

Wes Parker

Monster Hunter

Volume One

Short Stories

By C.J. Pike

Copyright © 2013 by C.J. Pike

Smashwords Edition

This collection is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are draw from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely accidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any forms or means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.

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A Quick Note

This book is a collection of short stories

that were originally posted on my blog.

You can visit there for more hunting.

I don't know why I get myself into these awful situations. There was a vampire in front of me and a vampire behind me, both eager to feed on my blood. It was a full moon, the sky was clear and the night was cool—a perfect night for hunting. Now these weren't your now-a-days vampires that you could date and were pretty and blah, blah, blah. These monsters wanted nothing but to drink my blood and were very, very ugly. I personally like myself the way I am so I was going to try and kill them first.

There are a lot of misconceptions about vampires, so let me go ahead and set the record straight; silver is no better than steel, holy water and a cross are no good unless you carve the cross into a steak. Stabbing it in the heart and cutting its head off will do the trick but then again, that will work on every other living creature in the world too. Sunlight is my favorite. Those things will light up so fast you would think they were covered in lighter fluid. Garlic will also hurt them, but it won't kill them unless you get a lot of it in their bloodstream—and I mean a lot. There is one more that is extremely important. It might even save your life one day.

Let me paint a picture for you. You're at home watching TV or whatever you normal people do, and you hear a noise outside. Like any horror movie you decide to go and investigate. Once you step out of the door you find a vampire in your front yard, eating your neighbor. The monster turns and looks right into your eyes. That's when you remember that vampires can't walk into a home unless it is invited, so you take a step back and you're safe, right? Wrong. The vampire charges in and eats you. So what you do? Go into your kitchen and grab some window cleaner, it's better than garlic. There's some sort of ingredient in it that burns them like acid. If you don't believe me, fine, let's see what happens to you next time a vampire wanders into your home.

We were in the center of Indiana in some town in middle of the nowhere. I found them deep in the woods outside of a cave. Just kidding—about the woods and cave part, not Indiana. That would be ridiculous. I actually found them in an abandoned building just on the outskirts of town where no one ever visited—except adventurous kids. Vampires liked to nest in unpopulated areas just outside of populated areas, but they are never in the cities because they would be discovered.

I had my axes in my hands and my two Desert Eagles on my belt. There were other things I could use like a sword, maybe a shotgun, or even a two handed axe but honestly there is something that I liked about have dual axes. There were very sharp and I could wield them quickly. Plus they made me look like a badass. They did.

I was given the axes when I was much younger—actually I chose them but I was given a choice of a variety of different weapons. These ones really just spoke to me, so I took them. There was nothing really special about them except for the fact that they were so sharp that if you touched them they would cut your finger and they could never break. I loved them.

"Come on you disgusting freaks," I taunted them. "Come on in real close so I can kill you."

My hands gripped the axes tight, ready for the inevitable attack. One other thing I should mention to you is that vampires are very smart, very good hunters—years and years of instinct. They may have very limited speech and act like a monkey but it was all just a ruse. There was a vampire in front and behind me, so I should have known there was a third one somewhere. There always is.

"Oh crap," I breathed.

The monster that was hiding came running up to me on my left and it was coming in fast. Sorry, another thing I should tell you is they are very fast. Have you ever seen a cheetah running at full speed? Well, multiply that by three and then you are halfway there. Plus, they were so strong that I once saw one pick up a car, honestly. Of course, I sliced its leg and watched the car crush it but that is neither here nor there.

The vampire jumped into the air and flew at me like a hawk, that is if hawks were human sized and liked to eat people. I lifted my right axe up to kill it but I was too late.

I suppose before I tell you about how I was eaten alive maybe I should explain how I got into this mess. To do that though I'm going to go a little further back. My name is Wes Parker and I am 17 years old. I'm young, I know, but I've been doing this since I was 11 so I'm used to it.

My parents were killed by werewolves. As you can imagine I have a strong hatred toward them. I'm sure you wondered how I could go up against these monsters, it's because I am one of them. I don't eat people or anything but I can certainly hold my own. I'm what's called a paladin. I am strong, fast and my senses are heightened like crazy. I started to feel it all take effect a couple weeks before the werewolves attacked us.

Ever since there have been monsters, there have been paladins. We fight against them and protect the world from things you could never imagine. When my parents were murdered, a paladin named Drake saved me and told me about everything. He taught me how to fight and gave me my weapons. I spent three years with him. He told me that typically a paladin has parents that are also paladins, but mine weren't. That surprised him. Then just like my parents he was killed, but by ghouls—you'll find out what they are eventually—and I barely made it out alive. I've been on my own ever since.

I travel the country back and forth, hunting these awful creatures and saving your behind almost every night. I scour the Internet and papers, tabloids mostly, and investigate weird murders and disappearances, but really we are drawn to each other. I can sense them and they know when I am near, and when a paladin comes into their power it's like a two-ton magnet. That is why the werewolves came after us.

Anyway, enough back-story. I was somewhere in South Dakota and had just got done clearing a town full of harpies and I caught wind of a string of disappearances in Indiana. Normally that may seem like any other day for me but there were five people in less than two weeks. That meant there was a large nest and I needed to get down there fast.

I hopped onto my motorcycle and let the tire spin out as I moved forward. Ten minutes into the drive the gaslight went off. I pulled into a station. I guess I should tell you how I get around all over the place if I don't have a job. Drake had given me a credit card when I met him and told me not to worry about using it, so I don't. Every time I slide the card it goes through and no one ever asks any questions. I can always pull out cash too so I pretty much have unlimited funds. After the tank was full it was back to the road, heading to the vampires in Indiana.

When I got to the town I didn't bother looking at the sign, because I could feel that I was in the right spot. The only problem with being able to sense them was that it wasn't an exact science. I knew they were around but I couldn't pinpoint exactly where they were, which meant I was going to have to ask around. I'm 17 so most people don't take me too seriously, and that made it harder for me to get the answer. I couldn't pretend to be an agent or anything, not yet at least.

The town was an absolute dump but that was an ongoing theme with all of the monsters that I hunted. I didn't mind. I was used to it. There were rundown buildings and cracks all over the sidewalks. I needed to find someone close to one of the missing people so I could track down where they could be. I took out my phone and looked at the pictures of the people again. That's when I noticed a girl walking around posting flyers. I walked up her.

The poster was of one of the missing persons.

"Who's that?" I asked.

She looked at me for a second. I had short dark hair, a scruffy face and wore a leather jacket. I probably didn't look very inviting. She was short with jet-black hair and looked no older than 16. She was pretty.

"You're not from around here," she pointed out.

"Just visiting," I confirmed. I put out my hand. "Wes." She did the same and we shook.

"Elaine. This is Penny, my best friend."

"What happened to her?"

She looked like she was going to cry. "We were attacked."

"By who?"

"I don't know. We were outside of town at the old warehouse. Seniors dared us to go out there and if we didn't do it we would be ridiculed."

"Why would you need to be dared?"

"No one goes out there," she told me. "It's haunted."

"So what happened?" I asked her.

"I...never mind." She didn't trust me.

Just then a car pulled up and four guys jumped out.

"This guy bothering you?" one of them asked Elaine. He was tall and looked like someone who deserved a punch in the face.

"Go away John," she replied.

"What do you want?" he asked me.

"We're just talking," I reasoned.

"Not anymore. Go."

"We're not done."

"You can go away or I can make you go away," he threatened me.

Inside I was laughing so hard I that I had a very hard time holding back the smile on my face. So I didn't.

"I'd like to see you try," I egged him on. I wasn't going to let this jerk strong-arm me. He had no idea who he was messing with.

He looked back and forth between his friends and they all laughed. That is when he whipped around and swung his fist at me.

As I watched the fist slowly come towards my face I thought about the choices I had. I could stop him and put him in his place, which I really wanted to do, but that might scare Elaine and I really didn't want to do that. Or I could let it hit me and maybe she might show me some sympathy. Sometimes you just have to take one for the cause.

His fist hit me square in the nose and I had to admit that it stung a little bit, like if a baby accidentally hit you. At least that is what I imagined a baby hit would feel like.

I had become very good at acting—it's part of the job—so I jerked my head back and fell to the ground. My entire body burned with rage but I held it back because I was afraid that I might kill him. The three guys with him cheered.

"John, you're such a jerk," Elaine yelled. She pushed him back and he put his hands up.

"He asked for it," he told her. I kind of did.

"Just go."

"Not yet. I want to see what's in this jerk's bike." He walked over to my bike and I started to panic. All my weapons were in it.

"Hey," came a voice. It was a police officer—not good. "What's going on here?"

"Nothing," John lied.

"Yeah. Get out of here now."

"Right away." John took one last look at me and left. The cop walked up to me and stuck his hand out. I accepted it as he helped me up.

"You alright son?" he asked me.

"Yeah," I replied.

He looked back at my bike and then to me again. His face showed doubt. "Who are you?"

"I'm just passing through."

"Mind if I take a look in your bag?"

I felt a surge of panic again, but I was saved by the bell.

"Chief?" came a voice over the radio.

The Chief picked up his radio. "Yeah."

"Old man Johnson is shooting mice again."

The Chief let out a long and exasperated sigh. "OK." He put his radio away and looked at Elaine. "Get home soon. It's almost curfew."

"OK," said Elaine.

He looked at me again one last time and then climbed back into his car. The dust kicked up as he drove away.

"Are you OK?" Elaine asked me.

"Yeah," I assured her.

"I should get going."

"You hungry?"

She looked at me, surprised.

"It was a long drive and I could use the company," I begged.

"I don't know," she said.

"It's on me."

She was reluctant but eventually agreed. We headed over to a diner that was relatively quiet, but it was a small town and the Chief did mention a curfew. People were obviously scared about the disappearances. I ordered a nice hearty steak and enjoyed every bite. It may be a disheveled town but the food sure was amazing. Each piece was better than the previous.

Elaine told me how John was a troublemaker and didn't really make too many friends, and that Chief Jackson was a good guy. I didn't really blame him for not trusting me. I wouldn't trust me either.

"So what happened to Penny?" I asked her. "Maybe I can help."

She still didn't really want to help me. I could see it in her eyes.

"I can help," I assured her.

"You won't believe me," she promised.

"Try me."

Her eyes were darting back and forth until they finally settled on mine.

"We went out to the warehouse," she started. "It's supposed to be abandoned but there are stories of it being haunted. Right when we walked in we were attacked, by..."

"Go on," I said.

"By vampires."

I nodded my head and kind of wished she didn't confirm what I already knew.

"You don't look surprised," she noticed.

I shook my head. "Unfortunately, no."

That is when we heard John outside.

"Hey!" he yelled. "Get out here."

"I have to go out there," I said. "It's getting dark." It was getting dark. It would only be a matter of time before the vampires went out hunting. Especially since their last hunt was two days ago. That isn't usually odd but with the way these ones have been hunting it was.

"You don't think they'll come out here?" she asked.

"Your friend isn't the only one missing," I pointed out to her.

I stood up and walked outside to meet the jerk that was making a whole bunch of noise. He might as well have had a flare and megaphone in his hands. As he saw me coming a smile stretched its way across his face.

"Come on," he said.

"You need to shut up," I warned him. "Get inside."

Elaine had come outside and was right behind me.

"Don't tell me what to do." He started for me and got right in my face. "Let's finish this."

Just like that a flying vampire snatched him up. Oh yeah, they have wings and can fly. John yelled and Elaine screamed. I started to chase after him and immediately regretted it, because another one came and took Elaine.

I watched as the vampires flew away with two new victims, which was odd for them because they would only need one. That meant that the nest is bigger than I thought it was. Even still, though, they don't usually take more than one person to eat.

I felt stupid because I didn't find out where the warehouse was and the vampires were gone within a matter of seconds. It was odd that they just ignored me because you can bet that they knew what I was when they saw me. I looked back into the diner and noticed that everyone had saw and was looking at me. I darted back in.

"Where's the old haunted warehouse?" I asked openly.

Everyone just stared at me like I was crazy.

"If I don't get there quick those two and anyone else those monsters have kidnapped are going to die," I warned. "Assuming they are not dead already." Most of them were.

The girl standing behind the counter stepped forward.

"It's north," she said. "Just head up Main Street for about five miles and you'll see it."

I had already wasted enough time so I ran out the door and climbed on my bike. Leaving just as much dust as the Chief left I was on my way to the factory. I just hoped I wasn't too late.

The warehouse looked completely deserted. That is always how a vampire nest looks; otherwise they would be caught a lot more often. It was a brick building and had to be at least 100 years old. I climbed off my bike and geared up. I put my belt on, which held my Desert Eagles, and grabbed my trusty axes. The moment my fingers touched them I felt more comfortable.

I stalked forward toward the "empty" building and I knew they were here. No, not because I can feel them. I already told you I can't pinpoint their exact location. The smell is what gave them away. It was like a cross between wet dog and cow manure. It took everything I had to not throw up right then and there.

There was a soft noise and I stopped dead in my tracks. Whatever it was it came from inside the building, somewhere far off in the distance. There was definitely someone or something here. As I took another step something leapt out from the shadows and tackled me to the ground, causing me to drop my axes. The vampire hissed at me and tried desperately to bite down on my neck. I put my hands up just in time and held it back. After a few seconds of "struggling" I threw the hideous monster and watched as it slammed into a tree, taking some bark with it.

I rolled onto my knees and picked up my axes. The vampire came at me again but I spun around and chopped its head right off. It fell to the ground and it didn't get back up, for obvious reasons. Like I told you, a quick chop to the head and it was done. I would have to come back to burn the body later. It wasn't that they could come back to life but the inevitable smell would draw a lot more unwanted attention--more than this town already had.

Tip toeing my way around to avoid giving myself away, I made my way around the building trying to find a good way to enter. The front door was shut and if I tried to open it there was no doubt in my mind that it would make a horrendous amount of noise. Luckily enough I found an open window, but I couldn't quite go in there yet because there was a noise off in the woods nearby. I knew that it was them drawing me in but I had to play into their trap.

The woods weren't very thick so if it wasn't for the dark I'm sure I would have been able to see them, but remember what I told you--they are great hunters. Before I could even take two steps past the first tree they jumped down, one in front of me and the other behind. And that is where we began. Where did we leave off anyway? Oh yeah, right, the vampire leapt at me and I lifted my axe to kill it but it was too late...

I bet you thought I was going to leave you hanging here again, didn't you? Well, I'm not, so calm down. As I went to raise my axe the vampire was too fast and tackled me. It was quicker still when it bit me in the neck. Don't worry, I am completely immune to any monster.

Pushing with very little effort, I hoisted the creature in the air, rolled on the ground and swung my axe, taking another head. The other two tried to jump in but as fast and as strong as they were, they couldn't compare to my power or my training. Twenty seconds later they were both dead.

Now that I had their trap, and probably distraction as well, taken care of I went back to the building. The window was still open so I climbed through and started to work my way around the warehouse. I knew that if kept venturing around the first floor I was sure to trigger something I didn't want to so I ascended the stairs up into the second floor.

I heard the noise I had heard earlier when I was outside coming from down the hallway. It was some sort of cry or whimper. I slowly walked forward with my axes ready by my side. The next room was large and there were huge, metal tubs that were empty.

Now I have been hunting for a long time and I have gone up against a lot of vampires. There is always a pattern and that is they capture someone, eat them, then a week later they grab another person, and then they would move on. I knew when I was heading down to this awful town that there was more but I couldn't understand why there were so many of them.

As I looked down at about 15 vampires I saw all of the missing people and they were still alive. They were turning them.

I couldn't believe it. Vampires might turn a person here or there but they never turned this many people at once. There were already enough vampires in this pack, more than I've ever seen, so why were they making more? Luckily enough the people didn't seem to be too far-gone yet. The virus takes forever to take over.

They weren't doing anything but just standing over everyone, just staring at them. Vampires are so creepy. Well, there were a couple vampires that were holding John and Elaine down. They were both putting up quite a fight, but they didn't stand a chance. It was only a matter of time before they would start biting them.

"Let us go," Elaine begged them. She was wasting her breath. It wasn't because they couldn't understand her but that they just were going to eat or turn her anyway.

"Please," John whined. What a wimp.

I needed to get down there fast, but I needed to think it through because I couldn't just go up against 15 vampires and expect to get out of it with everyone alive. Oh wait, yes I could.

"Hey!" I yelled. Everyone turned their heads and looked up at me. "Let them go or else." It was a pointless warning and I knew that it would be.

The vampires started flying up towards me. With my axes stretched out far I spun as I flew through the air and took two of them down before my feet even touched the ground. There was nothing more satisfying than beheading a vampire.

There were two down but there were still 13 of them, which meant I had my work cut out for me. I lived for adventure, though.

At once they all converged on me like a swarm of bees and tried to bite me. Now, I won't lie to you and say that I killed them all with ease and none of them bit me. I will also not lie and say it didn't hurt. There were 13 of them—give me a break here. I don't think I had ever gone up against that many at once before.

After 17 bites I knocked them away and as they all came at me again I did a flip over them and cut two more of them down. Eleven to go. Two more of them caught on really quick so I took out the first one and then roundhouse kicked the other across the room into some wooden crates.

One by one they came at me, and one by one I took care of them. Every once in a while I shot one out of the air but that would ultimately only slow them down. Yes, even with a .50 caliber Desert Eagle it would only slow them down. So you can imagine how ineffective anything less would be.

Skipping ahead—you didn't really want to hear how I killed all of them, did you? OK, I'll give you the short version. They all lost their heads by the blade of my axes, satisfied? It came down to just one of them and they held Elaine in their grasp.

"Don't do it," I warned it.

It just simply hissed at me.

"Please," Elaine begged through her tears.

"Don't worry," I told her. "I'm going to get you out of this, alive."

"Please."

"I know you understand me," I continued to talk to the vampire. "If you let her go I won't kill you like I did all of your friends."

It hissed again. Elaine jumped.

"I'm going to give you to the count of three," I warned. "One."

It pulled Elaine in closer.

"Two."

"Don't," Elaine scream as the vampire reeled its head back and let out a horrific roar.

"Three."

Oops. I probably shouldn't have counted. The vampire bit down into Elaine's neck faster than I expected and obviously I didn't stop it in time. Like I said, though, the virus takes forever to affect a human so don't get all bent out of shape just yet. The issue that I was facing now was that if I tried to bury the axe in the vampire's skull it would take a lot of effort and pain to pry the dead vampire off of her. So, I waited while the vampire sucked her blood.

"What are you doing?!" John screamed. "Help her!"

"I will," I retorted.

"Now!"

"Shut up!" I kicked John in the back of the knee, just enough to bring him to the ground and distract the vampire from biting down on Elaine. The moment it let its bite off of her I swung my axe and it fell to the floor, ending the vampire pack for good. Well, at least in this town.

I walked up to Elaine and held out my hand. She grabbed it and I pulled her up.

"I feel weak," she moaned.

"That's because the vampire drained a good amount of blood from you."

"Oh no..."

"Don't worry." I started heading back out to my bike.

"Where are you going?" John asked.

"Just stay here and make sure no one turns."

I left the building, found my way back to my motorcycle, grabbed my bag and headed back into the building.

"What's your..." John started. I brought my axe right up to his face.

"Say one more word," I taunted him. Needless to say he shut up.

I brought my bag over to the conveyor belt that all of the missing people were lying on and opened it up. As I pulled out the three syringes John's faced turned pure white and that made me smile.

"What are you going to do with that?" he whined. I didn't answer him because it freaked him out. I took a lot of pleasure in that.

I wrapped the large rubber band I had around my arm and then stuck the needled in my arm. As I started to draw my blood I could have swore that John started to shake. I filled up all three of them. What are they for? Do you have any patience at all? I'm getting there. Thanks for the "perfect" segue.

I tossed one of them to John and he almost dropped it. I would have killed him. Seriously.

"Inject them with it," I told him.

"Why?" he asked.

"Really? It will cure them." That's right, if a person infected by a monster virus is in transition my blood will completely cure them—another benefit of being a paladin.

"What do I do?"

"You're killing me dude. Just stick it in their arms and push the little thing at the top there. Don't give them too much though."

"What? Why? Will it kill them?"

"Yes." It didn't. If I thought he might kill them do you really think I would have given him one of the syringes? I just didn't feel like drawing any more of my blood.

I walked over to Elaine and held her in my arms. She was so pretty. That's one of the things I hated about never having a normal life. I could never get close to anyone. I took one of the syringes and injected it into her arm. Within seconds the paleness started to fade and the color was slowly returning.

"Feeling better?" I asked her.

"Yeah," she answered.

"I'll come back to you." I had to cure everyone else. John hadn't even done one yet.

After everyone was cured I had to burn all of the bodies before they started to smell. As I started to pile them up in the middle of the warehouse I thought about the fact that a lot of people had seen the vampires and me. This did tend to happen from time to time given the fact that monsters sometimes attack in crowds. Yet I have not been arrested and no one had come after me. Why do you ask? One of the other abilities I had was making people forget. Convenient, I know.

I had to burn the warehouse with the vampires as well because there was blood everywhere. I couldn't leave any evidence behind. After everyone was out of the building and it was covered in gasoline I threw the match and watched it light up. Everyone else just stood and watched it with me, dazed and confused. I decided to take that opportunity to erase parts of their memories. Elaine walked up to me.

"I guess I should thank you for saving us," she said.

"You don't have to," I told her.

"I want to." She came up to me and gave me a kiss. Now this was one of the perks of my job, saving the damsel in distress and getting a kiss.

"Thank you," she said as she pulled away.

"No problem."

"Who are you?"

I thought about for a moment. "Nobody."

I clapped my hands together and there was a bright light. Everyone looked even more confused than before. I went back over to my bike and climbed on. I had forgotten to erase everyone's memory back at the diner but luckily they were all still in there, too afraid to go outside. My power was accurate enough to erase whatever memory I wanted so no one would forget about the kidnappings.

