Hey everyone!
Hope you're still enjoying the story. I know it's kinda slow right now, but bear with me!
Enjoy!
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Skinwalkers are sick.
Well, this one is.
I stared at the mangle corpse of a small mammal, stomach churning in disgust and I swear I was going to throw up. My aunt was talking to the man that had called us up for this case.
"Is there anything else you can tell me?" Aunt Valerie asked and the man shook his head.
"No, ma'am." He replied. "That's all I know." She nodded and walked over to me, grimacing at the carcass.
"Come on, Allie," She said. "We've got some research to do." I tore my gaze away from the lump of flesh and raised a brow.
"Like what?" I asked. "It's a skinwalker, right? No one has any real info on them because the Navajo people are very secretive. And you can't really trust the internet."
"I know that Allie." She replied. "But we have to try. There has to be something." I huffed and crossed my arms, frowning.
"Yeah… Maybe Rosemary can help with this." I muttered. "She's good at researching. She could probably find us some info." My aunt nodded and smiled at me.
"You know, you could be an investigator one day." I snorted at her remark.
"I could be a pimp too, but that ain't happening." I shot back and my aunt laughed as we headed back to the RV, going to search for a hotel to start researching on this damn thing.
0o0o0o0o0o
"Allie!"
I smiled as my little sister greeted me on the screen.
"Hey sis," I greeted back. "You find me some information on skinwalkers?" She nodded and looked a little to her left, staring at something on her other screen.
"Okay, so skinwalkers are kind of… lesser known because the Navajo people don't want anyone to know about them for some reason…" My sister said. "But, there's rumors around and apparently, they're made by a shaman consuming human flesh and wearing the pelt of whatever animal it wishes to shift into." I nodded, furrowing my brows.
"I see," I muttered. "Anything else?"
"Yeah," She replied. "They can actually transform into any animal as long as they wear the pelt. They are kind of scared of fire, but it doesn't always work. It seems that the only way to kill a skinwalker is finding its true name. They're kind of like crappy Wendigoes." I snickered at her last statement.
"Alright, so, they shapeshift, they don't like fire, and finding their name kills them." I restated, numbering the facts. "Great. This is going to be a long fricking case…" Rosemary grinned sheepishly and shrugged.
"Sorry sis." She giggled. "Tell me all about it when you guys finished." I nodded at her and smiled back.
"Of course, sis." I replied. "Tell everyone I said hi and I miss them."
"I will! We all miss you Allie!" She said. "And you better come back in one piece!"
"Don't worry about it," I waved her off. "I'll be back in one piece, promise." Rosemary nodded and we said our goodbyes, turning off Skype and shutting the computer off. I stood and stretched, going over to the bed and flopping down on it with a sigh. This case was probably going to be even longer than the last one.
The door opened and I looked up, seeing my aunt enter the room with a folder full of papers. Must've been reports and such.
"Alright, I got some testimonies, some theories, some Navajo lore," My aunt told me, sounding a bit out of breath. "The Navajo stuff is very minimal, but it's something. Where do you wanna start?" I groaned.
"Jesus, this is going to take forever…" I muttered. "Rose told me some stuff she found. Skinwalkers are kind of like Wendigoes and they can only be killed if you know their true name."
"Huh…" My aunt murmured, flipping open the folder and scanning some of the papers. "Well, it looks like that's what's in this Navajo lore. So that's one down."
"Yeah, but how are we going to find the thing's name?" I asked, resting my elbow on my knee and putting my chin in my hand.
"That won't be easy." My aunt agreed. "We might be able to look into some missing persons cases. I highly doubt the skinwalker is still in society." I nodded in agreement.
"Sounds legit." I said and rubbed my hands together. "Let's do this."
0o0o0o0o0o
I rubbed my face, groaning tiredly. Only halfway through the stack and I think I was going to commit genocide.
"Jesus Christ." I muttered. "Might as well just take the stack with us and just yell names at the thing."
