#keep the anti-theft on this one before it walks itself right out the fucking door

[shiftythrifting]

Found this at a thrift store in RVA, couldn’t stop laughing

#thrifting #shiftythrifting #submission #boyf #riends #ch #ill #lmao #denim #jeans shit #keep the anti-theft on this one before it walks itself right out the fucking door #rva #be more chill

[inkribbon796]

The Demons Inside

Summary: With an unexpected lull in their enemies’ activity, the heroes try to go digging for answers.

A/N: Visitation Day.

Things in the base had quieted down. The Suits seemed to be in hiding. A troubling scenario since there seemed to be no cause for it. Sure Spade hadn’t yet retrieved his hand, but he wasn’t actively trying to steal it or the nanites back.

In fact it had been two full days since anyone had seen Spade, the thefts died down but the occasional demon hunter was being killed in the dead of night. But the lull was somehow worse than having the Suits always on the move.

So the heroes took the time to reconvene, making sure to keep a sufficient amount of heroes out in the city because the Suits seemed to know too much about their movements to allow anything less.

“It’s just,” Marvin began another rant over Bing’s phone, Nate was in a meeting room with Bing, Logan, Yancy, King, and J.J. “How do they always know where we fookin’[1] are?”

“Yeah that’s what’s botherin’[2] me too, dude,” Bing said, his eyes narrowing in thought even though his shades were hiding it. “Almost like we got—”

A knock came at the door, despite the fact that the door wasn’t even closed. It was the Host, he walked in, “Might the Host suggest something to assist the heroes?”

“Yeah, shoot,” Bing shrugged, J.J looking at the Host suspiciously as the seer walked in.

The Host cleared his throat, “The heroes are asking information from every side except for the one being targeted by the Suits the most, surely there would be some reason for it?”

“Who, the hunters, they’s[3] hate us?” Yancy reminded.

“For now,” the Host offered, “but the Host would think the heroes would want all the information they could get.”

“I would fookin’[1] love that,” Marvin spoke up. “But I’m bein’ fookin’ blackmailed, ‘memeber?”[4]

“Well, then it is a good thing that Marvin is not here to communicate with them,” the Host reminded smugly, leaning closer to the phone.

Marvin was quiet for a bit, then, “Aww, Host, yer doin’ a fookin’ bang up job ta get inta my good graces, yeh hear?”[5]

“The Host regrets to inform Marvin that he is breaking up and as such will not even hear what the heroes will talk about,” the Host smiled.

“Ahhh, nah, whate’er[6] will I—” Marvin lamented overdramatically before hanging up on his own.

“Well,” the Host smiled at Bing and Nate who smiled back at him. “Now that is he will not be here, the heroes are free to do whatever they want.”

“That’s all well an’ good, but how are we gonna get a hunter ta actually talk wit’ us?”[7] Yancy questioned.

“I know a hunter who will talk first, fight second,” Nate realized, moving back the Host. “Lo, come on, let’s go before the Suits come out of hiding.”

“Right,” Logan got up, making sure he was masked before leaving.

The other heroes went to the garage, mostly because that was becoming the spot where they talked to people in privacy who weren’t part of the Coalition.

Logan and Nate brought a hunter with them who was the only hunter in the city who wasn’t actively trying to kill Nate on sight. Nate introduced them as Taylor.

“We’s[8] met,” Yancy reminded curtly, standing protectively in front of King, the hunter staring at him cautiously. “What made youse wanna bother talkin’ to us now?”[9]

“The Guildmaster might be better than her predecessor but she’s too proud to ask for help,” Taylor sighed. “Believe me, if not for Nate I wouldn’t be here either.”

Nate stiffened before his skin paled and dark purple lines spread down from his eyes. Mare smiled, “If you don’t want to be here, then no one’s stopping you from leaving.”

“Don’t,” Taylor warned Mare. “It’s bad enough he’s letting you hitchhike.”

Shaking his head, Nate snapped, “Mare, don’t be an ass.”

“Oh, I’ll just let you deal with the hunters on your own then,” Mare responded snidely.

