by Cecere, Ryan
“Kurt, I’ve been working with you for years now. You’ve always trusted my better judgment. When I get gut feelings like the one I have in the pit of my stomach, nine times out of ten I’m right.”
“All right, hotshot. Then what’s the plan? Go in, guns blazing?”
“Quite the opposite actually. So far, wherever this guy is, the hellhound shows up. So, we sit back and wait. The second that thing shows up, and I’m not talking a second sooner, we barge in and kill it. I know the last thing you’d want is for this friggin’ thing to get away, again.”
Lance glanced over to the sidewalk and had to do a double take. He locked onto a man two inches shorter than himself, and woman, both dressed in black formalwear. Nelson had his head down, looking at his watch, then gazed around his side of the sidewalk—looking out for the hellhound. Even if he was looking in Lance’s direction, he wouldn’t have seen the man and woman. The two stood there, hands to their sides, staring at Lance. Not saying a word, not blinking. Not moving. They stood still like statues made of human flesh. The hairs on the back of Lance’s neck stood at attention.
Go away. Go away, he kept shouting in his head. Go the hell away…please. Just…just go, deep down not actually wanting them to go away. His heart filled with sorrow, his body immobile. When he finally managed to blink, when he opened his eyes…the man and woman were gone.
For ten years now the man and woman visited Lance out of the blue. Haunting him, each encounter with them feeling like the first. Would they ever go away? Would they ever just disappear for good? Maybe, just maybe, somewhere deep down, Lance didn't want them to go.
“Are you okay, Lance?” Nelson asked.
Lance was only capable of nodding.
“You look like you seen a ghost.”
Lance’s gaze remained out the window, “Nothing more than the usual.” A slight pause, then, “Nothing more than the usual, Kurt. Nothing I can’t handle.”
———
Zack cupped the ice cold water in his hands and splashed it onto his face and rubbed it on the back of his neck. The nightmares…the hallucinations…they had to stop. He felt the insanity creeping up on him each day. With two murders since he arrived in town, with the thing that killed his grandmother lurking in the dark, it was only a matter of time before it got him. Or the nightmares certainly would.
Heather entered her bedroom, holding a glass of water. Hearing the running faucet, she knocked on the bathroom door. “Zack? Zack, is everything all right in there?”
“Yeah,” he said—even though it wasn’t. “Yeah, I’ll be out in a minute.”
Heather placed the glass of water on her nightstand. A sudden odor forced her nose in the air like a dog, sniffing. From downstairs, she heard Lucky barking and growling.
“Lucky?”
Heather jogged down the stairs. Lucky faced the window in the living room--an open window—one which wasn’t open when she went to the kitchen to grab Zack the glass of water. The breeze blew the curtain in slow motion. Lucky stopped barking, and started crying, afraid—afraid of whatever it sensed. An evil, close by.
In the house.
“What is it, Lucky?” Heather asked, keeping her eyes on the window.
The odor of burning ember grew stronger. Heather’s heart raced. Lucky, crying with her tail between her legs, scampered into another room.
“Lucky? Lucky, where are you going?”
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Tapping, and nails ripping into the carpet sounded from behind. She slowly turned her head. The animal that stood before her wasn’t Lucky. It was much larger, had much more fur, and glowing red eyes.
The hound roared and launched at Heather.
She screamed.
Zack smelled the burning odor now. His instincts kicked in.
It was here.
Zack turned off the faucet just in time to here Heather screaming for her life. Zack jumped out of the bathroom and darted down the stairs into the living room.
For the first time in two years, Zack laid eyes on the monster.
It was over Heather’s bloody corpse, jaws chowing down on her flesh. Sensing Zack’s presence, it jumped off Heather to face Zack, red eyes glaring. Growling.
A ringing formed in Zack’s ears, then escalated to his brain, becoming louder, intolerable. Zack clamped his hands against his head and fell to his knees. The hound continued to glare into Zack’s eyes. The ringing blocked out all other sounds. The hound started to become blurry. Then the room started spinning. His eyes rolled to the back of his head. The pain was unreal—one you’d not wish upon your worst enemy.
Zack felt himself losing control of his body. From his knees, he dropped onto his side. Soon he would be on his back, in a seizure-like state.
Heather’s front door burst open. Lance entered, wielding his Dessert Eagle, with Nelson right behind him.
“Whoa,” was all that Lance could muster up.
Snapping out of his momentary daze of amazement and fear, Lance aimed and fired. The hellhound was forced on its side, but it didn’t stay down for long. It got right back on its feet. The silver bullet burned its skin, but didn’t harm it like it would have any other otherworldly creature.
“Sonuvabitch,” Lance muttered.
