I got up the next morning to three voicemails from Chris. I didn’t listen to any of them, I just called him back. He picked up on the first ring. “Anthony, what are these things? We found two. Is the third still out there?”

“I don’t know.”

“I need you down here. We found something rather troubling. Do you know why the cops were called to this house?”

“No.”

“A woman called and claimed she had been kidnapped. They traced the call here. It appears to be a human trafficking ring. Well, not entirely human, I suspect.”

Chris was waiting for me at the base of the drive, and law enforcement surrounded the perimeter of the property. I rode past them and up to Chris. Chris was a man in his late forties with a fit Roman frame. He sported gray stubble and an unbuttoned white collared shirt with no tie. His balding gave away his age. I kicked out my stand and followed him up to the house. “Did you kill both of them or just the one? One is filled with 9mm and the other looks like it also has a touch of forty-five.”

“Both. I borrowed the dead officer’s gun,” I responded.

“Well, it’s too bad you didn’t get here sooner.” We passed the covered bodies of the monsters and a couple body bags.

He led me to a pole barn on the back of the property. Down a cellar door, I could feel the echoes left behind by the dead when we entered. There were five cages made from rebar welded together. Silver wire spiraled around every bar. There was a bed in each cage along with a bucket. A mortuary furnace sat in the back of the room. It was filled with ash and a half-burnt body. In the right back corner was a separate room lined with silver plated steel. A set of chains and handcuffs were bolted to the floor with a drain grate in the middle of the room. A spilled beaker of blood was just out of reach of the chains, the cement floor smeared with it.

“What do you think they were holding?” Chris asked grimly, “vampires, perhaps? Maybe werewolves?”

I nodded in agreement, “Many have died here.”

“Were they hunting them and bringing them here to kill?”

I looked around the hellish room. There were many echoes of the dead here. This was where most of the killing took place. “I find it hard to believe,” I started, “there just aren’t that many horrors. It’s not easy to become a vampire or werewolf. You have to be bitten on a full moon and have a proclivity for it. People often die from a vampire bite or are unaffected. A werewolf bite is more likely to take hold, but it is rare that there is anything left. Can I look at the body in the oven?”

“Put on a cap and gloves. Try not to mess it up,” Chris grunted.

After I got my gloves and hair net, I crawled into the oven next to the body. There was plenty of room; it was the biggest incinerator I had ever been in. I looked at the teeth; they looked normal. The left arm looked mangled, but I couldn’t tell what did it. A werewolf bite seemed likely. I crawled back out, pulling my gloves and my hair net off.

“What do you think?” Chris asked as he leaned against the wall.

“Their teeth are normal. I can’t tell sex. Your techs will have to figure that out, but their left arm is badly mangled. My guess is something bit it, but, again, your techs are going to have to verify. What are your thoughts on all of this?”

Chris looked around the room and took a deep breath in through his nose. “It reeks of human trafficking: the beds, cages, hell, there’s a van with blacked-out windows upstairs in the back of the barn. But, the furnace and provisions for the supernatural makes me think of your profession, no offense. Victor had a place to hold the monsters he was working on if he needed. So, what if it’s a rogue group hunting and killing monsters? It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“There aren’t enough monsters for this big of an operation. There are only two other hunters in the States besides me. Well, one. And we pretty much have a handle on things. I would know about an operation this big.”

“Are they trying to make more monsters?” Chris posed; his expression darkened.

“That’s an unpleasant thought. It would only work ten percent of the time.”

Chris nodded. “You would need to get rid of all the...well, if they didn’t turn,” he looked to the furnace. I hated to admit it, but he was on to something. Lauren had said she was part of a “collection.” I don’t regret killing people, but it would be nice to bring her old master back from the dead and ask. I tried once. It almost killed not only me, but Victor. If I could find Lauren, perhaps she could shine some light on this. My gut twisted a little at the thought of seeing her again after a few nights ago.

“Well, tell me what else your team finds,” I started back for the stairs.

“You don’t want to stick around and see what we dig up firsthand?” Chris asked.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“No, I think I may have run into someone who was funneled through this place. I need to find them. If there is a group making monsters, I will need to hunt them down.” Chris looked interested but didn’t press. If I wanted his help, he knew I would ask.

“The monsters you killed in the house, where do they fit into all this? From what I have heard, they have been terrorizing the surrounding area.”

“I don’t know, Chris. Victor would know at least what type of anomaly they are, but he took his book with him. I’m compiling mine, but I have a few new entries to jot down.”

Chris nodded, “Well, I would suggest making two copies of your book for posterity’s sake.”

I nodded, “Give me a call if you get a lead.”

“Will do.”

I got back to the hotel and sat, not wanting to make the call, but eventually I did. Gregory picked up the phone. “Anthony, how is it going?”

“Rough. I killed two of them but had to call in my FBI contact to smooth things over. They killed three cops before I managed to put them down.”

“I see. Were the monsters all killed?”

“I’m not sure, but it appears there is a group making anomalies or at least trafficking vampires and possibly werewolves. If you could poke around and see what you can find, we can hash out an agreement.”

