"THE ACTIVITY CLUB and the WILD CHILD" Sneak Preview (Patreon)

Hello everyone! I hope you're well! I've been chugging through some quarantine doldrums myself, but I'm hopeful that I'll make it through them soon. Progress on my visual novel Animal Star has been slow for exactly that reason, but I'm on the cusp of having a fun chunk to share soon!

In the meantime, I have something else fun for you today: an excerpt from another Paranatural prose story (in the same vein as The Activity Club and the Final Hole) that I've been chipping away at. So here it is for you, the whole intro scene!

As always, thank you so much for your support, especially when I'm sailing still seas without much to share here. Your patience and support are the reason I can keep making art through ups and downs, and I'm excited to pay back that immense amount of faith you've kept in me!

Anyways, here you go! The Activity Club and the Wild Child! I hope this sneak peak gets you excited for the full story!

~~~~~THE ACTIVITY CLUB AND THE WILD CHILD~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As the wheels on the bus go round and round, so too do the wheels of fate. It was field trip day, and a narratively convenient fraction of Mayview Middle School's seventh grade class was approaching the local zoo... and, perhaps, potential certain doom.

Despite this, morale among the kids was high, as they were flush with blissful ignorance. Johnny and his gang of friends, for whom such bliss was a reliable constant, were cackling clandestinely at the back end of the bus. The most clandestine member at the moment, Stephen, whose ignorance produced a plethora of additional less beneficial side effects, was stuffed inside a gym bag on the floor. He'd been banned from field trips after quote unquote "irrevocably desecrating" the last one, but that just made being smuggled on today's trip twice as thrilling.

The Activity Club, our erstwhile heroes (whatever that means), had three of their number in attendance; Isabel and Ed chatted away while an erstful Max took in the scenery rolling by. He was lost in thought putting the sort of care one would normally reserve for elaborate acts of kindness into the exact opposite thing: picking the worst possible zoo souvenir to bring to Isaac as a joke. The gift shop's easy baby mode, thought Max, I'll hunter-gather something priceless in a bad way somewhere else. He nodded to himself, as though this plan made any sense.

"If I could be any animal, I'd be a human being," said Ed, answering the latest trivial query he and Isabel had swapped to pass the time. "Just 'cause pretending to be one is really hard."

"Dang, Ed," replied Isabel, who had unknowingly described the true Platonic ideal of carnivorous predation in outlining the chimera form she'd take, "That's super deep."

Ed had in truth been going for more of like a creature in a boy suit bit, but instead went with the flow and nodded sagely.

Towards the front of the bus, Lisa was recounting eerie rumors she had heard about their destination in a blatant act of ominous foreshadowing. "It's true, Violet," said Lisa in her usual half-whisper, "All sorts of things go missing at the Mayview Zoo. But not JUST things... animals, too. Even people."

Violet had been indulgently humoring her seatmate's tales by frequently interrupting them to indulge in making fun of how humorously full of it they were. "You know what else is missing, Lisa? Literally any evidence for that besides ninthhand accounts."

"That's right," answered Lisa, "No evidence. Every victim, gone without a trace." Her instinct was to drift out of sight into the shadows for dramatic effect, but it was noon and she had the window seat, so she settled for a spooky hiss instead. Violet feigned cartoonish fright to hide a smile, but couldn't hold it, and soon both girls broke down into a fit of laughter.

Your other favorite characters were on the trip as well, all in the early moments of adventures far too grand to be described henceforth.

Suddenly (but not unexpectedly), Mr. Starchman made a dramatic en media res entrance from the emergency exit on the ceiling, sticking a ten point landing on the narrow aisle floor. The kids on the bus broke out in applause and whoops and cheers, either in recognition of the stunt itself or in celebration of their newfound compliance with state law, which required students to have more than zero chaperones on any given field trip. No one, though, whooped harder than the emergency exit alarm, evidently Mr. Starchman's biggest fan, until he slammed the ceiling hatch shut with an eleven point, Olympics-tier high kick. It went silent, disillusioned with its hero, and the rest of the bus fell quiet alongside it. Mr. Starchman had their absolute attention.