“Anyways, I can try and help but I just want to know,” the hunter cut in. “How many demons do you have in here and how many of them actually have regular hosts?”

“Nate and Mare,” Logan pointed to the singer.

“No, I meant the others,” Taylor motioned to Yancy and King.

“Ehh?” Yancy raised an eyebrow.

“You’re two of three adult-looking spawnlings and then there’s the,” the hunter visibly looked sick, “the kid.”

“Look we’s really only demons in name, none ‘a us can possess people,”[10] Yancy shrugged “An’ we’s only became demons ‘cause we’s are a part ‘a Dark an’ Wil’s family.”[11]

“Demons don’t form families,” Taylor scoffed in frustration, as if the heroes just weren’t getting it.

“Well one of them did, and Dark carved up some of his own territory to give them their own,” Nate told them.

“Yes, well,” Taylor began. “It is an abnormally large pact, usually only two or three demons can have an alliance before they fall to infighting. It makes sense he would kick the three of you out.”

King made a scoffing laugh at that, “You clearly don’t know shit about Dark then. He wouldn’t have kicked us out, even if we’d tried to kill him. The three of us left on our own, and given half a chance Dark would drag us back to the Manor kicking and screaming.”

“Demons don’t do that,” the hunter repeated. “That goes against everything that makes a demon in the first place. Even empaths shove their spawnlings out of the nest the first chance they get.”

Yancy glared at them, “Look, if youse ain’t gonna listen ta what we’s gotta say, we’s just gonna go back ta whate’er the fook we were doin’.”[12]

The hunter took a deep breath, clearly not believing him but said, “Fine, fine. Just are you still in your original bodies, or in someone else’s?”

“For better or worse I’m still in my own,” King answered, clearly baffled by the question itself. Yancy answered the same.

“The Host was made from the Author’s fractured mind and is still in the same body,” the Host answered. “The Entity and the Madman’s children that are aligned with the heroes are of no moral concern to the hunters. As for Lunky, their body was made from the ground up to suit them and no other soul has or will be housed in that vessel. No child was sacrificed, so the hunters need not worry about that either.”

The hunter was just studying the Host, clearly looking for any sigh of malice of dishonesty. “Fine,” they forced themself to say. “Fine, we know the most about Spade, obviously.”

At that moment, Mini walked in with the toolbox, and Lunky was following close behind making their little screeching noises, but when the spawnling saw the hunter their demeanor instantly did a one-eighty.

Lunky screeched at them, clinging onto Mini. The little spawnling’s arms stretched out to try and bring King and Yancy closer to them.

“Hey, bud,” King smiled, walking over and Lunky stretched to slip underneath King’s cape to glare at the hunter.

The action got a chuckle out of the animal magnet. “You trying to be big and scary, Junior?”

Lunky screeched at their father in complaint.

“Oh, sorry,” King smiled, “I’ll let you finish. So big and scary, aren’t you?”

“Dark thinks they’re just trying to crave out their own territory,” King explained, seeing the cautious look on the hunter’s face. “I just move around a lot, so they don’t know what they want, but they like the park.”

Bing chuckled as he walked over and took his toolbox from Mini, and stealthily took Lunky and placed him on his own shoulders. The 2-D drawing held onto Bing’s synthetic hair and glowering at the hunter, little growls coming from the small demon. “I just think they’re so social that people are their territory.”

“Maybe,” King smiled, fixing his crown.

The hunter, with every ounce of self control and clenched teeth, turned away from Lunky and King to look at Nate. “Alright we’re almost 100% positive that Spade’s a demon. We’re fairly certain that Hearts and Diamonds aren’t, and if Clubs isn’t a demon he’s really close to turning.”

“You sure?” Nate asked. “He’s violent and he’s sadistic as fuck but he primarily uses tech.”

Taylor looked frustrated, “So, he’s just a particularly smart glitch, apparently if a demon can start a family then a glitch can have a brain and an attention span long enough to help take over a city.”

“That would explain why Anti in particular is always going after Spade,” Logan commented. “As I understand it, demons are naturally territorial.”

