Typecast
The waters of Lake Okanagan are stirring, forcing the BPRD to investigate.

Notes – This fic is based off the Animated Universe. The comic is also paid homage to in this chapter. I apologize for any grammatical and spelling errors. Thank you to those who either reviewed or put this on your story alert.

Disclaimer – All characters are ultimately copyrighted Mike Mignola, and are the property of Darkhorse Comics.

Rating – Rated T.

--

His eyes did not strain as he glanced off at the distant, shallow sands of the lake. He could spot the crowd beginning to form back behind the police that had arrived shortly before. Curious were they, but he kept his distance, tapping a walking stick against the muddy ground. He did not need to be there, and the lake taunted him. Okanagan called, soothing his ears with a chime that he could not answer.

The mass collection of black messes conquered the shore, animals of deceased nature claiming the area as their own. The noise was almost unbearable to those people accompanying them. A mixture of farm sounds formed headaches, and many of the tourists from the Inn locked their windows in a desperate attempt to block out the racket.

The agents from the BPRD contacted the local Kelowna authorities to try to help contain all of the beasts that resurrected themselves from the sea. After butting in several unmoving jokes about the lack of seriousness the whole situation seemed to have, the police agreed to tape off the area from the curious bystanders until they could figure out what to do.

"Maybe the zoos will take them, eh?" one of the officers had chortled.

In reality, they expected a call to the Bureau in the future. It was more acquainted to prepare and handle things like zombie livestock. Until then, they all just needed to be enclosed. They seemed relatively harmless, but no way were a group of undead animals going to be unleashed onto the Okanagan populace.

The entire point of them being there was to keep it all concealed, and the Canadian forces expected them to do so as discreetly as possible.

That proved increasingly difficult with the amount of awful noise the monsters caused. Gurgled howls and snivels of at least forty filled the night winds. It created an overall haunting atmosphere, and everyone surrounding began to feel more and more uneasy the longer they lingered.

It made him smile. All of it. "My Naitaka, your subjects call for you. Hear their cries."

--

"I know, I know." Liz Sherman threw her free hand back to rub the side of her temple. The hours past had been frustrating, and suddenly it seemed like everything was crashing down.

The call to the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense had not been pleasing, because it did not take British Columbian television long to pick up on the news at hand; one of the tourists must have thought it would have been a great way to make a bit of money and a few minutes of fame. Suddenly, Canadian and a few American stations announced throughout the areas that animals were rising from the dead and bodies were floating up on shore.

Director Manning was not happy, especially with Kelowna. It would have been far simpler to have his agents work if they did not have to worry about hiding their purpose around the general populace. Had the Lakeshore Inn been shutdown, the chances of people finding out about the search for the Ogopogo and everything that came with it would have been less likely.

That was not the hand he had been dealt. He had to work around the mess.

American officials instructed British Columbia to keep Lake Okanagan completely shut off. It was a mess. The surrounding inns and hotels had to give every guest a discount, their money back, or sport for them another area to stay, away from the lake. Some went quietly, either understanding the situation or being completely in the dark. Others raised hell, threatening to sue.

Yeah, stay with the zombie cows if you want, Liz thought with disdained, obviously hating the lack of common sense that usually followed when dealing with people.

She sat in a lone chair inside the morgue, frustrated from both the work and the fatigue that threatened to come with it. Her eyes were sinking in, and with each passing hour, she grew in desperation. Any lingering ideas that Okanagan was going to be a quick-and-easy job kept dwindling away.

The Kelowna officials stayed on the beach, as she accompanied Abe Sapien back to the coroner's with the body he had located during his swim in Okanagan. While he and Dr. Carvin contacted the suspected family of the girl, identity confirmed through a dental record, Liz updated the Field Director. "Kate, we're doing what we can," she repeated into her communicator.

"I know, Liz." Dr. Corrigan sounded tired. "We're sending backup as soon as we get the clear from Director Manning. They'll at least be able to round up the animals."

Liz huffed in reply. "The sooner the better. When I was last down there, the smell was unbearable."

On the other end of the receiver, Kate smiled in a straightforward grin. "Well, they're dead. What did you expect?"

"Charming." She accepted the silliness of it all.

"Any updates on Ogopogo sightings?"

