The Monsters of Faggot Forest

(Warning: This chapter contains references to pedo and a brief mention of a general M/b and M/b/b scenario.)

"Enjoying your smoke?" Craig Byrne asked his thirteen-year-old son.

"Yeah, I guess," Robbie shrugged, taking another awkward puff and blowing it out at the slightly open passenger-side window of the red pickup truck. When he was done, he made no effort to turn back towards his father.

"If MY dad would've bought me two packs of cigarettes and given me his blessing to smoke at thirteen," Craig pondered, "I would've AT LEAST thanked him."

Craig had hoped for gratitude and a large number of "dad points". Instead, he'd have to be satisfied with revenge.

Craig had gone to Timbersburg to pick up his son for their bi- weekly visitation, which, thanks to his son's frequent cancellations, was morphing into a once-a-month visitation, at best.

After not seeing his boy for four weeks, and after Robbie came up with a last-minute excuse to shave the weekend visit down to only Saturday evening and Sunday morning, Craig hoped that maybe his ex-wife wouldn't pull her usual pre-visitation bullshit. No such luck. When she kissed Robbie good-bye, Craig could see her weaponized, fake tears pouring down her face. Instead of a twelve hour visitation, Linda looked like she was saying farewell to her soldier son before he went off to die in war.

"Why the fuck does she always have to do this shit?" Craig groaned out loud as Linda Byrne pretended to have yet another infantile emotional breakdown in front of their son, and place the blame squarely on Craig's shoulders.

Someone else was always responsible for Linda Byrne's histronics, both real and faked. Her emotional issues were never HER fault, nor responsibility, no matter how physically and emotionally abusive she became while allowing herself, or pretending to allow herself, to be carried off by them.

Craig had been stupid for falling in love with the feisty girl he met in college. Back then, Craig delighted in her fiery passion, especially in the bedroom. But after a few years of marriage, Craig finally understood what his father meant when he took Craig aside shortly after meeting Linda and told him that "a man should never bring a loaded pistol into his home unless he's prepared to have it pointed at him one day". Sadly, by the time Linda turned her metaphoric barrel toward Craig and fired, day after day after day, they'd been married for over a decade, and had a son together.

A huge chunk of Craig's best years had been wasted on a nasty bitch who was now intent upon sucking him dry financially and totally destroying everything good in his life, including Craig's relationship with his son.

"When we were still together, she wouldn't shut up about HER father and how much she loved HIM," Craig fumed. "But the evil, manipulative CUNT won't let OUR son love HIS father!"

Everything came to a head on the day of their son Robbie's eleventh birthday. Linda picked yet another argument with Craig, which Linda quickly turned into one of her ostentatious dramatic performances, during which she flung a large glass of iced tea into Craig's face. Craig, who finally snapped at the sight of Linda's oh-so-pleased-with-herself expression, flung HIS drink at HER. When Linda retold the story, she lied and claimed that she'd only slammed her tea down on the table, and that Craig had started the whole argument. She also exaggerated the "trauma" Craig caused by throwing his coffee at her, and went on to claim that Craig had beaten her.

Linda kicked Craig out of the house on his son's eleventh birthday, and convinced Robbie that it was all Craig's fault. And because of Linda's domineering and non-stop emotional conditioning, Robbie believed her.

Craig was still paying for his family. He just wasn't allowed to be a part of it anymore.

Linda wouldn't even give him his goddamned court ordered visitation without using it as yet another fucking weapon to further drive a wedge between Craig and Robbie.

So when Robbie angrily trudged over to Craig's pickup, programmed and ready to be a miserable little prick until he was dropped off the next day, Craig decided that it was finally time for Linda to receive some MUCH needed payback.

"When I talked to your mom a few weeks ago," Craig said as he backed the pickup out of the driveway, "she said she smelled cigarette smoke on your clothes. Even though I quit before you were born, she accused me of pushing cigarettes on you and teaching you to smoke, just to piss her off."

"Yeah...so?" Robbie grumbled, armed with his mother's decree that Craig no longer had the power to discipline Robbie in any way.

"Just wanted to know if you wanted me to pick some up for you," Craig offered.

For an instant, just an instant, Craig made eye-contact with Robbie and saw a glimmer of excitement, reminding Craig of the relationship he used to have with his boy. But Robbie quickly looked away and reverted back to his Linda-programming.

"Yeah, okay," Robbie monotoned.

Craig bought the cigarettes, and Robbie took them and lit up with no word of gratitude whatsoever.

It was Craig's big play to win back his son, and it failed.

"What the fuck do I have to do to get my son to stop HATING ME?!" Craig mentally screamed to the universe, "Whatever it is, just tell me what to do, AND I'LL FUCKING DO IT!!!"

Section I - The Human Perspective

"DOWNED TREE!!!" a voice screamed in Craig's head. "BRAKE HARD!!!"

Craig didn't know what to think, but his first impulse was to ignore the instruction and pray he wasn't turning schizophrenic.

"DAD...BRAKE!!!!" Robbie shouted just before they crested, letting Craig know that Robbie 'heard' it, too.

Craig didn't completely comply with the command, since most adult males balk at the notion of following orders, especially when they appear to have been given by a ghost, but he did slow down significantly as they traveled over the hill, ...and descended into a scene straight out of a horror movie!

