I don't write scary very well, but hopefully I captured the creepy feel of Halloween while also giving everyone a good Ranger and Stephanie story. This one is centered around a place that isn't all that far away from where I live. Every weekend through October, they haunt up the woods that are usually reserved for skiers, and I always thought it would be a fun place to include in a story so this challenge helped me finally do it. All familiar characters belong to Janet. The mistakes are mine. Happy Halloween!
"Remind me again why I had to come with you, Babe?" Ranger asked me.
"I told you, there's no way I was going to walk through a 'scream' park all by myself."
"You were taking Mary Alice and Angie, Steph. You wouldn't have been alone."
I blew out a sigh. I'm a weenie when it comes to all things scary. I don't like horror movies. I despise the feeling of been chased. And I have to walk through dark, creepy, spider-infested places everyday for my job, so enduring all of that on a larger scale is not my idea of fun. But when your niece dares you to do something, you suck it up and pretend that you're not really a chickenshit. And you also ask your tough-as-nails, afraid-of-nothing, bodyguard boyfriend to come with you.
"I needed a big, strong guy to protect me from the boogeyman," I told Ranger.
"It's all fake, Steph."
"I know, but it's still spooky."
"If you're that terrified, feel free to hold onto me if this place gets to be too much for you."
"Oh, I plan on it," I told him. "I had every intention of hanging onto you even if I wasn't terrified."
"Good," Ranger said, before bending his head and kissing me until my toes curled.
Mary Alice had begged for two days straight to get me to take her here, and for some stupid reason, I said yes. Boy, was I regretting that now as I watched a guy missing half his face wander around, stumbling into a few of the other poor schmucks who got suckered into coming here. Freaking out both parents and kids equally it seemed. I tried to look on the bright side, at least the other half of his head wasn't splattered across my apartment walls, and nothing we see tonight will result in me having to testify, so I'm sure I'll find some parts of this place to enjoy.
The only thing that finally got me to bring Mary Alice here was using the same pleading tactics Mary Alice had used on me on Ranger. It worked and I got a date with an incredibly hot guy out of the deal. I have a feeling Valerie bribed Angie to come along with us to keep an eye on both Mary Alice and I in case Ranger was a no-show. I didn't blame her. All kinds of things could go wrong tonight, or maybe we'd just end up eating too much and feeling sick.
The girls had wanted to start on the rides before we hit all the haunted stuff, and I was completely fine with that. I've seen enough freaky things on my job to last me a lifetime. I could wait a little longer for more. Ranger and I watched as Mary Alice got flung around on the amusement park-style rides the small place offered. Angie even grudgingly went on a few of them with her. My guess would be that Angie just wanted to stop Mary Alice from calling her a baby. Which, I'm ashamed to say, is what wore me down, too.
"They are eerily similar to Val and I as kids," I told Ranger, pulling my jacket tighter as a cold breeze swept through, knocking a few more leaves onto the growing piles on the ground.
"I don't need to ask who was the one at the front of the line," Ranger said, nodding his head to where the girls were now standing after he pulled me closer to his much bigger, much warmer body.
Maybe this isn't going to be such a bad night after all.
"Nope, you don't," I said to Ranger, as I watched Mary Alice elbow Angie. "I even shoved Valerie out of my way a bunch of times when I felt she wasn't moving fast enough."
"I'm not surprised."
"Neither was Valerie."
I snuggled up happily against Ranger as we watched Mary Alice drag Angie from ride to ride until they came back to us breathing heavy, their faces pink partly from the chilly night and also from being flipped upside down at warp speed.
"This place is awesome," Mary Alice said to us.
"They do have pretty good food," I told her.
My only stipulation was that I wanted to eat at the little restaurant they had here before I was subjected to anything else. I told Mary Alice that I needed to have a full stomach before I faced anything that goes bump in the night. Hey, a happy stomach has gotten Lula and I through many a takedown.
"What are we going to do now?" Angie asked us.
