As a rookie paranormal researcher, I knew better than to hog the campfire. Even if my orthodontist practice paid for all of our gear. My place was to suck my hydration tube and listen.
Jameson raised a flashlight to his chin. “I was driving down Highway 11 when I saw a rack of antlers in the middle of the road.”
Jameson cleared roadkill for a living. He’d noticed a spike in calls around the Kettle Moraine State Forest, right where we’d pitched our tents.
“The buck was so big, I had to use a winch to get him in the truck. Then had to shift his antlers so they couldn’t hurt the other drivers. Satisfied, I hopped back in, turned the ignition, and prepared to turn. That’s when my cab shook. I heard a sharp screeching, like nails on a chalkboard, followed by a gong, and a hard wet splash. I reached for my shotgun, stepped out of my pickup, and gave it a wide berth. The antlers were missing. Something took the deer. Something powerful enough rip my tailgate right off. I cast my spotlight on the road and found a trail of blood leading toward the woods.”
Jameson’s shoulders rose as he took a big theatrical breath. “That’s when I saw it. First the glowing green eyes, then the muzzle dripping with viscera, and the claws as long sickles.”
Jameson tilted his head back as if he could see it now. “He stood as tall as a grizzly, with the hind legs of a wolf. He raised his snout in my direction. One apex predator sensing another. Long ropes of slobber streaked through his teeth. He stood on one leg, kicked the other out into the road, and urinated all over the carcass. I damn near pissed myself, thinking, ‘That’s one way to tag a kill.’”
Jameson made a cocking motion. “I fired a single round. The trees shook, the nighthawks fluttered, and the squirrels scattered, but the creature didn’t flinch. I aimed both barrels in his direction. He locked his jaws and dragged the deer into the dark. I backed all the way up into the driver’s seat, locked my doors, and peeled the hell out of there.”
Jameson jerked an imaginary wheel and leaned back on his log.
“I got home, booted up my laptop, and opened a dozen tabs. It turns out 100s of people have seen this thing, from the 1930s until now. They call it the Beast of Bray Road.”
“You didn’t see the Beast of Bray Road.” Ryan said with a mocking sing-song tone.
Jameson narrowed his gaze at the young web developer, who had no clue of the trouble he’d stepped in. “I saw what I saw.”
Ryan’s smile widened. “No, you saw the Beast of Highway 11.”
We all had a good laugh. I wanted to ask if the creature left foot prints, if he took photos of the blood trail, or the claw marks on his truck, but I knew better than to question Jameson’s recollection, especially since I’d yet to have an encounter of my own.
We spent the weekend combing through the woods, but we didn’t find anything. No wolves. No bears. No wolves the size of bears. Just deer, the last thing any of us were hunting.
We trekked back to the lot, collecting our cameras as we went. I’d sprung for thermal imaging sensors and was eager to see what they picked up. Ryan asked where we should screen the footage. I mentioned that my home theater had a wet bar and hosting duties fell to me. I never imagined that that decision would bring the paranormal to my front door.
Eager to impress, I strung a CRYPTID COALITION banner across my garage door. With my freak flag high, I turned the rest of my home into a monster museum. Drivers were welcomed by a 12-foot skeleton dressed like the Flatwoods Monster, with a spade-shaped hood, bright red eyes, and long flowing skirt. After they parked, they might just spot the gray alien lawn ornaments. Almond eyes peeked out from the tree, through Lauren’s lilacs, and the railing for the deck.
Once inside, guests were encouraged to follow the Bigfoot prints. The tracks wound through cases of roadside collectables: Fresno Nightcrawler travel tumblers. Goat Man coffee blends. Enfield Horror bottle openers. Dover Demon Drink Koozies. Lizard Man License plates. Skunk Ape Scorch Sauce.
If our passions weren’t clear, the family photos made them obvious. Here we were touring the cemeteries in Salam Massachusetts. Here we were outside the UFO museum in Roswell New Mexico. Here we were honeymooning at the Stanley Hotel.