"DAD, WHAT IS THAT?!" Robbie screamed at the winged monster as Craig performed a seated leg press against the brake, wishing he would've followed the voice's instruction as soon as he'd heard it.

The pickup stopped a scant five feet from the tree, but only after contributing even more skid marks to the previously-pristine asphalt. Unlike Tom Daggen's, however, Craig's were in a straight line, because in addition to having a much heavier vehicle, Craig's tires, COULD and DID pass the state inspection.

"I DON'T KNOW,...!" Craig told his son once the truck was fully stopped and he was able to get a good look at the bat-like monstrosity whose HUGE wings were flapping with such speed and power that even in the truck cab, with Robbie's window only slightly cracked, Craig's eardrums could feel the vibration of the wingbeats. ".....BUT WHY AREN'T YOU TAKING ANY PICTURES?!?!?!?!"

In the heat of the moment, and in the face of the unbelievable, Craig was stunned stupid, but not SO stupid that he didn't realize that fate had just handed him the supreme father/son bonding opportunity.

Robbie scrambled for his cellphone and had it raised and ready in seconds. But instead of some crappy pictures that might appear faked, and wouldn't even BEGIN to impress the kids at school, Robbie wanted some fucking VIDEO of the encounter!

It was irresponsible as all hell, sitting there and letting his boy record video when another car could easily come over the rise and slam into the back of the pickup, but Craig hadn't seen any lights in his rear view since he pulled onto I-147 north, so he figured he had a few moments. But in the meantime, a call had to be made.

"911, what's your emergency?"

"I'm on I-147 northbound, between Timbersburg and Johnsport, just past the Lincoln Valley turnoff. There's a large tree blocking both lanes."

"It's been called in. Officers are en route, and the highway authority has been notified. Stay in your vehicle. The other caller said there's an aggressive bear nearby."

"It's a MONSTER, not a freakin' BEAR!" Robbie called out in that mocking, condescending way that disrespectful children tend to do.

Craig knew that the other caller probably wisely substituted the word "bear" for "monster" so that the 911 operator wouldn't dismiss the call, and disbelieving officers wouldn't take their sweet time in getting there!

"Pardon my son," Craig said, gesturing at Robbie to shut up, "he's never seen a bear like this before. Neither have I, and I've been hunting these woods for twenty-seven years. Look, just make sure that the responding officers are LOADED for bear, okay?"

"Is the....bear....an immediate threat to anyone? Is everyone safe from it until officers arrive? What's it doing right now?"

Craig sighed, knowing full well that what he was about to say might be broadcast all over the news. It would be.

"The bear is flapping its wings and hovering about twenty feet in the air. It looks like it's menacing a dark green SUV in the opposing lane, on the other side of the tree. A girl inside is screaming, and......"

A lick of flame rose high enough that Craig could see it over the tree.

"....SHIT! The SUV is on fire, and the monster is using its wings to fan the flames! The people in the SUV aren't getting out!"

Craig reached over and pulled his Glock 17 handgun and a loaded magazine out of the glove compartment.

"I'm going to shoot it!" Craig announced to Robbie and the 911 operator.

"SIR! DO NOT ENGAGE IT! OFFICERS WILL BE ARRIVING SOON! PUT YOUR WEAPON AWAY, FOR YOUR SAFETY AS WELL AS THAT OF THE OFFICERS!!"

Craig hung up and put his phone back in the pocket of his jeans. Then he popped the magazine into the Glock and got out of the pickup.

"DON'T get out of the truck, and keep your head down so that if the SUV goes up, the truck's windshield won't explode in your face!" Craig ordered his son, then slammed the door before Robbie could give him any backtalk or bullshit.

Craig racked the slide and raised the gun to fire, but as he aimed, he was finally able to focus on the thing, which, besides the wings, appeared to be nothing more than a naked guy painted black.

"HEY!!" Craig screamed up at the monster, holding up the gun in case the thing was intelligent enough to understand the threat it posed. "YOU'RE FEEDING THE FIRE!! GO AWAY!! JUST GO AWAY!!"

The thing didn't seem to notice Craig at all. But without warning, the monster shook his head violently and plummeted to the ground. Its wings, instead of folding onto the creature's back, simply lost every bit of their firmness and became limp in the air, instantly looking like two large, thick, black plastic sheets that had merely been glued to the monster's upper back.

"How were those things keeping it aloft?!" Craig wondered as he scrambled onto the hood of his truck in order to get a better shooting angle on the fallen creature. "How can wings WORK without a skeleton and muscle inside of them?!?"

Craig situated himself so quickly that he was able to see that the monster had landed on his feet, but he was completely off balance. His feet were both firmly planted on the ground, but his knees were bent, and his upper body was leaning back to the point that it was almost parallel to the ground. But instead of falling on his ass, the only possible outcome, the creature simply straightened up.

If that wasn't scary enough, Craig watched in horrified wonder as his wings came alive again and lifted off the roadway. The monster opened his mouth, and all at once, both wings were instantly sucked down the thing's throat.

"No freakin' way," Craig gasped.

The monster turned towards Craig, making his balls lift up and cower against his groin, and causing his arms to break out in goosebumps.

