PART SIX

Copyright 2007 Mike Suchcicki

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 |Part 5

It wasn't the possibility of facing a demon that had Hallie Branson shivering with fear. She mostly was frightened by all the hollering and yelling. It had begun as soon as they had arrived at the forest, and it hadn't let up for what seemed like hours.

"Let me hear you out there!"

"Who's with me here?"

"Keepin' 'em comin'! Keepin' 'em comin'!"

"Bringin' 'em up! Takin' 'em down! Bringin' 'em up! Takin' 'em down!"

"Woo-WOOP! Woo-WOOP!"

Her father kept trying to get her to holler too, but she couldn't. She was afraid that if she started hollering she would be distracted if a demon popped up. She didn't understand that the men were hollering only to help keep up their own courage.

Dressed in a bright yellow jumpsuit with a matching cap, she marched in the middle of a small group of men, all wearing glow-in-the-dark jackets or jumpsuits of bright red, yellow or orange. Her dad was on her left, Mr. Fable on the right. She was carrying her very own demon rifle, the one her daddy had given her the previous Christmas and the one that she had already used time and again in back yard target practice.

Behind the group, Sam Kilburn, one of the mechanics at the auto center, carried a camcorder, ready to record any kills. He held it up with his right arm, his good arm, his other one having been shredded by a demon and now replaced with a prosthetic. The camcorder was mounted with a bright light that shone forward, illuminating a path ahead of the hunting group.

Lake and Nattie emerged from wood's edge at the high end of a slope that continued down into a valley clearing between two hillsides. Along the wide clearing, the camcorder lights of several groups of hunters could be seen progressing slowly but steadily forward. From above they appeared as bizarre, surrealistic processions, odd silhouettes on one side, bright and colorful figures on the other, all of them whooping and hollering.

"This is like looking at the worst Mardi Gras parade ever," Lake said. "Do you see Hallie in any of those groups?"

"Not yet. I do see some kids in some of those groups, but no one as young as Hallie."

Just then a breeze drifted up from the valley floor and Lake turned pale.

"Oh, no, do you smell that?"

"Smell what?" Nattie asked.

"Spore. All over this valley."

"You can smell it?"

"Absolutely. And look …" He pointed down into the clearing ahead of the hunters. "You can see the 'plasm glinting down there, puddles and puddles of it."

Nattie squinted and tried to focus her eyes, but she said, "I don't see what you're seeing."

"Trust me, it's down there. Tons of it. Probably more than these hunters have ever seen in one place. If they keep going, they're going to need more guns than they have to clear out the Ghouls they're about to meet."

Just then Cornealius and Gray caught up with them from behind.

Gray reacted with a sudden start, her face twisting as if smelling something horrid. "Wow! Spore! This area must be covered in 'plasm!"

Lake pointed down into the clearing and Cornealius nodded. "I see it," he said. Nattie shook her head. She considered herself a seasoned demon hunter, but she had no idea what these folks were talking about.

Gray said, "It's more than just finding the little girl. We've got to stop all of these hunters."

Cornealius pointed to one of the hunting groups. "Isn't that the girl down there? In the middle of that group?"

"That's her," Nattie said.

Lake immediately began to run down the hillside, quickly followed by Nattie and the others. They all were screaming for the hunters to stop.

Instead of running with the others to the Branson group, Cornealius veered and went to the closest group of hunters.

He barked at the group, "Do you have walkie talkies? Radios? Do you have a way of communicating with other hunters?"

One of the hunters replied, "A lot of us have radios, yeah. Who are you and what do you want?"

Cornealius pointed into the clearing ahead. "If you keep going, you're going to activate more demons than you've ever seen before. Get on your radios and pass the word and get the word out to as many hunters as you can that they need to converge on this clearing. You're going to need as many guns here as you can get."

The hunter looked at his comrades, who shared his momentary befuddlement, then as one they all beamed bright smiles. "All right!" the hunter said, grabbing his radio transceiver. "Let's get the party started!" He began to signal other groups as his comrades whooped and cheered and pumped their rifles in the air.

Lake continued to run, holding his Ghoo rifle as tightly as he could. He was a fine Ghoul hunter, but he knew he had but one failing, one unfortunate bad habit, and to that end he recited his usual mantra over and over in his mind: "Don't drop your gun. Don't drop your gun. Don't drop your gun. dontdropyourgun. dontdropyourgun. dontdropyourgun."

"Whoa! Stop!" he called to the Branson group. "Hallie! Wait!" But he could see that the hunters couldn't hear him over the other hooting and hollering, or else thought he was just an excited festival participant.

In a split second Lake had the realization that something ahead of him was not quite right, but in that same split second he also realized that it was too late to react properly. Some signal in his brain told him to jump, so he jumped, even though he wasn't quite sure what it was he was jumping over. And at the same split second he realized what it was, he also realized that he wasn't going to make it.

A Ghoul had begun to rise from a pool of malectoplasm, and as Lake attempted to hurdle it, his toe caught the tip of the creature's growing head and he tumbled forward, dropping his gun.