"I want to go on the haunted hayride," Mary Alice said.
I looked at Ranger.
"Forget it, Babe. I'm not sitting on flatbed wagon while complete strangers scream in my ear."
I saw Mary Alice stick her lip out at that, but before she could reach full pout stage, I sacrificed myself in order to keep the night drama-free. To me, a kid throwing a tantrum is worse than a twenty minute tractor ride. How bad could it be anyway?
"Put the lip away, Mary Alice," I said to her, "I'll go on the haunted hayride with you guys."
I hate being scared more than I hate eating healthy and exercising combined, but I like being their favorite aunt too much to tell them no. The fact that I'm their only aunt didn't really matter.
"It'll be over before you know it, Babe."
"Easy for the bench sitter to say," I told him.
I managed to get a quick kiss from Ranger before I was led away to climb aboard the stupid wagon that was about to be pulled by the biggest tractor I've seen in Jersey. I watched as the driver got himself settled in the center of the tractor's seat, far from the edges of it. Completely unlike us idiots who had our legs dangling off the sides of the wagon. That can't be good, I thought to myself.
I soon found out the reason behind the driver's seating choice. As the tractor started off into the woods, crunching leaves under the tires and rolling over dry branches, I wished like hell that I was back with Ranger. It was incredibly creepy even though I kind of knew what to expect. And here I was thinking the Pine Barrens - home of the Jersey Devil - were terrifying at night. Angie suddenly squeezed the life out of my hand as we spotted the first of many witches hiding in the trees overhead.
"That's so cool," Mary Alice said, on the opposite side of me.
Great, one niece is cutting off my blood flow, while the other is radiating happiness. But even Mary Alice moved closer to me when a deranged lumberjack charged our wagon with a fully operational chainsaw. Okay, I might have screamed along with everyone else, but only because I have been threatened with a chainsaw before. When his blood-stained clothes disappeared back into the woods, I leaned into Mary Alice.
"I guess that explains why the driver is hiding," I said to her.
She laughed, but the laugh quickly turned to a shriek as another wood dweller started a saw right behind us. The whole ride was a continual jump-fest, from the strobe lights that sent eerie flashes of light throughout the woods, occasional wolf howls sounding too close to where we were for my liking, to the zombies in various stages of decay shooting out of the woods on either side of us, chasing the wagon while reaching out for our legs as we moved along the dark trails. I know it's just actors, lighting, and sound effects, but it did make the hair on my neck stand up and my heart beat fast all the same.
After twenty one minutes - they lied about the length of the ride - we jumped off the wagon bed feeling good and terrorized. The fog had been thick and constant. The witch cackles from unidentifiable places above us were still in my ears, and now the girls were ready to move on to the darker areas of the park. Oh goody. I made sure we stopped at the pumpkin display first, though, where hundreds of lit pumpkins were perched on bales of hay, carved in everything you can imagine from innocent looking black cats to Freddie Krueger. I wanted to be able to show Lisa something not scary when we dropped Mary Alice and Angie back off at home.
I was clutching Ranger's hand throughout the entire Castle Morbid tour as childlike creatures jumped seemingly out of the walls to reach us. I was glad that Angie and the creatures were screaming loud enough to drown me out. As I passed a life-size dollhouse, my arm accidentally brushed against it. Stupid me paused for a second to look at it, since I could've cared less about dollhouses when I was little. I turned my head slightly and my eyes landed on the three-foot tall resident doll. That's cute, I thought until the damn thing's eyes flew wide open and I was suddenly staring right into them.
