Free Critical Failures III (Caverns and Creatures Book 3) by Robert Bevan

grin.
    “Honey, I just saw a giant scorpion throw a refrigerator across my boss’s office. I’m beyond skepticism.”
    “Well then yeah,” said Tim. “Magic dice. And if I’m ever going to get out of this stupid little body, I need to get those dice back. Only, we don’t have any idea where Mordred is, or how to find him.”
    “Is he on Facebook?”
    “How the fuck should I –” Tim stopped to think. She might be on to something. He pulled out his phone, flipped it open, and searched for Julian’s number. It was a long shot, but this could be a lead worth splitting the party for. “I need to get to a computer right now.”
    “I’ve got a tablet on the back seat.”
    Tim closed his phone. “That’ll do.” He reclined his seat all the way back, but still had to crawl almost entirely onto the back seat in order to reach the tablet because of his short arms. Tablet in hand, he crawled back up front and pulled the lever to raise the seat back upright.
    “Make sure you log me out,” said Stacy. “I need to stay off the grid until I figure out what I’m going to tell my boss.”
    “I think your best bet is to just say you were sick or something, and never made it to work,” said Tim, logging into Facebook with his own account. “I don’t think there’s anything you can say that will adequately explain what he’s going to walk in on.”
    “Is that you?” asked Stacy. Tim had to hold the tablet toward her to avoid the sun’s glare.
    “Yeah.”
    “You’re cute.” She winked at him.
    Tim’s face flushed. Not so much because an attractive girl called him cute. He was comfortable around women, and he knew he wasn’t a bad looking guy. He flushed because, despite photographic evidence to the contrary, she was talking to him like he was eight years old. “It’s an old pic—”
    “Yow!”
    Tim’s face slammed into the dashboard. He tasted blood before the pain had time to register. Busted lip. Probably broken nose.
    “Sorry,” said Stacy. “Red light.”
    Tim sat up. They were right on top of the van’s back bumper. “You broke my fucking nose.” He sounded like Donald Duck. Yeah, it was definitely broken.
    “You should be wearing a seatbelt.”
    “And you should keep your eyes on the goddamn road!” He opened the console between the seats, hoping to find some tissues. All he found in there were old, dry orange peels. They'd do. He plugged his nostrils with bits of orange peel until the bleeding stopped.
    Stacy smiled sympathetically at him. Her lips were shut tight, like she was trying to hold in a laugh. He must have been quite a sight from her perspective. A banged up little hobbit honking obscenities at her and shoving orange peels up his nose.
    He pulled the seatbelt across and fastened it. The shoulder strap was in his face.
    “I’ve got some books you can sit on if you—”
    “Just drive the car.” He tucked the shoulder strap under his chin and looked at the tablet. He hadn’t been on Facebook in quite a while. He didn’t derive much pleasure from looking at updates from people he never even liked back in high school and were now succeeding in their professional and personal lives, while he was still stuck in the Chicken Hut and playing Caverns and Creatures with his degenerate friends.
    The red circle at the top of the screen said he had seventeen notifications. Maybe he’d been missed after all. No such luck. They were all invitations to play shitty Facebook games.
    He touched the ‘Search’ field and typed in Mordred. Best to start broad and narrow the selection as was needed. As it turned out, not a whole lot of narrowing would have to be done. The Mordred search only yielded ten profiles. Some were fat. Some were hairy. Anyone who referred to themselves as ‘Mordred’ was undoubtedly a shithead. But none of the profile pictures showed the particular fat, hairy shithead he was looking for.
    Tim sighed. “Dead end.”
    “Sorry.”
    “Don’t be,” said Tim,