They all got to talking, the hunter giving what information they could and eventually when Mini had to get his batteries recharged and his nanites flushed and refreshed, the hunter got ready to leave. Bing set him up in the garage and Lunky guarded over Mini’s drive and chittering at Mini as Bing watched them in amusement.

As the hunter walked out, Yancy followed them. He wasn’t trying to hide or be quiet.

“What do you get from working with King and his spawnling?” The hunter asked.

“Lunk’s my nephew an’[13] Kay’s my brother, that’s all there is ta[14] it,” Yancy started lighting up a cigarette. “King an’ the kid haven’t done a thin’ so let ���em be.”[15]

Taylor went quiet for a moment, “I’ve been a hunter all my life, it’ll take some time to get over the fact that you’re all demons and demons kill people.”

Yancy took the cigarette out of his mouth to sigh. “Youse wanna go after Ills fer bein’ a thief, Yan fer killing people, or e’en Bim fer bein’ the fookin’ worst ta people, that’s fine. But King’s not that type ‘a person. An’ youse only care about humans so Lunky is none ‘a youse’s business. They’s only feed off demons. Leave ‘em outta it.”[16]

“So long as they don’t hunt humans,” Taylor reluctantly decided. “ I can pretend they’re not demons.”

The ex-convict sighed, “Yeah, that’s the best I can hope fer[17].”

He turned and walked back towards the base, the hunter watched him leave before going their own way. The day started turning to dusk in the sky.

The Host was down in his library, walking back in from talking to the hunter and the other heroes. As he narrated he became aware of another soul in his personal room and his bat appeared in his hand. Wheeling around, the seer swung the bat and his narrations halted when it came into contact with an aura that was almost as strong as his and it absorbed the blow.

The Host saw Diamonds and struggled to force the man’s actual name but his voice was trapped, strangled by the weight of his own narrations.

“The Host demands to know why Diamonds has intruded upon the Host’s space,” the Host demanded furiously.

“You stopped Bing, you stopped his witch hunt,” “J.J” sneered. “You let me have at least another day or two of unsuspected free reign here. Why?”

“The Host doesn’t have a choice,” the seer spat. “The Host needs to win this time, he must.”

“When you win, we win,” Diamonds reminded smugly.

“When . . .” the Host fought to choke out the real name again, “If Clubs wins, the Host loses.”

And with that the Host struck with his bat and his aura against Diamonds, hitting him directly in the face, and it made him whip his head back.

One instant he was standing in the Host’s library and in the next he was back in the elevator, ears ringing painfully and nose bleeding.

“Arghhh,” Diamonds groaned, bringing his hand to his nose and making sure he was still looking like J.J.

He wasn’t, which was an easy fix and came at the right second because the elevator doors opened and Yancy was standing there talking to Bing, and Bing was looking right at him.

“****![18] Jay, little dude are you alright man?” Bing asked in concern.

“Yes,” Diamonds signed with one hand as he tried not to leave any of his blood behind, the alarm not faked in the slightest because he’d almost been caught. “Don’t know why I’m bleeding.”

Bing and Yancy quickly rushed J.J to Iplier who was coming through the base’s front door and he got a quick checkup, and in the chaos the two drops of blood in the elevator were left on the ground, as the elevator doors closed, bringing the elevator back down to the Host.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Accessibility Translations

1. fucking

2. bothering

3. they

4. But I’m being fucking blackmailed, remeber?

5. Aww, Host, you’re doing a fucking bang up job to get into my good graces, you hear?

6. whatever

7. That’s all well and good, but how are we going to get a hunter to actually talk with us?

8. we’ve

9. What made you want to bother talking to us now?

10. Look we’re really only demons in name, none of us can possess people

11. And we only became demons because we’re a part of Dark and Wil’s family.

12. Look, if you aren’t going to listen to what we’ve got to say, we’re just going to go back to whatever the fuck we were doing.

13. and

14. to

15. King and the kid haven’t done a thing so let them be.

16. You want to go after Ills fer being a thief, Yan for killing people, or even Bim for being the fucking worst to people, that’s fine. But King’s not that type of person. And you only care about humans so Lunky’s none of your business. They only feed off demons. Leave them out of it.

