You'll Never Hunt Alone
CHAPTER ONE
The car door slammed, jolting Zoe Griffith from her deep slumber. With emerald eyes that still weren't used to focusing, she scanned the area, her fingers closing around the handle to escape from the ever-enveloping small space of the cramped SUV. She strained her head towards the driver's side, noticing a crick had started niggling in her neck and began to work on the cramped muscles with her fingertips.
"Where are we?" she asked, her eyes taking in the driver as well as their forest encompassed surroundings.
"Louisville, Kentucky," the driver replied.
He was a tall man, perhaps 6'1 or even 6'2. His black-greying hair was slicked back and a long scar protruded over one eye. He had a familiar lameness to his gait, and as Zoe watched him limp towards the trunk of the SUV, she saw other familiarities. The proud chin that they both shared, the golden rays that surrounded the irises of their eyes (although his eyes were hazel), even the way they held themselves with the knowledge of exactly what their bodies were capable of were the same. There was no denying that these two were related. They were in fact father and daughter.
"Got a good tip on a hunt down here while you were asleep, thought we could take a look?" his voice held a question, though no real answer was needed.
"So what are we dealing with?" Zoe asked and was rewarded with her father digging a manila folder out of his leather jacket, which he then handed to his daughter.
Zoe quickly opened it and scanned the pages which seemed to be newspaper clippings of several disappearances in the area over the last few months, most of them young teenage couples.
"I think this is what we're dealing with," he said, directing her to the last page with his finger.
"The Pope Lick Monster?" she asked incredulously, reading its title. "Wow, a Catholic's worst nightmare, huh?"
He chuckled, "Cute Zoe, but no. Its name comes from the creek that runs underneath the trestle where it preys upon its victims. Believed to be a satyr: half man, half goat. Four couples in all. Two of them found broken in half from the fall off the trestle. One of them hit by an oncoming train, and the last: just plain missing."
Zoe shook her head, a couple of brown locks falling from their perch behind her ear. "See? Just another reason why love sucks. They should put a warning label on it: Warning: May come with jealous goatman who will toss you to your grisly death."
The joke was lame, but it made her father smile. And she knew it was good to keep him in high spirits. Especially since he had recently fallen in love with the first woman in more than two decades. It just wasn't fair that the woman who had Ryan Griffith's heart happened to want to cut it out so she could serve it on a silver platter to a party of demons.
Bitch, Zoe thought. If she ever saw Lynette Beryl she would make sure she didn't slink away so easily a second time.
She watched as her father opened the trunk of the SUV, grabbed a carry bag and begun loading it up with the usual arsenal: a Remington pump-action shotgun, a Winchester double-barrelled sawn-off shotgun, lighter fluid, waterproof matches, two small flashlights, a container of salt, a rope, bolt cutters and some ammo.
While he handed Zoe a large sheathed hunting knife, he began to recite the history of the Pope Licker Monster. "There are three legends of how the monster came to be. The first is that the monster is actually the offspring of a farmer who had sexual relations with his goats."
Zoe took the knife from him, fastened it to her belt and shuddered. "Now there's an image I so did not need..."
Her father ignored her, and passed a Browning 9x19mm handgun and a couple of pre-loaded clips. He then continued. "The second is that the monster was once a farmer who sacrificed his goats to gain power in his satanic faith. The night he died he swore revenge and was resurrected as the goatman of Pope Lick Creek."
He waited for a savvy remark but when none came he continued onto the final legend, sliding a sheathed Bowie hunting knife with a coffin shaped handle into his boot. "And the last and perhaps most likely is that back in the 1800s the monster was captured and became an exhibit in a circus owned by a man by the name of Silus Garner. The show became a hit and the circus toured the country until one night the train derailed and killed all of the passengers except for one..."
"The goatman..." Zoe whispered.
"Yes. Over the years there have been some unexplained deaths in the area. The local cops fenced it off to keep people out, but I guess someone didn't listen to the warnings."
"Pfft," Zoe scoffed. "Do they ever?"
"Idiotic behaviour is one of the top five reasons we get so much business. Well," he started, hitching the bag over his shoulder. "We should get a move on. It'll be dark in a couple of hours, and the Hunters Guide to the Universe didn't bother to include how effective this thing kills at night."
Zoe nodded, shut the trunk behind her and made her way with her father into the sparse forestry, matching him stride for stride. Ryan slid his spare clips into his belt, chambered his handgun and then smiled as his daughter mirrored his movements: he'd taught her well.
