WebNovels

Chapter 3 - Preparation (2)

Ace's room looked like it had lost a small war.

Clothes lay in defeated heaps across the floor—some half-folded from a forgotten attempt at order, others clearly casualties of a hurried morning. Textbooks and notebooks sprawled open on the unmade bed, pages bent under the weight of a discarded hoodie. The only clear space was on his desk, currently occupied by his phone and a heavy-duty tactical flashlight, its black metal casing reflecting the dim evening light from the window.

6:07 PM glowed on the phone screen.

Ace grabbed his worn black duffel bag from the closet and tossed it onto the bed with a soft thump. He unzipped it, revealing a compartmentalized interior that was anything but school-related.

"Okay… ropes… where'd I put the ropes?" he muttered to himself, scanning the chaos.

He dropped to one knee and peered under the bed, shoving aside a stray sneaker and an empty water bottle that rolled away with a plastic clatter. His fingers brushed against a familiar, rough texture. He pulled out a thick coil of nylon rope, dust-bunnies clinging to its surface. It was a hunter's rope—strong, lightweight, and definitely not for climbing gyms.

"Got you," he said, tossing it into the open bag.

He turned to his desk, opening the top drawer. Inside, nestled beside pencils and old erasers, were tools of a different trade. He pulled out a hunting knife wrapped in a soft cloth and placed it carefully in the bag. Next came a second, smaller blade with a serrated edge, which he dropped in without the cloth. He grabbed the flashlight and a fistful of spare lithium batteries from a charger, adding them to the growing pile.

His movements were efficient, methodical. Not rushed, but practiced. Each item had a known weight, a known purpose. He was building a kit, not packing for a trip.

Halfway through checking a small box of specialized ammunition—rounds that wouldn't look right in any sporting goods store—he heard the familiar creak of footsteps on the stairs.

He froze for a split second, his body tensing, then relaxed as he recognized the pattern. It was a light, skipping step, not his mother's firm tread.

"Door's open," he called out, not looking up from his task.

The door swung inward and Darren, his younger cousin, poked his head in, a wide, knowing grin on his face. "So," Darren announced, as if revealing great news. "I heard you're going on a hunt."

Ace finally glanced over, one eyebrow raised. "Yeah. Your point?"

Darren stepped fully into the room, his eyes doing a quick, fascinated sweep of the controlled disorder. "No point. Just stating facts. It's cool." His gaze landed on the open duffel, spotting the gleam of metal. "Wow. You planning to fight a monster or just lose a war to your laundry?"

Ace scoffed, a half-smirk on his face. He zipped the ammo box shut and placed it in the bag. "You here to actually help or did you just come up to talk?"

Darren's expression shifted to something more conspiratorial. He shut the door behind him with a soft click and lowered his voice, leaning in. "So… does this mean Aunt Sophie knows about all those secret hunts you've been going on? The ones you say are 'study groups'?"

Ace stopped moving entirely. Slowly, he straightened up and turned to face his cousin. His playful demeanor was gone, replaced by a flat, serious stare.

"No," he said, the word leaving no room for misunderstanding. "She does not. And if you tell her, Darren, I will hunt you down like a dog. A loud, yappy little dog."

Darren blinked, his bravado faltering under the direct threat. "Whoa. Chill, bro. I'm not a snitch."

"Oh really?" Ace said, crossing his arms. "You? Darren Eldren, son of Garrick Eldren, who once told the entire dinner table about Uncle Finn's 'secret' bald spot? Not a snitch?"

Darren had the decency to look slightly abashed. "Okay—that was ONE time! And this is different!"

"Different how?"

"Because this is serious!" Darren protested, then backtracked. "I mean… I also told everyone about your secret crush on Liana from chemistry."

"You swore on your Xbox you wouldn't tell anyone," Ace said, his voice dry.

"Come on," Darren said, waving a hand dismissively, trying to regain his footing. "She was way outta your league anyway."

"That," Ace said, pointing a finger at him, "is not the point."

"And she rejected you in, like, two seconds," Darren added, as if it helped his case.

Ace's glare intensified. "You didn't know that when you ratted me out."

Darren scuffed his shoe against the carpet, avoiding Ace's eyes. He muttered, almost too low to hear, "I kinda did."

Ace shook his head in exasperation and turned back to his bag, zipping the main compartment shut with a definitive rasp. The conversation was over.

Darren lingered by the door, the joking energy drained away, replaced by a quieter, more genuine concern. He watched Ace check the bag's straps.