Nightmare Mansion was even worse. Thin vines hung from the ceiling and plants brushed our ankles as we walked slowly through the winding halls and into secret passageways while little horror movie rejects ran up to us yelling words I couldn't understand and then quickly disappeared into the dark. Each room of the house we entered had large holes in the floor with orange lights glowing underneath, giving a pretty convincing glimpse into hell. The only thing missing would have been Joyce in red leather pants and a bustier reaching through the floorboards trying to grab the ass of any man who braved the house. The flickering orangey-yellow holes beneath our feet made us all have to pay attention to where we walked instead of to what was creeping up behind us. A knock sounded inside the wall beside me and I jumped at least a foot. Damn, I am a chickenshit. Ranger is going to have nail marks permanently embedded in his hand by the time we leave here. Well, he'd survive, I thought to myself, when I once again crushed his hand while a pitiful wail echoed through the room as a ghostly apparition of a woman darted in and out of it. When I heard something start sliding across the floor right behind us, I was more than ready to push the kids out of the room so I could get out of here.
By the time we got to the Keeper's Crypt, I wanted nothing more than to be buried under the covers of Ranger's big bed with him pressed securely against me. We passed through the front gate, and with all of us except Ranger wearing the 3D glasses that had been given to us when we bought our tickets, the pulsing lights became disorienting. Dead bodies, zombies, and cadavers missing half of their organs were standing, lying, and hanging everywhere. With the glasses on, the flesh dangling off the dead looked like it was going to hit anyone passing underneath them. I was going to make Mary Alice pay for this, I vowed when I stepped in something that made a disgustingly squishy sound. It's bad enough that I still have nightmares about Uncle Mo's gang barging into my apartment, and Edward Scrog shooting Ranger, now I'll get to add the living dead to my growing list of nightmare material.
"I really should have bribed Lester and Bobby to take them," I said, sticking extra close to Ranger, my hand already curling into the waistband of his cargo pants.
If I somehow got separated from Ranger now, I'm pretty sure I'd wet my pants or kick an unsuspecting zombie in his shriveled up gonads if he got too close to me. To say that I was on edge would be a big understatement.
"You only have one more place to check out, Steph," Ranger said to me. "You'll be tucked into bed in another hour or two."
"And you promise to make all of this go away?" I asked him.
He looked down into my face. "Yes, but you'll have to ditch those glasses before I do."
I smiled at him before moving sharply to my right as a decomposed creature came at me.
"Jesus H. Christ," I said, sounding a lot like my father after Grandma Mazur had gone shopping for something 'special' to wear.
"You should be more aware of your surroundings, Babe," Ranger said, brushing my ear with his lips, causing me to jump again.
"Shut up," I said, taking a step away from him, too.
I could hear his laugh just before I was being hunted again. I kept one eye on Mary Alice and Angie and one on the walls that felt like they were closing in around us. A smart woman would have taken the freakin' glasses off, but to me that would be letting this place win. But I had to admit, the sound of snapping bones and constant death cries, combined with the touchy-feely ghouls, were making me twitchy.
The last building was called the Horrorwood Chambers of Chills. Which was actually kind of interesting if you get past the creep factor. They took scenes from new and old horror movies and recreated them. We walked past the shower from Psycho and Jason complete with hockey mask appeared in front of us as we headed deeper into the place. I yelped yet again as a blood-covered hand touched my arm.
"Hey," I said to Ranger, "where the heck is my bodyguard?"
"He's not your bodyguard, Aunt Steph," Angie said, "he's your boyfriend."
"I think I qualify as both," Ranger said to her.
"Not so much the bodyguard tonight," I told Ranger, ducking around him to avoid an oncoming zombie eating what I really hoped was a jello brain.
The girls laughed at me, while I glared back. It's hard to appear like a badass bounty hunter when you're hiding from costume-clad teenagers.
"I'm glad you're all having fun at my expense," I said to them.
"Well, you are acting funny," Mary Alice said to me. "You catch real bad guys everyday, and you're making a big deal out of a couple fake zombies."
"All for your benefit," I told her. "I can take any zombie with one arm tied behind my back."
"Way to save face, Babe."
"You think I'm lying?" I asked them.
"Yes!" They all said together.
"Fine. I'm going to prove it. From here on in, I'm Wonder Woman."
"You're always Wonder Woman to me, Steph," Ranger told me.
