Viridian Beedrill
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Charlie Messenger has the day off, and boy does he need it. The next month is always the busiest in his line of work. It should be a peaceful evening—nothing spooky ever happens in the woods at night in September, right? …Right?
Rating: Teen
Content Warnings: characters being threatened by a bladed weapon (well, sort of); brief reference to alcohol; use of firearms; fantasy violence; potentially frightening imagery; general spoofery on those urban legends where Very Bad Things ™ happen to people in the woods at night.
Rating: Teen
Content Warnings: characters being threatened by a bladed weapon (well, sort of); brief reference to alcohol; use of firearms; fantasy violence; potentially frightening imagery; general spoofery on those urban legends where Very Bad Things ™ happen to people in the woods at night.
Huzzah, self-indulgent cryptid fanfiction! 
This world was born purely from my interests and weird sense of humor, so I don't know how enjoyable it will be to a general population. But I thought it wouldn't hurt to put it out there, and it's seasonally appropriate if nothing else.
Special thanks to @The Traveller for reading early drafts and encouraging me to finish this. I hope you enjoy it!
This world was born purely from my interests and weird sense of humor, so I don't know how enjoyable it will be to a general population. But I thought it wouldn't hurt to put it out there, and it's seasonally appropriate if nothing else. Special thanks to @The Traveller for reading early drafts and encouraging me to finish this. I hope you enjoy it!
It started out innocently enough.
I know, I know, these sorts of things always start out “innocently enough”. But this really was innocent. I was catching a ride home with my friend Steve and his girlfriend Ramona after a nice cookout party at one of the local farms. In front, Steve was at the wheel and Ramona was in shotgun, both talking and laughing. In back, I was lazing on the seat with a stomach full of casserole and chocolate cake. Darkness had settled like a blanket over the quiet countryside, and the light of the moon was making shadow puppets with the surrounding trees. It was nice and peaceful.
Right up until the motor conked out.
This seemed like a minor nuisance at first. The Ol’ Jalopy, as Steve called her, was his baby. He’d have it up and running again in no time, I thought.
Five minutes after he got out, though, I heard him grumble “I can’t figure out what’s wrong here.”
That should have been my first clue something wasn’t normal. But instead, I chalked it up to the dark—even a car wizard can only work so fast with a flashlight clamped between his teeth. “You sure you don’t want an extra pair of hands out there?”
“No, that’s ok, Charlie. I’ve got a couple more things I can try. No point in all of us getting our shoes muddy out here if we don’t have to.”
“If you say so,” I called back.
The music on the radio faded out and the DJ came on. “Howdy folks! Fred Mardell here with your last news bulletin of the night, if you can call it that. Unfortunately, this is not a case where no news is good news, as the men responsible for the Facett’s Jewel robbery are still at large. As you know, the police believe the perpetrators cut through our fair city of Evehollow on their way to Fort Saddle to fence the stolen—"
“Darn right we know,” Ramona grumbled over the announcer’s voice. She took a break from removing her hair pins to pin the radio with an irritated scowl. “You haven’t talked about anything else all week!”
“In his defense—” I began.
Ramona huffed, swiping at her red hair to finish undoing her braid. “I know, I know, nothing happens out here and this is the closest Fred’ll ever get to reporting on a big story. But if I hear ‘perpetrator’ or ‘our fair city’ one more time…”
I shrugged. “In his defense—again—there aren’t many times a guy can say ‘perpetrator’ or ‘our fair city’ in day-to-day conversation. Might as well make the most of the opportunity.”
Ramona responded with a sigh and turned down the volume on the radio. Then she bound her hair back up in a pony tail, which looked more comfortable than the tight, precisely-placed braid she’d just undone.
I stretched, straightening myself up in the seat, and casually looked out the window. Then I looked again harder, my heart rapidly sinking. I recognized this area, and that put a very different spin on our breakdown. I was just getting done hoping neither of the others would notice when Ramona said, “Steve, I…I just noticed…”
“What?” Steve asked, spitting out the flashlight and swiping disheveled black hair out of his eyes to squint at her.
“I think we’re in the area where…where those sightings happened.”
“You mean the Axeman?” Steve looked around. “Oh, yeah…yeah, I guess so,” he continued, a slight hint of nervousness creeping into his voice. “But it’s been a whole year since the last one.”
“No, it hasn’t,” said Ramona, her own voice getting both softer and higher pitched. “There’s been three sightings in the last week. New sightings.”
“But no encounters this time, right?” I said, as cheerfully as a could over the sick feeling creeping into my previously-contented stomach. “It’s probably people just jumping at shadows.”
Then the radio fizzled out in a dying static scream.
Oh no.
In the new silence, a twig snapped. We all turned to look at the darkened area of the woods the noise had come from. “Probably some animal?” I offered, not buying my own suggestion.
We sat in silence for a minute or so, staring at the shadows. Finally, Steve scoffed. “This is silly. I’m going to go look around.”
“Not alone, you aren’t!” Ramona protested, swinging her door open.
“Uh, actually,” I piped up, “maybe you should both…”
Too late. The two of them were power-walking toward the dense trees, and there wasn’t anything I could do to stop them. All I could do was sit and watch helplessly as they walked straight into what I knew was a setup.
Steve reached the grove of shadows first and gazed in. “I knew it. There’s nobody here.”
Right as he said that, a humanoid shadow detached itself from the darkness to their right. Ramona saw it first. “STEVE!!!”
Steve whirled, coming face-to-face with the figure. Or rather, with the shadow covering the figure’s face. Even in shadow, though, the thing’s face gave the distinct impression a wide grin was spreading across it. “Naughty children,” he called in a grotesquely raspy, yet sing-song voice. “Naughty children, off the trail. Must be punished, punished well!” The figure raised his hands, which were clutched around something long and skinny. A metallic glint flashed.
“THE AXEMAN!!!!!” Ramona shrieked.
“RUN!!!!!” Steve screamed.
They scattered, just before the Axeman brought the weapon down in a vicious swipe. The next moments were terrified blurs of motion as Steve and Ramona raced around the car to the opposite side of the road. Screams of “RUN, RUN!!!”, “SPLIT UP!!!”, “NO, STAY TOGETHER!!!”, and “AIEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!” ripped past me, then faded like the siren of a passing ambulance. The Axeman, unbothered, followed them in unnaturally long, loping strides that ate up the ground. He would have easily caught up to them, except that he turned to glance at the car.
And saw me.
I bent over and groped under the seat. My fingers gripped a felt brim just as the car bounced with a heavy impact. I looked up to see the Axeman leaning down from the car roof, looking in through my partially open window. Up close, his face was no longer blocked by shadow. It was a hideous, saturated flesh color, marred with blood-red blotches. His deeply set eyes were pitch black and yet, impossibly, seemed to glow in the dark. A horrific grin split his face again. “All alone, nobody, no buddy!” The Axeman chanted. “Strayed off alone, how very naughty!”
I raised my hand and held my black fedora in front of his face. There was dead silence for a moment, during which the Axeman’s face faded from its grotesque colors to sheet-white. “Oh, hi, Charlie,” said the Axeman, in a voice that had lost the rasp and gained a squeak.
“You’ll need a better story than just ‘Oh, hi, Charlie’ if you want to get out of this, Cormac,” I said.
“You, uh, coming from a party, I guess? Nice shirt. I didn’t recognize you at first.”
“And flattery will get you nowhere.” I held up my free hand and started counting off fingers. “Let’s see, we’ve got haunting without a license—which I know you are, because your renewal paperwork is sitting on my desk right now…”
“Errr…”
“…We’ve got terrorizing out-of-season…”
“It’s October!” Cormac protested.
“It’s September thirtieth,” I corrected. “And not even a full moon at that.”
His face disappeared as he glanced upward, presumably to check the moon. “Oh.”
“And we’ve got bothering a Hatman on what was supposed to be his day off.”
His face reappeared, now in an embarrassed bubble-gum-pink color. “Is..is that last one actually in the books?”
“No, but it should be,” I grumbled. “October’s going to give me enough work without monsters like you jumping the gun.”