He plopped into the dirt face-first, but retained the presence of mind to immediately twist around, facing the Ghoul that now towered above him, reaching for him. Lake reached for his sidearm, knowing for certain that it was of no use: The Ghoul would have him before his weapon left its holster.

In that last second, Lake realized that the immediate universe around him had fallen into sudden silence. No whooping, no hollering. As he looked up into the glowing red eyes of the Ghoul, illuminated even brighter than usual from the glow of Sam Kilburn's camcorder light, it occurred to him that he didn't even hear the Ghoul's usual hissing and wheezing. Only silence.

And then: "FWOOP! FWOOP!" Two blasts of Ghoo splattered against the Ghoul's thick, gelatinous hide, one in its torso, the other right between its eyes. Lake watched the impact of the purple gel against the Ghoul's green face, recognized the bubbling reaction and realized that he had less than a second to close his eyes, cover his head and duck.

The Ghoul exploded upon him, pummeling him with thousands of bits of Ghoulash.

OW! he thought. Twice in one day!

Grimacing with pain, he uncurled and twisted around to see who fired the fortunate shot.

Hallie Branson was looking at the rifle in her hands with wide, unbelieving eyes. Then she turned to her father, raised her rifle high and began to whoop and scream. Her father bellowed a great laugh and scooped her into his arms. The other hunters pumped their rifles in the air and joined in the "Whoop! Whoop! Whoop!"

A hand appeared in front of Lake's face, offering him help to get up. It was Gray.

"You have just got to love irony," she said, smiling as Lake climbed to his feet.

Nattie Collier handed Lake his Ghoo rifle. "Here you go," she said. "Now, let us show you how we do it around here."

Gray looked around. Down from the hillsides the bright camcorder lights of at least a couple dozen other hunting groups were descending into the valley. The brusque bursts of Ghoul explosions began to make the area sound like a kettle of popping corn. There was a lot of whooping and hollering, but no screaming.

"Somehow I think Hallie will be all right tonight," Gray said. "She has plenty of folks to watch her back."

Cornealius had rejoined the group. "And besides," he said. "We're going to need all the guns we can get in the next few hours."

Gray looked at Lake and cocked her head toward the clearing — and the battle — ahead. "Come on, we've got work to do."

In years to come it would become known as the The Charge at Granger Hill, and Hallie Branson would be its icon. The video of young Hallie rescuing the hapless outsider from a Green Demon was shown hundreds of times at town hall meetings, school assemblies, Rotary and Kiwanis dinners, garden club brunches, scout jamborees and retirement home movie nights. Naturally it wound up on the Internet.

Johnson Ridge's annual Green Demon Festival grew to become one of the largest such events in the country. Thousands descended upon the town each year to help clear the hills and valleys of the deadly threat. The debate over Ghoul hunting by the very young — not to mention the very practice of Ghoul hunting for sport — continued, but it didn't stop hundreds of school systems and community centers around the country from implementing training programs for elementary-age children. Some argued that such training added to the death toll, others claimed that it lowered it.

On the morning after the Charge, none of that mattered to Gray as she combed the undergrowth in the woods near Hope Hartley's house. With Cornealius and Lake on watch for Ghouls — and for more of Wynn's thugs — she retraced her steps from the treehouse to Granger Hill again and again.

"I still say one of the hunters must have picked it up last night," Lake said as Gray prepared to start another search.

"Or one of Wynn's men," said Cornealius. "They found what they came for and left. That's why we haven't seen any more of them this morning."

"They also came to kill us," Gray said.

Cornealius shook his head. "That was a fringe benefit, not the main prize. If Wynn gets a hold of the super-formula, we're no longer a threat to him."

"I guess we'll know soon enough," Lake said. "Hey, come on, Gray, I'm starving. Enough with the searching already."

Gray glared at him. "We're talking about the hope for the future of the entire world and you're thinking about breakfast."

Lake lowered his head. "You're right, I'm sorry. Let's keep going."

Gray then sighed and threw up her hands in frustration. "No, you're right. This is pointless."

Lake looked up. "I am? I'm right?" He looked at Cornealius. "You heard that? She said I was right. Did you hear? I'm right. She said so. You're my witness."

Cornealius grinned and said, "I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention."

Gray went to the base of the treehouse tree and picked up the stack of remaining notebooks. "Let's go. Maybe we'll find what we're looking for in these other books." To Lake, she said, "By the way, what happened to your girlfriend?"

"Oh, Nattie went to the celebration with the others. She said she felt very much relieved not to be the town's wonder child anymore."

As they entered the clearing behind Hope Hartley's house, a trio of emergency personnel from town were carrying Hope's covered body away on a stretcher. Sheriff Sealy, talking with one of his deputies on the rear porch, saw them approach and stepped out to meet them.

"You can just imagine all the questions I have," he said to them.

Gray said, "In a nutshell, Sheriff, we're representatives of ADEF. We came here to investigate Hope's claims of a super demon-killing formula. After you left yesterday, Hope staggered out of the woods, the victim of a demon attack. Our friend Ferrell Coggins also was the victim of an attack. The rest of the night we spent helping your fellow townspeople kill several hundred demons. That's about it. Now, if you need to know anything else, we'll be at our hotel back in town."