17. for

18. Shit!

#superhero au #masks and maladies #markiplier #jacksepticeye #natewantstobattle #thomas sanders #ahwm yancy #yancy the prisoner #bingiplier #marvin the magnificent #natemare #logan sanders #king of the squirrels #lunky #mini bing #healthy family of demons #king being a good dad #bing being a good dad #hunters are too used to evil demons

[snarky-badger]

Prompt: Please do a continuation of this! (It’s Going Sideways)

Part 3 of ‘Moral Compass’ and ‘It’s Going Sideways’

And I’ve written this so there’s gonna be Part 4! (Honestly, what the hell am I doing to myself, haha)

This ‘series’ was started BEFORE the movie came out. All I had to go on were the trailers, so it’s movie-based, but not movie compatible. If that makes sense. ONWARDS!

And, if you like these prompts of mine, please consider buying me a coffee over on Ko-Fi!

You frowned as you stared down at the phone in your hands, Venom’s low growling from the doorway the only sound in the room.

Obviously Drake suspected that you knew were the symbiote was, which, duh, doorway. Drake was smart, very smart. Probably had a contingent of security on their way in the guise of ‘keeping you safe’, not that you trusted Drake. Not one damned bit.

Thoughts whirling, you spun around. “We leave in five minutes,” you announced, seeing Venom’s opalescent eyes widen a little at the order in your voice before you closed your bedroom door in his face.

It took only two minutes for you to change into something more appropriate than your PJs. Honestly, you were still hopping into your jeans when you exited the room, rushing over to the hallway closet and pulling out the ‘bug out’ bag that you’d put together after Drake had ‘insisted’ that he post security to ‘protect you’.

It was Eddie that was standing awkwardly in the kitchen, eyes taking in your frazzled form as you tugged your sneakers on, then grabbed a black blazer off a hook, pulling it on over your tee shirt.

“You’re prepared,” he commented, blinking when you shoved the bag into his arms.

“I’ve been dealing with aliens and a megalomaniac. Of course I’m prepared,” you shot back as you went to rifle through your purse, pulling out your wallet. It got shoved into the backpack, before you pulled your phone out of your jeans and, mournfully, dropped it onto the floor and smashed your foot down onto it. You’d backed up all your photos and contacts, of course, but still, it hurt to do it.

Couldn’t take the chance that you could be tracked through it though. “Okay, let’s go.”

“What’s the plan?” Eddie frowned as he followed you out the door and over to the stairwell.

“I have nothing beyond ‘get the fuck out of dodge before Drake shows up’. Was thinking of heading to the University. Lots of people, lots of witnesses. But...”

“But there’s lots of innocent victims if Drake’s goons go gun happy. Yeah.” Eddie was silent for a moment as the two of you hurried down the steps. “The Park? It’s bigger. There’s people, yeah, but lots of hiding places too.”

“Might work.” You hit the ground floor’s stairwell door in a rush, then skid to a stop, grunting when Eddie ran into you from behind. “Shit.”

He was taller by a few inches, which allowed him to see over the top of your head and spot the black SUV that pulled up in front of the building. “Back door?”

“Yup,” was all you said as you grabbed his wrist and headed for the side entrance. “Think you can kick the door open? The Super keeps it locked.”

You’d barely gotten the last syllable out before blackness in the form of three stalks of symbiote shot out from Eddie’s torso, hitting the nearby door with enough force that the metal dented, the door shooting off it’s hinges and clattering against the opposite building’s wall.

Eddie smirked at you when you turned to look at him. “Ladies first.”

Rolling your eyes, you poked your head out into the alley to make sure it was clear, then led the way out, heading for the opposite end, away from the ominous SUV. “We need a car.”

“Told you we should have taken the bike,” Eddie grumbled to himself, and you huffed as the two of you stepped out onto the sidewalk proper. It was past the time where people were rushing to work, so it was sparsely occupied, only a few people heading to where ever they were going.

Two steps ahead, you idled over to a parked car and tried the driver’s door, frowning when you found it locked. The next two cars were the same, and Eddie gave you a look that plainly said he knew you were thinking of stealing a ride and was waffling over whether to be mad about it or not.