Above the frames, hung a sculpture of the Loch Ness monster. Its nylon neck directed guests into the home theater. This was no mere TV stand. This was an actual theater, with a projection screen, cinema seating, and Dolby surround sound. My guests settled in while the theme from Unsolved Mysteries set the tone. I couldn’t help but smile, watching them marvel at the backlit stencils of shadow people, at the ceiling cove of UFOs, at Lauren’s crocheted cryptids.
The guests hung their jackets and I lost count of I WANT TO BELIEVE patches. These were long-haired Gen Xers, rocking ironic flat earth t-shirts. These were bearded millennials, mustaches waxed into curls. These were bike mechanics, tattoo artists, and web developers, brought together by a singular passion.
They were drawn to the SKINWALKER BREWERS sign behind the bar. They took turns complimenting me on my red smoking jackets, just like the one worn by like Lloyd the bartender in The Shining. I set out the cocktail menu. The drinks all had names like: The Wendigo Whiskey Sour, Yeti’s Frosty Martini, and Nessie’s Nightcap.
Stumper watched from the top shelf. Stumper was a stuffed rabbit with antlers. An original Herrick’s brothers’ Jackalope. A classic piece of chimera taxidermy. Stumper tracked my wife, Lauren, as she worked the room.
Lauren offered newcomers Moth Man antennae, directed them to the Sasquatch selfie station, and regaled them with her terrible jokes.
“Why did the El Chupacabra refuse to feed on Greyson? Because even Chupacabra doesn’t suck that hard.”
Laughter filled the room, until someone saw a bob of red hair. Anette, the skeptic, threw her jacket over Ryan’s arm. Ryan stood a head taller than her; a fact made more apparent by the trench coat he wore. We told him it made him look like David Duchovny, so he never took it off. We never told him we thought he was only with Anette because she bore a passing resemblance to Gillian Anderson.
It seemed only fitting, The X-Files theme came on.
Lauren offered Ryan a cryptid cookie, but his bitter half would have none of it. Anette preferred to dine on a cigarette.
Panicked, Lauren flashed her palms. “I need the keys for the case with the Hoop Snake ashtray.”
I fumbled through the hooks beneath the counter. When I emerged, a strange woman had entered the room.
She wore a bright red jacket made for a jaunt in the brush, with ample pouches and long self-belt. When she hung it up, she revealed the rest of her getup. You know that khaki outfit elephant hunters used to wear? Palette swap that with scarlet. Tall riding boots. Flared hip breeches. Travel vest full of pockets. A shirt with a high mandarin collar. A cravat around her neck. She looked like a firefighter on safari.
All eyes were on her, but her eyes were on me and those pale blue flames lit up when they saw my countertop.
“You have a smoker?” She pointed to the stainless-steel contraption with nary a fingerprint on it.
“Sure, do ma’am.” I raised the smoke gun, like a marshal in an old western.
“The keys, the keys.” Lauren shouted.
I threw them without looking.
The woman in red tapped her long-armored ring to her lips. “Do you know how to make a dragon’s breath cocktail?”
My fingers tapped the menu. “We call it the Jersey Devil’s Inferno.”
“I’ll have one of those.” She winked.
No one told me to buy a smoker, nor did they ask if I had elderflower liqueur, but somehow, I knew I needed them tonight. Carl Jung called this synchronicity. When two unrelated events shared a profound connection. I had a feeling synchronicity followed this woman everywhere she went.
I set a glass on the counter, tilted it so, and ran the tube in. It fogged over as I shook the ice. By the time I’d stirred the ingredients, the smoke had become a storm. The woman dug through her vest. When she looked up, she found a snifter full of fire. She took it gladly and set a gold coin upon the counter.
The theme from Stranger Things boomed over the speakers.
“They’re playing my song.” The woman raised her glass.
My eyes sparkled, thinking she’d given me a Bitcoin. On closer inspection, I found a crude rendering of a king, sword and shield in hand, no key number, just a Latin circumscription. Still, I knocked on the counter to be polite.