"Ewww," the girls said in unison.
"You really should stop picking on me," I said, looking over Mary Alice's head, "and pay attention to that guy who's about to cut your heads off with that bloody axe."
The actor without a head raised the axe and both Mary Alice and Angie gave ear-piercing shrieks as they felt the blade pass close to them. I cut my eyes to Ranger and smiled.
"You're an evil woman, Steph."
"I try."
"That was really mean, Aunt Stephanie," Angie said to me.
"Sorry," I told her, but I really wasn't sorry at all.
I made an effort not to cry, pee, or punch anyone as we walked through one shadowy room after another. When I felt the legs of a spider get tangled in my hair, I bit my lip to keep in the automatic eek! that wanted to be let out for the whole city of Trenton to hear. I really, really, really dislike spiders. After I pulled the body out of my hair, and was sure that nothing was left of the creature in my curls, we started moving again. The four of us managed to take maybe three steps when a door opened nearby and a body fell onto the floor in front of us.
"You couldn't pay me enough to faceplant on purpose," I told Ranger, after we all had stopped again.
We were the only ones in this particular room of the building so I thought this was a totally wasted performance. At least I thought we were alone. Right after Pinhead hit the floor, someone came out behind him and knocked into us, making a hasty getaway. I understood that he was supposed to look like 'the murderer' but he didn't have to be such a dick about it.
"Asshole," I said to him under my breath.
"Aunt Steph!" The girls yelled together, more bothered by my swearing than the fake killer's lack of manners.
"Well, he was acting like one," I told them.
I know this is only one of many things they'd be tattling on me for tonight.
I've gotten used to the constant neck tingle I get whenever I'm around Ranger, but there was something decidedly differently that my body was picking from his right now. I knew I was right when Ranger clicked on his ever present penlight and bent down to the 'body'.
Mary Alice and Angie were instantly quiet, also noticing that something was up but, like me, didn't know what it was.
"Ranger?" I said, leaning forward. "You're the one who told me that this is all fake. I'm sure as soon as we leave, he'll get up."
"No chance of that, Babe," Ranger told me. "He's dead."
I rolled my eyes even though I knew he couldn't appreciate it in here.
"Of course he's dead, Ranger, that's what he's being paid to be."
"He's not acting, Steph. Take the girls back to the Cayenne, lock yourselves in, and wait for me. I'm going to call the police and inform the owners that there's a killer someone here in the park."
"Think again," I told him. "I'm not leaving you here."
I could almost hear the grin in his voice.
"Scared again, Babe?"
"Yeah, for you. I'm not going anywhere without you. You can barely see in here. Anyone can sneak up behind you. You need someone to watch your back."
"No one can get close to me without me sensing them, Steph. You know that," Ranger said.
And for once I was glad to hear him bragging about his abilities.
"I'll be fine," Ranger told me. "It's you and the girls I'm worried about. Just do this for me without arguing, Babe. Please."
I sighed. Loudly.
"Okay, but I don't like this at all."
"I know, Steph," Ranger told me softly. "Just focus on keeping the girls safe, and don't worry about me."
"Like I'll ever not worry about you."
I took two seconds to press a kiss to his lips before grabbing both Angie and Mary Alice's hands. The three of us started working our way back out to the parking lot, halfway there I felt a hand land heavy on my left shoulder.
I turned my head and looked into the red eyes of a werewolf who appeared to be suffering from rabies. He gave a pretty mean growl and then moved on to scare the crap out of someone else. Guess he hadn't been informed that this night was essentially over.
"Was that guy really dead?" Mary Alice asked me, when we started walking again.
"Yeah, if Ranger says he's gone, then he's gone."
"And the person who killed him is here somewhere?" Angie asked.
It's times like these that I wished my nieces were the type of kids who always had their noses in something electronic so they wouldn't know what was really happening around them.
"I suppose he could be," I said honestly. "But chances are good that he took off. No one in their right minds would hang around since anyone could have figured out what happened by now."
