Chapter One
Carson Hunts stood tall against the wind facing a demon. His dark brown hair fell slightly into his chestnut colored eyes, the tips of his bangs dyed red.
"This is the last time I will ask you. Where is the Rakshasa?" His voice a strange mixture of rough and smooth, like a shot of aged whiskey that pleasantly burns.
The demon blinked her crimson eyes and glared at him. "You're pressing your luck," she glanced venomously up to the devils trap drawn on the water tower she was standing under. "Break this trap and I'll let you go without killing you. I can't tell you even if I wanted to anyway."
Carson raised an eyebrow. "Well from what I've heard, crossroads demons pretty much know exactly what the summoner wants. I want to know where the damn thing is."
She sighed in annoyance. "Look I'm just a salesperson. A grunt, okay? Everything downstairs is on a strictly need to know basis. And frankly, there are a lot of things I don't' need to know. Including the location of your monster. Now I'm sure I could find your little Rakshasa but I'd have to go back downstairs, talk to the sales directors and see what they say." She blinked her eyes again and the darkness that covered the light brown color of the girl that the demon was currently occupying flashed away and she smiled at him. Carson didn't answer and he didn't break eye contact with the trapped demon either. She huffed in annoyance and rolled her eyes to the meticulously drawn devils trap keeping her in place. "And what is your plan? Keep me here forever?" she asked. Carson turned and made his way to his car parked on the edge of the dusty crossroads. As he opened the car door he paused for a moment before looking over the hood of his vehicle.
"Exactly," he said before climbing in and driving away. As he drove he pulled the gun out of his inner jacket pocket and placed it in the seat next to him. His fingers gently brushed the initials from his deceased father engraved neatly on the otherwise smooth metal of the barrel before they wrapped around the steering wheel again. Dawn was still a few hours away and Carson had work to do still.
Just a week ago, he received news (through Bobby Singer, pretty much everything in the Hunting community ran by him sooner or later) that Tamina, his best friend and occasional hunting partner, was dead. News headlines insisted that she broke into a children's' mental hospital and murdered a 5 year old boy before killing herself. Carson of course knew that was far from the truth. For the past 3 years Tamina had been obsessed with finding and killing the Rakshasa that had massacred her family. And now it seemed the monster had finished what it started and finally killed her as well. Now it was up to Carson to finally put him down. A hunters life it seemed was a never ending cycle of revenge and redemption.
After another couple hours at the wheel he pulled off the highway onto an unmarked dirt road. Another few miles in and he reached The Road House, an old, well-worn but carefully looked after bar run by Ellen Harvelle and her daughter Jo that, aside from Bobby Singers old salvage yard, seemed almost to be Hunter HQ. Hunters were always stopping by to meet up, grab a drink and rest a night or just to trade stories. If someone wanted to know what was going on, Ellen and the Road House knew everything. After unwinding from his latest dead end (and not finding out anything useful from the hunters at the bar) he left the Road House shortly after 5 a.m. As the sky turned pale pink, Carson pulled off the main road and away from the deserted highway and leaned back in his seat to sleep, his gun tucked safely in his arms.
He slept lightly in the back seat of his Nissan X-Terra. Underneath his closed eyelids his eyes shot from left to right. He rolled side-to-side in the seat. Being a hunter meant saving people, stopping evil, but it also meant nightmares. Facing off humanities worst fears on a daily basis meant that the dreams of the hunters were never good, they were always going to be worse than those that they saved. Unless of course they were being possessed by demon scum.
The sound of movement outside his window woke him up. Sure it could just be a curious raccoon or skunk but a hunter can never be too careful, and like all hunters, Carson was a light sleeper. When you always have monsters on your tail you can't afford not to be. When he sat up he saw a pair of deep crimson eyes glaring back at him. Just as he reached for his gun the demon smashed through the car window showering broken glass all over the seat and Carson. She then proceeded to pull him through the gap by the collar of his thick canvas jacket, shards of fragmented glass slicing through the cloth.
He landed on the dirt and cursed his luck. It was the crossroads demon from earlier and she didn't look too happy about being tricked and left. He should have exorcised her, it was stupid to leave her there with nothing but a devils trap! Carson coughed trying to regain his breath. "Exorzamus te-"he began but the Latin was cut off when the demon grabbed him by the throat and lifted him to his feet.