Lauren, materialized beside me. “Who’s the lion tamer?”
“Beats the hell out of me.”
The screenings went well. Well enough for infrared pixels stretched across a big screen. Each researcher presented their movement events and we debated if they were proof of anything.
Greyson swore he saw a snout and a pair of wolf ears. We paused, drew an outline with a laser pointer, and we all concurred. Then we tracked the subject as it dashed across the screen. It vanished before reaching the end.
Jameson walked down the aisle so he could cast a shadow. “Do you see that? It’s walking on its toes.”
“It’s call a digitigrade stance.” Anette interjected.
“Digit grade.” Jameson nodded, “Which is why its heel is here, its knee is here, and its tail is there.”
“Where’s the rest of him?” Anette stated the obvious.
“Where indeed?” Jameson drew a straight line down the center of the screen. Right where the subject disappeared.
Paranormal researchers have long suspected why some creatures prove more ellusive than others. It’s the reason why the Hopkinsville Goblins disappeared when they were shot, why they never found a freshwater plesiosaur, and why bigfoot prints never lead to its den.
Jameson snapped. “Spiritual beings have the ability to slip between realities. Trail cameras can only get us so far. We need to follow the synchronicities.”
Synchronicity led my attention back to the woman in red, sitting alone, rolling a coin across her knuckles.
“Synchronicities?” Anette crossed her arms.
“Strange coincidences.” The lights in Jameson’s eyes sparked. “I see a wolf man on the side of the road. My wife hears howling in her dreams. Two random events connected by forces we’ve yet to understand.”
Anette waved her cigarette. “Or your wife heard a coyote and her subconscious picked up on it.”
Jameson pointed to Anette like her contradiction confirmed his suspicions. “We need to document our experiences, out there and in our lives. The answers are in our collective unconscious. We figure out how they’re linked and we can catch one of these things.”
“I caught one.” The strange woman pointed her armored ring to the screen. “Not that one, but I caught a cryptid.”
Now it was Jameson’s turn to cross his arms. “And how exactly did you manage that?”
“With a magical artifact.”
That got a laugh, but the strange woman didn’t flinch.
“Who are you?” Jameson couldn’t help but ask.
The woman leaned over the edge of her seat. “One should never give their name freely,” Her brow lowered into the shadows. “It gives people power over you.”
Jameson froze. Anette turned with her eyes wide and her smile agape. Lauren, looked to me like I should do something.
Then the woman broke into a laugh. “My name is Mahthildis.” She waved her armored ring around the room. “I heard about this online. Figured it might be a good place to share my experience.”
Satisfied, Jameson yielded the floor to her.
Mahthildis smoothed her pockets, stepped into the light, and launched into a lecture. “To catch a cryptid, first you must weaken it, but you can’t do that with traps or buckshot.” She waved her hand over the subject on screen. “They’re spiritual beings. You have to target their lifeforce. To do that you need something elemental.” She drew a star with her armored ring. “Air, fire, water, earth, and spirit. The trick is to find which elements your cryptid is strong in and which they’re sensitive too.”
“Like Pokémon?” Ryan interjected.
Mahthildis tilted her ear. “Like what?”
“Pokémon. You know, Mewtwo, Charizard, Jigglypuff?”
Mahthildis’s face went flush. “Are these aquatic or terrestrial animals?”
“They’re an international phenomenon.” Ryan held the weight of the franchise in his hands. “Video games, deck builders, an animated series. Detective Pikachu? Sword and Shield? Pokémon Go?”
Mahthildis stared off into the middle distance.
“You know.” Ryan sang the theme. “Pokémon! Gotta cach ‘em all?”
Mahthildis shook her head. “Do you want to be a cryptid catcher, because I’m the best there ever was?”
Ryan tented his fingers. “Sure, please, enlighten me.”
Mahthildis drew her phone, tapped the screen, and a headline appeared behind her.
MIRACULOUS ESCAPE: SCOUTS OUTRUN INFERNO
The photo featured a raging wildfire.
