by Derek Adam
This would have been a W.T.F. moment for anyone else, but it was no stranger than chasing ghosts through hotels.
Or talking to ghosts, for that matter.
On any given day, I loved what I did. On days where there was a woman involved, it was even better.
“Get closer. I want to see her tits.”
I swung my hand backward, slamming my fist into the backwall of the truck’s cab, where Sutter’s face had just stuck through.
When the woman involved was killing creepies, I was both terrified and intrigued.
She hadn’t noticed me sitting here in the truck yet, and I debated whether or not I wanted to try to back up.
Sutter’s head popped back through the wall again. “C’mon Rooster, you know you want to go Patrick Swayze on her.”
I swung my fist again, thudding it into the wall of the cab. Sutter’s laughter was muffled as my fist connected with the metal just as his face disappeared.
Virgil appeared this time, his head popping through just next to my fist
“Are we checking into the other two cabins? That woman might have some information t-”
“Not now, Virgil.” I reached to put the truck into reverse and barely closed my hand on it when the dog spun its head toward me, and the woman’s gaze followed.
“Well… shit. Alrighty then.” I sighed and unlatched my seatbelt, shutting the ignition off. Sutter’s head appeared next to Virgil’s as I popped the door open.
“How come you swing at me but you don’t try to thump Virgil?”
I hopped out of the truck, my eyes on the woman and her dog that still stood a fair distance away. Before I could respond to Sutter, Virgil chimed in.
“Because I’m not a fuckerpenis, Sutter.”
“All this time, you still ain’t got cussing down…”
I shut the door on the two of them and started to make my way toward her.
Most people would probably run terrified from the shit I saw, but I’m not most people.
And most people don’t see the shit I see.
I think she realized that as I was walking toward her. Her expression was a puzzled curiosity – less guarded than I expected someone to be, that just disintegrated… whatever that was.
She had all the style and curves of a chick from a damn action movie though. Like Lara Croft or some kind of Femme Nikita. I could see tight body leather peeking out from the survivalist outdoor gear she was sporting.
With dual leg holsters and guns, and a damn wolf hanging out with her.
Jesus, what the fuck am I doing…
“Hi.” I raised my hand in a quick wave to her on my approach, and scratched through the depth of my beard at my chin.
She didn’t respond.
I tucked my hands into my armpits and smirked as I looked at the dog, the pile of char she was standing in, and the guns at her side.
Following a quick nod, I thumbed and looked back at my truck. “So, I… saw you. Back there.”
“What’s in the truck?” She didn’t move as she spoke, but I swear I felt like we were moving toward each other.
Like that feeling you get when you step off a treadmill and you’re being thrown forward when you step, the world is moving underneath you too quickly and you’re gonna fall… like that.
“Just… my stuff- listen, are you alright? I don’t know what the hell all that was, bu-”
“Are you moving in?”
“What?” I blinked as she cut me off.
“Are you moving in? To the cabin?” She gestured past me toward my truck. “Truck is full of your stuff.”
“Oh… no. I’m just looking at the place. For a friend.”
“But you’re not staying here.”
“No.” I quirked a brow at her, unsure of where she was going with the questions.
Though they weren’t really questions. More like she was just firing obvious statements at me.
“What are you looking for, then?”
I scoffed at her and looked back down to the dog. It looked like a wolf from a fair distance but this close it just looked like a fairly fluffy – albeit, extremely dirty – sled dog.
It opened its mouth and started panting rhythmically, staring up at me with a childlike innocence.
“Are we really not gonna talk about the creepy tree monster?”
“What about it?”
“Wha- no, really. There was you climbing it like a spider monkey, and then you shot it, and now you’re standing in its burnt-up guts like nothing happened.”
She glanced down and looked back at me, her brow furrowing as if she wasn’t processing the absolute absurdity of it.
Not that I thought it was absurd. It was amazing and like nothing I’d seen.
“What was that thing?”
She seemed a bit annoyed at the question, as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, still watching me.
“I’m not sure. A dryad, I think.”
We stared at each other as my brow went up slowly. I think she read my expression wrong though. Maybe it registered as either disbelief or a lack of understanding.
Neither of which were the case. I had read about dryads. I just didn’t know they tried to eat people.
“Forest spirits,” she stated flatly, and looked over her shoulder to the cabin. “If you’re satisfied, I’m gonna go.”
“Wait, no. I’m not satisfied at all.” I put my hands up as I shrugged, chuckling at her incredulously. “That was anything but normal, and you’re being… way too calm about going all Lethal Weapon and punching holes in some forest spirit.”
“I just figured someone who travels with spirits would understand.” She pointed over my shoulder and I turned to see Virgil bent down, inspecting something in the grass next to the truck.
Sutter stood to his rear and waved before sliding up behind Virgil, the rustic long-dead lawman making a series of dramatic pelvic thrusts while he waved his hat in circles.
“You can see them?!” I turned back to find her walking off toward the cabin, the dog plodding along at her side.