"Don't even fucking THINK about it, man," Craig said, finally acclimating to the surreal situation enough to notice that the monster had gender, very OBVIOUS gender.

Craig wasn't feeling nearly as assertive as his voice sounded, though. If he were, when he raised his handgun, it wouldn't have felt like it gained twenty pounds.

There was a thumping sound coming from the SUV. If Craig had dared to break eye-contact with the monster, he would've seen that Jaden Harris was trying to kick out the back window, since the fire was blocking both doors on the non-monster side of the SUV.

Something arose up from behind the monster. It looked like a white shoe string, dancing in the air like a cobra. Without warning, it lept at the fire, showing itself to be MUCH longer than a shoestring. The never- ending strand circled in the air and dropped loop after loop of itself into the huge flaming puddle. It was as if some idiot on the other side of the creature was trying to extinguish the fire with string-in-a-can.

"What's he tryin' to....?"

The fire instantly disappeared, plunging the area into darkness so quickly that Craig panicked before giving his eyes time to adjust to the moonlight.

"HIGH BEAMS!!" Craig yelled down at his son. Robbie clicked them on, but the fallen cedar was tall enough to block them as well. All they accomplished was to reflect off the tree at the perfect angle to shine at Craig's eyes, completely robbing him of his night vision at a time when he couldn't possibly need it MORE.

Craig heard a sound that reminded him of glass breaking, but he was so concerned about not being able to see the monster that he dismissed it as someone in the SUV breaking out a window.

"Where is it?...Where is it?...Where is it?...Where is it?" Craig muttered to himself as he tried to make out whether the creature was still stationary...or coming closer."

Craig jumped off the hood and landed next to his driver's side door. There was a flashlight behind his seat. If he could get to..."

"DAAAAAAAD!!!!" Craig's child screamed.

The monster was standing on the other side of the pickup, next to the rear view mirror and uncomfortably close to Robbie's door. Craig quickly glanced at the door, and was immensely relieved to see that it was locked.

Through the gaps in the black hair hanging in front of the monster's face, Craig could see that it was staring at his kid with an eerie, predatory focus. Craig wanted to be enraged, but all he could muster up was fear.

"I don't care how human you look," Craig announced just loud enough to be heard above his boy's screaming, "if you touch my son, I WILL shoot and kill you."

Craig tried to draw a bead on the creature across the hood, but each time he tried, the thing crouched down and shielded his face with the metal of the windshield and door frames, creating a high possibility of bullet deflection if Craig missed.

"Robbie! Squeeze under the dash!" Craig ordered, wanting to remove Robbie from Craig's line of fire and the monster's line of sight.

"Can you understand me?" Craig asked, clamping his teeth and growling the words slowly to avoid chattering, stuttering, vocal weakness, or ANYTHING that would make the monster view Craig as less of a threat.

The monster didn't respond at first, but after a moment, it smiled and nodded its head.

"If you walk away...or fly away...I give you my word that I won't shoot you. Just turn around....or back up....and just go."

The monster's face twisted into a snarl.

"LOOK!" Craig said, raising his voice to make the monster think he wasn't intimidated, but accidentally letting out a tiny nasal whine, "I'M NOT TRYING TO BE A BIG MAN HERE, AND I'M NOT LOOKING TO COME OUT OF THIS AS SOME KIND OF HERO. I'M JUST VERY POLITELY ASKING YOU TO LEAVE!"

The monster shook its head.

Craig's shoulders dropped due to exasperation and an inability to maintain this level of unbearable tension.

"What do you even WANT?!" Craig intended to demand, but ended up sounding like he was begging.

The monster raised his right hand, revealing fingers with long, hooked claws at the end that could easily gut a fish, or most anything else.

They hadn't been there a moment ago.

The monster reached over and used them to tap the windshield in a downward direction, towards where Robbie was cowering under the dashboard.

It wanted his son.

Craig extended his Glock over the hood of his pick-up and slowly side-stepped towards the front bumper to line up a shot. Unlike a lot of the guys that Craig knew, he wouldn't feel good about killing the monster, and he certainly wouldn't go around bragging about it, but now that the thing had identified itself as a threat to Robbie, Daddy was now fully willing and ready to shoot the damned thing.

"You have to the count of ten to go away," Craig announced, knowing full well that it wouldn't. Craig hadn't been lucky about anything in a long time.

"10...9...8...7...6...5...4...OW!!!!!!!"

Two yellow tendrils reached up between Craig and the fender, touching the wrist of his gun hand, producing a loud, painful, electrical snap that made him drop the gun onto the hood. He tried to retrieve his weapon, but the two yellow tubes touched it first, creating sparks.

The monster stood in front of Robbie's car door. It tried the door handle. Thank God it was locked.

Craig unbuttoned the cuff of his light flannel shirt and pulled the material forward, hoping the fabric would insulate him enough that he could grab the gun and use it, killing the monster before its yellow electrical strings (wires?) were able to kill Craig.

Craig grabbed the gun and immediately yelped and dropped it upon receiving another electrical snap on the palm of his left hand. He jumped back away from the truck and into another tendril that had been "cobra-ing" behind the back of his head.

SNAP!

Craig spun around to the sight of about a dozen wiggling yellow strings in the air, forming a semi-circle around him and trapping him against the side of the truck. Craig momentarily looked down and saw the source, a single strand that had snaked under the pickup, came up behind him, and split off into many more strands, each the same thickness of the original.