I pointed to the projector. “How did you…?”
Mahthildis showed her screen. “I have the same app as you.”
Before I could ask how she managed to pair it over my secured network, she shifted my attention to the caption:
THE SCOUTS CLAIM THE FIRE WAS STARTED BY A CREATURE.
“A troop of scouts saw something near a cave in Hot Springs, South Dakota.”They said it had long ears, and longer antlers, and that it stood on its hind legs, like a polar bear. Some said it hissed, others said it growled. Some claimed it didn’t see them, while others said it gave them the side eye. The one thing they all agreed on was that it didn’t walk, it hopped, straight through the ponderosa pines, leaving a trail of embers in its wake.
The scouts stood around debating what they’d scene, while something crackled in the underbrush. They followed the sound only find an ominous glow from the tree line. The forest had caught fire. Soon the sky turned black. The scout leader scanned the canopy, noted the way the smoke was leaning, and took his troop in the opposite direction.
They ran downhill, found a trail, and followed it to the road. The inferno caught up with them, tipping trees in their direction, filling up their little lungs. A long-haul trucker found the scouts face down in the middle of the road, breathing in the pavement. Needless to say, they all earned their Survival Badge that day.
The fire claimed 500 acres of wildlife before officials could snuff it out. No one else saw the creature, but I wanted to pick through the area for clues. So, I dusted off my pith helmet and went on a hunt.
The location didn’t line up with anything in the Wind Cave system. At least, nothing charted. So, I cross referenced the road map with NASA’s Earth Data Search Portal, and discovered a cavern. A cavern that was smack dab in the middle of the closure area. I’d have to deal with fences, park rangers, and a fleet of drones.
The bolt cutters were easy to procure, but the drone jammer provded difficult. My counter surveillance specialist had gone missing, which left me to find a creative solution. I procured a drone spotter, a transmitter, and a battery. The problem? I couldn’t hold all three at once. I needed to aim the antenna, see through the eyepiece, and fire. I scrolled through thumbnail after thumbnail of hunting rifles, but they were too heavy, too narrow, too trackable.
I’d all but given up, when something occurred to me. I didn’t need a gun. I needed something shaped like a gun. That’s when I discovered the Super Scope, a Nintendo peripheral built like a bazooka. This toy, with its big orange aperture, made the ideal housing for my drone disruptor.
That night, I parked along the closure area, popped my trunk, and aimed my creation at the constellations. The shoulder mount helped with the weight and the firing button made it feel like a video game. Spot a flashing light, tap the trigger. Spot a quadcopter, tap the trigger. Spot a star that wasn’t supposed to be there, trigger. The drones didn’t stand a chance.
Now, all I had to worry about were falling trees, landslides, and ashpits.
I arrived at the cavern covered in bruises, scratches, and soot. After a moment to shake my hair out, I strapped on a harness, secured a descent line, and switched on a headlamp. Satellite images had prepared me for a vertical shaft, but they hadn’t prepared me for the 300-foot drop. The cavern opened into a pit, a circular silo of sedimentary rock. The squeak of my rappel rack was soon overtaken by the heft of my breathing.
As I neared the bottom, a strange mist whirled around my ankles. A blanket of fog covered the floor, opening only for the eggs poking through its surface.
“Eggs?” Ryan raised his hand. “Like the face huggers in Aliens?”
Mahthildis waved that notion away. “These were avian embryos. What was odd was how many there were.”
They came in all shapes and sizes. Some as small as my thumb. Some as big as my fist. Some with rust brown splotches others with bright purple speckles. Some teal. Some white. But there were no signs of a nest. No momma birds to care for them. Unlatching myself from the dive line, I tiptoed toward the wall.
Crack. Crunch. Splorch. Yolk sprayed from under my boot heel.
Something shuddered. I’d tripped its organic alarm system and we were both in for a rude awakening. I cast my beam in its direction and that’s when I saw the antlers, great racks of bone, wider than my open arms. Between them, stood a pair of ears as tall as pope hats.
