As I pulled my truck into a small clearing deep in the woods, I could sense the bones and rotting flesh buried under the earth. Echoes of the thirty-two souls that once possessed them resonated through the clearing. The body does not want the soul to leave. A shadow of the soul can remain a long time. It seems that only after the earth has reclaimed the bones that the shadow dissipates.
I backed my truck up to a freshly dug hole and threw it in park. After getting out and walking around, I dropped the tailgate; it revealed a pile of firewood with a pair of nice leather dress shoes sticking out. I began my work by dumping the wood over one side of the truck, revealing a body wrapped tightly in tarp and tape. I shoved it unceremoniously off the tailgate and into the seven-and-a-half-foot deep hole. Jumping out of the truck bed, I grabbed my sledgehammer and seven, long wood stakes and began the necessary task of ensuring the body stays buried.
In the middle of driving in the second to last stake, my phone buzzed.
“Yes?”
“Anthony, how are you doing? I have been having a lovely day here in Maine visiting with an owner of a wonderful little deli.”
“Really,” I said unenthusiastically.
“Oh, yes, it was quite delightful. I have a little problem that I could use your help solving.”
I leaned on the handle of my hammer, “Go on.”
“Um, some sort of beast has been wreaking havoc in a certain town that, for now, will remain nameless. People have been ‘disappearing.’ I told a good friend I would handle it. If you could go sort things out, that would be great.”
“How much?”
“Well, that would depend on what you find. I’ll transfer you fifty thousand in the morning to cover the trouble of looking into it. Once you have an idea of what we are dealing with, send Gregory your price.”
“Send me the coordinates, and I will leave first thing in the morning.”
“Very good, I will have Gregory pick you up and fill you in on the details.”
One of the leather shoes twitched. “Sorry, but I’m going to have to cut you short, Hobbs. I’m in the middle of something.”
“Very good, side work, always commendable. Thanks again,” Hobbs hung up.
I looked down at my phone, then over at the now writhing leg. I sighed and slammed my sledge into the stake, ending the writhing.
Hours later, I sat in my small cabin in the Smoky Mountains. From the sky, the cabin was invisible because of the thick tree cover. I didn’t have much time before I met up with Gregory. I took my camera from its case and began downloading the files onto the computer I kept in the cabin. I then went through my laptop and saved everything from the last hunt onto a thumb drive. I stuck it into my main computer and saved it. The work of destroying the old laptop and thumb drive would be quick. I carried them and a small screwdriver outside to my firepit. I set the laptop and flash drive on a flat rock and opened the back of the laptop. I scooped a generous amount of thermite directly onto the hardware inside. I lit it and watched as it ate through the components and started burning the stone. With that done, I grabbed my bags, taking care to pull a fresh laptop for this hunt from my supply closet, and headed out.
I dropped my truck off at my storage unit and met up with Gregory at a local gas station an hour later. I climbed into his Toyota after tossing my two bags in the trunk. He looked like a professor: white male in his forties with a button up shirt and slacks.. You would have never guessed he was employed by a guy like Hobbs.
“It’s good to see you, Anthony. Hope you’ve been well.”
I smiled; Gregory was a good man, one of those people who seemed to care. “I have been fine; my work has been a bit sparse the last few months, so I was glad when your boss called. How have you been?”
“Oh, I have been well, just running errands and spending time with my family. We took a cruise this summer and it was nice to get a break from work.”
“I bet it was. Hobbs must’ve missed your assistance.”
“That he did,” he replied with a soft smile, “Speaking of which, there have been a bunch of ‘disappearances.’ As you might have guessed, Hobbs sent a man in to investigate and deal with the problem. He’s currently dying in a trauma unit.”
“How sure are you that it wasn’t human and not just some twisted killer?”
“Oh, we’re very sure. We have a photo and it’s clearly not human. Take a look.” He reached into his front pocket and handed me the photo. The perspective seemed to be from an elevated window that was caked in dust. On the dark street below, a creature stood on four legs. It appeared to be thin and mangy. Even in the darkness, one eye shone bright pink, though the facial features were obscured by darkness.
“Do you know what it is?” Gregory asked.
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“I don’t, but I can tell you this: whatever it is, it’s probably not reincarnated.”
“Why do you say that?”
“The eyes. They shine. If it were dead, they would suck in the light and not be as reflective. That said, that is not always the case.”
“Interesting. Why is that?”
“I don’t know, but I do have to agree with you; it is definitely not human.”
“It tore our man up. Long gashes and cuts everywhere, and there were chunks of flesh missing where it had bitten him.”
“Did it swallow?”
“Well, there were no pieces left. I suppose it must’ve,” Gregory shrugged.
“The other victims, what were they like?”
“We don’t know. They are all missing.”
“Great,” I groaned, “I’m betting that we won’t find them then.”
“Probably not.”
We drove in silence for a long time. Hours later, we entered a medium-sized city and pulled into the back parking lot of a hotel. We got out, and I pulled out my bags. He led me to one of the rooms and opened the door with a key card. “Come on in,” he said as he handed me the key card and a set of car keys. “These are for the old green Jeep outside. It’s a 1999 Cherokee, but don’t let the dents and rust fool you. All the inner workings have been replaced. It is reliable and will get you where you need to go. Registration and all of that are in the glove box. It’s the same alias as always.” He paused long enough to look at me. “One more thing,” he reached into his pocket and tossed me a thumb drive, “all we know about the creature is on this.”