“Look, I’m sorry,” Cormac said, his bubble-gum color becoming even richer. “I had no idea this car had you in it, or your friends, uh…who were those guys?”
“Steve and Ramona,” I harumphed. “Which reminds me: kindly get your muddy feet off Steve’s car roof.”
“Right, sorry.” His head retreated, then the car jerked again as he jumped off.
I pushed my door open and slid out. “And while you’re at it, undo whatever you did to the motor. I hope it was just standard kinetic energy deflection, not permanent damage.”
“It was. Standard kinetic, I mean,” Cormac assured me. His axe swung in wide arcs as he nervously swayed his arms.
“Watch where you’re swinging that before you actually hurt someone,” I scolded him.
He looked down at his signature weapon. “Oh, this one can’t actually hurt anyone. It’s…not even an axe, really.”
I gave first him, then the axe a skeptical look. Finally, resigning myself to the vacation interruption, I shoved my black fedora onto my head. The gray, shadowy landscape flickered, then came back in clear shapes and colors as my night vision kicked on. The main thing I noticed, though, was that Cormac’s axe was, in fact, not an axe. It wasn’t a weapon of any kind. It was a carved handle with a mass of tinfoil wrapped around the end.
I rolled my eyes up to the night sky. “Really, Cormac?”
“My regular one has its blade in the shop for de-rusting,” he mumbled. “And the hardware store was all out, so I couldn’t buy a spare.”
I shook my head. “Good night, Cormac, what was so urgent that you had to go out scaring now?”
“Like I said, I didn’t recognize you in the car! If I had, I never would have gone farther than scoping the target!”
I pointed at my bleached driftwood hair, exasperated. “How many Humans do you know who are younger than Mr. Kincaid, but look like this?”
“…Ok, I’ll admit that maybe should’ve been a giveaway, but…”
“And anyway, it doesn’t matter who you saw in the car! License aside, you know you’re supposed to stick to what wanders into your territory during the off-season. If the phobovores go out scaring all the time, Humans will get used to it, and everyone will have less food!”
“I know that…”
“Then explain to me why I’m standing here giving a grown Monster a lecture on conservation!”
Cormac shuffled his feet. “Well…I was hungry. No one goes camping near my grounds this late in the year, so I haven’t had a shot at a free-range fright in weeks.”
“Ok, so find a passive source. Maybe go to the Frankenstein screening at the drive-in.”
“That’s no good anymore,” he protested, with a note of whining. “Everyone in town has already seen it at least twice. They’re not really scared.”
“So eat more Human food.”
He sighed heavily. “I tried. I really tried. I made as much ghoulash as I could. But the Human grocery store doesn’t stock nearly enough rutabagas, gorgonzola, and aged anchovies.”
I would have suggested he try something other than ghoulash, but I knew that would be a losing argument. Cormac hated pretty much everything Humans consumed on a regular basis. Most of the phobovores who lived in my jurisdiction did. The only Human food they would eat is “ghoulash”, a bizarre concoction they claimed tasted like fear. The only saving grace of the situation was they each had their own preferred ghoulash recipe—otherwise, I’d have to convince Mr. Kincaid to stock way more aged anchovies than any sane grocer would dream of, on top of all the other everyday issues I barely could handle as it was. Personally, I thought fear tasted like ravioli. Speaking of which…
I pushed my hat further down on my head. If I was going to have to do Hatman duties, I may as well get in uniform. I let my shadows run over my skin, dissolving my normal clothes and replacing them with a long, dark garment that looked like the silhouette of a trench coat. Transformation complete, I sampled my friends’ lingering fear.
It tasted like waaaaaay too much garlic. “Ugh. This is…how did you not realize you were out of season?”
Cormac gave a pitiful shrug. “I was hungry. Very, very hungry.”
“But not hungry enough for Human food.”
Cormac turned slightly green. “The most unripe fear in the world tastes a hundred times better than Human culinary abominations. And it’s really only a teeeeeeensy bit out of season.” He looked at me hopefully.
“Alright, alright,” I grumbled. How angry could I be at a Monster who was just hungry? “I’ll let you off with a warning.”
Cormac turned sunshine yellow. “Oh, thank you! I’ll be very careful not to scare anyone else until it’s really October, I promise!”
“Wait. I’m not done.” I deadpanned.
His sunshine color faded. “Umm. Oh. What is it?”
I took a few steps closer to him through the mud. Or, rather, a half-inch above the mud. That was a definite plus of my phantasmal form. “I was going to do this tomorrow, but since I’ve been dragged into working tonight anyway…what’s your explanation for your sightings last week?”
“Oh, that must be circulation,” said Cormac, his color brightening considerably. “The Humans are imagining me already this year? That’s sweet.” He faded a bit. “Wish they were doing it somewhere close enough for me to eat, but…”
“You’re sure it’s just recirculating stories and imagination? You haven’t, say, gone out for a quarter-dozen other pre-Haunting Season excursions without a license?”
Cormac turned a rather offended purple. “Of course not! I don’t break the rules!” He lightened back toward bubble gum. “…um, more than once. I wouldn’t break them…” He cocked his head. “Wait, you said there have just been three sightings?”
“No, I said a quarter dozen.”
“That’s the same as three.”
“No, it’s a three that sounds bigger than three, which makes it more useful for emphasis.”
Cormac turned confusion chartreuse.
I raised my hands. “It sounded better in my head. The point is, you haven’t done any other haunting lately?”
Cormac shook his head. “I wasn’t out before tonight, really! Cross my heart and hope to bite!”
“Alright, alright, I believe you.” Cormac was terrible at keeping up a lie, bless him. If he had done other haunting out-of-line, he would have admitted it under questioning.
Even questionable questioning with a side of number shenanigans.
I looked into the woods in the direction Steve and Ramona had run. “Now I just need to find my friends before they get into real trouble.”
“I’ll help!” Cormac exclaimed, hefting his not-axe.
“You don’t have—”
“It was kinda my fault Charlie. I really want to help.”
I smiled a little. “…Alright. Thank you.”
We both walked past the car and into the woods, following the taste-smell of tomatoes and overwhelming garlic.
Or, in Cormac’s case, anchovies.
I know, I know, these sorts of things always start out “innocently enough”. But this really was innocent. I was catching a ride home with my friend Steve and his girlfriend Ramona after a nice cookout party at one of the local farms. In front, Steve was at the wheel and Ramona was in shotgun, both talking and laughing. In back, I was lazing on the seat with a stomach full of casserole and chocolate cake. Darkness had settled like a blanket over the quiet countryside, and the light of the moon was making shadow puppets with the surrounding trees. It was nice and peaceful.
Right up until the motor conked out.
This seemed like a minor nuisance at first. The Ol’ Jalopy, as Steve called her, was his baby. He’d have it up and running again in no time, I thought.
Five minutes after he got out, though, I heard him grumble “I can’t figure out what’s wrong here.”
That should have been my first clue something wasn’t normal. But instead, I chalked it up to the dark—even a car wizard can only work so fast with a flashlight clamped between his teeth. “You sure you don’t want an extra pair of hands out there?”
“No, that’s ok, Charlie. I’ve got a couple more things I can try. No point in all of us getting our shoes muddy out here if we don’t have to.”
“If you say so,” I called back.
The music on the radio faded out and the DJ came on. “Howdy folks! Fred Mardell here with your last news bulletin of the night, if you can call it that. Unfortunately, this is not a case where no news is good news, as the men responsible for the Facett’s Jewel robbery are still at large. As you know, the police believe the perpetrators cut through our fair city of Evehollow on their way to Fort Saddle to fence the stolen—"
“Darn right we know,” Ramona grumbled over the announcer’s voice. She took a break from removing her hair pins to pin the radio with an irritated scowl. “You haven’t talked about anything else all week!”
“In his defense—” I began.
Ramona huffed, swiping at her red hair to finish undoing her braid. “I know, I know, nothing happens out here and this is the closest Fred’ll ever get to reporting on a big story. But if I hear ‘perpetrator’ or ‘our fair city’ one more time…”
I shrugged. “In his defense—again—there aren’t many times a guy can say ‘perpetrator’ or ‘our fair city’ in day-to-day conversation. Might as well make the most of the opportunity.”
