“Who’d you say were again?” the farmer asked, frowning at me.
I sighed, already wishing I was back in bed. But no, I had bills to pay, groceries to get, and an old farmer who clearly needed hearing aids to deal with. Which was why I was out in the wet, cold, muddy, middle-of-nowhere Blue Springs Virginia, looking for trouble.
Well, someone else’s trouble, at any rate, but trouble nonetheless.
“Taylor Kavern,” I said, again, through gritted teeth. “Independent Retrieval, Extraction, and Extermination Expert. We’re usually called Hammer Jacks for short.”
“Oh right, one of them monster hunter and alien bounty hunters from the news,” The old farmer nodded in understanding. I twitched, trying hard to not turn around and walk out of the job then and there.
I hated being associated with those idiots.
All the other Hammer Jacks had been giving me shit for months over that mess.
One damn job that I did with those ‘bounty hunter’ bozo’s, which they secretly recorded and uploaded, and now everyone thinks I’m some sort of new age, real life ghostbuster, but for monsters or other big bad problem causers.
Like the one I’d supposedly been hired to deal with here, though I was fast wondering if either I was at the wrong place, or it was just a misunderstanding. I mean, how the hell had this guy even gotten my number?
“Larry, stop giving the boy a hard time!” his equally old wife admonished him, coming out onto their porch to glare at old farmer Larry, who was now chuckling.
“Oh Gabby, I wanted to see how far I could mess with him!” he looked back at me and started laughing. “You looked ready to chew rocks and spit gravel when I mentioned those Hunter punks from TV. Take it they didn’t impress you overly much?”
“Pack of idiot freshman college brats running around spending more time recording themselves doing stuff on their phones and talking about it, than actually doing their damn job?” I asked chuckling in exasperation at the old bastard who’d solidly gotten one over on me. “No, I can’t imagine why I’d ever have any problems with those damn fools.”
“What fool name did they give you again?” he asked, grinning at me. Somehow I suspected he already knew the answer, but I was here to work so…
“Timber Wolf,” I ground out with a sigh. “Trust a bunch of city kids and college snowflakes to think that was an edgy and mysterious nickname.”
The old farmer just laughed in my face, hard. Not that I could blame the man. I mock-groaned and chuckled as well. It was pretty damn funny, from a certain point of view. Or even most points of view, if I was being honest.
Didn’t mean I had to like it though.
“Should you really be calling them kids, Mr. Not-Even-in-My-Thirties-Yet?” the smart-ass old farmer chuckled, to which I just grinned and shrugged back.
“I’ve got an old soul.”
We both laughed at that, before he finally turned serious.
“Trouble is mostly this way, but I’ll be damned if I can figure it out.” He led me over to his barn and silos that sat next to a few of his fields. Halfway to the actual barn I could see what he meant.
Crops randomly torn up by what looked like massive tires, bullet holes, burns that I knew came from various high energy non-kinetic weapons, (i.e. lasers or plasma or whatever). There were cuts in some of the buildings, the fields, and the dirt, oddly enough, that looked like they were from tiny swords. And various holes, again in the fields, that looked like various levels of explosions ranging from big fireworks to infantry grenades.
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In short, it was a mess, and there was not a damn thing natural about it.
I was ready to walk away again once I started getting an inkling of the destruction that was on display. My bread and butter came mostly from dealing with actual monsters, or animals mutated into monster creatures from lunatic mad scientists, and occasionally taking on small groups of organized bad guys.
Not going up against what looked like a small regiment of explosive happy soldiers that looked like they were drunk off their ass 24/7, and also weren’t getting along, violently.
I glanced around as he slowly led me to the barn, and I noticed a nice, fairly new looking tractor sitting next to the barn. I eyed it, wondering why it hadn’t been blown to bits like the field, when I noticed a symbol on the front of it.
Basically on its face.
It was an emblem, like a manufactures logo, but it was one I recognized: Two crossed swords with three bright stars above them.
“Oh shit,” I muttered. I knew that damn symbol. Looking at that tractor, then glancing at the mess of the field and the backyard, I suddenly had a pretty good idea where at least some of the damage had come from.
Weird thing was, the ones who had the symbol of that group usually weren’t so violence happy. Not unless…
“Oh please don’t tell me.” I groaned as we walked past the suspiciously shiny new tractor to the barn.
“What was that?” Larry asked, glancing at me as we came to the doors.
“That’s a nice tractor.” I told him, looking from it to him with a deadpan stare. “Around when did it show up?”
He grinned and winced at me. “‘Bout six months ago.” He chuckled at my look of surprise. “I wondered if you’d be able to tell. Runs like a dream.”
“Really?” I asked, rolling my eyes. “I’d have never guessed. So when did the backyard war start up?”
“‘Bout three weeks ago,” Larry sobered up, opening the doors and heading inside. “Started small, but got worse every damn day. Wasn’t sure who to call, and was even less sure who would be willing to show up.”
“And I’m guessing you didn’t want any version of G-Men?” I asked annoyed. “Not even the military version? Like the G.I. Jacks? I know they respond for stuff like this.”
“Yeah, but they tend to go all full-scale war as an opening move,” Larry muttered, sounding annoyed. “I already had enough of that as is. Figured I’d try a Hammer Jack first, and then saw advertisements for you and those wannabe bounty hunters.”
“What advertisements?” I shuddered, staring at him in horror.
“Just silly Facebook commercials.” Larry shrugged. “Me and a bunch of other farmers use facebook to trade crop info, water techniques, fertilizer prices and help on law stuff. Some of their silly advertisements popped up, and they used you as the poster boy.”
“Oh God help me!” I groaned. Thank God it was on Facebook. Only fan groups for specific properties really used that stupid site anymore. If it had been put on one of the newer social sites, I’d have probably started getting stalked by groupies, or hounded by dumbass activists who had no actual cause except the latest trend.
“It wasn’t bad.” the old man laughed, pointing to the wall of tools. “Time to see if you live up to your rep, Timber Wolf.”
I shuddered again. “Not the worst nickname, but it’s still cringy as hell. Honestly it sounds like a theme park ride.”
“Did they all have nicknames?” he asked leading us over to an impressive wall of tools. He didn’t have cattle, so he’d converted his barn into the ultimate tool warehouse for farming. He had a lot in here too, all of it untouched.
I found it odd that three weeks of low scale war in his own backyard, a stones throw from his house and his wife, had only wrecked some of his nearby field, and some of his backyard.
Frankly, it was weird, but if I was stuck dealing with what I thought I was, I knew that weird could mean anything.
“Yeah, they did.” I muttered darkly, looking over the wall we had come to a stop at. “The leader of the little wannabe’s passed them out towards the end of the hunt. Jackass actually named himself, I kid you not, the Mad Goose Wizard. If I hadn’t needed the pay so bad at the time I’d have left right then and there!”
“Wow.” Larry burst out laughing. “That’s rough.”
“Yeah it is.” I laughed with him, noticing one tool that also looked suspiciously brand new, without any dust, mud, or wear and tear on it. “Got a feeling this is going to be rough as well.”
Hidden in plain sight my ass. I thought darkly, staring at the damn tool, and the symbol on it. Another symbol, like a manufactures logo, that I also knew well. An upside down triangle, with a hammer pointed handle to tip inside it, and a pair of thunderbolts running between the hammerhead and the handle along the triangles lines.
That explained the damage. I thought darkly, looking the thing over. And what else would it choose to alter itself into on a farm that could fit their general maniac mindset?
I looked over at Larry while gesturing with my thumb at the damn thing. He nodded without saying a word.
A damn weed-whacker.