Ollie leaned his head against the driver’s side window. At that angle, he could see Kimmie’s car in the Chief’s side view mirror, parked by the Ferndale general store. He’d spotted it on his way to Kimmie’s house of all things. It wasn’t a conversation he’d been looking forward to, but he had to warn her about the other goblins in the area. Plus, he didn’t really know where else to go. He’d checked out of his hotel room, he didn’t know where any of the other hunters in the area were staying, and he didn’t have anyone’s phone number handy.
Ollie twisted around as the door to the general store opened and Kimmie walked out carrying a big paper grocery bag. Part of him wanted to hop out of his truck and shout at her to stop being so naïve. The rest of him knew exactly how far that would get him. She’d probably run even faster toward the danger, just to spite him.
He watched as she climbed into her car and left the parking lot, headed back to her house. He squeezed his steering wheel, cursing her stubbornness under his breath. Then, an idea came to him. He started his truck and drove down the road, then made a quick turn, heading south.
Straight for the cemetery.
He’d never had a chance to come back out here and investigate Grika’s warnings. If the pack was still around, then they were probably sending a scavenger through the cemetery every so often to scout or to steal supplies from the town at night. If that was the case, he could find the other goblins on his own and take care of the issue before Kimmie got hurt. And he could avoid any and all awkward conversations with her.
He drove slowly along the looping road, searching the gravestones and the tombs through his open window for any sign of… anything. He had no idea what he was looking for, but of course this whole side trip was a shot in the dark.
He reached the top and continued down the road as it skirted around the edge of the forest, turning into another winding country road. About a quarter mile down he reached the wide gravel lot that cut into the woods. A flash of red caught his eye at the far end. He turned into the lot and stopped at the edge. A red Passat was parked on the grass next to the trees, angled to make it hard for anyone driving by to see it. He’d seen a red Passat parked in front of Kimmie’s house. He leaned over and grabbed Remi from his bag on the front seat.
“Stay here,” he said to Grika. Before opening the door, he imagined himself finding some of Kimmie’s boarders while brandishing a shotgun and decided that would be too much to explain. He put Remi back in the bag, pulled out his pistol, stuck it in the back of his pants, and hopped out of the car. He hurried into the woods.
*
Ollie ran a finger across the tree trunk, feeling the edges of the exposed bullet hole. Large caliber, so it would have made some noise, but he was deep enough into the woods by now that he doubted anyone in town heard it. The VW belonged to Mariah and David, he knew that much from the Ohio license plate. Maybe they’d come out here to do some actual hunting, like game hunting? That would explain random gunfire in the woods. But wouldn’t they have mentioned something like that to Kimmie? And wouldn’t she have mentioned that to him?
He ventured deeper into the woods, hearing all the normal sounds of a forest. He agreed with Bobo’s assessment on this tract of land. Plenty of remote places to hide in. But that meant even more territory to cover. He could do it with Grika easily, but he’d have to wait until night for that. If he wasn’t willing to explain a shotgun, explaining a pygmy goblin wouldn’t make his life any easier.
Footsteps crunched on the ground somewhere ahead. He froze, and put his ear to the wind. The steps were slow and measured, and they made little effort at being quiet. He pulled the pistol from the waist of his pants and crept to the nearest tree trunk, using it as cover. He peered around the side to see two figures in the distance, coming toward him. Both were short, and they walked side by side. As far as he could tell, neither of them had the hunched over, loping gait of a goblin. He ducked back behind the tree trunk and waited until they were closer, slipping his gun into his jacket pocket.
He waited until they were only twenty or thirty feet away, then leaned out to see them both emerge from the jumble of trees and brush. Only one of them was who he expected to see. He stepped out into the open, and Mariah stopped, startled at the sight of him.
“Oh!” She wiped the flat, sweaty hair from her face, and gave him a faint smile. She wore a dark hoodie over dirt-stained hiking pants and boots covered in mud. “I didn’t expect to see you out here.”
“I could say the same.”
A bloody scratch lined her cheek, and she seemed to favor her left arm a bit. She looked like she’d been in a fight with a tree.
“Think you could help me out here?”