"Robbie! Don't touch anything metal!" Craig shouted.

Instead of answering, Robbie screamed.

Caring more about his son than the possibility of even more pain, and perhaps electrocution, Craig spun around to see that the monster's tongue was flowing into the truck. Robbie had locked the door, but he'd forgotten to fully close the window he'd opened to let out his smoke.

"DAAAAAAAAAD!" Robbie screeched high enough to make Craig's blood turn to ice.

"ROBBIE!!" Craig roared, stepping forward to run around the front of the truck, with the goal of body-slamming the monster and getting it the fuck away from his son, no matter the cost. But before he could even take two steps, the yellow strands were in front of him, their tips randomly passing blue arcs of electricity between themselves, creating what looked like a net made of lightning. Craig turned and tried to run around the back of the pickup, but the yellow strands squiggled past him and reestablished the 'net' before Craig could reach the back bumper.

"IT'S GOT ME!!! IT'S GOT ME!!! DAD....HELP!!!!!"

Craig acted on impulse and took the only option left. He pulled his shirt cuff over his hand again, spun around, opened his car door, and managed to jump inside and slam the door without having the shit shocked out of him.

Robbie was still under the passenger side dash, and the creature's tongue was pouring down on his pants, oozing up his shirt, and getting alarmingly close Robbie's face.

"GET OFF OF HIM!!!!" Craig yelled in panic, thinking that the thing was trying to cover his son's nose and mouth.

Craig plunged his hands into the black, rubbery mass, determined to pull it off of his son, but without warning, the monster instantly sucked the massive glob through the tiny window opening and back into its mouth.

Craig looked up and saw the monster cover its face with his palm in mock amusement, as if he were embarrassed for Craig.

Craig looked at the Glock sitting on the hood. The electric yellow streamers were gone, tempting Craig to jump out of the truck and try to grab it. Instead, he closed Robbie's window, shielded his child's body with his own, and waited to see what the monster would do next.

Robbie started making noises that Craig knew to be the sound of a young man trying not to cry.

"It's okay, Robbie," Craig baselessly assured him. "Everything will be okay."

"Is it still there?" Robbie moaned.

"It's got its back to us. It's losing interest."

A slapping sound on the roof made father and son jump in unison. Another slap followed, followed by another and another.

"GO AWAY!!!" Robbie shouted, trying to fight his fear by turning it into rage.

Craig looked up at the monster and saw the source of the slapping. Another one of those goddamned strings was winding around the pickup, covering both side windows with an endless number of vertical strands.

"It's electrifying the cab!" Craig thought. But then he noticed that this string wasn't yellow, it was purple.

"What the fuck does that do?" Craig whispered, desperate for more information to figure out his next move. "I still don't know what the white one did!"

"If yellow is electricity, white's gotta be cold," Robbie offered, trying and failing to sound brave, but nevertheless needing to contribute something to feel less useless and helpless.

"What's purple, Robbie?" Craig asked. He didn't really care about the answer. He just wanted to keep Robbie talking and distracted, especially since the monster was moving again.

"I d-don't know, Dad."

Robbie barely used that word anymore, going so far as to do linguistic gymnastics to avoid saying it. But now, Craig's son was finally showing him a tiny bit of respect, at a point in which Craig felt like he couldn't possibly deserve it less.

The monster picked up the Glock from the hood of the truck and pointed it straight at Craig's head. He considered diving under the driver's-side dash, but even if he could squeeze beneath the wheel, his personal pride and honor would never fit.

Craig looked at the side windows again and saw something peculiar. The vertical purple strands were widening, turning from strands into.... ribbons...or maybe....

"Banding strap, Robbie," Craig informed his son, wanting to keep the two-way conversation -the first they'd had in a very long time- going until the moment of Craig's death. "The purple one is a banding strap."

"Huh? What's it doing now?" Robbie asked, still underneath the passenger side dash, being shielded by his devoted, endangered father.

"I love you, Robbie."

"Dad?"

The monster held Craig's gaze for another few seconds before suddenly rolling it's eyes, shrugging, and turning away from his opponent in an obvious show of disrespect. As an afterthought, it casually and arrogantly tossed the gun over it's shoulder, as if it, and the man who'd tried to wield it, weren't worth the monster's time.

Craig didn't take it well.

Craig raised up off of his boy and slid into the driver's seat, putting his hand on the key in the ignition.

"Dad? What's it...." Rob asked, sitting up and catching sight of the monster vaulting over the tree, the headlights showing something very peculiar dangling from the creature's ass,". "Is this purple stuff coming out of its butthole?"

"Yeah, and it's still connected to the pickup," Craig said more to himself than Robbie

Craig was confused. The thing had demonstrated so much intelligence that it didn't make sense that it would assume Craig would just sit there and do nothing while waiting to be released. Unless...it was only planning on holding Craig there for a moment.

"Seat belt...NOW!" Craig growled.

Robbie obeyed the command instantly and without question, making Craig feel even more confident about what he was about to do.

"You shouldn't have humiliated me in front of my boy, freak!" Craig thought, wishing the thing could hear him.

It did, but it was too preoccupied with self-conflict to pay any attention.