After my job was done I went back out onto the open road, heading out to find the next monster to hunt. When Drake saved me he had told me that we were the only paladins left, which meant I was the last one. I said to you in the beginning that I didn't know why I got myself into awful situations but I do know. I am the last of my kind and the only one who can protect the world from these monsters. I do this because it is my responsibility, my birthright. It wasn't something that I chose for my life but it was what I had to do, because I'm Wes Parker: Monster Hunter.

Good old New England. I always like going there in the fall to see the leaves change, and it was the center of the worst crap in the world. Any time any monster popped up, half the time it was here. That's one of the reasons I don't travel the world much because for the most part they are here. I do get to leave the country every once in a while, though.

The reason I was going this time was because there were a bunch of cats vanishing. I know what you're thinking; it's probably a coyote. If it was do think I would be telling you this story? No, and it's not a werewolf either. I know dogs chase cats, very funny. This was very cut and dry. Any time cats go missing it only meant one thing: a witch.

Witches have been around since the beginning and they might have even started a few of the other monsters. Now, I know that it is common that a witch will always have a black cat with them as a pet but that is so far off. What witches really do with cats is use them for ingredients in their messed up potions or spells or whatever crap they do. So, when cats go missing I go looking.

I hate witches. The stuff they could do is beyond stupid. They could make things appear out of thin air, lift me off the ground without touching me, and who knows what else. Their power seemed almost limitless. I'd rather run into a wall headfirst 17 times than face a green-faced magic beast. This is what I do though so I didn't have a choice.

The air was cool and the sun was shining in the town of Salem, MA. I hoped that after I was done here I could take a couple of days to relax but that barely ever happened. The only reason I paid attention to the town name is because I have been here numerous times. It's a hot spot. I guess that makes sense with all of the Salem witches back in the 1600's. That was all a hoax, though. The real witches were never caught, because they are good at what they do. They weren't caught by humans anyway, but that's a story for someone else to tell.

It was getting close to Halloween time and it was a Saturday so the place was pretty busy. Downtown was packed with tourists and the general public. I hated Halloween since I pretty much lived it everyday. The ride was long and the witch was going to be impossible to find during the day so I decided to find something to eat. I just got some take out, though, because I wasn't in the mood to sit in a restaurant by myself. You would think that with all the time I spend alone that I wouldn't mind but I do, so drop it.

As I ate the steak sub I bought from the pizza place I watched everyone walk around, enjoying their sunny weekend. I was jealous. They all—well, you too I guess—get to live their naïve lives and not care about fighting things you only see in horror movies. I remember when I used to be able to live like that. Life was so simple and my biggest worry was if I was going to get the dinner that I wanted. Funny enough, that wasn't really a problem anymore.

I missed my parents. I might put on a tough guy persona and I am, don't think you can come attack me and I won't beat the crap out of you because I will, but it doesn't mean that I don't have feelings. Sometimes my thoughts were drowned by the memory of their deaths but I tried not to think about that too much because at some point something usually ended up broken. Like a stick or a car door.

While trying to avoid those bad feelings, I tried to think about the last time I was here. There was a pair of vampires, surprisingly enough. Those things are just like mosquitoes and every time I kill one four more pop up. It was very aggravating. Anyway, so there were a couple of vampires snatching people up and I had been tracking them from somewhere in Maine. I finally caught up to them here. They were trying to grab a couple out for a walk but I saved them just in time.

"Thank you so much," the man had said. "How can I ever repay you?"

He repaid me by never remembering when I erased his memory. Sometimes it was tough to do that but I had too, otherwise I could be tracked, which would be terrible because with my job comes with too many questions. Those were questions that I just didn't want to answer.

I wanted to find the witch as soon as possible to get rid of it so I needed to start asking around. They usually stayed off in the woods but there were a lot of woods so it would be better to try to find an exact location. I couldn't just go around asking about witches because, well, I was in Salem and people wouldn't know about real witches. The worst part was they could be any one. They had the ability to hide their true form and look like a normal human. I told you witches have stupid powers.

I finished up my sub and went to start finding the people with missing cats when there was a voice behind me.

"Wes Parker," the voice said.

It wasn't very often that I heard someone say my name—almost never actually—so it certainly caught my attention when somebody did. I knew who it was before I even looked at her.

"Kelly," I said. "What a surprise." Remember before how I said I was the only one who could protect the world? I wasn't exactly being 100 percent truthful. There's this secret organization, that doesn't work with the government I don't think, that searches out and fights monsters as well. I don't know when they were formed but I do know that it was a paladin that started it.

Kelly and I go way back. Basically I saved her life. I'll tell you about how we met some other time but not right now.

"What brings you here?" she asked. Her name is Kelly Johnson but I don't think that is her real name. She has been in the agency for about six years, I think. She's about 30 years old with blonde hair and she was absolutely gorgeous.

"Oh," I started, "I'm just here for the foliage."

"Yeah, I'm sure."

"Why are you here?"

"Visiting family." Yeah I'm sure. I don't know why we always danced around the point like this but we do.

"How are the kids?"

"Let's just get to the point."

"OK." She doesn't have kids. At least I didn't know if she did.

"What do you know?"

"Probably as much as you do, maybe even less."

"I seriously doubt that."

"Believe what you want. All I know is that it's a witch."

"That's it?"

"That's it. If cats go missing then that's a witch. I know you know that otherwise you wouldn't be here." Witches were rare. I myself had only run into maybe four before this one. I didn't know for sure that she knew that because we had never ran into one together but she was there so she knew something was up.

We were both sitting on the bench looking out at the people passing by us, no longer looking at each other. I wonder how long it was going to take her to ask me to join her organization. I still don't know the name of it.

"Why won't you come join us?" she asked me, right on cue. I could understand why they wanted me to join because even though a paladin started the organization, there were none left, except for me. So it only made sense that they would want someone like me at there side.

"Nah," I started. "We've got a good thing going here. We see each other when we can, no strings attached. Let's not ruin that."

Kelly just nodded her head. She might not be smiling on the outside but I knew she was in the inside.

"I did run into something interesting a few weeks back," I told her. I didn't mind sharing some information with her. It couldn't hurt. We might go back and forth like we didn't know what we were talking about but in the end we would do what we can to help each other out. We were trying to accomplish the same thing and rid the world of monsters.

"What's that?" she asked.

"I was in Indiana fighting a pack of vampires." Remember them? I'll give you a quick refresher, like last weeks episode. I was in Indiana fighting a pack of vampires that were trying to turn a bunch of people, but like always I killed them all and cured all of the people. It was all in a days work.

"Nothing out of the ordinary there."

"Yeah, except there were almost 20 of them." That was enough for her to turn and look at me then. It was just as much as a surprise to her.

"What were they doing?"

"Oddly enough they were turning more people."

"They weren't just using them for food?"

"No and they were doing it fast, too. I'm surprised you guys missed that one."

"Any ideas why?" she asked, ignoring the last comment.

"No. Might be nothing."

Kelly didn't looked convinced, but then again neither was I. There was definitely something weird with a vampire gathering of that many. The most I'd seen before was maybe four or five but that was it.

"Why don't we work this one together?" Kelly suggested.

"Come on," I said. "You know I don't play well with others."

"Just figured you might have a change of heart. On our own then I guess. Just stay out of our way then." She wasn't really on her own. She wouldn't last a second by herself, even with the amount of training and the weapons she has.

"May the best man win then?"

"I'm not a man."

"Neither am I." I'm a paladin. I guess that I am still technically a man but I'm not a human so I'm not. Stop spitting hairs.

"Hmm," she hummed and the left.

I watched her as she walked away, mainly because it was almost impossible not to. I was sure that even if I didn't want to work with her that at some point we would end up together anyway. Any time we were in the same town fighting the same monster we always did. Well, her and the other six people who were on her team. I wonder just how far their resources stretched out. They had to have had more than I did because I just had my axes, my Desert Eagles, the Internet and a credit card with no limit and no payments needed.

There was a jingling somewhere close by. It sounded like a small bell, like something you'd find on a dog or a cat. A cat! I scanned the crowd trying to find the source of the noise and saw it running down the sidewalk. That might seem ordinary. It might also seem ordinary that there was a little girl chasing it except for the fact that it wasn't a little girl.

I followed the "little girl" down the street while she was chased the cat like her life depended on it. To be honest it seemed a little bit obvious to me but I couldn't take my chances. I had my bottle of water from the pizza shop with me, which was good because I was going to need that.

We both ran for about half a mile before I caught up to her and she turned around to look at me. Before she had time to utter some stupid spell I threw the water right into her face and waited. I waited longer, and I waited even longer. It occurred to me that I might have made a big mistake.

"What was that for?" she said as she started to cry.

"I..." I stuttered. I looked around and realized that everyone was staring at me, and more importantly one of them was a cop. I could have run but that would only draw more attention to me and I couldn't just wipe everyone's memory of this because there were too many people. Needless to say I was in a lot of trouble.

"What are you doing?" the cop.

I looked back and forth between him and the girl several times.

"She looked thirsty?" I tried. So, thirty minutes later I found myself sitting in a jail cell. Don't worry, though, this isn't the first time I have been arrested before so I would get out of this.

I was surprised that the water didn't reveal her true identity. I guess that was her true identity, though. Oh, right. Sorry. Water will force a witch to show her true form. What did you think, that it would melt her? HAHAHA. Please pull your head out of your...sorry, but seriously try to forget any ideas you have about how to kill any monster because more than likely you are very wrong. If you end up being right then good for you. I'm very proud.

I needed to figure out how I was going to get out of there but I would probably just do what I did every time that I was put in jail: wait for the late night shift, wipe everyone's memory, and then break my way out. Bending the bars for me is like snapping a twig to you.

The cop who arrested me walked over to the cell and looked in at me. I recognized him. I didn't know who he was personally but I had seen him when I had been there before. He was trying to stare me down but I just looked right back at him. There was nothing that he could do to me that made me afraid of him.

He was tall and well built. I'm guessing that he is somewhere in his late thirties, maybe early forties, because he had salt and pepper hair. He wasn't the chief or anything but I could tell this guy liked authority, but not in a bad way.

"What were you doing?" he asked me.

"She had a spot on her face so I just wanted to clean it off," I cracked. He just chuckled. It was faked, of course.

"You've come into my town and started making trouble. I don't like it."

"I don't imagine you get too much trouble here." None that he knew of anyway.

"No, and I plan to keep it that way."

"Listen Officer--," I took a closer at his nametag, "Bennett, I wasn't trying to start anything."

"Then do you plan on telling me why you felt the need to splash water on the face of an eight year-old girl?"

I looked at him for the longest time, not really sure what I wanted to say. I could sit there and just say nothing. Eventually he would just walk away angry, but that didn't seem to be the best route.

"I just needed to make sure," I finally said.

"Make sure of what?" he asked.

I just started to laugh uncontrollably. I couldn't believe that I was about to tell him but there was really no harm in it. "To make sure she's not a witch." I had the hardest time getting it out but I finally managed. There's no need to fuss about it, he's not going to believe me.

The expression on his face went from amused to somewhere between anger and confusion. I didn't blame him. If I were in his position I would probably be feeling the same way.

"Either you're hiding something," officer Bennett began, "or we're going to end up tossing you into the loony bin."

"I have a feeling that I am going to get out of this just fine," I told him.

"Dreams of grandeur."

"What are you holding me for anyway?"

"Disturbing the peace and assault."

"That second one is a stretch, don't you think?"

I guess that he was done with me because he just walked away and left me to think. I made a stupid and rash decision to just throw water on the girl, especially in front of the entire town. Where were her parents? Never mind. I should have waited until she was out of view or followed her, but I figured I had the upper hand on her so I didn't want to waste that. I'm only seventeen; cut me some slack. I have impulses you know.

As the day passed by there were no other visitors brought into the holding cell with me and the place was quiet and relatively boring. That should be good but I was getting kind of anxious just sitting there and waiting. It wasn't like I was afraid of what was going to happen. I already told you I knew how I was going to get out of there. Just sitting still not trying to find or kill something made me want to kill something—not a human.

It was getting pretty close to nighttime and I knew that Officer Bennett would be leaving soon. I needed to make my move soon. The problem from here was I was going to have to be careful who saw me if I wanted to remain under the radar while I was searching for the witch. Plus if I ever wanted to come back I was probably going to have to erase some memories before I left.

Bennett walked toward me. This was going to be easier than I thought. I wasn't going to have to try to get his attention and come over to me. He started to open the door and I was a little troubled by that.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

He looked at me and I could tell that he was aggravated. "You're free to go."

"Huh?" I said, dumbfounded. I had never just been let go before so you could understand my confusion.

"Look's like your getting a pass on this one," said Bennett. He was really unhappy.

"OK." I slowly stood up and started to walk out. "I don't like to question situations like this but why?"

Bennett just nodded, so I turned. I instantly understood when I saw Kelly standing there in a suit.

"Ah, right," I said. "It has been a pleasure Officer and thank you for the hospitality but I will see you around."

He grabbed me by the arm and held me tight—as tight as a human could, anyway.

"You better hope not," he said, "and if you step one toe out of line you won't get any 'get out of jail free' card again."

"Noted," I said and he let go. As I walked toward Kelly I raised my eyebrows and grinned. She shook her head, trying to tell me not to do anything stupid. That's what I got from it anyway.

When we walked outside we headed for her car.

"You bailed me out," I said. "You are so sweet."

"I couldn't leave you in there," she said. "You know too much."

"You know I could have gotten out, right?"

"Yeah but this way was much cleaner."

I nodded my head.

"How did you get me out?" I asked her.

"Don't worry about it," she answered. "Just try not to be so careless from here."

"No promises."

After we climbed into the ridiculously nice car—maybe I should consider joining—she put it in drive and we headed out.

"We need to go to my bike," I said. "I'm guessing they didn't find it or I'm sure they would have asked a lot more questions."

"They don't have it," she informed me.

"How do you know that?"

"I took it when I saw them arrest you. Don't worry it's safe."

I was very concerned with the fact that she had taken my bike without my permission, even though I appreciated that the police didn't find it, but there was something else that was bothering me.

"You knew I was in there all day and waited until now to get me out?" I asked her, kind of aggravated.

"Yeah," she replied matter-of-factly.

"Why?"

"I figured you could have used the time to think."

I was mad. Not only did her agency obviously have more power that I realized, but she also wanted to teach me a stupid lesson. It's not like I didn't know how stupid I was. She didn't need to prove a point.

"Whatever," I whined. "Just take me to get my bike. Where is it?"

"Back at the hotel my team and I are staying at," she replied.

"Good. I could use a room, too."

"We're not paying for your room."

"I don't expect you to." I felt like I could smack her I was so mad. I wouldn't hit a girl or woman, though, even if they could kill a vampire. I'll just splash water in their faces.

The motel wasn't far from the jail cell but that didn't really matter too much because it was just far enough for us to not make it. All of a sudden everything around us shifted from houses and businesses to a wooded area. Now that might seem weird to a normal person but those that are familiar with a witch know that this is not that out there. I wonder if she moved us or was just creating an illusion. Either way it wasn't cool. I told you—witches' powers were beyond ridiculous.

All of a sudden the car grind to a halt.

"I'm thinking this isn't the best time to stop," I pointed out.

"I didn't stop," she said.

"Crap."

The doors whipped open and the two of us were ripped from the car like we were rag dolls. I landed on my back and rolled off into the woods. I was quick to recover, though, because I couldn't let Kelly face off with the witch by herself. She wouldn't survive it.

When I reached the other side of the road and found her holding her arm I was sure that it was broken.

"Are you OK?" I asked her.

"I'll live," she said, "for now."

"We need to get out of here."

It was already too late, though. The witch was floating toward us, hovering a foot off of the ground with a cloud of mist trailing behind her. Something about this witch seemed different, like she was stronger than what I was used to. She let out a blood curdling laugh that made my skin crawl.

"I have grown tired of your presence," she said in a low, booming voice. "Now you will pay the price."

The problem was, we probably were. My bike had anything that I needed to get rid of the witch but I had nothing. Fire was the best thing to use against them but I didn't even have a lighter. It's their kryptonite. If I tried to attack her she would just turn me into a rabbit or something crazy like that.

That didn't matter, though, because I had to try. I ran toward her and leapt in the air. Then there was a bright, white light.

I woke up in a cheap motel room with Kelly standing over me, waiting. She really was beautiful but seeing her just standing over me was kind of creeping me out.

I was confused because the last thing I remember was running at a witch and her flash banging me.

"How did we get away?" I asked her. "I thought we were toast."

She pulled out her gun.

"Are you going to tell me that you just shot her?" That seemed impossible.

"No," she answered. "This is a flamethrower. You didn't think I would go up against a witch unprepared, did you?" She was indicating that I did.

"I didn't expect to get arrested." I hated the fact that a human was able to stop the witch and I wasn't.

"Right."

"That was weird, right? I mean I have only gone up against a couple of witches but this one seemed strong. I could feel it."

"I wouldn't know. That is the first witch I have faced."

"Really? Then how did you know what to do?"

She just looked at me.

"Right," I said. Her agency really did know its stuff.

Kelly walked away from me and went over to her computer, a cup of coffee sat next to it. I wasn't a big coffee drinker myself. I didn't understand what all the hype about it was because it tasted disgusting. Stretching my arms high in the air I stood up and tried to shake off the ache in my body. That witch really did a number on me, whatever she did.

"So," I started, "what's on the agenda for today?"

"You get out of here," she blurted.

"Jeez. Just kick me out the next morning."

"You're the one who wanted to work this one alone."

"True. Where's my bike?"

"Outside." She threw me the keys.

"Thanks."

Without another word I walked out of the door and found my motorcycle, looking all kinds of good. I looked it up and down to make sure that there was nothing wrong with her.

"They didn't hurt you, did they girl?" I asked her. No I'm not crazy. Don't tell me none of you out there don't treat your car or bike like this. Yeah, that's what I thought.

Anyway, I climbed on my bike and headed for the closest food place that I could find. I hadn't eaten since the day before at lunchtime. Paladins burned a lot of calories and therefore needed a lot of food. That being said I needed something and fast. There was a nice place that had really good burgers so I stopped in there. Halfway through my burger I wished I hadn't, though. The little girl whose face I splashed was sitting on the other side of the diner.

I whipped around and sat on the other side of the booth so that my back was facing her, hoping that she hadn't saw me. That didn't help, however, because Officer Bennett sat across from me right as I sat down.

"Good burger?" he asked me.

"One of the best I've ever had," I replied.

"If I'm ever having a bad day I always come here and get myself one."

"I can understand why." I wasn't really sure what he was getting at.

"I told you I didn't want to see you again," he said.

I had just taken a bite of my delicious burger so for a little bit I just chewed on it. My mother always taught me never to talk with my mouthful.

"I just came here to get some food," I told him. "I don't want any trouble."

"I can promise you that if you put one toe out of line I will know about it. I'm going to be watching you. If you move I will see it. If you whisper I will hear it and if you sneeze you better believe that I will be there to say bless you. I will have an eye on your every move. I may not be able to just kick you out of my town but I can arrest you if you mess up again and that pretty little blonde won't be able to get you out again."

I nodded my head and knew that his words were true, but honestly all I had to do was zap the guy's brain and he would never know that I even existed. I had no intentions of leaving until I saw that witch dead by the blade of my axe. Officer Bennett could do whatever he wanted but he wasn't going to be able to stop me.

"OK," was all I said.

He stood up and straightened his uniform. "Have a good day." Then he was gone. I wanted to be out of there soon because I didn't want the girl to see me and I needed to get some headway on the witch, before she flash banged me again—or worse.

I quickly ate my food and then left. Luckily enough the girl didn't see me, so I got out of there before she had the chance. I quickly looked up some of the families whose cats were missing and nothing about any of them really stood out to me. So, I closed my eyes, pointed my finger, and chose the one my finger landed on.

As I approached the house it was a large white house with blue shutters and two floors. There was a garden of flowers in the front and a stone wall lining the front perimeter. It kind of reminded me of my house. To be honest my parents were kind of rich. My dad was a software developer for a very large company but I honestly don't even remember the name—it all seemed so distant to me.

The walkway from the drive to the house was made of stone and there were little lights lined up on both sides. No, they weren't on--it was the middle of the day. Come on, try to keep up. There was a little boy sitting on the porch, clutching a stuffed animal. He was probably as old as the girl whose face I splashed and he looked liked he had been crying. When he saw me coming he jumped a little bit but I held my hands up, trying to let him know it was OK.

"Hi," I said.

"Hi," he replied.

"You OK?"

"Fluffy is missing." Fluffy. Seriously?

"I'm sorry little guy. What happened?"

He shook his head. "He didn't come home one day. I think it was the scary lady."

That certainly peeked my interest.

"What scary lady?" I asked him.

"The one who looks in through my window at night," he answered. I felt chills running up and down my spine. If I woke up to a witch staring at me I am pretty sure I would need a fresh pair of pants. Something about that was strange.

"When is the last time you saw her?"

"Right before Fluffy...Fluffy disappeared." That makes more sense. She was watching the cat, not the kid—I hoped.

"Look," I started but the door opened up, interrupting me.

"Who are you?" shouted what I assumed to be the mom. "Jimmy, get away from him."

Jimmy walked away from me but he wasn't as scared as when he first saw me.

"You're that kid that threw water at that girl," she stated. Crap.

I went to throw my hands up to delete the memory but Kelly came strolling out, so I stopped. I wasn't sure if she knew about that and I didn't want to give my ability away.

"Thank you for your time, Mrs. Tibbs," she said. "I will gladly escort Wes out of here."

"How are you not in jail?" Mrs. Tibbs asked me.

"I... uh..." I stammered.

"Let's go," Kelly ordered.

We walked down the pathway and Mrs. Tibbs stared at me the entire way.

"You know you shouldn't say my name," I said.

"Stop," she blurted.

"OK."

She grabbed my arm and spun me around. She was stronger than I gave her credit for.

"What?" I asked.

"We have a big problem."

Of course we had a problem--we had to deal with a witch. I didn't know why Kelly thought any different before.

"Yeah," I said. "We haven't found the witch yet."

"It's more than that," Kelly explained.

"How so?"

"Just get in the car."

"OK, but are you going to tell me what you mean?"

"Yes. Let's go."

