Slaying demons, p.19
Slaying Demons, page 19
part #2 of Damsel Series
“Of course not. We don’t even have a car out here. Kate and I are going to hassle the crew. You two need to... Well, get some sleep, if you can. In a few hours, we’re going to start hitting the sides of the trailers. Max is in this with us, so when people come out, or call for help, he’s going to claim that he got hit, too. You two should come out and start screaming and carrying on, about seeing something in the woods. A big shadow, like bigfoot or something, but you didn’t get that good of a look? Don’t be specific, and insist on staying inside one of the trailers. We’ll try to ramp this up, going into morning, if we can. Those crumbs were planning to drop us out in the middle of the woods next week, or the week after. To really survive, with, like, only a knife. I’m not letting them do that to you two.” She meant that, since it would be asking for them to die.
Hannah might, if she had enough help, learn to do that kind of thing in time. It wouldn’t be fun, but she was willing to suffer a little, for the show, she guessed. Kate didn’t get a choice, but she was stronger than she seemed. The girls... well, they probably were as well.
She grimaced, realizing that, in her head, she’d started to do to them what everyone had always done to her, in life. Make them into damsels, to be protected, instead of thinking of them as people who could do that for themselves. It wasn’t a fun thing to realize about herself, but she simply accepted it, since she could go over all of that, later. When she wasn’t trying to single handedly run a prank that would probably be better if she really had Kate on her side.
Lara was, of course, a bit entitled and Terry was, clearly, about to crash from whatever drugs had been in her system, but both of them, slowly, agreed to help.
Terry sounded sleepy.
“’Kay. I’ll just... rest here for a bit?”
She was fine with that really. Even sleeping through the events was good with her. As long as they didn’t give things away before Kate got back. It was, she feared, going to be a long night. It wasn’t even midnight yet, after all.
“You should both try to get some sleep. The crew won’t be doing that. Not easily...”
Then she moved back, since they either got the plan or they didn’t. The next hours were spent with her, casually, and not that loudly, tossing rocks at the sides of trailers. Slowly, as she went on, the lights not going off in two of the four white and blue things, she ramped up the size of the things. She was careful, since she didn’t want to break the glass. That would have people running out and show that rocks were being thrown, not something supernatural happening.
At what she figured to be about two in the morning, after getting pretty good at throwing small stones a good way away, with Doug, Burt and Eric actually moving outside, to see if they could find out what was happening, with Eric on an actual camera, trying to capture it, she started to make sounds.
Hooting noises. Not like an owl, really. She made one sound, then, carefully, moved to a different location, so she wouldn’t be too easy to find. Then, feeling a little mean, she managed to cause a hail of stones to seem to fall from the sky, right on top of the three men. They were little, so tapped at them, instead of leaving welts. At least she hoped that was the affect.
Eric screamed.
“Fuck this! I’m out of here. This is... Some kind of ghost shit or something!”
The yelling had all the lights turned on, as Hannah moved back, well into the wood, capturing the antics on her camera, but not able to really hear anything. Max came out then and said something, which had the others heading inside, for some reason. She would have loved to know what he’d said, so she could use it, but not having that information, she... Froze and grinned.
“Alistair...” She was about to pester the kid, who was probably asleep for the night, when a voice spoke, in her head. It sounded amused.
~Wendigo. Cannibal spirits of the frozen north. Max told them that they can come out into the woods this far south, and suggested that they be careful, just in case. Burt called bullshit on it, and pretty much has it worked out that it’s you and Kate doing it. The others really bought that you two hired someone to pick you up, though they do think it’s to go off to a hotel, not just get laid like you implied. Not that Connie isn’t planning on some slander that way. She’s a bit miffed at both of you for bailing on her like this. She was, anyway. Now she’s half freaked out, thinking that some creeper is trying to drive them off.~
She answered, not speaking, which was handy.
~Thanks. So, why are you still awake?~
There was a laugh then.
~Um, watching you creep around pranking people? I was just checking in before bed, when I got that part of things. It’s wild. I’ll let you get back to that, now.~
A thing that she did then. Letting the noises stop for a bit. Then targeting Doug. Not because she hated the man, since she didn’t. He seemed nice, even. It was that he wasn’t running around with a camera. He was sharing a trailer with Eric though, meaning she had to be careful. That required more stones to be thrown, the things getting bigger and bigger, over the course of an hour. Then she tried a rain of pebbles again.
After that, she screamed. A single, loud, female sounding wail that lasted almost ten seconds. Instantly, on top of that, she moved, since it had, almost certainly, given her position away. As if on cue, both Terry and Lara charged the real campgrounds, stumbling and crying. Lara actually managed a scream as well, when she fell down, trying to scramble through the brush.
“God! Help! Help!” The panic was so real that Hannah nearly ran over to see what was going on. No one did that though, which meant that both women, seeming panicked, with Terry hyperventilating, pounded on Max’s trailer door. They probably didn’t know which one had different people in it, but that worked for her.
She was tempted to approach, but didn’t.
