Water burned my head and neck as the two men in white hazmat outfits held me under the showered. All around me was white upon white, upon white, the only exception was Agent Smith who smirked just a bit as his mirrored sunglasses reflected my discomfort.
“Strip her down
“You wanna play duck hunt?” Camden held out the pistol shaped controller and a distinct sigh escaped me.
A furrow formed in Cam’s brow as he looked at us in confusion, “I know it’s an old game, but it’s still fun.”
The smug laughter of the bird dog from the game echoed in my memory as Mog shot me a look, and heat rose in my cheeks.
“I want to play Duck Hunt. I played Duck Season on Steam,” Mog grabbed the gun and rushed down the long passage screaming, “I got the trophy the first time around.”
For a moment, we both stood there watching her go like a kid who had too much candy.
“School buses, my guy,” Camden said out of nowhere.
What the hell did school buses have to do with anything?
“Excuse me?”
“Oh, um,” Cam shrugged his big, furry shoulders and scratched the back of his head again. “I thought you were looking at the tunnel. It’s an old school bus.”
Glancing around the bunker, I realized he was right. The riveted curved roof tops, the familiar height, I was standing in the middle of three school busses.
The entrance was clearly a reinforced concrete barrier. Even with the buses as the base, the walls were lined with heavy steel panels and girders, the rust somehow kept at bay over all the years. An yet it was charming and homey.
"Wow, Preppers meets Tiny Houses," I said and turned around taking the entry in.
Walking over Camden patted the walls and looked up at them lovingly, like it were a pet or something, “Fifty years ago, no one wanted anything to do with land out here. It’s just rocks and scrub brush. My grandfather and his Pa purchased the land and built this bunker out of fifteen school buses. My dad kind of forgot about it, so now it’s kind of my hideout.”
“Why school busses?” I asked, but a thousand other questions were going through my head. I mean, how was Mogwai so perky after that beat down? Who the hell was that monster, and why was it after me?
Cam Chuckled, “The roofs were designed to be extra durable, so its extra secure. Besides they were cheap. My kind have been hiding out in your realm for ages," he laughed unexpectedly then awkwardly added, "Its like our vacation home, but with enough space and beds for a family of twenty."
Looking around again I gawked. "Twenty? How in the hell?"
"We planned to be able to move here, and if needed hold up here for the duration of a war back home. We, The Men of the Mountain are drafted into armies quickly. So quickly that there aren't a lot of us left. So..." He turned motioning to the bunker.
"That is pretty damn amazing. And no one knows its hear? I find that hard to believe." I said without thinking.
"The land is owned by my family, but then leased to the BLM. With all mineral rights and water rights leased out no one fights us on ownership, and it provides an income," he said then carried on about geothermal power, and the stability of temperature at depths greater than fifty feet, until I couldn't care less what the dude was saying.
“I figured if I was going to be safe from the bounty hunters, it would be here,” he concluded, and that brought me out of my head.
“Stop laughing at me, you stupid dingo!” Mogwai yelled from somewhere in the complex.
Dumbly, I laughed and sputtered, “Bounty?”
Again, Cam shrugged again. “Yeah, I mean I knew my parents would find me if they REALLY wanted to, but I figured this would take a little while. But, I guess it was time to check in. I'm just surprised you the Night Gaunt. I mean it went right through my other defenses, those poor little guys. Do you think any of them lived?"
Cam sighed awkwardly again and I wasn't sure I could figure out his disposition. It was like he was casual, but then, not.
In the silence Mog screamed, “Die, Die, Die. None of you winged flocks are getting away!”
Cam ignored her and just fixed me with a patient yet sad look, “ I mean, it wasn’t there to massacre the Valkyrie moth tribe, it was after someone.”
“Valkyrie moth --- Tribe?”
“MOG SMASH! I’ll pull your damn wings off! It’s duck soup tonight. RAAAWWWRRR!”