Ramona responded with a sigh and turned down the volume on the radio. Then she bound her hair back up in a pony tail, which looked more comfortable than the tight, precisely-placed braid she’d just undone.
I stretched, straightening myself up in the seat, and casually looked out the window. Then I looked again harder, my heart rapidly sinking. I recognized this area, and that put a very different spin on our breakdown. I was just getting done hoping neither of the others would notice when Ramona said, “Steve, I…I just noticed…”
“What?” Steve asked, spitting out the flashlight and swiping disheveled black hair out of his eyes to squint at her.
“I think we’re in the area where…where those sightings happened.”
“You mean the Axeman?” Steve looked around. “Oh, yeah…yeah, I guess so,” he continued, a slight hint of nervousness creeping into his voice. “But it’s been a whole year since the last one.”
“No, it hasn’t,” said Ramona, her own voice getting both softer and higher pitched. “There’s been three sightings in the last week. New sightings.”
“But no encounters this time, right?” I said, as cheerfully as a could over the sick feeling creeping into my previously-contented stomach. “It’s probably people just jumping at shadows.”
Then the radio fizzled out in a dying static scream.
Oh no.
In the new silence, a twig snapped. We all turned to look at the darkened area of the woods the noise had come from. “Probably some animal?” I offered, not buying my own suggestion.
We sat in silence for a minute or so, staring at the shadows. Finally, Steve scoffed. “This is silly. I’m going to go look around.”
“Not alone, you aren’t!” Ramona protested, swinging her door open.
“Uh, actually,” I piped up, “maybe you should both…”
Too late. The two of them were power-walking toward the dense trees, and there wasn’t anything I could do to stop them. All I could do was sit and watch helplessly as they walked straight into what I knew was a setup.
Steve reached the grove of shadows first and gazed in. “I knew it. There’s nobody here.”
Right as he said that, a humanoid shadow detached itself from the darkness to their right. Ramona saw it first. “STEVE!!!”
Steve whirled, coming face-to-face with the figure. Or rather, with the shadow covering the figure’s face. Even in shadow, though, the thing’s face gave the distinct impression a wide grin was spreading across it. “Naughty children,” he called in a grotesquely raspy, yet sing-song voice. “Naughty children, off the trail. Must be punished, punished well!” The figure raised his hands, which were clutched around something long and skinny. A metallic glint flashed.
“THE AXEMAN!!!!!” Ramona shrieked.
“RUN!!!!!” Steve screamed.
They scattered, just before the Axeman brought the weapon down in a vicious swipe. The next moments were terrified blurs of motion as Steve and Ramona raced around the car to the opposite side of the road. Screams of “RUN, RUN!!!”, “SPLIT UP!!!”, “NO, STAY TOGETHER!!!”, and “AIEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!” ripped past me, then faded like the siren of a passing ambulance. The Axeman, unbothered, followed them in unnaturally long, loping strides that ate up the ground. He would have easily caught up to them, except that he turned to glance at the car.
And saw me.
I bent over and groped under the seat. My fingers gripped a felt brim just as the car bounced with a heavy impact. I looked up to see the Axeman leaning down from the car roof, looking in through my partially open window. Up close, his face was no longer blocked by shadow. It was a hideous, saturated flesh color, marred with blood-red blotches. His deeply set eyes were pitch black and yet, impossibly, seemed to glow in the dark. A horrific grin split his face again. “All alone, nobody, no buddy!” The Axeman chanted. “Strayed off alone, how very naughty!”
I raised my hand and held my black fedora in front of his face. There was dead silence for a moment, during which the Axeman’s face faded from its grotesque colors to sheet-white. “Oh, hi, Charlie,” said the Axeman, in a voice that had lost the rasp and gained a squeak.
“You’ll need a better story than just ‘Oh, hi, Charlie’ if you want to get out of this, Cormac,” I said.
“You, uh, coming from a party, I guess? Nice shirt. I didn’t recognize you at first.”
“And flattery will get you nowhere.” I held up my free hand and started counting off fingers. “Let’s see, we’ve got haunting without a license—which I know you are, because your renewal paperwork is sitting on my desk right now…”
“Errr…”
“…We’ve got terrorizing out-of-season…”
“It’s October!” Cormac protested.
“It’s September thirtieth,” I corrected. “And not even a full moon at that.”
His face disappeared as he glanced upward, presumably to check the moon. “Oh.”
“And we’ve got bothering a Hatman on what was supposed to be his day off.”
His face reappeared, now in an embarrassed bubble-gum-pink color. “Is..is that last one actually in the books?”
“No, but it should be,” I grumbled. “October’s going to give me enough work without monsters like you jumping the gun.”
“Look, I’m sorry,” Cormac said, his bubble-gum color becoming even richer. “I had no idea this car had you in it, or your friends, uh…who were those guys?”
“Steve and Ramona,” I harumphed. “Which reminds me: kindly get your muddy feet off Steve’s car roof.”
“Right, sorry.” His head retreated, then the car jerked again as he jumped off.
I pushed my door open and slid out. “And while you’re at it, undo whatever you did to the motor. I hope it was just standard kinetic energy deflection, not permanent damage.”
“It was. Standard kinetic, I mean,” Cormac assured me. His axe swung in wide arcs as he nervously swayed his arms.
“Watch where you’re swinging that before you actually hurt someone,” I scolded him.
He looked down at his signature weapon. “Oh, this one can’t actually hurt anyone. It’s…not even an axe, really.”
I gave first him, then the axe a skeptical look. Finally, resigning myself to the vacation interruption, I shoved my black fedora onto my head. The gray, shadowy landscape flickered, then came back in clear shapes and colors as my night vision kicked on. The main thing I noticed, though, was that Cormac’s axe was, in fact, not an axe. It wasn’t a weapon of any kind. It was a carved handle with a mass of tinfoil wrapped around the end.
I rolled my eyes up to the night sky. “Really, Cormac?”
“My regular one has its blade in the shop for de-rusting,” he mumbled. “And the hardware store was all out, so I couldn’t buy a spare.”
I shook my head. “Good night, Cormac, what was so urgent that you had to go out scaring now?”
“Like I said, I didn’t recognize you in the car! If I had, I never would have gone farther than scoping the target!”
I pointed at my bleached driftwood hair, exasperated. “How many Humans do you know who are younger than Mr. Kincaid, but look like this?”
“…Ok, I’ll admit that maybe should’ve been a giveaway, but…”
“And anyway, it doesn’t matter who you saw in the car! License aside, you know you’re supposed to stick to what wanders into your territory during the off-season. If the phobovores go out scaring all the time, Humans will get used to it, and everyone will have less food!”
“I know that…”
“Then explain to me why I’m standing here giving a grown Monster a lecture on conservation!”
Cormac shuffled his feet. “Well…I was hungry. No one goes camping near my grounds this late in the year, so I haven’t had a shot at a free-range fright in weeks.”
“Ok, so find a passive source. Maybe go to the Frankenstein screening at the drive-in.”
“That’s no good anymore,” he protested, with a note of whining. “Everyone in town has already seen it at least twice. They’re not really scared.”
“So eat more Human food.”
He sighed heavily. “I tried. I really tried. I made as much ghoulash as I could. But the Human grocery store doesn’t stock nearly enough rutabagas, gorgonzola, and aged anchovies.”
I would have suggested he try something other than ghoulash, but I knew that would be a losing argument. Cormac hated pretty much everything Humans consumed on a regular basis. Most of the phobovores who lived in my jurisdiction did. The only Human food they would eat is “ghoulash”, a bizarre concoction they claimed tasted like fear. The only saving grace of the situation was they each had their own preferred ghoulash recipe—otherwise, I’d have to convince Mr. Kincaid to stock way more aged anchovies than any sane grocer would dream of, on top of all the other everyday issues I barely could handle as it was. Personally, I thought fear tasted like ravioli. Speaking of which…
I pushed my hat further down on my head. If I was going to have to do Hatman duties, I may as well get in uniform. I let my shadows run over my skin, dissolving my normal clothes and replacing them with a long, dark garment that looked like the silhouette of a trench coat. Transformation complete, I sampled my friends’ lingering fear.
