"I don't rightly know. You know how the Old Ones is. Everythin' black and dark and scary evil like. It was sumpin to do with messing wit time. No mortal man can mess wit time, but he wanted to turn it backwards. He lost his love, and he wanted to make it right."
"His love?"
"I ain't be knowing the story, jus' wha I gets from my cousins over in Yur-Up, but they don't ever call no mo. This noble's wife or lady friend got herself kilt, he went too damn far trying to get her back. 'Bout all I know."
"Do you know why he is here now?" Milo asked. She shrugged her meaty shoulders. Her muumuu had ranch-dressing stains on it. "Can you sense where he is now?"
"No, but I reckon right now he's near water. Cain't say why I know, but I know."
Fat lot of good that did us. You couldn't swing a dead cat in the South without hitting a body of water.
"Do you know about an artifact that can kill time?"
"Lots of artifacts out there I reckon. I'd have to see it to tell y'all."
"Do you know about a Place of Power nearby?" I asked.
"Boy, don't y'all go messing wit that. Humans ain't equipped to deal wit that stuff."
"He's looking for a Place of Power."
"They are all over the place. Especially this land, can't go no place wit out being someplace right powerful. Good thing they ain't active mos' of the time. Only some times when the sun or the moon or the stars is just in the right spot and that only happens so many times in a life, an' I ain't talking 'bout no short little human life. Stuff gots to line up jus' right to have a Place of Power."
"Do you know where the next one is going to be?"
Another shrug. "Y'all about done? Wheel of Fortune comes on in a minute."
"Well, that is what we came for, your Majesty. Thank you for your time," Milo said.
Suddenly there was a horrible high-pitched screech. I jumped, startled off of the urine couch. Something the size of a bird was stuck in the bug zapper. Blue flashes and sparks fell to the porch as the device swung wildly from its chain. The Elf Queen took off one of her bunny slippers and hurled it against the zapper. The slipper hit true, and what appeared to be a tiny human with butterfly wings buzzed hurriedly away. "Damn pixies! Stay offa my porch!" the Elf Queen shouted as she shook her blubbery fist in the air.
Milo gingerly picked up the slipper and handed it back.
"Y'all be careful. I don't know whas coming, but I can feel it. Sumpin big is coming. If it ain't stopped, then I figure we all done in." She put her slipper back on, and leveraged herself to her feet. She lumbered into the doublewide while we excused ourselves and stepped off of the porch. She stopped in the doorway, turned and shouted.
"Which one of y'all is the dreamer?"
Milo nudged me to respond.
"I guess I am, ma'am."
"You seen the tattoo man. The one with the ink?"
"Yes, ma'am. I have." That was a surprise. I had just thought that was a normal dream.
"If'n you see him fo' real. Run. He ain't nothin' but the spirit of hurt and revenge."
"What do you know about him? Who is he?"
"I don't know, but I seen him in my dreams too. Y'all run. Run fast as y'all can go. He ain't on nobody's side, not good not evil." She started to waddle away, but then thought better of it.
"Dreamer. One last thing. Y'all got a mission. Don't screw up. Or we all git dead. This here is serious, and I ain't just funnin' ya." She regarded me solemnly. "As Queen of the Enchanted Forest, I order y'all not to fail. Kill the bad un, or it's all over."
"What's all over?" I asked.
"Everything… Now git. Wheel of Fortune is on." She turned away and the red muumuu swished. An argument started up immediately between the residents of the doublewide over game shows versus WWF.
"Let's get the hell out of this hole," Holly said. We all agreed. Trip almost looked like he could cry.
We drove back into town to grab some lunch and call in our findings to headquarters. We stopped at a Subway in Corinth. It felt good to be back in civilization. People were friendly, the cars weren't on jacks, and I was relatively certain that nothing had urinated on my seat. Trip had not spoken since leaving the Enchanted Forest. We ordered our sandwiches and sat in a corner booth. Milo stepped outside for a little privacy while he called headquarters.
"That really sucked," Trip finally said around a mouthful of food.
Holly was serious for once. "I really am sorry. Forget about the nerd teasing. It's tough when your illusions get shattered. I know about that. Trust me I do, but you will feel better."