"I have my bike here."

"Right. Meet me at the library then."

"Seriously."

"Yes."

She didn't say another word but got in her car and drove away. If there was something that was freaking her out then it was probably worth finding out what she had to say, but I looked back and saw that Mrs. Tibbs was still looking at me. If I didn't do what I needed to then she was just going to keep worrying and probably cause me a lot of trouble while I was there. I walked up to her.

"Don't come any closer," she warned me.

"Look," I said, "I just want to apologize."

"You can apologize all you want but don't take one step closer to me."

"OK." I was close enough anyway. "I just want you to know that you won't have to worry about me."

"You bet I won't."

I raised my hands and let the light shoot out of my hands, wiping the memory that I had ever been there. I got back on my bike and headed for the library, curious about what Kelly had to say. I could have just stayed and tried to get it out of Mrs. Tibbs but there was no way she would have talked to me. So, my options were limited.

I arrived at the library and it was surprisingly busy, which made me nervous. Everyone seemed to recognize me just for splashing water on a girl, so that wasn't good.

Kelly was waiting outside for me.

"Come on," she said.

"Why are we at a library?" I asked.

"Maybe you should stop asking questions and just follow me."

"Lead the way then."

We made our way through the library and I kind of expected us to head right to the computers, even though she probably had her own with a connection wherever she went, but instead we headed for the basement. I wanted to ask her why but I also didn't want to be a pest so I just continued to follow, wondering what she was doing.

Once we got down to the basement Kelly started searching through a shelf of books that looked like they hadn't been checked out in over a hundred years. She pulled a particularly large and old one, and brought it over to a table. We were all but alone except for one employee who was pointlessly organizing the shelves.

She started flipping through.

"You know if there is anything that we need to find we could probably just look on the Internet," I told her. Although, I knew that there were some things that couldn't be looked up that way.

"Yeah," she replied. "Here. Look." She turned the book and pushed it my way. I looked at the page and read the title: The Terrible Three.

"The Terrible Three," I said out loud. "The first witches."

"I was talking with Mrs. Tibbs and she just brushed over it. I pressed it further but she didn't know anymore, but then I remembered reading about it a long time ago."

"Yikes. These three certainly lived up to the name they were given."

"Yes. They were the most ruthless and evilest of witches that have ever walked this Earth."

"Yeah, I remember. What's your point?"

"I said I had never ran into a witch before," she started, "but that doesn't mean that I don't know about them. The amount of cats that have disappeared is astronomical, which would probably mean a large spell. You also mentioned that the witch felt strong."

"Yeah, I did." I could feel it in my gut when we were almost killed by her.

"These witch sisters terrorized throughout the ages until sometime in the 1500's."

"Right. Two of them were burned but the third no one ever saw again."

"Exactly, but there have been supposed sightings throughout the years," she continued.

"Yeah I know but I still don't see why you think this involves her."

"The last time she was seen was during the witch trials where 28 cats went missing." A little something left out of the history books.

I thought about how many were missing this time and the number landed right on 28. Uh oh.

"If I'm right," Kelly started, "we have one of the first witches here in Salem and whatever she is planning she is going to do it very soon."

It was Halloween and we still hadn't found the witch. For those keeping score at home that was five days since we last saw her, and four days since we were at the library. Based on the conversation that Kelly and I had I would have expected to run into the witch by now. It was Halloween, like I said, so it would make perfect sense that she would wait until then. All Hallows Eve was the night when witches' powers were amplified. So, it wasn't that far out there to assume that she was probably going to perform something huge that night.

It was still pretty early in the day so there really wasn't any trick or treating yet and it was doubtful that whatever the witch was going to do she was going to do it in the daytime. It just wasn't their style. The only problem is we still didn't find out where she was hiding or where she was trying to perform the spell the last time. It only made sense that she would do it there again.

I ended up staying in the same motel as Kelly and her team. I hadn't really seen any of them yet because they had been off doing their own investigation. It made sense for me to stay there, though. If this really was one of the terrible three then we were all going to need all of the help we could get.

The morning was cool and there was a light breeze pushing all of the fallen leaves around. There was a heavy overcast giving the day a nice ominous feel. I hated that. Halloween was bad enough as it was; I didn't need this gloomy setting.

The motel had two levels and I was walking down the stairs when one of Kelly's teammates or coworkers or whatever you want to call it was walking toward me. It was Lenny. He was a tall guy with a ridiculously strong build. If I wasn't who I was I would have been intimidated but I wasn't. He always looked angry but that could have been the fact that he absolutely hated me. I wasn't really sure why but it might be because of the one time that I sort of broke his nose... and his jaw... and knocked out three of his teeth. That was all with one punch. If it were me I would have gotten over that by now. It was six months ago already.

"Hey, Jenny," I said. "I mean Lenny."

He looked like he wanted to punch me in the face but the last time he tried that he was the one who got punched. So, I think he knew better than to do that.

"Go see Kelly," he said bluntly.

"That wasn't very nice," I pointed out. "It makes me not want to do it, even if wasn't Kelly being rude. So, can we try that again?" Don't act like I'm the jerk. He started it.

"I would love to just knock you out."

"You can't."

"Let's not make this difficult."

"Well, I have things to do. Please give my regards to Kelly."

"Fine. Kelly would like to see you." See how fast he turned around. Kelly was in charge and she sent Lenny to come get me. If he went back without me than I'm sure she wouldn't be a very happy camper.

"That's better," I said as I pushed past him. He gave a little shove back but I let it go. I had to give the guy some boost in confidence. If I were ever in a compromising position I would hope that he would have my back. Not that I would need him to.

Everyone was in the room doing various things: cleaning guns, packing grenades, and sharpening knives—the normal stuff. There were five of them in total. The last three were Damien, Greg and Lola. Damien was short with a shaved head, Lola was tall and scary, and Greg looked like a cross between Sloth—the character not the animal—and a jackal. He was very ugly. Kelly was looking over a map.

"You ever hear of Google Maps?" I asked her.

"I have an idea of where the sister may be," she said, ignoring my comment.

"Where may that be?"

"In Salem Woods."

"That's kind of vague. Maybe you might want to be more specific."

"It somewhere here, a few hundred feet from the golf course. It's hard to tell for sure."

"That's a good place to start."

"Let's go."

Everyone quickly finished what they were doing and got ready to go witch hunting. We needed the bare essentials: anything that could create fire and very powerful guns. Big guns wouldn't kill her but they certainly will slow her down. You shoot a witch right in the head and it wouldn't do crap. I could cut her head right off and she wouldn't be dead. She won't be able to move but if you put the head back on it will heal right up and she'll be right as rain. It's very disturbing.

"Do you have a flamethrower?" Kelly asked me.

"No," I answered. "I've got a lighter and lighter-fluid. That will be fine for me." Honestly if they had flamethrowers in the form of guns I would love one but I didn't want them thinking I needed their help. Well, any more that is.

I followed them on my bike all the way to the woods. I wasn't really sure where the planned on parking since it was the middle of the day, especially with all of the stuff we had with us. I couldn't just march around with my axes and desert eagles. We found a nice quiet spot, though, and I decided to just carry my bag with me until we were in the woods.

As we hiked through the condensed trees I tried to heighten my senses because if the witch caught us off-guard, which she probably would, we were going to be in a whole heap of trouble.

"It should be right up ahead," said Kelly.

"OK," I replied. "Let's be slow about this."

We all slowly stalked forward. When I reached a bush I peaked over but there was nothing other than an empty clearing. It didn't mean she was there, though. I stepped forward into the clearing with a bottle full of fluid and lighter in my hands. I stood there for almost three minutes.

"I don't think she's here," I said.

"I'm right here," a soft whisper spoke in my ear.

It was exactly as I said it would be. The witch caught us—more importantly me—off guard. I wasn't proud that it happened but I knew that it would so there was no sense getting bent out of shape about it.

I woke up tied to a tree, as was the rest of the group, and it was nighttime. The rest of them were still unconscious. The witch was standing by a giant cauldron—yeah, some things are very stereotypical—and whatever she was mixing smelled horrible. That was expected, though, given what she was cooking. Plus there was no telling what else she was using.

She looked just like I expected her too. Her skin was green, she had a long nose and she wore a pointy black hat. Ha. Just kidding. Witches are so hideous that they actually make me cringe every time I look at them. Her skin was gray and looked like it was rotting, and there were patches of hair on top of her head. Her purple eyes—yes, just like The Witches—looked into her brew like she wanted to drink it, even though it was scolding hot. I started to wonder why she hadn't killed us yet because normally a witch would have.

The witch eventually noticed that I was awake and started to float over towards me. It creeped me out a little bit.

"A paladin," she said in a surprisingly gentle voice. "I haven't seen one of you in years. Not since I killed the last one." True or not that certainly sent my stomach for a spin.

"A witch," I replied. "I haven't seen one of you since the last time I killed one." She merely smiled. It was a horrible one but a smile none-the-less.

"I could feel you the moment you came here. You've been poking around ever since but you were taking so long I thought you would never find me. I really must thank you for bringing all of them here with you." I was surprised she was able to get the better of everyone. She really must be the last sister of the Terrible Three.

"What do you want with all of us?" I asked her.

"Time," she said. "In time."

"You're the last sister of the Terrible Three."

"I haven't heard that in centuries. My name is Belinda."

"Wes." I figured what the heck.

"I know." Comforting.

"You were here back during the Salem Witch trials?"

"Yes I was."

"I'm assuming that whatever you were doing back then you are now doing again?"

"You would be right." I was surprised that she was answering me so quickly, but that meant she was more than sure she was going to kill me or that there was nothing that I could do to stop her.

"What were you doing?" I asked her, knowing what she was going to say before she did.

"The same thing that I have been doing for the past five centuries," she started, "bringing back my sisters." I'll keep the language PG-13 so I won't say the words I really want to say, but oh crap. If I couldn't even get the better of her, what was I supposed to do against three of them? It took almost a dozen paladins to take down all three of them.

"I always enjoy a family reunion. Maybe I could go get some refreshments."

"Soon." What did that mean?

"OK, then. I don't suppose that you will tell me why we are all here?"

"You are here tied up so you do not interfere," Belinda explained. "They are here because I will need them to bring my sisters back."

"What do you mean? What about all the cats?"

"Yes, that is for them to drink. I need to draw their souls to bring them back. How do you think the trials started before?"

"Some girl just wanted to start drama?"

"Hardly."

"So were some of them actually witches?"

"No," she said. "I got that stupid girl blabbing so the town was distracted. I didn't fool the paladins, unfortunately."

As she was talking I was trying to figure out a way to get out of the ropes but she put some sort of spell on the them so there was no getting out of it. I honestly didn't see how I was going to possibly get out of it. I had pretty much accepted the fact that I was going to die. The worse part of it all was that she was so calm, and seemed so careless about it.

"Are you going to use my soul?" I asked her.

"I can't," she said. That was a relief.

She took one of the cats and tossed it in the pot. There was a loud sizzling sound and a loud pop. A puff of steam flew out and the smell amplified by a hundred.

"I think it is about ready and the moon is full," she said. "Time for you to go."

"Why did you wait all of this time?" I asked trying to stall.

She looked at me for a moment. "There are certain stars in alignment. It is beyond your understanding. Goodbye."

I expected for her to kill me, but instead she just lifted the tree right out of the ground and sent me soaring through the air, back towards the center of the town.

I've been tossed into the air more times than I can count, but I have never been tossed while I was strapped to a tree. I don't think I have ever been thrown that far when I didn't have a tree tied to me. I was kind of impressed. Don't worry. I wouldn't die.

When we, the tree and I, hit the ground it definitely hurt. The tree all but exploded and we both skidded across the pavement for a good 40 feet. It was quite the scene. The worst part of it all was that it was right in the middle of the town, which meant that everyone who was out, and that was pretty much the entirety of Salem, saw it happen.

I looked around at everybody as they stared at me in complete awe. All the kids were dressed in costume, with bags of candy, as well as some of the teenagers that just had trouble letting go of their youth. I would have probably reacted just the same if I weren't used to the impossible. I leaned back to crack my back and attempt to regain my strength. It was going to take a lot to erase everyone's memories at once.

Officer Bennett was stalking toward me with his gun pointed right at my head.

"Don't move," he said. "Put your hands up."

"Which is it?" I asked. "Don't move, or put my hands up?"

"Put. Your. Hands. Up."

"Seriously? You do realize that I was the one who was just tossed halfway across town, right? Why would you want to shoot me?"

"You stepped a toe out of line."

"If you arrest or kill me then this town, and quite possibly the world, will be over."

Bennett stopped for a second, momentarily believing me. He should. That, however, was short lived. It was a tricky situation because I needed to get away from him but at the same time I didn't want to be shot. Hey, I'm fast but I'm not that fast.

"There's a witch," I started. "One of the first. She's trying to bring back her two sisters and if she does it is over. There isn't much time left."

Bennett stared at me, as did everyone else, and he slowly started to lower his gun. He was starting to believe me. I quickly flashed my beam of light and wiped everyone's memory, except for Bennett. In the blink of an eye—a human eye—I grabbed the gun and ripped it out of his hands.

"What did you just do?" he asked.

"I made their lives easier," I told him. "They won't remember this."

"What are you saying, that you can erase memories?" I nodded. "If that's true, then why didn't you erase mine?"

"I need your help."

"My help?" He was staying relatively calm considering what had just happened. If I was naïve like all of you guys and I saw a guy fly through the air with a tree attached to him, I would probably need a change my pants.

"Yeah. Get in the car."

Surprisingly he did what I told him and got in the car. I would have figured that I was going to have to erase his memory as well but he stayed cool.

"Where are we going?" he asked as we climbed in his car.

"She's right by the golf course," I said. "Use your lights but not the siren. I don't want to alert her. She'll probably know before we get there anyway."

"What do you mean?"

"Just drive."

Miraculously he drove forward with the lights spinning but no siren. It was pointless because she was going to figure out we were coming. I had no idea how I was going to beat her. Well, I know I needed to blast her with fire but was falling a little short on how I was going to do it. It didn't matter. I'm the master of improv... when it came to killing monsters.

We pulled up to where we left our vehicles and got out of the car.

"OK," I started, "I need you to stay here."

"Why?" he asked me.

"Because it is dangerous." I ran over to my bike and pulled out another bottle full of lighter fluid and lighter. I ripped up part of my shirt and stuffed it in the top of the bottle.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going to need this to kill her."

"I can't just let you do this."

"Look, you can believe me or not believe me, but I think you kind of do otherwise we wouldn't be here right now. You can try to stop me but the fact is I have to go burn a witch."

Officer Bennett just stared at me like an idiot. It was amazing how quickly he changed from wanting to knock me out to listening to what I was telling him. Although, seeing a 30-foot tree flying through the air, and a person attached to it that survived, would make anyone question what they believe to be reality.

"Please don't follow me," I begged him. "It's going to be hard enough getting everyone out alive."

"Everyone?" he asked, but I didn't stick around to answer him. I really hoped that he wouldn't come after me but knowing him he probably would.

I wasted little time getting back. What surprised me is everything looked exactly how I had left it. Belinda was floating by her cauldron and everyone was still tied to the trees. I thought for the longest time about what I was going to do.

"How long are you going to hide back there?" Belinda asked me. Crap.

I came out from behind the tree. "For as long as I could."

"I am not surprised to see you back here."

"You shouldn't be."

"You have sealed your fate." She tilted her head back and lifted her hands in the air. The ground started to shake and that is when things went south. Ghouls, a witch's go-to trick, rose from the ground. They aren't hard to fight but they are extremely hard to kill.

There were about eight of them and they converged on me fast. I didn't have my axes with me. Belinda had them along with my guns, so I had to rely on my fists. It was a brawl, my favorite.

I took down one, and then another, and another. I was dropping them like flies and that scared me, a lot. It should have been a long, annoying fight with them but it was ending quickly. I got down to the last one and I felt my body jerk. It was all over. The ghouls were just a distraction while the witch prepared a spell to pin me to the ground. I couldn't even twitch my fingers.

"Rise my sisters," said Belinda.

It was all over and there was nothing I could do about it.

I fought against the spell so hard but it was like a building was on top of me, holding me down. So, I just lay there while she continued to chant away, bringing back her awful sisters. We were all pretty much screwed. Great job, Wes.

It looked like everyone was starting to wake up and they were extremely confused. Kelly looked over to me.

"What's happening?!" she shouted. Belinda was so loud and there was so much wind I could barely hear what she was saying.

"We lost!" I yelled back.

"Great!"

"Rise my sisters, rise," Belinda chanted.

I needed to do something to stall her.

"Hey!" I yelled. "Ugly!"

She stopped chanting and looked at me.

"Too chicken to kill me?!" I asked her. She smiled at me and then continued. That was pointless. This one was a real pro.

Kelly and her team went stiff with their faces up in the air. A white mist was being pulled out of them and slowly gravitating towards Belinda. She was drawing their souls and there was nothing that I could do about it. My insides were boiling and I started to shake with panic and rage. I hadn't felt so helpless since my parents were killed.

"Rise my sisters," Belinda repeated. "Rise!"

There had to be something that I could do. If I didn't then we really were going to die. Miracles do happen sometimes, though, as a flaming bottle flew through the air and smashed right into Belinda. She lit up like a Christmas tree. Wait, sorry. That was terrible. Give me a second, I'll think of something better. Oh, yes. She burned up like scarecrow. There, perfect. OK. That sucked too. She was on fire and dying, alright?

The screams were so loud I felt like my head was going to explode. I started to feel her hold over me lift and the souls were returning to their rightful bodies. Belinda eventually stopped screaming and fell to the ground. She was toast. I turned around to see Officer Bennett standing there with my lighter in his hands. I knew there was a good reason that I brought him with me. I stood up and walked over to him.

"I thought I said to stay by the car," I said.

"Yeah," he tumbled. "I...uh...yeah." He was too stunned that he found out witches existed.

"Cat got your tongue?" Sorry. Bad taste.

"I can't believe it."

"Well, you can take comfort in the fact that you won't remember any of this."

"No! Don't. I want to remember."

"I can't let you do that. It isn't good for me."

"I won't say anything, but I need to know if there are witches in my town."

I stared at him, realizing that he was probably right. If something bad happened here it was probably good if he knew about it. Plus if I ever came back here it would be nice if he didn't try to arrest me every time.

"OK," I said. "I trust you. Go, though, before they notice."

"Are you going to cut us loose?" Kelly asked me. Bennett took off.

"You can't let him go," Kelly ordered.

"It's fine," I assured her. "He won't remember a thing."

"Oh. Good." I guess she did know I could erase memories. Oh well.

I finished cutting everyone loose and we stood over the witch.

"We need to bury her," stated Lenny.

"No we don't, Jenny," I said. "That's only if you cut off her head. With fire she is done for." He cracked his neck like a real tough guy. It was so cute. We buried her anyway because we couldn't leave a burnt corpse lying around.

After she was six feet under we went back to our vehicles. Kelly's team was packing in and so was I. Kelly walked over to me.

"I'm glad we stopped her," she said.

"Yeah," I agreed. "Me too."

"Where are you headed off to next?"

"I don't know. Wherever the next monster pops up."

"Yeah."

We stood there for a moment.

"Is this where we kiss?" I asked.

"I'll see you around, Wes," she said and took off. She had trouble hiding her feelings for me. I love older women.

I finished packing up my stuff and climbed on my bike. I drove down the street, satisfied that I rid the world of another witch--one of the first, too. She did burn up really quick, but it didn't bother me.

The wind batted at my helmet visor and the air cooled me down. The sun was starting to peak over the horizon and light up the world. The world is a scary place but you can sleep well, for I am here to make it safer. Monsters, beware. Sorry that was a really bad ending.

I knew it was bad the moment I drove into the town. I felt it wash over me like an ocean wave. Still, I didn't want to admit it yet so I stayed optimistic and held onto the hope that I was wrong. It was a small down in West Virginia and there were reports of strange things happen, things that usual led to one conclusion but I wanted to confirm it first.

For those who don't know me, I'm Wes Parker and I hunt monsters for a living because I am a paladin. I'm strong, fast, I can erase memories and I am extremely good looking. Especially with my leather jacket and my badass motorcycle.

It was a cold fall day and the clouds were preventing the sun from showing its face. It was fine to me, though, because either way it was going to be an awful next couple of days. I won't get ahead of myself yet, however, because I could be mistaken—I usually wasn't.

Even though the town was small it was still very nice. There were white picket fences, perfectly green grass and the creepiest cemetery that I have ever seen in my entire life, and I have seen some scary stuff. I pulled up next to it and felt a shiver run up my spine.

A teenager, maybe 14 years old, was riding by on his bicycle. He obviously saw that I was stopped and pulled up next to me.

"Hey," he said.

"Hi," I replied.

"You lost?"

"Not yet."

"What you looking at?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "This place gives me the creeps."

"It gives everybody the creeps. It's haunted."

Great. "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. They say if you go in there after midnight you can hear all of the screams."

"Who are they?"

"I don't know, everybody."

He sat on his bike staring at me. I looked out of the corner of my eye and he seemed disappointed.

"You don't believe me, do you?" he asked.

"The problem is that I do," I said.

He nodded his head.

"I have to get home," he told me.

"OK," I replied. He then left.

Even though the kid pretty much confirmed what I had already thought, knew was more like it, I liked to think that it wasn't true. But it was.

Ever since I had learned I was a paladin there is one thing that I realized I hate above all others, except for werewolves, and that is ghosts. I would rather deal with all three of the Terrible Three—the witch sisters I stopped about a month ago—than with one ghost. They can travel through objects, pick things up, possess people, and there is nothing I can do to stop them. I can't hit them with any type of material and there is nothing I can do to block them.

Now dealing with one ghost can be quite a hassle, especially since the only way to get rid of one is to trap it in this little box that I had created and then put it in a chamber in a basement. Just kidding, that would be way too cool. The only way to get rid of them—the non-murderous ones at least—is to figure out what they want. For the ones that are really violent you have to perform an exorcism. It's spoken in Latin and you need something of theirs to perform it. It is very difficult and I always mess it up.