"So…" Darren started again, his voice softer. "You coming back tonight?"

Ace hefted the bag, testing its weight. He didn't look at Darren. "Yeah. Plan is to be back before midnight."

Darren nodded, staring at a spot on the floor, pretending the answer didn't matter too much. "Cool. Just… you know. Don't do anything stupid."

"Define stupid."

"Anything that gets you eaten."

Ace finally cracked a small smile. "Noted."

They headed downstairs together, the duffel bag bumping lightly against Ace's leg. At the bottom of the stairs, Sophie was waiting, arms crossed tightly over her chest. She looked like she'd been standing there for a while, holding her post.

"Is everything packed?" she asked immediately, her eyes scanning him and the bag. "Flashlight? Rope? Extra batteries?"

"Yes, Mom," Ace said, the practiced patience clear in his tone. "Everything's packed. I'm not five."

She raised one eyebrow, a silent challenge. "You'll call me the second you get there. Not a text. A call."

"I will."

"And you'll call me the second you're done and leaving."

"Yes."

"And if anything feels off—if the air feels wrong, if you hear a sound you can't place, if your gut even twitches—"

"I leave," Ace finished for her, meeting her anxious gaze squarely. "Immediately. No arguments. I promised."

She studied him for a long moment, looking for a crack in his certainty, a sign of the boy she still saw. Finding none, she gave a single, tight nod and stepped aside, clearing the path to the front door.

"Alright," she said, the word heavy. "Be careful."

Ace nodded back, slung the bag more securely over his shoulder, and stepped outside into the cooling evening air, pulling the door shut behind him on the world of laundry and worry.

Ace stepped out through the blue gate, tugging the strap of his duffel bag higher on his shoulder. The evening air had a sharp, clean bite to it now, carrying the faint, greasy smell of street food from a vendor a few blocks over and the dry scent of settled dust. The sky was a deep bruised purple, bleeding into orange at the horizon.

Cedric was already there, leaning against the whitewashed fence of his own house, head bowed over his phone. The screen's blue light washed over his face.

"Sure took your time, huh?" Cedric said, not looking up. His thumb scrolled absently.

Ace let out a short groan, the sound loud in the quiet street. "My mom. She held me hostage with a ten-minute safety lecture that somehow covered three different hypothetical ways I could die, two ways to properly coil a rope, and the importance of hydration."

Cedric finally pocketed his phone and smirked. "Shocking."

"Try surviving it," Ace shot back, adjusting the heavy bag. "It's like she has a checklist titled 'Ways My Son Could Perish' and she reads from it every time I leave the house."

"She cares," Cedric said, pushing off the fence. The smirk softened into something more understanding. "Can't really hate her for that."

"Yeah," Ace conceded, exhaling a long breath that fogged slightly in the cooling air. "I know." He kicked a loose piece of gravel, sending it skittering across the pavement. "It's just… she was just a normal girl from a normal town, you know? Married what she thought was a normal, kinda cool guy. Then she finds out the family business is less 'accounting' and more 'fighting things that go bump in the night'. Now the whole world's just a thin sheet over a hole full of monsters, and her son's poking at the edges."

They fell into step beside each other, their sneakers making soft, syncopated crunches on the gravel shoulder of the road leading out of the neighborhood.

Cedric was quiet for a block. Then he glanced sideways. "You really hate your dad, don't you?"

Ace's steps didn't falter, but his jaw tightened visibly. "Obviously. The last time I heard from him was two years ago. A phone call that cut in and out. Said he was tracking a king lich on another continent and that he'd 'check in soon'. Then static. Then nothing." He shook his head, a sharp, frustrated motion. "He just… forgets. Forgets he has a family. Forgets there's a life here that isn't about the hunt."

Cedric whistled lowly. "A king lich. Still insane to think that's, like, a real sentence. A thing someone actually says."

"What part?" Ace asked, his tone dry. "The 'king' part or the 'lich' part?"

"Both. Either." Cedric shrugged, his hands deep in his jacket pockets. "Still… you gotta admit, it's kinda cool. In a terrifying, world-ending sort of way."

Ace rolled his eyes, a practiced, weary gesture. "Cool in theory, maybe. Sucks in real life. Sucks for the people waiting at home."

"True," Cedric allowed. He paused, then added, almost casually, "He's still considered one of the most powerful hunters alive, though. Maybe the most powerful. That's got to… mean something."

"It means he's good at killing things," Ace said flatly. "And bad at everything else. So, no. It doesn't mean anything to me."