It tasted like waaaaaay too much garlic. “Ugh. This is…how did you not realize you were out of season?”
Cormac gave a pitiful shrug. “I was hungry. Very, very hungry.”
“But not hungry enough for Human food.”
Cormac turned slightly green. “The most unripe fear in the world tastes a hundred times better than Human culinary abominations. And it’s really only a teeeeeeensy bit out of season.” He looked at me hopefully.
“Alright, alright,” I grumbled. How angry could I be at a Monster who was just hungry? “I’ll let you off with a warning.”
Cormac turned sunshine yellow. “Oh, thank you! I’ll be very careful not to scare anyone else until it’s really October, I promise!”
“Wait. I’m not done.” I deadpanned.
His sunshine color faded. “Umm. Oh. What is it?”
I took a few steps closer to him through the mud. Or, rather, a half-inch above the mud. That was a definite plus of my phantasmal form. “I was going to do this tomorrow, but since I’ve been dragged into working tonight anyway…what’s your explanation for your sightings last week?”
“Oh, that must be circulation,” said Cormac, his color brightening considerably. “The Humans are imagining me already this year? That’s sweet.” He faded a bit. “Wish they were doing it somewhere close enough for me to eat, but…”
“You’re sure it’s just recirculating stories and imagination? You haven’t, say, gone out for a quarter-dozen other pre-Haunting Season excursions without a license?”
Cormac turned a rather offended purple. “Of course not! I don’t break the rules!” He lightened back toward bubble gum. “…um, more than once. I wouldn’t break them…” He cocked his head. “Wait, you said there have just been three sightings?”
“No, I said a quarter dozen.”
“That’s the same as three.”
“No, it’s a three that sounds bigger than three, which makes it more useful for emphasis.”
Cormac turned confusion chartreuse.
I raised my hands. “It sounded better in my head. The point is, you haven’t done any other haunting lately?”
Cormac shook his head. “I wasn’t out before tonight, really! Cross my heart and hope to bite!”
“Alright, alright, I believe you.” Cormac was terrible at keeping up a lie, bless him. If he had done other haunting out-of-line, he would have admitted it under questioning.
Even questionable questioning with a side of number shenanigans.
I looked into the woods in the direction Steve and Ramona had run. “Now I just need to find my friends before they get into real trouble.”
“I’ll help!” Cormac exclaimed, hefting his not-axe.
“You don’t have—”
“It was kinda my fault Charlie. I really want to help.”
I smiled a little. “…Alright. Thank you.”
We both walked past the car and into the woods, following the taste-smell of tomatoes and overwhelming garlic.
Or, in Cormac’s case, anchovies.
Finding Steve and Ramona was, of course, going to be far easier said than done. Terrified Humans could cover a LOT of ground. I should know—I have quite a bit of experience being a terrified Human. Until about a year ago, that was all I was. Hatmen—or Shadowfolk, if one prefers to be more general—aren’t born Monsters. We grow into it. We’re hybrids, and that’s why we take the duty of moderators. We know what it’s like to be just-a-Human, so we know when the just-a-Monsters are pushing it too far.
There are exceptions that WANT to push it too far, but none of them live in my neck of the literal woods. The folks around here are either standard law-abiding town citizens who happen to not be Human—like Mr. Hund, the Werewolf who owns the garage—or normal phobovores who would prefer their haunts live to fright another day. So I wasn’t worried about Steve and Ramona getting eaten, or deliberately scared to death. Running into a tree or falling down a ravine and breaking a leg, though? Those were definite possibilities.
“Boy, your friends sure like to zig-zag,” Cormac said as we followed their fear trail between the trees.
I grunted. “Probably were trying to lose you. Human civilians don’t know about fear traces, remember.” The sense of fear filling my taste and smell dipped to barely perceptible levels. I gave Cormac a stern look. “Hey, we can’t track them if you eat it!”
“Sorry,” Cormac mumbled. “I’m still peckish.”
We rounded a tree, and I caught sight of a pair of antlered, four-legged forms. Deer? At this time of night?
Cormac stepped on a crackling leaf. The deer jerked their heads toward the noise, staring us down with yellow, wolf-like eyes. Then they reared on their hind legs. Their forelegs swung down from their too-wide shoulders to hang at their sides like arms as they stalked toward us. The one with thicker antlers swung an upper limb at me, the hoof splitting into thick, sharp claws.
Ah. Not Deer. That makes considerably more sense.
“Good evening, Mr. Zebulun,” I said, shaking the proffered claw of the first Cerviform. “And good evening, Ms. Naphtali,” I added, nodding to the sibling with the slenderer, more curving antlers.
“Good evening, Watcher Me—er, Charlie,” Zebulun said.
I nodded in thanks for the mid-sentence change. Technically, the proper, respectful address was “Watcher whatever-the-Hatman’s-last-name-is”. But “Watcher Messenger” just sounded wrong. I much preferred when folks used my first name.
Naphtali eyed Cormac. “I suppose if you’re out here, someone else lodged a complaint first?”
I gave Cormac an exasperated look, which was met with a confused shrug. “Don’t look at me, I don’t know what I did!”
“Not you, exactly,” Naphtali said. “Those guests staying in your shack. They’ve been carrying on at all hours, dragging big bags around the woods…”
“They’ve been awfully rambunctious today,” Zebulun added. “I almost called the office, but then they quieted down a bit.”
That spoke volumes. Zebulun HATED calling people.
Cormac turned grayish. “Guests? Guests did what now?”
“I figured you didn’t know,” Zebulun said.
Cormac turned grayer. “I’ll say I didn’t.”
“No need to look so distressed,” Naphtali said. “We don’t want them arrested. Just shaken up enough to quiet down. If you’d prefer to talk to them yourself before Watcher Charlie, I’m sure he’d oblige.”
“No, you don’t understand,” Cormac said, shaking his head. “I didn’t even know I had guests!”
My eyes widened in surprise. Zebulun gasped a little, and Naphtali raised a hoof-claw to her snout. “Oh, dear! Do you think they’re home invaders?”
“Technically, they’d be haunt invaders since I live in the cabin,” Cormac said. “But at any rate, they sure aren’t there with permission!”
“What did they look like?” I asked. If strangers were running around the woods, my friends might be in more imminent danger than I’d thought. A knot formed in my stomach, made of the fears I shouldn’t still have this long into my job.
Fear isn’t nearly as tasty when you’re experiencing it yourself.
Zebulun and Naphtali looked at each other and shrugged. “Human-shaped,” Zebulun said. “That’s sort of why we thought they were guests, to be honest. Thought they were relatives of Cormac’s.”
“Did you see them do anything Goblin-like?” I asked. “Change colors, or…?”
Naphtali shook her antlers. “Now that you mention it, no. I suppose that should have made us suspicious.”
I chewed my lip. Then winced in pain and almost immediately stopped chewing. I forgot I sort of had fangs while in monster form. “Are you sure they weren’t teenagers?” The Axeman’s Shack was infamous in Evehollow, and Human townsfolk generally steered clear of it aside from high school dares.
“No, they were definitely adults,” Zebulun said. “We’ve seen enough families out camping to tell that much.”
I hissed. That meant either Human-looking monsters from out of town had broken into what was clearly another Monster’s property—which was bad—or grown Humans were monkeying around in a decrepit cabin in the woods and reportedly enjoying themselves, which was arguably worse and definitely creepier.
Or…
“You’re sure they were just shouting, right?” I asked the Cerviform siblings. “No chanting…?”
“Oh, no, definitely not,” Naphtali said, as her brother vigorously shook his head. “Nothing that looked or sounded like No Warning. We would have called the office immediately if it had.”
Well, at least that meant monster-hunting cult activity wasn’t on the table.
Probably.
I tried to shake off the worry. “Change of plans, Cormac. I’m going to your shack to check on your uninvited guests. I want to see if whoever is there is any sort of threat to the woods or my friends before we keep looking. You want to come?”
