Howl of the Heavens ch.03

     On the dark unlit road from Pine Ridge to Brooksville a single green pick up truck speeds along with but a single person inside it. He is Mike, a man who has dedicated his life to eliminating evil in this world. Due to the mountains nothing could be heard but static on the radio and nothing to see in the dark but what lay in the headlights; however his training had taught him to be aware of what was in the darkness beyond the light. All around him are Trees, shrubs, tall grasses, and the occasional raccoon nothing more for him to think about leaving his mind to wander.

 

     He thinks back to what had brought him here to the middle of no where in the first place. He had finally arrived home in Phoenix Arizona after weeks of hunting skin walkers and a rogue Chupacabra, only to find a message from his old partner Rick on his answering machine informing him of a possible werewolf in the Rocky Mountains of northern California. Rick’s message told him about a man named Jeff Jones; giving him the man's address and phone number along with the few details. The message told him it was this man who was concerned about their being a possible werewolf in the area.

 

    Mike called Mr. Jones asking him about this werewolf sighting of his. Mr. Jones told him about how ever since he was a little boy a woman with grey hair would come to the trading post which was now a gas station once every three months. Mr. Jones’ father had told him he had seen the same woman all his life as had his grandfather and so on back to his fur trading ancestor who had founded the trading post in the first place. Mike, of course, was sure to ask if it wasn't maybe a different woman, but Mr. Jones insisted no one ever saw a little girl, a different woman, or even an older woman. He stated that like clock work once every three months a woman with the exact same description would go to that trading post.

 

    Mr. Jones went on to tell him how his dad had told him and his own two sons not to point out to her or take notice of anything strange she might do. Mr. Jones told him that every time his dad said this it was like he was in a trance. He had learned from his grandson Nick, who had gone to college, that this is called a conditioned behavior like something caused by hypnotism. He said he would still be running that trading post except that he was afraid of that strange woman because of something that had happened a few years before.

 

    Mike is brought back to reality by a raccoon darting into the road, swerving he just misses the seemingly suicidal vermin.

 

     "Well" he thinks to himself "the old man's story isn't any different than most werewolf stories; he was hunting he saw the woman in the distance through the scope on his rifle and before his eyes she changed into a large biped wolf."

 

     Mike notices the sign for the Brooksville Lodge; and turns off into the small parking lot. It is literally a lodge, at least partially. The front is an old building made from logs, however it has more modern sections that were clearly added in recent years. Inside he signs in at the desk with its sleepy late night attendant and is surprised to find they charge by the day, week, or even month. The desk clerk explains that this is because most people that come out there are hiking or on vacation, or even on a retreat.

 

     Mike looks about his new surroundings at the old lodge with log walls, rustic carpets, old wood windows, and even a large grandfather clock at one corner of the room set off by the newer couches and coffee table in the center of the lobby. Yet it has modern drywall hallways going out the back towards the rooms. Above his head is a walkway facing the lobby cordoned off by a fake looking wood railing like something from some old cowboy movie. He shrugs off these things, its too late and he’s too tired to really care as he walks back past the wood floor into the modern hallway.

 

      “Not as glamorous looking as those visible from the lobby” he thinks while looking for his room.

 

    After getting to his room Mike thinks back to what happened at the trading post in Pine Ridge. He had gone there to check on Mr. Jones’s story. Even before going in he had had an uneasy feeling about the place, he had intended to simply wait inside to scope out this "grey haired woman". Mr. Jones had given him the date when she was expected to be there. But a little after he got there a strange man, that for some reason at the time made him feel nervous; although he still wasn't sure why, had entered the place asking the attendant, who he guessed must have been Mr. Jones’s son Paul who Mr. Jones had told him was running the place now, questions. Straight away from Paul he re-heard the history of the town; which strangely enough included the story of the grey haired woman whom Paul clearly thought was strange, but he had apparently come to his own conclusions about her.  

 

    Despite his weird feeling about the stranger Mike asked the attendant questions about the grey haired woman, he wasn't sure why but this seemed to bother the stranger in the trench coat. The attendant, Paul, was also suspicious of him for asking about her.

 

     "well" Mike thinks to himself aloud, "Mr. Jones had said his father had told him and his sons Paul and Peter not to think much about this woman"

 

    Mike guesses that it probably had a lot to do with business, looking back to that trading post there was literally no one besides himself and the stranger in the trench coat in there. He had expected a more public setting, something safer than that place to see this woman; if she was some kind of werewolf then surely she would be able to smell the trace of lycanthrope blood on him. He had slipped up and told Paul he was a monster hunter, thinking back to his old partner Rick who had been there not long ago he told both Paul and the stranger (who had become noticeably un-easy when he called himself a monster hunter) that he was a big foot hunter. That seemed to calm them both.

 

    What happened next though didn't make any since, he asked Paul again if this was the night the woman showed up and Paul had gone zombie on him and basically said no. He had seen this before in the Caribbean when he was hunting a Loup-Garou sorcerer who had control over locals but they had behaved in the zombified manner the first time he asked them any thing not the second time like this fellow. He had thought at the time that this was the work of a weaker sorcerer but still, alone in a gas station in the middle of no where with a stranger that for some reason made him un-easy, a potentially zombified man, a possible werewolf coming soon, and him having left his weapons in the truck that this had been a bad situation.

 

    He is sure now that something was up but it would be better for him to get his thoughts together and get some more information before confronting this mystery woman.

 

    "So here I am" he thinks with a slight chuckle, "alone in my room getting my thoughts together."

 

    He can’t help thinking back to that stranger; what was it about him? Something nagging at the back of his mind that just wasn't right...then it hit him.

 

     "That’s it!" he yells out loud, answered back by a bang on the wall and the person the next room over yelling at him to shut the hell up.  

 

    "Impossible" he thinks, careful now to keep his thoughts to himself, "I saw that man before I got to the trading post. He was walking towards Pine Ridge, but he was next to the sign so he was, oh my God, he was thirty miles from the town. But he got to the station just minutes after I did; so that means he had to have traveled at least 45 miles per hour to get there. He must have been another monster; did she expect me and send for back up? What ever the reason this may be more difficult than I had thought at least now I know there is something going on."

 

    He turns off his light and settles in for the night un-aware of what he has really gotten himself into.