"Don't you dare try that on me you dumb, spineless idiot. I'm going to roast you till you're jerky." She snarled then threw him tumbling over the hood of the car and into the thick trunk of a nearby Sycamore. He rolled and dug into his pocket for the bullet he kept on him at all times just for this kind of situation. A bullet of pure iron engraved on the tip with a devils trap. Shoving it into his gun he turned and shot her.
"Nice try," she smirked and raised her hand to fling Carson again. She frowned and lowered her outstretched palm. "Why isn't this working? What did you do?" She demanded angrily shifting as if to stalk toward him but she couldn't move from where she was. She opened her mouth to smoke out and leave the body she had possessed but nothing happened. Carson stood up with a smile and dusted off the dirt. He strode to his car and opened up the trunk leisurely examining his stash of weapons. He selected a machete he typically only used with vampires. The whole time the demon was cursing and threatening him a million different ways but the devils trap now stuck in her head prevented her from following through on any of them.
"Guess who's on top now," Carson smirked. Then he swung the machete. He began to dig what he hoped would be an eternal grave for the locked demon. Thank god they were far enough away from anything to have anyone accidentally stumble upon him. That would be awkward to explain to say the least. As soon as he finished with the grave he decided it was time for breakfast. He was about two hours outside of a small town in southern Utah called Eureka; the only town within nearly 35 miles and not much of a town anyway. He pulled his car up to possibly the smallest café he'd ever seen in all his time spent crisscrossing the country and sat in a dirty booth in the corner by an exit and read the newspaper he'd picked while he waited for his meal to arrive. A group of teenagers sat a couple booths in front of him and one of the girls kept glancing back shyly and batting her eyelashes at him. Carson ignored her.
Finally, the waitress arrived with his order and left again. Not long after, a couple guys walked in and sat in-between Carson and the teens. They began talking about something that piqued Carson's interest. He put his money on the table and began to walk out of the café. He couldn't help but don one of his rare half-smiles completed with a wink to the flirty girl as he left. Might as well give her something for all of her hard work.
The town took less than 3 minutes to drive from one end to the other so Carson left his car at the diner and walked to the small gun shop down the street to replenish his stock of .45 specials after his last hunt of ghouls. Nasty things!
As he entered the building a small bell tinkled above the door. A man came around a corner and sat on a chair behind the counter. His moustache and part of his over grown beard was stained red by the use of too much tobacco, what looked like near permanent trail of spit out chew clung to his scraggly beard. "Can I help you boy?" he asked voice gruff and scarred by what must have been decades of chain smoking. The old man behind the wooden counter was a head shorter than Carson's 6'2'' frame and was nearly as wide as he was tall. He barely looked up from his coffee stained American Gunman magazine as Carson told him he was looking for some .45 specials. He grunted as he set the magazine down and moved off the dangerously creaking stool he had been previously occupying to reach behind him to the ammo-stocked shelves.
"Going out shooting then?" He asked placing a box down on the counter.
"Something like that. I heard you guys have had some bad luck around here," Carson said pulling out a faded $20 bill he had won in a barroom pool game a few days before and giving it to the shop keepers' wrinkled grasp. The man grunted out a wheezing laugh as he opened the register.
"You can say that again. You'd think people living their whole lives out in these lands would have more sense about them. Can't be too careful I guess what with kids now days with their texting and their murder." He handed Carson the change then heaved himself back onto his groaning chair and opening up the magazine again clearly ending the conversation.
"Uh, yeah," Carson mumbled as he stuffed the box of bullets into his torn jacket pockets and left the tiny shop, the small bell on the door cheerfully announcing his departure. He'd hoped to get a bit more out of the grizzled gun store owner but he clearly wasn't interested in conversation.
Making his way back to his car he drove the short distance to the only motel in what apparently passed for a town in the middle of the barren Utahan West Desert. It was a ramshackle building with about 5 rooms, none of which appeared to be 5 star material. After checking in (and admittedly flirting with the girl working the counter in what he guessed was a family run business) he made the executive decision that the rooms would be a stretch in being considered even 1 star. Doesn't matter, he thought absently throwing his duffle onto the bed I've probably stayed in worse.
