen out of nothing. But if you get like a water full of lung or water full of lungs, oh that mental imagery is fucked up. Like an entire bucket of water just full of fucking lungs. If you get a lung full of water, can the nanobots separate the hydrogen and the oxygen? Release the hydrogen bubbles, use the oxygen in the bloodstream. I don't know. See, this is questions I think about in the context of the story, and these are questions Lindsay Sands will never fucking think about and will never write about because it doesn't even fucking occur to her. But that Dracula production didn't really care too much for it. Like the way that it ended. I like how Dracula died. Although seeing the crispified version of Lucy when she looks in the mirror and then recognizes herself, now that was a little horrific. And I like that. Clive Barker-esque in some of his other works. And I'm all for that because I really do like Hellraiser and Hellraiser 2. Don't like any of the others. Although Terry Farrell, is that her name? Gen Zacks from DS9, the actress. She was in the third one. I really liked her. I had a big crush on her when I was a kid in the 90s. But in the third one, one of the Cenobites has CDs poking out of his head, which kind of ruins the entire fucking image of the Cenobites to me. Why did they choose CDs? I don't know whether I thought that would be a good thing. I'm not sure where we were. So she's dog paddling. And dog paddling wasn't going to get her to shore, so she clung to the log, watching silently as Jet swim. He looked to be a powerful swimmer, but the currents and speeding water were slowing him down. Still, from what Quinn could see in the last glimpse she had of him, it looked like she was going to make it to shore. And then the log shot into the rapids, and her con uh concern turned to herself. I gotta interject here again, just for a moment, because I've been thinking about how it is or one and two a lot, and the practical effects of bodies without skin dripping gore are fucking fantastic. Plus, I'm very slinesh-coded, and slinesh is the demon prince of pain and pleasure and ecstasy and excess in Warhammer 40k. So the Cenobites, like Pinhead and the rest of them, are very Slinesh demon type things, and I just find that utterly fascinating. Like when I was first exposed to Hellraiser, I was a little too young to really get it, but I I've skinned a lot of animals when hunting and processing their meat and everything. And I've seen what the animals look like without skin, but not moving around because they were dead at the time. But the way that they did the gore effects, when you have the full bodies with like the muscular and everything, and everything looks goopy and juicy uh before the skin gets on, it's oh man, it's so fucking beautiful the way that that the special effects team did that, especially in the second one with Julia, when she's skinless at points um before she gets her skin back. It's amazing. It's some of the best practical effects I've seen outside of the thing in other um 80s horror films. Just had to say that. What followed was terrifying chaos, just like my spider webbing brain. The rush of water was a roar in her ears as it slammed into and over her, filling her eyes, nose, and mouth, and leaving her unsure which way was up or down. Quinn had been told the mortals could only die from fire or beheading if the head was kept away from the body too long. Oh Lord, that means you That brings up some really interesting experimentation possibilities. Can you make someone an immortal? I'm assuming she's referencing nanobot immortality, cut their head off and transplant their head on another body. Or like that movie The Man with Two Heads, I think that's what it's called, where he gets the racist white old guy on a black body and the black head. Can you do that? Can you give somebody two heads and have them survive? Not conjoined twin stuff, but like boy, that's that is some dark shit that I would love to explore in the story. It's never gonna go that way. It's never in a million years gonna go that way. It's not gonna have some vampire who's kind of cracked and decided to swap his head with other bodies. That would be fucking awesome. Kind of like Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs, except instead of him wanting to become a woman and making a skin suit out of women's body, you know, skin and stuff, if you could just transplant your head on a woman's body. That would be fucking interesting. But we're never gonna get that because that would make a good story. And Lindsay Sands doesn't write good stories, she writes romance schlock. And I'm the stupid motherfucker who's reading it to you on a podcast. But it felt like she was drowning as she intention unintentionally swallowed a mouthful after mouthful of water in a desperate bid to get air. So yeah, I guess she doesn't actually need air, but she should. Uh it's all muddled. There's gonna be no clear explanation. And then pain crashed through her panic, radiating from her hand when it was crushed between the log on a boulder. Quinn instinctively screamed in pain or tried to. Water immediately filled her mouth, cutting off the scream as she tumbled away from the log and was swept off by the rapids. Still, she struggled to keep her head above water and regain some control of her whirly