Instead she hid, and waited, moving closer to the restrooms. A place that had lights on it, so she rounded to the far side, and tried to think about what to do next. Thankfully, no one had to pee, so they didn’t just come and see her, back in the woods. She had to take her time, but by sneaking through the woods, back to the rough camp, she managed to get one of the buckets of water. Then, she had to go to the other, empty, side of the campgrounds, shivering in the cold, to fill the thing up, about half way, with water. It was incredibly loud, to her ears, so she waited, and moved slowly toward Eric and Doug’s trailer. Where the stones started to hit again. Over and over. At random intervals.
When she was certain no one was going to instantly run out, to see if a Wendigo was there to eat them, she moved up, as quietly as she could, the bucket not sloshing much as she did it, being smooth that way, now, when she tried. Then, at the end of the move, the bucket of water was splashed onto the window of the trailer. At the back. Instead of running away, she moved toward the thing and thanks to being small, was able to get under it, without having to be scraped up as she lay on the pavement. The bucket was metal, so she put that down, behind one of the tires, and laid still. As the people inside freaked the heck out. Giving her cover, with their mix of foul language and girlish screams.
To her surprise, since it was kind of brave of them, they did come outside and looked around. When they did, they were hit, by a small rain of stones. A thing that Hannah didn’t toss into the air at all. They ran inside, so, being careful, using their noise for cover, she moved out, into the woods. It took her actually sitting down, next to the bucket she’d snagged to bring with her, and dropping into a trance to find where Kate was.
That, it turned out, was about sixty feet behind her. She crawled over, whispering at about ten feet away.
“Katie?”
“Here! Al filled me in...”
Hannah grinned then, and shook her head.
“The mission went well?”
“Nothing much happened. We didn’t find anything new.”
Instead of going on for hours about what exactly hadn’t happened, Hannah grinned.
“Well, this is actually going better than I figured it would. We could... See how long we can keep this going? I need some footage of you doing things. Throwing rocks and all that. You should get me doing it as well.”
They took turns then, and, even if it was going to be missed the next day, didn’t sleep that night. They waited, and focused on Connie and Lewis, until about five in the morning. It wasn’t light yet, but they were about to be hit that way. Max and the girls were in a trailer with the lights off. Either getting lucky or sleeping. Probably the second one, if they were smart.
“I’m going to need some coffee.” She didn’t grumble about it, even if she yawned. Kate smiled, but nodded at the idea. Then she waved for Hannah to move with her. They picked on the guys in the crew again, except for Burt, since he’d already worked out who had to be behind the clever hazing. What Kate did was amazing though.
She pointed at what looked like a jack, on the side of the trailer, and then at the ground. It took a while for Hannah to get the idea. The pavement, while not slanted horribly, wasn’t totally flat. Then, in the dim morning light, she twisted a knob on the top of the thing, causing it to suddenly release, with a hiss, and a soft bang at the bottom, as the whole trailer shifted.
Then they ran off into the woods, both lying on the damp and cold dirt. Hannah was freezing, but smiled anyway. It was cold out. Enough that she could, now, see Kate’s breath on the air. Instead of doing any more, she moved to the camp and motioned for her dark-haired friend to come with her. They didn’t have any food, or that coffee, but they could have a fire. They even had enough wood left for that, without getting more just at that moment. There were, she realized, even coals in the bottom of the fire pit, under the ashes. That meant collecting some tinder, but she did that from the woods near the camp. Then, after ten minutes of blowing and huffing, with a bit of smoke going into her lungs, she had the fire started again. It wasn’t easy, but working from an ember took less effort than using a bow drill, for certain. Doing it that way kind of sucked, in fact.
Then they had to get their packs down from the tree that Max had hung them in, about ten feet up. They just needed to be untied, on the ground, but it was still impressive that the man had managed to do that kind of thing, in the dark. The plan then, was for both of them to take turns, going and showering. Which meant, at about seven, when everyone else finally came out, seeming exhausted, both she and Kate were at the fire, in clean clothing, looking fresh and pretending not to have been up all night.
Burt, seeming grumpy, moved over to them, and whispered, reaching them first.
“This was you two. Don’t lie about it.”
Kate nodded, holding a finger up to her lips.
“Yep. Don’t tell? We have a whole plan. We were at a hotel, if anyone asks?”
Hannah nodded then.
“Oh, hey, do you have any coffee? I think I can score the pot. We didn’t sleep at all last night, with our youthful shenanigans and all that. Also, can you claim to have seen us being driven in, about an hour or two ago?”
The man went still for a moment, then scowled.
“What’s in it for me, if I do?”
Hannah didn’t know what he was looking for, and either money or light sexual favors were on tap for a bribe, at least from her. Kate smiled at the man.
“A part in the show, when we get to the reveal? It won’t be huge, but we might as well have some fun with this.”
The man looked away then, but nodded, once.
“I’m in. Don’t get me fired?”
Hannah could see that as being real enough. She smiled at the man.
“I’m planning to hire you anyway, when this is done, so you have an assured job, if you want it. That ambulance trick is a good one. I need to get places for training and have been slacking off lately. At least in the parts where I meet with my instructors. Being able to get to the right places could really help.”
Burt, his beard well-kept and face strong, seemed happy enough with that idea.