“Yeah, like the little dudes must have put up one hell of a battle. Lord Mark Anthony never stood a chance against the Night Gaunt, I saw their IFF transponders blink out one by one. He was so brave,” he said, and made the sign of the cross before kissing his fingers and throwing a salute to heaven.
I felt my cheeks pale.
“The Brownie Militia has always been the guardians of my home. I set out milk and cream for Mark Anthony’s children. For Little Cindy Lou I’d leave a sugar cube,” Cam slowly shook his lowered head, “It was our little secret,” he gulped in air to cover a sob.
“Oh, my god,” I said and realized Cam looked devastated. Nervously I looked around, hoping not to see photographs of a Brownie lover or something on his wall.
“Is there anyway I can attach my laser sight to this NES Zapper? I’ll burn their wings off!” Mog yelled joyfully.
His breath shuddered in his chest as he looked to heaven, “Tomorrow was going to be her coming of age party, God, why now?”
“Camden, dude I had no idea,” I pulled him into a hug and as he softly cried, he wrapped his arms around my waist and pressed his furry face into my chest and breathed, “She was too young!”
Mogwai emerged from the room holding the laser pointer, some tape, and the Zapper gun. “I didn’t know you were into harry guys, but if you need some space, I can turn the TV up.”
“it’s not like that!” I hissed and petted his thick brown hair. "Can't you see this boy is grieving?"
Mog’s head turned to the side and a confused look covered her face. “He has his hands on your ass, and his face between your tits," she was standing there looking at me with a confused scowl on her face, before adding," Don’t you know when you’re being groped?”
Camden was suddenly statue sill, and I felt the heat rise in my cheeks once more. At that moment, I knew Mog was right, and the little creep was just trying to cop a feel!
“There is no Valkyrie moth riding tribe of Brownies, is there?” I asked, feeling stupid.
Mogs’ brown hair swung in front of her face like a dark veil that hid her face, and I wondered if my hair dresser could pull that off so I could hide in moments like this?
“No, Cindy Lou, with a taste for sugar cubes?”
Mog laughed and headed back toward the main room as she taped the laser site to the Zapper. “According to the un-natural world.com website. Brownies can’t eat sugar, it’s like chocolate for dogs. You got played.”
“You are a disgusting little furry turd! How could you do that?” I screamed and shoved Cam across the room.
Cam stumbled and fell, then rolled with and popped back on his feet grinning, “easy, you’re here to bring me in. If my least free breath must be with humans, I might as well enjoy the best parts. Beside I've been hiding down here for months. Its been lonely,” he whined.
Sure, I wanted to kill him. I thought about drawing my pistol and putting a round or two of buckshot in his ass. But, the bounty had a condition that the jerk had to be alive. So, I settled by cuffing him on the ear instead.
"Ouch!" he grunted as his hand rubbed his ear vigorously.
“Are you telling me I am stuck in here with a little perv?” I yelled at Mogwai.
Cam leaned against the wall and pretended to examine his nails. “We could be stuck here a long time. You know if you get lonely too…”
“Oh My God! Learn some manners you gross little skunk ape!”
"You know what they say about the size of a mans feet?" Cam double pumped his eyebrows and leered.
“Only till daybreak. Night Gaunt’s can’t come out in the sunlight,” Mog chimed in.
I reached out to cuff his ear again, but he danced away from me, laughing deviously. "Maybe it wasn't the stink bog that we got the name for," he roared with laughter, 'maybe that's why they call us skunk apes,” he double pumped his heavy brows.
***
“I understand you captured the little tike. Did he give you much difficulty, Ms. Remington?” Henry Holiday said over the phone.
“Shot Gun!” Cam yelled and claimed the passenger’s side of the Jeep.
Dawn had crested the basalt cliffs around six in the morning, and once we’d hiked back up to the Jeep. Below us the city was waking up. The city lights shimmered behind the leaves of massive cottonwood trees, while closer the cherry Orchards were flush with greed leaves and dark little bing cherry's.