The creature peeled himself from a bed of leaves. His thick meaty arms pushed off the floor and he stood on his hindlegs just like a polar bear. I panned my beam up his cotton tail, his rocky spine, and broad shoulders. The creature had the body of a giant, the horns of a deer, and the face of a jack rabbit. This was the Easter Jackalope, a fire-type cryptid, with a fondness for eggs.
The Jackalope turned his head and looked on me with an eye as red as Hell itself. Then he spun around, leapt up, and dug into the rockface. He climbed partway up the shaft before shifting sideways, circling the wall with the greatest of ease. His antlers glowed as he gained momentum and sparks trailed behind them. It didn’t take long for the horns to ignite, for the shaft to turn orange, and for the air to fill with cinders.
I’d fallen into a ring of fire.
The Jackalope didn’t need to take me on. He just needed to burn up all the oxygen.
“Hold up.” Annette called a time out. “Rabbits don’t grow antlers. They grow tumors that look like antlers. It’s called the Shope papilloma virus. It’s common and there’s nothing magical about it.” Annette waved her secondhand smoke toward the front of the room. “But what you’re describing sounds like a man in a costume.”
Mahthildis cocked her hip. “Then why did he react to my elemental attack?”
Unbeknownst to the Jackalope, I came bearing relics, objects of power, made all the more powerful by the creatures inside them. Some call them Primordial Spheres, others call them Cosmic Cradles, but I’ve always known them as the Orbs of Blood and Bone.
With these orbs, anyone can catch a cryptid. All you have to do is find them when they’re young, strengthen them with runes, and train them in your war room. They’ll present their elemental abilities and you can log them in your bestiary.
The Easter Jackalope was strong with fire, so I needed a cryptid who could stomp him out. I reached into my pocket and filled my fist. My thumb ran over the cold slick surface until it found the opening mechanism. Then I threw my orb across the room.
Ryan raised his hand again.
“What?” Mahthildis said, with her arm outstretched as if to throw a pitch.
Ryan pointed to her vest. “Your bestiary, does it fit into your pocket?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And the Orb of Blood and Bone, is it red and white?”
“Of course, it is.”
“So, you catch monsters, evolve them with stones, and train them in a gym?”
“Correct.”
“You’re a Pokémon trainer.”
Mahthildis curled her fingers in frustration. “I have never heard that word before tonight.”
Ryan spun around, checking to see if anyone else saw through the hoax this strange woman was putting on.
Jameson pointed down in front. “She’s just getting to the good part.”
Annette tugged Ryan to his seat, rolling her eyes as if to say, “Let the baby have her bottle.”
“As I was saying.” Mahthildis raised her leg and cocked her arm back.
“Mothman, I choose you!”
I threw the first orb. It burst open and a pillar of light shot up the cavern. The mist washed over a long prone figure. He might’ve looked like a man in a coat, had it not been for the antennae unrolling from his forehead. His feathery feelers shot up, sensing the thinning of the air. Mothman rose to his knees. His long leather skirt spread open and formed into wings, revealing the intricate details of his slick exoskeleton. He turned and cast a hundred little lenses in my direction.
I pointed to the ring of fire. “Mothman, use Indrid Cold!”
Mothman cast a skyward claw, thrust his pinions, and sprang up. Each flap of his wings sounded like a great sail unfurling. Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. Frost formed as they gained momentum. A vortex of snowflakes swirled before him. Mothman flapped his wings faster until they blurred, like a human hummingbird. Then he unleashed a blizzard.
The Jackalope kept right on running, only to slide upon the ice, smack into the rock face, and ricochet. He bounced off the wall, leapt at the Mothman, and used Hot Poker on him. The Mothman’s exoskeleton shielded his organs, but the antlers cut straight through his wings. He came spiraling down, crashing in a wave of egg yolks.
I pointed to the Jackalope galloping in my direction. “Mothman, use Prophecy of Doom!”