The quiet settled between them again, filled only with the distant hum of a car and the chirp of early crickets. The streetlights flickered on one by one, casting long, distorted shadows ahead of them.

Cedric broke the silence by pointing a finger at Ace's duffel bag. "You bring the extra ammo? The silver-tipped .45s?"

"Yes."

"The good ones? From Harkin's shop? Not the sketchy reloads from that guy in the van?"

"Yes, Cedric. The good ones."

"The ones you didn't cheap out on last time?" Cedric pressed, a grin tugging at his mouth. "The time with the were-coyote in the junkyard?"

Ace stopped walking and turned to face him fully. "First of all, those discount rounds worked. The thing went down."

"You missed six shots before you hit it," Cedric reminded him, the grin widening. "It was charging us. I had time to make a sandwich between your trigger pulls."

"The point is, it went down," Ace insisted, though a hint of a smile threatened his stern expression. "Economics."

"I'm just saying," Cedric said, holding up his hands in mock surrender as they resumed walking. "If I die tonight because you wanted to save twenty bucks on ammunition, my ghost is going to be so annoying. I'll haunt you specifically. Move your keys. Hide your left sock. The works."

"You're not dying," Ace said, his voice firm, leaving no room for argument. "Worst-case scenario, we run. We've done it before."

Cedric raised an eyebrow. "You say 'run' like it's this simple, graceful option. Not a blind, panicked scramble through the dark while something drooly chases you."

Ace's smirk finally broke through. "Skill issue."

They shared a brief, real laugh, the tension of the previous conversation evaporating into the dusk. The road began a gradual incline, the neatly spaced houses giving way to thicker clusters of trees. The town's lights glittered like fallen stars in the valley behind them.

Ace cleared his throat, clearly wanting to steer away from the topic of his father for good. "Must be nice, in a way," he ventured. "Having a mom who's in the life. Who gets it."

Cedric nodded, his expression turning thoughtful. "Yeah. She does. Knows the risks, knows the signs, doesn't flinch at the gear. No safety lectures about hydration; just a reminder to clean my knife when I get back."

"Yet she still let you come," Ace observed.

"Of course she did," Cedric said with a shrug that was meant to seem casual but held a note of gravity. "Somebody's gotta do it. And she taught me how. It'd be weirder if she didn't let me go."

Ace glanced at him. The streetlights were fewer here, casting Cedric's face in alternating pools of light and shadow. "You ever think about not doing it? Just… walking away from the whole thing?"

Cedric considered it for a few steps, his head tilted. "Once. For about five minutes. Then I remembered what my alternative was: a normal job, normal worries, sitting in a normal classroom right now wondering what's for dinner." He shook his head. "I'd be bored out of my skull. This…" He gestured vaguely ahead, toward the waiting darkness of the rising landscape. "This makes sense to me. It's a messed-up sense, but it's sense."

Ace chuckled, a low, genuine sound. "Fair. Can't argue with that."

The paved road was about to give way to a rougher dirt track that led up the hill. They paused for a moment, instinctively checking their gear—a subtle shift in posture, a pat of a pocket, a check of a strap. The last vestige of the neighborhood was behind them.

Cedric stretched his arms over his head, the joints popping softly. "So, place your bets. Ghost? Goblin? Angry land spirit?"

"Please be a goblin," Ace said, almost pleadingly. "I am not in the mood for ectoplasmic chanting or cold spots. I want something I can shoot that stays down."

"If it's another skinwalker, I'm charging you extra," Cedric said.

"If it's a skinwalker, I'm dropping out of school and becoming a gardener," Ace replied instantly.

Cedric laughed. "Liar."

"Okay, fine," Ace admitted, a grin finally touching his lips. "Maybe not dropping out. But I am complaining the whole damn time. You'll have to listen to me whine for weeks."

They shared the grin, a flash of white in the deepening gloom, as the dark, silent bulk of the hill solidified before them.

Neither of them said it out loud, but the same thought hung in the cool air between them: Whatever was waiting up there in the rotten heart of that house, it definitely wasn't going to be boring.

***

The climb up the dirt track was steep and quiet. The cheerful glow of the town vanished behind a curtain of trees, replaced by the deep, patient dark of the woods. The only sounds were their own breathing and the crunch of their steps on the dry ground.

They were close now. Ace could feel it—a familiar, low-grade tension tightening the skin at the back of his neck. The air felt thicker, older.

But then, a new sound filtered through the pines.

Ace slowed, holding up a fist. Cedric froze beside him.

"You hear that?" Ace whispered.