Soon refugees from high tax districts would be out in their expensive SUVs with their baskets to pick cherries, or had down to the river just beyond the trees to seek out raspberries, or perhaps the local nurseries. Like my life, this place was changing, and I was both excited and annoyed by the changes.
"Can you do your sight seeing later?" Cam yelled.
I finally had cell service once again. Camden, though far from a perfect gentleman, had made breakfast, so we weren’t even hungry on the way. Though Mog complained incessantly about missing her coffee.
“You didn’t tell me he was an adolescent run away with a perverted sense of humor,” I said blandly, "and what the hell is that smell around here? It stinks like a pig lot."
“The boy was more than a handful, I take it? Did he fair okay overall?” Henry asked evenly.
Cam waved at me from the Jeep and I sneered back at him in return, “he groped me under false pretenses. He tried to peek while I was pissing, And the little shit offered to buy my panties for a thousand dollars, but no, it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle.”
“That sounds like quite the fascinating tale, Ms. Remington. I take it you are a thousand dollars richer for the experience, or are you to morally prohibitive to conduct yourself in such a manner?”
Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.
I wished there was some static I could hide behind in that moment, but there wasn’t, so I went for irritation in my tone. “I don’t wear panties.”
The laughter was full, truly amused, not mocking or mean spirited. There was something just plain likable about Henry, something charming, and I found myself chuckling as well.
“I am sure you more than earned your bounty, and the battle with the Night Gaunt, that will add an impressive amount of Exp as well. Mr. Squirrel will help you allocate it as your game master. I’d wager you will even go up a level,” Henry said once he had stopped laughing.
“Yeah, that level stuff, you can shove that up your ass old son, I want paid,” I growled.
“I think some recompense is in order, shall we say, fifteen thousand American dollars?”
My jaw dropped. I didn’t make forty thousand all last year, and here I had made it in less than a week?
“Maybe this job wasn’t as bad as I thought. I mean, no, I didn’t want to fight another night ghoul, or whatever, but will they all pay this good?” I swallowed down my greed and waited for him to answer.
“Night Gaunt, it’s called a Night Gaunt,” Mog called from the Jeep.
Henry’s laugh over the phone was just as sweet as it was in real life, I realized as he said, “It’s not uncommon to get a greater than simply livable wage from this kind of work. Camden, there, is a child, and not much of a challenge. I am quite certain that is why you went after him.”
“Yeah, he was supposed to be safer, but what about that Night Gaunt?” I said and Mog gave me a thumbs up from the Jeep, clearly pleased I’d gotten it right.
“Truly a unworldly terror. I am pleased you survived an encounter with such a creature. I will have to see about finding some kind of a ward, or talisman, to protect you from it in the future,” he said.
“Why didn’t you give me that before I accepted this mission?” I said, his charm much less effective now that we were talking about my life.
“My dear, such amulets are powerful and expensive. I couldn’t just give you one any more than your mother could have given you Hollywood. You’ll have to purchase such an item if I can find one. Besides, we had no idea you would encounter a Night Gaunt.” he explained.
My temper was getting hot. “Wait, I have to buy some good luck charm off you, so I can hunt down bounties for you?”
“WAP” started playing loudly from the Jeep and I looked over just in time to see Mogwai slap Cam on the ear.
“Drive controls the Radio! Shotgun shuts the hell up,” Mog said with finality.
“Bounty hunting is a risk and rewards game. Whether the prey is human or Un-natural, you’d never hunt a dangerous human without the proper weapon for the job. Say, a ballistic vest, and so forth? What ever it is you need to complete the mission.”
Again, there was an uncomfortable silence, and I realized I was shaking my head.
“No, I’m not stupid.” I muttered.
“Precisely. Think of this charm if I can find it, as your spiritual ballistic vest. This I will do for you with no finder’s fee, because you work for me. Think of it as a perk.”
“A perk?” I nearly shouted in disbelief.