But the Mothman didn’t answer my command. He didn’t so much as twitch.
The Jackalope lowered its horns to use Hot Poker on me. I rolled out of the way, in a fairly graceful motion, apart from the yolks running down my arms.
I threw a second orb. “El Chupacabra, I choose you.”
The Jackalope shielded its eyes.
A fin rose through the mist, followed by cheek pouches, and a line of dorsal spines. Spikes grew from its arms and claws extended from its hands. Scales stretched over wide jutting hips. El Chupacabra threw his head back and flicked his tongue. It stuck out as long as a windsock.
“Hold up.” Annette exhaled as she waved out another match. “They found a Chupacabra. It wasn’t reptilian. It was canine, like a coyote, but with mites. It fed on livestock, because it was too sick to hunt.”
“That’s the Mexican Chupacabra.” Mahthildis tapped her lip. “I’m talking about the Puerto Rican one.”
Ryan chimed in. “Didn’t the sole witness base her description off the alien from Species?”
Mahthildis extended her armored ring to Ryan and Annette. “You two watch too many movies.”
Now, El Chupacabra’s vision is based on movement, so I had to grab him by the membranes and steer him in the right direction. The Jackalope rested its body on the balls of its feet, a runner crouching behind the starting line.
I pointed. “El Chupacabra, use Paralytic Mist!”
El Chupacabra hunched over, puffed his cheeks, and sprayed a fountain of sludge. The Jackalope used Accelerant Sprint.
The spray ignited. Flame arced over the cavern and went right back down the reptile’s throat.
Bewildered, El Chupacabra staggered around. He reached out for his mother. I leapt to his side only to fall back. Something rumbled inside his maw. His cheeks ballooned out. The pouches shifted from green to orange. He tried to swallow it, but his ribcage glowed red. Soon he was just a fireball with legs. Then just legs. Then they split apart.
I caught the antlers before they could run through my chest. The Jackalope craned his neck, lifted me off my feet, and used Deep Impact. We turned into a comet hurtling toward the wall. I kicked my boots out and found myself pressed between a rock and a hard place. The Jackalope lumbered forward. My biceps buckled and my calves began to cave. Then an orb fell from my pocket and rolled between his legs. A shell got caught beneath its opening mechanism.
I peered into the Jackalope’s blood thirsty eyes. “Let’s fucking do this.”
The shaft filled with light and the Jackalope fell back. Freed from his embrace, I scampered along the cavern.
“Sasquatch, I choose you!”
The earth trembled, the eggs rolled, and pebbles rained down all around. An enormous primate rose through the mist as if he were walking up a staircase. Boom. Boom. Boom. His every stride a treefall. His every step a thunderclap. His head was as big as my vest. His hands were as wide as my belt. And his feet were as long as my boots were tall. Wind rippled up his chestnut coat, over his broad shoulders, and his ash gray beard. All hail the King of Earth and Stone.
Sasquatch saw the remains of his fallen brethren and thumped his chest. His hurt reverberated throughout the cavern. He looked on me with amber eyes, eyes tinged with tears and I felt but a fraction of his pain.
The Jackalope’s antlers fizzled. He knelt down as if to draw power from the earth’s core. Soon his entire skeleton started glowing. Orange, then white, then blue. His whiskers fell flat against his face. Smoke billowed from its ears. I knew one name for the move he was preparing: Massive Mushroom Cloud.
I huffed in the Jackalope’s general direction. “Sasquatch, smash.”
Sasquatch used Seismic Shakedown by pounding the ground.
A chasm formed beneath the Jackalope, breaking his connection from the power he was drawing on. Desperate, the Jackalope thrust his antlers into the darkness. Something erupted beneath our feet. The air grew thick, wavey, and hot. The shaft filled with the stench of sulfur and the chasm filled with molten rock. The Jackalope had used Lava Landside. Now magma bubbled through the cracks.
I hugged the wall, but Sasquatch couldn’t step away in time. His feet were too big. Flames shot through his toes, the pads sizzled, and the fur flared. A great howl echoed up the walls, spooking owls for miles around.