"So I'm confused, why the hell would anyone go up to the trestle if they know their deaths are waiting up there?" Zoe wondered out loud, keeping up with her father's lean movements.
"There is a rumour," Ryan mused. "It's believed that the Goatman uses some sort of hypnosis to call out to people and lure them to him."
Zoe nodded and fell silent, letting only her thoughts trail. She remained on high alert, halting at every alien sound until she or her father could pinpoint its source. They made good time, and Zoe was grateful that she had decided to wear her loose fitting jeans, her light blue fleece-lined jacket and her sensible black boots. There was nothing worse than being on a hunt and not wearing suitable attire and it certainly wasn't an easy trek.
They got to Pope Lick Creek with forty-five minutes of light to spare. Zoe and Ryan took in their surroundings. Pope Lick Creek was framed by forest on all sides. Fences sprouting warning signs that warded off trespasses were posted on every entrance. The creek here had a muddy tinge to it. It didn't look like a creek so much as an expansive puddle. The trestle that rose out from it was rusted and streaked from the weather.
Shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand, Zoe followed its frame to the top. "Wow, that's pretty high," she gushed, feeling her impeding fear of heights engulf her.
"Yeah," Ryan agreed. "A hundred feet up at least. Not a place you want to fall from, let's put it that way. So don't even think about climbing up there."
Zoe wouldn't have dreamed about it. She liked the ground. The ground was safe. Anything that was higher than 10 feet made her dizzy.
Ryan opened the carry bag, produced the pair of bolt cutters and went to work on the padlock that held the gate securely shut. It clanged to the ground, and they pushed their way through the gate, their handguns both drawn up at the ready as they scouted the area for any impending danger. When they were both satisfied that there was none, they dropped their weapons to their side, but didn't bother to holster them. There might not be any immediate threats, but that didn't mean that there wasn't something lurking somewhere out of sight, watching patiently for its chance to strike.
"So what's the plan?" Zoe asked, eyeing her father's every movement.
"Well, I'm going to climb up there," he said and gestured to the trestle, causing a knot form in Zoe's stomach.
"But you said-" Zoe started to protest before being cut off.
"That you were to stay on the ground. I know what I said."
Zoe bit her lip in frustration, Ryan misinterpreting it as fear for her own safety.
"You'll be fine down here," he assured her, moving quickly to an eastern path before turning back towards his daughter. "Don't worry; we're going to get this son of a bitch. You just stay here out of trouble."
Ryan didn't look back as he limped out of sight and towards an embankment that would eventually lead him to the railway of the trestle so he didn't notice the daggers his daughter had been shooting at him in retaliation to his last statement. Trouble indeed.
Why leave me behind now? Zoe wondered, broodingly. Hadn't she been in on all the action that occurred with the banshee? Hadn't she proven her worth slaying the vampire harem? To be left behind on such a routine hunt was insulting. Still, she pried her eyes away from the path where her father had disappeared and began to pace the quiet creek line, keeping her instincts on ready alert.
Time passed and Zoe stopped pacing and sat down on one of the large rocks that littered the area, tapping the safety-engaged gun on her thigh impatiently. It was starting to get dark. Already the sun was beginning to dip into position to say goodbye. Zoe checked her watch to find that 30 minutes had passed. That left, at most, 15 minutes of good light.
"Come on, Dad, where the hell are you?" she muttered and almost jumped out of her skin when she was rewarded with a vibration at her hip and the song "Born to Be Wild" began to play – which was one of her father's favourites.
Grasping its base from her hip pocket, she flipped the cellular phone open and put it to her ear, already knowing whose voice she'd hear on the other line.
"Dad?! Oh my god, you had me so worried-" she began.
"Zoe??" her father's voice cut in. It sounded much further away than just a few hundred feet. His voice was barely audible, and the line crackled terribly.
"Dad? I can barely hear you," she yelled into the receiver.
"—need you – came at – fought – lots of – cornered – bleeding – on top – come now!"
"But you told me to stay put!" Zoe was breathing hard, anxiety laden with the words she wasn't hearing.
"—don't matter – here – now!"
With that, the call dropped out and Zoe held the phone at arm's length as it had turned into the Pope Lick Monster in front of her very eyes.
Was she really supposed to leave her post and go traipsing around the very dangerous countryside to find her father? But wasn't this exactly what she wanted?