An amused tone returned to his voice. “Yes, I have grown fond of you. But, for now, please deliver young Master Camden to the Convention Center. Squirrel can help you with your experience, and Chloe will expedite the return your charge to his parents. Is that understood, or do you need a moment to take notes?”
“Oh, screw you, Henry. The last thing I want to do is sit there with Squirrel and have him tally my EXP.” I said without heat, but no less pleased about the situation.
He harrumphed, or at least that's what I thought until it came again, and again.
Rumph
Rumph
Rumph
Rumph
The sound washed over me like waves until the rhythm became clear and I turned as the wind came up.
"A Real Black Helicopter!" Mogwai yelled over the subdued duel rotor wash of the black Chinook that hoovered just off the side of the hill. Hoovering there it commanded attention and authority, more so as men fast roped down the back.
Once out they brought their rifles to their shoulders and proceeded to canvas the area with a tactically efficiency I hadn't witnessed since my army days. Dressed in Tactical MOPP gear the soldiers quickly spread forming a perimeter around us most pointing out defensively, others pointing in, guns leveled at us.
"SCP!" Mogwai screamed, her little finger pointed at the symbol on the side of the chopper as she hopped up and down in her seat with a huge grin on her face.
I put my hands in the air immediately. Moths, skunk apes, and the Night Gaunt I could deal with, but even I wasn't stupid enough to fight the US Government.
"Ms. Remington. I had hoped we would never meet again," Agent Smith said as he took my cell phone from my hand and looked at the caller ID.
"Mr. Holliday, I am afraid that Ms. Remington will have to call you back," he said and smiled that eerie smile as he hung up my phone.
and use the brushes. She was contaminated by the Night Gaunt, leave no part of her free from decontamination,” Smith said evenly, but I knew his sadistic soul was delighting in my situation.
The men in white grabbed my shirt at the collar, and with one tug tore it off me, exposing my quickly reddening body.
Smith’s head moved exaggeratedly as he looked me up and down, taking in every aspect of my now nude body, “Ms. Remington, you’re sure you never did time at a correctional institution? You’re built like a cell block bull.”
“Fuck off Smith! I’m calling a lawyer you son of a bitch!” I screamed, but he only shook his head and motioned to his men to grab the toilet brushes.
A fine dust was thrown all over my body, quickly turning to paste as the water hit it. “Scrub her well! This should be the best exfoliating scrub she ever had. Scrub her till she’s free of all her contamination, her filthy stink, her disgusting soul.”
I screamed. The brushes were all over my body, tearing my nipples, assaulting my sex, and making my raw skin flush with blood.
“Yes, wash her dirty sins away!” Smith cackled, then froze.
Slowly, his eyes tracked down and as I followed his gaze, I could see the four talons sticking out of his guts. “God, save-“ He uttered before his body as suddenly ripped in half, the blood splashing out against the white walls, and flowing into the water on the floor.
Where he stood moments ago, a creature made of shadow, slim and fog appeared. It was thin and emancipated. Its arms were near skeletal except for tight knots of muscles that moved like living creatures under the skin.
“Night Gaunt,” I hissed and tugged to free myself from my captures grip, but even as I did their claws tore into my skin. Glancing right and left, I saw two more Night Gaunts, smaller but no less inescapable, ripping into my arms as they held me in place.
I felt my muscles strain and the skin tear away as I pulled myself free and scampered toward the door. For a moment, I thought I had freedom, but then my feet slipped on the wet floor and I went down in a jumble. “NO!” I screamed and fought the slippery floor as I tried to regain my feet.
The creature moved closer, its faceless visage, its void of a maw pulled my focus deeper into its mocking abyss.
Again my hand slipped, my feet found no purchase and I flopped around like a stripper in a baby oil wrestling contest.
“Your soul is ours”
“Your soul is ours”
“Your soul is ours”
It called in that multi-tone voice that crawled right up under my skin.
Water hit me again and I squeezed my eyes shut against it.