“Sure? We could redecorate the inside of the van, if you want? That way, if we get stopped, it will look right inside. Let me get that coffee. I can bring the French press over? Then we just need hot water.”
That would be better than scraping the grounds off the top, so Hannah agreed, simply going to get a bucket of water, from the easily reached spigot. That meant she was seen, by Max and Lara when they came out of his trailer. Hannah winked in their direction and called out.
“Did you two hook up? Nice. A bit of poaching there, Lara. Since I kind of called him first, but, oh well. He does have that sweet trailer going on.”
They moved toward her, with Eric and Doug behind them, about twenty feet back. Lara might not have been the most reliable person on the planet, but when it came to covering for her friends, she was an old pro.
“Where were you? There was... I don’t even know! Terry and I saw something, in the woods. That way?” She pointed for reference, seeming scared still. “It was huge, Hannah! I couldn’t tell what it was, really. It was too dark. Maybe nothing... Anyway, you left us here, all alone! Terry was crying. I want to go home.”
Eric, being wise about his job, had a camera out and Doug was hitting them with a shotgun mic, at a distance. Meaning they were being listened to.
“What? That’s not... Kate and I just hired a guy to take us to the hotel. Tonight, we’ll stay here, I guess. There’s nothing... I know it was probably scary. I should have stayed. Come with me. We’re making some coffee. We ended up waking Burt up, when we came in.”
That explained the man coming back, with everything they needed for a nice bitter brew. She needed to get a pot, but those were in Max’s trailer, so he did that for them. By the time the water was boiling and the first cups filled, Connie, Lewis, Darnel and Tiffany were there, looking a bit shell shocked.
Which they totally deserved, for what they were going to be doing, later.
Kate pretended not to notice, covering that they’d just gone to the Holiday Inn, about fifty miles away. Hannah recalled the name, in case it came up, later. Then, as if nothing had happened, they got breakfast going and listened to the people freak out, just a bit.
It was funny, and Terry managed to do a credible job acting, when it was her turn. It was, almost as if she’d forgotten that the thumping and sounds weren’t real.
Chapter thirteen
Several things changed that day. Max had her make a gravity water filter using a two-liter bottle, gravel, sand and some grass that she’d found alongside the stream. They used puddle water, found near there, to show that it actually cleared the liquid up, a lot. It wouldn’t, obviously, remove bacteria.
To that end, she could use boiling, which she figured out on her own, or she could use a bit of bleach or water purifying tablets. She did all of them, and had to leave the water sitting out, after that, so it would cool or to let the bleach evaporate. Then the man had her grab a piece of bark, and put a heap of ash on it, then use a stick to carry it to a different camp. Without burning herself too much. A camp that she had to build up, all on her own. Eric was with her, seeming uneasy the whole time. Tired as well. She faked energy, since it was part of her plan for the day. She was going to need to sleep that night. Kate would, too. Hopefully that would be allowed.
When she had the whole camp made, Max grinned at her.
“Not bad. Now... Take it apart. Tomorrow you get to teach the others to do this, so don’t forget what you did. If we hurry, you can get dinner going. I want you to walk your friends, Lara and Terry, through that. They were a bit worked up, after last night. Doing something normal might help them feel better.” There was no indication about what that had really been.
For the camera.
Eric took a deep breath, and spoke, which he wasn’t supposed to do, on the job. Not while the cam was going.
“That was... I nearly left, today. I got it all on cam, so... I can’t. I have to stay. This is hard. What if something dangerous is out there?”
Max shrugged.
“This... It could be a lot of things. We all know that supernatural things actually exist. There have been too many people floating around, or walking through walls in the press for us not to get that one. At the same time, it could have been a weird weather phenomenon or even some hill people who just want us to move along. Bigfoot, maybe? I’ve never been sure on that one, but I’ve seen some strange things, out in the woods. Most of it is dangerous, if you don’t treat it with respect.”
That was simply the truth. Hannah had to fight a yawn, which was harder to do than it sounded like.
“I can see that. Still... That stuff you’re talking about sounds like bull droppings, Eric. Are you sure that Terry didn’t pass out some acid last night? I know she said she didn’t have anything, but...” That was probably being mean, but the girl did like her drugs. She did a lot of different things, and didn’t really seem to worry about being kidnapped or raped while she was out of it. Hannah knew that the last one had, at least technically, happened to her friend a half dozen times.
She’d never pressed charges, since, to her, if you passed out with a guy right there, it was only fair of them to do what they wanted. As long as she wasn’t hurt. Hannah felt very differently on that one, but Terry lived her own life and did it her way, most of the time. In an odd way, she took responsibility for what happened to her. That was a different thing than Hannah had ever considered before.
That Terry, who was never responsible outwardly at all, was still living her life by rules and some kind of moral code. Sure, that was a thing that didn’t make sense to sane, sober people, but Hannah kind of got it. It had just never been her way. She’d done the drugs and drank, a good bit, but never to the point where she wasn’t aware of her surroundings. Then there had been the last kidnapping attempt, which had been about killing her, not taking her away, as it turned out. Which meant that her having been sober enough to fight, at least a bit, had probably saved her life that night.
