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She blamed her Uncle Zack. He had sent her some tapes of a radio show. The show wasn’t like anything she’d heard in Hawkins, normally full of conservative talk radio and country music stations. The host talked all about Bigfoot and UFOs which were two of Robin’s favorite, older obsessions. Discovered back in middle school, after her parents had taken her on a car trip to Oregon and she’d fallen in love with the big trees and the UFO town.
Regardless, the host had talked about how cryptids were everywhere and that anyone who was diligent enough could probably have a close encounter of their own. All week that had sounded way better to Robin than anything having to do with Scoops Ahoy, Even counting the joy she received needling her bagel crumb spreading, Tammy Thompson stealing nemesis. She had tomorrow off and she had gone into the woods. Alone. At night. And she was lost.
Her only bit of luck so far was the full moon. Her flashlight had cut out about a half an hour into the trip and she was immediately lost in the trees. She’d only hyperventilated a little bit before she decided to put on her big girl panties and try to find her way back to her bike.
She’d been tromping around in the forest for an hour at this point and she hadn’t found any cryptids but she had discovered it was really quiet in the woods at night. She thought it would be noisier, weren’t half the animals in the forest nocturnal? Shouldn’t that have made it loud? No matter how many people called the woods peaceful in the daytime, Robin always thought it was pretty loud.
She was doing okay, trying to keep her panic at a low simmer. She knew Skull Rock was around here somewhere and once she found that she knew she could probably find Lover’s Lake and from there the road and then her bike and then she could get home and everything would be fine.
A snap echoed around her in the silence of the forest and she gasped and spun around. Even in the bright moonlight, she didn’t see anything. “Hello?” She called out before wincing. What a stupid move, did she think the "Indiana Name Left Intentionally Blank" (look Robin figured she’d workshop the name after she saw it or at least some evidence of it) was going to say hello back to her? “Ha ha,” She said out loud like an insano who babbled when she was nervous. “Just little old me, walking around the forest in the dark. Like you do.” She said, swinging her arms. She wished for the first time that evening she’d taken her Dad’s heavy maglite instead of the small, plastic flashlight that was currently dead in her hands. At least if that had also run out of batteries she could have used it as a weapon. “Just gonna continue walking over this way. Away from the creepy noises in the dark.”
To her right she heard another snap and swung around to face it. Out of the woods, emerging into the moonlight shining down on the clearing where Robin stood, came the biggest dog she’d ever seen. It was like a husky but two maybe three times as large as a husky should be. Its coat didn’t really look like a husky either, instead of the stark white and black markings she expected it had a darker coat fading out to a lighter color on its belly. It didn’t look black, but it was hard to tell in the washed out moonlight.
It cocked its head at her, like dogs do when they’re confused, and sniffed the air before it slowly started walking towards her. Something about it seemed less like a dog than before and she realized that was because it wasn’t a dog. It was a wolf.
“Wait, do wolves even live in Indiana?” She asked out loud because she was a dingus extraordinaire and was bound to die because she couldn’t keep her mouth shut. “Not that I don’t think you can live wherever you want, Mr. Wolf.” She said as the wolf continued to walk towards her. She took a step back and it stopped. “Or Ms. Wolf. I don’t want to assume or, you know, get close enough to check.” She winced at herself. “How about I just call you Wolf and you leave me alone to find my bike by myself?”
The wolf huffed like he was laughing at her and started to walk towards again. Honestly, she expected to hear a growl and then die a gruesome death. Instead, the wolf wagged its tail and let its tongue loll out of its mouth as it got closer to her.
It walked closer and closer and Robin’s breath got shallower and shallower until it was right next to her. It circled her twice, Robin’s eyes threatening to pop out of her skull in fear, and then sat down next to her and leaned against her. Hard. Like her old golden retriever, who had loved to cuddle and would try to be as close to Robin as possible at all times. Including, leaning against her while she helped her Mom in the kitchen.
Without thought, because Robin was too scared to form any thoughts, she touched the top of its head. Not a hard thing to do, when even sitting down next to her its head came up to her armpit. “Good boy?” She said and even to her it sounded more like a question than a statement. The wolf huffed and leaned against her harder as Robin started to scratch it behind its ears, nearly knocking her over.
It really seemed to like the scritches, its back leg started to thump against the ground, startling her but also startling the wolf who looked at its own leg like it had committed the deepest act of disloyalty. While the dog spun around, glaring at its paw in betrayal, Robin got a look at the wolf’s goods. She acknowledged gender was a social construct, she was glad she could stop calling the wolf it in her mind. He was a good boy, even if he was a little dumb.
“Hey, dingus.” She said and the wolf stopped. “You wouldn’t happen to know how to get me back to my bike?” She threw her hands up in the air, exasperated with herself. “Now you're talking to the wolf like he could help?”
The wolf ignored her outburst and barked once to get her attention. Then the wolf nodded at her, slowly, like she was a toddler. “Did you just nod at me?” She asked, stumbling to the forest floor in front of the wolf. He nodded again. “Oh my god, do you understand what I’m saying?” Again a nod.