"It's just that I got my hopes up. You have to understand, I loved my life. I loved teaching kids. When it all went to hell, I just couldn't go back. Once I found out what ugliness was out there, the magic was gone. Everything became bleak. So when I got the chance to fight evil, I took it, plus-don't get me wrong-the massive pay raise helped too; I'm not fighting evil for free or anything na?ve like that. But come on now, with so much secret evil in the world, I thought for just a minute that there might be a secret good. I just got really excited. Maybe the magic was still out there, you know?"
I nodded. Personally I was still trying to wrap my brain around the fact that I had just seen a pixie and was apparently having visions. I looked at the mushrooms on my sandwich suspiciously.
"I'm sure there is a greater good out there that offsets the evil, Trip. You will find it someday, just don't give up hope. You have seen the dark, but for every dark thing, there is light," Holly said, and patted him on the back of the hand. That was possibly the kindest and most upbeat thing that I had ever heard out of Holly Newcastle. Of course she immediately followed it with, "But if I have to deal with another stupid elf and their mystic crap I swear I'm going to shoot them all in their stupid inbred hick faces and burn their stupid trailer park down."
Milo came back and slid into the booth. He tore into his sandwich with a vengeance. "Don't let me forget to pick up a sub for Skippy too. He loves tuna salad," he mumbled with his mouth full.
"Milo, I've got to ask. Why did Harbinger and the Shacklefords freak out so bad in the meeting this morning?" I asked.
He hesitated. "I probably shouldn't answer that. It's Earl's job to tell the story about '95. I'm just the gadget guy. It's a touchy subject is all, what with all the death, and unimaginable horror, and rifts in the very fabric of reality, and whatnot."
Now I was really curious. "Come on, Milo. You're way more than just the gadget guy."
"True, I'm the guy that takes care of all of the little things. Hey, Milo, we need to make det cord pretzels. Hey, Milo, where can we find a thousand gallons of Holy Water at two in the morning? Hey, Milo, hurry up and build some new device that we need right now out of old junk A-team style. Hey, Milo, cast out these evil spirits. That kind of thing. But when it comes to a good suggestion, No, Milo, we won't go with your idea, because we’re sensitive."
"Everybody takes advantage of you," I said.
"Ha. Nice try. I'm still not talking. You want to know about the Shackleford family and what happened at the Christmas Party, you got to talk to Earl. He saved my life when I was only fifteen years old. I've been with them ever since." He chewed his food for another minute.
"You really rebuke evil spirits?" Trip asked. "Cast them out like in the Bible?"
"Sort of. Hey, I'm a Mormon. Every team has to have at least one person with a little faith. Not all problems can be solved by shooting the heck out of them. Well, most problems can. If not, then high explosives can really be your friend, but every now and then you just need to put your faith against the bad guys. For most Hunters that's a losing proposition, so that's why company policy is that if it don't have a physical body, take it up with the religious authority of your choice. Sometimes we don't get a choice in the matter though…" He slurped noisily from his straw. "Look guys, back to the subject, I grew up in Idaho, the youngest of fourteen kids. So family's important to me. When most of them got eaten, MHI became my family. And I'm loyal, so if Earl doesn't want me to tell you about '95 then I'm not gonna do it."
"Fair enough," I said. We all went back to our food and studiously avoided talking. Milo appeared to sink into his beard, deep into thought, chewing contemplatively.
After a few minutes of actual relaxation, Milo signaled that it was time to move out. We refilled our drinks and prepared ourselves to move back out into the stifling heat. Our group got a few looks from the locals saying that we obviously weren't from around them parts. I picked up a sandwich for Skippy and another foot-long meatball for myself. The senior Hunter waited for the other two to walk out the door before catching my arm.
"Owen." He looked to make sure nobody was listening. "I know you like Julie and that's why you're so intent on finding out what happened to her family." He pulled off his little round glasses and wiped them on his horribly ugly shirt.
"No, it's not that at all," I lied.
"Whatever. I didn't fall off the potato truck yesterday. Look, all I'm saying is that if stuff heats up, and this Cursed One turns out to be as bad as my gut tells me he's going to be, I'll fill you in on the details-provided you do me a couple of favors."
"And those would be?"
"Help me talk Julie into speaking with her dad. He might be the only person in the world who knows what's really going on. I don't want to go behind Earl's back, but this might be the only way. She might listen to you."
"Really? Why would she listen to me? Did she tell you she liked me?" My hope spiked temporarily. Milo quickly brought me back down.
"No. But she thinks you have visions."