She held up one end of a thick rope, the other end tied around the wrists of the cemetery’s caretaker, the old man he’d seen out there his first day in town. The old man had a fleshy, wrinkled face, like a Shar Pei, and he walked with a slight hunch. Upon closer inspection, all of his clothes seemed far too big for him. His pants came up to his navel, his shirt was baggy, and his jacket hung almost to his knees. He looked at Ollie with a snarl, and Ollie sucked in air as he realized what stood before him.
A hogboon.
Mariah approached Ollie, dragging the old man along with her. Surprisingly, he didn’t fight back much, despite being close to the same size as his captor. Mariah handed Ollie the rope, expecting him to take over. He took it, pulling the gun back out of his pocket with his other hand.
“Thank you so much, my dear. I’m afraid I’m not made for dragging prisoners through the woods by myself. Especially not with an injury.” She cradled her other arm against her chest as she walked, and Ollie was forced to drag the old man along with him to keep up.
“In case it isn’t entirely clear, yes, David and I are out here doing some hunting ourselves. Well, were hunting. He didn’t make it. This one’s boss,” she motioned to their captive, “was in a bit of a mood, and David took the brunt, if you know what I mean.”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Ollie winced at Mariah’s casual description of David’s death. He studied the small, old man in the oversized coat. The first time he’d seen him, he thought he looked cartoonish. Now he realized why. Hogboons were a type of goblin who looked a lot like elderly men and women, with thin gray hair and grizzled, wrinkled skin. They were used as lookouts for goblin packs, infiltrating the edges of human society and passing information back to the leaders.
Mariah gestured at the hogboon. “From what I understand, this one’s been out here a few years now, acting as the caretaker while working for the pack living out in these woods. We realized what he was a few days ago, before you got here, and we waited for him to lead us to the lair. It took a while, but we followed him last night on his way back to the others, only to walk into an ambush. Fortunately, I got out of there with their spy, so it wasn’t all for naught.”
The hogboon grumbled in response.
Ollie gave him a tug. “You don’t seem too broken up about your husband.”
Mariah shrugged. “He wasn’t my husband. He was my assistant. An average one. I was going to get a new one anyway, so…”
“Sucks to be him, huh?”
Mariah raised her eyebrow and gave him a devilish grin, one Ollie failed to return.
“How exactly were the two of you going to take them out?” he asked.
Mariah smiled. “A little of this.” She waved her good hand and wiggled her fingers.
Ollie sucked in a breath.
“You’re a witch?” A tingle of worry shot up Ollie’s spine. He gripped his pistol tightly. “You put Kimmie to sleep the other night?”
“She’s a good girl. No need to get her all caught up in this, now is there?”
Ollie tried to hide his contempt. Witches, like magic, were trouble. He’d normally stay far away from them, but he figured in this instance he could play nice until they got back to their cars. He wasn’t exactly sure what he’d do at that point, though. “That’s what I keep telling her.”
“We tried to trap the one by her house and use it as bait. But it surprised us coming from the other direction. Plus, David screwed up the knots on the rope, and when Kimmie came running through the woods, everything went crazy and I had to clean up the mess.” She gave him a look. “Is that what your ‘landscaping’ is all about? The lame little greenie out by her house?”
“Apparently, I’m as much a landscaper as you are a schoolteacher.” He tugged on the rope again and the hogboon stumbled forward. “You’ve been out here since last night?”
She sighed. “I got lost. And I had to chase this one down for a while. He decided to run about half a mile in the opposite direction from my car.”
“How big is the pack?”
Mariah gave a disinterested wave of her hand. “I don’t know. Twenty or so?”
Ollie tightened the rope to get the hogboon’s attention. The creature scowled back at him.
“You gonna show me where that lair is, buddy? Cuz I’m real interested in finding your boss, too.” The hogboon grunted. They usually did. A sure way to see through their disguises was to get them to talk. They could seem human for a few words, or even a sentence or two. But eventually, the goblin in them came through in their shrieking or garbled voices. “What’s his name? Kranka?”
The hogboon’s tiny eyes peered out at him from under mounds of scrunched up flesh. Mariah had a similar look of surprise.
“How did you find that out?”
Ollie kept his expression guarded. “Maybe I have my own goblin spies.”