Liz sat up from her chair, and tapped her feet on the floor beneath her. It might have been a nervous tick. "Nothing, and Abe swam in the lake all evening. Just those things and the ghosts." She could hear voices in the background of the receiver, some hollering loudly to call out different agents. Her superior took a few minutes to make orders before turning her attention back to Liz.

"They were the drowned victims of the Naitaka followers, right?"

Liz's answer was too blunt, and even she was afraid she sounded rude. "Yeah."

Either Kate did not notice, or she ignored it. Liz was sometimes difficult to talk to when it came to checking up on missions, because her short fuse often collided with her professional conduct. Those who did not know her well enough occasionally found her difficult to be around. "It's consistent with the old tales. We need to figure out why this has started, again."

"You mean besides some nut trying to wake up the Ogopogo? Seems like enough reason to me." Demi-god worshippers were simple to figure out, because there was not much to their character other than that. Years of experience spoke there.

"If any Naitaka worshippers are back, you'll have to be on the look-out for them, Liz. If we're actually dealing with them, they're providing Ogopogo with the human sacrifices." Agent Sherman heard Kate break off to give a few more orders to other workers, and then loudly type at her keyboard. "Liz, tell me what you can about the ghosts, the ones that spoke with Abe."

The news networks were not releasing the names of the victims, until everything was gone through with the families.

Liz blinked, and she rubbed her eyes in an almost physical gesture to conjure up what her friend had explained to her earlier. Numerous ghosts of native children, touching between death and life, fish god. "Abe said there were four of them, and we identified the original victim as the niece of the supervisor, Parker. She and two of the others were adults, and the most recent a little kid." When asked if there was any connection between the four, "We already knew that those latest three were staying in resorts close to the lake, but the first girl wasn't anywhere near it."

"It's possible that someone may have been targeting her," Kate commented, thinking over the information and ruling out coincidences. "Have you finished any background checks on her?"

Despite talking through a communicator, Li z shook her head out of habit. "We haven't had the opportunity to do anything like that. All we know is what Parker told us." She was instructed to keep her field manager up-to-date. If it all started with Mr. Parker's niece, then everything that commenced from the original murder somehow linked to it. More than anything, Kate was concerned why her body alone was the only one that the tide did not return to the shore. Liz explained that, according to Agent Sapien, nothing was restraining it to the water. No seaweed, no rocks, nothing.

Elizabeth contemplated. "She was found farther out than the others were thought to have been." She was no expert on the pushing of lunar tides and similar scientific knowledge. Whenever talking about it, she felt like a parrot, only repeating whatever she heard.

At first, no reply came through, and Liz found herself progressively more agitated at having to be on opposite ends of Kate's attention. When she was about to ask if she was even there, she heard something she did not want to. "Tell Abe to scope that area of Okanagan, again."

"Liz asked too quickly, "If someone's taking this thing its food, then won't it quit if we stop this worshipper?"

"Unless you know who that is, Ogopogo is still considered a threat on its own."

Or Manning doesn't want this to turn into a half-assed job, Liz reflected to herself. "It's not looking for these people itself, Kate. It doesn't want to eat. The ghosts said that the Ogopogo didn't even want them or something like that."

"But it's still the one killing them, Liz." Kate's voice started to grow impatient, but both knew it was because of the work pile starting to slam down on her. On one end, Liz was trying to defend not looking for a monster, and on the other Tom Manning was trying to get Kate to help him clean up the mess caused by the entire event. On top of it all, other missions had to be taken care of, assigned to the agents capable of handling them, and problems usually stacked on those.

Sometimes Kate Corrigan hated being Field Director.

Liz was about to respond when the doors to the morgue opened. Before she could blink, a woman ran through the room, only stopping once they made eye contact with each other. She, while not exactly beautiful, had a certain charm about her face. Long hair soaked her shirt, indicating both that it was raining outside and she had not bothered to grab an umbrella. Her eyes looked familiar. "You. They said they found my niece." Desperation evident, her voice rose to a holler. "Where is she?"

"I'll update you later, Kate." When getting a short okay from Dr. Corrigan, Liz stood up and quickly put the communicator back on her belt. "You're Mrs. Parker, right?"

No response came, for as she was about to answer, Dr. Carvin stepped out from the autopsy room. The occupants could note her sympathetic look. The new woman's face widened; the two already knew each other. "Dr. Carvin! We just heard the call. You found Amanda?"