Getting the laptop up and running he thought about the possible case that had caught his eye in the diner. The headline had all too proudly declared the third death in as many weeks. The victims were all people who had supposedly grown up running all over the desolate desert landscape. In the typically detached voice, journalists could all too easily adopt what he had read about the remains being found days after the people were reported missing. Bureau of Land Management and Department of Natural Resources officials were at a loss as to what killed them, "It looked like a grizzly attack but heaven knows we don't have any of them out in these parts. I might say coyotes but they only go after what's already dead," the County Sheriff had quoted in the paper. And of course the townsfolk and neighboring ranchers and miners all had their own opinions about whom or what was responsible for the deaths. Most likely it was technologically crazed teens as the gun store owner had believed and it definitely wasn't grizzlies or coyotes. No, Carson had a better idea as to what was behind all this. A Wendigo.
After getting some additional research he decided to explore the desert surrounding the remote location. He had read about the old mining boom that had once driven the town before the silver beds ran dry leaving the stubborn old inhabitants to scrape out a living off random tourists or people needing sleep and coffee. Carson pulled up to a huge, open shaft a little ways off the main road. It was poorly guarded by a rusty, thin rail with just a couple of shot up faded yellow and black "DANGER" signs on it. He elegantly slipped under the rail and stood at the edge of the shaft looking down. He'd be lying if he said he didn't like the feeling of risk but It wasn't much, just a big black hole in the ground. Carson nudged a rock over the edge to get an estimate of how deep it was. After several seconds he heard a small clatter. Deeper than I thought but doesn't seem like a normal Wendigo hideout.
"Hey! There's a gate there for a reason you know." Carson turned around to see who was talking to him. It was the girl that worked behind the counter at the motel. Her auburn colored hair reached her waist, her sea green eyes sparkled beautifully in the light of the sun.
"Gate's don't hold me back," He told her glancing with a smile before turning back to face the pit. She chuckled and started walking over to him. She passed under the gate just as easily as Carson had and stopped a couple feet to the side of him.
"I'm Jaylyn." She smiled and stuck her hand out.
"Carson," he said shaking her small, surprisingly strong hands.
Jaylyn turned and looked into the shaft. "So you gonna go down or are ya just lookin'?" Carson thought briefly about telling her the truth. He just smiled and cocked an eyebrow at her, his silence answer enough.
Jaylyn looked at Carson. "Seriously?" She smiled. "That's illegal you know, my uncle is the Sheriff of the place. I might have to tell on you." There was no sign of sarcasm in her voice. Carson opened his mouth to tell a lie about how he was joking but before he could say anything there was the loud clatter of displaced rocks coming from the bottom of the shaft.
Both of their heads turned to the entrance. Shoot! He thought. Could the Wendigo have been listening to them the whole time? Had Carson missed an opportunity to kill it? "I wonder what that was…" Jaylyn finally said.
"I think I know." He replied and started walking toward his car. She followed after him asking if he was really going to go down there. Carson hated working with others. In fact, the only other person he hunted with besides his dad was Tamina and they both had ended up dead. Besides, this girl was cute, but civilians weren't exactly equipped or trained to hunt monsters. It would just put them both in danger.
He opened the door and was about to get inside the car when she grabbed his shoulder and turned him around. "Look. I don't think you should go down there," She paused for a moment and chewed her bottom lip like she was struggling with a decision. "Not alone anyway," she finally said letting go of his arm. A serious look was in her eyes. The resolve in her eyes and the fact that she wasn't exactly questioning why he wanted to go down, not to mention the fact that she was even out here at the shaft at all lead to a startling theory. It was a long shot but one he wanted to take.
"Are you…like…do you hunt?" There was a silence. "Are you a hunter?" He asked. Jaylyn's eyes narrowed a bit. Her head turned slowly and her chin almost met her shoulder.
After a period of silence she cautiously replied. "Yeah…I'm guessing you are too then?" Carson nodded. "Just to be clear, you're not talking like Bambi are you?" He laughed.
"Not unless Bambi's possessed or his mom decided to haunt him instead of going wherever it is deer go when they die." Ok so she was a legit hunter. That changed things a bit. "So you're on this hunt already?" he asked her as she chuckled at his joke.