I hoped like hell that would be the case.
Someone grabbed my arm just as we were passing the area where all the pumpkins were set up and my whole body froze. I was getting really tired of people wearing three pounds of makeup - and too many prosthetics - feeling like they had the right to touch me. I was just turning to say hands off when both Mary Alice and Angie screamed. I had no clue what had set them off until I felt something hard hit the back of my head. The last thing I heard was Mary Alice and Angie yelling my name.
Consciousness came back to me slowly, and I moved only my eyes to see that I was lying in the middle of the woods. Woods that seem to be completely deserted now. I could feel eyes on me, but this time I knew they didn't belong to Ranger. What the hell happened to all the freakin' witches that had been happily staring at us earlier? And where are Mary Alice and Angie? My spidey sense was telling me that whoever took me was watching from close by, but no one had decided to join me yet. I waited another second to make sure my eyes were adjusted to the dark and then got to my feet to look around for my bag. Since I was coming here with Ranger, I knew he'd ask to see my gun to check it for bullets again, so I had added my little S&W plus the stun gun to my shoulder bag before leaving my apartment to meet him at Rangeman.
No surprise. I couldn't find my gun or my bag. Looks like I'm on my own, both to protect myself and to find my way out of here. During the wagon ride, I'd been too busy dodging crazy lumberjacks, and seemingly endless numbers of ghosts who looked nothing like Casper, that were threatening all us passengers to pay attention to the areas we passed. Not that it would help right now, I thought to myself, because not only didn't I see any people, I also wasn't on an actual trail. Guess Ranger got the place shut down after all. And I knew he'd already have the girls with him and would be looking for me. That's what I was telling myself anyway. Nothing mattered but getting back to them.
If the murdered guy knew the person who killed him, then I should be okay. If it was completely random, someone looking to do a thrill kill, then I could be royally screwed here. I remember something a detective said on a TV show once that gave me full body chills, "It's not the bullet that has your name on it you have to worry about ... it's all those other ones marked to whom it may concern". In my business, I know just how true that is. And denial wasn't working for me because I seriously doubt I was knocked out and dumped in an isolated wooded area for no reason. Even my superior denial gene can only get me so far.
I tried to remember what Ranger told me to do if I ever found myself lost, and kept my body close to the trees. I didn't want to be out in the open with nothing but my knee to save me.
"I'd give anything to be able to send the bat signal right now," I whispered to the branches.
A twig snapped right behind me, and I was positive it wasn't Batman. I ditched the idea of carefully creeping through the treeline and chose to flat-out run instead. Whatever animals were lurking in these particular woods couldn't be any worse than the two-legged one who'd left me here. I was trying to block out some scenes from the horror movies Mary Lou used to force me to watch, where an unsuspecting woman becomes targeted - and then terrorized - by a mad man. Good thing I'm not blonde, and my boobs aren't over-inflated, or there really could be a chance I wouldn't make it out of here because they're usually the first ones to die in movies.
I heard leaves being crushed on both sides of me and I tried running faster as whoever was after me gained a little ground. My adrenaline finally kicked in, and I ran faster than I ever had in my life. Damn it. Ranger was telling the truth. You actually have to work out everyday if you want to be able to save your own ass. If I get out of this unscathed, I swear I'll beat Ranger to the gym tomorrow morning. Maybe.
I was just thinking that I might have lost my chaser when my stupid hair got snagged on a tree branch. I tried to stifle the yelp of pain, but a squeak managed to escape. Too bad I didn't. I was trying to quickly untangle my hair and get myself free when I caught sight of something that wasn't natural to any woods I'd ever been stuck in. My hair was viciously separated from the tree and I was flung to the ground. I'm glad it wasn't raining or I would've gotten a mouth full of mud. Then again, if it had been pouring today, I'd be curled up in various stages of undress beside Ranger, not stuck in the middle of a nightmare come to life.