Zoe stuck her phone back in her pocket and with one last fleeting look at the disappearing sunset, she clicked the safety off her gun and began to jog up the path that would lead her to her father. It felt like it took forever to get to the overpass, though in reality it probably only took a few minutes.
Holding her gun at the ready, her eyes never lingered on a spot for too long, and she began the perilous journey across the trestle, the adrenaline keeping her fear of heights at bay.
Her footsteps clanged loudly as she progressed across the trestle and it wasn't long before she found herself dead centre in the middle of the bridge. There wasn't much light left but it was enough to see that no one else was on the trestle: she was alone up here. Alone, over a hundred feet in the air. The fear started to kick in then, and she took several shallow breaths of air into her lungs, her gun flailing wildly from side to side as she spun herself around in a circle.
"Shit!" she cursed almost silently. This was a very bad idea.
She was about to start backing up to retrace her steps when suddenly the phone at her hip began to vibrate once more and a song Zoe had never heard began to play. A slow country guitar and then an old man crooning;
"Hear that lonesome whippoorwill,
He sounds too blue to fly,
The midnight train is whining low,
I'm so lonesome I could cry."
With shaking hands, she pulled the phone from her pocket and looked at the caller ID. The LCD lights were flickering with an endless stream of numbers. And still the song kept on playing with Zoe unable to do little else but stare at the alien thing that had once been her favourite way of communicating.
"I've never seen a night so long
When time goes crawling by.
The moon just went behind a cloud
To hide its face and cry."
A guitar solo played and Zoe felt her piece shake with the tremors that ran through her body. She realised how stupid it had been to come up here. She was utterly alone, and she felt completely vulnerable to whatever it was that was up here, the protection of her gun doing little to quell her fear.
"Did you ever see a robin weep
When leaves begin to die?
That means he's lost the will to live
I'm so lonesome I could cry."
She could sense that the song was winding down. Surely she only had a matter of seconds before the monster would jump out at her, pushing her to the dusty earth beneath the trestle.
Well I won't go down without a fight, she thought, squaring off her shoulders as best she could.
"The silence of a falling star
Lights up a purple sky.
And as I wonder where you are
I'm so lonesome I could cry."
As she listened to the final strings being plucked, she held her phone in one hand, the gun secured in the other, slowly swivelling it from one direction to the next. Nothing stirred. The wind blew softly over her skin, and after a time the sun finally dipped below the horizon, and the moon smiled eerily at her from up above. Still, she didn't dare make a move.
What is it waiting for? she wondered.
As she continued to scan the area, something to the west caught her attention. A beacon of light was slicing through the night at quite a speed, though it was difficult to tell exactly what it was. As Zoe watched, it began to make a beeline for the trestle's tracks and she realised it was in fact an oncoming train and that at any moment it could come barrelling along the very track that she stood on. Zoe swore, loudly, and turned on her heel ready to sprint back to safety.
Only, she wasn't alone anymore. There standing before her, barring her way, was none other than the one both her and her father were hunting: the Pope Lick Monster himself. Her heart jumped into her throat as she took in the fabled creature's appearance and she realised the legends just didn't do him justice.
The Pope Lick Monster stood erect on two powerful goat-shaped legs, its feet ending in hooves. Albino fur covered its body and its upper body consisted of a grotesque torso of an adult male. Its skin was translucent and it showed ghastly black except in the places where flesh was pulled tightly over bone. The face slightly resembled something human, though its features were too out of place: its eyes too far apart, its nostrils too aquiline, and its jaw jutted out much too far. From atop a mane of greasy, matted, long, white hair were two sharp, short horns.
It looked at Zoe with black soulless eyes, and grunted, causing her to whip her gun around to point at the fabled creature.
"Don't move!" Zoe shouted, and was surprised to find her voice came out much braver sounding than she felt.
Though her performance didn't seem to matter in the slightest. In one swift movement the creature lunged for her and Zoe fired her gun: a wild shot that sped off into the darkness instead of into the flesh of the monster. Zoe yelped as the weight of the monster came down upon her and she felt a pain in her right ankle as she buckled underneath it. Her back hit the rails and the two landed in an unceremonious heap, Zoe's gun skittering away from her before toppling off the edge of the trestle and into the unknown below.
That's where I'm gonna end up if I don't do something, Zoe thought as the goatman hissed and screeched, its powerful hands seizing Zoe's throat.