Lance took aim again. This time he missed. The hellhound jumped out of the window, heading into the bushes, and disappearing.
The ringing stopped, and Zack’s vision returned to normal. He could once again control his body. He sat up.
“Are you okay?” Nelson asked, offering a hand to Zack. “You would’ve been a goner if we didn’t come when we did.”
Zack declined Nelson’s assistance and crawled over to Heather. Rage. One he never felt before materialized within his being. “No… Not you, too. FUCK!” Zack made a fist and punched the back of the sofa, cussing like a sailor.
Lance tucked his gun in the back of his belt and walked over to join Nelson. “Start talking,” Lance demanded to Zack.
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s everywhere you are. It obviously has some vendetta with you. What is it? What did you do?”
“I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“Two years ago this thing arrived in Ridgefield for reasons unknown. After killing a few innocents, it vanished. Now after all that time, it’s back. We think it has something to do with you, Zack.”
“How—”
“We did some digging on you,” Nelson said. “We know this thing killed your grandmother. We dug more and found out that just last night this thing killed a close friend of your grandmother’s—Roseanne. Then a nurse earlier today, a nurse who was Roseanne’s home health aide. Now it killed your friend. And it would’ve killed you if we didn’t come in when we did.”
“Basically,” Lance interrupted, “he’s trying to say that this thing is targeting you and people close to you. We don’t know why, but either way we need to vanquish it so it doesn’t kill anyone else.”
“Can you think of any reason as to why it might be after you?” Nelson asked.
“No. What the hell is this thing anyway?”
“It’s a hellhound,” Lance said.
“A hellhound, huh?”
Lance squinted his eyes. “You seem all too calm about this stuff. Our usual customers are normally freaked when they encounter otherworldly beings. Why are you so calm?”
“Let’s just say that I have more of an open mind about the paranormal than most people. After witnessing this—hellhound, you call it—kill my grandmother, I have no reason to be fearful about the demons. All I know is that I’m going to find it, and I’m going to kill it.”
“Oh, yeah?” Lance raised a brow. “How do you plan on doing that? Not even my silver bullet, prime weakness to the paranormal, harmed that thing. Hell, the fucker didn’t even flinch.”
Zack walked over to his duffel bag that lay by the front door. He opened it and fished out a dagger. Not just any dagger. A silver bladed dagger.
> “In my time away I picked up a trick or two.”
Nelson stepped forward, amazed at the dagger. “Where’d you get that dagger from, son?”
“Does it matter?”
“There’s only one of those in existence. How’d you manage to get your hands on that?”
Zack exchanged glances with Lance and Nelson, his eyes moving from left to right, up to down—depending on who he looked at. “Look, if you guys wanna hunt this thing down, go for it. But stay out of my way.”
“Zack—”
“Listen, old man—both of you—I don’t care if you’re Paranormal Whatever, stay out of my way. This thing is mine.”
Zack exited Heather’s house and sprinted down the dark, empty street. Nelson and Lance headed on the porch.
“Zack,” Nelson called out, “you can’t fight this thing by yourself. Zack!”
Lance put his hand on Nelson’s shoulder. “Forget him.” He titled his upward to Heather’s corpse. “What do you wanna do about the girl? Call the cops or bury her body in the backyard to avoid more suspicion?”
Nelson watched Zack’s body be engulfed by the pitch black down the street. He turned to Lance. “Grab two shovels from the trunk.”
Woods
September 6, 2015
12:30 a.m.
Zack gripped firmly on the handle of the pure silver bladed dagger. Rage. Rage is all he felt. It’s going to die. I’ll make sure of that.
“Come on,” Zack yelled. “Come get me. I know you’re out here, you fucker! It’s me you want, right? We’ll I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere. Let’s go. Come get me already. I’m waiting.”
Zack got on guard. A rustling came from all directions--just the wind. Zack continued walking up until he hit a clearing.
“Let’s go,” he yelled. “I have all night. I’ll wait here forever if I have to. You’re going to pay for what you’ve done. Don’t be afraid of me now. It’s just you and me. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? Come on.”
The atmosphere became calm. Too calm for the woods. Crickets stopped communicating with one another, Owls stopped hooting. Forest life seemed to die in a matter of seconds. A rustling came from the brush in front of him. He knew it wasn’t the winds doing this time. It was the hellhound. It could have been a coyote, or raccoon, or squirrel—something.
No. It was the hellhound. No excuses. No reasoning with other options.
Zack prepared himself, holding the dagger in front of him. He wanted to strike first this time. But what he saw was the silhouette of a tall figure. As it emerged and formed into shape, Zack loosened his grip on the dagger. Lance and Nelson. Both holding sawed-off shotguns, each carrying a duffel bag.
