The Hedgehunter: A TAWOG Fanfic

Chapter 3: Knock Knock

In that moment, words failed her. Reason failed her. The basics of understanding and comprehension failed her. Carrie tried her very best to process what she was seeing. In her mind, she kept telling herself it wasn't real. It couldn't be real. There was no possible reality where this could be happening. Her own consciousness futilely screamed at her, telling her it was some kind of trick. Some fluke of her own mind. She hovered there, looking up in abject shock, hoping and praying that her eyes would correct themselves. But they never did. Her senses weren't lying to her. What she witnessed in that moment was the horrifying truth.

The Hedgehunter was real.

He towered between seven and eight feet high, dressed in a weathered long coat with frayed cuffs and brims, and an old flannel shirt underneath. His pants were similarly aged and torn around the leg holes, along with big black gloves, and thick, dirty work boots. There was a weathered work belt around his waist, from which a pair of hand rakes rattled in the wind. His entire body was as wide as a refrigerator, and his arms and legs were as bulky as anacondas. His fingers alone were as long and as thick as bananas. In his left hand, he held that old, dull iron lantern, a ghastly green glow emanating from inside, pale wisps and strands of smoke coiling and snaking around it and dissipating into the rain, and a bright, pale-green ooze seeping from the base like caustic slime. His head was a large, dull green cube of hedge, unkempt around the edges, each side about a foot and a half wide. His mouth as wide, stretched into a devilish grin with pale yellow teeth. But the worst part was his eyes. Goodness, his eyes. Two large black holes with a pale, bluish green iris and a small black pupil that seemed to bore into Carrie's very soul.

He stood there almost totally motionless, a towering brute of a man, eyes unblinkingly gazing at her, mouth twisted into a vile grin that told Carrie exactly how much he was reveling in her reaction. Her horrified realization that he was really there, staring her in the face. That all of her suspicions, all of her anxieties, all of her fears, were founded. And she could do nothing about it. The staring match between the two felt to Carrie like whole minutes, the rain providing the only ambience. The Hedgehunter would sharply inhale through grit teeth, and let out a breath of stale air, specs of dirt flowing out with the wind before he finally spoke again.

"I hope you don't mind." He mused in that rough, gravelly voice of his, beginning to circle her slowly, footsteps heavy against the forest floor. "It's been quite a long time since I've seen a ghost. A proper ghost." His brow lowered menacingly, but his smile remained. He was savoring the moment.

All Carrie could do was circle him back, making sure he was in her line of sight. She tried to think of something to say. Something to ask him. Anything at all. But nothing came. She was still in a state of whiplash at the fact the Hedgehunter truly existed, and he noticed.

"How're your friends keeping, hm?" He spoke with a dark chuckle. "They treating this the same way you are?"

"What do you want?" Carrie finally piped up, meekly but firmly. The Hedgehunter gave her a cock of the head, his grin changing into a smug, knowing smirk.

"Carrie, dear..." He hissed. "You already know EXACTLY what I want."

"I'm already dead." She stammered back.

The Hedgehunter stopped moving altogether, staring at her, cocking his head to the side, his eyes sizzling with newfound curiosity. Carrie froze. In spite of every part of her telling her to get out of there, and not look back, she couldn't. It was as if his gaze was rooting her in place. The mere act of looking at him was chilling her to her core, and yet she could not peel her gaze away. She knew somehow that the moment she did, he would strike.