Sasquatch hopped back and forth, but his bunions had blistered over. They popped open and the fluid went up like bacon grease. He fell forward but he caught himself, before he could belly-flop. He pressed his knuckles to the cavern floor and thrust his feet into the air. His biceps bulged, and the veins showed through the fur. He wheezed through his new center of gravity. Then he spun around to face his enemy.
Sasquatch handstand-walked in the Jackalope’s direction. He was going to get a hit in or die trying.
“Sasquatch, use Nature’s Fury!”
Sasquatch pawed the ground to twist himself around, bending his legs in opposite directions until he’d worked up some momentum. Then he left his head to spin, a break-dancer bent on destruction. Sasquatch twirled around and around, drawing mist into his cyclonic wind. Egg yolks painted a ring around him. Sasquatch’s wrath swirled up the shaft, drawing in long blades of grass. The strength of his tornado made it harder and harder to hug the wall.
The Jackalope tried to run around the shaft, to draw a ring a of fire in the opposite direction, but the funnel drew him in.
I had one orb left, an orb with nothing in it. Nothing but a gyroscopic propulsion system. I reached into my pocket and slid my hand into a Power Glove, another Nintendo peripheral I’d repurposed. This one served as a remote control. A function that proved crucial to navigate the lava flow.
I bowled the orb, raised the glove, and steered it through the egg shells. A fountain of lava sprayed across the room, but I flicked my hand before the orb could burn. A fissure opened, but I waved the orb in the other direction. Rubble crashed into its path, but I made a fist before the orb could impact.
I love the Powerglove. It’s so bad.
“Yes, I remember.” Annette scoffed at Ryan. “You made us watch that movie.”
•••
The orb approached the cyclone. Soon it would fly into the air. So, I entered the Pyramid Head Cypher into the glove: UP, UP, DOWN, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT, RIGHT, B, A, START.
The orb opened as the updraft raised it off the ground. Light whirled around the cavern. The Jackalope waved his arms, desperate to swim back toward the wall. He positioned his antlers to bat the orb away, but it was too late, I’d already pressed the A button.
I squeezed my eyes tight as the shaft filled with light. The last echoes of the storm passed, and the cavern fell silent. When I opened my eyes, the tornado had roped-out, the lava had dimmed, and the chasms had all filled in. I pushed off the wall, ran to the center of the room, and jumped. When I landed, steam shot through my fingers. I’d caught the Orb of Blood and Bone.
Mahthildis took a bow, a performance artist with a captive audience, too polite to boo her off. In fact, they clapped. Happy to be lampooned for an evening if it meant they felt seen. Mahthildis curtsied.
Suddenly her flared breeches made sense. She’d dressed like a figure from an old club story. The outsider who regales lesser hunters with her exploits. It felt like a tacky stunt from some lowbrow prank show. I had half a mind to search the room for hidden cameras. I didn’t, but I kept track of her movements.
Mahthildis mingled through the friendly smiles, but I had a feeling she had her eye on me. A hunch she confirmed when it can time to leave.
Mahthildis slunk her coat over her shoulders, drifted toward the bar, and took a seat. She set a Pokéball on the counter, red, white, and plastic, like the ones you see at Target. She rolled it from one hand to the other, leering at me the entire time.
Lauren came up beside me, less inclined to humor this strange woman’s parlor games.
Mahthildis acknowledge her. “Want to hear something funny?”
“Sure?” Lauren said, knowing full well she did not.
“Some of what I said was true?”
“Which part?”
She caught the Pokéball and pressed the button in the center. “This part.”
Everything went white, like she’d thrown a flash grenade into our home. Lauren fumbled for my arm and I crashed into her.
“Easter Jackalope, I choose you!”
When my vision returned, Mahthildis had made a friend. The Easter Jackalope stood before us just as she’d described him. A bulky bipedal beast, with the face of a rabbit, and antlers that glowed like charcoal. Its nose turned in our direction and its whiskers bloomed.