Craig turned the key and started his truck as quietly as possible, without giving it any gas.

"Dad, what are you-"

"HANG ON!"

Unlike Jaden Harris, Craig had known his vehicle for a very long time, and knew exactly how much force to apply to the gas at precisely the correct rate in order to make his truck rocket backwards as fast as possible on a runoff-slicked road, without any tire squealing to alert the monster to what Craig was going to do.

On the other side of the tree, the Thrall strode towards the dark green SUV. Jaden was standing in the way, an L-type lug wrench in his hand, raised to shoulder level.

"YEAH....THAT'S IT....GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE!!" Jaden challenged, unintentionally distracting the monster from hearing the soft ignition of Craig's engine.

The Thrall didn't need to read Jaden's mind to know that his tough guy trash talk was for Jaden's own benefit, not the Thrall's.

Jaden was an obstruction that the Thrall needed to remove as fast as possible. The Thrall had a plan, and Jaden was an impediment to it, so the Thrall simply raised his right arm and....UNEXPECTEDLY ROCKETED BACKWARDS, too stunned to increase the release of additional violet tendril to compensate for the reverse speed of Craig Byrne's pickup truck.

The Thrall's ass slammed into the fallen cedar and was raked by bark as he got pulled over the top, and then by asphalt as he was dragged southbound on I-147.

Craig wanted to use the monster to create a blood smear all the way back to Timbersburg, but the purple banding that was imprisoning Craig and Robbie loosened and started spinning around the truck, slapping it all around the windows, doors, roof, and undercarriage like crazy as it got yanked back into the monster.

When Craig crested the rise, he saw in the rear view mirror that the monster wasn't being pulled along any more, but neither had he risen to his feet. Craig also saw, through the front window, an approaching car off in the distance. Sadly, though, what Craig didn't see were police cars.

Craig flashed his lights for the benefit of the approaching car and then yelled "U-TURN!" to his son before spinning the wheel to the left and whipping the back end around.

"As soon as I hit that thing, I'm slamming the brakes so I don't ram the tree!" Craig outlined while bringing the car up to the fastest possible speed that the conditions and follow-through would allow.

Sensing Craig's intentions, the monster hurried to his feet and stood his ground. As far as Craig was concerned, that wasn't a good sign. Although slamming into the thing's chest and stomach was more likely to injure or kill the bastard, Craig had really been hoping to flatten the monster while it was still dazed and laid out.

"Keep your head down, in case he hits the glass on your side, or whips out one of those-"

A glowing strand dropped down between the creature's legs and rocketed at the road in front of the pickup, wiggling in the air so that it landed on the roadway looking like a high frequency wave.

Robbie was confused for a second, thinking that the tendril was a stream of piss, and that the monster had chosen a very inappropriate time to urinate. But then he realized what was actually happening, and that this strand wasn't purple, yellow, or white. It was red.

"RED IS ALWAYS FIRE!!" Robbie shouted as the pickup drove onto the superheated squiggles, which had already begun to cause the roadway to crack. Craig's tires didn't have a chance in hell, or in this case, ON it!

"SHIT!" Craig cursed as the front left tire instantly exploded and yanked the truck to the left, hitting and scraping the southbound guardrail instead of the intended target. The three other tires followed the example of the first, and Craig found himself braking hard and continuing to use the ear-piercing grind against the guardrail in an effort to help slow down and stop the truck before the tree did it for him.

The Thrall watched the pickup come to a deafening stop before retracting the red tendril at a speed much slower then usual. His new plan had almost just fallen apart, but everything could be easily put back on track if he delayed just long enough to make sure that Craig could get out of his truck and recover his...."

The Thrall looked at the exact spot where the gun landed when he'd contemptuously tossed it over his shoulder. It wasn't there, so where-?

BANG!!!

In one fluid motion, the Thrall bonded his feet to the roadway and simultaneously slammed his chin into his chest while pulling himself down into a crouch, barely avoiding the bullet that had been fired point blank, just below the base of his skull.

The monster unstuck himself, spun around, and stood to find himself at gunpoint, courtesy of Jaden Harris, who, in spite of his leg injuries, had climbed over the fallen tree in order to help the pickup driver.

The gun went off a second time, but by then the monster's lightning fast tongue had wrapped around Jaden's hand and raised the Glock harmlessly above the monster's head.

"Let GO!" Jaden screamed, his determination causing him to make the utterly ridiculous request, at least from the monter's perspective.

Jaden struggled like hell, knowing that the monster could easily disarm Jaden (in either sense of the word) and kill him. But without warning, the thing started jerking his head around like a confused chicken. It seemed conflicted somehow, a state that Jaden tried to take advantage of, but the tongue instinctively countered Jaden's muscles, keeping the gun from aiming anywhere near the monster's body.

"AAAAAAAAAARRRRGH!" Jaden screamed when the monster finally took definitive action and summoned the yellow tendril, which wrapped around Jaden's exposed forearm and tased him, forcing him to drop the Glock and fall onto the roadway, where the wetness promptly soaked into the back of his t-shirt.

"You s-s-s-son of b-b-b-BITCH!" Jaden spat while the monster released him from both the yellow tendril and his tongue, each of which retreated into its own distinct orifice.

