Wendy sized up the Skeleton Man. What she found disappointed her quite a bit. Although his long leather duster and strange skeleton-faced mask were intimidating, once you looked beyond them to the man beneath, the illusion fell apart. He was skinny and small, especially compared to her and her true form. She was taller than any man now, with lanky, elongated arms and legs. Each of them ended in a set of long claws. Her skin was white as snow. Perhaps the most prominent feature of her true form was the deer skull that was melded with her face.

The Skeleton Man, for his part, seemed equally unimpressed with her. That was a bit concerning for Wendy. She was used to people running in fear when they saw her true form. The Skeleton Man didn't show a hint of fear.

“I can say I've never hunted a thing like you,” he said.

“I've killed things like you. Humans. So fragile,” Wendy growled.

“We are so alike, you know. We both live for the hunt. You deny your nature,” he said.

“Shut up!" Wendy snarled.

She lurched for him with her fearsome claws, and he stepped aside, dodging the attack with ease. He twirled one of his tomahawks and sliced the side of her thigh with ease. Wendy felt searing pain from that wound. She growled and turned on him again. He dodged her first strike, but her second one caught him on the shoulder.

Her claws easily cut through the leather of his duster and drew blood. His blood dripped from her claws. Wendy's long tongue flicked out tasting it drop of the crimson blood. It tasted sweet as candy to her. He took a few steps back and eyed the wound.

“You fight so ravenously, like a starving beast locked away in a cage. Why do you hate me so much?” The Skeleton Man asked.

“You killed Stevey!” Wendy snarled.

“What are these humans to you? Nothing but prey. You know it, don't you? You have to fight to keep yourself from killing them. Why fight? Just end them,” the Skeleton Man said.

Wendy didn't answer with words. Instead, she launched into another furious set of attacks. She was furious, and she let that rage seep into every stroke of her claws. She moved with a speed and ferocity she'd never had before. The Skeleton Man didn't seem to mind. He ducked and weaved around her swipes like he was the wind itself. On the rare occasion he couldn't dodge, the Skeleton Man would block the attack with the edge of one of his tomahawk. He didn't even bother to fight back almost like it was beneath him. She had to admit he was right. He didn't have to have back to prove he was better. Wendy had never seen someone fight like he did. This thing was closer to a monster than a man despite his appearance.

She tried striking low, and he dodged with perfect precision. She tried attacking high, and he blocked the attack impeccably. She even tried to pounce on him, and he stepped aside, narrowly avoiding her claws. Wendy was growing frustrated with the fight. Her attacks were becoming more and more feral. She couldn't see behind his mask, but she felt in her gut that the Skeleton Man was amused. That only furthered her rage.

“Why won't you fight back?” She growled.

“Because then the hunt would be over too soon. No fun in that. But if you insist, I will fight back,” the Skeleton Man answered.

He kept his word. The tomahawks twirled in his hands, and Wendy quickly found herself on the back foot. It was her turn to duck and dodge around his attacks. Only her attempts were not nearly as effective as his. By the time his onslaught had ended, Wendy had half a dozen cuts across her body and a large gash running down her chest. Blood was flowing across her pristine white skin bathing it crimson. She darted back, trying to make distance between them. She had to figure out some kind of strategy, or he was going to kill her with ease.

The Skeleton Man didn't seem too concerned with the distance. Instead, he twisted his arm back and threw one of the tomahawks. It twirled gracefully through the air and sank deep into Wendy's shoulder. Wendy let out a howling inhuman scream and stumbled back. She moved her clawed hand to the tomahawk buried in her shoulder and pulled it free. She tossed it over her shoulder as far as she could. He had severely injured her, but he'd lost one of his tomahawks. Wendy, however, felt this was a fair trade because his attack had given her an idea. It was crazy, and would more than likely just get her killed. It was just the sort of thing Wendy loved.

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She lumbered towards the Skeleton Man with ferocity in her eyes, which made him take a step back. She launched into a vicious series of attacks once more. She managed to score a deep cut across his right arm. Blood dripped from the wound and fell to the muddy earth below. That seemed to make him angry. The Skeleton Man began his own series of brutal attacks in the space between hers. Of course, he landed more hits on her than she did on him, but that was what Wendy wanted.