That look vanished when a black SUV turned the corner.

Your lucky number was ‘six’ apparently, and you grinned as you slid into the driver’s seat. Eddie frowned, but didn’t comment, merely circled the car and got into the passenger seat, his gazed locked on the SUV that was slowly approaching from behind. His expression wavered a bit when you ducked low and started to hotwire the little Sedan.

“Seriously?”

You glanced up at him. “What? I was a teenager once. Snuck out of the house a lot. Needed a ride.” You twisted some wires together, smirking when the engine rumbled to life. “Seriously, Eddie, you’re hosting an alien and we’re being hunted by wackos. This cannot the the weirdest thing you’ve ever seen.”

His lips quirked a little. “I just didn’t take you for...”

“The grand theft auto type?” You belted yourself in, then tried to drive ‘nonchalantly’, calmly pulling out of the parking spot and heading down the street.

The SUV behind you didn’t speed up, didn’t do anything but continue it’s slow drive down the street, the occupants clearly interested in the people walking on the sidewalk.

You thought, that, maybe, you and Eddie were in the clear as you neared an intersection.

You were wrong.

Something bashed into the back of the sedan, blowing out the rear window, pulling a startled shriek from you as glass imploded into the car. Eddie snarled something as Venom’s tendrils shot out of him, blackness like a living wall expanding to block the bullets that followed.

You floored it. Cleared the intersection going fifty and climbing, barely avoiding a truck. Saw something odd flitter in the side-view mirror, eyes narrowing when your brain finally put the image to a word. “Drones! They have drones!”

“Go, go, go!”

“No shit!” You swerved around a slow Mazda, clipping the bumper of a parked car as you did so. Got the little sedan up to sixty before you were forced to slow down at another intersection to avoid ploughing into a slow moving bus.

Eddie meanwhile, had one foot braced on the dashboard, left hand braced against the roof, and his right hand closed tight on the ‘oh shit’ bar of the door. His head swiveled, trying to keep track of the drones that whizzed overhead.

When he suddenly shouted “Left!”, left you went, scraping paint with a Nissan as a drone dive-bombed itself to death against the pavement where you had been seconds before. Debris and bits of asphalt peppered the car, sounding like rain against the windshield, and you reflexively ducked a little. “They explode?! What the fuck!”

“We need to get out of the city!” Eddie shouted over your semi-hysterical shriek. “Head right! If we can get to the Bridge we can--”

The rest of his sentence was drowned out by the blare of a delivery truck as it nearly t-boned the car. You shrieked a little, jerked on the steering wheel, and screeched across two lanes of traffic into the on-coming lane. Another drone exploded against the roof of the car, and you got the unwelcome view of an oncoming pickup truck’s terrified driver before you swerved back into the proper lane.

“So much for subtle, we might as well be blaring Ride of the fucking Valkyries,” you snarled as the roar of a black SUV preceded the lurch of something ramming into the rear bumper of the car.

“Just keep driving!” Eddie yelled as he rolled down the passenger window and started to climb out of it, blackness beginning to cover him.

You drove with one hand and reached out to grab his jacket with the other, cursing when the bit of material just escaped your fingers. “Get back in the fucking car you idiot!”

“JUST DRIVE, MORSEL!”

“I’m with idiots, I’m escaping with idiots,” left you in a mutter as the roof dented inwards a little from Venom’s bulk crouching atop it. Some black tendrils curled over the frames of the open windows, which was probably for the better, because the maneuver you had to do to dodge another SUV that came head-on at you would have knocked Venom off the car had he not been anchored to it.

There was a blockade of cops at the next intersection. Obviously someone had called the insanity in. You grit your teeth at the sight, then screamed ‘Hold on!’ out the driver’s side window, cranked the parking break, and did a drift into an alleyway.

The sedan’s right side scraped brick as you ploughed through garbage and  motored over someone’s bicycle. Debris and a bike wheel preceded your emergence onto the other street, people screaming as you did another sideways side onto the pavement.

Really, for a beige sedan, the little car handled rather well. Though the people that were eyeing you as you wove your way through traffic obviously thought otherwise.