"Yeah, I mean these are kind of my people. These aren't random vics, they're my neighbors. So yeah I'm on it." Hunter etiquette dictated that the first person who got to a hunt got to call the shots. "Do you want to take care of this? I can help if you need it," he told her sincerely hoping she would decide to let him stay. A Wendigo was the equivalent of a trophy hunt and he'd never hunted one before. It promised to be exciting while he waited for news of his real quarry.
"Why not, it never hurt to have back up," she told him meeting his eyes and smiling. "I think it's a Wendigo but I'm not sure. It's an odd place for one to hide. What do you think?" Carson agreed and they began to come up with a game plan to take the monster out.
"We'll need to rappel down into that shaft, the other entrance collapsed a few years ago so that's the only way in and out. I've never been down there so I'm not sure what the tunnels are like or how stable they are. Guns probably won't be a real good idea. Also I'm a lot smaller than you so I should be the one that gets lowered down." Adventure. He liked that. He also liked that in a girl.
"If you insist," he said. "I have a couple of flame throwers in the back of my car. If you want, we can go right now but I think it'd be better if we went when it's dark. That way we have a lower risk of being seen."
"I agree." She said and smiled. "How about we go to the saloon and you buy me a drink to waste some time?" A couple minutes later their cars were parked side-by-side in front of the saloon. They beat the small crowd of people that would soon emerge from their homes and migrate like deer toward the old barn. Inside the young adults (barely over 21) laughed and smiled at each other. Jaylyn pointed her finger on Carson's fake I.D. He just smiled. It had been years since he sat down to drink in a bar and even longer since he'd talked more than 30 seconds to a girl. A non-awkward silence came between them and they stared into each other's eyes. An older woman and her friends pushed the door open so hard it crashed against the walls and broke the silence. The sky outside was now black and as if it were planned, Carson grabbed Jaylyn's hand and they were out the door before it closed from being pushed open by the woman.
Outside, Jaylyn now leaned against Carson's body, her ear pressed against his chest just enjoying his warmth. Aside from small noises coming from the walls he was leaning on, there was not a sound in the world and billions of stars lit the sky. He laid his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. For just a brief second everything was fine. His mom hadn't abandoned him and his dad wasn't dead. Tamina was alive and waiting for her best friend. For that moment, everything was so quiet and peaceful he forgot they were about to hunt a terrible monster.
He looked down at Jaylyn and their eyes met. His lips met hers and every thought they had were gone. Not even a couple of seconds had gone by before a shrill scream pierced the night. Immediately they broke away and ran toward the alley where they thought the noise came from. When they got to the alley, no one was there. In fact, it showed no sign that anything worth screaming about had been here. Jaylyn stood behind Carson who began walking up to a door to see if it was locked. When he turned around, Jaylyn was gone.
Six minutes later he was pacing the hotel room floor. Every inch of the alley was searched for anything out of the ordinary but there wasn't anything there. He was capable of going down the shaft alone but it was risky and he had to keep his head straight. First his parents, then Tamina, now Jaylyn. If he made one mistake it could be his last. Then again, maybe one last mistake wouldn't be so bad he though. "Shut up!" he said aloud. You're going down to save a life. No mistakes. Not one. He stopped pacing and walked outside to his car. He hastily examined his flamethrowers, guns, and pulled some rope from under another bag of weapons. He then jumped into the car and was in front of the shaft in no time. He remembered what Jaylyn said about guns down there so he packed two small flame throwers, a couple flashlights and his gun just in case. Carson tied the rope tightly to the top of X-Terra then around the gate and his waist. With careful speed and hands ready for action, he started to lower his self-down into the shaft. "Here goes nothing." He whispered.
He reached the bottom and looked up. The opening of the shaft was way up there and would be nearly impossible to escape the Wendigo if he had the chance. Carson turned his attention back to the ground and started walking right into the trap of a beast. The air was wet and musky. Pack rats and mice were everywhere but paid no attention to him for they must see a lot of what he was hunting. He soon came to a fork in the trail and neither one looked inviting. His eyes had quickly adjusted to the dark when he first hit the bottom but now with the dim light from the world above gone, it was impossible to see five inches in front of him.