Sometimes when I find out about a ghost I won't investigate because they are just causing mischief and won't hurt anybody. Mainly I just didn't want to do it. This one I had to because there were a lot of reports and someone died already, which meant they were violent. Plus if I was correct, which again I always am, there was more than one.

Something moved in the distance in the cemetery. I knew what it was before I saw it. A lot of times ghosts looked pretty normal, just like you or me, but sometimes they looked like they were torn apart and were rotting for years. Basically they looked like monsters. Go figure.

It was kind of hard to see considering how far away it was but they started moving towards me, quickly. It had long greasy hair, it looked like parts of its skin was rotting, and it was missing an arm. I could stand there and put up a fight but that would just end up with me dead.

I twisted the handle to put the bike in motion, but by the time I started moving the ghost had already reached me.

I thought it had reached me. I closed my eyes and scrunched up, bracing myself for the hit. Don't judge me. Have you ever tried to fight a violent ghost? No? I didn't think so. Now let it go and read on.

A few seconds went by and nothing had touched me. I chanced a look and saw the ghost standing at the edge of the cemetery and he—I could see that it was a he now—was just staring at me, like he wanted to eat me. This was good. Sometimes a ghost is trapped to a cemetery. I'm not sure why really. Some ghosts can go wherever they want, while others can't go beyond 20 feet of something they are attached to. It could be an object, a person or a cemetery.

I took one last look at the ghost and then left it be. There was no way I was going to be able to just get rid of him right then. There was a plus, though, and that was that he was missing an arm. No, I don't think severed arms are cool. It meant that he lost it when he was alive and that I knew what to look for while I was trying to find out who he was.

The center of the town was typical. It was full of shops, mom and pop type mostly, but it had a few big names as well. The town had a lot of traffic, cars and people, but then again it was lunchtime so I guess it made sense.

It had been at least six hours since I had last eaten but I was way too amped up to eat anything. I just wanted to get right to work. Nothing gets me going like these stupid spirits. The quicker I got it done the better off I was.

I was two feet away from my bike when a little boy walked up to me. He was maybe four feet tall, about seven years old and had pale blond hair. Now, normally I would have said hello and probably tried to walk away from him, but this kid was different. Maybe it was that he had the bluest eyes I had ever seen or the fact that he just walked through a mailbox; you decide.

"Hi," he said, in a very happy voice.

"Uh, hi," I replied.

"I'm Dillon. Who are you?"

"What?"

"What's your name?"

"Oh. It's Wes."

"OK. How come you can see me?"

"How did you know I could see you?"

"You were staring at me," he told me.

"Right," I said. "Sorry."

"It's OK. How come you can see me?"

"I'm different than normal people." Ghost can choose whom they do and do not want to see them. The one thing that makes a paladin different, with ghosts I mean, is that I can see them when they don't realize it. If they want a human—that would be you—to see them then they have to concentrate. If they want a paladin—that's me—to not see them then they also have to concentrate. Sometimes they didn't know that but most seem to have a natural understanding of that trick. Just like other monsters they can sense me so they immediately make themselves invisible to me, unless they don't know or care.

"Oh," he said. "How?"

"What happened to you?" I asked him, avoiding his question.

"Car accident."

"Oh."

"It's OK. I still get to see my mommy everyday."

"That's good."

"What about you?"

I fought back the urge to cry. It doesn't happen very often, but it does happen. Hey, I'm only human. Well, kind of human, anyway.

"I haven't seen my mom in a very long time," I told him.

"Oh," he replied, sadly.

"It's OK."

"You wanna play?"

He threw me off a little bit with that one. "Play what?"

"A game."

"What game?"

"I don't know. Tag?"

I took a knee in front of him. "I don't think I can."

"How come?" he asked.

"To be honest, it would look a little weird if I was running around chasing someone nobody else can see."

"Who are you talking to?" A woman came up to me and was very confused.

I quickly took the little Bluetooth headset out of my pocket and put it in my ear. I knew that it would come in handy for something.

"What?" I asked.

"I said who are you talking to?"

"Hang on a second mom. Can I help you?" I turned my head a little so she could see the headset.

"Oh, sorry." She walked away.

The last thing I needed was to make myself known here. Once she was out of earshot I turned back to Dillon.

"Anyway, Dillon," I began. "I can't play."

"Oh," he said. "No one ever wants to play."

"Well, big guy, I don't think they can see you."

"No, not them."

He had my interest now. "Who then?"

"The other ghosts."

"Dillon, how many are there?"

"I don't know. I stopped counting."

Crap.

Dillon had stopped counting the ghosts. To a seven year old that could have meant he got bored after counting 10 of them, which would still be a lot, but something told me that it was more than that. I looked around and suddenly realized why there were so many people. It was because some of them weren't alive. I gulped.

"You OK?" Dillon asked me.

"Yeah," I lied. "Do you want to hang out with me all day?"

"Yeah!" He was excited about that. I wasn't putting him in harms way because ghosts can't hurt each other, they can only hurt us. So with him around he could alert me when another ghost is near, and more importantly the ones that want to hurt me.

"Alright," I said. "Great."

"Where are we going?"

"I was going to talk to some people but I think I need to eat first." I'm allowed to change my mind you know. I was going to need all the energy I could get.

"Can we go into a sit-down restaurant?"

"I don't think that would be a good idea," I told him. "I can't be talking to you when people can't see you."

"I can make them."

"No, no. Don't do that. I think I'll just get some pizza and find somewhere to take it. You know of anywhere?"

"Yeah. We can go to Hubble Park."

I ordered a pizza that took almost half an hour to make, which I know is normal especially if the place is busy. It was busy and that is why I was so anxious to get out of there. Out of the 20 people that were there maybe seven of them were alive. So far I was lucky that none of them were angry and trying to kill me. Although, I was sure that there were some around, they just didn't want me to see them.

After the pizza was ready I stepped out and strapped it to my bike.

"Want to get on?" I asked Dillon.

"No," he replied. "I can meet you there."

"OK, where is..." I didn't get to finish the sentence because he was already gone. "I guess I'll find it then."

There was a man in a suit with a briefcase, who looked busy, walking by me.

"Do you know where Hubble Park is?" I asked him.

He stopped and looked at me. He seemed a little confused. "It's down the road. Take a left on Bleaker."

"Thank you."

He walked away and I wasn't sure why he was confused. That is until another person walked right through him. He was confused because he wasn't sure how I could see him. I didn't want to make my presence known to the people of this town; I definitely didn't want all of the ghosts to know, yet.

I drove down the street and sure enough there was Bleaker Street. Another two minutes and I was at the park. It was just as empty as I had hoped so I could talk to Dillon without worrying about someone thinking I was crazy. He was sitting at a picnic table in the middle of the grass. I brought the pizza over and opened it right up. Dillon took a big whiff.

"That smells good," he said.

"How can you smell that?" I asked him.

He put his hands up to his mouth and started to giggle.

"Oh," I said with a smile. "Very funny."

"I know," he replied.

I took a bite into the slice I had pulled out and it was probably the best pizza that I have ever tasted, and believe me; I have tried a lot of different places.

"What are we going to do?" Dillon asked.

"Well," I started as I finished my bite, "I'm going to finish this pizza and then I am going to talk to a couple in town here that claim to be haunted."

"How come?"

"Because I need to get rid of them." I realized the moment the words left my mouth I shouldn't have said it.

"Get rid of them? Are you going to get rid of me?"

"No, Dillon, but not all ghost are good."

"I know," he said. "There are some really mean ones."

"That's why I am here."

"They're not all mean. Some are really nice."

"Do you know why there are so many?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "At first it was just me, but more have been coming."

"When did they start showing up?"

"I don't know. Not too long ago."

Not too long ago to him could be five years for all I knew.

"Like a year?" I asked him.

"No," he replied. "Less than that, maybe a month ago. It's hard to tell."

That was odd. It was already weird that there were so many but why were they all showing up recently?

I was broken from my train of thought when I noticed that Dillon looked like he had just seen a ghost. Ha. The funny thing, aside from the fact that he was one, is that he did see a ghost. It was also the worst part because when I turned around I saw the same ghost from the cemetery was staring us both down. I guess I was wrong about him being stuck.

"Wes," said Dillon, "he's a real mean one."

"I kind of figured," I replied.

The ghost came flying at us so fast that I didn't have time to react, and this time he didn't stop once he reached me.

This time the ghost did reach me and knocked me right off of the bench I was sitting on. It was very frustrating that they could hit me or throw things at me all they wanted but I couldn't do anything to fight back. It wasn't fair.

After I rolled for about 30 feet I pushed myself up and prepared for another attack. When I looked up, though, there was no one there, not even Dillon. I doubted that the evil spirit was just going to leave after that, and I was right. He reappeared in front of me and took another swing, once again knocking me to the ground. It was already getting old.

The ghost disappeared again but that is when Dillon came back.

"Wes, are you OK?" he asked.

"Wonderful," I replied.

"He's winning."

"You think?" I didn't mean to snap at him. I know he's only seven—I think he is anyway, I never asked—but seriously.

"Behind you!"

I turned around and there he was, ready to knock me into a tree. I thought I might have heard something crack but I was 90 percent sure that it was the tree, however. I hoped it was at least.

When the ghost came at me again I put my hand up and spouted a short Latin phrase as quickly as I could. The ghost disappeared and I knew that he wasn't coming back any time soon. Yes, yes I made it seem like it's not easy to get rid of a ghost and that is because it's not. All I did was banish him to the cemetery for a few hours. Believe me, he will be back.

"Wes!" Dillon shouted.

"Hey," I said back.

"Are you OK? Are you OK?"

"I'm OK. I've had better days but I'm not...I'm fine." That was close.

"Where did he go?"

"I sent him away for a while."

"Oh, good. I don't like him. What do we do now?"

"Well, despite the fact that my pizza is all over the ground, I'm still going to eat it and then we'll go to the first house." I couldn't get sick and there was no way I was going to let all of that good food go to waste.

As I walked around to gather up my scattered lunch I noticed a woman with bruises on her neck walking over to me.

"Hi," she said.

"Hello," I replied.

It didn't take me long to realize that she was dead and the 20 other people that were heading toward me were also ghosts. I felt like my entire body shudder and I cringed like one might do when they see a spider. I would rather have my body covered head to toe in those eight-legged freaks than be near two ghosts.

I continued to get my pizza and ignored the fact that they were definitely coming towards me. Eventually they were all completely surrounding me and there was no avoiding it.

"Can I help you people?" I asked them.

"How did you do that?" one of them asked.

"How did you make him vanish like that?" another said.

"Why can you see us?"

They went on and on and on.

"Stop!" I shouted. They all jumped and stopped talking. "Why are you all here?"

"Larry told us," someone said.

"Who's Larry?"

"I am." The man I saw earlier in the business suit stepped forward. "I told them how you saw me."

"Naturally. I thought it was you." I said the last part to Dillon.

"I didn't tell anybody," he promised.

"I believe you," I said.

I looked around at all the ghosts. I had never thought I would see the day when ghosts were surrounding me like they were.

"Why are you all here?" I asked them.

"Are you here to stop them?" the businessman asked me.

"Who?"

"The bad ones?"

"Yes."

There seemed to be a wave of relief among the crowd and it occurred to me that I was going to get rid of all of them. They might be easier than the one that attacked me but it was going to be a lot of work to figure what they needed.

"How did you die?" I asked the businessman.

He merely shrugged his shoulders.

"How about you?" I asked another one. They just shook their head. I went around to as many as I felt like and none of them could remember. It was odd because a ghost always knows how they died. At least Dillon knew.

"Why are you asking?" one of them asked me.

"Just curious," I told them. I started for my bike.

"Are you going to get them now?" a ghost shouted.

"Not yet. I have a lot of work to do."

They looked disappointed.

"Where are we going?" Dillon asked.

"We are going to 255 West Harold Street," I said.

"OK, I'll meet you there."

"Wait," I stopped him. "I don't know the way."

"Oh. OK." He climbed onto the bike.

We headed out and felt even more nervous than I had 20 minutes prior. It wasn't because of the ghost that attacked me but the fact that none of the ghosts knew how they had died. Something very odd was going on.

Before we got to the house I needed to change my attire. When I show up on a motorcycle with a leather jacket people are a little unwilling to answer any questions that I have. So I like to put on my teenage attire and pretend I'm doing a report for school or something. I don't always do that, but for the most part it's just easier.

I parked the bike down the street and then Dillon and I made the rest of the way by foot. I appreciated that Dillon just didn't zip ahead of me.

"OK," I began, "when we are in here I need you to keep the talking to a minimum."

"Oh, OK," Dillon said. He looked hurt.

"It isn't that I don't want to talk to you but remember what I said about people not seeing you?"

"Yes," He seemed a little less offended. "What are we going here for?"

"This is the first reported haunting that I found in this town so this seemed like a pretty good place to start."

"Do you want me to leave?"

"No. I don't want you to leave."

"Good."

I walked up to the front door and rang the doorbell. About 15 seconds later it opened, revealing a gentleman in his mid 40's.

"Hi," I said in the nicest voice I could.

"Hello," he responded. "Can I help you?"

"Yes, My name is Wes and I'm from the community college. I am doing a report on paranormal sightings. I heard about the all of the reports from here and I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions?"

He looked me up and down real quick. "Sure. Come on in. I'm Randy."

We shook hands and I stepped through the front door. The house was typical. Pictures of people were spread out on a fireplace and on the walls, and a flat screen TV was in the living room. The pictures looked like they were of his family but I didn't see any of them around. Right away I assumed that one of them might be the one haunting this place.

He offered me a glass of water, which I gladly accepted to not be rude. Plus I was thirsty. I sat on the couch with Dillon next to me. I was glad that he was listening to me so far and remained quiet.

"You have a lovely family," I told him.

"Thank you," he replied.

"I don't mean to be too direct but was there a death recently?"

"No." He seemed a little confused by that question. "My wife is at work and the kids are at school. I'm a writer so I work from home."

"Oh," I said. "Any idea about who the ghost may be?"

Randy started to laugh. It was more sarcastic rather than humorous. "After we bought this house we found out there was a strange death in the house before we bought it."

"What kind of strange death?" He had my full attention.

"It was 15 years ago, which was more than seven years before we bought so they didn't have to disclose that information, but there was a woman who lived here by herself. They found her one day with her... uh... with her head severed."

I didn't even have to hide the fact that that shocked me. I may kill monsters left and right but finding out about a human that has lost their head still makes me shudder.

"Oh," I said. "That is strange."

"Yeah," he agreed.

"So are the incidents violent?"

"No, not really. So far it has been surprisingly mild. Some doors will open and close by themselves, the lights will turn off and the TV channels will change."

"That's because they use up so much electricity and watch nothing but smut!" shouted a woman as she came bursting into the room.

"OH!" I shouted in surprise. She was an older woman with a pink dress covered in flowers and she was holding her head under her right arm. To say that watching a severed head talk was strange would be an extreme understatement.

"Are you OK?" Randy asked me. I nodded my head.

"Yeah," I lied.

"These people are ridiculous," the old woman said. "You can't imagine how much I save them on electricity."

"Shhh," Dillon shushed her. "He can't talk to us right now."

"Don't shush me young man. Respect your elders. Are you telling me that he can see and hear me?"

Dillon nodded his head.

"You," she said to me.

I ignored her.

"I'm speaking to you boy," she tried again.

"Are you sure your OK?" Randy asked me again. "You don't look so good."

"Yeah, I'm OK," I promised him. "They ever find out what happened?"

Randy shook his head. "Not from what I read. It is really strange."

"You think it's strange?" she asked him. "Try waking up with your head on the ground and having to carry it around. I can't even leave this house."

"You don't know how you died?" I asked her.

"Oh, so now you can talk to me."

"Yes." I noticed in the corner of my eye that Randy was staring at me like I was crazy but I ignored him.

"No. I don't know. I just woke up like this to find these people living in my house."

"Why can none of you remember?"

"Who are you talking to?" Randy blurted.

"Oh. The old woman that is haunting your house."

"I think I would like you to leave."

"Good idea."

"Don't leave me with these people," the old woman begged.

I looked over at Dillon. "We should go."

"OK."

We both started for the front door with the woman blabbing behind us.

"Oh," I started. "One more thing." I flashed my beam of light and erased Randy's memory of me.

We were walking back to the bike and it was really eating away at me why no one could remember how they died. I felt like I could go house to house and I would never find out anything useful.

"It doesn't make sense," I said to Dillon. "Every ghost in this town can't remember why they died except for you."

"I don't remember," he said.

I stopped walking. "You said you died of a car crash."

"Yeah, but that's because my mommy told me that."

"You talk to your mom?"

"Sometimes, but it's hard."

"Where is your mom?"

"She lives at the hospital on the really big hill."

I knew what one he was talking about. It was a mental institution. She was going to have the answers I needed.

The place was creepy, and I mean creepy. The town was small and nice but it had a creepy cemetery and the mental hospital fit right in with that atmosphere. It was an old, brick building that looked almost empty, and the air around it just seemed dark. My thoughts were that when I walked in there I was probably going to see a lot of ghosts and unfortunately that might give me away very quickly.

The whole drive over there I tried to think of a good reason that I should be able to talk to Dillon's mother but there was no one that I could pretend to be to fool them. So, I was pretty much going to have to walk around and blast everyone with my memory power.

"What did you do to Randy?" Dillon asked me.

"I made him forget me," I explained.

"Why?"

"If I don't then I risk getting myself noticed and he would go on worried that I exist."

"Oh."

We both walked through the front door and observed a man sitting behind the front desk.

"What floor is she on?" I asked Dillon.

"Third," he replied.

"Excuse me," the man started but I zapped him before he could say anything else. It occurred to me that it might be better if I dressed myself as an orderly. That might make it a little easier to get around unnoticed.

There was a door behind the front desk and luckily there were a couple of uniforms. I searched until I found one that fit me well enough and then went back to the front desk. The man sitting down seemed to have broken out of his trance and looked at me again.

"Hill?" he asked.

"Huh?" I replied.

"You're Joshua Hill, yes?"

"Oh, yeah, that's me."

"Well, take this and get up to the 2nd floor." He handed me a key card. "Yancey is waiting for you."

"Yancey?" I stifled a laugh.

"Yeah. Is there a problem?"

"Not for me."

"Then go."

I left without another word with Dillon in tow. It was very convenient that the jerk in the front gave me access to the building. Little did he know I had no intention of finding Yancey or doing anything other than finding Dillon's mother.

On the first floor there was really nothing worth taking notice of. It wasn't until I went up the first set of stairs that things got interesting.

"We have to go across here to go further," Dillon informed me.

"Why?" I asked him.

"Because the stairs to the next floor is that way."

"That's odd."

"It's not my fault."

"I didn't say it was. Come on."

As we entered the hall I could see people everywhere, dead and alive. The ones that were alive were either workers or in a room where they couldn't get me. The ones that were not alive could easily pass through the walls and looked like they wanted to hurt something. Once they realized that I could see them things would really go south. So I did what any rational paladin would do: I walked with my head down as fast as I could.

"Hey you!" someone yelled.

I ignored him.

"I'm talking to you," he tried again.

I attempted to walk away but he grabbed my arm to stop me. When he turned me around I was forced to look him straight in the face, which was unfortunate because he was very ugly. He was a ghost for sure.

"Are you deaf boy?" he asked me.

I looked at him for a second. "You're alive, right?"

"I'm standing here, ain't I?"

"Right, sorry."

"You're Hill, yes?"

"Yancey?"

"Follow me."

"I really need to go."

"If you want to stay in here then you will follow me."

I nodded my head and decided to play along for a while. The last thing I needed to do was make a scene in front of all the patients. He was leading me across the hall, which was the way Dillon and I needed to go anyway.

One of the patients walked up to us. The problem was we were in an area where no patients could get to and Yancey just ignored her.

"Boy?" she said to Dillon. "Boy, why are you following them?"

"I uh," he stumbled. "I think they are going up to my mother."

"Why? Why?"

"He's here to stop the really mean ghosts."

I whipped my head around and looked at him, scowling.

"Oops," he said. "Sorry."

"You can see us?" she asked me. "You can see us? He can see us. He can see us!" She was yelling it to everyone.

Anyone who was a ghost looked up at me and began to come towards me.

"Crap," I muttered. I tried to keep going without acknowledging them. That became impossible within two seconds as they were all around me and they were shouting. For the first 10 seconds I said nothing.

"You can see us?"

"Ha!"

"Fly, fly away."

"I will not be ignored."

They were shouting at once and I couldn't take it any longer.

"Enough!" I shouted. They stopped.

"What?" Yancey asked me.

"Nothing."

"Who are you yelling at?"

"No one."

He stared at me like I belonged on the other side of the glass with the rest of the crazy people.

"I think it's time that you leave, Hill," he said to me.

"But I just started," I tried.

"I deal with enough of these crazies as it is. I don't need you."

I let out a sigh. "I didn't want to have to do this."

"I beg your pardon."

I didn't waste any more time and wiped his memory. That sent everyone, dead or alive, into a complete frenzy. I had to speed up my efforts to get the answers I needed. I yanked Yancey's card as an alarmed sounded off.

"Get us there quick," I said to Dillon. He didn't wait and took off.

As I followed him through the crowd of ghosts they all reached out to me and touched me. I thought I was going to break down.

We eventually made it through them and as we entered the next stairway I saw that the rest of orderlies were coming after us. I flashed a quick beam of light and they stopped, but the alarm kept going.

The third floor was just a bunch of rooms that were obviously held for high-level patients.

"This is it," said Dillon. He was standing in front of room 312.

"You going to stick with me?" I asked him.

"Yeah."

"Good."

I opened the door and walked through.

Dillon's mom was sitting on the bed with her back against the wall. I have to admit that when I first met Dillon I expected his mother to be somewhere in her 40's, maybe 50's. I never expected her to be an old, frail woman. She had to be somewhere in her 80's. That of course meant that Dillon had been around for a lot longer than I thought.

As we approached her for, the longest time she didn't move or even look like she was breathing. I started to wonder if she was even alive. I found out she was when she slowly turned her head toward me. It was very disturbing.