Cedric frowned, tilting his head. "Yeah."

At first, it was just a murmur, like wind through leaves. Then, clear and sharp, came a burst of laughter. Human. Carefree. It was followed by the thumping bass of music.

Ace swore under his breath, a single, harsh word.

They dropped into a crouch, moving forward with practiced silence until they reached the final tree line at the hill's crest. Cedric raised a flat hand. Stop. Together, they peered through a gap in the thick brush.

Ace's stomach dropped.

The clearing in front of the old house was full of teenagers.

Dozens of them. They clustered in loud groups on the overgrown lawn, their faces lit by phone screens and the cool blue glow of portable LED lanterns. Someone had propped a bike against a rotting porch post. A couple was daring each other to touch the front door. And near the sagging steps, a kid was pointing his phone at the house, talking loudly to a livestream.

"You've gotta be kidding me," Ace breathed, disbelief warring with rising anger.

Cedric stared, mouth slightly agape. He pointed a shaky finger. "Is… is that a smoke machine?"

Ace followed his gaze. Near the edge of the woods, a small machine chugged happily, spewing a thin, theatrical fog across the roots of an oak tree.

"Oh my god," Ace whispered, the sheer absurdity of it hitting him like a physical blow. "They turned a disappearance into a Friday night party."

Cedric dragged a hand down his face. "We are so screwed."

A loud voice cut through the chatter. "Yo! If Anthony didn't come back, that means the ghost got him, right? That's how this works?"

Another voice, dripping with false bravado, shouted back, "Nah, bro, he probably just ran away. Dude owed my cousin money. People always overreact."

Ace's jaw clenched so tight it ached.

"They're idiots," Cedric muttered, his voice tight with a fear that wasn't for them.

"They're dead if we don't do something," Ace snapped back, his hunter's instinct overriding his disgust.

They scanned the chaotic scene with new, urgent eyes. Flashlight beams cut wild patterns in the dark. A girl shrieked as her friend jumped out from behind a tree. And worst of all—the front door of the house was standing wide open, a rectangle of pure black, with kids peering inside.

Ace's eyes caught on something else, something the partiers had trampled right over. On the sloping ground near the tree line, just beyond the fog machine, were long, deep gouges in the earth. Parallel lines, as if something heavy and rectangular had been dragged uphill toward the house.

He swallowed, a cold feeling seeping into his gut. "Cedric."

"Yeah?"

"Tell me I'm imagining those marks."

Cedric looked. All the color drained from his face. "You're not."

For a moment, the crowd's noise seemed to dip. The music from the speaker hit a lull. In that sudden pocket of quiet, a sound echoed from the deeper woods behind the house.

It was low. Uneven. A wet, snuffling snort, like something with a congested nasal cavity testing the air.

It was not human. It was not an animal anyone would want to meet.

Ace felt every hair on his arms stand up.

"Please tell me that was one of them," Cedric whispered, his hand unconsciously drifting toward the weapon concealed under his jacket.

Ace shook his head slowly, his eyes locked on the tree line where the sound had originated. "Nope."

Near the open door, a girl giggled nervously. "Did you guys just hear that?"

"Probably just a dog or a raccoon or something," a boy replied, his voice too loud.

"That," Ace said quietly, "is not a dog."

Cedric's hand closed around the grip of his pistol. "We cannot fight with this many civilians in the splash zone. It's not an option."

"I know," Ace said, his mind racing. "Which means step one is clearing the area. We have to get them out. Now."

Cedric groaned, low and pained. "Great. Crowd control. My absolute favorite part of the job."

"We scare them," Ace decided, his voice becoming clipped, operational. All traces of their earlier banter were gone. "Loud noises. Yelling. Make it convincing. No monster talk, just angry adults."

Cedric nodded, understanding instantly. "Got it. Convincing and loud."

Ace took one last, long look toward the house. His gaze swept over the laughing kids, the open door, the strange drag marks. For a split second, his eyes caught a flicker of movement deep in the trees behind the property—something tall, its outline suggesting a wrong angle, a stillness that didn't belong.

Then it was gone, swallowed by the shadows.

Ace swallowed hard, the cold in his gut turning to ice.

"Cedric?"

"Yeah?"

"If that thing decides to come out while they're still here…"

Cedric finished the sentence, his voice grim. "We won't be able to stop it without people getting hurt."

Ace straightened up, took a deep breath, and stepped out of the concealing shadows of the tree line, leaving the safety of the dark behind.

"Then let's make sure it doesn't."

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