Series by Murderbird17
Guys, I’ve got a good bit of explaining to do. I’ve lied to all of you on a few occasions now. I haven’t lied about any of the creatures, ghosts or people though so don’t worry about that. But i have lied about how i acquired some of my possessions. As you all should know by now, i did not purchase my 45 caliber hand gun, it was gifted to me somewhat indirectly by a good friend. What i have not explicitly stated yet was that i didn’t exactly buy my house or property either. I’m sure many of you already figured that out though.
What I’m getting at was that i was placed here. 3 years ago i was approached by an organization while i was hiding out in a bar in Mexico. I have no fucking idea how they found me because even though i had been shitfaced for two solid weeks, i know for sure no one in that area even spoke English so i don’t think i could have ratted myself out. I fucking tried to find someone honestly. Also, the people i was hiding from are not paranormal in any way, and that is a story I’m not certain i want to share right now. But i may share later on.
Anyways this group approached me and made an offer. Again i had been shitfaced for two straight weeks so my memory is spotty. From what i can remember, they said something about “helping me escape the problems i had created with”... um that group. Normally, i would have immediately suspected that they were the enemy in disguise. But again, drunk ass me thought that this is the greatest fucking thing that could happen.
I mean they were offering me a free place to stay with a limited amount of monthly allowance to purchase food and whatever else i needed. I just assumed it was government funded. Then again the government thinks i died 12 years ago? I think? None of that matters now though. See i pretty much figured out what really happened behind the scenes with some help from Mark. We’ve been sharing a hospital room for the last week so we have had plenty of time to think. I’ll get to how we got here soon. I think this is gonna be a long post.
So as much as Mark and i can figure, the organization that was offering me witness protection type services was actually a fake front that was run by the monster hunting group that Mark works for. Their goal was to find someone with above average survival skills to see how long a human could last in an area with a high concentration of fucked up things roaming around. Let me emphasize that the assholes that planned this experiment probably didn’t expect me to survive my first encounter, let alone live there for three years.
Then when the keelut showed up, they got giddy. According to Mark, they have never been able to observe a dead keelut before the one that i killed. He sure knows how to make me feel special. That’s when Mark and his crew got sent out, and ole’ Marky has been with ever since. I think that was fourish weeks ago.
But enough of the theory shit, let me tell you about the cluster fuck that put me and Mark in the hospital.
That ghost preacher bitch that possessed Mark a while back only got about half of her facts right. I found this out when Mark and i decided to got to the home base of the local cult that lives on the back of my property. They call themselves the chosen. I don’t know what they were chosen for. But i know for sure that no one in that rag tag group of dipshits shouldn’t be chosen for anything but extermination. They have tried to “sacrifice” me three different times now. The last attempt, they went as far as attempting to try and burn down my house, but i caught them in the act and “convinced” their leader, a short Latino man named Hector, to not bother me anymore.
I really didn’t want anything to do with them because they are so... awkward... but Mark was certain that “they probably have some information about why more deadly creatures seem to be popping up at a higher rate, or maybe at least have some knowledge about skinny.” I tried to convince him that i knew more than the chosen when it came to skinny but he insisted that i was about as observant as Helen Keller, whoever the fuck that is.
So there we are, standing in front of their little shanty town that they call “the ponderosa”. It’s mostly made up of metal sheds and parts of mobile homes. Yes, parts, in people living inside with whole walls missing. Keep in mind that these people aren’t poor. Almost all of the members have nice cars and trucks parked outside their homes, a new Chevy Silverado, nice Ford Mustang, and many others that i don’t know the name of off the top of my head. I don’t really understand what philosophy leads to them living happily in a shithole like this. To each their own i guess.
We found Hector pretty quickly, he was in the middle of the squalor preaching about something or other. He noticed me and Mark almost immediately due to the fact that neither of us were wearing dark robes like the rest of the cultists. Mark was wearing black combat pants and a great long sleeve shirt that made him look like he meant business. I, on the other hand, was wearing blue jeans and a twizzler t-shit. Hector stated somewhat solemnly “i guess we have guests now”, and proceeded to step down off of his upside down five gallon bucket.