Abe stepped out of the room next, looking once at Liz before noticing Mrs. Parker's presence. The woman stared at him, and he could not decide whether her overly large eyes were a cause of her fright or confusion. Whichever it was, she remained silent to the amphibian.

Dr. Carvin frowned. "For the record, we need you to identify her, Sarah." Mrs. Parker choked back a large gulp, and she swayed on her feet. Had not her husband entered and noticed his wife's ailment, she may have surely fallen. She looked up at her spouse, and the tears fell as expected of someone who realized that there was no hope. "Would you prefer to, Charles?"

Parker's fake smile and welcome had long since deteriorated. He seemed to have aged, his face hard and cold. He was about to remark that "prefer" was an unacceptable word for the matter, but it was Sarah who turned out to be the voice of reason. "No. No, I will do it." She cast a pleading look to her beloved, and whispered that he needed to call her sister.

After Mrs. Parker and Dr. Carvin stepped away, Parker turned his dazed, out-of-worldly gaze towards the agents from the Bureau. "We thought we were above it all…." He seemed to be speaking to himself, and Liz's eyebrow arched at his speech. "All of the problems…." Blinking, his eyes targeted Abe. "You must find it. You must find it, and kill it."

His voiced dropped so low, Liz and Abe almost did not hear him. It seemed as though they were seeing a completely different man than the little gentleman who had first welcomed them to British Columbia.

"Mr. Parker, we've called the Bureau…." He stopped only for a moment, looking at Liz for a quick nod of assumption. "…and they're sending backup."

When Parker's eyes darkened, Liz tried to explain. "Someone's feeding the Ogopogo. Do you know of anyone who might have a vendetta against your niece? Or you?" There was no beating around the bush. With body count higher than they had expected, the agents wanted answers, and sooner rather than later.

Water and sweat dripped over his brow like a clock tick, and indication of the precious seconds that passed by. "Everyone has enemies, Agent Sherman." His dark demeanor surprised them. "But enough to kill her? No. No one would have killed Amanda out of hate. And you're suggesting someone…fed her to that monster? Why are you not out searching for him?"

"We've only recently begun to suspect this, Mr. Parker." The dead animals had also been distracting, not to mention he told the ghost he would return her body to her family.

That was when Parker's blood turned cold. "It could take you months, years to find one person, but there's only one goddamned sea snake! You can swim there; you can get in the water and kill it!" He sized himself up against the agent, and despite being of far shorter stature, he gave off an aura of desperation and extreme anxiety.

Abe knew the man posed no threat, and his words formed from fear. Reality hit Mr. Parker hard as everyone realized that there were no patterns to the murders. Whoever fed the swimming beast chose no preference.

Gills fluttered, disturbed at the entire problem. "I plan on scanning Okanagan, again." His words caused a brief disturbance in Liz.

At moments like this, Abraham wished he had the strength and resilience of Hellboy. He had little doubt that the BPRD's top agent could topple the Ogopogo, despite it being in the lake.

Mr. Parker's face read of uncertainty, but he said nothing. As his wife started to cry hysterically on the other side of the door, deathly silence fell on everyone else.

--

The drizzling rain threatened to evolve into a downpour. It gave hints every so often, but did not quite have the nerve to grow so long as daylight lingered in the sky. Grey skies strangled blue, and night was quickly leeching away at the sun. He enjoyed watching it from his little abode, the earth that he, for the moment, claimed as his own. The constant battle between the two was never ending, but he was not above choosing sides.

He instead leaned heavily on his cane, a limp leg hanging loosely as the other supported it.

The cliffs were a favorite, for the rocky hills provided excellent view over his beloved's home.

The lake called. "No," he chortled. "You know I will not listen."

Below the waters, it stirred. It swam as its ancestors had for hundreds of thousands of years. Hunger panged heavily, but it remained summered. Food. It longed for food that only it could choose. He knew it suffered, and in turn hummed a tune behind his tongue. The rain blew like a soft lullaby to them both, and he smiled innocently in return. The smell of the storm was pleasing, and tasted unforgiving.

The love between him and it stirred. His heart twined in compassion.

"I promise I will provide you, my Naitaka."

In the back of his mouth, he tasted blood.

--

A single shot went off.

Liz Sherman turned around in an instant, alarmed by surprise only to find a headless chicken lying by her feet. Black goo flowed from the wound into the sand, tainting the grey texture. "Guess they missed one," she felt like adding as she watched Abe lower his gun from the line of vision. Shooting the undead animal would not kill it, but it would certainly stop it from bothering them.