"Wes?" she asked.

I stopped, confused. I quickly devised that Dillon must have told her about me. I don't know when, though. He'd been with me the whole time. I think he was anyway. To be honest there could have been plenty of times he could have sneaked away when I wasn't paying attention.

"Yeah," I replied. "I don't think I ever got your name."

"Call me Patty."

"OK, Patty. I'm guessing your son told you about me?"

"Yes. I know why you are here."

"I'm here to get rid of some of these ghosts. I was wondering if you could tell me about the day of the accident?"

She turned her head away from and for the longest time said nothing.

"It was a cold November evening," she said, startling me a little, only a little. "I had decided to take Dillon to see a movie. The night was clear and the moon shined bright. We were no more than five minutes from home when I saw something. At first it was too far away to tell what it was. The closer we got to it the more I could see and I didn't believe what I was looking at was real. It was a man. A man with one arm and a face that could give anyone nightmares." That sounded familiar.

"He just stood there," she continued. "I was so shocked by what I was looking at that I didn't try to move out of the way. Before I could even blink he came charging at us and passed through the car. I swerved out of the way and lost control. When I woke up I was in the hospital and my poor little Dillon was taken from me." The whole time she spoke it seemed so emotionless. It was probably years of regret and no one believing her that left her that way.

"I tried to tell everyone what happened but no one believed me," she told me, "not even my husband. So they threw me in here, leaving me to rot away over time."

"Do you know anything about the ghost who attacked you?" I asked her.

"When it happened I knew nothing of the spirit that ruined my life."

"Now?"

"When they threw me in here I did nothing but sit here and think about the loss of my little boy, my poor sweet Dillon. It wasn't until a year ago that I started to see him."

"A year? I was under the impression that he had been here for a long time."

"I never said that," Dillon chimed in.

I thought about it for a long moment. "I guess you didn't."

"Whom are you talking to?" Patty asked me.

"Oh, he's here with us."

"Dillon?"

"Hi momma," he said back.

"Oh, baby. It's always so good to see you."

"You too, momma."

A lot of this wasn't making much sense. When a ghost dies they might not come back for at most six months, if they ever do become a ghost. Dillon had to have died in the 60's and he didn't come back until somewhere around a year ago. Things lately had been a little out of the ordinary and it was really starting to worry me.

"What did you find out about the ghost?" I asked her again.

"I've been in here for over 50 years," she mumbled.

"It is very important that I find out what I can about the ghost and anything you could tell me would be very useful."

She just sat there and stared off.

"Patty?" I tried.

She still said nothing. It occurred to me how still she was sitting so I decided to walk over to her.

"Momma?" said Dillon.

When I stood in front of her I could tell before I even checked for a pulse. She was dead. Not to be insensitive but it was very inconvenient because I didn't find anything out about the ghost. Although, at least I knew that it was the same ghost that was harassing me.

"Momma?" Dillon repeated.

"Hey little buddy," I started, "come here for a second."

I knelt down to meet his height and he walked up to me.

"Is she gone?" he asked me.

I was surprised by Dillon's quick acceptance.

"Yes," I said, sadly.

"Oh," he said. "That's OK. Soon we can be together forever."

I nodded my head, not sure if that were really true or not.

"I think we should get going," I said. That was when I felt it.

Something hit me. I wasn't sure what or who it was but whatever it may have been it hit me with enough force to knock me out of the building. Let me say that again so you understand: it sent me through the wall of a brick building. There wasn't much that I could do at that point but plummet to the hard pavement that waited below.

I bounced off a car, completely caving in the hood, and fell onto the ground, happy the sedan broke my fall. I would have felt bad for whoever's car I just destroyed if it wasn't for the fact that I couldn't breath. Dillon was standing next me saying something but the ringing in my ears prevented me from hearing anything.

I took as much time as I could to regain my breath because I didn't have any choice but to wait. It gave me time to notice how remarkably smooth the pavement was. Dillon was still talking and his voice was getting louder. It was either that or I was gaining back my hearing.

"Wes?" he said. "Wes, can you hear me?"

"Yeah," I moaned. "We need to get out of here quick."

"Don't worry. She can't come out of there?"

"She? Was that your mom?"

"No. It was a crazy lady."

I looked up in the hole where the wall used to be and saw a woman with pure white eyes and white, matted hair. She had her toothless mouth open and was screaming at me. It was very attractive.

"In the interest of not having nightmares for the rest of my life, I think we should go," I said.

"Where now?" he asked.

"We need to find out anything we can about the ghost that killed you."

I told Dillon to meet me at a café I noticed when I first arrived in town, and I traveled back on my bike. I wasn't really in the mood to talk so it was better to make the ten-minute drive there alone. It was still hard for me to breath.

The café was quiet, which was perfect. There wasn't a single ghost in there, except for Dillon, and there were only a couple of people that were alive. That was exactly what I needed.

Dillon noticed that I entered and waved me over. As I sat down I placed my laptop on the table and opened it up.

"What are you doing?" Dillon asked me.

"I need to find out anything I can about the really bad ghost," I told him. "I have a very bad feeling about him."

"How are you going to do that?"

"By looking on the Internet."

"The what?"

"It's...never mind. I can find out pretty much anything that I want about everything."

"Oh."

Before we dug in I decided that I wanted something to keep me going so I ordered a frozen drink. It was some sort of caramel thing but it tasted delicious. Plus it gave me a boost after the rough day that I had been having.

I went back to my seat and started my search.

"What can I do?" Dillon asked me.

"Well," I started, "you can keep me company. This might take a while and there is no telling when that crazy spirit might show back up or any other ghost that might want to hurt me."

"OK."

"Just give me a heads up if anything is coming after me."

"OK."

For the first hour there was nothing about anyone who specifically lost an arm. The one thing I did find out, though, was there were a lot of violent deaths in this town throughout the years.

"Jeez," I said out loud.

"What?" Dillon asked.

"A lot of people have had some unhappy deaths here." I realized I was talking to a seven year old and shouldn't have said that. I was also aware of the fact that some of the people in the café were now looking at me.

"What?" I asked them, begging them to say something, but none of them did.

I went back to my computer and as I was searching through all of the stories some of them had people that survived.

"This is interesting," I said.

"What is?" Dillon seemed as interested as me, but he obviously didn't know why.

"Some of the reports I'm reading have witnesses."

"Witnesses?"

"It's someone who sees something important happen."

"What do they say?"

"Hang on a second. I've only read a couple of them so far."

I kept reading and maybe about a third of the strange deaths that happened over the past 50 years all had someone who saw something, and all say the same thing.

"Uh oh," I breathed.

"What?" Dillon stood up.

"Any strange death or accident that has happened in this town has the same thing in common."

"What?"

I gulped. "The ghost with one arm has caused them."

I knew the moment I saw the ghost that it was bad news, but had no idea it had spent the last 50 years killing people in this town. I needed to figure out who it was and what I could do to get rid of him. The search for someone who lost an arm in this town, though, came up with nothing. It seemed hopeless.

"We aren't going to find anything in here," I said out loud.

"You wanna go play now?" Dillon asked me.

"I'll tell you what, as soon as I find out how to get rid of this ghost we can play."

"OK."

"I have to be honest, I have no idea what to do."

"How do we get rid of him?"

He had a very good question to which I didn't have the answer.

"You need something of the ghost's," I told him.

"Oh," he replied.

I thought about it for a long time. The first occurrence of him we know about was when he killed Dillon, but for all I knew he could be hundreds of years old. He could be even older than that. That is when my brain started to work. It occurred to me that the ghost could be from somewhere other than this town. Remember when I told you that ghosts can be tied to an object? This was going to be tough to get out of a little kid.

"Before you died, do you remember if anything was brought to this town?" I asked.

"What do you mean?" he asked back. I realized how vague that question was.

"Was there something big or antique-like brought to this town? Like to a museum."

"I don't know."

"Awesome."

That certainly got me nowhere.

"Oh wait," he said, stopping me from walking away.

"What?" I asked.

"I remember something. Before I died there was a murseum."

"You mean museum?"

"That's what I said."

"I would say that is worth checking out."

I convinced Dillon to ride on the bike with me again because I would have imagined that the ghost would return at any time. So, we made our way to the museum and I hoped that it was closed. If it was it would make my life just a little bit easier, but when did that ever happen?

When we pulled up to the building it was definitely open and there were definitely people of both variety in there. I walked up to the front door and saw that the charge was 15 dollars, for a museum in a small town. That was just severely over priced. At least they took a card.

The girl behind the front desk looked like she was really loving her life. She had her face in both of her hands and it was all pushed up into her eyes. I handed her my card. It looked like it took a lot of effort but eventually she took her hands away from her face long enough to ring me up.

"I don't suppose you know of anything in here that came here in the 60's?" I asked her.

"Dude," she started, "this place was opened in the 60's. Pretty much everything in here is that old."

"Right. Thank you." I took my card back and walked away.

With Dillon on my heels I made my way through the museum trying to find anything that might tell me about that awful ghost.

"What are we looking for?" Dillon asked me.

"I'm not sure yet," I admitted. "Can you read?"

"Yes, I can read." He was offended by that.

"Sorry." I put my hands up as if I were defending myself. "Look for anything that might talk about a man with one arm or a curse or something."

"I can do that."

"OK, good."

We both started to walk around and I generally ignored everyone in there because I couldn't tell who was dead and who wasn't. It was a very tedious task to have to read every little plaque explaining what I was looking at but if I wanted to get rid of the ghost then I was just going to have to suck it up.

It wasn't more than three minutes when Dillon came popping out of a statue I was looking at. I jumped and tried not to make any noise.

"Jeez," I said. I hadn't even realized that he wandered off.

"Sorry," he apologized.

"It's fine."

"I found something."

"Lead the way."

I followed him until we were on the other side of the wall until we came to a desk. Upon reading the plaque in front of it I found out it belonged to Prince Gregory VII.

"Oh yeah," I said. "This is our guy." It turned out this guy was a murderous psychopath and he tortured his victims back in the 1400's. When the people finally discovered that he was the one killing everyone in their village they took revenge on him. They cut off his arm and completely mangled his face.

"This guy is a real winner," I said.

"Read the rest," Dillon suggested.

I did as he said and found out that this desk has been moved from museum to museum and in each town that it has been held there were a lot of unexplained deaths. That meant that this ghost has gone from town to town killing a lot of people, but why?

"That's strange," I said.

"This is what we needed?" he asked.

"Yeah."

I turned to look at him. He looked very scared.

"What?" I asked.

I turned around and saw what had him so frightened. The prince was staring me right in the face. He had come back.

I suddenly felt as if I was going to cry. You can sit there and judge me all you want but you go face to face with something you couldn't defend yourself against that looked like absolute death.

The princely ghost did exactly as I had expected him to and sent me flying through one of the exhibits, most definitely attracting unwanted attention. Man, if I could punch ghosts I would slug Prince Gregory VII in the face. I was limited, however, to little Latin phrases that may banish him temporarily.

I started to chant again but the awful ghost just came right up to me and slugged me in the stomach, taking all of the air from my lungs and sending me another 10 feet. This was going to be near impossible to get rid of him if he wasn't even giving me time to shout out a short phrase. He wasn't going to stop until I was dead.

Dillon was off to the side looking like he was going to have a complete panic attack. There was nothing he could do and there was nothing that I could do.

The crazy prince stalked toward me, taking his time. He certainly had enough of it since I couldn't even speak.

"You have been a thorn in my side," he said. "I don't know how you were able to send me away before but I will not allow it again."

"What is your plan?" I asked him with an immense amount of difficulty.

"To break the chains that bind me to that desk."

"How can you possibly do that?" I had wondered if he was tied to the desk how he was able to go all around town.

"When I first found myself in the state that I am in I learned quickly I couldn't venture very far from it. I was trapped within the building the desk was in. Being dead as long I have you learn a thing or two."

I started to stand up but in interest of not having him attack me yet I settled for just kneeling on the floor. I was surprised that no one had come to investigate the noise yet but then I remembered the girl at the front desk and it made sense.

"Yeah," I said. "I can imagine."

"No you cannot," he assured me.

"OK."

Dillon came up to us.

"Please stop it," he begged the prince.

The evil ghost backhanded him in the face and knocked the poor kid to the ground.

"Keep your nose out of it," he yelled.

I couldn't believe what I saw. Ghosts couldn't touch each other but there it happened. The prince hit him just like he was able to hit me.

"How did you do that?" I asked him.

He continued his need to control the situation and gave me a whack in the face. I really disliked this ghost.

"I killed him," he said to me. "I can do whatever I want with him."

"I didn't know that," I admitted.

"I have spent years and years gathering souls. With each one I take, the closer I come to reaching my goal."

"What would that be?"

Instead of answering me, he decided it would be better to just kick me in the chest and send me out of the back door, which I didn't even know was there, and rolling on the ground. The prince wasn't far behind me and Dillon was right behind him, very conscious of how close to George he was.

"I seek to free myself from that wretched piece of wood," he told me as came closer. "With each group I collect I can venture further and further from the desk." He was inches from my face with a look so crazy it could rival even the Joker. I literally thought he was going to start eating me. "When I kill someone their soul is bound to me and killing someone requires a lot of energy." That would explain why he hasn't killed me yet. "After I recuperate I kill another and another. Once I have acquired enough I use their energy to break the hold that binds me to the desk. This is the last group that I need to gather, and then this world will be mine."

"That wouldn't be good," I struggled to get out. It wouldn't. If he wasn't tied to the desk anymore that could also mean that it no longer belonged to him and I would have a hell of a time trying to get rid of him.

"Why now?"

"Huh?" I confused him.

"Why now?" I repeated. "You've had all of this time, but you've waited till now."

"It takes time to gather."

"Yeah, but you've had a lot of time to get the souls you need."

He gave me another hit to the face. "Never mind that."

My guess was that when he used a group of souls to break whatever was holding him it probably took a very long time for him to gain his strength back.

"I think it is time that I get what I need," he said, as he walked toward Dillon.

Another thought popped into my head.

"You decide when these ghosts could walk on the earth," I said.

He ignored me.

"Dillon was the first," I continued. "You could have let him wander around since he passed."

My words were going in one ear and out the other—if you could call them ears.

"Why wait until now?" I asked him.

He picked up Dillon and started to squeeze the life out of him. Well, if a ghost had a life then that was what he was losing.

"Soon I will be free," he said as he started to draw in Dillon's soul. I watched and started to panic, because there was nothing that I could do.

Poor Dillon was being choked, which I never thought would be possible to do to a ghost, and I couldn't save him. The best that I could do was try to sneak away when he wasn't looking and attempt to perform the exorcism, but chances are the prince would get to me anyway.

I kept my braining running on the thought that the prince had waited 50 years to start bringing the ghosts back. It doesn't make any sense, but then again, I had never heard of a ghost gathering other ghosts. It was also weird that he was able to touch the ghosts. It suddenly hit me.

"You waited because they can fight back," I blurted.

"What?" the evil ghost asked. He tried to play it off like he had no idea what I was talking about but I could see it in his eyes, he knew exactly what I was talking about.

"You waited to bring all of the ghosts back because if you gave it more time they would figure out that they could fight against you."

Prince Gregory had a look of panic flash across his face right before three ghost came out of nowhere and tackled him. Dillon dropped to the ground and immediately started crying. A surge of anger flowed through my body giving me a huge burst of energy, but I didn't charge the prince in my fit of rage. It would be useless.

Dillon looked over at me and it was hard to see him like that. I nodded for him to meet me back in the museum and then he disappeared. When I got back inside I could see that he was already waiting for me.

"Get rid of him," Dillon cried. "Please."

"I'm going to," I promised.

I started to speak the phrases that I knew would get rid of him. I actually managed to get out three words before Prince Jackass shoulder checked me across the room. Where was the girl at the front desk, and where did all the people go? I didn't really care and it was to my benefit because I wouldn't have to explain myself. That reminded me that I would have to destroy the security footage.

"You pathetic swine!" the prince bellowed. "I am going to tear you apart."

He was a few feet away from me when dozens of ghosts came in and completely overwhelmed him.

"How dare you!" he screamed.

Larry, the businessman ghost, came up to me.

"We can hold him back," he promised, "but only for so long."

I nodded my head. "Thank you."

Larry ran away toward Gregory as Dillon walked over to me.

"Are you going to get rid of him now?" he asked me.

"Yes," I told him. I looked at him and hated what I had to tell him next. "If I get rid of him, do you know what will happen?"

He shook his head.

"You're going to go away, too," I told him.

He looked at the ground for a second and then looked up at me. "It's OK. He's too mean."

I admired his bravery. This kid had more guts than most adults I dealt with.

"I liked having you around," I told him. "Thank you."

He smiled at me. "Go stop him."

Not wasting any more time, I ran over to the desk and started to speak the complicated language.

"No!" Gregory yelled. He threw a bunch of ghosts off of him. He was obviously very strong.

I ignored him and continued to speak. I started to spread the lighter fluid on the desk.

"I will kill you," the prince threatened as he threw four more of the ghosts off of him.

It wasn't enough to stop me, though, and I kept going. There were just a couple more phrases left and then one final step.

As the last word left my mouth the prince finally broke free of all the other ghost and came at me. Right before he grabbed me I threw a match on the desk and watched as it started to blaze. The prince didn't stop, though, and picked me up right off the ground like I weighed no more than a pound.

Right before he started to rip me apart I tried to think of the reason why he was still there. I did everything right, everything. The moment that match hit the old piece of wood he should have puffed away like a cloud of smoke.

I yelled out in pain as I was pretty sure the prince had separated one of my shoulders. I screwed something up. What was it? Oh! Right!

"Abequitare," I said. It is the Latin word for leave.

Prince Gregory VII shouted and then diasappeared. I dropped to the ground and felt my shoulder pop back into place. I stifled my scream and looked up. One by one the ghost started to disappear.

Dillon walked up and sat on the ground in front of me.

"I'm gonna miss you," he said.

I smiled at him as the last ghost disappeared.

"I'll miss you, too," I said back, but he was already gone. I really was going to miss that kid. At least now he was going to be with his mother, I hoped.

I could sit there and sulk, but I had to get rid of the security videos and get out of there. I found the room where the security was set up and found the guard fast asleep. I worked my magic and erased everything before he woke up.

As I stumbled out of the front I looked over at the girl and she was doing something with her phone.

"Have a nice day," she said.

"Seriously?" I said to her, but she didn't reply.

I left the bulding and got on my bike.

I hated ghosts more than anything. There was next to nothing that I could do to fight back and most of the time they were angry, bitter spirits. This time I could honestly say that I hated that I had to clear that town. I hated that I had to get of Dillon. At least now the people of this place would be safe and Dillon was in a better place.

The town was just the same as the last time I was there, except this time I felt a little bit different about it. Before I had left here I was happy, living my life without a care in the world. Now, I even hated the sight of it. The moment I crossed the town's border I felt like I was going to throw up. There were some pretty rotten memories from last time.

The house stood on the quiet street, nestled back about 100 feet from the road. It was two stories high and when I had left it was white with green shutters. Now it was a bright blue color with black shutters and there was a garden that bordered the front of the house. My mom was never really into having flowers so we never had anything more than a couple of bushes.

It was Thanksgiving but I didn't really have much to be thankful for. I didn't really live my life for me anymore. Instead I live for all of you, to protect you. So be happy for that. The air was cold, which meant if I was going to be traveling around northern states I would have to put my bike storage and get my car, but I was going to hang on to it for as long as I could. It wasn't that the cold bothered me but more that if I hit some ice I could kiss my bike goodbye. And it was awful in the snow, for obvious reasons.

There were a number of cars parked in the driveway, which meant whoever was living there now was having some sort of get together. My family used to come over on Thanksgiving but I haven't seen them since my parents were killed. I wonder how they are doing.

Another car pulled into the driveway but it was too late. The people getting out of the car saw me.

"Can I help you?" the man getting out of the car asked me.

I decided that if I took off right then it would look really bad. "No. I used to live here."

"Oh."

"It was a long time ago."

"I see."

We both awkwardly looked at each other.

"It's OK," I told him. "I just wanted to look. I'm leaving."

I started to put my bike in motion when I heard someone.

"Wes?" a voice called to me.

Crap. This was another reason I didn't ever come home because there was a very good chance that someone would recognize me.

I turned around and couldn't believe my eyes. Standing before me was the girl that I had the biggest crush on. Her name is Kerry Phillips. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen and she was even more gorgeous now.

"Wes Parker?" she said again. "Is that you?"

"Kerry?" I asked.

She seemed really happy to see me but I could tell there was a certain pity in her eyes. However, that didn't stop her from coming up and giving me a big hug. I felt my legs turn to jelly and I could feel the heat rush to my face. Give me a break. This was the girl that I was in love with and she gave me butterflies in my stomach. Don't pretend that none of you have ever felt like that.

"I haven't seen you since..." she started.

"Since my parents were killed," I finished for her.

"Yeah."

"That was a long time ago."

"I couldn't believe it when I heard about it."

"You didn't hear anything when it happened?" She lived right next door so it seemed kind of crazy that she wouldn't have heard the growling and howling.

"No."

"Right." I remembered I had the ability to erase memories so it was quite possible that Drake, my mentor, came back and made sure no one would remember. Oh right. For anyone who hasn't read my stories before I am Wes Parker and I am a paladin. I'm strong and fast, and I use those abilities to hunt monsters.

"I've missed you."

My heart skips a beat.

"I missed you, too," I choked.

"Where have you been?" she asked.

"Around."

"Foster homes?"

"Sure." I couldn't tell her what I had really been doing.

We stood there looking at each other and there were a flood of memories that came crashing into my mind. We used to play out in the woods and pretend we were hunters. Every night we would wave to each other from our bedroom windows. I really did miss her.

"I can't believe you're here," she said.

"Me either," I admitted.

"Why are you here?"

I took in a deep breath. "I'm here to hunt a troll."

"Huh?" Kerry asked me.

"Yeah," I started, "I'm here to hunt a troll. That is what I've been doing since I left, hunting and killing monsters."

