Terry’s chubby hand grabbed mine. We stood frozen as someone or something walked around the perimeter and beat at the wood. Glass shattered, spilling across the floor. A hyena laughter filled the night.
I might have screamed, but I don’t really remember the details. I know I cried. Terry took off running, dragging me along with him like a rag doll. We burst through the front doorway and fled through the forest without looking back. Our retreat wasn’t like a horror movie. We didn’t trip on an exposed root, the monster didn’t step out from behind a tree and block our passage. Branches didn’t snag our clothes or cut our skin.
We reached our campsite screaming bloody murder. One of the staff members—I forget her name—grabbed us and shushed us. Through sobs and gasping breaths, we relayed what had happened to her.
And you know what she did?
She laughed, like we had told her a funny joke. “Serves you two little shits right for sneaking out last night and seeing that movie.”
“And for stealing my money,” said another voice from behind us.
Terry and I turned and saw a second staff member standing in the moonlight. He held a baseball bat and wore a smile as broad as a sword.
It wasn’t until we settled into our tent that I realized I’d pissed my pants. Too embarrassed to get up and change my underwear, I fell asleep with tears wetting my cheeks and urine wetting my thighs.
And…
Welcome back, reader. You made it. Let’s get right back into the mud.
“How would I not be afraid,” I asked Xander, Annabel’s cabin looming before us, “after what happened that night?”
“Because you were ten, and unlike most people, you never grew up and overcame that childish fear. When you ventured into the cabin that night, it wasn’t a monster that attacked, and you even know that. It was a spiteful human playing a nasty trick on a couple of kids.”
“Isn’t that the scariest thing of all?” I asked. “Humans that choose to be monsters?” I ran a hand through my hair and stared through the trees at the cabin, shaking my head. “How about this—you recognize and accept that I hate cabins located in the woods, that I’m deathly afraid of them. If you do that, I’ll stop making fun of your irrational fear of wasps.”
“It’s not irrational. I was stung on the tongue! You don’t recover from that.”
I cocked my head. “Some say tomato, some say potato.”
“That’s not how… never mind. I’ll acknowledge your fear as legitimate, but you’re going to face that fear and enter that cabin with me. That cabin, Joey, it stands—”
“Don’t say it,” I said.
“It stands between you and finding a Scylla that will lead you straight to Hecate and Mel. You’re entering that cabin with me.”
“But, Dad…” I pleaded, my attention still fixed in the direction of the cabin, though my eyes had started to follow a spry lady with a shotgun sneaking from tree to tree toward us. “What if the crazy lady comes out here instead? Then we could all be happy and not have to be miserable in there.”
Xander was facing me, so he didn’t her—the shotgun now butted against her shoulder and aimed directly at his back.
I’ll start my description of her with two words—Daenerys Targaryen. She had solid-white hair. And for a mentally unhinged woman living like a hermit in the woods, she was just as attractive as the dragon queen with way too many names—though that’s where the similarities ended. I doubted she’d washed any part of her body in, I would venture to say, oh, a lifetime. Her odor reached me from ten yards away. She wore this crazy dress that looked like a potato sack, and as she neared, I became more and more convinced that it was a potato sack. She was literally wearing a burlap bag cut with head and arm holes. But, in her defense, she wore it quite well. Also, as she came within peeping distance, I noticed dark circles bruising the skin beneath her red-stained eyes, and I wondered if she’d ever slept in her life.
“I take it you don’t get many visitors?” I called out as she stepped onto the shore, pausing twenty feet in front of us.
Xander cocked his head. I nodded at him, urging his thoughts to puzzle together the mystery of my strange question. Comprehension dawned on him and he swung around. He stepped back a few feet and stood beside me. “Easy,” he said, raising his hands.
“Stick to the trend-setting, Annie. That burlap looks incredible on you. I wouldn’t mind rummaging around for some potatoes, if you know what I mean. Also, the au naturale look is coming back—hairy legs and pits. Hell, Xander here, his wife has a full mustache.”
“Who are you?” Annabel Nevis asked from behind the stink-eye barrel of her shotgun.
“Who are we?” I asked, pointing at myself. “Who are you coming at us with a shotgun on public land? Do you always treat strangers walking the shore to some birdshot?”
“This is private property,” she said. “Did you not read the signs?”
“I try my hardest not to read anything. It makes my head hurt—and when is pain ever healthy? The answer is never. So, reading is unhealthy. And like this guy says,” I nudged Xander’s arm, “my body is God’s temple.”
“Ms. Nevis,” Xander said, attempting to salvage the encounter. He raised his hands to appear nonthreatening. “I’m Agent Alexander Shells. I work for Mather Investigative Services. We specialize in supernatural incidents that traditional law enforcement agencies refuse to listen to or accept as truth.”
“And I’m Joseph Labrador Hunter,” I said. “Though Labrador isn’t my real middle name. I specialize in losing everything and everyone I ever loved to a tragic, horrible death. I also enjoy long, moonlit walks on the beach and hardcore bondage in the bedroom.”
Xander took another careful step forward. “Ms. Nevis,” he said, “I found a record of the
