When everyone had left Stanley, now Stan, counted his money. This was a good gig, probably the best he'd had, and the most legal, beside the metal detecting he did on the beach as a 16 year old. He decided this was his new job. He cleaned up the shack, in hopes that not only would it be good for business, but also for finding the journals perhaps. When he got all the science stuff downstairs he started setting up the upstairs for living in, and for touring people through (separate sections of course).
It was a relatively sunny day for an Oregon winter when he set off to go hunting. He'd read up on pamphlets during his travels and it seemed people, especially the dumb one in towns like this, liked weird dead animal things, that are "punny." So he took his brother's journal, crossbow, and map, then headed out into the woods to catch some rabbits and deer for Jackalopes and maybe some of the creatures Stanford was going on about in his journal, and besides, he really needed to get out of that shack, or the "Murder Hut," as he'd named it. The idea really spawned from his own feels of guilt about his brother, either way, he told himself it was a placeholder.
The woods was a quiet peaceful place, there was hardly a sound as he trudged through the snow, only the crunching of his footsteps, it was so cold out, that the snow was of the crunchy sort, flakes so small they were like sand. Stan missed the feeling of the sand between his toes. His mind was the sort that wondered, he'd never been able to focus, not like Stanford could, he could study for three tests back to back for hours straight, course, Stanley never knew why he even bothered studying, the only times he ever got less than 100 was when the teacher had the wrong answer.
Stan thought about the seashore. He'd always loved the sea, he was practically raised by it, Stanford and he were always out on it, sun, rain, sleet, the seashore was their home. It was away from their mother's pathological lies and the heartless rules of their father as he was always working at the family pawn shop. Their big brother Sherman was the only good egg in their family, other than Stanford of course, as far as Stanley had been concerned. Sherman always tried to keep them away from their father's rage, and often became the whipping boy for all of Stanley's tomfoolery, since he wouldn't let Philbrick near the twins, well, until he was drafted into the war, and the man kicked Stanley out.
Stan was lost in thought and quickly found himself lost in real life too. He was sure he'd seen the same stump three times, but the sun had been to his left all day. He was confused. This side of the forest was quieter too. He noticed. He bit his lip. Then he saw a shadow cross in front of the sun. He didn't know what to do. He considered running, but figured he'd just get more lost. He turned around to face the creature. To his surprise, said creature was, in fact a giant bat-lizard creature. He raised the crossbow, arms shaking, and aimed. The lizard bat cocked its head looking at Stanley like a confused dog, and Stanley lowered the weapon for a second, thrown off by the way it acted. The creature took his stalling to its own advantage and swooped down, grabbing the crossbow in its talon feet.
"Holy Shit!" Stan yelled, collapsing to the ground.
He fumbled around in his pockets, flinching as the bat-lizard thing threw the crossbow at a tree, where the bow snapped, flinging the string and dropping the arrow. The creature was flying around towards him again, he fumbled around with the journal, the only thing the entry stated was what it looked like and how to find it.
"Goddamnit Sixer!" He cussed, ducking down and pulling out his handgun, flipping around to lay on his back, he shot twice at the beast as it flew away.
He hit wing and back, but the beast simply turned his way, angrier than before. He shot twice more, a bullet flew straight into the beast's mouth, and the other hit the shoulder. It fell from the air, seeming to trip and somersaulted forwards until it was face down in the snow, breath raspy as it twitched. Stan stumbled to his feet and stood over the creature as it lay bleeding in the snow. He looked away as he shot it once more in the back of the head. He fell to his knees in the snow, blood was everywhere. Around the bat-lizard thing, drops around the area from the first few shots, and a bit more in the snow from where his back had started bleeding again. He lay back in the snow. There was just so much death. The metallic scent of the blood was so blinding that all he could see was red, he thought of Stanford.
"No!" he said, "Ford's fine, I'm going to get him back!" He said. He had to stay here, work on the portal, the Murder Hut would be his source of income, he just had to get rid of his past. He was Stan Pines now, Man of Mystery, Stanley was dead. But he had to make it more convincing. He looked at his gun. Of course, he thought. He decided he was going to fake his death. But first he had to get this bat-lizard back to the house. He grabbed the crossbow and put the strap over his arm.
"Alright then let's get you home." He said lifting the wing of the creature. It was surprisingly light, but he assumed it had to be if it were to fly around like that.
Once he got it home (after much grumbling about Stanford's dumb map) he dragged it over to the kitchen. There was a chest freezer in the back. It had a collection of dead things. Stan added the giant body of the lizard-bat and sat on the freezer to close it so he could lock it shut.
"Alright." He said, "Let's get to reading." He knew he'd seen a taxidermy book somewhere. He headed over to the vending machine. He'd stored all of his brother's stuff downstairs, well all but the weird eyes and brains in jars, those were the first additions to the Murder Hut. The book was buried under a pile of washing machine parts. He hurried back upstairs. He didn't want to look at the portal unless he was trying to fix it, right now, by making taxidermy monsters, he felt like he was beseeching his brother's name.
"You have to pay the bills somehow." He told himself, and headed to the pool table. He'd pulled up a chair last week, and the pool table had become his "figuring shit out spot."
After reading up on some taxidermy techniques, Stan got straight to work. It was no surprise to find all the chemicals he needed in the medicine cabinet his brother had apparently repurposed. He started out small, with a three legged rabbit his brother had caught. All was going fine until he got to the head, he accidently popped it right off. He cursed his clumsiness, but decided to keep going with the rest, he'd heard about a guy who'd sowed a monkey to a fish to make a mermaid once, and he figured he could put something else on the bunny's shoulders.
Once he was done mixing and matching body parts, and everything in the freezer was stuffed he got to displaying the creatures. His clothes smelled like BO and Borax and there was absolutely no escaping the isopropyl alcohol.