“Hey!” I yelled. “What the—?”
“Carter!” my cousin Kev whispered happily. He threw his arms around me and held on so tight his lean arms nearly cracked my ribs. “Shit, I’ve been waiting for you to walk by my tree! I thought for a second there I was gonna have to go out there where all the people are to find you. I’m so glad you came by!”
“Kev.” I shook my head, stunned. “What are you doing here?”
My cousin Kev was incredibly brilliant. He was also incredibly socially awkward and introverted, to the point where he rarely left the house in Belle Meade if he could help it… and certainly not for an event like this.
“Ugh!” Kev shoved his black-framed glasses up his nose, folded his arms over his tuxedo-printed T-shirt, and shuffled his Converse-clad feet. His brown-and-purple hair stood up like he’d suffered a mild electrocution. “Long story. Grandfather made me come. Blah, blah Rogers family. Blah, blah responsibility. Blah, blah too much gaming and not enough fresh air and sunlight.” He waved a hand. “It’s like the man doesn’t understand how my UV lights and tricked-out ventilation system even work. All I can say is when the zombies attack and we’re all forced into bunkers, some of us will have adapted, and some of us will not.”
I opened my mouth, then shut it again. I wasn’t sure which of these groups Kev thought I was in.
I wasn’t sure which one I wanted to be in.
“It’s fine, though,” Kev went on, “’cause I wanted to see you anyway. You haven’t been on your HOG at all this week, even on Tuesday when the parsnips were delivered! I had to defend our settlement from a Horde all by myself, and I got worried. It’s not like you to miss Parsnip Tuesday, man.”
“Oh, shoot. About that.” I bit my lip to cover a wince. “It’s been a long week, and I, uh—” Forgot.
But there was no way I’d admit that to Kev, even under pain of death.
See, like me, Kev had been raised by our grandfather during his formative years. Unlike me, who’d lost my parents early to a car accident, Kev had lost his parents in middle school due to general parental dysfunction. Essentially, they’d dropped him off at Grandfather’s mansion for a couple of weeks one summer, and thirteen years later, he was still there. He even worked from home.
With no idea how to handle a brilliant but awkward teen, our normally strict grandfather had gotten him a video game setup, and we’d figured out a way for Kev and me to play together even while I was at college. Since then, it had become kind of our casual cousin-bonding thing.
At least, it had been casual until a few months ago when Horn of Glory had appeared on the market. Kev had preordered one of the first cow-horn-shaped gaming devices to come off the assembly line, and he’d ordered me one a week later so we could play together. Suddenly “casual” had become “fanatical” in an instant, at least where Kev was concerned.
“You packed your Horn away already, didn’t you?” Kev rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “You put it with your stuff to take to Venezuela so we could keep playing while you were gone, and you didn’t wanna unpack the suitcase to get it out.”
I found myself nodding along to this lie. “Yup. Yes. Yeah. That’s… what happened, alright. I totally spaced on Parsnip Tuesday, though, dang it. I could have really cashed in. I’ve been out of pips ever since I let my draft hippo die of dysentery, and I had to get a new one to till my fields.”
“Dude! You can buy more pips with your credit card, you know. They’re reasonably priced, like all the in-game purchases.”
“Sure, but aren’t you the guy who told me anyone can buy a win, but the truly honorable player wins with nothing but hard work and the might of his horn?”
Kev’s face broke out into a glorious smile. “You remember me saying that?”
I pushed his shoulder lightly. “Obviously. You’re my go-to HOG guru. The man who showed me the Way of the Horn.”
“Oh my God, and I have so much more to teach you!” he said excitedly. “The chat rooms are freakin’ blowing up right now. Unicorns are coming in January! Stampeding unicorns. That’s technically just a rumor, but I’m almost positive it’s real, and I’m building a fence of iron to protect our homestead.”
“Oh. Ah… Good.”
“Also? There’s a magic seed, which is like a skeleton key that unlocks any level of the game, plus does a bunch of other stuff, no one’s really sure what. And there’s only one, and it’s not for sale any longer, so probably you have to earn it through some combination of quests and maybe cheat codes? Not sure about that either. Information is thin, but I’m on the case.”
“I bet you are,” I agreed. “Kev, I—”
“Also-also? The apple and pear markets are corrupt. I can’t prove it, but I’m pretty sure ‘Big HOG’ is involved somehow. When I give you all the details, you’re gonna just…” He mimed an exploding motion near his temple. “But don’t stress, because I’m keeping our apples in the root cellar, and when the shit hits the fan, we’ll be ready.”
I forced a bright smile, like my sweet cousin hadn’t just confessed to being a Horn of Glory doomsday prepper. “Yeah? Wow. Okay, then. That’s… gonna be amazing,” I agreed. “Can’t wait. But Grandfather’s looking for me right now, so…” I motioned toward the door.
Kev rolled his eyes. “You’d better go. But first?” He reached into the cargo pocket of his baggy pants and pulled out a lurid purple sparkly Horn of Glory. “I got you this. For your trip.”
“Oh.” I stared at the device for a beat in wonder. Wow. I had definitely not known they came in that color. “That’s so sweet, Kev, but—”
“I know, I know! You already have one! But this one is tricked-out. Anti-slip grip, anti-fatigue thumb buttons for improved gameplay, better graphics. Plus, it has satellite capabilities! You can’t get that commercially, you know. I added that feature myself.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He smiled shyly. “You know the beauty and the curse of the Horn is that it’s Wi-Fi only, right? But I figured you might not have great Wi-Fi, or any internet connection at all—” He shuddered lightly. “—when you’re out in the jungle. So, I’ve been working on this one for a couple weeks, trying to fit a satellite transceiver inside a traditional Horn shell, and I finally got it to work. Long-life battery will last you weeks under normal conditions. And I even loaded seventy thousand pips on this account for you, just in case of emergencies, which isn’t cheating because I gifted you those pips from my own account, I didn’t buy a single one of ’em.” He shrugged and averted his gaze. “I thought this way, even when you’re far away, you and I can keep in touch. And if you message me through the game any time of the day or night, I promise I’ll jump right on so we can play.”
I shut my eyes for a brief second, then grabbed Kev in a hug nearly as tight as the one he’d given me. “Best cousin ever,” I murmured.
“I know, right?” Kev pulled away with a little sniffle. “I’m gonna miss you, loser. So, like, don’t forget me, okay?”