“Don’t look so tense, we’re just you’re friendly neighborhood Ghost Busters,” Lance said.
“How’d you two find me?”
“Like we said, we’re good at what we do,” Lance said. “I’m tired of repeating myself.”
“I don’t want your help on this, guys. Just go and let me take care of this on my own.”
“Sorry, we can’t do that,” Nelson said.
Zack threw his arms out. “This thing didn’t kill people important to you. You don’t need to be here.”
Lance whispered to Nelson, loud enough so Zack could hear. “I think the kid’s deaf. He hasn’t listened to a word we said.” Then to Zack, “It’s our job, you fucking idiot. We won’t say it again.”
“Okay, whatever. I can handle myself.”
Lance rolled his eyes, trying to control his impulse to just shoot Zack instead.
“Ugh…” Zack shook his head.
“What? What is it?” Nelson said.
A wave of ringing pulsed Zack’s brain. The same ringing that had crippled him at Heather’s. The louder it got, the more painful it became. He dropped the dagger and fell to his knees.
“Shit!” Lance exclaimed. He took a few steps and was then lifted off the ground by an invisible force and launched across the opening, hitting a tree, dropping to a slump. Nelson was shoved back by the same force, falling on his back, banging his head against the ground.
The hellhound materialized out of nowhere, a few yards in front of Zack. Zack groaned in pain, trying to reach for the dagger. The pain overwhelmed his strength and he gave up on reaching for the dagger, grasping at his head.
Lance shook off the cobwebs. He saw Nelson unconscious; Zack nearly in a seizure with the hellhound staring on. Lance crawled over to his sawed-off shotgun, which was loaded with silver rounds. He popped out the two shells, pulled the duffel bag off himself, dug through and pulled out two iron rounds--the rounds used for upper level entities. He loaded the gun, stood up.
“Hey!” he shouted to the hellhound. “Eat this.”
He fired both rounds. The rounds pierced the air and nailed the hellhound in the chest. It flew back several feet. Taking more time to recover this time, Lance was able to load two more iron rounds into the sawed-off. He aimed. The hellhound rose to all fours and, just as Lance pulled the trigger, it vanished. Gone. The bullets flew right through its shimmering body and destroyed the bark of a tree behind it.
Lance rushed over to Nelson, slapping his face to wake him out of his state. “Hey, hey.”
Nelson opened his eyes. “Lance. Why are you slapping me?”
“You missed all the action. Getting old, I see.”
“Oh, shut up.”
Lance held Nelson to his feet. They made their way over to Zack. The pain was gone and Zack remained on his knees, looking into the darkness.
“It’s gone,” he said. “It got away.”
“We’ll find it,” Nelson said. But he had no idea when it’d return. “When we do, we’ll kill it. I can guarantee that.”
“What do I do now?” Zack said to himself.
Nelson offered Zack a hand. “For starters, trust us. We can help you. You just have to be willing to learn from us and be patient--not be reckless and go after something powerful alone.”
Zack accepted the offered hand, being brought to his feet. Zack didn’t speak after that. He turned his head back at the darkness. All he could think about was getting revenge for Heather’s death, and after all this time, his grandmother’s.
TO BE CONTINUED IN EPISODE #2
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Ryan Cecere lives in New Rochelle, New York, and spends his time working and trying to improve as a writer. As a kid he has always been interested in creating stories, whether it'd be writing or acting them out with friends. He started writing in the third grade but distance himself from it as the years went on. By the time he was 18, he got back into writing by writing screenplays as a hobby. At 21, he started writing stories again and published his first work DAY ZERO (which is a novelette prelude to Rayner Electronics’ post-apocalypse zombie series, The Plague) in 2015—a project created with a group of friends.
Scott Lucas was born, raised and currently lives in New Rochelle, New York He is the co-creator of The Nelson Files supernatural-thriller series.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
NEONWOLF4 is an artist who is very passionate about his work. At a very young age, he picked up a piece of blank paper and a pencil and never put it down. As the years went on he continued to draw original art as well as fan art, improving and self-teaching himself the craft along the way. Currently, he lives in New York and is working on a few comic book series; as well as taking requests from his fans on the side.
RYAN CAN BE FOUND HERE:
Twitter: www.twitter.com/ryance93
Amazon Author Page: www.amazon.com/author/ryancecere
SCOTT CAN BE FOUND HERE:
Twitter: www.twitter.com/scottlucaslive
NEONWOLF4 CAN BE FOUND HERE:
Devianart: http://bluewolfneon.deviantart.com/
Also written by Ryan Cecere:
DAY ZERO (The Plague, book 0)
http://amzn.to/1Mw572t
A special thanks to my editor Julie Hutchings. She really improved sentences and gave great
feedback! –Ryan