She stared at me for a good three seconds before a smile stretched across her face. I wasn't lying to her; I really was there to hunt a troll. Believe it or not they do live under bridges.

"OK," she laughed. "How long are you going to be here for?"

"Not long I hope," I replied.

She looked sad and slightly offended. "Oh."

"I'll probably be here tomorrow."

"OK. Maybe we can meet up?"

"Sure."

"Great. See you at Felipe's Pizzeria at noon?"

"Yeah, definitely."

"I have to go back in, now. See you tomorrow." She gave me a quick peck on the cheek and left.

I wasn't sure I would be around in time to make that date but if I was still there it wouldn't be a bad idea. I couldn't hunt the troll in the daytime so if I didn't find it that night then I wouldn't be leaving.

The only reason I would return to my hometown would be if there was a monster to hunt. When there were reports of people missing and witnesses saying it happened near the Hanover Bridge, then that would mean there was troll. They are large and stupid but surprisingly quick and quiet. I'm sure you are wondering if they are so big and dumb then how can they blend in? Why wouldn't I be able to kill it before daybreak and why aren't they well known? I don't know how they can blend in otherwise I would be able to easily find them, and they remain unknown to the world just like every other monster: I kill them.

Finding the troll wasn't going to be easy. Yes it lives under a bridge and I do know which one that is, but during the day trolls just completely disappear. I have no idea where they go and how but they do. If I wanted to catch it I was going to have to be smart. I've fought and killed many before but they seemed to know their way around a fight.

As I headed to the bridge on my bike I thought back to memories I had with Kerry. We were best friends growing up. Sometimes in school I would get picked on but she was always there to stick up for me. I had a crush on her ever since we were in kindergarten.

My thoughts were suddenly ripped from my mind as something hit me and sent me flying off my bike and off to the side of the road. I could hear my bike getting mangled as it was scraping on the pavement, as I was rolling on the ground—in a field luckily—and waiting for my arm to break. It couldn't have possibly been the troll because it was still too early in the day.

Once I finally stopped rolling I quickly assessed if anything was broken but luckily I was just a little bruised. As I went to stand up something hit me in the chest and sent me flying back. It was getting very annoying very fast and whatever it was started laughing. I knew what it was the moment the first noise left its throat.

"Mygle, you little..." I said.

"Come on Wes," he replied with his squeaky little voice.

"What the hell is the matter with you?" I sat up and looked at him. He was a gremlin. He was short, red and ridiculously strong. Gremlins are nasty little creatures that like to eat anything, including other monsters. He face looked like something out of a messed up fairytale and I would do anything to cut his head off.

"You're alive, aren't you?"

"I'm going to kill you." I charged at him and went to punch him in the face but he disappeared before I could reach him. Did I mention they were fast and could transport?

I turned around to look for him just in time for him to kick me right in the face. I once again found myself on the ground. As I went to stand up he picked me up and threw me a good 10 feet.

"I thought you were better than this," he teased. I hate him so much.

Before I stood up I noticed that one of my axes was on the ground next to me. I heard him appear next to me. He went to kick me in the stomach while I was down but I rolled out of the way, grabbed my axe, and elbowed him in the jaw on my way up. He landed on the ground with a thud and I quickly got on top of him with my axe pressed lightly on his throat.

"Give me one reason," I demanded.

"Don't be such a sour puss," he said.

"I could just press down and you'll be dead."

"OK, OK. Come on, you don't want to do that."

"Why not?"

"We're pals?"

I looked down at him for a moment and I couldn't bring myself to do it. I gabbed him by the rags he called clothes and threw him away.

"I always knew you were OK," he said as he stood up.

The problem was that he wasn't one of the bad guys. We met a long time ago and proved to me that he only has good intentions. I'm not sure why he is the way he is but he kills other monsters and leaves humans alone. Though, he did enjoy making sure I was miserable. It was in his blood. He has never told me why he doesn't kill humans like other gremlins and the only time I asked he stabbed my hand. I healed and have never asked him again. He might only be somewhere between three to four feet tall but he was dangerous.

"Why are you here?" I asked him.

"Troll hunting," he replied.

"Right."

"You?"

"I think you know it's the same reason."

"Yes. Yes, of course."

"I need to go check on my bike."

"I'll meet you there." Poof and he was gone.

When I got to my bike he was already there, waiting with a face that begged for forgiveness. It sustained some damage but looked drivable, for now.

"Now I need to get this fixed and you've forced me to stay here," I complained.

"Sorry," he apologized.

"You know you're paying for this, right?"

"How?" He didn't have any money and it wasn't like I didn't.

"I'm going to get you back for this."

"Yeah, yeah. So, we doing this together."

"No."

"Come on."

"No." I didn't want to kill him but it wasn't like I was going to work with him.

"Why?"

"You almost got me killed last time."

"So?"

I let out a sigh of aggravation. If I didn't choose to work with him we were going to get in each other's way anyway. Hunting this troll was going to be bad enough and now I had a gremlin with me? Plus, I was going to be stuck in this town for who knows how long. This was really going to suck.

I told Mygle to meet me at the bridge. He begged me to let him ride on my bike with me but I would rather press my cheek against a hot stove. I may be working with him on this one but I was not going to have him hang around with me the whole time.

There were a couple of hours until dark so I decided to head into town to get my bike looked at. Of course, once I got to the shop I realized that it was Thanksgiving and nothing was open. With a sigh of disappointment I turned my bike around and headed for the bridge.

When I got to the bridge Mygle was already there, chewing something. It looked like a squirrel. It didn't matter what it was--Mygle would eat it. He saw me coming and jumped up and down in excitement. I wish I could be excited to see him too but I would never be happy to see him. Even if I was on fire and he had a fire extinguisher, I would choose to burn.

"What took you so long?" he asked me.

"I went into town to get my bike looked at," I answered. "It was closed."

"Of course it is. Holiday hours."

"How in the world would you know that?"

"I've lived in this world for 103 years. I think I would know by now." I had no idea gremlins could live that long or that he was that old.

We both walked over the bridge and sat with our backs against the stone passage. Traffic was non-existent then so no one would bother us.

"You are just full of surprises," I pointed out.

He smacked me across the face.

"Why?" I yelled.

"Full of surprises," he replied.

I took one of my axes and swung it at his neck. He transported out of the way just in time and my weapon connected with the bridge, sticking in a couple inches. Mygle reappeared on the other side of me like nothing had happened.

"One more surprise like that and I'll take off your head," I warned him.

"Uh huh," he muttered with a grin. He didn't really care. He loved getting a rise out of me and it worked every time.

I ripped my axe out of the bridge and put it back on the spot in my belt. I didn't bother to look if there was any damage to the blade from the stone because if you remember back to when I killed the vampires, I told you that they are indestructible.

"Why are you here?" I asked him.

"To hunt the nasty troll," he replied.

"I know that, but why here? There are plenty of other things to kill and eat."

"I don't know, I knew this is where you came from."

"How would you know that?"

He brought his face within a few inches of mine and tapped the side of his head.

"We gremlins know more than you could think of," he said.

"Imagine," I said.

"What?"

"More than I could imagine."

He looked very puzzled.

"Never mind," I muttered. I was unsettled by the fact that he knew this was my hometown but I felt the need to correct him.

For the next 10 minutes the two of us just sat in complete silence, save for the occasional grunt from Mygle. It was funny because even though we were very different we had one big thing in common: we hunt monsters. I wonder if he kills gremlins too.

"How many trolls have you killed?" I asked him. I couldn't take the silence any longer, even if it was going to be replaced with his voice.

"Three-hundred and seventy-two," he said without even thinking about it. "You?"

"Enough. Not that many, admittedly, but enough."

"This should be easy then." It didn't sound like he really believed that.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Then why aren't you doing this one by yourself?" I asked him.

"I always enjoy your company," he replied. I knew that he did like to bug the hell out of me but if he were hunting something he's killed over 300 of then he would not need my help.

"If that was the reason then I'm sure I would see you more than I would like. What aren't you telling me?"

He pulled out his knife and flipped it in his hand, indicating he was going to stab my hand. I decided to let it go and hope for the best. I didn't trust the little snot to be honest with me but he would have my back.

More time wore on and I hadn't even realized it but it had been almost 36 hours since I had slept, so it was no surprise that I had fell asleep and woken up when it was dark out. When I did open my eyes I saw that Mygle was pushing me to wake me up.

"What?" I asked.

He nodded his head to the other side of the bridge and I couldn't believe my eyes. There was a troll literally coming out of the stones like it was some sort of thick liquid and it was he biggest troll I have ever seen. Usually a troll would have a couple feet on me but this one had at least five. It was uglier than a normal troll with missing teeth, a large nose, and slimy dark, green skin. It smelled like a bad case of body odor and it was nothing but muscles. Behind the large troll were three smaller ones.

I looked over at Mygle.

"You enjoy my company?" I asked him.

He shrugged his shoulders.

Great.

I knew Mygle wanted to work with me for a reason. He knew that the troll was going to be huge like this and he didn't want to take it on alone. I have to admit I didn't blame him because neither did I, especially after I saw the other three come out after it.

The three "normal" sized ones all carried some sort of weapon with them: a sword, a club and a spear. The large one didn't have anything, which kind of made me nervous, more than I already was. It either meant it didn't need it or that it wasn't planning on doing anything. I pretended it was the latter.

They were already looking at us when they came out so it wasn't really a surprise when they headed right for us.

"You knew it was going to be like this," I muttered to Mygle.

"Kinda," he replied. "I didn't know there would be four."

"Should I be worried?"

"I don't know."

He didn't say anything else and went right in for a fight. I wasn't as eager as he was so I waited to see which one he went for first. As he charged in, two of the smaller trolls stepped forward to meet him. Mygle was within 10 feet of them when he disappeared. He then reappeared behind one of them and took their head right off. I think I might have forgotten to mention that besides his little knife he had a very sharp short-sword. That little squirt always surprised me.

The other one was quick to learn, though, so when Mygle tried to pull the same trick again the troll simply ducked. Trolls are fast so the other one was able to prevent Mygle from killing it so quickly.

I had spent so much time watching Mygle fight that I failed to see the club swing right into my chest. The best way to describe how it felt would comparing it to getting hit by a truck. Luckily the bridge was there to stop me from flying away too far. That hurt just as much as the club hitting me.

Somehow the wind didn't get knocked out of me, luckily, so I was ready when the troll tried to hit me again. I rolled out of the way and he smashed the stone wall instead. I used that open opportunity to swing my axe right across his midsection. It left a scratch but it moved out of the way just in time to avoid death.

I looked over at Mygle and saw that he was wearing the troll down. He might not be able to overpower the troll but he could certainly outlast it.

The troll I was fighting brought the club down at me but I knocked it out of the way and spun around. As I made the full 360-degree spin I brought my axe around right across the monster's throat. I'll leave out the gory details but the thing was definitely dead. Mygle just about had his down but I didn't want him to get the glory of killing two of them.

I took my axe and threw it as hard as I could. The thing buried into the troll's back and fell to the ground. As it fell to its face I ran up to it, ripped my axe right out of the troll, and jumped into the air at the large troll.

"Hey," Mygle complained as I flew by.

So far the giant troll had stayed back but I figured I would take the chance that it wouldn't be ready for me. I was wrong. It took its large arm and swung, swatting me out of the way like I was a useless fly. I rolled on the ground and dropped both my axes.

Mygle decided that he would try as well but he ended up right next to me.

"We are going to have to work at this together," I said.

"Yeah, yeah," Mygle agreed with me.

"I'll fake high and go low and you vice versa."

"OK, yeah."

We both got up and ran at him. I grabbed my axes and faked like I was going high and Mygle did the opposite. The giant troll fell for it and went to swat us both. When we both switched directions I could see the confusion on its face. The two of us swung at it; I cut its arm as it tried to block me and Mygle got its leg. As I flew past it I spun around and kicked it in the back of the head. The thing fell to its knees.

"Ah ha," Mygle yelled.

The troll moved quicker than I expect and rolled back into the wall. Its head was still sticking out so it could talk to us. It spoke in a very deep voice.

"You may have bested me now," it said, "but I will return with more and I will take you." Then it was gone.

I felt like it gave up a little too easily. But I also felt like it was telling the truth and we were in big trouble.

Mygle and I looked back and forth at each other. He simply shrugged his shoulders and walked over to the first troll he had killed. The one good thing about trolls is disposing of them in very easy. They just slowly disintegrate, which is good because they are harder to move than an 18-wheeler.

The one problem was their weapons wouldn't just disappear so we did have to get rid of them. If someone came by and saw a sword that was too big for two people to hold, it might raise some questions. We gathered them up and threw them into a hole we dug 10 feet in the woods.

"Anything about that seem weird?" I asked him.

"That troll was big," he said.

"You knew that was going to happen."

"I had my thoughts."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I wasn't sure, so I didn't want to say."

"I'm going to cut your hand off for that one."

"Go and try."

I felt like backhanding him but it would be a waste of time.

"Why did the troll give up so quickly?" I asked. "And I have never seen a troll speak like that."

"What would you expect?" he asked me.

"Me troll. Me hungry."

"Ha!"

I smiled.

"Maybe the troll is smarter," he said. "Maybe it was surprised by us."

"I don't know," I said. "I've never met a smart troll. Then again I've ran into some weird things lately."

"Like what?"

I filled him into what had happened over the past couple of months. For a few seconds he just stared at me.

"Does any of that mean anything to you?" I asked him.

He shook his head. I think he was lying.

"OK then," I said. "We should stay here in case it comes back."

"It won't," he promised.

"How do you know?"

"It said it wasn't coming back until tomorrow."

"It could lie."

"It wasn't."

I was frustrated but I could tell he believed that to be true and that was enough for me. "OK."

"Where are we staying?" he asked me.

"We? I'm going to see if I can find a room. You are going to find your own way."

"Always so harsh, Wes."

"I don't like you."

"Come on."

"No."

Needless to say, an hour later we were both held up in a crappy hotel room where some of the letters on the sign were either out or flickering. There was an awful smell coming from the bathroom and there was only one bed. I made it very clear that he was going to be sleeping on the floor. Surprisingly he listened to me.

I looked at the crumby clock radio and saw that it was getting close to midnight.

"You miss it?" Mygle asked me.

"Miss what?" I replied.

"Your old life?"

"No," I lied to him. I did wish that I could get back to before finding out I was a paladin. "You?"

"No." I could tell he was lying. I really wondered what could have happened that would have made him not want to be with his kind.

For the rest of the night neither of us said I word. Clearly we both missed our old lives but we didn't want to admit it to each other.

I thought about the next day and how I needed to get my bike fixed. I hoped the damages weren't too bad and I didn't think it was if I was still able to drive on it. It would probably be beneficial if I learned how to fix it myself but that would also require getting a hold of the parts.

A realization popped into my head, interrupting any other thoughts: I would have to follow through with going on my date the next day. Kerry was the love of my life and I had never been on a date before. I haven't had much time to go on a date, OK? I've been a little busy.

I found myself more afraid to face Kerry than I was the troll. I was going on a date.

I woke up to Mygle smacking me in the face as hard as he could. We then spent the next five minutes fighting in the room and making a complete mess. He was having a lot of fun while I on the other hand was really trying to kill him. It would really be no skin off my back if my axe were accidentally buried into his head.

After we managed to calm down I tried as best as I could to pick up. Luckily I had no limit on my card because we broke a lot of things. The worst part was that I might have to come back that night and I really didn't want to face the workers. Maybe I would try to find another place to stay.

Before I went to meet Kerry I needed to get my bike looked at. Plus it was a few hours before we were supposed to meet, so I had some time. Mygle insisted on coming with me but I told him if he followed me I wouldn't like him anymore. I didn't really like him to begin with but it certainly struck home and he didn't come with me.

The shop was surprisingly busy. Being a smaller town I almost expected them to be closed the day after Thanksgiving but they had to make money. I walked through the front door and noticed a couple of people waiting and a kid behind the desk. He looked to be about my age and the moment I walked up to him I immediately regretted it.

"Can I help you?" he asked as he looked up. For the first couple seconds he just looked at me but then a smile stretched across his face. "Squirt."

"Rodney," I replied. Rodney Hill. He was a grade above me and he always gave me the hardest time.

"Long time no see. Why are you back?"

"Visiting."

"Who?" I could see that he genuinely felt bad for that comment. "Sorry."

"I was just in the area and my bike was damaged."

He leaned back so he could see my motorcycle.

"Jeez," he said. "What happened?"

"Deer ran out in front of me," I lied.

"How are you OK?"

"I got lucky."

He started tapping his pen on the desk.

"I don't know if we have time for you today," he said, reverting back to his jerk self.

"Just tell me how long," I sighed.

"Watch it. Don't you remember the old days?"

I leaned right into his face. "That was a long time ago."

My intimidation tactic didn't really seem to threaten him. If he continued to give me a hard time, assuming that I would see him past this moment, then I would have to make sure that I made it clear that I could kick the crap out of him. Maybe I would kick the crap out of him.

"Calm down squirt," he said. "We'll take a look at it and call you. What's your number?"

I gave it to him.

"We'll call you soon," he promised.

"I'm not a squirt," I told him.

"Huh?"

"I'm not a squirt anymore. If you haven't noticed, I'm taller than you are."

He cracked a smile. I tossed the keys in the counter and walked out of there. I felt an old anger start to rise in me and I didn't like it. It wasn't that I was upset about what he said but the fact that it was making me angry.

I looked at my phone and realized that I still had over two hours before I needed to meet Kerry, so I still had plenty of time. That's when I noticed a man with a black cowboy hat and a black coat staring right at me. He was a good distance away so I didn't have the best view but it looked like he was smiling. It was hard to tell because the collar on his jacket was popped, covering the bottom half of his face.

I started walking toward him and he immediately walked in the other direction, confirming that he was watching me. We both walked down the street for a good two minutes and the pace was slowly picking up until we were both jogging. There was no way that this guy was going to be able to outrun me, so I decided to put it in high gear.

The man rounded a corner and was out of sight. I started to run as fast as I could but I didn't get far. The moment I rounded the corner my feet came out from underneath me and I landed on my back about five feet down the alley. As the air started to find its way back into my lungs I turned around to look at the man. His face was still hard to see but he was laughing.

"Wes Parker," he said.

I didn't know what to say back but I didn't have the time anyway. He spun around and by the time he did the full 360 he disappeared.

I stood outside the pizza place waiting for Kerry. I half expected her to not show up. It also occurred to me that this may not be a date and I could be over thinking it. This was way too nerve racking.

The man that I was chasing was a complete mystery to me. He was someone I'd never seen before and he honestly freaked me out. I'd never seen someone human-sized that could disappear like that. Plus, he seemed to be human. I tried to think back if there were any monsters that Drake, my mentor and teacher, had told me about that might be rare but there was nothing coming to mind. It made me worry.

It had been a few hours since I had seen Mygle and it was kind of a relief, but I wanted to ask him about the guy I chased. It was too late for that, though, as Kerry was heading towards me with a smile on her face. There was an equal smile on mine.

"Hi," she said.

"Hey," I replied.

"I half expected you to be gone." If I had killed the troll I would have been.

"I couldn't get myself to leave."

"Good."

I found it odd that she had taken to me so quickly and didn't feel too awkward about my parents dying. Then again she doesn't remember how they died.

"Shall we?" I asked her.

"Yes," she said.

We both entered the shop and the smell of pizza filled my nostrils. It made me realize how hungry I was. Kerry decided we were going to split a large but there was no way that I was going to let her get away with paying.

We sat a table while we waited for our pizza to cook.

"So where have you been?" she asked me.

"I've been to a few different places," I answered. "Never really could find a place that felt like home."

Her smile quickly faded. "I couldn't believe it when it happened. It was all so fast. I didn't even get a chance to say goodbye."

"Me either."

"What happened?"

I had read the reports when they were released. It was a home invasion gone wrong and I was lucky enough to get out alive. It was obvious that Drake, or whoever was keeping my credit card in check, had some pull. Maybe it was the agency that covered it up.

"I don't really remember," I lied. "When I woke up I was in the hospital. Whoever...I must have been knocked out."

"Sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to bring that up."

"It's OK."

The girl working the counter brought the pizza and sodas over to us. I reached for my soda just in time for Mygle to appear. I practically threw my soda everywhere. Just like a ghost, a gremlin can choose who can see or hear it. So, naturally I looked like a crazy person.

"Whoa," Kerry gasped. "Are you OK?"

"Stellar," I replied. "Will you excuse me?"

"Yeah. Sure."

I took myself into the bathroom with Mygle right behind me, which was good because I had every intention of smashing his head into the mirror.

When we got in the bathroom there was another person in there so I didn't say anything at first but just started cleaning myself off. Eventually the man finished his business and walked out. I turned to Mygle and put on the most furious face I could muster.

"What the hell is the matter with you?" I asked him.

"It's not like you'll melt," he replied.

"I thought I told you to go away?"

"Eh. I couldn't. Plus I knew you would still like me."

"I don't like you, Mygle."

"Right. Didn't look like the date was going so well."

"It was just fine until you showed up. Wait, how long were you there for?"

"Not long," he lied.

"Whatever."

I finished cleaning up as much as I could. It wasn't easy cleaning soda off of anything and I wasn't going to feel good until I showered and washed my clothes.

"I want you gone," I told him. "As soon as we walk out of here, go."

He just nodded his head.

"Before you go," I began, "there was a man that was following me earlier. I couldn't really see he face because he had a black hat and jacket, but he had a deep voice and he disappeared. He transported. Do you have any idea what or who that could be?"

I could see the color drain from his face and his eyes opened wide.

"Nope," he said.

"It doesn't look like you don't know," I responded.

He just shook his head and walked away, leaving me in the bathroom by myself. Mygle was definitely lying to me and whoever that man or thing was scared the crap out of him.

When I walked out of the bathroom Kerry was waiting for me, and so was Mygle. They both waved at me. I didn't know why Mygle had stuck around given how frightened he was a second ago, and I had told him to leave.

"You all set?" Kerry asked as I sat down.

"Yeah," I said.

"What was that about?"