Jaden had no idea what to do next, and even if a course of action suddenly did jump into his head, he wasn't sure his stunned, vibrating muscles would even cooperate to see it through.

The monster had a follow-up, though. And Jaden never saw it coming.

"I want to die," the monster announced, raising his arms high. "Pick up the gun and shoot me in the left eyeball. I need the exit wound to be as high as possible. DO IT!!!"

Jaden took a second to get over the shock of hearing the monster speak, coupled with the strangeness of his request. Jaden decided that it was a trick. It had to be. It reminded Jaden of those old westerns he watched as a kid, the ones where a defenseless man would be ordered to pick up a gun so that a murderous gunslinger would have a bullshit justification for shooting him.

"Only cowards sneak up on people, Lumberjack," the monster taunted without turning his head, having mind-watched Craig awkwardly crawl over his son and laughably try to exit the vehicle like a ninja.

"You ain't people, and my name ain't Lumberjack," Craig retorted, angry at himself for his lack of stealth.

"HEY ROBBIE!" the monster called out, "CARE TO GUESS WHAT THE ORANGE ONE DOES? IF YOU GUESS RIGHT, I WON'T USE IT ON YOUR EX-DAD, ...OR I WILL! YOU GET TO CHOOSE!"

"Don't fucking talk to my son!" Craig hissed. "And how 'bout you keep those things up your ass and we handle this like men?"

"I'd love to, Lumberjack, but since I can bench well over a TON, it wouldn't be much of a fight, would it? Besides, in case you haven't noticed, I'm still waiting for Jaden to grow a pair and KILL ME!"

"It's a trick," Jaden groaned at Craig.

"No, your BROTHER was a trick!" the monster laughed.

This remark earned the monster a glare of deep hatred from Jaden.

"ACID?"

The monster's head snapped over toward Robbie, who was still sitting in the cab of the wrecked red pickup.

"What did you say?" the monster demanded.

"Does the orange one spray acid?" Robbie guessed.

"How the fuck could you possib-?"

BANG!!!

The bullet smacked against the monster's forehead, just above his right eye socket. In his anger, Jaden decided to shoot the right eyeball instead of the left, which had been perfectly exposed when the monster turned towards Robbie. And if the sweat under the monster's arms hadn't exploded into Pit Fog at just the right moment and blasted Jaden with something to make him a little less conscious, one third of the creature would've been terminated, the only part of the Thrall left that could make the monster move, thus paralyzing him and allowing the Thrall to be captured.

Craig held his breath and dove into the obviously-drugged fog in order to retrieve his Glock, which once again found itself dropped unceremoniously onto the road. The monster was faster, snatching it up with his tongue, flinging it into the air, and catching it with his extended right hand, instantly holding Craig at gunpoint. It was a slick move, especially considering that the monster just had his bell rung.

"First of all....FUCKING OUCH!!!" the monster screamed, making Craig jump, "Second of all, Lumberjack, how about you and me just stand here for the next ten hours and discuss the interesting response time of the Timbersburg Police Department?"

"What do you want with my son?" Craig asked bluntly, knowing that the monster probably wasn't going to kill him, considering how many opportunities he'd let pass by already.

"Nothing," the monster lied, "I want this guy's brother instead."

"HEY ROBBIE!" the monster called out. "I'M GONNA CARRY OFF THE GUY IN THE DARK GREEN SUV AND DINE ON WHAT'S INSIDE OF HIM! D'YOU THINK YOUR EX-DAD IS MAN ENOUGH TO STOP ME??"

The monster threw the poor Glock a couple of hundred feet up the road. As it bounced to a stop, the car Craig spotted earlier slowly crested over the rise.

"AND.....GO!" the monster screamed before leaping over the tree and running straight at the dark green vehicle.

Cynthia screamed and hopped out of the far side of the SUV, mistakenly thinking that the monster was coming for HER. By the time she figured out that Jayce was the real target, the monster was sliding the silver tendril through the insulation of the rear passenger door, slicing into the lock mechanism. Then, after the back of the SUV was full of the glittery, lethal wire, the monster pulled it back through like a crosscut saw (aka "misery whip") and finished slicing cleanly through the latch, turning the car door into a car flap.

The last bit of the exiting tendril cut through Jayce's seat belt. The monster reached in, grabbed Jayce, and turned toward the forest.

Cynthia came around the rear of the SUV and made the tactically interesting decision to let out a high-pitched scream before running up behind the monster and kicking his ass...in the literal sense. Several more earnest, yet pathetic, kicks followed, encouraging the monster to take pity on Cynthia by widening his stance and making his "low hangers" available for her much-needed target practice.

The monster smiled at the sight of Craig finally climbing over the fallen tree with his recovered Glock and a flashlight.

"Took you long enough, Lumberjack!" the monster growled, holding up Jayce's body as a shield. "You might wanna put down the weights every once in a while and do some cardio."

"If you were serious about wanting to die," Craig offered, "I'm more than willing to shoot you in the left eye....and angle it upward."

"I think I'm done with suicide attempts tonight...HOPEFULLY! Right now, I think I'd rather feast from Jayce's insides."

"LET HIM GO!!" Cynthia shrieked, pummeling the monster in the back with girly punches that would've sickened a female MMA fighter to the point of puking.