Carson hated to use one of the flash lights because it was like using a huge neon sign that read, "FREE DINNER" but he had no choice and decided to stay on the left side of the fork. Suddenly, a faint clatter of rocks behind him caught his attention. Surely the beast wouldn't have let Jaylyn go and the Wendigo never made its presence known unless it wanted too. It was playing tricks. A minute later he heard the clatter in front of him. The two trails must have met up at some point because that was the only way for the Wendigo to move from behind to in front of him. The tension made Carson grow hot so he ditched one of his jackets and bravely walked on. Several minutes of no luck of the monster or Jaylyn passed by when he heard someone scream his name behind him. "Jaylyn!" He yelled and turned and started running when he heard the scream again but this time down another fork in the damp, dark, tunnels.
"Too far for her to run in such short time…" He said to himself. Just then, another shout came from where it had the first time.
"Carson! It's me! Don't listen to the other voice!" The Wendigo was not only capable of inhuman strength and speed but it could also mimic the voices of others.
"Carson! Help!" the plea for help came one more time from the tunnel beside him. He decided to run the much further distance back the way he had come. He almost ran into Jaylyn who was wearing the jacket he left behind. "Jaylyn! Can you run? We have to go now!" Her bruised and bloodied face was not the worst of her injuries. She had a large laceration on the side of her head and she'd been stumbling around in the dark not knowing where her attacker was or where rocks hung down from the cold ceiling.
"Yeah, I think so," she squinted at the light. "There's no other survivors. The others are dead." Carson handed her the flashlight and carried her till they were close to the beginning of the tunnels then set her down. They were running back to the ropes as fast as they could now. The darkness started to slowly become lighter. A beam of hope came over Carson. They made it to the ropes but as his hands touched them he saw the Wendigo had blended into the wall and was standing next to them. The Wendigo raised his arm to hit Carson and he flung him against the wall. The flamethrowers fell out of his hands and onto the ground. Jaylyn picked up the flamethrower when the creature made its way to Carson. He had no weapon to defend himself and Wendigo's are especially hateful toward hunters.
"Hey!" The Wendigo turned toward Jaylyn. He growled at her and started to reach out his abnormally long arms at her. "Pick on someone your own size you filthy freak!" The fire poured out the weapon and hit its victim. The Wendigo went up in flames and as its heart melted he fell into a pile of ashes. She ran over to Carson.
"Nice shot! What do you say we get out of here?" They crawled out of the shaft together and laid on the cool rocks in the early morning air trying to regain their breath. Carson got a couple bottles of water and an ice pack out of his truck and gave a water bottle and the ice to Jaylyn. She placed it on her head and for a few more minutes they sat without saying anything with their legs dangling over the edge.
"The tunnels," Jaylyn began to explain. "He took me to the very end of the mine and left me there. When I woke up I was with 2 other people I knew and they said he let his victims wander around the tunnels. Just like a maze. It was all a game for him until he got hungry…we got separated but I heard their screams and their bones crunch." Carson didn't know how to respond so he wrapped an arm around her and kissed her forehead. Soon after, he cleaned up the ropes and they drove back to the town.
"You know what?" Jaylyn asked. "I always knew Wendigo's were awful but it's weird how much your perspective changes when you're actually the victim instead of the hero."
Carson was slightly surprised. "What are you talking about? You saved my life and the lives of who knows how many other people by killing that thing. You are a hero."
She chuckled and there was a pause. "When he was imitating my voice and you had two people calling your name, how did you know which one was me?" She honestly expected him to say something like, "I didn't." or "I just guessed." But instead he told her that Wendigo's are monsters. They don't have feelings so when he heard two voices, he ran toward the one with the most pain and fear. She cupped his face in her hands and kissed his lips one last time.
"I guess you're going to leave now? You only came for the job right?" He considered her words then explained why he had to leave. He never expected to meet someone like her. Not to mention fall in love with her.
"Are you gonna be okay?" He asked before she left the car.
"Of course! For now, I mean. My dad's going to kill me!" He gave her a guilty grin. They said their good byes and she was gone. He hit the road again, trying to find a good place to pull over and sleep while the rest of the world around him got up to start their day, unaware of their wayward hero. When he woke up again he would do whatever he could to find the Rakshasa. In the meantime, he was ready for his senses to rest and his nightmares to take over.