The surrounding lake was empty as the moon hung in the sky. No stars twinkled, covered were they by the rain clouds. Slight drizzling had turned into light showers, and Liz was growing to hate Canada. Fortunately, the occupants of the Kelowna Lakeshore Inn were now long gone, as were others anywhere within certain miles of Okanagan. She and Abe were finally alone to complete the mission without gaping tourists and loud bystanders.

She could not fool herself into denying she did not enjoy that, even as the water poured down.

Giving one last acknowledgement to the fallen farm animal, she continued to walk along the shoreline. The smell from the dead herds still lingered, and she almost gagged more than once. She did not know how Abe could stomach it, as his inhumanity granted him heightened senses.

"Something is bothering you, Liz."

She did not like being such an opened book to anyone, but only Abe and Hellboy could read her so well. She kept silent, throwing her hands around her arms to warm them in the growing winds. God must have hated her, because she had not stopped feeling miserable since she had arrived at the Lake.

Abe's markings flashed in curiousness, and he caught up to his teammate's side in just a few steps. He was not psychic; he could not read her mind. Yet, he knew what troubled her. "Liz, it's me, and I know you."

"You could wait until morning."

His head titled. Sometimes he was too much like a fish. "What do you mean?"

Liz didn't even mind as her wet hair plastered against her face. "Manning's sent the backup. They'll be here by morning." She did not need to continue, but suddenly she felt like talking. "After they're finished with the round-up, we can send out a search party and find this Ogopogo worshipper. I mean, just how long could it take us?"

Abe's neck moved left and right in disagreement. "What if someone else dies before we find him?" Liz moved her hands up and down in not response, but for friction. She suddenly grew cold. "I don't like this anymore than you do, Liz. I don't want to willingly locate something as large as this and attract its attention. If we could just get it away from Okanagan, maybe lead it into one of the shallower pools away from the general populace…."

"And what's to stop the nut from finding it and continue to deliver?" Liz's voice snapped. "He's the one we should be going after."

"And we will, once we know what to look for," he stressed, but his voice never changing from the secure tone it usually had. In fact, he smiled – as best his limited face would allow.

Agent Sherman could feel something was wrong; deep in her bones, she knew this was not right. "I don't know…," she murmured, almost afraid his ears would pick up. Ever since the ordeal with the dragon, she grew worried whenever a mission of theirs involved going into water. Maybe it was just nothing more than a silly fear. But when the god had grabbed Abe, for a split second she felt more fear than she could have remembered for years. That time, it had channeled into anger, fuel for the fire that claimed her. It was now raining, and they were not stuck on an island this time.

Few things scared her anymore, but what did held powerful influences over her actions.

Abe seemed to realize this.

He was not afraid of the water. Despite knowing nothing of his past beyond a piece of paper, he knew the water was a part of him that he could not run from. It was his niche. Not to say he was not worried about giant fish that could feed on him, but that came with the job.

Without the Bureau, where would he be?

He owed them his finest abilities when they called for it. Being frightened would only plug that, and Abe would not let that happen.

His duty was to protect the people that needed his help.

When his friend looked down at the water, he cupped her chin with his fingers and directed her attention back to him. His fingers were cold from adaptation, but she did not care. "Liz, I'll be fine." He was bold to make such a statement, and he had been wrong plenty of times before when he said the exact same thing.

Still, it gave Elizabeth some comfort, and some comfort was better than none.

At all the same time, the unsettling feeling in her stomach never settled. The increasing waves coming from the lake splashed against her calves, Okanagan teasing her. It made fun at her fear of it, at her fear of what it harbored in its depths.

Abe took his hand away, and took off his gun. Giving it to Liz, he looked down to make certain his communicator was in harmony. His gills took the moment to ingest the moisture now starting to pour down heavily on them.

Taking advantage at the opportunity, he met eye contact with the Lake. Tonight it would be either his friend or his enemy. What a gamble he had to take, and he knew little more going in this time than he did before.

Something primal in him was thrilled for the challenge, but the intellect that came with evolution cried that this was a poor idea.

It was becoming difficult for Liz to see, lacking natural eye protection like the one her comrade had at all times. Indeed, she could only make out Abe's shape beside her, and even that was starting to warp.