As he approached Mark whispered just loud enough for me to hear, “they are surrounding us”. And sure enough, he was right! I look around to see not only Hector approaching us, but about 60 different cultists approaching us from different directions. They were closing in and both Mark and i prepared to draw our weapons to defend ourselves when Hector called out. “CHILDREN, calm down! Don’t you see he’s got a gun now? Let’s please try not to get on his nerves now.” I could see Mark start smirking out of the corner of his eye, but i didn’t have the heart to tell him that they weren’t talking about him.
“Look mr. ummmm, Hector right? We were just wondering if you had any idea about where some of the paranormal creatures in this area are coming from”. This question seemed to make Hector uncomfortable. “We haven’t been seeing anything like that around here, sooooooo.” Just then one of the black robed cultist came busting through the surrounding crowd. “GRAND BISHOP HECTOR, THE BABY DOLL SPIDER CAME BACK!” At this revelation, Hector knew that we knew that he knew what we wanted to know. All he could do was look back and forth from his distraught follower and us, he finally decided to just awkwardly smile at us.
As much as Mark wanted to continue questioning, we both noticed that the cultist that came back was missing large chunks of his robes, and his flesh. While the man stood there hyperventilating in front of his leader Mark pointed something out to me. “Cole, he’s holding a severed hand” he whispered, we didn’t want anyone to over hear us while all the focus was on Hector trying to console the hysterical man. I responded to Mark’s observation with, “look if this thing is coming we may have to put the skinny hunt on hold, as much as these people are a nuisance, i really don’t want to see a community get slaughtered.” Mark shot a conflicted look at me. “I agree but we aren’t prepared for a fight with something like that”.
While we were talking, i felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Sonya, Hector’s second in command. I hadn’t seen her since the last time i was in their little neighborhood, and i hadn’t really left on a good note. Now she looked deadly serious. “Cole, we have all the information you want and some that you probably don’t, but before i tell you, we need your help. This thing is gonna tear us to shreds, but i have a way to get rid of it.” Sonya was the only member of the chosen that struck me as somewhat smart. I think she was raised into the cult and that was the only reason she hasn’t left. In some twisted way, it’s her only family. Before Mark could protest i answered “we are in, so what do we...”
I was interrupted before i could finish my sentence by a loud screeching. The sound was beyond unnatural. I could describe it as young woman screaming in terror but the tone kept changing instantly like a shitty auto tune from Hell. Mark and i looked at each other, “fuck”, “fuck indeed Mark, fuck indeed” i looked back to ask Sonya what she planned on doing, but when i looked in her direction, she was already sprinting off. I really hoped that she was grabbing some sort of secret weapon and not just being a coward. I didn’t have time to dwell on these thoughts though.
“There’s the beast, cresting the hill.” Mark said as he jerked my attention back to the situation at hand. Sure enough, as i looked through the trees that lead uphill, i could see a mass of tan, white, and dark red, charging down the hill. As it got closer, the cultists started running around wildly, some pulled out spears and knives, but that looked like they trying to use chopsticks for the first time. They weren’t gonna be much help. I was starting to make out some details on the thing as it approached.
The main defining feature of the “baby doll spider” was that it was in fact made of what looked like baby dolls, not just dolls though, mannequins, cosmetic practice heads. It seemed like all of the different objects were held together by some magic stickiness. I disagree with calling in a spider too, it had four “legs” and two “arms”. It was shaped more like a centaur. Another odd detail was that each body part was made up of that specific body part. Where the head should be, there was a mass of mannequin, doll, and other forms of heads that were just crammed together. Same rule follows for the legs, arms, torso, so on.
“Mark, what the hell is that thing.” “I don’t know, usually if you see a doll or something moving around, that’s a possession, but this is something else entirely. That lady you were talking too better have a good idea.” The abomination was now closing in and had reached on of the outermost sheds that dotted the chosen’s head quarters and began tearing it to pieces. “I don’t think guns are gonna work on this thing, i bet it doesn’t have internal organs that a bullet could damage, and i doubt that it would respond to nat rounds since it doesn’t look Native American. We are going to need to use stuff that will break it.” Mark said as he grabbed a spear from a nearby cultist, and slung it at least 40 yards to hit the thing in the torso.