The red tendril snaked out of the monsters ass and curled into the shape of an old electric oven burner.

"Your breath REEKS, girl!" the monster jeered, bringing the super- heated tendril uncomfortably close to Cynthia's face, making her quickly back up. "Wanna try MY brand? It's really great! YOU do all of the smoking, but I'M the one who experiences the satisfaction."

"Sounds like your times up," Craig announced to distract the monster, uncertain whether or not he would really burn her. Craig jerked his head back briefly to indicate the sound of an approaching siren.

The monster laughed. It was an honest laugh, one that made it hard for the monster to speak when he was finally able to do so.

"What's so funny?" Craig inquired, trying to keep the monster talking until the police arrived.

"The Timbersburg Police Department is a NATIONAL EMBARRASSMENT, Lumberjack! Once I take TWO STEPS into THAT FOREST, I'm free and clear! Do you know WHY?"

"No idea," Craig lied. "Please tell me in detail."

"SURE! First of all, it's racist BEYOND HUMAN COMPREHENSION! Every five FUCKING seconds, some idiot kid gets lost in this ENDLESS OCEAN OF TREES, and yet, in spite of having a high local Native American population, any time one of 'em tries to join the force, THEY'RE DRIVEN OUT! Why hire people who KNOW these woods, and who've been trained to track SINCE BIRTH, when you can hire your drinkin' buddy instead, right? The Timbersburg cops won't be able to track me, so they'll just hang out and wait for the K-9 units to show up."

"Hey, Cynthia?" the monster called out to the girl behind him, whose defiance kept her standing there, in spite of the incandescent red burner that was still hovering between them.

"What, asshole?" Cynthia snarled.

"The Timbersburg Police are almost here, and your black boyfriend is lying in the road, unarmed and unconscious. Aren't you just a little concerned that he might get killed for 'resisting arrest'?"

"Cynthia!" Craig called out to the girl, seizing upon the monster's obvious desire to get Cynthia the hell away, a desire that Craig shared. "You guys called in a bear, so the police are coming in hot and confused. Get to Jaden, and stay with him. I got this!"

After giving the monster a hateful glare, Cynthia hustled around the back of the SUV, ran to the tree, found a branch, and hoisted herself over to the other side.

"You 'GOT' this?" the monster chuckled once Cynthia was out of earshot. "Jaden almost blew a hole in the back of my head, and then he and Robbie succeeded in SCORING A HEAD SHOT. Besides trying and failing to give my non-abradable flesh a bad case of road rash, what exactly have you 'contributed to the cause' to earn the right to say: 'I got this'?"

"And the second reason you'll be safe from the cops if you take two steps into the woods?" Craig prompted, ignoring the monster's childish taunt in favor of keeping him talking.

"BECAUSE I'M NOT A FUCKING BEAR!!!!!"

The silver tendril whipped out of the monster's ass and once again spun along the northbound guardrail, creating what looked to be a breaking wave of sparks, and a whole lotta noise.

Craig, who hadn't seen any of the previous demonstrations of the silver tendril, had no idea what the fuck was going on. He couldn't see the tiny wire, just the effect, causing him to aim the gun back and forth between the monster and the guardrail.

"I'M A FUCKING SUPERNATURAL MONSTER WITH AN ASSLOAD OF SUPER- POWERS!!" the monster screamed, in case Craig's ringing ears prevented him from hearing the arrogant boast. "Do you think there's ANYTHING in that ONE police cruiser that can do SHIT against me?!?!

"CAN'T WAIT TO FIND OUT!" Craig shouted back.

"Well you'll HAVE to wait! Have you watched the NEWS in the last YEAR?!?! I'll have Jayce Harris eaten out before the cops can find their radios, establish who's in charge, call for tactical gear, and LOCATE WHICHEVER KEY OPENS THE FOREST! By the time they come for me, I'll probably already be hungry again!"

"PRIVATE PARTY!" the monster yelled at a middle-aged man who approached the other side of the fallen cedar.

"WHAT THE HELL'S GOING ON OVER THERE?" the man yelled.

"SEE TO THE BLACK GUY! THIS THING GASSED HIM! STAY BACK! TELL THE POLICE WHERE WE ARE! TELL THEM I'M ARMED, BUT NOT A HOSTILE! KEEP MY SON AWAY!!!"

"Jesus, Lumberjack! You gonna order him do your grocery shopping, too?" the monster asked while angling towards the forest, keeping Jayce's body in the line of fire.

"C'mon, c'mon, COME ON!!!" Craig thought at the poice cruiser that seemed to grow louder and louder, yet never GET THERE! Craig could even see the rotating red lights sweeping across the trunks and branches of the bare trees, but the cruiser just wasn't coming over the rise. Had it stopped? Was it setting up flares? Was it WAITING for something?!?!

The siren and the lights stopped.

Craig looked at the monster in confusion.

"Sorry, Lumberjack," the monster laughed with relish, "you were just seeing and hearing what you wanted to see and hear. There is no cop car. I'll be long gone with my dinner before one FINALLY gets here."

"Why are you doing this?" Craig asked the unspeakable, perverse monstrosity who was using an unconscious, defenseless, naked kid as a human shield! "Just....stop....enjoying this so much! Stop...trying to make this into something...funny! Just...just...TELL ME WHY YOU'RE DOING THIS!!"

