The Junkyard Druid Box Set 2

by M. D. Massey

“Shit magnet.”

  “Bitch.”

  “I was born this way—what’s your excuse?” she countered coyly.

  “The same, Fallyn. The same.” I made an “s” and an “m” by contorting my fingers in a ridiculous imitation of a gang sign. “Shit magnet for life, yo.”

  Fallyn punched me in the shoulder. “You are such a nerd.”

  It was almost dark and we were halfway back to camp when Fallyn whispered to me, barely loud enough for my sensitive ears to hear.

  “We’re being followed.”

  “Human, or other?” I asked.

  “Other, maybe. Smallish animal, moves like a predator. Might be a coyote.”

  “Skinwalker?”

  She shrugged. “It’s been following us for two miles. Would have attacked by now if it was. They’re fairly territorial.”

  “Just in case, let’s set up an ambush before we get to camp.”

  As soon as we rounded the next bend, each of us found a hiding spot in the brush on either side. Crouched and coiled for action, I waited until our stalker came into sight. Despite the fading light, I could make out the shape of a dog-like animal as it quietly and furtively padded down the trail toward our hiding spots.

  It was thin, rangy, and nearly hairless, with pale grey skin, red glowing eyes, pointed canine ears, and a mouthful of sharp teeth that projected past its lips at odd angles. At roughly fifty pounds or so, it was maybe the size of a large coyote or a coy-wolf. Yet it was clearly no coyote.

  Even more strange, the thing was singing to itself. Sort of.

  “Let the bodies hit the floor, let the bodies hit the floor, let the bodies hit the floor,” it chanted, over and over again in a near whisper. Then, it started making the most horrible noises. “Doo-doo-ding, dingle-lang-a-lang! Doo-doo-ding, dingle-lang-a-lang!”

  At first I thought it was in distress, then I realized it was beat-boxing the guitar riff from a Drowning Pool song. From across the trail, Fallyn gave me a quizzical look as she drew a finger across her throat.

  Should I kill it? she mouthed.

  I shook my head “no” and motioned for her to hold tight. Then, just as the thing passed us I sprang, landing on its back and rolling it on its side. I pinned it with my hands at its throat and my knees straddling its torso. The weird creature snapped at me, out of instinct more than anything it seemed, because when it saw my face it calmed down and gave a sheepish grin.

  “Oh, hiya there. Guess you knew I was following you, eh?” The creature had a sort of Brooklyn accent, and his voice reminded me a lot of Steve Buscemi’s. He looked down at my hands with his glowing ruby eyes and cleared his throat. “Can you, uh, ease up a bit? I got sensitive skin, and all this chafing is really gonna play hell with my eczema.”

  “That depends on whether or not I decide to snap your neck,” I replied through clenched teeth. “It’s been a rough day—hell, a rough month—and I don’t have the patience for playing games right now.”

  The creature’s eyes darted to Fallyn, undressing her as he looked her up and down. “Does, uh, she have time for games? Because I could think of at least a half-dozen I could play with her.”

  I squeezed harder.

  “Oh-kay,” he wheezed. “Ease up, already. I meant no harm.”

  “Why were you following us?” Fallyn asked, barely keeping a smirk off her face.

  The thing smacked his lips nervously. “Well, I, uh, saw what you did down at the river. Not that I was spying or anything. I just happened to stroll by while you two were dealing with the lady in black. After I saw how you handled it, and when I realized you two were more than just your average backpackers out for a hike, I got curious. So, I followed you.”

  “Curious, huh?” I said. “Fallyn, are you buying any of this?”

  “He seems pretty harmless.” She looked the creature in the eye. “What are you, anyway?”

  The thing puffed up his chest, despite the fact that I was crushing it with my weight. “Larry the Chupacabra, at your service.”

  “Come again?” I replied. “The bloodsucking monster? Seriously?”

  Larry’s eyelids fluttered. “Hey now, that bloodsucking thing is just a myth. I’m vegan. How do you think I maintain this svelte figure?”

  I looked up at Fallyn. “What’s your gut telling you, partner?”

  She bit her lip and chortled. “I dunno. Is that even what a chupacabra is supposed to look like? I thought they were more… what’s the word I’m looking for?”

