Warning: A Big Fat Mary Sue Romance Story. I'm using the guise of a Mary Sue to make a strong statement about relationships between men and women but there will be cheesy romance scenes. Nothing too gory however. Please enjoy. This should effectively get all plot out of the way.
When Van Helsing arrived in the village he expected the stench of fear that occupied the homes of most monsters but he found it curiously absent. All the villagers went through their tedious daily chores with a slight disease but the misery was not there.
There wasn't really a boarding house in a town that small but the local brewery had a few rooms on the second floor and that was what Van Helsing settled for. That and a pint of the local brew which turned out to be very awful.
Van Helsing discovered this on his first night. He went down to the tavern where tongues tended to be loose around this time of evening and he began roundabout inquiries. He had noticed the fresh graves when he rode into town. "I saw a couple of wolves down in Underland last year. Ugly brutes too, big enough to take down a horse."
He was talking to the bartender but the patron next to him jumped into the conversation without apologizing for listening in. "You think you've seen wolves, you should see them here. A wolf tore apart a whole house and massacred a whole family on the west end of town."
"God rest the Vandermills," another man chorused in raising his glass. The others muttered the phrase somberly and drank.
"Tore apart a house?" Van Helsing inquired.
The drunk nodded. "Everything was overturned or torn in half. It wasn't worth salvaging anything. It was all we could do to get some firewood out of the debris. A whole family's life and belongings and possessions, gone." He shook his head.
The man next to them cut in. "Wish I could have seen the beast. The door was hanging in splinters on the frame, locked from the inside."
"Be glad you didn't see it," another man cut in.
"When was this?" Van Helsing asked.
The drunk thought. "Must have been about two weeks ago."
Van Helsing frowned. That sure sounded like a werewolf but the timing was all off. The full moon had been three weeks ago. The Vatican had said it was a werewolf for sure. It sounded like one; but werewolves were powerless without the full moon to aid them, just peculiarly strong humans.
"Did anyone see the beast?" Van Helsing asked.
"Yes, and it's a miracle that Calcavanti wasn't killed by the beast."
There was a murmur of assent around the room.
"Who's that?"
"The local hunter, Jonathan Calcavanti. The beast's bloody paws led a trail straight to his home. They fought and he managed to drive the beast off."
Well there went the werewolf idea. No human could compete with a werewolf physically. Van Helsing wanted to get his things and go back to the Vatican right then; but he knew the monks would chastise him and since the incident in Transylvania when Van Helsing had let the Frankenstein monster escape, despite orders, the father had been making a point of excising pointless control over Van Helsing. Such as ordering him to this God forsaken town after Van Helsing requested not to be put on werewolves for a while. The father might make him turn right back around despite his logic.
"Where does the man live?"
"On the northern edge of the forest; but you'll be hard pressed to find the man."
"Why is that?"
"With all the hunting he's barely home. The man's a ghost; but he can catch a deer without any trouble."
"Remember that bear he got last Summer?"
Grumbled assent. "Big as a horse." "Born hunter."
"John has promised that he'll kill the beast but in the mean time we're all supposed to stay indoors at night and lock them."
"Didn't do them much good."
Somber silence. Van Helsing paid for his drink and for a few others and went upstairs to sleep. If he was reassured that there was no monster after talking to the man he would leave the man to his job. Maybe it was just a big wolf. Van Helsing had seen stranger things in his line of work.