I wiped my mouth with the sleeve of my jacket, and was reassured when I didn't taste blood and didn't feel any bugs crawling on me. My survival instincts were screaming at me and I knew I couldn't waste time complaining about any of this when I should be using every second I had to start running again. But before I could even take a step, I was surrounded by five men wearing different devil masks. My stomach tightened as the memory of a group of Slayers circling me flashed in my mind. Stop it, Stephanie, I ordered myself. I couldn't go there. I will get out of here. And if I couldn't do it all by myself, then I'd hold on until Ranger could find me.
I shook my head slightly to clear it and looked the devil in the eye, so to speak. Well, one devil anyway.
"What do you want?" I asked, after I was sure my voice wouldn't sound shaky.
"Where is it?" Devil number one asked me, shining a flashlight directly into my eyes instead of answering my question.
"Where is what?"
I guess I once again stumbled into something I really shouldn't have.
"Don't play dumb with me, bitch," he said, taking an aggressive step forward.
"I'm not playing," I told him.
"Your phone," A blue-faced Satan said to me. "Where the fuck is your phone? We saw you snapping pictures of us."
That shut me up. Pictures? Then it hit me. I was taking pictures of all the pumpkins for Lisa. What the hell did I manage to catch?
"My phone is in my bag," I said. "I assumed that since I couldn't find it anywhere, you already had it."
"We looked through it," a third Lucifer wannabe said, "but it wasn't in there."
"And we already searched you and couldn't find it," the first devil guy said.
I'm really starting to hate costumes. And Halloween for that matter. Next year I'm staying home with my ass planted on my couch, eating Halloween candy instead of collecting it, or even handing it out.
"You'd better have only looked," I warned them, "because if you touched me at all, I will seriously hurt you before my boyfriend kills you."
"For an unarmed bitch, you sure have a big mouth."
"Thank you," I said, and ducked when his fist came at my face. I stood upright again and tried not to smile over the fact that the guy had missed."Looks like somebody didn't get any candy tonight."
"Just give us the fucking phone and we'll let you go," said by a four-horned devil this time.
"If you don't," number one told me, "you'll have a very long, very uncomfortable night ahead of you."
"If my cell isn't in my bag, then it had to have fallen when that dickhead bumped into me." A piece of the puzzle clicked into place. "You're the asshole," I said, pointing to the blue-masked devil. "You killed Pinhead."
"Shut the fuck up and tell us where the fucking phone is," Lucifer told me. "We're not going to jail because of you."
"What did I get a picture of besides pumpkins?" I asked.
"You don't need to know anything," Lucifer said.
"What did I do?" I said to them. "Capture a drug deal or something?"
"I said shut the fuck up or I'll make you shut up permanently," the first devil told me.
Yep, they definitely didn't eat enough chocolate today.
"Bad news," I said to them. "I'm guessing that my phone is lying next to the body in the Chill Chamber, or whatever the hell it's called. Which is probably crawling with cops now thanks to the same boyfriend who is gonna kick all your asses before burying them."
"Fuck," the yellow masked guy said.
I was doing my best to remember their voices since they were all in costume and I wouldn't be able to identify them any other way. And just my luck, none of them sounded familiar.
"Yep, you're screwed," I told them. "Where the hell are we anyway?"
One of them laughed. "Looks like we got ourselves a stupid bitch, too. Can't you see that we're in the woods?"
"I got that, but where in the woods?" I asked.
"Doesn't matter," Devil One said.
"What do we do now?" The guy in the ugly yellow mask asked the others. "We can't destroy the fucking picture. And now we've got her to get rid of."
I swallowed. "Uhh, get rid of?" I said. "What exactly do you plan on doing?"
"We were gonna just leave you here after we got your cell off you," the four-horned devil said - I refuse to even think about calling him the horny one - "but we got nothing to lose now. We can do whatever the fuck we want with you."