I caught it. “Thanks, I will get right on it.
“I will give you a call in a weeks’ time,” with that he was out the door and gone.
I walked into the hotel room. It was ground level with the Jeep right outside my door. The room was fairly standard with two stereotypical queen size beds, a set of nightstands and a desk and television. I tossed my bags on the far bed by the bathroom and turned on my laptop. I inserted the thumb drive and opened the single folder it contained.
In the file, there were pictures from Google Maps with markings of where the people had gone missing, and photos of strange tracks and claw marks found close to the locations. Much of it looked like it was from the local police. The area was huge, hundreds of square miles of wooded mountains dotted with small towns. This was going to be a lot of work. I set the laptop down and retrieved my tools from one of my bags: my semi automatic 12 gauge shotgun, crossbow, an AR-15 chambered in .308 and the .45 1911 that my mentor Victor gave me. I double checked that they were loaded and ready. I slid the 1911 into my side holster under my arm, threw on my leather jacket, and walked out the door.
I was feeling good. My last job had gone smoothly. True, I was bitten more than I had liked, but it was to be expected when hunting vampires. The two hundred-thousand-dollar commission should be hitting my account after emailing the evidence to Chris. I fired up the Jeep and spent the rest of the day driving around the city and the surrounding countryside. Nothing felt off the whole day. I did drive near some patches of ground that I could sense held echoes of long dead bodies, but that’s nothing out of the ordinary.
I pulled into the local Wal-Mart and grabbed the extra things I needed: a pack of large zip ties, a length of para cord, and groceries for at least a week, primarily Cliff bars and other grab-and-go items. As I walked out to the parking lot, I saw two guys standing next to my Jeep. One looked up from the cigarette he was smoking, making eye contact with me. The other kept glancing around the parking lot looking very paranoid. I shifted my groceries to my left hand, freeing my right so it could quickly get to my 1911. When I was a few parking spaces away, I stopped next to a big black suburban that would give me some cover.
“How’s it going?” I asked.
The one with the cigarette took a long drag. “Been better. You Hobbs’ man? If so, I hope you will do better than the last guy he sent in.”
“You’re friends of his?” If these men were associates of Hobbs, I should have gotten a call before they contacted me.
“No, but we work for a friend of his.” The man flicked his cigarette to the ground and crushed it under his boot. “Our lead man is dead, and we need help transporting the package we are holding.”
“Package?”
The two looked at each other. “We will handle the package; all we need from you is to deal with the problem. That is what you are getting paid for, to my understanding.”
“It is.”
“Well, let’s get going then.”
“You get my employer to call me and explain the situation, and I will go with you. Until then, I’m sure you can understand why I can’t deviate from my job.”
The man pulled another cigarette from a pack in his pocket and leaned back against my Jeep, lighting it. “I’ll give our boss a call,” He pulled out a phone and punched in a number.
I set my groceries down and leaned against a light pole next to the suburban.
“We found Hobbs’ man. He wants to hear from Hobbs before he joins us. We will be on our way once he gets the call. Unlikely, but it should be fine. The package is in the vault, and it’s welded shut. Whatever, they can’t get to it.” He hung up and looked over at me. “Our boss is working on getting in contact with your boss.” He took another drag on his cigarette.
His friend looked over at me. “Can you really handle these things?” He was twitchy and unable to keep eye contact with me. Always looking around. I couldn’t tell whether it was caused by drugs or extreme paranoia.
“You run into it?” I asked conversationally.
“We did,” said the one leaning on my hood. “They came out of the forest after we secured the package in the vault. It would have been better had a few of us stayed in the vault as well. Bullets didn’t do crap to it, and they killed two of us. We were lucky to get to the car. They’re fast, but they can’t outrun a Mercedes.”
“There’s more than one of them?”
“Yeah,” he shook his head and took another drag, “I dunno, maybe three or four of them.”
“What do they look like?”
“Not sure how to describe it, a little wolf-like maybe? They ambushed us in the dark. I will tell you what though -- their eyes are quite pink.”
“Hm, are you sure you shot them?”
The twitchy man looked at me, holding my gaze for the first time. “I dumped two mags of 7.62 into one of them. Center mass. As we pulled away, it was back up and almost took a chunk out of the bumper.”
My phone buzzed. “Give me a moment,” I said to the twitchy man, pulling out my phone. It was Hobbs. “Hello.”
“My ‘friend’ says he sent two men to help you find the beast and transport a package. I understand you’re hesitant to join them, but my Lord, I was in the middle of something awfully engrossing and a call from this individual totally ruined the experience.”
The line went dead before I could get a word out. I slid my phone back into my pocket. “Well, the two of you check out. Where are we going?”
“Deep in the woods. You got what you need to handle these things?” asked the man with the cigarette.
“Most likely. If not, I’m good at improvising.”
He stood up, “Follow us.” He pulled out a set of keys and the suburban I was standing behind beeped and unlocked.
“You have a good eye for cover,” the man with the cigarette smiled, “she’s bulletproof.”