"Allie, that wouldn't work and you know it." My aunt replied as she looked up at me from her paper. "Pay attention to the backgrounds and what they were doing before they disappeared." I sighed loudly and looked at the paper, glaring at the words.
I would rather shove a heroin needle into my eye than to read all of this.
"I need a break." I stated, getting up and stretching. "This is ridiculous. It's going to take us forever." My aunt put down her paper and looked at the stack next to her.
"You do have a point." She murmured. "…let me see what I can do." With that she got up and grabbed her phone, dialing a number as she waited for whoever she was calling to answer. I shrugged and exited the room, going down to the little restaurant area so I could eat something.
Thank god it wasn't packed or anything or I think I would've stabbed someone. There only seemed to be a few people there aside from the workers, so I quickly got some food and sat at a table, devouring the plate of delicious pancakes and sausage. Praise whatever god there was that it was a buffet of anything you wanted here.
After eating, I tossed my plate into the trash and headed back up to our hotel room. Now maybe I could focus on some of the missing person cases.
I opened the door and heard my aunt still talking on the phone and it seemed like she was nearly finished with her call though. She looked up at me as I walked over and raised a brow.
"What was that?" I asked, nodding to the phone.
"I made a call to the police department and asked them about the missing person files." She replied. "I discussed with them about what's going on. They think it's a load of crap, but they helped out a bit. We managed to sort the cases from the day the skinwalker started showing up. So that cuts down on the reports." I nodded and looked at the new stack. It was about half the size of the last stack, so that was a relief.
"Not bad." I murmured, picking up a file. "Better than what it was."
"Definitely." My aunt agreed. "Let's try and finish this up, okay?" I nodded again, looking through the file I had picked up and scanning the details, hoping to find something before too long.
0o0o0o0o0o
"Why do we always have to do these things at night?" I grumbled as my aunt drove down the road. Not in the RV this time though, she actually rented a car this time. After a few weeks of digging through files, she decided that it'd be best to rent a car for our little town errands. Once a few weeks of digging through files past, we finally came across someone that might fit the timeline.
"You know what they say," My aunt smiled. "Things go bump in the night." I snorted at her joke and shook my head.
"You're a dork." I told her and she laughed.
"Alright, so we should find the skinwalker here in this area…" My aunt murmured as I looked around. Being in a small town in Ohio was not really where I'd expect skinwalkers to be, honestly. I thought they'd be more in the desert area of the United States.
Guess I shouldn't assume things like that.
"You ready Allie?" Aunt Valerie asked.
"We took on the Jersey Devil," I scoffed. "I think I'm ready for anything at this point." She nodded and stopped the car, putting it in park as we got out and began heading into the woods. What is with creepy things being attracted to woodlands? Regardless, I followed my aunt into the woods, looking around suspiciously. If that skinwalker doesn't find us first, a bear sure as hell will.
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I frowned as we came back to the car, looking at the vehicle in disappointment. My aunt caught on and gave me a sympathetic smile.
"You don't always get answers on cases, Allie." She tried. "We can only do our best."
"Yeah, but still…" I muttered, crossing my arms. "All this research and time wasted… How lame."
"I know, but it's all we can do. Sometimes cases are just dead ends." I huffed and got in the car, glaring at the dash like it was the whole reason we didn't find the skinwalker.
"What's next?" I asked as I buckled myself in.
"There's a Wendigo case on the border of Canada." My aunt replied. "Wanna check it out?"
"Hell. Yes." I replied with a grin as my aunt laughed and we drove away from the woods. Out of my peripheral, I swore I could see someone watching us as we drove off, grinning like a madman. I turned to get a better look, but whatever it was disappeared. My eyes narrowed as I studied the tree line, seeing a few animals darting around. I sat back and tried to take my mind off of whatever I saw, looking at my phone to see if I missed anything while I was out.
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What'd ya think?
There's going to be two more cases before we go back into the plot, so two more chapters before things start getting hectic again!
See you next time!
