Young Writers Society

Maggie stood back and crossed their arms, watching from afar. They wouldn't take part in this. There were lines Maggie didn't cross, and this was dangerously close to one of them.

They considered ditching the gear they'd had forced on them, but they couldn't do that just yet. Maybe a bit later.

Elias looked down at the items around his belt, pulling out a knife and a stake. He couldn't exactly explain the salt, but these looked like they were weapons to actually kill something. He felt a bit of dread at the back of throat that this world was going to be violent, but it strangely comforted him to hear that Annabeth was a monster hunter.

Monster hunter. Like, mutant animals and the like, right? Still, it made him a bit uneasy. He was never wanted to hurt anything or anyone, especially animals.

Suddenly a woman and two girls ran out of a nearby house, and Elias stared as they swarmed around Annabeth. He put the knife and stake back in its proper place then took out the gun, slowing spinning it in his hands. He knew of guns, but didn't know what they looked like since they were rare and considered illegal contraband anyways. It was a lot heavier than he thought it'd be.

"Yeah, what's wrong?" he echoed Kazimir, looking up at the crying woman.

He felt like he should immediately empathize, but frankly, Elias was still so confused about the situation. Everything always happened so fast.

Kazimir reached out and nabbed the gun from Elias's hands. Once he was holding it, his worries were confirmed.

"Don't play with that," he chided under his breath. "This thing's loaded."

Instead of giving it back to Elias, Kazimir added the gun to his own belted collection of weapons.

The woman let go of Annabeth and took Kaz's hands, squeezing them in gratitude.

"Thank you," she said. The woman stepped back, wiping her eyes. Annabeth took this opportunity to gently release the girls from her waist. They returned to their mother's side.

"My name is Julia," said the woman. "These are my daughters: Katie and Lucy." The youngest, Lucy, shyly looked up at the others. Katie clutched her mother's hand. Annabeth tried to smile at them, but it looked more like a grimace.

"Something has been killing the livestock," said Julia, leading them around the back. "At first, I thought it was wolves or mountain lions since they live around here, but the marks don't look anything like them."

"Marks?" repeated Annabeth. They stopped in front of the pasture. Julia swung the gate open.

"It's better that I show you," said Julia. She nudged Lucy. "Will you go get your father?"

Lucy nodded and ran toward the house, and Julia led them past some sheep.

Immediately, Annabeth smelled something pungent, and she raised her sleeve to her nose. Spotting a mass beneath a tarp, she guessed what was under it.

"Is the sheep its most recent kill?" she asked, gagging a little. Julia nodded sadly, and she and Katie pulled the tarp off the animal.

Long, red claw marks raked across the sheep's body. Its neck looked mutilated with bites.

Annabeth felt like throwing up. "Did...did you see what caused this?" she choked out.

Maggie didn't look at the corpse under the tarp. They didn't even want to follow, really, it just seemed as though there wasn't any other choice. These situations were contrived, orchestrated by some mysterious force or person for...what? What could anyone have to gain from this? Was the goal to expose all of their worst fears and regrets to each other? If so, why?

Or maybe the goal was for the person behind all of this to see these things. Perhaps they needed them, a monster hunter, a monsterous inhuman, a hitman, the god of the dead, and...however one might categorize Maggie, for something. They all dealt in death in one way or another, most more intentionally than others, so perhaps it was something related to that? Maggie didn't see many other similarities within the group.

What was the goal here? Was there a goal at all?

Kazimir grimaced at the smell. He'd seen some pretty nasty things in his day. This was wild - the claw marks, the mutilated neck. He was used to dealing with people more than monsters, and whatever did this, Annabeth didn't look to happy to be dealing with it.

At least she wouldn't be facing it alone?

He came up beside Annabeth and patted his hand firmly on her back as a show of support. Already, he was preparing himself for a kill. To protect Elias, Annabeth, and even Hades and Maggie - though the latter looked like they didn't want to be involved. But that was true of his nightmare too, so he wasn't surprised at their reaction.

"Tell us everything you know," Kazimir said, looking to Julia expectantly.

Elias scrunched up his face into a pout when Kaz took his gun away, but he decided to not argue against it since he didn't particularly want it anyways due to its violent purposes.

Since this was Annabeth's world and she was a monster hunter, then surely she had experience with these sort of things. Kaz also seemed to be quick on his feet and quick to understand guns, so maybe he would too. And Hades, too, since god of death and all, so obviously he'd know a thing or two. And Maggie... well... Elias actually didn't really know anything about Maggie, but except for the fact that they turned down his request for a massage, and they were kind of scary.

So basically, if there were trouble, Elias wouldn't need a gun. The others could take care of it for him.

The woman, Julia, led them to a pasture, and Elias's train of thought was stopped by the horrifying smell and terrifying sight. He immediately looked away and held his breath, pretending he didn't see the mutilated marks stretching across the sheep's lifeless body.

"Poor guy," he quietly said out loud with a shaky voice, hand over his face with his eyes peeking through.

He didn't want to look at it, but it was hard not to with the rotten smell and buzzing flies and its overwhelming dead presence right in front of him.

Hades listened to Annabeth's explanation and Julia's request for help. He had felt uncomfortable and lost when in Kaz's home and prison cell, but he felt like he was playing one of Hecate's games right now - and that someone had forgotten to tell him how to play.