Might be because it took corners like the wheels were on sideways. Might have been Venom atop the roof like a demented ornament, using a manhole cover he’d snatched off the ground like a shield to stop exploding, kamikaze, drones. Either way, people were looking at you as if you were the anti-christ come to town.

You’d started to think that you might get away. Right up until yet another black SUV slammed into the right rear panel of the car in a pit move that sent the sedan spinning.

Naturally, you screamed. Heard Venom’s roar and felt the bounce of him leaping off the car’s roof before the sedan came to a stop by side checking a parked car. You sat there, hyperventilating, hands clenched so tight on the wheel that your knuckles were white, for a long moment.

And then the air bag deployed and smacked you in the face hard enough that you saw stars.

Dimly, over the pounding of your heart in your ears and the tirade of curses in your brain, you heard the sounds of gunfire and shouting, followed by a roar and some high pitched screaming that had no business coming out of a male throat.

You fought with the airbag until it finally deflated, then looked out the rear-view mirror, eyes widening when you saw Venom grab yet another menacing black SUV by it’s front bumper and upend it, leaving it to crash onto it’s roof as he threw himself at a man dressed in black with a ‘Life Foundation’ logo on his vest that was unloading a shotgun into him.

Gritting your teeth, you revved the engine, relief welling up in you. The sedan wasn’t new enough that the engine and ignition cut out when an air bag deployed.

You threw the little car into reverse, slamming the rear bumper into the upside down SUV and sending it spinning a little. Then leaned over and screamed out the open passenger window. “Venom! Get in the fucking car!”

He turned to glare at you at the same time that two more SUVs and three police cars that were chasing them careened around the intersection behind you. He hesitated - and you hoped that Eddie was yelling at him too - before ripping off the sedan’s back door and jamming himself into the backseat.

You were now driving something that looked like it had gone three rounds in a demolition derby. Which, added to the burnt rubber that you left behind when you threw the car into drive, probably painted quite a picture for the looky-loos.

All five pursuing cars hit the upside-down SUV out of their way as they took chase, the sounds of loud engines and the blare of police sirens echoing in the cab of the sedan as you took another corner at twice the recommended speed, careening dangerously close to a parked canteen truck.

And finally, up ahead, you spotted a chance.

“Venom!”

“WHAT?”

“Up ahead, there’s some empty scaffolding on the side of the building. If I swerve close, think you can grab it and send it falling into the street behind us?”

There came a pleased rumble as the large form shifted in the backseat and leaned out of the open space where the car door used to be. “WE LIKE HOW YOU THINK, MORSEL!”

A grin that was a bit more of a snarl settled onto your face as you swerved again, bypassing a slower car and moving as close as you could to the blocked off sidewalk and the mess of scaffolding on the side of a building. Prayed to any Gods that were listening that no bystanders would get hurt as Venom leaned out some more, three thick tendrils lashing out to grab onto the supports and ripping them free.

The impact of all that metal and wood hitting the street rumbled up through the tires of the car, and you watched via the rear-view mirror as the SUVs and the cops tried to screech to a stop before ploughing into the mess blocking the road and, inevitably, each other.

Another drone exploded against the roof of the car as you sped away, a bit of sunlight now appearing from the dented and burnt roof of the car.

“He’ll never stop,” you lamented as you sped through the city. “Drake will never stop.”

“HE WILL WHEN WE RIP HIS BEATING HEART OUT OF HIS CHEST,” Venom snarled from the backseat.

And then, you had a stupid, so, incredibly, stupid, idea.

“What if we take the fight to him?”

#snarky is writing #filled prompts #venom x reader #reader x venom #eddie brock x reader #reader x eddie brock

[projectclockwurk]

The Woods Outside Lethe: Part 1

[WARNING: Some Gore]

Deputy Horowitz answered the phone that morning. He knew everybody in the small town of Miller’s Creek; he knew what they sounded like too, so when the voice on the other end of the line spoke he was confused as he’d never heard the man before.

The man introduced himself as Elder Victor Walker and he said that they needed to come down to Lethe. No more details were given before the phone was hung up.