"I thought I saw a ghost."

"OK?" She seemed a little concerned. I wasn't sure if it was for my sanity or for her own safety.

We ate the pizza and talked about what we had been doing. Well, she told me what she had been up to. I couldn't tell her that I had been hunting monsters for the past five years. She would think I was crazy.

A lot had changed since I had been gone. She had a whole new group of friends. When we were younger and it wasn't just her and I hanging out, there were three other friends that we hung out with. Apparently they all had a falling out and said that she had changed. It didn't seem to bother her—she had time to get over it—but it bothered me a little. We were all good friends so the idea that I probably wouldn't be talking to them even if I was still living my normal life was sad. I was very quick to take her side because she hadn't changed a bit. She was still as nice and funny as she was back then. Everyone else clearly grew up to be jerks. We were both better off without them.

Mygle tried joining in on the conversation several times, trying to make me slip up and look like a lunatic but I just ignored him. Eventually he got bored and decided to just leave us alone. It was great after that point.

After we were done eating we decided to go for a walk. I hadn't heard anything about my bike yet so it couldn't hurt to spend more time with her.

"It seems like I have been doing all of the talking here," she pointed out. "What has your life been like since you left here?"

I've been hunting monsters.

"There isn't much to tell," I lied. "When I left here I was taken in by a man named Drake. He taught me a lot. He was kind of a hard-ass but it wasn't like he was mean. It was more teaching and making sure I knew the truth. Drake really helped me out when I needed it."

"Where is he now?" she asked me.

I felt a wave of sadness and guilt rush over me as I thought about it. "He died."

"I'm sorry, Wes."

"Not your fault."

She stopped in front of me and looked into my eyes. There was sadness in them. She put her hand on my cheek. It felt so warm and nice, and I felt my heart beat really fast.

"You know when we were growing up I always had the hugest crush on you," she said. I just about collapsed on the ground right there. I couldn't believe she had just said that.

"I did, too," I admitted.

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"I was 11 and intimidated."

"You're not 11 anymore."

I started to lean in and felt the heat rushing up to my face. As I got closer and closer she didn't pull away or stop me. My heart was starting to hit my chest so hard I thought it was going to burst out of my chest just like in the movie Aliens. That was a weird place to go at that moment.

We were within millimeters of each other when Mygle appeared next to us shouting. After my heart started beating again I didn't even wait for it and just kicked him square in the chest. As he rolled away I looked over at Kerry and the shocked on her face was evident. She was shocked, I realized, because she could see Mygle.

"What is your problem?" I asked him.

"What is that?" Kerry asked. She became more and more frightened by the second.

"Do you have to ruin every moment I have?" I continued to ask him.

He was trying to say something but I had kicked him so hard that was having trouble trying to breathe.

"You deserve that you little jerk," I said to him.

He shook his head and mumbled.

"What?" I asked.

He looked off to the side.

"Wes, what is that?" Kerry asked again and sounded more terrified than before. This time she wasn't looking at Mygle but was looking behind me. I suddenly became aware of the thumping sound.

I knew what it was before I even turned around: the giant troll from the night before was charging right at us.

"We need to go now," I said.

Without waiting for a response I grabbed Kerry and just started running. I knew Mygle would be able to keep up so I didn't bother looking back to see if he was OK. Kerry was screaming but I had to ignore it. The troll was unreasonably fast and it was gaining on us.

I was utterly confused. Trolls never, and I mean never, go out during the daytime. Plus it said it was coming back with more trolls so it didn't really make sense. Maybe it wanted to get the element of surprise, which it certainly did. I had no idea it would be showing up like this.

Kerry was running so slow it was actually bugging me, so I just picked her right up and carried her in my arms. I wouldn't be able to run as fast as I could if it was just me but it was certainly faster than we were going.

Mygle popped up next to us.

"I can hold it off for a second so you can get her to safety," he said. I nodded my head and he stopped to fight the troll.

I looked back and saw Mygle had indeed slowed down the giant monster and that would give me the time I needed to get Kerry away from it.

We had been running down a street that was outside of the city so thankfully no one else saw what was going on, I think. We reached a safe distance away and I put her down.

"What is going on?" she asked, barely able to get the words out.

"Remember when I said I was hunting a troll?" I answered with a question.

"I thought you were kidding."

"Obviously I wasn't."

"Is this what you have been doing?"

"Yes. I would love to stick around and tell you about it but you need to run now."

"I'm so scared."

"Look at me," I said to her. I took her face and my hands and looked her straight in the eye. She was trembling so much I thought she was going to shake right out of my hands.

"You are going to be fine," I promised her. "I need you to be brave and run. I will be able to kill this monster and you will get away. OK?"

She looked at me as if she wouldn't be able to be brave but eventually she nodded her head.

"I'll come find you," I said to her.

She nodded her head again and then ran away. As I turned around to see what was going on with the troll and Mygle but I was met with a giant fist to the face. It felt like my head was knocked right off my neck and I saw spots. The troll had hit me so hard that instead of flying backwards I just fell right on my back, painfully hard.

As I hit the ground I expected the thing to continue to beat me but for the first few seconds I just lay there, silently. When I looked up I saw that Mygle had engaged the monster again, which was good because it might have killed me otherwise. I hated that I owed him.

I pushed myself up and looked around for my bag. I had brought it with me because I couldn't leave it at the hotel or with my bike. With my axes in my hands I went in to give the little gremlin a hand.

"It's about time," he said as I took my first swing at the troll. I missed and it took another swing at me. I had managed to block it but it knocked me back a few feet as I slid across the ground.

"Sorry," I replied, "but I was a little busy."

"Just kill this giant ball of ugly."

The troll didn't like that comment. It grabbed Mygle by the neck and slammed him to the ground. I went to jump in but it just grabbed me by the throat. The thing was incredibly strong.

"I told you I would be back with more," it said.

"WES!" I heard Kerry scream.

I looked over and saw she was being dragged away by a troll with five others surrounding them. I hadn't realized that we were back at the bridge and they started dragging her to the wall.

"NO!" I shouted. They pulled her into the wall and she was gone.

The troll holding me by the neck whipped me into the other side of the bridge and started for the wall it came from.

"Follow us if you dare," it begged, and it was gone.

I couldn't believe it. They just took her right through the wall where they came from. I had never been to... uh... wherever it was they came from. For all I know it could just bring them underground or to some other world.

"Uh, oh," said Mygle.

"What do we do?" I asked.

"We go in."

"Can we?"

"Yeah, but we might not make it out."

"That doesn't matter. Let's go."

"Wait," he said as he put his hand up to stop me. "We can't just run in."

"Why not?" I asked him.

"We gonna need something."

"Like what?"

Mygle didn't bother telling me what we needed but instead started heading back into town.

"Where are we going?" I asked him.

"To a food store," he replied.

"Why are we walking?"

"Your bike is broken."

"Yes, but you could teleport us."

"Yeah I could. That is if you want to lose your arm."

"OK then, but let's go now."

I agreed that it was best to walk rather than lose some of my limbs, but I decided that we should run. The longer we took the lower our chances of saving Kerry were. Mygle didn't seem bothered by that, which was good because I would have just run anyway.

We arrived at the store and Mygle made himself invisible to everyone else but me. It was relatively busy but that was probably because of all the Black Friday shoppers that were done looking for their deals.

"What are we looking for?" I asked as we walked through the front doors.

"Just follow me," he beckoned.

I did follow him until we made it to the isle with cleaning products. I thought I saw him going towards the window cleaner, which made me think we would be going up against vampires but instead he reached for the air freshener in the spray bottle.

"Grab that," he told me.

"Why?" I asked as I took it off the shelf.

"It will keep unwanted things away and hide our smell. Well, you mostly."

"OK. Is that it?"

"No. We need some peanut butter."

"I take it you have been in there before."

"Of course," he said. "Trolls aren't the only monsters that live through that doorway."

"Great. More monsters. No offense."

"Where we're going there will only be trolls, I hope."

"I guess that's somewhat comforting."

We found the peanut butter, got some bread to go with it, and made our way to the front. I didn't really care if anyone thought I was crazy for talking to myself and luckily I didn't run into anyone else that I knew.

After I paid for the "supplies" we left. I ran back to the bridge just as fast as I had left it and felt like we had already wasted too much time.

"We need to spray ourselves before we go in," Mygle told me. So we did.

"When we get in there," Mygle started, "try to stay with me. If you get lost you'll have no way of getting out."

"I really hate that I need you for this," I said.

"Aren't you glad I came?"

"Yeah."

For a few seconds we just stared at the wall of the bridge until eventually I took a step forward and passed through.

I expected to pass through the wall but instead my face connected with the stone, and it hurt a little. Mygle laughed and I was about to backhand him.

"What the hell?" I said.

"You can't just walk in," he told me. "Otherwise you guys would be able to come in whenever you want."

"Do you think maybe next time you could tell me before I walk into a wall?"

"Sure. Just grab my hand." With much disdain I did.

We both walked forward and passed through the portal into the other world. It felt like we were walking through jelly, which felt kind of cool. I was slightly excited but a little nervous because I had no idea what I was getting myself into. For all I knew I could be walking into a nest of monsters and would be dead in seconds.

Once we passed through no one met us and I was amazed to see the place looked like we were in some sort of forest. It smelled like a bunch dead animals were burned and everything was black and dark purple instead of green, but it was a forest nonetheless.

I looked around, cautious of anything that might come out and attack us but so far we were good.

"What is this place?" I asked.

"Home," was all he said. I didn't bother asking more. I got the idea.

"Come this way," he said.

I took three steps when I heard something move behind me.

"What was that?" I asked as I whipped around.

"Don't stop," he told me, "just keep walking."

I took his advice and kept going. I didn't want to take any chances on getting eaten. That is when I heard the noise again. When I turned around this time, though, whatever was following was staring me right in the face. It looked curious and innocent, which meant that it absolutely wasn't. It had a large head with sharp horns and it walked on all fours. It was standing as high as I was.

"Don't move," Mygle warned.

I didn't respond back to him. I figured if he didn't want me to move then he didn't want me to talk either, so I just stared at the thing's big round, red eyes.

"I will get rid of this thing," he promised.

"What are you going to do?" I whispered as quietly as I could.

"Just hold still."

He grabbed the bag out of my hands and opened up the peanut butter and bread. The creature standing in front of me looked at him like he was either going to eat him or who knows what. I guess it just looked like he was going to eat him.

Mygle took a piece of bread and dipped it in peanut butter. He then threw it away from us and the monster immediately ran after it.

"Run," Mygle said.

We both ran away from the thing as fast as we could, putting as much distance behind it and us as we could. I had no idea what it was and I didn't want to find out as it mauled us.

"What was that?" I asked as we started to slow down.

"Don't worry about it," he told me.

"Oh, OK."

"Shh."

"Don't shush me."

"Shhh!" he pointed past some trees into a clearing where the five trolls were holding Kerry.

"Kerry," I whispered.

They had her tied to the post and were just standing around her. It was like they were waiting for something. Well, they were waiting for us, obviously. We moved in closer and tried to get a better look.

"There's only five," Mygle pointed out.

"Yeah?" I said.

"Where's the other one?"

"Which one?"

"The big one."

I knew the moment he said it where it was. I was lifted into the air and thrown toward the group of trolls.

When I hit the ground I rolled away from the trolls who immediately converged on Mygle and I. The giant troll threw Mygle as well. The troll that I landed closest to was obviously the first one to get to me. It swung down with its giant sword but I knocked it away with both my axes and spun around. I was within inches of cutting off its head but it moved out of the way. At the same time another troll came in and tried to stab me, but I sidestepped, only to be kicked by a third troll. I rolled back at least 15 feet.

Kerry screamed and one of the trolls went to hit her. I brought out my Desert Eagles and shot it until it fell to the ground. I didn't get to shoot any others, though, as the troll that kicked me knocked them out of my hands. I reached for my axes again and took out one of the troll's legs. Despite all of what was going on I took time to realize how disgusting it was.

I chanced a look over at Mygle and saw that he was doing OK against the two trolls that were keeping him occupied. I only had one troll left. That is after I beheaded the one whose leg I had just cut off.

The large monster swung left and right, trying desperately to kill me, but even though it could fight it didn't stand a chance against me. After the 10th or 11th swing I finally went for the killing blow and hit it right in the back with both of my axes. That is when the biggest troll, the one we were really there to kill, hit me right in the right kidney. I'm not afraid to admit that that really hurt, and I mean really, really hurt.

"Pathetic creature," it spat. "I have waited quite a long time for this."

Mygle was done with his two trolls and tried to attack the large one, but it swatted him away like a fly. I tried to take advantage of the situation but it just punched me in the other kidney. I don't know how we got the best of this creature the first time because it was like I had no fight training at all.

"Why are you so much larger than the rest of your kind?" I asked after a coughing fit.

It leaned in really close. "I am the first of my kind. I am the mother of all trolls." That was one ugly she.

I looked at her with complete shock and awe. I have never met the first of any creature nor would I have expected to have met one. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why are you coming out now? You've clearly been hiding in here for a long time."

"I was summoned out."

"By what?"

"I have heard stories of you, Wes Parker. You have killed many of my kind and cousins."

I sat back on my knees, getting a little more comfortable. "So you came out to bring me here? I summoned you?" That would certainly explain why they were attacking my home town.

She—it was hard to call the ugly thing in front of me a she—leaned in close again. "I was summoned because of you, not by you."

"What does that mean?" I asked her.

"It doesn't matter. You die now."

She brought both her hands up and I readied myself to jump out of the way. I didn't need to, however, as Mygle came in and knocked the she-beast right over. He took a large rock and bashed it over her head. It did nothing, though, and she threw him off of her.

"Run," he yelled as he flew by. Normally I would do everything I could to kill the monster but I agreed with Mygle. Running was the best idea. She would clearly get the best of us.

I ran over to Kerry and quickly freed her from the post she was tied to. She didn't try to stop me as I picked her up and started to run. As I passed by Mygle I picked him up and threw him on my back.

"Did you know she was the first?" I yelled to him.

"No," he replied, "but who cares. Just keep running."

"Right."

Kerry looked like she was going to die.

Mygle was giving me directions, bringing us back to the door.

"It's right between those two trees," he told me.

"What do I do?" I asked.

"Just run between them."

We were about 15 feet away and the giant troll was right at our heels. With every effort I had I jumped forward and went right for the middle of the trees.

We passed through the trees and made it back out under the bridge.

"Hurry!" said Mygle. "We need to close it!"

"How?" I asked.

"Simple."

It didn't matter because the troll came through and knocked over all three of us.

"Did you think you could get away that easy?" the troll asked us.

Mygle and I put up a fight against her but it was all moot, she was dominating us and we stood no chance.

She knocked Mygle against wall which rendered him unconscious. If I didn't stand a chance against the troll with him, I was definitely screwed now.

She walked up to me and towered above me.

"Pathetic human," she said.

"Paladin," I corrected her.

"No matter. You're dead."

The troll brought up both of her hands, ready to bring them down to end my life. Suddenly there was a gun shot and the troll jerked and fell backwards. I looked back and saw Kerry on the ground with a red mark on her forehead. She had obviously fired the gun and the kickback was too much for her.

Not wanting to waste the opportunity I got up and double kicked the troll back towards the wall. As it started to fall back through the door she grabbed on the sides to keep from falling back.

"This is not the end," she promised. "I will be back, Wes Parker. There is a storm coming your way and you will not survive."

"It's time for you to go," I told her as I kicked her back into the world from whence she came.

Mygle finally woke up and saw what had happened.

"Close it!" he yelled.

"I don't know how, Mygle," I told him.

"Slash it with your axe."

I picked up one of my axes and slashed the spot where the magical door was and it made a huge cut. At first it seemed like it only made things worse but eventually it hardened and it was nothing more than a stone wall.

"Huh," I said. "I never knew they could do that."

"I feel like I'll regret telling you that," Mygle whined.

I looked back over at Kerry and she was shaking and wide-eyed. I walked over to her and she jumped as I tried to pick her up.

"It's OK," I promised her. "They're gone now."

Reluctantly she let me help her up and we walked her home.

"I'm sorry I got you into this," I said.

"I just want to get home," she complained. "I want to forget everything that happened."

"Kerry, I'm sorry."

"Just get me home."

I did just that, feeling a deep regret in the pit of my stomach. When we got her back she went to run inside but I grabbed her by the arm.

"Please let me go," she begged.

"Wait," I said. "I want to give you something."

"What?"

"This." I flashed her memory, taking away the good and the bad. All I had ever wanted was to be with Kerry but she was too terrified of the person I had become.

That night I had found a new motel to stay at given that I had pretty much destroyed the last room I stayed in. I let Mygle spend the night with me but in the morning I made him go. He didn't fight me because he had other places to be anyway. I hate to admit it but I was glad that he had been with me. I don't think I would have made it through this ordeal without him.

My bike was finally ready by noon that day. Rodney was still working the counter and had taken my card for payment. It was more than I expected but I had an unlimited supply of money, so it didn't matter.

When he brought my keys over to me he pulled them back as I reached for them.

"I'm not in the mood, Rodney," I told him.

"Come on," he said. "Grab it."

As I reached for it again he pulled it away. This time I punched him in the stomach and he dropped the keys in my hand.

"Thanks," I said, and walked away.

At least I was going to walk away with some satisfaction. But one thing was for sure: I was never coming back to this town again.

Werewolves: dirty, smelly, ugly, useless, disgusting, stupid, hairy beasts. They were by far the worst monsters that existed on the planet. I hate them with a passion and anytime I caught wind of them I would drop anything I was doing to get to them, and that was exactly what happened.

I was driving through a very nice town, searching for a vampire, but I got a tip about werewolves somewhere in Louisiana. I don't know who sent the text and that should probably bother me but the moment I hear or read werewolf I can only focus on that and nothing else matters.

The town I pulled into was an absolute crap-hole with the biggest bunch of hicks I had ever seen. I half expected to see someone with a banjo and missing te...oh wait, there is one. Never mind. It almost made me regret my decision to come down here but all I had to do was remind myself that there were giant walking canines and that brought me back to my senses.

Everyone I passed by stared me down like they wanted to kill me or do who knows what. I didn't let my mind go there, however.

The problem with werewolves is they are human by day and werewolves by night. It didn't have to be a full moon and there was absolutely no way of telling if anyone was a werewolf if they were in human form. Plus, I researched this place and didn't find anything out of the ordinary other than the fact that it had pretty much no information on it. The town was totally off the map. I started to think that something fishy was going on.

I needed to find a place to stay in case I needed to spend the night and didn't find any werewolves. The only motel in town looked nice... compared to everything else. It still looked like it was maybe 100 years old and had been hit by millions of storms. The faster I got out of this place the better.

The man behind the front desk was wearing a John Deere hat that was torn and instead of being green it was now a puke color. His white tank top had brown stains on it and he wasn't wearing any pants. He had on underwear at least, but still gross.

"Hello?" I said.

Without even turning his head he shifted his eyes so he could see me. After a few seconds he looked back at the TV his eyes were previously glued to.

"Yeah?" he asked.

"I'm looking for a room," I informed him.

"OK."

I paused for a moment.

"Do you have one?" I asked very aggravated.

"We got some," he told me.

"Great. I would like to rent one."

"One twenty-five a night."

"You're joking."

"Not wit' you, city boy."

"You can't honestly tell me that you can afford to charge that much."

"You wanna room er' not?"

"Whatever." I handed him my card.

"We only take cash."

"I don't have any cash on me." I usually have some for emergency. Fate would have me be without any in this butthole of a town.

"Well then, I guess that puts you wit out any luck."

"I don't suppose there is an ATM machine around here?"

"No, city boy."

If I didn't find a werewolf to kill in this town then I was going to find time to kill this jerk off. Customer service certainly did matter to the people in this part of the country.

"You don't get too many customers do you?" I asked him.

"Either pay, or git the hell out," he said.

I leaned in really close, making sure I was within a foot of his face.

"I don't like you," I said.

"Yep," he replied.

I walked out of there, furious. There wasn't another town within 50 miles so I had no way of getting money and getting back in time, nor did I have a car to sleep in.

When I stepped out of the small shack I almost walked into a monster that I was not expecting.

It was an alligator. The thing was quick too because it snapped up at me and I barely got my leg out of the way in time. I almost took my axe and swung it down at it but in reality it was a just a creature trying to live its life.

The alligator kept hissing at me and slowly stalked toward me. I could see behind the motel there was a swamp and I assumed that is where it came from. I couldn't just let it wander around the town and attack anyone. As it snapped at me again I jumped out of the way and grabbed it by the tail. I dragged it back to the swamp and threw it in. Why couldn't I have ended up in the town 50 miles back? It was so much nicer and alligator free, I think.

I ventured back towards what I would call the center of the town and thought about what I was going to do. I had nowhere to spend the night and I was going to have to stay in the town to see if there was a werewolf. There wasn't enough time for me to go looking for a place because it was only a few hours until dark and the closest town was too far to get back in time. It didn't matter, though. I was going to make sure that the werewolf would be dead by the end of the night.

There was a store that looked like it acted as a restaurant as well so I decided to venture in and see if I could get something to eat. I had to hope that the whole town wasn't credit card free.

When I walked through the door my attention was immediately drawn to the man behind the counter. He looked completely out of place. He wore a nice collared, button-up shirt with clean jeans and his hair looked like it had gel or something. The man clearly took care of himself and he had a full set of teeth. What I found most interesting about him was that when he noticed me he seemed thoroughly surprised. I'm sure he was just as shocked to see a normal person as I was.

I walked up to the counter.

"Hello," I said.

"Hi," he replied with a smile. He didn't have a southern accent. "What can I help you with?"

"I'm looking for something to eat."

"Try the tuna sandwich. It's good."

"Do you take card?"

"Yes."

"Alright. I'll take one of those."

"Be right up."

He walked away to start making my much-needed sandwich.

"So what brings you down here?" he asked me.

"Traveling," I told him.

"Kind of far off your way?"

"Not really. I'm just passing through."

He laughed. "No one ever comes through here. Where are you headed?"

"Nowhere really. Just kind of traveling around the country."