“You plan on going after them alone?”
“There’s other hunters in the area. A coordinated attack would wipe them out.”
“Silly boy.” She tsked. “Just like your father, you want to burn them all down without a thought as to how useful they could be. You do know there are other ways to remove the threat of goblins from this world without actually removing the goblins?”
Ollie froze. “What did you say?”
Mariah stopped then turned to face him, allowing herself a girlish laugh. “Oops. Did I give it away? I wasn’t sure if you recognized me, seeing as it’s been about ten years, and I only met you once or twice, when your father deemed me important enough to bring by the house. I looked quite a bit different then, though. I’ve had some work done in my travels, and I changed my hair.”
She ran her fingers through her hair, and Ollie’s breath caught in his chest.
“Lynne.”
“At the time, yes. Not my real name.” She continued her trek, and Ollie barely remembered to follow. “I learned quite a bit from good old Jed, but I left town when I realized how set in his ways he was. I guess he never quite healed from your mother’s death. All that anger and guilt. I see it in you, too.” She raised an eyebrow. “In fact, did I hear that the same thing happened to your sister?”
Ollie’s mouth snapped shut. His fist clenched tightly around the hogboon’s leash. He remembered Lynne very well. She’d taken advantage of his father at his lowest point. All for personal gain. She wasn’t a witch; she was a succubus. And here she was, a decade later, still up to her old tricks.
After a few moments of stewing, he decided he couldn’t stay quiet any longer.
“When we get out of these woods, I’ll get you to a hospital, but you’ll be lucky to find any trace of goblin once you get back out. Because I’m burning every last one of them. Tonight.” He snarled at the hogboon. “Even you, old timer.”
The hogboon pulled away as far as the rope would let him.
“Hmph.” Mariah made a face that showed how little she cared about his threats. “Like father, like son.”
Somehow, that made Ollie even angrier. He suppressed the childish retort that came to mind and dragged the reluctant hogboon along behind him.
They reached the tree line and crossed the grassy field between the forest and the gravel lot with their cars. As they walked across the grass, Ollie spotted Andy’s patrol car pulling off the road and onto the field. Just like Andy to show up at an inopportune time. At the very least, he could get the cop to take Mariah to the hospital instead of him. That would save him some valuable time in clearing out the goblin camp before she got her evil talons in them. But he realized a second later the major flaw in his thinking.
He was walking out of a forest with a gun in his hand, and holding a rope leading to what appeared to be a tied-up old man. Not a great visual.
The car stopped, and Andy hopped out, his gun drawn.
“Hands up!”
Ollie threw his hands up, not letting go of the rope. “Wait! It’s not what it looks like!”
“Officer! Help!”
Ollie turned to see Mariah limping across the grassy field toward Andy. She pointed back at Ollie. “That man tried to kidnap us! He was taking us back to his car! I don’t know what he was planning to do!”
Ollie’s eyes bulged out of his head.
Andy aimed the gun directly at him. “Drop your weapon!” Ollie tossed the gun into the weeds. “Get on the ground, face down! Hands behind your head! And drop that rope!”
Ollie let the rope fall from his hand. The hogboon scurried away as Ollie slowly got to his knees and then laid down on the ground. As he did, he shot a glare at Mariah, who smiled back at him from behind Andy.
Andy herded Mariah and the hogboon over next to his car, then leaned in through the window and called for backup. Ollie buried his face in the ground. He could have been halfway out of California by now.
So much for being a good guy.
*
Grika watched the two police cars drive away, one with Ollie hunched over in the back seat, the other with the woman and the hogboon. He leaned against the window, wondering what he should do next. He couldn’t drive the car. If he tried to run all the way to Kimmie’s house, those stupid dogs would probably snatch him up like a snack. He didn’t want to hide in the woods, not with a pack of goblins roaming around. They’d be about as nice to him as those dogs. The hotel was a long walk back. Probably a couple days’ worth. And they’d already checked out anyway.
He shrugged. Might as well wait it out here. Ollie could talk himself out of this. He always did.
He reached over and turned on the radio. An old country song hummed softly through the speakers. He hopped down into his bungie web and closed his eyes. He needed a nap, anyway.