"Dear children," he crooned, leading Isabel to picture the Platonic form of prey, "Today we knock upon Death's door, and march with open arms through its black threshold." Johnny let out a solitary aww yeah from the far back of the bus. Without acknowledging him, Mr. Starchman continued, walking up and down the aisle as he spoke. "We are headed towards the greatest concentration of teeth and claws and hunger per square mile that your parents will ever happily sign away your right to refuse to visit." He punctuated his point by waving a stack of permission slips in the air, then threw them over his shoulder to descend in a flurry like huge, menacing confetti.

"The monument to man's folly of which I speak is, of course... the zoo." Everybody booed on cue in a chorus that rhymed pleasantly with the target of their ire. Starchman eased the crowd back into silence with a motion of his outstretched hands cut with a nod of sympathy, then once again returned to his oration. "We have caged nature's greatest killers and yet expect no retribution, in clear violation of both jungle and Murphy's law. Bars might protect us from our fears, but won't from the reality that breeds them. To that end, children, to ensure that you SURVIVE this dark safari..."

He paused. Looked left. Looked right.

"We will be using a buddy system."

The bus erupted into cheers once more, cheers for buddies, cheers for the best system there was, for, perhaps, the only good system that has ever been.

"You will each be charged with your buddy's protection when and wheresoever my own power fails to reach. Guard them with your life, and you will live on in the great halls of Valhalla." A series of flips and handsprings removed Starchman from the fray of the ensuing friendship frenzy, a wise and practical retreat. "Go on! Choose your partner! Buddy up!"

Across the bus, relationships were clarified with blinding speed. Crushes were crushed, fraternities fractured, hearts audibly broken in twain. New friends forged bonds glowing with timeless familiarity. Old friends felt flames normally reserved for meaningful first meetings flare up from the ashes of their passion. Many found their future spouses; many others, with some overlap, their lifelong foes.

Ed and Isabel negotiated the terms of their buddy contract with an elaborate vocabulary of elbow nudges, snickers, and grins.

Violet and Lisa settled into their comfortable default, both secretly glad that that default was their first pick.

RJ and Ollie clasped hands, sealing their pact. Stephen, as a buddyless ronin, swiftly swore an oath to serve as the pair's third, though he would have to do his buddy duty from the shadows.

Those other two characters you like, through choice or wacky circumstance (whichever you'd prefer), go figure, found themselves matched up as well.

The din began to settle into isolated pockets, stubbornly lingering where indecision and discord remained. "Let's not be choosey, children!" Mr. Starchman cried out above the sound, "Don't forget, if you can't find a buddy, we'll have to shun and disavow you, as there's an odd number of students!"

"More like a number of odd students," said Max, holding up his hand for a high five. No high five came; with Isabel and Ed paired off, he had nobody—no *buddy*—left to turn to. The void reached out in his friends' place to give him not a high five, but a low one. Nay, lower than a low one... the icy absolute zero grip of isolation.

To the void's surprise, however, and to Max's, it arrived to find his palm pre-occupied, his every digit spoken for within the standard five plus five high five equation. Another hand had taken his... a warm hand, feverishly warm, made strong by hard work shoving losers into lockers, made sweaty by its resting state, curled into meaty fists. To quote The Shining in both word and spirit, here was Johnny.

The twisted gargoyle of a tween grinned a grin of dark devotion down at Max from his perch atop the tall seatback behind him. "BUDDY," he snarled, grinning even wider.

"Please god no," Max replied, but it was too late for divine intervention. Like a baby duck, Johnny had imprinted on him, and, like a baby duck, would now pursue him to the ends of the Earth, trampling any obstacle that dared stand in his way.

The bus pulled into the zoo's parking lot. Whether what awaited them was a day of field trip fun or a tragic nightmare fear gauntlet, it was clear that something had begun... which meant, sooner or later, Mayview Middle School's seventh grade class... would meet its end.

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