Chapter 5 – Emma
I knew he was gonna follow me up toward the cabin as soon as I acknowledged what I saw.
There was plenty of curiosity on my part. It’s not every day you run into someone who is even remotely aware of the things I see and experience.
Made only stranger by the fact that he was traveling with a couple spirits.
To my knowledge, I was the only one within my organization with the same ability. I had met a few others who could see through the veil, but they were all children.
This guy was rare.
I had burning questions, but he wouldn’t get off the subject of the dryad, and I needed to derail his thoughts.
My mind was rolling over everything, from the dryad to him appearing out of nowhere.
He didn’t look the type, either.
In all of his tall stature, clean-cut clothing, longish hair with cropped sides, tattoos, and full beard and mustache, there wasn’t really anything that said he was involved in the paranormal or the occult.
A tattoo artist; maybe a bartender or club bouncer. Biker, perhaps? Despite his ability, he had a charming innocence to him.
Like a bumbling puppy.
I was walking with Bella close at my side toward the cabin, puzzling as I watched her head slip and turn backwards repeatedly to stare behind us.
His feet shuffled loudly through the grass and I could feel him getting closer.
Another curiosity. He didn’t feel the same way other people felt. He had a different energy. A different vibe.
I didn’t like it. But it didn’t alarm me either.
It was oddly satisfying but off-putting. Curiosity was filling me but I didn’t want to jump eagerly into questioning him. I didn’t know him.
I also didn’t know why that dryad had practically led me here, and I didn’t want this guy following me around. After eight long days in the woods, I had no patience for cute distract
ions.
“Stop. Seriously.” As I climbed the steps of the cabin’s porch, he jogged up and parked himself at the top of the steps between me and the door.
His face was flushed, and his scent changed. His pupils were wider. He was taking me in. He pointed back toward his truck as he held a shocked expression.
“You can see them.”
“Yes, I can.” I started to walk past him, but he side-stepped to stay in front of me. I pursed my lips and stared at him as I paused. “I need to go inside.”
“I ain’t gonna stop you, I’m just a little blown away. I mean, I thought I was the only one. I just… holy shit, I don’t even know what to say.”
He ran a hand through his hair, and just stared at me.
I understood. I had a million questions but also didn’t really know what to say or how to phrase it – especially with my mind so preoccupied with this hunt.
“What’s your name?” His eyes focused on me as I spoke.
“Luca.” He stuck a hand out to shake mine, and I could see tattoos wrapping his arm from his hand up into the rolled-up sleeves.
I looked at his hand but didn’t take it.
“Luca. I’m Emma. I’m going inside that cabin. We can talk in a moment. Then you can satisfy your curiosity with a rousing game of twenty questions.”
I smiled a little, though wryly. Just enough for him to hopefully get that I wasn’t doing this right now.
He withdrew his hand and balled it up, nodding. I stepped around him and proceeded toward the door.
Unlocked, not even latched, as it sat open a crack.
Bella stuck her face to the gap beneath the door and huffed at the wood. Her sniffing grew in fast succession and she began nosing along the wood of the large wraparound porch, proceeding in a slow meandering walk, away from us.
I gave the door a shove and stood just outside as it swung inward.
I stared into a dimly-lit open floorplan, pretty much void of any furniture. The deep, rich wood that made up the walls and floor of the spacious cabin – probably big enough to house a family of five – was covered in dried blood smears, spatters, and splashes.
There were countless symbols and glyphs on every surface, each emitting a faint, soft neon purple glow; like a child’s glow stick.
I could feel it, even from outside.
Hate, negativity, and a wealth of ‘ugly feelings’ rolled out from inside like a roiling cloud of dark, unseen energy.
It felt like the cabin would consume me if I entered.
I could almost feel it breathing in anticipation of my first step inside.
“The others looked just like this.”
I turned to look at Luca, raising a questioning brow.
“What others? Where?”
“A couple other cabins. I saw two already that looked like this.” He stepped around me to enter the cabin first.
I waited to see the walls come down on him, like a predator ambushing its meal. It didn’t happen, but I held my breath a moment as he took a few more steps inside.
“It felt just like this.” He pointed around the interior as he walked in, narrowing his eyes as he turned to look at the ceiling, walls, and back toward me. “Can you feel that? It feels like-”
“Hate.” I cut him off and sighed as I walked in, closing the distance between us to just a few inches. “What are you doing up here checking these cabins then, if you’re not staying?”
He stepped back to add distance between us. I made him uncomfortable – which is exactly what I wanted.
It was a little amusing, given that he stood a full head taller than me and looked to be in solid shape, but I suppose seeing what he saw would have him guarded.
Just like me.
“I’m looking into the graffiti problem.”
“Not the blood?”
“Ah… not so much. That’s on the cops. I’m here for the…” He pointed a finger up and gestured around.
“The glyphs?”
“Right.” He turned and stepped away, wandering a bit. No doubt to add distance between us again. “This is way more professional than the others. They were sloppy. Like a child with a brush. But these…”
His attention rose and fixated on the high ceiling, where the wood had been heavily painted with symbols and writing.