“I’m not lost.” She said and then shouted into the starry sky above her, “I’m not lost!” The wolf joined in her shouting with a howl. It sounded as joyous as she felt, even if the sound still made her skin shiver in fear. There was an ancient part of her brain that knew she was prey and the sound meant danger. Overwhelming the fear was a profound sense of friendship for this strange, smart wolf who had come to her rescue. “Can I hug you? I’m going to hug you.” She buried her arms around his neck and in his fur. He was warm, very warm in the heat of the early summer night, and soft. Like as soft as her golden retriever after they’d given him a bath. “Oh, wow. You are so soft.” She sighed into the hug.
The wolf led her back to her bike. Turned out she hadn’t even gone that far from it, she’d just gotten very turned around. She didn’t have the best sense of direction even during daylight, it wasn’t surprising she got so lost.
Next time she went cryptid hunting she’d have to bring a map.
+++
Sunday was a full shift scheduled with Harrington. She had a full, torturous day of watching him fail to flirt his way into the skirts of half of Hawkins High. If she was forced to watch him try over and over again all day long, she was going to set up a board or something, to keep a tally of how many times he got rejected. At least that would be better than watching him try and strike out over and over again.
Robin was scooping the last dregs of yesterday's mint chip out of the old bucket and on top of the ice cream in the new one she’d just hauled into the chest freezer. Steve was busy restocking the napkins and wiping down the tables since yesterday’s closing shift left everything a half done mess. He looked over at her, leaning against the table, “so you do anything fun on your day off?”
She thought about her cryptid hunting adventure but said, “no not really.”
“No late night trips out to Skull Rock or anything?” He asked.
She squinted at him. What was he suggesting? “No.” She said, “Are you implying that I would do something as gross as go to a known make-out spot like Skull Rock?” She sniffed at him, like she thought a prude might. “I’m not that easy.” She thought she probably was, if she could make out with who she wanted to, she’d be there every night in the summer when it was warm out. Pretending to be a picky prude was usually the best bet around boys. They didn’t want to deal with a girl who put up that much of a fight. At least it had worked so far. It just had to work for one more year. Next Fall she was headed to California for college. There, she’d be able to find girls and make out with them whenever she wanted.
“There’s nothing wrong with making out at Skull Rock. I mean I did make it the make out spot for Hawkins High. But you know it was also a nice night out for a night hike.” He looked at her. She didn’t know what kind of face she was making right now, but it probably wasn’t super kind given his small frown. She almost felt bad about it. If he wasn’t Steve Harrington. “It was a full moon and all.” He trailed off and turned back to the table he was cleaning.
Ugh, he looked too dejected and had gone quiet. That wasn’t any fun. Fine, she’d throw him a bone. “Actually, I didn’t go for a hike. But my Uncle sent me this tape. It's like a guy who talks about all these conspiracies and stuff.”
“Conspiracies? Like government cover-ups?” Steve turned back to her but his face was unreadable. Almost blank but not actually. She wasn’t good at reading expressions to begin with but this one looked like he was trying to actively make it hard for her. She had no idea why.
“Sure, like UFO cover-ups. Right? Very cool.” She stomped on the old box of mint chip to collapse it. She’d haul it out after they opened and she needed a break from the little kiddies and their moms. “The summer before middle school my parents took me to Oregon. Did you know they have like a whole UFO town there? And there’s one in New Mexico, but I haven’t been there.” He started to smile and she kinda felt like she wanted to continue, like he was smiling with her not silently laughing at her. “I want to go, though. I’ve heard there’s a whole alien themed diner and motel. Like imagine sleeping there? Crazy right?”
“Crazy is definitely the word I would use.”
“Anyway, the aliens are beside the point. The point was that the radio show talked about how there are cryptids everywhere?” Robin grabbed the keys from where they were hooked under the register and handed them to Steve as the clock struck 10 and their day began.
“What’s a cryptid?” He asked, shoving the roller door up. “Wait, is it something from that dungeon game?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. No, a cryptid is like an animal that science doesn’t think exists. Like Bigfoot.”
“But Bigfoot doesn’t exist.” Steve said, handing the keys back to Robin.
“That’s what they want you to think!” Robin said as they worked together to shove the door up for the day.
“So you were looking for Bigfoot?”
“Not exactly. I was looking for, like, a homegrown Indiana cryptid.”
Steve took a step back from her, again he got that weird blank but not blank expression on his face. “Did you find one?”
She thought, briefly, about telling him about the super smart wolf she found. It might count as a cryptid enough for him, even if she didn’t think it counted because it was only a wolf. She decided against it though. He felt like something that was just for her. Her friendly, super smart wolf. “No. But I’m going to try again Wednesday night.”
“Oh yeah?” He relaxed, that weird expression gone again and he smiled to himself.
“Yeah, I’ve got an early shift Wednesday and a day off on Thursday so it’s a great time to go out and stuff. Plus, it gives me some time to get more batteries for my flashlight. And a map.”
“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Don’t want to walk around in the dark at night alone. That sounds really dumb.”
“Yeah, it’d be stupid.” She said and turned to greet the first customer of the day. “Ahoy, there!”