gig ride. Until her head slammed into a boulder and she lost consciousness. So she's gonna be pretty fucked up. Jet, we're switching his perspective now. He's probably gonna pull her from the water. He's probably going to force feed her his own blood to have her heal. And then she's gonna like wake up and suck on the wound, and then maybe bite deeper and make him come. I don't know. With her immortal strength and speed, Jed expected Quinn to reach shore first and be waiting there to help him from the water, but when his feet touched the bottom and he began to wade warily to safety, a glance along the shoreline didn't reveal Quinn there, and he thought she must have swum behind him to be sure he made it. He didn't look around right away to see if that was the case. Spiding the fast flowing water to swim to shore had left him exhausted both physically and mentally, and he merely stumbled the last several feet out of the water onto the shore before thinking to turn and look at the madly coursing water he'd just left. Confusion covered his face when he didn't see Quinn swimming toward him or at all really. The log was bobbing wildly in the rapids, the back end rising as the front end dropped into an eddy and then slamming back down, as the front end rising as it rode out of the eddy. It was then that he saw the small figure flailing in the white water. She hadn't made it out and was off the log, being tossed about and beaten by the rushing water. Exhaustion forgotten, Jet cursed and straightened to run along the shore. His attention half on the rocky shoreline, he was traversing and half on Quinn's travails in the water. It was immediately obvious she had no idea what she was should be doing. Well she has no idea what she should be doing in life, Jet. Not just in the water. She made no effort to keep her toes out of the water, and her feet headed downstream first. She wasn't even managing to keep her face above the water, and if she were mortal, he knew she wouldn't have survived her wild trip down the rapids, but she wasn't mortal, so he followed grimly and then ran out ahead when he saw the rapids ended in a calmer section there. Jet didn't stop the moment he reached the calm water, but ran a good twenty feet beyond it and then cut into the water and dove in to swim out a third of the way across this wider section of river, managing to position himself in front of Quinn when she came down the rapids. He was just far enough out and just in time to snag her foot as she floated past. Dragging her to him in the water, he took one look at her bruised and batter face and then began to drag her towards shore. Once he had reached shallow water, he scoop scooped. It's still fucking cue. It scooped. He scooped Quinn into his arms and carried her the rest of the way. It kind of rem I know, side tangent again, one of my favorite family guy gags back from when it was a really new show in 2000. I think it was from the the 2000s episodes, but Peter Griffin comes out and he says, Oh, what a wonderful start to the day, and then because the the raisin brand commercial always had two scoops of raisins. The son's sitting there with two scoops of raisins, going, It's always a great start to the day with two scoops of raisins, Peter, and then drops the raisins and they crush houses and cars and stuff because they're gigantic fucking raisins. It's just a throwaway gag, but scoop, two scoops of raisins, whatever, scooped. He scooped Quinn into his arms and carried her the rest of the way. She was a little thing and shouldn't have been heavy, but her clothes were waterlogged and Jet's muscles were spent after his own battle with the swiftly running water. Why aren't you mentioning how fucking cold he is, Lindsay? He should be shivering. His dick should be so far up inside of him it's poking the back of his eyeballs. He only managed to carry her a couple of feet out the rocky shore before his legs collapsed. Dropping to his knees, he eased Quinn to the ground and then sat on his haunches to look her over. Her one hand looked like someone had dropped a boulder on it, and there was a huge bump and bruise on the side of her forehead, but the other bruises he'd noted on her face were already fading away like water drying under the sun. I still don't think the sun's up. They haven't really made mention of that yet. The head wound and her hand would take longer to heal, he knew, and all of it would use up blood she could ill afford losing just now. Yes. You're gonna cut your hand or something, you're gonna force feed her your blood. Jet didn't think she'd be local like the woman who had been torn from the plane during the crash. She probably hoped she wouldn't be, because he's got a fucking heart on for her. Even though, like I said previously, he should be so fucking cold his dick is well within him. But he wasn't sure. And briefly considered leaving her and continuing on his own. But he just couldn't do it. Jed didn't question why. He just knew he couldn't leave her alone here in the woods because that protected fucking instinct because you want to fuck her. He'd let her fees what I was saying. He'd let her feed off of him if necessary, but they were walking out of those woods together or not at all. Sighing, he glanced around. The log had made it out of the rapids and was now floating placidly