She pretended to limp back. She began to look side to side as if desperate for somewhere to run. Then she gave him an opening at just the right moment. She left her stomach in an unprotected position, far too easy of an attack target to ignore. The skeleton man took the opportunity just like she'd hoped. He swung his tomahawk and sank it into her gut. Wendy gasped with the raw pain of the injury but didn't flinch back. She seized the opportunity to take the skeleton man's arm off at the wrist. He hadn't seen her attack coming. He'd expected her pain to be too great to attack him.

Wendy had planned to let the Skeleton Man sink his last weapon into her gut. Without it, he had no defense against her. There was no way for him to fight back. The Skeleton Man reeled back in pain, clutching at his stump of a hand. Blood squirted from the open wound, turning the mud below them red. It was his turn to look for a place to run. Wendy didn't give him the opportunity. She leapt onto him and left jagged claw marks across his chest. The Skeleton Man was sent to the ground with a thud.

With her right hand, Wendy grabbed the Skeleton Man around his neck. With her other hand, she dug her claws deep into his chest. She hoisted his bleeding body up until it was eye-to-eye with her. With her free hand, she pulled his mask off. The Skeleton Man's face wasn't what she expected. He was older than the others in Paradise, probably in his thirties. He had coal-black hair, which was messy with sweat. His jawline was angular and muscled. He had a hawkish nose and gray eyes that seemed to pierce her very soul. He would have been handsome except for a single cruel scar that ran from the right side of his face down to the bottom of his chin.

She dug her claws into his gut again, ripping away at his insides.

“This is for Stevey, you bastard.”

The Skeleton Man choked out laughter.

“How magnificent. I will enjoy the hunts to come. You may have killed me this time. But I'll learn. I'll get better. I always do,” he croaked.

Wendy shoved her claws deeper into his gut, hoping to shut him up. The Skeleton Man let out a pained moan. Wendy enjoyed that sound. To her, it sounded better than any music she'd ever heard before. He began to cough up blood. Yet his lips twisted into a bloody smile.

“I'm going to kill your friends. This time, they won't come back. It's only a matter of time. I'll save the one in glasses for last, so you can watch. They're going to suff-”

Wendy swiped one of her dagger-like claws across his neck, cutting his words off. The Skeleton Man's head rolled free and fell to the ground. Blood squirted from the stump of his neck, covering Wendy. He had died, just like Stevey. Wendy tossed the body aside like the useless thing it was.

She was disappointed when she realized she didn't feel any better. She'd gotten her revenge, but that void in her soul hadn't been filled. She hoped this would finally help her move on from the loss of Stevey. She felt more empty than she did before. The pain had only grown. She sat on the ground and sobbed. If not this, What was she supposed to do to make that pain go away?

She didn't know the answer. Eventually, when she ran out of tears to shed, she stood. She found the tree where the Skeleton Man had left his rifle and took it. She knew Henry could use a rifle. He'd said as much. If the Skeleton Man did come for them again, they'd be playing on equal footing.

***

Wendy returned to the body she typically wore around the others. The wounds the skeleton man had left across her body still remained. They were relatively smaller now that she had shrunk, but they hurt just the same. She made her way back to the center of Paradise. There, she found Henry waiting. His eyes went wide when you saw her.

She realized that to him, she must have looked like a walking corpse. Bloody wounds were carved across her body, and she was covered head to toe in the Skeleton Man's blood. She looks more like a Ghost Story now than ever.

“Are you okay?” Henry asked when he saw her.

“No, I'm pretty torn up,” Wendy answered honestly.

There was no point in lying just to give Henry some comfort. There was no hiding how badly injured she was. It was going to take her at least two days to sleep these wounds off. Wendy was not looking forward to the long recovery period waiting for her. She can only imagine how boring the next few days were going to be.

“What happened?” Henry asked.

“I gutted the bastard,” Wendy answered.

She slid the rifle off her shoulder and handed it to Henry.

“You said you could shoot before, so that's yours now.”

“Holy shit,” Henry said as he studied the rifle, “This is a 308. You can kill some large game with this or a big monster.”

A smile grew across his face. Wendy matched it.

“That's what I was thinking. As for the Skeleton Man, I think we've evened out the playing field,” she said with pride.

“Let me give you a hand. We have to get you back to the cave,” Henry said.

She threw her arm around his shoulder, and he helped her limp back home. Wendy was just happy not to be alone anymore. At least with Henry, those sad broken thoughts in her head would leave her alone.