  “Anthropomorphic?” I asked.

  She snapped her fingers and pointed at me. “Exactly! Sort of like an imp, but green and scaly.”

  Larry’s voice took on a sarcastic tone. “As if. I can assure you, any artist’s depictions you’ve seen on shows like Destination Truth have been greatly exaggerated. I mean, you know they just act like they’re seeing things, right? Like, Josh Gates goes, ‘Oh, I think I just saw something move in the bushes,’ and then they run around doing the shaky camera thing to make you think it’s for real. Lame!” He winked at Fallyn. “Humans are such suckers—amirite, beautiful, or what?”

  Fallyn examined her fingernails. “Right on both counts, but don’t get too familiar. I haven’t decided if I’m going to rip your head off yet or not.”

  I smirked at Fallyn. “He does have a point. Still, I’m with you—this is definitely not what a chupacabra is supposed to look like.”

  “What, you’ve never seen a chupacabra before?” Larry protested. “C’mon, my mug’s all over the internet! They got pictures of me, video, the whole bit. I’m famous—or internet famous, at least.”

  He babbled on about how many followers he had on social media, while Fallyn and I ignored him.

  “What do you think we should do with him?”

  “Well, he smells like Quorn, so he wasn’t lying about that.” She scratched her nose. “I dunno. Let him go, I guess. Like I said, he seems harmless.”

  I looked Larry in the eye. “If I release you, are you just going to follow us back to camp?”

  “Of course. You guys are the most excitement we’ve had here in—well, forever. And I can’t wait to see what happens when you two run into that dickhead of a skinwalker—”

  Fallyn and I did a double-take.

  “What skinwalker?” we practically yelled in unison.

  I soon discovered that threatening Larry the Chupacabra was pointless. As it turned out, he’d been cursed by the skinwalker, and thus considered himself to be beyond death’s grasp so long as the curse remained. The logic escaped me, but Larry consistently maintained that he was un-killable due to the effects of the curse. Once we were back at camp, we bribed him with junk food and a few cans of PBR to get him to spill the beans.

  “Alright, Larry—tell us what you know about this skinwalker,” I demanded.

  Larry had his snout buried in a bag of Funyuns, busily licking up every last crumb. “Like I said, this asshole cursed me a few years back. I’ve been trailing him ever since and waiting for an opportunity to trick him into removing the curse.”

  Fallyn leaned over to whisper in my ear. “Pfft. I have a feeling Brainiac here would have a hard time tricking a third-grader out of their lunch money.”

  “Why’d the skinwalker curse you?” Hemi asked. He’d become fascinated with Larry as soon as he’d heard the word “chupacabra.” The big guy was deep into conspiracy theories, a hobby he justified on grounds of professional curiosity. He didn’t necessarily believe them, but instead thought most such rumors were started to cover up events that spilled over into the mundane world from the World Beneath.

  “I stole a bunch of corn and squash from his garden,” he said as he shook the bag off his snout. He looked up, realizing that everyone was staring at him. “Oh, so now I’m the weird one? Have you kids taken a look in the mirror lately? Let’s see here, we got a druid, a demigod, a werewolf, and whatever yuppie Wednesday Addams over there is—nope, that’s not strange at all. Anyway, you try being a vegan when you don’t have hands
. Ever open a can of green beans with your teeth? It ain’t pretty, lemme tell you.”

  Fallyn squinted and cocked her head to the side. “Wait a minute—I’m confused. Did the skinwalker turn you into a chupacabra?”

  Larry’s mangy ears twitched. “Huh? No, he cursed me so I couldn’t shift into my human form. Duh.”

  Jesse piped up from where she sat sulking a few yards distant. “But you just said you don’t have hands, which was why you stole produce from the skinwalker’s garden. Are you saying he cursed you before you stole the vegetables?”

  “No, after. Look, I can only transform into a human under the light of a full moon. So, that’s when I normally get all my shopping done and do food prep for the month. I put everything in zip-lock bags—easy to rip open with your teeth.”

  Fallyn frowned as she massaged her temples. “This is giving me a headache.”

  “Let’s get back on task,” I interjected. “Why is the skinwalker here, Larry?”