Lauren’s grip went slack as she fell back.
Mahthildis pointed to my bar. “Easter Jackalope, use Comet Crash.”
The Jackalope leapt into the ceiling and came down hard upon the bar. The counter cracked and the base burst into splinters.
“Now it’s my turn.” Mahthildis extended her armored ring and it, by some strange magic, extended into a dagger. She stepped over the debris and pressed the dagger into me.
“In January 2021, you went to Verstecktes Tal, a small mountain town in the Austrian alps. What were you doing there?”
“Hunting monsters.” I repeated the same lie I’d told my wife.
“Easter Jackalope, use Gonad Grip.”
The monster cupped my balls, heaved me by my pelvis, and slammed me against the wall. A second pair of antlers entered the corner of my vision. I turned to find poor little Stumper, a pale imitation of the real thing.
Lauren crab-walked back, but didn’t get far.
Mahthildis aimed her armored ring at her. “Don’t you move.” Then back to me. “What were you doing in Verstecktes Tal?”
The Jackalope bared its incisors. They were long and sharp, like a vampire from an old silent film.
“I was…” I looked to Mahthildis. “I was…” Then to my wife.
The monster tightened its grip.
“I was trying to get laid.” I moaned. “I was trying to get laid.”
“Trying to what?” Lauren whimpered.
Mahthildis read something off her phone. “You transferred six bitcoins to a money mule in Mulan. What were they for?”
“A QR Code.”
“A QR Code for what?”
“The Kinkquisition.”
“The Kinkquisition?” The women repeated in unison.
I panted at the pressure upon my testicles. “There’s a castle in the mountains.” I huffed. “It’s like the ren faire for kinksters.”
Lauren wrapped her hands around her knees and rocked back forth. “I knew there was no such thing as an alpine dragon.”
Mahthildis ignored her. “How does it work?”
Sweat cascaded down my forehead, bled through my brow, and into my eyes. “Men dress up like pilgrims and hunt witches through the courtyard. When you find one you want to interrogate, you take her to a dungeon and—”
“I get it.” Mahthildis shoved a phone in my face. “Was she there?”
Tan skin. Thick brows. Dark piercing eyes.
I gave a sullen nod. “She was an escape artist.”
“What does that mean?”
“They did these trials by ordeal. You know, drowning witches, burying them in coffins, but they always got out. It was fake, even when they burned them at the stake.”
Mahthildis’s eyes widened. Her pupils filled with that last little detail. She could see the pillars, the bodies, the fire. It hadn’t occurred to me that that last trick might’ve been the real thing.
“Alexis is dead.” Mahthildis bit her lip. “She died for your entertainment.” She pointed her ring. “Jackalope, use Antler Inferno.”
The Jackalope’s horns turned red as it raised its head.
“Wait, what do you want? I have liquid assets.” My bladder gave out. A stream of hot steamy urine cascaded down my thighs.
The Jackalope relinquished its grip and I crashed into a heap.
Mahthildis caught me by the chin. “The Kinkquisition. I want to know who got you in, who you went with, and who you met. I want names. I want power over them.” She motioned for her monster to hold back. “Then I’ll leave you to eke out what’s left of your existence.” She looked to Lauren, full well knowing the damage she’d done.
The Jackalope paced around the room, its antlers carving rings into the ceiling. I tried not to think about my insurance rep as I typed the names into the phone.
A luggage set rolled across the kitchen, the side door slammed shut, and the garage door opened. Before I could even say, “I’m sorry,” my wife had gone.
Mahthildis scanned the names. “If any of the leads are cold, I’m coming back with a whole cast of cryptids.”
I couldn’t argue with that, especially when I was holding a bag of frozen hash browns to my nut sack. “Who are you?”
“Me?” Mahthildis rolled the Orb of Blood and Bone up her palm, over her fingertips, and down her knuckles. “I’m a Pokémon trainer.”
She pushed the button and, in a flash, they were gone.