"Just be careful, Abe," finally responded Liz, biting down on her lip in obvious discomfort. She still did not like the situation, at all. She just hoped the feelings screaming deep inside of her were wrong. If not, with the amount of rain pouring down, she was doubtful if she could rely on her pyrokenetic abilities for assistance. That doubt weighed heavy on her, more than she should have allowed it to.

He nodded. "You too." Unexpected, he took her hand and gave one more comforting squeeze, letting her know it would be okay.

As he was about to pull it away, she held onto it moments longer, wrapping her other one over it. Time briefly stopped applying to them, and Liz wished feverishly they could just leave, that their problems would just go away. She knew better. She wasn't ignorant.

But deep down, it still warned her to take caution.

Something inside was trying to protect her. Maybe it was her flame, which would die alongside its host should she be mortally harmed.

Agent Sapien entered the water with more grace than the previous time, the outside weather preparing his body for the colder depths sooner. It did not take long for the temperatures to connect, and he flew through the blackness like a torpedo. No human could reach his speed, and few fish could match it. Perfectly adapted webbed fingers peddled and helped him glide. Equipped eyes were not bothered by the dark, and he would almost have been able to see as well as day had it not been for the rain splashing against the surface.

The farther he swam down, the less that bothered him. Sound traveled different in the water, but with millions of tiny whispers banging against hard edges at a time, it became distracting. His mind needed to be focused; he could not let it wander about at any little thing that tried to attract it.

On land, Liz Sherman felt the same way. Unfortunately, she could not so easily escape the pattering of the rain, the splashing of the water, and the roaring of the winds. The strength of the noise increased and decreased with the hour, but Liz remained more on edge than she had last time.

Perhaps that was the only reason she heard the sloshing of thick, wet mud and soaked grass. Acting immediately as years of the Bureau's training taught her, she grabbed hold of her gun, and bent down on one knee.

Knowing full well that no other human being should have been on Lake Okanagan, a spike of adrenaline flew through her veins. She swore her heart missed a beat. "Who's there?" she called out above the wind. Spitting out the rain that came with the action, she waited for an answer.

When graced by none, her eyes darted around for any possible source. Probably same damn zombie pig, she thought through her head. To be sure, she fired a shot into the air. "I'm only giving one warning shot," cautioned Liz Sherman, and she was serious.

No way was she taking chances, especially in the environment she preoccupied.

Nothing.

With precaution, the gun slowly came away from her line of sight. She strained to hear more, but the rain was just too much. "Damn," she cursed aloud, standing up. Alert, her body turned a three-sixty as she kept a look out for anything suspicious.

That was when a fowl stench assaulted her nose.

Liz coughed violently into her sleeve, backing away from the odor. "God, what the hell is that?" she managed to spurt between her violent hacks. The right hand kept a firm grip around the handle of the gun, and she desperately tried to stop long enough to bring it back up to her eyesight. In a violent force of frustration, she fired another shot into the air – this time to make a quick source of light. The flash revealed another black, huddled mass moving towards her, a hefty beast dragging a rotten log held by a rope around its face. Unable to identify it as a horse, but knowing it to be another dead thing from the lake, Liz fired at it.

Through the burst of light, she saw the animal recoil back from the hit.

Unlike the chicken from before, it did not stop. Neighing like it was crying at the moon, the shot only made it angry. In a speed unexpected by something tied to a log, it galloped over and butted into its assaulter.

The attack did not harm Agent Sherman. It only made her more frustrated. It was actually embarrassing, and she knew Hellboy, and probably even Abe, would have a laugh at her later for it. "Are you serious?" she asked nobody. She fired off two more rounds into the horse, hoping her aim not too affected by the storm. The second shot found its way to the beasts' head, and blew the cranium off in a messy shot. "Human or not, all zombies go down the same."

"He merely awaits the return of my Naitaka. You attacked first."

Liz turned herself around so fast she almost lost her footing on the slippery sand. Throwing her arm around to maintain balance, she shouted out. "Who are you?" Straining her eyes through the passing rain, her ears boomed as thunder struck down. She gasped, narrowing her eyes. She hated feeling at the mercy of everything around her. "Everyone was supposed to be evacuated. You shouldn't be here." She knew her words were wasted. Whoever was on the sand with her knew what was going on.

At first, only his shape made it through the rain.