  “Oh, that’s easy,” Larry said as he slurped PBR from a bowl. “His son called and told him you were headed this way.”

  Now I was getting a headache. “His son?”

  “Yeah, what’s that kid’s name? Stu? Steven?”

  “Stanley?” I ventured.

  “Yup, that’s it,” the chupacabra nodded. “Stanley Bylilly. The kid’s sort of a pushover, but his dad is a real piece of work, believe me. Half-Hopi, but they cast him out on suspicion of using black magic. He’s, uh, kind of bitter about it—about life in general, really.”

  “I thought skinwalkers were a Navajo thing?” Hemi asked.

  I shook my head. “Most of the Native American tribes of the Southwest have their own version of the legend. The Navajo term for them is yee naaldlooshii, which roughly translates into ‘with it, he goes on all fours,’ referencing their use of magic or a focus object to shift. Hopi and Utes also have their own versions of skinwalkers, while Mesoamerican tribes have a different term for a practitioner of magic who can slip their skin—nagual, which more or less means a magician.”

  Larry’s rat-like tail twitched. “No matter what language you say it in, that old man is bad news. And let me tell you, he is seriously invested in tracking you down.”

  “Any idea why this witch is looking for you?” Fallyn asked.

  I sighed. “No idea. Then again, Stanley and I have had a couple of run-ins. I’m definitely not his favorite person. Maybe the old man wants to take revenge on me for embarrassing his son?”

  “Oh, hell,” Jesse exclaimed as she stood up quickly. “Larry, what’s the father’s name?”

  Larry licked the bowl clean of beer foam and belched loudly. “Stanley’s dad goes by Ernie around white people, but I once heard a Hopi call him Istaqa. I’m told it means ‘coyote man.’ Fitting.”

  Jesse smacked her forehead. “Colin, think back to the time when I first started haunting you. Doesn’t that name ring a bell?”

  I scratched my head. “Hmm, Ernie, Ernest… Ernesto! That’s the old man who helped us find the peyote for that potion Finn cooked up, the one that allowed us to—ahem, communicate while you were a…”

  I paused, unwilling to say it.

  “When I was a ghost, Colin,” Jesse said. “It’s okay to talk about it. I got over that whole thing a long time ago. Besides, if this skinwalker is coming to collect on the debt you owe, I think we have bigger issues.”

  Larry looked back and forth between us. “Man, and I thought my relationship with that zombie corgi was bizarre,” he said under his breath. Everyone turned to stare at the chupacabra, causing him to grin sheepishly. “Oops—did I say that out loud?”

  10

  “C’mon, Jess—do you really think this guy would bother to track me down, way the hell out here? All he did was give us some psychedelic cacti. Heck, I even offered to pay him for it, but he said he’d rather trade out, favor for favor, at a later date.”

  Jesse frowned. “Colin, there had to be a good reason why he insisted on that particular form of payment. He likely sensed or saw something in you that made him think it’d be worth it to have you indebted to him.”

  “You mean, like my Fomorian alter-ego?” I asked.

  “Exactly,” Jesse replied. “And chances are good he’s going to ask you to do something you won’t like—something he either can’t or doesn’t want to do on his own.”

  “Plus, you made a fool out of his kid, twice,” Fallyn interjected. “Don’t forget that part, shit magnet.”

  I winced. “That’s really starting to hurt, you know.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Oh, cry me a river.” She began peeling off layers of clothing. “I’m bored and hungry, so I’m going to go hunt. If this skinwalker shows up, give him my regards.”

  Larry pushed himself up on his front paws, obviously very much interested in what Fallyn was doing.

  “Eyes front, Caladryl,” Fallyn growled.

  Larry kept looking until Hemi grabbed him by the scruff and held him over the side of the cliff. “You might not be able to die, but I reckon a fall from this height would hurt. Speaking from experience.”

  “Alright, alright already,” the chupacabra groused. “Sheesh, can’t a cryptid have a little fun every once in a while?”

  Hemi set Larry down, just in time for him to catch a look at Fallyn’s half-wolf form retreating into the fading dusk. He continued to stare long after she’d gone.

  “Wowza, what a canine,” the chupacabra muttered.

  Ignoring them both, I pulled out the burner Fallyn had given me. I turned it on and walked around camp, trying to get a signal.