What the fuck, Mark can throw spears now? Even though it was a solid hit, the monster didn’t reel back at all, it just looked in our direction and let out another screech before charging us at full tilt. It was at this point that i realized that the beast was not colored red anywhere on its body. All of the deep red i had seen was just blood that was caked onto the Baby doll centaur... Damnit! Doll spider does sound better. As it got closer Mark yelled “get it’s attention, i got an idea!” I nodded and pulled out my 45 pistol, knowing that it wouldn’t kill it, but i could at least distract it. I now realize that I’m actually starting to trust Mark with my life, something i haven’t done in a very long time.
I started hitting center mass as the creature neared the ten yards from Mark, he now stopped and turned towards me. Mark took advantage of this brief pause and sprinted at the creature. I was confused by this until i saw the round thing in his hand. Grenade. I kept firing and Mark slid under the belly of the beast and plunged his hand in between the parts that made up the creature’s torso, then continuing his slide out from the other side. As he got back to his feet he yelled “COVER!” And dove behind a nearby Cadillac. All the creature had time to do was start to look over in Mark’s direction before it was obliterated by a teeth rattling explosion.
Hundreds of body parts rained down everywhere. That may have been the most badass thing i have ever seen. It’s really a good thing that Mark started carrying grenades with him everywhere since the tall man incident! Cheering began erupting from all around the compound. But the celebration was short lived. As i jogged over to check on Mark, i noticed that the body parts were still moving. Not only that, but they were all moving towards the same central point. The yells of joy started dying down as more people began to realize that the thing was just putting itself back together.
Just as Mark started to grab for another grenade concealed somewhere on his body, i heard the familiar voice of Sonya screaming my name. “Cole! Take this, the woman that lived in the trees said you would know what to do with it!” With that, She tossed me what looked like an oversized minnow catching net. That didn’t make sense, there is no way in hell that this thing would be afraid of a net like the pales were, even if it was bigger. All my doubts melted away when i caught the net though, Sonya was right, i knew exactly what to do.
A wave of... something... came over me when my fingers made contact with the net. It was like an absolute certainty of something, but i wasn’t sure what exactly i was certain of. I looked down at the net and realized that where the weights were on a normal minnow net, this one medium sized rocks. On these rocks were symbols, or runes of some sort that i didn’t recognize. They would have been hard to see on the rocks if they weren’t glowing a bright blue color. Mark looked at me with a stare of confusion, then snapped back to reality and commanded “Get your ass in gear and use that thing!”
I bolted in the direction of the now half formed doll spider and slung the net over the wriggling mass of body parts. Nothing happened. The body parts kept moving into place and the net didn’t seem to phase the thing. “Well shit” i could hear Mark say to himself from behind me. Then it hit me! It was like i remembered something i had never even learned. Before i knew what i was doing the word “RAH’KULUT’CHAA” escaped escaped my mouth. Immediately, all of the once blue runes changed into a deep red and smoke started rising form the net. The beast managed to get one more half of a screech in before it, well, i guess it just kinda stopped existing?
While the cheering started to erupt again among the cultists, i immediately approached Sonya. Something she had said when she first approached me was hanging heavily on my mind. “So, do you mind explaining why you called her the the lady who lived in the trees and not the lady who lives in the trees” i said with more force than was probably necessary. “Look Cole, i know what you need to know, she came to me and explained everything. Yes, it’s our fault that some of these beasts exist, but the shapeshifter needs to be dealt with now and you are ready to take on that task. She came to me, Hector doesn’t even know, and she was certain that you would be able to fix this. Please just listen.”
The somber tone of the young woman’s voice told me that my suspicions were true, the lady in the tree hadn’t been hiding, or avoiding me this whole time. And that was really hard to swallow. This was the beginning of a path to a dark place that i hadn’t visited in years. I just hope that that Mark is willing to come with me.
There is more to this story but this entry is getting to long so I’m going to cut it off here and post the rest of this story at a later date. Until then, Cole, signing off.
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