Horowitz had heard about Lethe before but didn’t know much about it and didn’t really ask when the Sheriff told him not to worry about the place because they may never even go down there. Horowitz should have asked after it, he knew that, but when he had become Deputy he was young and still kind of shy and when Sheriff Grady told him not to worry about Lethe, he had listened and never really thought about the place again until now.

He got up from his desk a minute after the call ended and crossed the small space from there to the Sheriff’s office. They were the only two in the small and somewhat cramped building.

Miller’s Creek was a small little fishing town and nothing happened there really except for some property damage or petty theft from some of the local bored youth. Two officers of the law were good enough to keep order and it had been good enough for the better part of a hundred and fifty years. It wasn’t about to change anytime soon either.

Horowitz rapped his knuckles on the metal doorframe more out of courtesy than an actual need to announce his presence. Grady looked up at him, a dark eyebrow raised in question.

Sheriff Grady was only thirteen years older than Horowitz. The man had taken over as Sheriff when he was thirty and had been running things for the last fifteen years. His looks were something of an enigma. At times he looked no older than Horowitz himself and at others he looked far older than his forty-five years.

Sometimes Horowitz wondered if he’d end up the same when he took over as Sheriff, and he knew he would when Grady retired. That’s just how it was there. When one Sheriff retired, their Deputy would take over and then a new Deputy would come along sometime and continue the cycle.

Nobody was interested in breaking this tradition. Nobody was ever interested in breaking tradition in Miller’s Creek. The people and their town were as stagnant as water.

“I got an interesting call,” Horowitz began, “from the Elder of Lethe. He wants us to go there.”

“Color me surprised. It must be one hell of an emergency.”

“Why’s that?” Horowitz asked, taking the opportunity to dig for more information.

“The people of Lethe live in a small, closed off village community that’s back in like…I don’t know, the seventeen hundreds, eighteen hundreds? No clue, I’ve never been good at history but anyway, they live back like it’s the old days. They aren’t Amish or nothing; they’re just a community of people who decided to never follow the march of technology and the only person who ever leaves is the Elder and only when it’s absolutely necessary. The Elder has a phone in his home to call us but rarely does. Some Sheriffs have gone their whole careers never going to the village so if he’s asking us to come down it must be some serious shit.” Grady had explained all this as he pulled his jacket on and got his gun and holster.

“Just to be sure, everyone in Lethe knows about the modern world, right?”

“Oh yeah, they’re aware of what lies outside their community but nobody ever leaves. Disillusioned with the modern world or just how they’ve been raised, I guess. I don’t know, I don’t ask questions. All I know is that Lethe has been the same since it was founded,” Grady said. “Now go get your things and we’ll hit the road.”

The Sheriff’s Station sat on a long strip of road with nothing close by for miles. It sat in between Miller’s Creek and Lethe, each place the same distance away from the station. The drive took ten minutes both ways. Ten minutes was enough time to question Grady more.

“Have you ever been to Lethe before?”

“Twice, actually,” Grady replied.

“Twice? Didn’t you say they rarely call?”

“They do. There was a weird year back when I was a Deputy. We were called twice in a week for two different robberies. We never found anything though and it never happened again. The former Sheriff, Sheriff Gibbs, thought it was one of the locals though they all denied it. Still don’t know what it was all about.”

“What did they take?”

“Some heirlooms and such from Elder Walker and one of the older ladies in the village…I think she passed away a few years ago actually,” Grady said. “Lethe tends to send us a letter when somebody has passed away.”

“What are the people like?”

“They seem a bit strange but I can’t say if they’re good or bad. Haven’t really spoken to anyone but Elder Walker. Just don’t worry about them. We’re gonna go do our job and probably never see them again. Okay?”

“Okay.”

They fell into silence then and neither spoke again until Grady pulled the jeep over to the side of the road at the top of a path that led down a steep hill and curved in a wide arch to the left. The woods – which formed a half-circle around the area – cut off the view of the rest of the trail.

“Now we walk.”

“Walk?”

“Yep,” Grady said as he exited the car. “The Lethe people already hate seeing us modern folk in there, seeing a car will only make them more upset.”