“Of course! It’s my haunt,” Cormac exclaimed. “I worked hard to get the atmosphere in there just right. I hope they haven’t messed it up…”
Naphtali cocked her ears. “What was that about your friends?”
“Cormac scared some Human friends of mine and they ran off into the woods,” I said, trying to keep the explanation as brief as possible. “A man and a woman, about my age. You haven’t seen them, have you?”
The Cerviforms looked at each other again, as if they were trying to scan their sibling’s memories as well as their own. “We heard a bit of screaming,” Naphtali said at last. “We thought it was probably Cormac’s guests…ah, supposed guests doing a bit more caterwauling.”
“Even if it wasn’t, the fear is out of season right now,” Zebulun added. “We didn’t figure it would taste very good, so we didn’t look for the source.” He sniffed, then pricked up his ears. “Say, is this their fear trail here?”
“Yep.”
Naphtali took a sniff. “My, this is out of season. The taste is much too pungent. No offense meant to your friends.”
I held back a sigh. Humans understood screaming as a call for help and tended to investigate. Monsters mostly heard it as a by-product of food and forgot it indicated distress. “Well, keep your eyes and ears open. I don’t want them to get themselves hurt.”
“We will,” Naphtali said. “Good luck finding them.”
“And thank you for taking care of those rowdy nuisances,” Zebulun added.
I almost told him not to thank me because we didn’t know yet if I could take care of it, but I held my tongue. My supervisor had been telling me I needed to be more positive.
There are exceptions that WANT to push it too far, but none of them live in my neck of the literal woods. The folks around here are either standard law-abiding town citizens who happen to not be Human—like Mr. Hund, the Werewolf who owns the garage—or normal phobovores who would prefer their haunts live to fright another day. So I wasn’t worried about Steve and Ramona getting eaten, or deliberately scared to death. Running into a tree or falling down a ravine and breaking a leg, though? Those were definite possibilities.
“Boy, your friends sure like to zig-zag,” Cormac said as we followed their fear trail between the trees.
I grunted. “Probably were trying to lose you. Human civilians don’t know about fear traces, remember.” The sense of fear filling my taste and smell dipped to barely perceptible levels. I gave Cormac a stern look. “Hey, we can’t track them if you eat it!”
“Sorry,” Cormac mumbled. “I’m still peckish.”
We rounded a tree, and I caught sight of a pair of antlered, four-legged forms. Deer? At this time of night?
Cormac stepped on a crackling leaf. The deer jerked their heads toward the noise, staring us down with yellow, wolf-like eyes. Then they reared on their hind legs. Their forelegs swung down from their too-wide shoulders to hang at their sides like arms as they stalked toward us. The one with thicker antlers swung an upper limb at me, the hoof splitting into thick, sharp claws.
Ah. Not Deer. That makes considerably more sense.
“Good evening, Mr. Zebulun,” I said, shaking the proffered claw of the first Cerviform. “And good evening, Ms. Naphtali,” I added, nodding to the sibling with the slenderer, more curving antlers.
“Good evening, Watcher Me—er, Charlie,” Zebulun said.
I nodded in thanks for the mid-sentence change. Technically, the proper, respectful address was “Watcher whatever-the-Hatman’s-last-name-is”. But “Watcher Messenger” just sounded wrong. I much preferred when folks used my first name.
Naphtali eyed Cormac. “I suppose if you’re out here, someone else lodged a complaint first?”
I gave Cormac an exasperated look, which was met with a confused shrug. “Don’t look at me, I don’t know what I did!”
“Not you, exactly,” Naphtali said. “Those guests staying in your shack. They’ve been carrying on at all hours, dragging big bags around the woods…”
“They’ve been awfully rambunctious today,” Zebulun added. “I almost called the office, but then they quieted down a bit.”
That spoke volumes. Zebulun HATED calling people.
Cormac turned grayish. “Guests? Guests did what now?”
“I figured you didn’t know,” Zebulun said.
Cormac turned grayer. “I’ll say I didn’t.”
“No need to look so distressed,” Naphtali said. “We don’t want them arrested. Just shaken up enough to quiet down. If you’d prefer to talk to them yourself before Watcher Charlie, I’m sure he’d oblige.”
“No, you don’t understand,” Cormac said, shaking his head. “I didn’t even know I had guests!”
My eyes widened in surprise. Zebulun gasped a little, and Naphtali raised a hoof-claw to her snout. “Oh, dear! Do you think they’re home invaders?”
“Technically, they’d be haunt invaders since I live in the cabin,” Cormac said. “But at any rate, they sure aren’t there with permission!”
“What did they look like?” I asked. If strangers were running around the woods, my friends might be in more imminent danger than I’d thought. A knot formed in my stomach, made of the fears I shouldn’t still have this long into my job.
Fear isn’t nearly as tasty when you’re experiencing it yourself.
Zebulun and Naphtali looked at each other and shrugged. “Human-shaped,” Zebulun said. “That’s sort of why we thought they were guests, to be honest. Thought they were relatives of Cormac’s.”
“Did you see them do anything Goblin-like?” I asked. “Change colors, or…?”
Naphtali shook her antlers. “Now that you mention it, no. I suppose that should have made us suspicious.”
I chewed my lip. Then winced in pain and almost immediately stopped chewing. I forgot I sort of had fangs while in monster form. “Are you sure they weren’t teenagers?” The Axeman’s Shack was infamous in Evehollow, and Human townsfolk generally steered clear of it aside from high school dares.
“No, they were definitely adults,” Zebulun said. “We’ve seen enough families out camping to tell that much.”
I hissed. That meant either Human-looking monsters from out of town had broken into what was clearly another Monster’s property—which was bad—or grown Humans were monkeying around in a decrepit cabin in the woods and reportedly enjoying themselves, which was arguably worse and definitely creepier.
Or…
“You’re sure they were just shouting, right?” I asked the Cerviform siblings. “No chanting…?”
“Oh, no, definitely not,” Naphtali said, as her brother vigorously shook his head. “Nothing that looked or sounded like No Warning. We would have called the office immediately if it had.”
Well, at least that meant monster-hunting cult activity wasn’t on the table.
Probably.
I tried to shake off the worry. “Change of plans, Cormac. I’m going to your shack to check on your uninvited guests. I want to see if whoever is there is any sort of threat to the woods or my friends before we keep looking. You want to come?”
“Of course! It’s my haunt,” Cormac exclaimed. “I worked hard to get the atmosphere in there just right. I hope they haven’t messed it up…”
Naphtali cocked her ears. “What was that about your friends?”
“Cormac scared some Human friends of mine and they ran off into the woods,” I said, trying to keep the explanation as brief as possible. “A man and a woman, about my age. You haven’t seen them, have you?”
The Cerviforms looked at each other again, as if they were trying to scan their sibling’s memories as well as their own. “We heard a bit of screaming,” Naphtali said at last. “We thought it was probably Cormac’s guests…ah, supposed guests doing a bit more caterwauling.”
“Even if it wasn’t, the fear is out of season right now,” Zebulun added. “We didn’t figure it would taste very good, so we didn’t look for the source.” He sniffed, then pricked up his ears. “Say, is this their fear trail here?”
“Yep.”
Naphtali took a sniff. “My, this is out of season. The taste is much too pungent. No offense meant to your friends.”
I held back a sigh. Humans understood screaming as a call for help and tended to investigate. Monsters mostly heard it as a by-product of food and forgot it indicated distress. “Well, keep your eyes and ears open. I don’t want them to get themselves hurt.”
“We will,” Naphtali said. “Good luck finding them.”
“And thank you for taking care of those rowdy nuisances,” Zebulun added.
I almost told him not to thank me because we didn’t know yet if I could take care of it, but I held my tongue. My supervisor had been telling me I needed to be more positive.
Cormac had a right to be protective of his shack. It was a masterpiece in the fine art of making something look like it would fall down at the slightest breeze while actually being durable enough for some rough-and-tumble haunting. The walls were composed of boards nailed to sturdy wooden frame, with a few nonessential planks knocked out and splintered at artistic intervals. The windows were lovingly left to the care of web-happy spiders. The panes on the back left window had been blown out by a carefully aimed shotgun as evidence of non-existent nefarious deeds in days past. The tin roof was scrubbed in reddish clay to look rusty and decrepit. And, since the county had inexplicably decided the half-overgrown dirt trail running by the place counted as a street, the shack’s address was spray painted on a piece of plywood and hung from a nearby tree. Upside-down.
