Haunt

Gallows Trixie Meets Snapper - Part 2 of 2

Weekend One - Friday Night, Continued

September 16, 2022

POV: Kelsie Conrad

The hands grabbed Delilah, too, dozens pinning her to the door. "Oh my god!" She gulped for air. "Are you sure this is an evac?"

"No, it is, it is!" I said hopefully.

Until now, our rogue monster had been behaving perfectly nicely; watching the hands sprout around her like this was just an everyday occurrence. But then, they grabbed her, and wrangled her roughly out of the chair. The smile melted off that creature's face. She tried to squirm away from the hands, but there were too many, and they were strong. Snapper bit at the hands, spit that brown gunk at them and strained to free herself, but nothing worked. In moments, Snapper was face-down on the train car. She howled in distress. I hated that noise. I felt responsible for it.

Delilah and I lay helpless on the ground, our arms held behind our backs. One took my cowboy hat off and tossed it aside. I couldn't move one inch. "Hey!" I yelled in fury. "This is not helping! What in the hell are you doing?"

Delilah writhed in frustration, but she seemed more worried about Snapper. "Hey, girlfriend, hey. Take it easy! Spider's here. Do not bite, remember? Be a good girl!"

Snapper heard none of it; her bird-like shrieks continued as she tried and failed to flee.

"Hey!" Delilah yelled. "If you can hear us, stop! You're only making it worse!"

This was a freakin' nightmare. It was like lying in a field of the most awful flowers you've ever seen: waves of dead-looking, grasping hands coming up out of the floor and up the walls, and some dangling from the ceiling. How come Manos's spell sucked so much? Those damn Blood Pack freaks can't settle for simple prop magic like the rest of us. Oh no, they got spells, and Manos must have based his on anime porn. I was going to have the heebie jeebies for hours.

We heard a thud on the train car's roof, then heavy footsteps on the top of the train. The noise moved down from our car to the front of the train. Then I heard doors sliding open. I was barely able to see past all the hands. I spotted the entrance to this car. The pale hand at the door let go of the handle and pushed it open for someone.

I'd seen Hunter around before, but she was too stuck up to talk to me. Probably the meanest-looking woman under thirty years old I'd ever seen. Like the kind of person you'd see at the head of a prison gang. She was tall and stocky as a rugby player. Hefty, but built for fighting. She was the only person I knew who could pull off a black trenchcoat look without seeming like a Matrix wannabe. The rest of her clothes were black and red, as was the style of the Vampire's Lair.

I couldn't see much of her face. She wore a bulky gas mask strapped to her head like a soldier might wear in the First World War. I could only see her blonde, punk-cropped hair, shaved close on one side and left long. I could also see her red eyes - standard fake contact lenses many vampires wore.

Hunter slammed the door behind her. As she walked toward us, the sea of hands parted around her. From her coat, she took out a little spray canister.

She kneeled to my prone position, squinted one eye, and asked, "Kelsie Conrad?" in a low voice muffled by the mask.

Struggling and covered in hands, I replied in a deliberately strained voice to emphasize my discomfort, "Mind telling the Pack to lay off a bit? You do not want to piss off that creature. Or me."

Hunter twirled her finger in the air. "Turn her over." The hands replied to her command. I felt them shift; they rolled me on my back like a flipping a pancake. Hunter explained as if I was mentally incompetent, "That creature is a disease wraith. And this?" She held out the spray can. "This is the disinfectant. Mortician made it. Don't hold your breath."