downstream, looking none the worse for where. I live in an area that's very oriented to flash floods. And a log bouncing around in rapids isn't going to really do much, but after flash floods, or even during, you can see like a lot of debris get swept down the canyons. Because I live near Zion Canyon and the Virgin River floods quite often, especially in like the later parts of the year where we get a lot of heavy rain and it all kind of coalesced into the Virgin River basin and then just pushes out anything that fell. And if you get like swept away into that, you're very rarely ever going to find an intact body because everything grinds against everything else. And in the floodplains area of the Virgin, when I will let it subside and go like a week after a flash flood happened, there are entire trees which are wholly stripped of bark. There is not a scrap of bark left on them. All the smaller branches are gone, and a lot of the wood has been sanded, like wet sanded round and smooth, just because of the immense forces of that. So it's not going to be like that with this because it's one log and a bunch of rapids bouncing off rocks. So it's going to be fine. But I've seen pieces of animals, like fragments of bones and skin after flash flood and stuff, and that's just interesting. And unfortunately, people die in that every season. Especially like in the narrows, if it gets flooded, and they tell people don't hike up into it, but people still go up, and then they drowned and get ground up. Tragic. Other than that, everything looked quiet and peaceful. He didn't see anyone in the water or on either shore of the river. There's a lot of times too where those flashblood warnings come up, and then I'll make a post online like, I hope nobody dies, but I'm fully expecting at least one person to die per year just because people are stupid and they think they know what a flashblood is. Because they've never experienced one. I've never been in one, but I've been right next to one. It's crazy. That didn't mean they were nearby though. And he knew he needed to get Quinn out of the open, or at least he needed to get out of the open. He was walking he wa He was the walking blood bag to the women hunting him. That's what I said a chapter or two ago. Straining his shoulders, Jet scooped up Quinn and staggered to his feet to stumble into the trees until he found a pine or spruce tree. He couldn't tell in the dark with branches low enough to provide cover. He then set Quinn down and crawled under the low-lying branches, pulling her behind him. He's gonna take off his clothes. And he's gonna try to do the classic Boy Scout trick that if you are encounter somebody with hypothermia, you both strip down to your skibbies or less and bundle up trying to keep each other warm. Once he had her close to the trunk, he released her and flopped down on his side. The night was cooler than the water had been. He guessed around 70 degrees. Come again, the night was cooler than the water had been. He'd guessed around 70 degrees. Jet, you're in eastern fucking Canada. The water is cold. It's mountain water, Jet. The water is not gonna be 70 degrees. A lot of the fish and ecosystem in Canada in water that's moving through a river at 70 degrees is not going to be able to sustain it. It needs cold mountain water. You should be nearly dead of hypothermia. 70 degrees? Or are you saying the night's 70 degrees? Because if the night's colder than the water and the night's 70 degrees, how fucking warm is this water? What the fuck, Lindsay? And they're both soaking wet, made the night air feel cooler still. 70 degrees. Even if you this doesn't make any fucking sense. I would have believed 40 degrees. That would have made perfect fucking sense. 70 degrees. No fucking sense. No sense of hypothermia. The water is way too fucking warm for that part of the world. Even in the middle of summer in eastern Canada near Toronto, the water still in a river like that would not be 70 fucking degrees. It's these little touches that she just completely fucking negates to put in because she doesn't understand any of this that really annoys the fuck out of me. Listening listening. Yeah, listening to the book. I don't listen to the book. I'm reading the fucking book, but I we're almost done for this episode. The last thing Jet did before exhaustion claimed him was spoon her and wrap his arms around her when Quinn began to shiver. Shiver in her wet clothes. Alright, that's chapter three. So the way it looks like for the rest of the chapters, they're 15 to 20 to 25 pages each. I was thinking maybe I could cover a couple of them in one episode. It doesn't look like it's gonna really work, especially with me talking about Wuxia and French films and Hellraiser blood gore effects. You know, it it looks like the episodes are gonna be about an hour to an hour and a half. So when we get into the the bigger length chapters, it might even be upwards of two hours. But that's chapter three. We're on page 50 right now. We still have I forget how many more. This is 356 pages total. So we still have 306 pages to go. Hope you're alone for the rest of the ride. I've already got the second book lined up, but we're not gonna get to that for a couple months at this pace. That's alright. I enjoy doing these, even though it frustrates the absolute living fuck out of me.