"Yeah ... not so much. You made a huge mistake by kidnapping me, because if the cops don't capture you, every single guy working at Rangeman won't rest until they do, with Ranger leading the pack. I've seen them all angry at one time or another, and trust me, even the dirtiest cop would go easier on you."
Every single one of them took a big step away from me.
"Shit, you're not talking about Ranger Manoso, are you?" Blue Devil asked.
"Yep. You might as well just kill yourselves now," I told them, "because Ranger really doesn't like it when people kidnap me. And let's not forget that one of you hit me with something. He'll hate that just as much ... if not more."
"Oh, fuck," Lucifer said. "You're the fuckin' white chick he's been seeing."
"Yep, that's me. So, about letting me go ..."
"They'll let you go, Babe, right before they get a chance to meet the real devil ... in person."
I looked over and saw not only Ranger, but also Tank and Hal. My captors suddenly found themselves captured, too.
"Oh, thank God," I said to Ranger, cautiously walking over to him in case one of Satan's Brigade decided to try shooting his way out of this.
I ducked under Ranger's muscled arm, which had been extended as he pointed a huge Glock at the first devil guy's head. Ranger's left arm went around my waist, drawing me into the safety his big body provided.
"Are you all right, Babe?" He asked, not lowering his gun, his hand never wavering.
If I had to guess what was going through Ranger's mind, I'd bet he was trying to decide which devil to shoot apart first. I would pick either the one in the horned mask or the blue one. They were the mouthiest of the group. Or maybe the first devil I talked to since he seems to be the leader of the group and he did take a swing at me.
"Yeah, I'm okay. I had the pleasure of one more blow to the head, but aside from that ... I'm fine. Where are the girls?" I asked him.
"Bobby took them home. I had to promise both of them that I'd find you before they would agree to leave with him."
I let out a relieved breath. As long as no one hurt them, then I can finally relax.
"You know ... out of all my kidnappings, this one wasn't too bad," I told the guys, "but leave it to me to first get tormented by the Red Devil robber only to get caught up in a drug-dealing gang of Satans."
"We'll make sure all of them get to where they need to be," Tank said to Ranger. "You can go ahead and take Stephanie home."
"Are you referring to them going to the police station?" I asked Tank. "Or the nearest bone yard?"
"Do you really want me to answer that?" Tank asked me.
"Ummm, maybe not. Okay ... then. I wouldn't mind going home now."
"As long as you are referring to my home, Babe," Ranger said to me, "because I'm not ready to let you out of my sight. Plus, your bed sucks."
Ranger had me there. My bed is crap. The only thing that made it tolerable is having Ranger in it.
"You two can clean up here," Ranger told Tank and Hal. "If there's anything left of them when you're finished, notify the police that you found something."
"Yes, Sir," Hal said.
"We'll make sure all their demons are beaten out of them," Tank said, actually looking excited about something for the first time since I met him.
Ranger let go of me and walked over to the blue-masked devil. His arm shot out faster than I thought possible, and the butt of his Glock slammed into the guy's temple. After he'd crashed to the ground and obviously wasn't going to move at all - or maybe ever again from the looks of him - Ranger pulled off the blue mask.
My breath caught as I looked down at a face I still see sometimes when I close my eyes at night.
"It can't be," I said, mostly to myself. "The Red Devil? I thought he 'mysteriously disappeared' from Vinnie's house in Point Pleasant? I don't care what I may have seen tonight, no way am I believing that a ghost kidnapped me."
Even as I said it, a cold chill shot through me straight to my bones.
"I don't think a ghost would have killed someone for shortchanging him in heroin deal," Ranger told me.
"So who's this guy?" I asked, probably looking completely confused.
"Don't you know what a doppelganger is, Steph?" Tank asked me.
I didn't. And the goosebumps that suddenly stood up on my arms told me that I never wanted to.
A/N: I originally heard the "To whom it may concern" bullet quote on the show 'Homicide Hunter', but I've since found a version of it listed in 'Murphy's Laws of War'.