{Congratulations! You have received, The Sigil of Iron Will.}
{Congratulations! You have received, The Sigil of Awakened Psychic Awareness.}
{+2 to wisdom! Something are better left unknown, but you out of luck when it comes to that! Welcome to the world of the Un Natural! I don't mean your normal Saturday night at Humping Hanna's Country Bar either!}
{+4 Will Power! That's right you are as stubborn as the mule your mother always claimed you were!}
Cold! The water was cold this time, the searing heat vanished, and I felt a confusing shock rush through me.
“Wake up! You’re having that nightmare again!” Mogwai pleaded even as I pulled away from her, drawing my legs up under me.
“Maybe she needs to see a Chaplin?” A familiar voice called, and I knew Felix was somewhere nearby.
“Or, maybe an exorcist,” Mogwai muttered and draw back to the kitchen table where her mug of coffee steamed.
The nightmares had been relentless since, The Incident at Frozen Dog Lane, and they weren’t just beating up my rest cycle.
On my arms, new scratches beaded with blood, some on top of the ones from last night. “I’m looking like I went three rounds with a bobcat. I groaned and rubbed my eyes gingerly.
“I kicked your racked when you mewed like a cub in your sleep. Doesn’t seem to help much.” Felix joined Mog at the table, and she poured him a canteen cup of the dark roast.
“It doesn’t matter. I’ve had nightmares before, everyone does after some crazy shit went down. I’ll be fine,” I groaned and got up from the couch.
“I am sure they will, Boss. But nightmares aren’t always just nightmares, who knows what lurks in the passages of the unconscious mind?” A deep male voice said.
My eyes popped wide open as I Identified the voice. “Camden? What the hell are you doing in my house?”
Standing by the sink, Camden stood pealing potatoes, while Henry Holliday looked on with amusement.
Cam grinned and looked back to his task, “Henry brought me.”
Henry pushed the brim of his newly acquired black cowboy hat and smiled at me glassy eyed, and amused, “Camden’s tribe decided the current disposition of the Frozen Dog Lane bunker wasn’t agreeable. In a unanimous vote, they sent Camden back and named you the conditional proprietor.”
“What? No, I…”
“The imposition isn’t without reward,” Henry said and walked over to the table and joined Mog and Felix as all three sat staring at me.
“I don’t want a reward!” I groused.
Henry slipped his hand into the inner pocket of his suit pocket and pulled out an envelope. “Now that is a shame. The bounty wasn’t insignificant.”
Pressing my palms to my eyes I tried to will the Night Gaunt to come back. “Not that reward! I worked for that bounty!”
“I thought as much, but all jests aside, Camden’s Bunker houses a vast library of supernatural and occult volumes, and it sis warded against the un-natural. For a Bounty Hunter in your line, it is perhaps the only safe haven you will find. I would think those rewards would make it worth your time to help monitor young Mr. Camden.
“I don’t need it! I can fend for myself and besides,” I motioned to Mogwai,” she can find anything I need on the occult online.”
“Not really Rhett. Henry is right, that place is a gold mine. I checked out his library when I was pretending to play duck hunt. Cam’s a regular warehouse 13 librarian,” Mogwai said with a nearly contained greedy smile.
“Rhett, I know I didn’t make a great first impression, but I think I really could help you. If you’re having nightmares about the Night Gaunt, and its leaving marks, the Bunker could ward you against its continued psychic attacks. You’d be safe there,” Cam said and stuffed a hunk of pealed potato in his mouth.
“It has a pretty good area for an armory,” Felix added in with a shrug, though he refused to meet my eyes.
“All that, and what do I have to do? Keep Camden on the leash? I asked, hardly believing I was even entertaining the idea, though a good night’s sleep sounded nice.
“I also cook!
Henry nodded, his normally Cheshire Cat grin growing more serious and contemplative “more or less, “ he wavered, “that and monitor The FDL breach.”
Standing, I stomped mincingly toward Henry, then realized that once again I was nearly naked! “Where the fuck are my clothes?”
