Thirty-year-old Clayton "Clay" Dalton walked up to the door of the house in Franklin, Michigan. There was a blue car in the driveway of the nice-looking home. The man who opened the door was a few years older than Clay and had a spatula where his right hand used to be. He was wearing a blue shirt and tan pants.

"Can I help you?" the resident asked.

"I think you can. My name is Clay Dalton. Are you Ash Williams?"

"What, do I owe you some money or something?"

"No. You don't know me. I have been doing some research and heard that you are experienced at killing demons."

"Let me guess. You are a professor?"

"Yes, actually. I'm a college professor from Los Angeles."

"Then let me give you some advice."

"Anything. I'm desperate."

"Keep your fuckin' nose away from the Necronomicon. You won't like what you find. It can take your loved ones away from you."

Clay could sense that something had happened to Ash in the past that had caused him to lose at least one loved one.

"You know the feeling, don't you?"

"Linda... I lost her all because of some stupid recording of words from the book."

"I know how you feel. I lost Christine three weeks ago all because I had a button she was trying to get rid of so that she could end a hex. I saw her fall onto the train tracks and get dragged to hell. There were hands and fire. I..."

Clay pulled Christine's button out of his pocketand stared at it. As the memory of his fiance' being pulled down into hell by demons flooded back to Clay, a flood of tears began to form in his eyes.

"I'm sorry about your loss," Ash said.

"Can you help me get her back?"

"I'm sorry. I wouldn't know where to start. And anyway, I'm retired."

"If it's money you want, I can give it to you. My family is very wealthy."

"It would take a lot more than money to get me to come out of retirement."

"Ash?" a female voice from inside the house said. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, Carrie. This guy's just asking for directions. I'll get back to making breakfast in a minute."

Ash looked back at Clay, who now understood that Ash had a new woman in his life and was not willing to risk so much to lose her.

"So that's the reason you won't help me."

"Believe it or not, you'll be able to move on. It took me a day to move on... or seven hundred years depending on how you look at it."

"I hope that nothing bad happens to you for not helping me," Clay said.

Clay immediately knew that his statement sounded like a threat. Ash had a confused look on his face.

"Do you believe in karma or something?"

"I've started believing a lot of things ever since all this started."

Ash put his left hand on Clay's shoulder.

"You're not gonna convince the nearly thirty-six-year-old demon-killer. If you want help, you're gonna have to look for new blood."