There was a light in the shack, an electric one judging by the lack of flickering. I guessed it was a camping lantern. There were also voices in the shack. I guessed adult male, at least two of them. I should’ve peeked through a window—I doubt they would have been able to see my shadow form against the night—but the thought of being spotted at eye-level made me nervous. Eye-level was also shooting-level, and contrary to what horror movies would have you believe, a regular gun could do a lot of damage to a Monster. So Cormac and I just crouched under the bullet-stricken window, straining to catch what they were saying.
“Got any ideas for scoping?” Cormac whispered.
I was about to say I had no clue, but then suddenly I did. “Maybe? Do you have a shadowy corner with stuff crammed into it?”
“Yeah, just as long as they didn’t mess it up.” He gestured to the other end of the wall we crouched beside. I crept to the spot and glanced at the windows again. This end of the shack didn’t seem to be right next to the lantern, at least. I lay-floated almost flat on my stomach, took a deep breath, and thrust my head through the wall. The sides of the shack were so thin and deliberately drafty I only had to phase in up to my shoulders to get a good view.
The intruders had, thankfully, left the stacks of decrepit crates intact, so my head blended in with a blur of shadows near the floor. I had been correct in guessing it was two men. They were seated in chairs only slightly less decrepit-looking than the crates, bending over Cormac’s table of carefully curated, disturbingly colored stains. They had soda cans in their hands, and dozens more were scattered across the floor amongst the torn remains of various food packaging.
One of them had a handgun in a hip holster, and the other had one sitting on the table at his elbow. I winced, glad that I hadn’t risked peeking through the windows.
“A toast!” one of the intruders boomed, raising his can. “To another day getting away with the heist of the century!”
Heist of the century? Wait…
“Toast!” the other man echoed, and took a swig of his drink. Then he scowled at his can. “And here’s to getting something stronger than Sprite soon.”
The first man shrugged. “Y’need an ID to buy that, and I ain’t risking our getaway just to rob a liquor store.” He tossed his now-empty can to the floor. “I’m not in a rush. Once the heat’s down, we can get as much as we want of whatever we want.”
“Yeah, yeah,” the second man grumbled. “Just wish it would cool off faster.”
His companion grunted. “Y’need to vent, you can quit complaining and take a turn runnin’ people off. I’ve done more than my share of tramping around the woods.”
I pulled my head out of the shack and released the breath I’d been holding.
“What did you hear?” Cormac whispered. “Are they Monsters?”
“Definitely not. I think these are some criminals the Human police are looking for.” I paused, the thugs’ comment about running people off echoing in my mind. “Also, I think maybe they’ve been impersonating you.”
Cormac started to get up, his skin shifting to red. “They’ve wha—”
“Shhh!” I planted one hand over his mouth to stifle his indignant exclamation and used the other to pull him back down. I cast a nervous glance up at the window, but apparently the occupants’ conversation had drowned Cormac out. I looked back at irate Goblin and lowered my hand. “You can’t just rush in there. They’ve both got guns.”
“Ah.” Cormac winced a little. “Not an easy haunting, then.” His hue shifted to a contemplative gray. “Although frights from people who know deep down they’re getting their comeuppance are a delicacy. It would be worth it for the flav—”
“Be serious!” I said, a little too loudly. I realized my mistake and shot a nervous glance at the window before shuffling away. I motioned for Cormac to follow me. After reaching what I hoped was a safe distance, I asked in a more moderated whisper, “I don’t think either of us could disarm them both before one gets a shot off.”
“What’s the plan, then?”
I hesitated. I had an idea, but I didn’t like it. I couldn’t think of any others, though. “How confident do you feel about using your kinetic deflection on bullets?”
“I could take one or two shots, I think.” He cocked his head. “Does that mean you want my help?”
“I…I really shouldn’t need it. I’m the officer. You’re the civilian. I shouldn’t need help doing my job.”
“Technically, your job is dealing with rogue Monsters, and Humans who attack Monsters,” Cormac said. “Not regular Human crooks.”
“That doesn’t—it shouldn’t matter. It should be easier, if anything. I’ve been doing this for over a year.”
Cormac shrugged. “I’ve been buying groceries in town a lot longer than that and I still haven’t figured out how to use the Human doom lasers.”
“I told you last time, those are barcode scanners. They’re harmless unless you stare at them.”
He shrugged again, this time turning a warm orange. “Whatever. My point is, I needed your help. What’s so bad about you needing mine? I’m the civilian and you’re the officer, but we’re both neighbors.”
That…meant a lot. But…
“I don’t know, Cormac. This is a way different situation than the grocery store. Nobody was trying to attack us there.”
“Says you. I still think those nectarines were up to something.”
Maybe he had a point. Not about the produce, but about neighbors. I had a duty, and I didn’t want to put him in danger, but I also couldn’t deny this was a sticky situation for one Monster. If I could take care of these criminals more safely with help, well…I needed to just swallow my pride and take the help. “Thank you, Cormac.”
“No problem! It’s my haunt, after all. What’s the plan?”
I gestured toward the shack. “If you go in through the front and draw their attention, I should be able to sneak in through the back wall and disarm them before they do too much damage.”
“Sounds good.” Cormac stood and hefted his foil-topped axe handle, then hesitated. “Uh…maybe a dumb question, but this is legal even without a haunting license, right?”
“Yeah. Humans invading your hideout are fair-to-scare anytime.”
“Perfect. This is gonna be delicious…” He shifted his colors to the sickly Axeman flesh tones and tip-toed around the corner.
I crept to the wall opposite the door. I stood up, slow and careful, pressing as close as I could into the dilapidated-looking boards in an attempt to stay out of the windows’ field of view. A moment later, a splintering crunch eclipsed the murmur of the crooks’ voices.
That was my cue.
I held my breath and stepped completely through the wall. The two men were standing and facing the now-half-broken door. The man who’d had his gun at his elbow had snatched it up, and the other man had his hand hovering over his holstered weapon.
“Cops?!” The first man exclaimed.
“Aren’t they supposed to yell ‘open up, police’ or somethin’ first?” the second asked.
I slid closer to the one who already held his gun as Cormac delivered the last blow to the door’s weak spot, built in to allow for easy dramatic entrances. The boards fell and he stood silhouetted in the splinters, a dark form just outside the lamplight.
Cracka-boom!
The noise would have been perfectly timed if it was thunder, but it was a gunshot. The first man had fired before I could reach him. I lunged and thrust. He yelped as my claws phased through his shoulder. The gun fell from his numbed fingers and clattered on the floor. I risked a glance at Cormac and was relieved to see him standing. He'd managed to deflect the bullet.
The second thief pulled his gun but hesitated, startled by his companion’s outburst. “Wha—”
I ignited my internal glow and lunged again at both of them, light flaring from my eyes and between my bared fangs.
“AAAAAAAUUUUGH!!!!!”
The crooks jerked away, but not in exactly the same direction. They tumbled to the dusty floor in a flailing heap, the second one thankfully losing hold of his gun in the process. I went dark and pulled both dropped weapons into the corner while they sorted out whose legs were whose. By the time they got to their feet, Cormac had gotten into a nice position on top of the table.
“Naughty, naughty, naughty, sneaking in my property,” Cormac chanted. He raised the foil stick.
“THE REAL ONE!” “THE AXEMAN!” the men screamed simultaneously. They ran out the door—well, technically into a chair, a stray box, each other, and then out the door. Cormac bounded after them.
I stood in the room for a moment, letting the taste of pasta and tomato sauce swirl around my mouth and staring down at the guns. That could have gone really badly…
But it didn’t. And there was still something I needed to do. I walked out of the shack and checked which direction the crooks fear trail went before shifting back to Human form. Then I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed. Reception out here was notoriously unreliable, but it was worth a try. If it didn’t work, I had some Watcher-exclusive methods I could—
“911, what’s your emergency?”