"What a horrible night for him, my Naitaka. He prefers to eat by the beautiful, uninterrupted moonlight."

Able now to figure out what exactly she was seeing, even Elizabeth found herself slightly startled to see an old man. With the clasps of lighting over the lake, she could barely make out a caring feature across the man's eyes, which radiated most from his body. At first she thought his hand held a blunt weapon, and raised her gun in ready to fire, but hesitated when she noticed it to only be a walking stick.

The Ogopogo worshipper.

This was the man they were looking for, Liz realized. But an old man? An old man had really murdered those four people? It was not impossible. "Hey, don't move!" Liz snapped as he leaned against his cane pathetically. "Don't make me shoot you."

He only smiled, and a hauntingly warm smile it was. No maliciousness stood behind it, no faux grins that faked welcomes. "You must understand, young lady that I cannot die."

Liz aimed her gun, prepared to do what was necessary, when her communicator sounded off.

There were no fish.

That was the first thing that Abe Sapien found most unusual.

Usually there would have been several darting around him at any given time, but he had not spotted a single one since he emerged in the water over the hour. They knew something he did not, but it could not have been pleasant. Animals were usually the first to spot dangers, and people thought it wise to learn from their warnings. Abe Sapien was no different, crossing the boundaries of humanity himself.

It was unsettling, but for one hour, it turned up no reasoning.

Abraham broke for the surface of the water, sucking in the rainy air as his lungs took precedence over his gills. He was fairly distant from shore, and could now see that it the storm was starting to pick up with a vengeance. Lighting was clapping down a little of everywhere, its slower brother thunder lagging shortly behind.

He knew he needed to get out of the water, and as soon as possible.

Prepared to dive back under, Abe hesitated as he heard thunder go off without precluding lightning. It stalled him before he realized that it was not thunder at all.

Gun shots. Liz. Something was happening on shore.

The communicator shot from his hand up to his face in a second. "Liz, what's going on?" he called in quickly. He only gave her three moments to respond before growing desperate for a reply. "Liz?"

Relief hit from hearing her voice. "Abe, get back to sh….."

Sound stopped in a sudden instant as Abe was pulled underwater. Swallowing the sea of the lake, he screamed out silent bubbles as he felt pain shoot through his legs. Throwing himself around in response like a fish on a hook, it was so abrupt his mind could barely register the gargantuan creature dragging him down with speed and force. Only when he realized his cries were mute to Okanagan's ears did his eyes focus. Water rushed all around as he was thrashed around on the lakebed like a bad carnival ride.

Nausea was hitting from the rushing current, and Abe closed his eyes tightly and wished feverishly it was over. But whenever it hesitated for a moment, the sting from his lower torso shot through his nerves, and it only made him hurt even more.

Finally, with the force of a whale, he felt himself pushed through the surface and taken into the air. He screamed in ache as he finally spotted what had grabbed a hold of his bleeding body.

It was a giant. Gray skin like leather quenched in the flooding rain, absorbing it in want. Its body was like a serpent, coiled under water except for its long neck, which stretched higher and higher into the sky. Fins scraped against each other, rustling like sandpaper, but its eyes glowed in the dark. The head of a horse shook violently, hissing breaths releasing from its flaring nostrils. It shimmered, and the look of the beast was that of a disturbed, angered one.

Naitaka.

Ogopogo.

Abe Sapien barely had time to register this as it growled. The sound of a sonar shot off, and he could feel his eardrums start to pound. It grew in annoyance, for its prey would not drown like the others. Rather than trying twice, it learned. Its distasteful meal would not stop flailing from over exposure to water.

Ogopogo roared in dominance, and wound its neck around. Like a whip, it struck back out, releasing its jaws.

Abraham shot through the air was unbridled force, flying farther and farther until he suddenly felt his body go numb. It slammed into hard ground, and the vigor of the collision bounced him down the steep of the rocky hills surrounding the side of Lake Okanagan. He tried to push out his arms, grasping at air in a frantic effort to grab hold of something to stop the onslaught from the earth. He failed miserably, feeling the rocks tear into his skin, his bones bruising with each level of blitz. The rain had made the ground too wet, and nothing was available to stop the natural sliding from the top of the hills on down.

As the edges of his eyes grew dark, Abe could feel the mud grow around him, until, all of in a flash, he stopped. He blinked rapidly, until he could see nothing.

--

To be continued.