Reduced to panties and a sports bra, my body was suddenly the object of a lot of male eyes. At least until my glare made everyone but Cam look away. Cam, mouth open into a tiny O, dropped his half-peeled potato into the pot, only flinching when the water hit him in the face.
“I put them in the wash, they were all sweaty!” Mogwai confessed completely un-apologetic. “Besides, I left your underwear, now you just look like you did back when you fought in the UFC.”
“I never fought in the UFC, I never went to prison, and I am not some fitness model! Leave my clothes alone!” I nailed each of them to the wall with a glare, but Camden kept furtively glancing in my direction.
“Then why do you have the prison tattoos?” Felix said with a huff and stunned I found myself looking myself over.
On my left forearm, a mark stood out that I’d never seen before. It looked like something a kid would have drawn. It looked like a six with the top line crossed by the bottom line of a backward seven, then three lines on the spot above the cross and two dots.
Circle Description automatically generated with low confidence
I rubbed at my arm frantically, but it clearly wasn’t coming off, “What the hell is on my arm?”
Camden set down his knife and hurried over, his big hands grasping my arm firmly as he looked down at it. “This is a magic Sigil. Where did you get this?”
“How the hell should I know? I just told you I didn’t know where it came from.”
“Camden fished around in his bib-overalls and came out with a monocle and fitted it to his eye.
“It’s the angelic sigil for Willpower. A type of pictorial signature of an angel or other entity. You are sure you have no idea where it came from?” Cam asked as he examined it.
“You haven’t the strength.”
“Your willpower isn’t enough.”
“Your mind will snap like old bones.”
The words echoed in my memory and a chill ran down my spine as I remembered the Night Gaunt taunting me as it assaulted my mind.
“Oh, you hit a nerve!” Henry called, “Ms. Remington, you just turned a pale as Greek marble.”
“Th…th…the Night Gaunt was mocking me about my will power. I resisted it and that’s when it threw me to the ground,” I said, my voice shaking.
“You resisted a Night Gaunt’s psionic attack?” Henry said with a raised brow.
“I…I couldn’t let it,” I stammered, but Camden looked at me with compassion in his eyes.
“Your mark, it’s the sigil for willpower, it means you have the Iron Will attribute. This is significant,” Cam said and took a deep breath. He looked surprised, excited, and uncertain all at once.
“How?” I asked and pulled my arm away.
“This means you should be able to resist any will based attack, As long as you put a conscious effort into resisting, there isn’t any power that can artificially influence you,” he said, then stood up and went back to pealing potatoes.
“What? That’s it? You’re just going to drop that bomb and go back to being Chef Boy R Dee? Hell’s Bells boy!”
“I figured I shouldn’t overwhelm you. You just woke up,” he replied and rinsed the potatoes.
“I doubt you could shock me any more than being woke up half naked in a room full of people and discovering I have a supernatural tattoo,” I scoffed.
“Tattoos,” Felix said and dipped his head toward my rib cage just under my left breast.
“Oh, hell!” I screamed and tried to lift and press my boob so I could see it, but other than the lower curve I couldn’t see anything.
“There is a mirror in the bathroom,” Mogwai said, as if I didn’t own the place.
In the mirror, my normal appearance greeted me. Five foot seven, dark hair, brown eyes and a build that as, Agent Smith put it, “looked like a cell block bull.” Of course, the circular black tattoo on under my boob was new.
Shape, circle Description automatically generated
“Hells Bells how many of these things are on me?” I yelled and turned to look at myself all over in the mirror.
“That’s the sigil of Awakened Psychic Awareness. It’s most likely why you aren’t freaked out by the Un-natural,” Cam said from right behind me, and despite being able to see him in the mirror I jumped.
“Okay, I still scare you, but for the most part, you react very well when it comes to seeing messed up stuff. It’s not common,” Cam said as his eyes traveled my body like he was looking over a prime rib.
“You don’t scare me! You creep me out!” I scolded him and slammed the door in his face.