“I think that can be arranged,” Gregory responded.

“Could you send me the location of the Jeep? It has gotten away from me, and I would like to get it back.”

“I will route it to your phone. How did you lose it?”

I had a pang of guilt, “Things got complicated.”

“Well, in any case, a live update is loading on your phone. It appears it hasn’t moved for ten hours or so. It’s in the middle of the woods.”

“I best get it then. Thank Gregory.” I hung up.

I picked up the old clothes Lauren had been wearing from off the bathroom floor and stuffed them in my backpack, along with one and a half box of 45s. That done, I headed back to my storage unit to pick up my truck. At my unit, I loaded my dirt bike into my truck bed and drove to the vet’s clinic. I walked in and I nodded to Monica. “I’m here to pick up my dog. Could you put a big bag of dog food, a leash, and collar on my tab? I’m in a bit of a rush.”

“Not a problem, honey. You go ahead and get him, and I will get your things.”

I walked in the back and found the young hound sitting lazily in his crate. He perked up when I popped open the door. He was friendly but not nearly as energetic with me as with Lauren. “You are going to help me find your friend,” I rubbed his head roughly, and he licked my hand oblivious to what my words meant. Well, I hoped he would help. The woods were big, and I was almost certain that she had ditched the Jeep. She could have gotten a ride from a passing car, but my gut was saying I needed to get the dog and that she would be out in the woods.

I led him out to the waiting room. A large bag of dog food, a leash, and squeaky dog toy were sitting on the counter. “A little present from us to the lucky little boy on his big day,” Monica beamed at the pup. She smiled at me, triumphant. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I finally got one of your dogs, I thought. I clipped the leash to his collar and threw the fifty-pound dog food bag over my shoulder after tucking the toy in my back pocket.

He sure had a nose. He was sniffing and pulling on the leash every which way as we walked to my truck. I opened the door and he jumped in, immediately finding his way to my pack. Maybe this wasn’t as terrible of an idea as I had assumed. He either wanted a Cliff bar or could smell Lauren’s old clothing.

As I drove down the highway, I cut open the big bag of dog food in the passenger seat and filled two-gallon Zip Lock bags. We might be out there for a couple days. The hound kept trying to get up front, so I took a handful and tossed it in the back of the truck. He busied himself finding the scattered kibble, and I was able to fill the two bags in peace.

We found the Jeep deep in the woods around noon. Lauren had driven off the highway and weaved through the trees for five miles or so before running out of gas. There was no sign of Lauren anywhere. I walked back to my truck to the sound of baying and yipping. The little guy didn’t like being left out. He was young and unruly. I opened the door, grabbed his leash, pulled the clothes with Lauren’s scent out, and held it to his nose. He sniffed, very interested, and pulled me to the Jeep. Finding it empty, he stuck his nose to the ground and began pulling me deeper into the forest. He yipped and bayed at me when I wouldn’t go along. I tied him to a tree, walked back and unloaded my dirt bike, and strapped on my pack. Hopefully, he had her trail and not a deer or some other animal. I untied his leash and let him loose.

It didn’t take me long to understand why hunters used GPS tracking collars on their dogs. As soon as I took off the leash, he was on his way, smelling and jogging through the forest. I would need to find a trainer for him. I quickly got on my bike and cruised after him. He stopped at a creek where he drank some and laid down in the cool water. He was slower after a bit, but he kept at it after I gave him another whiff of Lauren’s shirt.

An hour later, we came to a cliff with a forty-foot drop. The dog paced from side to side, baying frantically and sniffing down over the edge. I tried calling him off, but he would not respond, so I clipped the leash on him and tied him to a tree. He only quieted his baying when I poured out a couple cups of dog food on the ground. I walked to the edge of the cliff and looked down over the side. Rolling trees and mountains spread out before me. The bloodhound pup munched loudly behind me. I scanned the cliff face below me. There was a small cave opening that I could reach about four feet below where the pup had been yipping and bouncing. I didn’t want to go down. I had sworn off caves; they are terrifying. It took me a good twenty minutes of pacing to get up the nerve to go down.

I pulled a flashlight from my pack and popped the pup off his leash. If something happened to me, I didn’t want him to starve to death tied to a tree. I clambered down to the cave. The pup barked and yelped, wanting to go in with me but unable to make it safely. The cave was just big enough that I could crawl comfortably. I pulled my backpack off and dragged it behind me in order to go feet first into the cave. I would have preferred to crawl forward, but I was afraid that I would get in a position that would make it impossible to turn around.

The pup howled and barked as I crawled and slid my way down through cave. Soon, his baying was muffled, and I could hardly hear him. A couple hundred feet further, the cave narrowed and dived vertically down eight feet, opening into a larger cave. I carefully lowered myself, trying not to think how much this reminded me of the caves in the Rockies. I was starting to get the jitters. I slipped down into the large, open room. It was about the size of a typical living room. I shone my light around. The walls of the cave were damp. It was empty. There was a tunnel at the back. It was much smaller, and I would have trouble fitting. I squatted down and shown my light down the tunnel. Lauren looked at me from ten feet down the crevice, covered in dirt.