Oh, good. “I think I need to contact the Evehollow police? I saw a couple guys in the woods while I was hiking. I mean like in the middle of nowhere,” I said, hoping the operator wouldn’t ask me why I was hiking after dark in the middle of nowhere. “I heard on the radio there’s a manhunt going on for some robbers and thought it might be them.”
“You did the right thing. Are you in imminent danger from these men?”
“No. They ran off.”
“What is your location?”
“Number 2 Whitlock Street,” I said, glancing at the upside-down, spray-painted address. “But it’s not really a street, it’s more like a dirt trail. Like I said, though, those men aren’t here now. As best I can tell, they ran along the trail toward Gate Road.”
“Understood. Please stay on the line.” There was about a minute of muffled conversation before the operator spoke again. “The police have been contacted and will be at your location in approximately five minutes. Please remain where you are.”
…Shoot.
“Can you give me your name and contact information?”
I recited my phone number and name, my mind racing trying to figure out how much area “remain where you are” could technically encompass. I had to keep looking for Steve and Ramona.
Although…
I hung up and stared at the phone. I was out in some seriously rural country. The police couldn’t possibly get here from the town in five minutes. There must have been a car already in the area for some reason. And if I was able to get a signal, maybe my friends had been able to as well…
I opened my contacts and hit Steve’s number. It rang…and rang…and—
“CHARLIE!!!”
I jumped at the sudden yell. “Uh, hi, Steve.”
“YOU’RE NOT DEAD!”
“Uh…did you think I was?”
“I don’t know! I thought you were running from the Axeman when we were running from him but then when we stopped and we didn’t see you and I didn’t know…” he let out a long sigh that rattled the phone speakers. “I’m sorry. I should have checked that you were ok before I booked it.”
“Steve, it’s fine,” I said, feeling guilty. I hadn’t been in any danger from Cormac, and neither had he or Ramona, but they didn’t know that. And this wasn’t really a good time to explain…all that. If there ever would be a good time.
I hated that part of my job.
“Can you…uh…put in a good word for me with your brother?” Steve said, interrupting my thoughts. “Because he’s the officer who picked up when I called the police, and I think he’s gonna kill me for leaving you alone in the woods.”
“You should’ve called 911 and let the operator be your buffer,” I half-joked.
“I wasn’t thinking straight. I’ll know better next time.” He paused. “You’re a lot calmer about being left in the woods with an axe-wielding killer than I would’ve expected.”
“I haven’t seen any axe-wielding killers,” I said. Which was true. Cormac wasn’t a killer, the crooks who would’ve been willing to kill me used guns, and technically nobody tonight had actually had an axe.
“You didn’t? Are you serious? He says he didn’t see it,” Steve said, the last part presumably directed at Ramona.
“Well, he was there,” Ramona said, voice muffled by distance from the phone. “We’re not crazy, just lost. Speaking of which, while we’ve got signal and Charlie on the line…”
“What are you—?” Steve’s voice cut off with some rustling.
Ramona’s voice came back on louder and clearer. I guessed she had taken Steve’s phone. “Charlie, we’re in this, like, valley that’s about ten feet deep. We’re hiding under an overhang. The moon is in front of and to the left of us. How do we get back to civilization?”
“Didn’t you call the police to come find you?”
“They said they ‘maybe’ knew where we are.”
“Ah. Well…are the trees around you oak or elm?”
“Hang on.” There was more rustling. “The leaves on the ground look more like oak.”
“That should be Acorn Glade, then. Climb out, put the moon directly behind you, and walk in a straight line. You’ll reach a dirt trail. Turn so that the moon is to your left and walk along the trail. You’ll eventually reach the spot where I am.”
“Thank you.”
Steve’s voice came back. “How do you do that?!”
“How do you make your barbeque sauce?” I countered.
“Alright, alright, fair enough. Keep your trade secret. See you soon.”
“Bye. Stay safe.” I hung up, still feeling a bit guilty about keeping so-called “trade secrets” in the first place. As I put my phone back in my pocket, I noticed the time. 12:01 am.
“Officially October,” I murmured. Sighing, I sat down next to the tree holding the upside-down address. I leaned back to wait for my friends and the police to arrive. This was going to be a busy month. I needed to rest while I could.
There was a light in the shack, an electric one judging by the lack of flickering. I guessed it was a camping lantern. There were also voices in the shack. I guessed adult male, at least two of them. I should’ve peeked through a window—I doubt they would have been able to see my shadow form against the night—but the thought of being spotted at eye-level made me nervous. Eye-level was also shooting-level, and contrary to what horror movies would have you believe, a regular gun could do a lot of damage to a Monster. So Cormac and I just crouched under the bullet-stricken window, straining to catch what they were saying.
“Got any ideas for scoping?” Cormac whispered.
I was about to say I had no clue, but then suddenly I did. “Maybe? Do you have a shadowy corner with stuff crammed into it?”
“Yeah, just as long as they didn’t mess it up.” He gestured to the other end of the wall we crouched beside. I crept to the spot and glanced at the windows again. This end of the shack didn’t seem to be right next to the lantern, at least. I lay-floated almost flat on my stomach, took a deep breath, and thrust my head through the wall. The sides of the shack were so thin and deliberately drafty I only had to phase in up to my shoulders to get a good view.
The intruders had, thankfully, left the stacks of decrepit crates intact, so my head blended in with a blur of shadows near the floor. I had been correct in guessing it was two men. They were seated in chairs only slightly less decrepit-looking than the crates, bending over Cormac’s table of carefully curated, disturbingly colored stains. They had soda cans in their hands, and dozens more were scattered across the floor amongst the torn remains of various food packaging.
One of them had a handgun in a hip holster, and the other had one sitting on the table at his elbow. I winced, glad that I hadn’t risked peeking through the windows.
“A toast!” one of the intruders boomed, raising his can. “To another day getting away with the heist of the century!”
Heist of the century? Wait…
“Toast!” the other man echoed, and took a swig of his drink. Then he scowled at his can. “And here’s to getting something stronger than Sprite soon.”
The first man shrugged. “Y’need an ID to buy that, and I ain’t risking our getaway just to rob a liquor store.” He tossed his now-empty can to the floor. “I’m not in a rush. Once the heat’s down, we can get as much as we want of whatever we want.”
“Yeah, yeah,” the second man grumbled. “Just wish it would cool off faster.”
His companion grunted. “Y’need to vent, you can quit complaining and take a turn runnin’ people off. I’ve done more than my share of tramping around the woods.”
I pulled my head out of the shack and released the breath I’d been holding.
“What did you hear?” Cormac whispered. “Are they Monsters?”
“Definitely not. I think these are some criminals the Human police are looking for.” I paused, the thugs’ comment about running people off echoing in my mind. “Also, I think maybe they’ve been impersonating you.”
Cormac started to get up, his skin shifting to red. “They’ve wha—”
“Shhh!” I planted one hand over his mouth to stifle his indignant exclamation and used the other to pull him back down. I cast a nervous glance up at the window, but apparently the occupants’ conversation had drowned Cormac out. I looked back at irate Goblin and lowered my hand. “You can’t just rush in there. They’ve both got guns.”
“Ah.” Cormac winced a little. “Not an easy haunting, then.” His hue shifted to a contemplative gray. “Although frights from people who know deep down they’re getting their comeuppance are a delicacy. It would be worth it for the flav—”
“Be serious!” I said, a little too loudly. I realized my mistake and shot a nervous glance at the window before shuffling away. I motioned for Cormac to follow me. After reaching what I hoped was a safe distance, I asked in a more moderated whisper, “I don’t think either of us could disarm them both before one gets a shot off.”
“What’s the plan, then?”
I hesitated. I had an idea, but I didn’t like it. I couldn’t think of any others, though. “How confident do you feel about using your kinetic deflection on bullets?”
“I could take one or two shots, I think.” He cocked his head. “Does that mean you want my help?”
“I…I really shouldn’t need it. I’m the officer. You’re the civilian. I shouldn’t need help doing my job.”
“Technically, your job is dealing with rogue Monsters, and Humans who attack Monsters,” Cormac said. “Not regular Human crooks.”