"You coming from the east coast?"

"Yeah." He sure did have a lot of questions but I'm sure he wasn't used to seeing too many strange faces.

"I'm from the east coast myself."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah," he replied.

He handed me my finished sandwich.

"What do you do for a living?" he asked me.

I didn't want to tell him the whole truth but I figured I could give him half. "I'm a bounty hunter."

He didn't seem intimated nor was he skeptical. "A little young for that aren't we?"

"I'm old enough."

"How do your parents feel about that?" It almost seemed like that was meant to hurt me.

The bell on the door rang as someone entered. It looked like the Sherriff and a deputy. I could only guess that they were here for me.

They both walked right up to me.

"I hear you were out by the hotel earlier?" the sheriff asked me.

"Yeah?" I replied.

"You aware it's illegal to throw gators?"

I turned to face him. "You're kidding me, right?" I didn't realize anyone was watching me. Oops.

"'Fraid not, city boy." They loved to call me that. I'm not even from a city.

"My mistake then."

"I'm 'fraid yer comin' wit me."

This is not how I wanted this trip to go.

"Let's go city boy," the sheriff said.

I wasn't going to let them take me in but I really didn't want to make a scene. The werewolf would know who I was. Although, they probably felt me come in, just like I felt them when I first came in, and since I was probably the only visitor in the past 100 years it was safe to assume they already knew.

"I'd rather not," I said. It didn't matter at this point.

"You don't have a choice," the sheriff informed me.

"I don't want to make a scene."

"Then let's go."

"Sheriff," the man behind the counter started, "I think we can cut the new comer a break, can't we? Clearly he isn't familiar with our laws, otherwise he wouldn't have done it." He looked me for validation, to which I nodded.

"Of course," I played along.

"Let's let it slide just this once."

The sheriff looked quite aggravated but he was certainly mulling it over in that big, empty head of his. The deputy that was with him seemed like he didn't even know what was going on. The way he stared at me made me very uncomfortable.

"Fine," the sheriff finally answered. "Do it again, and I'll toss ya right in jail."

"It won't happen again," I promised.

"Good. I'll have my eye on you."

"Thank you sheriff," the man said. The sheriff just nodded his head and walked away.

I turned back to the man. "Thank you for that."

"It was no problem," he replied.

"Wes." I stuck out my hand.

"Raymond." He also stuck out his hand and completed the handshake.

"So, tossing gators?" He didn't seem surprised, which was odd, but instead was mocking me. Why didn't they think it was weird that I could lift a gator? Maybe Raymond just thought the sheriff was exaggerating.

"Yeah," I laughed it off. "Weird."

"I suggest that the rest of your time here that you don't going around throwing animals."

"Good idea."

I ate the sandwich and found out that Raymond wasn't lying. The tuna was really good.

"So," began Raymond, "you hunting after anyone right now?"

I shook my head. "There's something out there but I don't know what it is yet. I'm on my way to find my next target."

"Right. Well, I hope you find him."

"Or her."

"Touché."

After I was finished I left the tray on the counter and started for the door. I noticed that everyone in the place—there were maybe four people in there besides Raymond and I—was looking at me and they all had evil grins on their faces.

"Stay out of trouble out there," Raymond suggested.

"I'll try to."

"Bye."

"See ya."

The air was thick and the sun was making its way down past the horizon. I had a few hours left until the moon showed its ugly face, forcing the werewolf to come out of hiding. All I could do now was wait.

It was just about time for the moon to show itself and I was prepared for the werewolf to show up. The only problem was that they knew I was here so I needed to find a spot where no one saw me so they wouldn't know where to find me.

OK. Here's the deal, I could tell you about how I sat there for 30 minutes and a whole bunch of exciting things happened but they didn't, and the fact is the werewolf found me. It wasn't just one, though, but two of them. At least it was good to know that I didn't waste my time and there definitely were werewolves here. I was hoping for just one, however.

They came up behind me and kind of caught me by surprise, a little. The first one that got to me took a good slash at me but I simply ducked and spun-kicked it in the back, sending it flying into a tree. The second one tackled me and we rolled down the hill.

Let me describe to you what a werewolf looks like. These aren't oversized wolves walking on all fours. No. They were on two legs, which made them much more versatile and dangerous. They were very tall and very muscular. I was strong myself so I could handle my own against them but if one of you went up against them you would be dead in seconds. They could rip you in half like you a piece of paper. That being said, you can understand why the giant, hairy monster was able to pin me to the ground.

"Wes," it growled in a very deep voice. Oh yeah, they can talk.

"If you know my name," I started, "then that means you were in the restaurant, place, thing."

"Keep going."

"Sheriff."

"Yeah." That would explain why he wasn't surprised that I could throw an alligator.

"I think it's time you got off me."

I brought my feet underneath him and pushed with all my might. The sheriff flew like, like a flying werewolf. I can't really compare it to anything else, sorry. He bounced off of a tree but landed on his feet. Werewolves were very resilient.

"I've made it my life mission to kill every werewolf I ever encounter," I informed him.

He simply laughed. "You won't be killin' any of us tonight."

"Us? There are only two of you. I can kill two of you very easily."

"Maybe ya can, but there's more than two of us."

Right on cue three more werewolves came out from behind the trees, like they were hiding. That definitely posed a problem. I started to back away and wondered if I should run. I could eventually overcome them but going after them headfirst would not end well for me.

"Don't worry," the sheriff began, "we don't plan on killin' yer, yet." He sounded weird as a werewolf.

"No?" I asked. "What would four werewolves plan on doing with me?"

"You'll see."

They all converged on me but I did a back flip into the tree, landed on a branch, and then jumped somewhere around 100 feet. Yeah, I'm that good.

As soon as I landed I started running for my bike. I had been hiding behind the hotel when the werewolves found me. I had looped around town so nobody would catch me and had carried my bike so no one would hear me. That didn't matter, though, because when I got back to my bike it was gone.

"Crap," I breathed. "Crap, crap, crap."

Things only got worse though as another werewolf came out of the little crap motel.

"City boy," he said. It was the jerk that wanted to overcharge for the room.

"How many of you are there?" I asked out loud.

"A lot."

"It was a rhetorical question, dumbass."

"Who you callin' dumb?"

"I'm just going to kill you."

I ran straight for him and he came right at me. He tried to overpower me but I used some finesse and just took off his head. It felt very fulfilling.

The streets were empty as I ran through the town but that was short-lived as werewolves started coming out of everywhere, and I literally mean everywhere. It seemed like the whole town was full of werewolves.

"You see, Wes," the sheriff began. He had caught up to me. "You walked into the wrong town."

Everyone in town was a werewolf. Oh sh...

I couldn't believe it. Everyone in the town was just a bunch of werewolves. The sheriff was definitely right and I had wandered into the wrong place. I had no idea how I was supposed to defeat an entire town of werewolves by myself. Running was the only option at that point.

I took off down the street and hoped I would miraculously find my bike but as you can imagine, that didn't happen.

As the werewolves all converged on me I was able to fight a lot of them off. I fired a gunshot here and a chop with my axe there. Unfortunately, they were able to overpower me and I was powerless to fight back. Hey, I'm strong but when I have six werewolves holding me there was only so much that I could do. Let's see how well you hold up to that.

They dragged me into town toward the restaurant and pinned me down in front of it. I didn't really see what point they were trying to make here but I was definitely worried.

Raymond came walking out of the store.

"RUN!" I yelled at him. I quickly wondered how he was still alive if he was just a normal human surrounded by werewolves.

He didn't seem the least bit frightened but instead smiled at me. "I think not, Wes."

I was confused. None of the werewolves attacked him and it appeared that he was on their side. What would a werewolf need a human for beside food?

"You look puzzled," he pointed out.

"You could say that," I replied. "They all knew I was here."

"It's a small town. When a newcomer wanders in and we can feel their presence, well then we can pretty much figure out it is a paladin."

"OK, but what do you mean 'we'? You're human."

"Who said I am human?"

Remember when I said werewolves are werewolves by night? That meant they were forced to change at night, or so I thought.

Raymond took off his shirt and then his pants. I was in no mood to witness that so I turned away, avoiding an awkward moment. When I looked back, though, there was a large werewolf where he used to be. He changed, by his own will. He wasn't forced by the moon but was able to morph into the monster because he chose to. I had no idea they could do that.

"As you can see," Raymond started in a now deep voice, "I am just like the people in this town."

"A giant, ugly, mindless beast?" I asked.

The sheriff smacked me in the back of the head. At least I assumed it was him.

"You see, I turned everyone here," he continued.

"There aren't enough of you already?" I said. I don't know why I have to make comments like that. All it got me was a nice slash across my face.

"The fact of the matter, Wes, is that we outnumber you, yet we hide. We hide so the world won't know who we are. We were afraid of Paladins, but now you are the last one. So it is you who should fear us, Mr. Parker."

"Uh huh."

"I came here, to this town where no one ever came to or even knew about. I knew it was the perfect place to build my army."

"An army of werewolves. Awesome."

"I wanted my fellow wolves to bring you to me so we could talk."

"Why would you want to talk to me?"

"You're the last paladin. Why wouldn't I want to meet you?"

I thought back to earlier that day, when Raymond first saw me.

"You knew who I was," I began, "when you first saw me."

He laughed. "You caught me."

"How?"

"Don't you recognize me?"

He leaned in really close to me.

"I killed your parents."

I felt my blood boil and I could feel just how red my face was. The werewolf that ruined my life was standing right there in front of me, and the difference was now I could fight back.

"You killed my parents?" I asked, reiterating the statement.

"Yes," Raymond confirmed. "Well, not just me but my brothers were there, too."

My mind was racing so fast that I couldn't think of what I wanted to say. All I wanted to do was pick up my axe and bury it into Raymond's head. There was no way I wasn't going to get out of this without killing him.

"We decided that we needed to split up in order to make enough werewolves fast enough and train them," he said.

"Where are you brothers?" I asked through clenched teeth.

"It doesn't matter. Even if you did find out you aren't going to live beyond the next five minutes."

"Before this is over, I'm going to kill you."

Raymond laughed. "I have heard that numerous times. You'll be the one who is dead."

"I've heard that numerous times."

We both stared at each other. I wasn't sure completely how he felt about me but he was one of the things I hated most in the world.

"I don't really see the need to wait any longer," said Raymond. "I just wanted you to know it was me that ruined your life. The moment I smelled you walk into this town I just needed for you to know. I'm going to kill you now."

This was it. I was going to be eaten by one of the same werewolves that murdered my parents. No. There was no way I was going to let it end like this. I was going to get out of this situation and I was going to kill this monster.

Raymond came at me like he was going to bite my head off. I let the flash of light escape my hands and blinded all of them. In that moment I managed to yank myself free of the werewolves that were holding me down, grab my axes and chop off their heads. I went to attack Raymond as well but he gave me a good slash across my chest. I managed to back away and miss the brunt of the attack but he still caught some of my skin. I needed to run.

I decided to flash my beam of light one more time and took off before they had time to react. I know what you're thinking: why not keep flashing them and kill them while they're blinded? That would be because eventually they would just all charge me anyway and using that power over and over would just wear me out, smartass.

I made my way to the woods, running as fast as I could. I needed to get away from them and make a phone call. Being in a service area wasn't an issue, although in this town you would think that it would be, because for some reason I always had perfect service no matter where I went.

I found myself running towards a swamp and I really only saw one option. To get away from them so they couldn't smell me any more I needed to jump in the disgusting, alligator—and whatever else was in there—infested water. I could swim fast and I wasn't really that worried about any alligators but it was still gross. It was the only choice I had, though, so I jumped in and just swam as far as I could.

I didn't come up until I was sure I was far enough away. I slowly let my head poke out of the water and listen to the sounds around me. As far as I could tell there were none around. Quickly and quietly I got out of the bath-warm water and pulled out my phone. Oh yeah. It's waterproof. I know, it's convenient but it is what it is.

Searching through my contacts I found Kelly and pushed on the screen.

"Wes?" she answered.

"Yes," I replied in a whisper.

"Why are you whispering?"

"Listen to me. I'm in big trouble."

"Where are you?"

"I'm in a middle of nowhere town in southern Louisiana."

"Hunting of course."

"Werewolves."

"Werewolves? As in plural?"

"Yeah."

"You need our help." She wasn't asking but stating it.

I bit my teeth down. "Yes."

"Wow," she said. I could hear the smile in her voice. "I feel like I should be recording this."

"I don't have time for this."

"OK, OK. What do you need?"

I took in a deep breath. I knew what needed to be done but it was just not an option I really liked.

"I need you to blow up this town."

"What?" Kelly asked.

"You heard me," I replied.

"You can't be serious."

"I'm very serious. This entire town is populated with werewolves."

"I still can't just take out a town."

"It's really small, nobody knows about it, and it is filled with redneck werewolves. Trust me, there is no loss here."

Kelly was silent for a second.

"Let us send in a team," she tried.

"There's no time for that," I told her.

She didn't say anything, again. She was obviously thinking it over.

"Listen, this is one of the werewolves that killed my parents," I said. "He's here creating some sort of idiotic army and there is way more than we can handle."

"So this is personal?" she asked me.

"No. Well, yes, but we really have to stop them."

She let out a long exaggerated sigh. "Hang on."

There was no sound coming from the phone but the call didn't end yet. I thought I heard something behind the trees off in the distance so I slowly started to back away. After several seconds nothing came after me. It must have been a deer or something.

"Wes?" Kelly said through the phone.

"Yeah," I replied.

"You need to get out of the there fast."

"How fast?"

"Ten minutes."

"I don't even know where my bike is."

"Wes, you need to find it and get out of there quick. I'll see if I can hold them off until you get out."

"No. There's no time for that."

"What if you don't get out in time?"

"Don't worry about me. If I don't, though, there were two other werewolves that killed my parents, this one's brothers. If I don't get out you need to find them and stop them."

"Just get out of there and we can both find them."

"Right. Thanks, Kelly."

I hung up the phone and started running back into town. There was no telling where my bike was and I had very little time to find it. I have to say that I was actually very nervous.

I eventually found my way back into town and from what I could tell it was empty. They were obviously still looking for me out in the woods. To me it would have made more sense for them to leave some werewolves behind in case I managed to get back here. Obviously Raymond had a lot to learn, nevermind teach. Either that or he did tell some to stay but they were too stupid to stay behind. I am going to assume that is probably the case.

I went to the one place that made sense to me, Raymond's store/restaurant. I ran around the entire outside of the building and my bike was nowhere to be found. That was when I decided to venture inside. I had just peeked inside when I saw it standing in the middle of the floor. That was also when I heard him come up behind me.

"Wes," Raymond growled.

"Raymond," I replied. I turned around and found everyone was standing behind me, watching. Apparently they were smart enough to stick around. They knew I was going to come back here.

"It's time. He's mine. Everyone else stay out of it."

I had five minutes to kill Raymond, get my bike and escape the rest of the werewolves. I'm dead.

We both stood still, staring each other in the eyes. He wanted me dead and I pretty much felt the same. This was the werewolf that had ruined my life and I would love to be able to pay him the same favor.

Raymond charged at me and I rolled out of the way, narrowly avoiding a slash across the face. As I came up I swiped my axe up his back and made contact, drawing first blood. He howled in protest and was visibly angry. He came at me again and when I went to do a barrel roll over him he simply reached up, grabbed me and slammed me into the ground. I bounced of the dirt parking lot and felt the wind escape my lungs. That one hurt.

I fought pass the pain and as he ran at me I spun on the ground and kicked his legs right out from underneath him. I pushed myself into a spin and landed right above him. Bringing my axe down with all my might and I swung it towards his head. Raymond brought his hands up just in time and stopped the axe inches from his face. One of the werewolves charged in to help.

"No!" Raymond yelled. "Leave him to me."

Clearly he thought he was getting out of this even though I was pushing down and winning. That was until he pushed back and lifted me off the ground. I flew backwards and bounced off the wall of his store. When I hit the ground there was a nice thud and I felt myself lifted into the air again.

Raymond punched me in the face three times and threw me way off to the side against a large propane tank. I could feel the blood on my face and I was already starting to bruise. Trust me I know when I'm bruising. He jumped into the air soaring across the parking lot, falling right towards me. I rolled on the ground, swung my foot up and kicked him right in the snout, eliciting a small whimper. That felt good.

In a fit of rage Raymond came at me like a wild animal, which I guess he kind of was, being a werewolf and all. I went to swing my axe at him but he just knocked it out of the way, slashed me across the chest and threw me back in front of the restaurant.

"I'm done toying with you, paladin," he snarled. "I'm going to finish you off and eat your flesh, and I will be the one who has killed the very last paladin. Prepare to die, Wes Parker."

He started toward me as an alarm on my phone went off. He stopped.

"What is that?" one of the other werewolves asked.

"That would be the alarm on my phone," I answered.

"Alarm fer what?"

The sound of a plane could be heard in the distance.

"The alarm for when I blow up this town."

Raymond looked up into the sky and that was my chance. I stood up as quick as I could, swung my axe and sliced his head clean off.

"Game over," I said.

I took out one of my Desert Eagles and fired at the propane tank. The explosion was absolutely amazing. I'm sure it could be seen and heard for miles. Of course, there was no one within said miles.

The force was enough to knock everyone over, including myself. I didn't have any time to spare, though, so I got right back up and headed straight for my bike. Every one of the werewolves were caught by surprise so they weren't as quick to respond and that gave me the time that I needed to get my bike started and barrel out of there.

I heard the first bomb hit somewhere on the other edge of town. If I moved fast enough then I could still make it. Yes, my bike is definitely fast enough to make. The werewolves were starting to get their wits about them, however, and started to attack me. I sliced them with my axe and fought them off as the sounds of the bombs were getting closer, and fast.

One wolf got too close and when I went to knock it away it pulled the axe out of my hand. Crap. Crap, crap, crap. I was so mad. I lost my axe and there was nothing I could do to get it back because the bombs were right on my back. They were getting so close that I could feel the heat against my back. I started to fear that some of the werewolves were going to get away, but then I realized at the rate I was going I wasn't going to get away. Luckily my bike had a little something special in it.

I activated the booster—I didn't know what to call it, because it wasn't NOS. This is one of the things that I inherited so I didn't know the ins and outs of it—the bike—but the boost was rechargeable, and it was just what I needed to get away in time. As I cruised at about 215 miles per hour I could hear the last werewolves yelp as the fire consumed them.

After I was a good distance away I looked back at the town that was now completely covered in a blaze of fire. I called Kelly to let her know they were all dead and I wasn't.

I was still mad. I finally gained some revenge back for my parents but I didn't feel any better. Plus there was still two of them left and needed to find them and kill them, too.

The worst part of this entire hunt was that I lost one of my axes. I couldn't believe that I lost one. They felt like and extensions to my arms.

Something came flying through the air, fast. It hit the ground right near my feet. It was my axe.

"Oh cool," I said out loud.

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Here's the First Part of the Next Story:

Mischief in the Mountains

I was feeling pretty gloomy after my run in with Raymond and his bunch. It brought up a lot of bad feelings from the past and there were a couple things that were bothering me. One of them was I had no idea who had warned about the werewolves and why, and why was he building an army? It just seemed strange that it was all happening now. Although he could have been turning people for the past five or six years for all I know. Anyway, I was back out on the road.

Wes Parker here. For those of you that may not know me I am a paladin, which means I'm pretty much a badass, I'm 17 and I hunt monsters. That's my life. It's not the greatest life but it is mine. I recently ran into one of the werewolves that killed my parents and that was what I was talking about before. So, with the help of Kelly, someone that works for an agency of humans that hunt monsters, we blew the town right off the map, literally. It was kind of awesome.

I was driving as far away from that town as I could and ended up in Colorado, in the Rocky Mountains. It was cold and everything was covered in snow, so on the way I had traded my bike out for my car. Driving in snow with a motorcycle is not safe, even for me.

There wasn't anywhere in particular that I was heading, considering that I didn't really hear about anything or catch wind of any monster. That was until I was about six hours into the state when I felt it, something pulling at me, beckoning me to follow it. The next town was about five miles and that was obviously where I needed to go.

It was a nice town, which was a good change of pace from my last stop, and a little more populated, too. I searched about the town on the Internet and didn't find anything that caught my attention, nothing out of the ordinary, but why did I feel something close by?

I pulled into a general parking area and decided to walk around town, see if anything came up. It was a real touristy town so I figured I would fit right in. It was a Thursday afternoon but it was winter vacation so it was pretty busy. People were walking about and everyone seemed very happy. If they only knew the crap that was really out there.

There was a really cute girl walking down the street toward me and the moment she saw me she smiled. I felt that it was only right that I returned the gesture. Plus I couldn't stop myself from doing it even if I wanted to. She had crimson hair, perfectly white teeth and a white winter hat. She looked amazing and actually looked like she was a couple years older than me.

"Hi," she said as we walked by each other.

"Hi," I replied and continued walking.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm not really sure."

"Not too far I hope." Her smile broadened.

"You have any suggestions?"

"I was just going to the Coffee House."

"Sounds like a good place to be." Whatever was in this town could wait. It wasn't like anything bad had happened yet.

"Let's go then."

I listened to her and started following her to the so-called Coffee house.

"You're not from around here, are you?" she asked me.

"No," I said. "I'm guessing you are?"

"Yeah. It's funny, there really hasn't been any outsiders in a while."

I looked around. "It seems like this town is pretty full, though."

"Everyone seems to be sticking around."

"What?" I asked her, now very intrigued.

"Yeah," she replied.

"Do tourists usually stick around here long?"

"A week maybe but not for a month."

I stopped. "A month?"

"Yeah. Plus there is all the weird stuff."

"What weird stuff?"

"Nothing bad. Just cars flipped upside down and peoples' laundry spread out in the front yard spelling names."

Uh oh.

"That doesn't bother you?" I asked.

"Not really," she replied.

"I gotta go." I took off without saying another word. I chanced a quick look back and she didn't seem like she cared.

If there were flipped cars, discarded laundry and other weird things going on in this town up in the Rocky Mountains then that meant only one thing: Elves...

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