Raw Love [SLOW UPDATES]

Chapter 8

"That's a secret Alice." A man walks out of the building, phone held up to his ear. "Especially now with my reelection campaign." The man drops his keys and bends down to pick them up. When he looks up there's a strange man at the end of the alley, just standing there. "I'll call you back." He ends the call, putting the phone into his jacket pocket. "Festivities aren't until tomorrow." The strange man turns to face him and then starts walking towards the other. "Nice costume buddy but back off." The strange man continues walking towards him and then grabs him by the throat, squeezing until he stops breathing and the man falls to the ground, dead. The then now assumed creature descends on him as if eating him.

****

"When I said that I wanted to hang out, this is not what I had in mind." Hope waves her hand over her nose and makes a noise of disgust at the mushy pile of body in front of her and Lizzie.

"Who even found him?" Hope looks around at the small alley. "Or what's left of him?"

"Alissa Chang on her morning jog." Lizzie looks at the body and her face scrunches up in disgust. "Good thing too, otherwise this place would be crawling with police. What kind of monster do you think we're dealing with?"

"A Croatoan."

"How do you know that?" Lizzie looks over at Hope just as she starts speaking.

"Call it a hunch." Hope juts a thumb over at a dirty black door where the word CROATOAN is carved into it.

****

"Okay squad. We have a problem." Landon and the rest of the gang look up when Lizzie and Hope enter the gym. "And we're down a witch because Josie's in Richmond for commonwealth day. Which is bad for us because-"

"A Croatoan came through the portal and it killed a councilman."

"What the hell's a Croatoan?"

"Hold up." Kym snaps her fingers from her place next to her brother. "The lost colony of Roanoak." Everyone looks at her in confusion. "Seriously? Not one of you?"

"I'll play." Kym looks at Landon with a relieved look on her face. "Roanoak. It's one of the first English settlements in North America until it just vanished without a trace."

"And the only thing left behind was a word carved on a tree. Croatoan." Everyone looks at her. "What? I'm a history nerd. Why else would I be here for commonwealth day?"

"Um ignore her." Kaleb gestures to his sister. "Her visitation privileges are about to be revoked."

"The monster is here and it's after Landon so we need to get him somewhere safe."

"Wait guys, what about the zombie?" Everyone looks surprised that Raphael had spoken up. "I thought Malivore could only release one monster at a time?"

"Yeah, that's what we all thought." Kaleb suddenly asks Hope how she knows so much about Malivore.

"Have you not been around? She literally killed the cyclops, helped us defeat the oni, and helped me kill the minotaur although that was actually more me." Lizzie smiles in triumph at her last statement.

"Woah woah wait, there was a minotaur?" Lizzie rolls her eyes at Landon's stupid question.

"Yeah, not everything's about you."

"Alright, so then. What's the plan miss witch?" Hope and Lizzie look between each other.

"The plan is that I will take Landon, put a barrier spell around him-"

"Woah woah-" Lizzie quickly cuts the person off.

"What she means is that I will babysit Landon while everyone else is at commonwealth day." Lizzie turns to face Hope. "While Hope does her whole monster hunting deal."