“That doesn’t—it shouldn’t matter. It should be easier, if anything. I’ve been doing this for over a year.”
Cormac shrugged. “I’ve been buying groceries in town a lot longer than that and I still haven’t figured out how to use the Human doom lasers.”
“I told you last time, those are barcode scanners. They’re harmless unless you stare at them.”
He shrugged again, this time turning a warm orange. “Whatever. My point is, I needed your help. What’s so bad about you needing mine? I’m the civilian and you’re the officer, but we’re both neighbors.”
That…meant a lot. But…
“I don’t know, Cormac. This is a way different situation than the grocery store. Nobody was trying to attack us there.”
“Says you. I still think those nectarines were up to something.”
Maybe he had a point. Not about the produce, but about neighbors. I had a duty, and I didn’t want to put him in danger, but I also couldn’t deny this was a sticky situation for one Monster. If I could take care of these criminals more safely with help, well…I needed to just swallow my pride and take the help. “Thank you, Cormac.”
“No problem! It’s my haunt, after all. What’s the plan?”
I gestured toward the shack. “If you go in through the front and draw their attention, I should be able to sneak in through the back wall and disarm them before they do too much damage.”
“Sounds good.” Cormac stood and hefted his foil-topped axe handle, then hesitated. “Uh…maybe a dumb question, but this is legal even without a haunting license, right?”
“Yeah. Humans invading your hideout are fair-to-scare anytime.”
“Perfect. This is gonna be delicious…” He shifted his colors to the sickly Axeman flesh tones and tip-toed around the corner.
I crept to the wall opposite the door. I stood up, slow and careful, pressing as close as I could into the dilapidated-looking boards in an attempt to stay out of the windows’ field of view. A moment later, a splintering crunch eclipsed the murmur of the crooks’ voices.
That was my cue.
I held my breath and stepped completely through the wall. The two men were standing and facing the now-half-broken door. The man who’d had his gun at his elbow had snatched it up, and the other man had his hand hovering over his holstered weapon.
“Cops?!” The first man exclaimed.
“Aren’t they supposed to yell ‘open up, police’ or somethin’ first?” the second asked.
I slid closer to the one who already held his gun as Cormac delivered the last blow to the door’s weak spot, built in to allow for easy dramatic entrances. The boards fell and he stood silhouetted in the splinters, a dark form just outside the lamplight.
Cracka-boom!
The noise would have been perfectly timed if it was thunder, but it was a gunshot. The first man had fired before I could reach him. I lunged and thrust. He yelped as my claws phased through his shoulder. The gun fell from his numbed fingers and clattered on the floor. I risked a glance at Cormac and was relieved to see him standing. He'd managed to deflect the bullet.
The second thief pulled his gun but hesitated, startled by his companion’s outburst. “Wha—”
I ignited my internal glow and lunged again at both of them, light flaring from my eyes and between my bared fangs.
“AAAAAAAUUUUGH!!!!!”
The crooks jerked away, but not in exactly the same direction. They tumbled to the dusty floor in a flailing heap, the second one thankfully losing hold of his gun in the process. I went dark and pulled both dropped weapons into the corner while they sorted out whose legs were whose. By the time they got to their feet, Cormac had gotten into a nice position on top of the table.
“Naughty, naughty, naughty, sneaking in my property,” Cormac chanted. He raised the foil stick.
“THE REAL ONE!” “THE AXEMAN!” the men screamed simultaneously. They ran out the door—well, technically into a chair, a stray box, each other, and then out the door. Cormac bounded after them.
I stood in the room for a moment, letting the taste of pasta and tomato sauce swirl around my mouth and staring down at the guns. That could have gone really badly…
But it didn’t. And there was still something I needed to do. I walked out of the shack and checked which direction the crooks fear trail went before shifting back to Human form. Then I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed. Reception out here was notoriously unreliable, but it was worth a try. If it didn’t work, I had some Watcher-exclusive methods I could—
“911, what’s your emergency?”
Oh, good. “I think I need to contact the Evehollow police? I saw a couple guys in the woods while I was hiking. I mean like in the middle of nowhere,” I said, hoping the operator wouldn’t ask me why I was hiking after dark in the middle of nowhere. “I heard on the radio there’s a manhunt going on for some robbers and thought it might be them.”
“You did the right thing. Are you in imminent danger from these men?”
“No. They ran off.”
“What is your location?”
“Number 2 Whitlock Street,” I said, glancing at the upside-down, spray-painted address. “But it’s not really a street, it’s more like a dirt trail. Like I said, though, those men aren’t here now. As best I can tell, they ran along the trail toward Gate Road.”
“Understood. Please stay on the line.” There was about a minute of muffled conversation before the operator spoke again. “The police have been contacted and will be at your location in approximately five minutes. Please remain where you are.”
…Shoot.
“Can you give me your name and contact information?”
I recited my phone number and name, my mind racing trying to figure out how much area “remain where you are” could technically encompass. I had to keep looking for Steve and Ramona.
Although…
I hung up and stared at the phone. I was out in some seriously rural country. The police couldn’t possibly get here from the town in five minutes. There must have been a car already in the area for some reason. And if I was able to get a signal, maybe my friends had been able to as well…
I opened my contacts and hit Steve’s number. It rang…and rang…and—
“CHARLIE!!!”
I jumped at the sudden yell. “Uh, hi, Steve.”
“YOU’RE NOT DEAD!”
“Uh…did you think I was?”
“I don’t know! I thought you were running from the Axeman when we were running from him but then when we stopped and we didn’t see you and I didn’t know…” he let out a long sigh that rattled the phone speakers. “I’m sorry. I should have checked that you were ok before I booked it.”
“Steve, it’s fine,” I said, feeling guilty. I hadn’t been in any danger from Cormac, and neither had he or Ramona, but they didn’t know that. And this wasn’t really a good time to explain…all that. If there ever would be a good time.
I hated that part of my job.
“Can you…uh…put in a good word for me with your brother?” Steve said, interrupting my thoughts. “Because he’s the officer who picked up when I called the police, and I think he’s gonna kill me for leaving you alone in the woods.”
“You should’ve called 911 and let the operator be your buffer,” I half-joked.
“I wasn’t thinking straight. I’ll know better next time.” He paused. “You’re a lot calmer about being left in the woods with an axe-wielding killer than I would’ve expected.”
“I haven’t seen any axe-wielding killers,” I said. Which was true. Cormac wasn’t a killer, the crooks who would’ve been willing to kill me used guns, and technically nobody tonight had actually had an axe.
“You didn’t? Are you serious? He says he didn’t see it,” Steve said, the last part presumably directed at Ramona.
“Well, he was there,” Ramona said, voice muffled by distance from the phone. “We’re not crazy, just lost. Speaking of which, while we’ve got signal and Charlie on the line…”
“What are you—?” Steve’s voice cut off with some rustling.
Ramona’s voice came back on louder and clearer. I guessed she had taken Steve’s phone. “Charlie, we’re in this, like, valley that’s about ten feet deep. We’re hiding under an overhang. The moon is in front of and to the left of us. How do we get back to civilization?”
“Didn’t you call the police to come find you?”
“They said they ‘maybe’ knew where we are.”
“Ah. Well…are the trees around you oak or elm?”
“Hang on.” There was more rustling. “The leaves on the ground look more like oak.”
“That should be Acorn Glade, then. Climb out, put the moon directly behind you, and walk in a straight line. You’ll reach a dirt trail. Turn so that the moon is to your left and walk along the trail. You’ll eventually reach the spot where I am.”
“Thank you.”
Steve’s voice came back. “How do you do that?!”
“How do you make your barbeque sauce?” I countered.
“Alright, alright, fair enough. Keep your trade secret. See you soon.”
“Bye. Stay safe.” I hung up, still feeling a bit guilty about keeping so-called “trade secrets” in the first place. As I put my phone back in my pocket, I noticed the time. 12:01 am.
“Officially October,” I murmured. Sighing, I sat down next to the tree holding the upside-down address. I leaned back to wait for my friends and the police to arrive. This was going to be a busy month. I needed to rest while I could.