“Alright,” Horowitz responded, opening his own door and stepping out. He made sure his phone was tucked into his pocket before closing it. He’d record some witness testimonies with it if they allowed him. He doubted it given what he had heard but just in case he wanted it on him.

Grady locked the doors and then they began their trek to Lethe.

The walk took another ten minutes and when they arrived, a man who Horowitz assumed to be Elder Walker was waiting for them by the gate into the village.

Lethe was open entirely on one side to flat land but it was surrounded, on three sides, by the woods. The village itself really did look like something out of the nineteenth century with the quaint little wooden homes all clustered close together and a large church that served as the spearhead to the layout the homes formed. There were even chickens and pigs ambling about and the clothes Elder Walker wore looked so authentic. It was as if the whole village had time travelled into the twenty-first century.

“Mornin’, Elder Walker,” Grady greeted.

“Good morning, Mister Grady,” Elder Walker said in turn before his eyes darted to Horowitz. His gaze was rather intense.

“This is my Deputy, Gabriel Horowitz.”

“Nice to meet you, Elder Walker,” Horowitz replied.

“You as well,” Elder Walker said before opening the gate and ushering the two inside. “Follow me now, please.”

The man led them to a paddock. It was very open and no barn was in sight but that didn’t matter because what met their eyes made Horowitz stop dead in his tracks.

“You called us out cause some dead cattle?” Grady asked.

“Something is killing them.”

“Yeah, Elder, probably a wolf,” Grady said with a shake of his head.

“I have seen wolves slaughter our livestock before,” Elder Walker said.

“Maybe it’s some kids from Miller’s Creek. It may seem odd but there are a lot of sadistic kids in this world that pull this shit, sometimes just cause they’re bored, and we have many bored kids up in Miller’s. I wouldn’t put it past some of them to do this. Just a few months ago some little shit spray painted Swastikas all over Horowitz’s property.”

“Yeah, that was nice to wake up to on the second day of Hanukah,” Horowitz grumbled. He was the only Jewish individual living in Miller’s Creek so he was quite a prime target for little bastards who thought they would look cool to their friends if they went around doing anti-Semitic bullshit.

“You are Jewish?” Elder Walker inquired, staring at him with that intense gaze of his.

“Uh…yeah,” Horowitz said. “Not exactly a great one though, haven’t even been in a synagogue since my bar mitzvah.”

Elder Walker hummed and turned back to Grady.

“As I said, something is killing our cattle. If you do not believe me, go and take a look for yourself.”

Grady didn’t hold back his sigh that clearly said he didn’t want to but he would.

“Come on, Horowitz.”

They climbed the fence into the paddock. Horowitz counted ten among the ten cattle and noticed now that none of them seemed to bare any wounds. Didn’t seem to but they did as he saw when they came around the one closest to the fence.

Its belly had been ripped open. Not cut but ripped in an exceedingly crude and disturbing manner. The skin was torn up around the edges and the cow’s organs were spilling onto the ground, the grass a deep red where it should be a vibrant green. It stank like nothing that Horowitz had ever smelled before.

Grady swore as he knelt down to get a better view.

There was more.

Mud coated the cow’s organs and large globs of it were inside the body itself. There was even a line of it clinging to the outer bit of flesh where it had been ripped. Sticks were impaled into the various organs and, Horowitz noted, some of them were even poking out the cow’s back. How he and Grady hadn’t seen them before he didn’t know but then again, the sticks were so fine and dark they’d be easy to miss against the large black spots dotting the cow’s hide if nobody was looking for them and they certainly hadn’t been looking.

“What the fuck,” Grady breathed. He looked up at Horowitz and then to Elder Walker who was standing just outside the paddock looking at them with a grim expression. Grady looked back down at the cow. “What the fuck did this?”

Horowitz was not sure he wanted to know and while he stood there, speechless, looking down at Grady and the poor cow, he saw a figure in his peripheral vision moving amongst the trees.

#horror stories #scary stories #horror #stories #my stories #i'm really excited about this one #this one got the notebook notes treatment #which is p serious y'all