“These are so cleanly drawn and defined. But pretty much the same.”
I recognized most of the symbols but there were plenty that were foreign to me. There was also a significant amount of what looked like writing around the glyphs that I couldn’t make out.
“You know what they are?” I feigned ignorance. I was curious what he knew.
I could feel his pulse quicken as I spoke.
“Ah… yeah. Yup. Most of it, honestly. I mean, the symbols aren’t too clear to me, but all this text…” Luca wandered toward one of the walls, his fingers open and tracing along the writing, just inches away from the surface. “This is early Sumerian cuneiform. Really early.”
“You can read it?” It was my turn to be a bit shocked.
Countless years of lessons and this was not among the languages I knew.
“I can. It’s crude, I think. Or I’m just terrible at understanding it. I don’t know the order of it; it’s like the other cabins.” He looked around the room and shrugged. “Some of it is binding, some cleansing. There’s writing about gods and death, darkness… this repeats a lot.”
“What is it?” I stepped to him, movement at the door catching my attention as Bella went by, still pressing her nose to the wood outside.
“Night, I think. Or dark. Without sun or without light.” He smirked and looked at me, shrugging again. “There really isn’t a pocket translator app for dead languages.”
I looked him over again, taking in his features a bit more this time.
Over all of it, including the inexplicably tainted dryad, it was the subtle ‘something’ about Luca that was now eating at me.
I didn’t have a response as I looked him over.
His eyebrows went up and he chuckled, brushing at his face. “Do I have a booger or…?”
“What?”
“You’re just… staring at me. It’s awkward. You know. You literally just got done busting a cap in that angry tree and… I’m still curious about that, by the way… and you’re looking at me like I’m the odd man out here.”
I let a quiet laugh slip, which was something I wasn’t particularly used to.
My laughter was usually from Bella’s antics, or at my own thoughts.
Never really from those around me, because save for my brief check-ins between hunts, I didn’t spend a vast amount of time close enough to other people to share in the kind of chatter that made other women giggle and swoon.
A sharp reminder that I wasn’t like other women.
My smile faded as quickly as it had appeared at the thought of a non-existent social circle. That left a hollow sense of longing I had buried a long time ago.
“I apologize.” I gave him a weak smile. “I didn’t mean to stare. All of this, and you… it’s just a change from the usual.”
“Compared to…what? Being some kind of a mystic lumberjack?”
I laughed again, and nodded.
“So, what does this stuff have to do with that thing?”
“That’s impressively vague, yet fittingly descriptive.”
He gave me a toothy grin, his shining white teeth appearing from beneath the well-kept mustache and beard that surrounded his mouth and jawline.
It was a nice distraction from the oppressive feeling of hatred that was practically dripping from the walls of the cabin.
“But… I’m not really sure, at least not about the markings. It might be related. It’s been heading this way for a week.”
“You followed that thing for a week?”
I nodded, realizing that he was looking at me with an off-putting judgmental look, like I was the odd one now. Which I was, of course. But no different than someone riding around in a
truck with spirits.
“So, is this a thing you do then? You’re like some kind of gorgeous monster assassin, chasing the creepy bastards back to their haunted lairs, hoping to keep the balance between good and evil?”
I paused before answering. I got hung up on that word he slipped in.
Did he just call me gorgeous?
Maybe he was mocking me. I could feel the judgement in his words, and I grimaced inwardly as I felt betrayed by my own stupidity for wasting the time with the conversation.
And for wasting time on him.
I didn’t like being judged.
I had taken too long to respond and could see him reading me, or trying to.
He was all too transparent and it was obvious that he was regretting his words.
“Something like that,” I returned flatly, just as he looked about to speak, and turned my attention back to the symbols and writing. “You said there were other places marked like this.”
“Yeah, two more, and another I still need to see that’s about a mile deeper in, round the bend of the lake.”
“Great. Let’s go.”
“Wai- what?”
“To see the other cabin. Let’s go.” I had started to walk toward the door, but paused as he remained rigid in place. “…is there a problem?”
“No. No not… really. I just… I don’t know who you are…” He paused as I leveled my gaze on him. “Don’t get me wrong, this is crazy fascinating and I have so many questions. I just… I don’t know you. You’re a little spooky.”
I squinted at him and clicked my tongue lightly before pointing. “You’re Luca.”
“Yeah…?”
“That’s Bella.” I turned slightly and thumbed toward the door as she went slowly nosing by again, snorting into the wood of the porch like a pig hunting for truffles.
I watched him lean a bit to look past me at the husky.
“…and I’m Emma. A gorgeous evil-slaying monster assassin slash lumberjack.”
“Yeah, but I st-”
I pulled the pistol from the holster on my right thigh, silencing him halfway through and derailing his train of thought as his eyes locked on the gun.
“Satisfied?”
“Yup.” He clapped his hands and slid past me. I grinned inwardly as I followed. He huffed as he hurried out. “Truck’s this way.”