It shook her as easily as if she were a ragdoll, her head jerking back and forth so violently that Zoe was terrified that any moment now it would rip from its socket.
Without warning and as suddenly as it had come, the shaking stopped and Zoe had only a moment to wonder why. Then she heard it. In her hand, something vibrated and a familiar croon pierced the night air.
""Hear that lonesome whippoorwill,
He sounds too blue to fly,
The midnight train is whining low,
I'm so lonesome I could cry."
The phone! Zoe realised. She still had it clamped in her other hand. The monster's eyes were confused as it stared at the foreign object, and it listened intently to the lyrics that Zoe had heard just a short time ago. Soon though, its confusion turned to anger and it bellowed ferociously before slamming Zoe's head down into the rails.
At first, Zoe thought it was trying to crush her head against the rail underneath, but then she noticed a light was shining on the two trespassers of the now vibrating trestle. The train had begun its descent onto the bridge, and in moments it would be upon them. A scream was thrown to the winds as Zoe beat at every available part of the goatman she could reach, having just about as much impact as a flyswat would have had.
This is it, Zoe thought. This is how it ends.
Her eyes squeezed tightly closed as a silent tear trekked its way down her cheek. Would her life flash before her eyes? Would someone meet her at the pearly gates? She didn't know but in seconds all of her questions would be answered.
"Dad... I'm so sorry..." she whispered, the last things to ever leave her lips. Or so she thought.
The gunshot that sounded a heartbeat later wasn't the thing that made her breathe again, the rush of air that greeted her screaming lungs on the other hand was what surprised her. The monster had finally let her go!
Her eyes snapped open and she saw that the monster was now standing four feet away. Its arms were windmilling wildly and she watched the horror on the monster's face as it toppled comically off the trestle, an animalistic scream following it in its wake.
Zoe had no time to wonder what the hell had just happened as strong arms folded around her and pulled her dazed and bruised body towards the safety of the now unbarricaded embankment. When asked later, Zoe wouldn't remember how she was able to run alongside her saviour. But somehow, with the adrenaline that comes with a life and death situation pumping through her veins, she found the strength to keep the pace and eventually her hero pulled her off of the railway and the two fell into a tangle of arms and legs and torsos a moment before four thousand tonnes of steel and metal whizzed by harmlessly.
Zoe cradled her face to her saviour's rising and falling chest, finding comfort in the simple movement. His arms held her tightly against him, making her wish she could stay forever in this protective embrace, but a voice called out, "Dean!" and the body underneath her reverberated with the reply, "Over here!" making it impossible to lose herself in the moment.
Zoe stood up slowly, her head aching both from the lack of oxygen and the blows she had received to it. Her hand slid up to cup the large bruise that was forming on the base of her skull.
"You okay?" came the deep voice of her saviour, 'Dean'.
He was an attractive young man, Zoe guessed he was probably in his mid-twenties. He looked to be quite tall, around 6'2. He had short-cropped brown hair and green eyes that were full of playful concern for the girl he had just saved.
Zoe nodded, the movement causing her head to swim as her legs buckled underneath her. Strong, familiar arms steadied her and a voice tickled her earlobe. "Whoa, that was quite a knock you took back there. Better take it easy, princess".
"Dean!" Two figures crashed through the bushes, one Zoe immediately recognised as her father. The other one, another attractive young man, had chocolate-coloured brown hair, softly tousled from the wind. His frame was taller and leaner than Dean's stockier build and his hazel eyes, that looked like they could appear gentle and full of depth, shone with fierce protectiveness.
"What were you thinking, Dean?! I almost shot you!" The one Zoe didn't know yet shouted.
"I was thinking you were a better shot than that Sammy," Dean flashed his pearly whites at 'Sammy'. "And I was right."
'Sammy' rolled his eyes. Obviously he was used to this kind of thing.
Still, he shot Zoe an apologetic look. "Excuse my brother. He often thinks he's invincible." His voice was as soft as his gentle eyes had now become. "My name's Sam and this is my brother, Dean."
A/N: Well that's it. I hoped you liked it. I'd love to hear your feedback, so please take the time out to rate and review. Thanks so much, it means a lot And also as I mentioned in the summary this is set before Wendigo, I plan to actually incorporate the Supernatural episodes into the story. It should be really awesome. I hope you're as excited to read it as I am to write it!