Sealy pointed to the notebooks. "Are those Hope Hartley's property?"

Gray hugged the books tightly. "Yes, but we are confiscating them temporarily on behalf of the government in the name of world safety and security."

He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Hey, you're going to get no argument from me. I hope they can be of some help to you. By the way, I had an interesting call this morning from Heston Wynn."

The trio attempted to look unimpressed. "Oh?" Gray said.

"That's right. It seems a group of his employees came up here to participate in our Demon Festival. It also seems that their guide was none other than a mutual friend, Ferrell Coggins. Seems that they went out hunting last night, but they haven't been heard from this morning. Mr. Wynn is assuming that they must have been the unfortunate victims of demon attacks sometime during the night."

"Is that so?" Gray said.

"Poor guys," Lake added.

Sealy asked, "By any chance, did you run into their hunting party last night?"

"We encountered a lot of hunters last night, Sheriff," Cornealius said.

"Miss Gray," the sheriff continued. "You don't seem to be too concerned that your friend Ferrell is missing."

Gray sighed deeply and said, "Sheriff, let me be honest with you …"

Lake and Cornealius eyed her nervously.

Sealy said, "Yes?"

She continued, "Sheriff, I've lost a lot of friends over the years to Ghoul attacks. Lots of them. Family members, too. My mother, in particular. I've experienced grief like you can't imagine. But now I'm very close to finding an answer that might put a stop to this, once and for all. So, time for grief is over. I hope Ferrell, wherever he is, is OK. But if he was a victim of a Ghoul attack, I hope you'll forgive me when I tell you that I shed all my tears a long time ago."

The sheriff stared at her for a long moment, then said, "I understand."

"Now, we're going to head back to town, grab some breakfast and then sleep the rest of the day."

Sealy stepped aside and motioned toward the front pathway. "Be my guest," he said.

The three started to leave, but then Gray stopped.

"One more thing, Sheriff." She pointed to the woods, in the direction of the treehouse. "Somewhere out there, you or someone else might find one of these notebooks of Hope's. It has some very important information in it. Information that could save mankind, and information for which someone like Heston Wynn would pay a lot of money, and I'm talking lots of money. I can't tell you what to do when you find it. All I can say is, if you do find it, I hope you'll do the right thing."

Sealy watched as she ran to catch up with her colleagues.

Lake ignored the playful cackles of the teasing townsfolk as he leaned forward upon the railing of the carnival booth and took aim at the large wooden Ghoul cut-out at its far end. Word had spread rapidly that he was the out-of-towner saved by the six-year-old during the previous night's grand hunt and so on this, the second night of the Demon Festival, just about everyone who packed the town square made a point of getting a close look at the poor fellow who, it was said, couldn't even hold onto his rifle.

He squeezed the trigger carefully, but the glob of pretend-Ghoo flew wildly off to the right and smacked the canvas at the rear of the booth. The crowd hooted, and he stood and examined the rifle.

"I think it's rigged," he said, handing it to Cornealius. The diminutive Ghoul hunter calmly took the weapon, held it out toward the target one-handed, like a pistol, and fired, smacking the Ghoul cut-out in the head and toppling it with but one shot.

"You're right, it is rigged," Cornealius said, accepting his stuffed-animal prize. "I was aiming three feet to the left." He turned and handed the toy to Nattie Collier, who had been their one-person cheering section. "I'm going to go find Gray," he said. "If I don't get to her in time she might overdose on funnel cake."

Nattie and Lake waved goodbye and then began their own course through the midway of games and food booths.

"I'm sorry if you were embarrassed last night at Granger Hill," Nattie said.

"No problem," Lake said. "Hallie's OK, that's the important thing."

"Word around is Henry Shaffer took his five-year-old, Nathan, out with his hunting party tonight."

"When will people learn? Nattie, your brother's not going to be the only child casualty of this fixation you folks have with Ghoul hunting."

"I know, but you just can't stop this kind of thing, David. Kids will die, people will mourn and hearts and marriages will be broken, like my parents'. But it's going to continue. At least until someone figures out how to stop these creatures."

"Yeah, well, maybe the information we found in Hope's notebooks will get us closer to an answer. In the meantime, what about you? What's in your future? Going to stay here and help your parents at the hotel?"

"For the time being. My parents can't keep grieving forever. They've got to move on, and so do I. Actually I'm thinking of moving to The City."

Lake's eyes widened. "Really? And what would you be doing there?"

"I want to start doing more of what you guys do. Fighting this threat on the front lines."

"Uh oh, it sounds like Cornealius was giving you his recruitment speech."

"Yeah, well, we spoke for a little bit earlier. He encouraged me to think about it. And Dr. Gray offered me a job in her department."

"She did, did she? Well, I'm just going to have to send her some flowers for that!"

Nattie blushed. "I could learn so much there. And Dr. Gray said she'd have a lot of work for me to do. Helping her out in the field, for one thing."

"Well, she's definitely going to need help in the field, that's for sure."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because I am never going on another field trip for as long as I live."

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5