  “Aren’t those for emergencies only?” Hemi asked, stroking his chin.

  “So she said, but I need to make a call.” I turned the phone off with a growl. “I’m going to head back to the campgrounds, see if I can get a decent signal. If not, I think I saw some pay phones there.”

  Hemi shook his head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea—”

  “C’mon, Hemi—lighten up. You think the federal government is monitoring every single phone in the nation with voice recognition software, just waiting for me to make a call?”

  “Yes,” he stated, crossing his arms over his chest. “Ever hear of a little NSA project known as Boundless Informant? Or PRISM? Carnivore? MYSTIC? Stuff is real, Colin.”

  “I have a computer surveillance chip inside my skull,” Larry said to no one in particular.

  I tsked, ignoring the chupacabra. “You spend way too much time in those conspiracy groups, dude.”

  Hemi arched an eyebrow. “Honestly, Colin, I don’t think—”

  Jesse rolled her eyes at me. “Don’t bother. You know he always has to find things out the hard way.”

  “Yeah, but you figure a bloke’d learn his lesson, eventually,” Hemi replied.

  “I can hear you!” I said as I exited the camp.

  “We know!” my friends said in unison.

  I was halfway to the visitor’s center when I was startled by a voice that spoke up right next to me.

  “Don’t suppose you have any trail mix on you, do you?”

  I jumped five feet sideways, landing just off the trail with my Glock in one hand and a fireball in the other. “Holy shit—you scared the hell out of me! And how in the hell did you sneak up on me like that?”

  “Magic. Duh.” The chupacabra yawned. “So, no trail mix?”

  I holstered my pistol and extinguished the fireball. “Sorry, all out.” Feigning nonchalance, I headed toward the welcome center with the chupacabra padding along beside me. “Larry, why are you following me?”

  “Would you believe it’s because you’re the most interesting one of the bunch? Besides that sexy-ass shifter. Hubba, hubba,” he said, somehow managing to waggle his nearly bald, dog-ish eyebrows.

  “I’m not buying it. Try again.”

  “Well, druid, it might be because you’re my ticket to getting this curse removed. Not that I mind being in my natural form, mind you—it’s just that
it’s kind of hard to shop for eczema cream when you look like a coyote with alopecia.”

  “Speaking of which,” I said as I picked up the pace, “what exactly are you? As far as I know, the legend of the chupacabra is a fairly recent addition to world folklore. I’ve never seen or heard of a creature quite like you before—”

  “Thank you,” Larry replied.

  “Um, that wasn’t a compliment. As I was saying, I’ve never seen anything like you before, and it makes me wonder how you came to be.”

  “You really want to know?” he asked in a quiet voice.

  “Yes, I do. Considering that you seem to have latched onto me and my—er, crew—it seems only fair that I should know more about you and where you came from.”

  I let that statement hang in the air, waiting to see how Larry would react.

  “Plum Island, New York. That’s where.”

  My ears perked up when I heard that name—several of the conspiracy sites I’d recently looked at had mentioned it. “I’ve heard rumors about that place. That’s where the U.S. government studies animal diseases.”

  Larry snickered. “Among other things. I mean, if the public only knew what the feds are cooking up there. Stuff that makes me look like a Happy Hugs Build-a-Bear.”

  “You were created in a lab?”

  “Yup. The military has been researching the genetics of cryptids and supernatural creatures for decades. And before that, they attempted to interbreed various species. Wasn’t until the human genome project was completed that they experienced a breakthrough, though. That’s when they figured out how to combine human and ’thrope DNA.”

  I pulled up short, hands on hips. “Come again?”

  “Oh, that surprises you? I mean, look at me, for cripes’ sakes. My kind were one of their early failures—and believe me, there are more. The Mothman, the Lizardman of Scrape Ore Swamp, the Skunk Ape, the Shunka Warakin—I could go on and on.”

  “Huh. Okay, I’ll bite. How’d they make you?”

  Larry sat on his haunches so he could scratch his ear. “They were trying to create Wargs. Can you believe it? The government wanted to create giant war dogs that would obey their every command. So, they decided to mix the DNA of normal dogs with werewolf and kitsune DNA, and bam! They got me.”