Hades was familiar with death. The smell and sight of the mutilated body made him feel a little queasy, but not everyone died a peaceful death. This was on par with what he knew.

He didn't want to jump to conclusions, but the weight that had followed Annabeth's explanation made monster hunters sound like something more than a regular hunter who happened to hunt monsters. All it took was one look at Maggie to deepen that suspicion.

He glanced back at the body.

He could figure out the implications of Annabeth's title later. For now, they had to figure out what exactly had caused those marks.

"...There has to be a reason that it's attacking livestock now," Hades said, crouching down beside the body. "Maybe there was some change where it lived that forced it to attack your animals."

Julia gave Annabeth and Elias a sympathetic look, and she and Katie covered the sheep again. She wiped her hands on her shirt and nodded resolutely.

Gone was the tearful woman. Now, she looked determined.

"Come in the house, and I'll make you something to eat," she said, looking pointedly at Elias. Katie ran ahead to open the gate. "My husband had a clearer look at it."

They entered the kitchen, where a broad-shouldered man stood up from the table he was sitting at.

"Thanks for coming on short notice," he said, shaking Annabeth's hand. She noticed the tip of a gauze sticking out under his sleeve. "My name's Fred." He shook the others' hands. "I sent Lucy up to bed. Katie, why don't you go too?"

The girl nodded and left the room. Julia busied herself at the counter.

"Would you all like tea or coffee?" she asked, pouring water into a pot at the sink.

"Uh, tea please," said Annabeth, sitting down. She gestured to Fred's bandage. "What happened to your arm?"

"Oh, this," he said, patting it. He winced. "Well, if you look in the other room, there's a broken window."

Annabeth leaned forward and nodded.

Fred grimaced. "That's where the monster attacked us."

Maggie followed the group reluctantly into the house and hung back near the kitchen doorway while the rest of the group moved further in. So Annabeth was one of those freelance monster hunters. The kind that usually drifted around dismissing spirits and murdering vampires and the like, whose phone numbers you could occasionally find scrawled in the back of an old mythology textbook in a town known for its supernatural occurrences.

Basically, Annabeth was exactly what Maggie was keen to avoid.

After all, they only kill the monsters who hurt people, and Maggie's kill count was far, far higher than your average small town werewolf. Their victims didn't exactly die screaming, but dead was dead. Hunters didn't usually get hung up on semantics.

Maggie moved to help Julia prepare the tea as they thought. They wouldn't be helping out with this whole monster hunting business. Annabeth did this for a living, and everyone else here was well versed in matters of death, or would be one day. They hardly required Maggie's assistance.

Kazimir stood awkwardly in the room, wondering how long they'd have to wait for the monster to show up. It wasn't that he was eager to see a freaky creature, but all this build-up with the family and the farm was making him feel nervous. These were all of their worst dreams come true. So how could all of this go wrong?

Well... it could end with the whole family dead. That was one. Or all of them dead.

He decided not to think about that at the moment.

"What's this creature look like, though? It attacked you, so I assume you saw it."

Hades had never heard of tea or coffee. He wanted to ask what they were, but there were other questions that needed answering first. He nodded after Annabeth picked tea and hoped he wouldn't regret.

Fred talked about his injury and pointed out the broken window. Hades was wavering with his earlier idea now. It still could have been something like a wild animal, but he couldn't guess why it would move from livestock to actual people. There had to be something else going on here - something that would make this entire situation make sense.

He glanced over at Kaz, just as curious for the answer.

Annabeth was a monster hunter. And a monster attacked this family and the poor sheep.

Elias was glad to be in the house, but it didn't exactly feel safe. Really, he wasn't sure if this entire world was safe. What were they being asked to do? Were they going to talk things out like last time, or was this family insinuating that they wanted them to kill this 'monster'? They were certainly dressed for the part.

He wasn't looking forward to the answer, so he hung back and listened as Kaz did the talking. Even though it felt a little silly to drink tea during this stomach-churning situation, it would be a nice distraction.

With a small mutter of "Thank you," Julia handed Maggie some mint to cut up, and she heated water on the stove.

Fred hummed at Kaz's question, thinking it over.

"It was too dark to get a good look at it, but it was about the height of a grizzly bear standing up," he said. "I'd say seven feet tall."

Annabeth thought back to the nature documentary she had seen in Biology class. That was around the height of a grizzly bear. She grimaced. That will be hard to deal with.

"Its whole body was covered in dark hair, but the part I will never forget-" Fred shifted in his seat, a look of undisguised horror on his face- "were its eyes." He stared at each of them. "Blood-red eyes."

Tense silence settled over the kitchen. Annabeth licked her dry lips, but there was something familiar about its description.

Suddenly, a shrill whistle blasted through the air. The tea was done.

Julia gave them each a cup and sat down next to her husband. "So, do you know what it is, Monster Hunter?" she asked Annabeth.

Annabeth took a tiny sip of her tea. "Yes.." she said. "The Beast of Boggy Creek. The Fouke Monster."

Maggie busied theirself with the mint and listened to the conversation the other's were having. It sounded similar to some of the creatures dubbed 'werewolves'. Of course, most of those were entirely different creatures, so that word was vaguely descriptive at best.

The 'Fouke Monster' could be one of those, or maybe it was something else. Maggie had a sneaking suspicion that they'd have to fight it either way.