Chapter 3: Old Fashioned Austen Hospitality

Old Fashioned Austen Hospitality

 

As Logan once again roused from unconsciousness, he was greeted bodily with a throbbing headache. He wasn’t sure how long he had been out, but it seemed like it had been a while because his throat was absolutely parched and his stomach was also making its complaints known.

 

However, the complaint center was closed for business at this second, dealing with its own internal struggles. His head felt like someone had cut it open, popped out the important bits, and used them like a dishrag on toxic waste, before tossing them back into place. Even though his head had hurt last time he had woken up, it was nothing like this. The only time Logan had ever experienced a headache of a similar magnitude was when he had gotten food poisoning twice simultaneously, causing some nasty bacterial infection and… a lot of gross stuff to happen, including intense dehydration and malnutrition. 

 

When that had happened, Logan had gone to the hospital to be stabilized. He wasn’t sure exactly where he was, but something told him that hospitals were not in his near future, considering the hay cot he was still sleeping on, and THE FACT HE HAD ALREADY DIED THAT DAY. 

 

Or maybe it had been more than a day, it had been hard to tell while dead, Logan squelched out of his brain. Regardless, he desperately needed nutrients and water if he was going to live, somehow, and he had already had a trail on how he was going to get them. A scent trail if you would, considering Logan’s whole plan was to follow the delicious and hearty smells wafting to his nose and hope he didn’t kick the bucket trying.

 

However, he would need to see to optimize his routing, so Logan wrenched his crusted eyes open. And immediately, he flinched from the sudden light, slammed them shut, and promptly fell off the cot.

 

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Logan was lucky the cot was, again, just a mound of hay on the packed dirt floor, as he had only rolled off about a foot. However, in his weakened state, that was more painful than it would be normally. Mostly, because Logan had his eyes closed so he ended up hitting his head, causing it to spin and contract even tighter. 

 

Ignoring all the pain, both new and old, Logan pushed himself to his hands and knees. This time, he slowly opened his eyes, and between that and looking down at the ground, Logan was able to adjust. It also caused his brain to throb harder, but at this point, it was just a drop in the ocean of pain he was drowning in.

 

Carefully, he crawled through the dirt in the direction of the wonderful smell. He would only occasionally glance upwards, as the direct light of what Logan could now identify as a lantern was still too much to handle in large doses, but it was enough that he could easily avoid the sparse wooden furniture in the house as he pushed onwards.

 

After a couple minutes of mucking about, Logan made it to a door. Considering that he had no idea where he was, and if it was safe, he grabbed the door frame and hauled himself into a crouch. It took Logan a few seconds to find his balance. Even though he could tell he was the same as he always had been, sans hair obviously, his body still felt strangely alien, like he had never used it before…

 

Pushing the door open, Logan came face to branch, he supposed, with a forest. Giant oak and hickory trees stretched as far as he could see in front of him, reminding him of recreated pictures of when the dinosaurs had roamed the Earth.

 

Logan spotted a fire a little over to his left, with the same old man as before tending to both the fire and an oversized pot of stew. If his senses were still somewhat functional, that was the source of the irresistible aroma, so Logan made his way over to the fire, albeit at a slow and shambling pace.

 

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As Logan drew closer to the fire, his stumbling gait drew the attention of Jeremiah, the old man he had met last time he woke up. Sitting on a log, his frame was still close to Logan’s 6 foot height, and his face was just as weathered as he remembered. Jeremiah made eye contact and just stared.

 

Although he felt like he was dying on his feet, Logan didn’t ask for some stew or speak at all. For some reason Logan thought the old man was testing him, and if he didn’t know the rules, he would have to pay to find them out. Logan had learned that lesson through sports gambling when he had turned 21, throwing away too much money that he really couldn’t afford to waste.

 

So instead Logan didn’t play the game. He saved his energy, just staring back, until Old Jeremiah spoke.

 

“Welcome back to the land of the living, lad. First have some stew, and then we shall talk.” With that said, Jeremiah grabbed a massive ladle in the similarly oversized stew pot, and filled a deep wooden bowl with just one scoop. He then held out the soup between us, a peace offering.

 

Logan wasn’t going to pass up that offering in the slightest, but before he did he nodded his head in appreciation at the old man. Then he dug in without remorse, absolutely devouring the whole bowl. Logan was eating so fast that the stew was getting suctioned into his mouth, the wooden spoon he was using doing little more than assisting the initial momentum.

 

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After he finished eating, Logan was left feeling a little guilty. He couldn’t even remember what it tasted like. Shaking his head, he looked back to Old Jeremiah. The man hadn’t made a noise while Logan had eaten, simply sitting, and as he seemed to do often, staring. 

 

Getting uncomfortable finally, Logan started with, “Thank you for the food, it was a lifesaver.”

 

“I’ll not leave a guest to his grave if I can help it, even if he is uninvited.”

 

“Ah, actually, if you don’t mind, where might I be, perchance?”

 

“Just on the edge of Inaug Forest, sirrah.”

 

Logan had never heard of Inaug Forest, but that didn’t necessarily mean much. In the last couple of years he had rarely gone out of his house except to work or party, so maybe there was a forest nearby he just didn’t know about. But Logan was afraid that wasn’t the case. Knowing he had to face it, he asked, “And where might that be, sir?”

 

“Oh, were ye unknowin’ of the Forest lad? The Forest resides in the central region of our noble Kingdom of Austen.”

 

Shit.

 

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Logan tried not to let the dismay show on his face, but he was afraid he didn’t quite pull it off. This had been exactly what he had been worried about, having read a fair bit of modern literature that started off with situations similar to the one he was in now. However, unlike the main characters of those stories, Logan had no illusions he was a hero lying in wait.

 

Logan had been a barista, line cook, and also occasional sneaker reseller. Having worked all of those jobs for quite some time he could confidently say their skills didn’t translate in the slightest to monster slaying. So doing as he always did when faced with an overwhelming problem, Logan distracted himself from the future, and dived back into the conversation with Old Jeremiah. 

 

“Oh of course, that Forest. Yes, yes that checks out. Now, where exactly did you find me?” 

 

“I found ye in a clearing a little ways over into the Forest. Ye made an awful big spectacle when you showed up, it was hard to miss ye lad.” Old Jeremiah drawled out.

 

Logan remembered very little from getting to this ‘Austen Kingdom’ but he remembered how small he had felt, and distinctly not really having a body, so he was very curious about this ‘spectacle’. Unfortunately, now was not the time to ask.

 

A massive centipede rushed out of the bush sprinting with all its multitude of legs for his empty stew bowl. Logan had always hated bugs since he had traveled to Central America as a child, and had been stung and bitten by such a large variety that he felt specifically targeted. So when a centipede almost the size of a chihuahua showed its ugly face-ish side, his fight or flight instincts triggered hard. 

 

Grabbing a rock slightly larger than his fist, he bent over and brought it down hard on the centipede's midpoint. With a squish, the centipede separated in two, but the centipede’s front half still scrambled to Logan’s bowl. So he brought the rock down again. And again. Then one more time for good riddance. Looking up he saw the only motion Jeremiah had made was to raise his eyebrow.

 

Ah well, that's an embarrassing overreaction then I guess…

 

“I hate Bugs”, Logan muttered, barely audible enough to be heard over the sound of his breathing and the crackling fire. He brought up the rock to drop it in the fire when a loud chiming, like the air being strummed, startled him into dropping it into the dirt instead.

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