For an instant, the monster looked like it was going to mock Craig again. Instead, its face softened, and it suddenly looked at Craig with the face of a teenaged boy, a boy who only looked to be a few years older than Robbie. The monster suddenly didn't even look as old as the boy he was using to hide from Craig's gun.

"Because I'm dying, Lumberjack," the monster admitted. "I only have a few hours left to my SHITTY, FUCKING two and a half month LIFE!!"

"I'm sorry about that," Craig lied, "but what does that have to do with Jayce there?"

After spending years enduring a woman who uses her fucked-up psyche and complete absence of emotional self-control as a justification for inflicting all manner of physical and mental torments upon the people who love(d) her, Craig had zero sympathy for the monster's plight, whether real or made-up. Whatever had brought the monster to this point, Craig doubted that the naked kid he was holding up in front of him had anything to do with it.

Craig was wrong, but neither he nor the monster knew it.

The sneer returned to the monster's mouth before he opened it to reveal two long, sharp, canine teeth.

"Because his brother failed to shoot the pathological liar in the left side of my brain! So NOW he's telling me that if I want to live, I have to take Jayce here into the woods and SUCK HIM DRY! And he'd better not be lying to me, Lumberjack, or else I'm gonna snatch that Glock 17 away from you, again...because it's SO easy to DO, and I'll SHOOT HIM MYSELF!!"

The monster had just given Craig too much to process. Thoughts were banging into thoughts, preventing anything from coming out of Craig's mouth. When he was finally able to cobble together a response, he meant to say: "If he's a pathological liar, why are you trusting him NOW?" (whoever "him" was). But instead of that question, which was stupid considering that Craig, too, would believe anything if it might save him from dying in a few hours, Craig ended up asking the question he was MOST curious about.

"You want to 'suck him dry'? Are you...some sort of vampire?"

The monster chuckled as if he and the pathological liar in his head were sharing a private joke.

"Nailed it, Lumberjack." the vampire said with a smile while making his canine teeth grow even longer. "That's exactly what I am."

The monster took another step towards the guardrail, forcing Craig to struggle to think of another conversational topic, one that would hopefully engage the thing for a little while longer, and keep it from running into the woods. In a flash of inspiration, Craig decided to talk about the one thing that the monster took the most pride in: his power.

"I know you said you can bench a ton-"

"OVER a ton," the monster clarified. "I've never maxed out."

"Still, strong as you might be, I'm really curious how a kid who looks to be around 180lbs. plans to carry off another kid who outweighs him by at least twenty pounds," Craig observed. "I'll wager you take about ten steps on that loose, wet soil before you fall bare-assed in the mud, from either your total lack of leverage, or the bullet I plan to fire into your back."

"CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!!" The monster cried out gleefully.

"FUCK!!!" Craig yelled at himself. In his attempt to stall the monster, he'd spurred him into action.

The monster's tongue shot out of his mouth and wrapped around Craig's wrist, pulling his gun hand high. Craig tried to twist the gun down and around to either free himself or aim, but it was like fighting a thick, powerful anaconda. Out of options, Craig raised his legs off the ground. Craig expected his clothed-ass to fall onto the road, but instead, the twenty-foot tongue beared his weight, even going so far as to effortlessly lift him even higher.

"How is he doing this?!" Craig screamed in his mind as he became a living violation of the laws of leverage.

Craig grabbed the monster's tongue with his free left hand and flexed his impressive muscles to transfer the strain of his weight away from his gun hand. If/when he was released, Craig didn't want his shooting arm to be impaired. Sluggishness could cost him everything.

Craig looked over at the monster to see even more impossibility. It had wrapped some of the violet banding strap around Jayce's upper chest and thighs, and was using it to support Jayce while the monster moved freely and fluidly, turning around and backing into Jayce to put them into a piggyback configuration.

A sick, pleased smile crossed the monster's lips as Jayce was lifted up into position, his penis sliding up the monster's ticklish, hungry crack.

"Wait," the monster thought to itself, "I liked that."

The straps lowered Jayce back down, then back up, but this time the monster squatted just right, and pulled his cheeks apart so that he could feel Jayce's dick slide along his asshole.

The pleasure-seeking monster quivered with delight.

The violet tendril continued to "ribbon" and spin around the two boys, strapping them together, but without constricting the monster's move- ments, or hurting Jayce. Due to the tendril's ability to tighten or loosen at any point along its length, it was able to fashion a "harness" that supported every inch of Jayce's body, even his head and neck, in perfect comfort.

"Are you ready, Craig?" the monster asked in Craig's mind, startling him. It was the same voice, but more...sophisticated somehow. Less primal than his speaking voice. Also, it didn't call him by that stupid nickname. Craig realized that it was the same voice that had warned him about the tree.

Off in the distance, somewhere over the rise, there was the sound of another siren...a REAL one. The monster could see hesitation forming on Craig's face.

The monster needed to give Craig some motivation, FAST!

"You used to live at 1173 Hollister Lane, Lumberjack," the monster informed Craig telepathically, but this time using its cruel speaking voice. "When I easily escape the police, and after I feast from Jayce's insides, sometime soon I'm gonna go there in the middle of the night. Don't worry, I promise to leave your ex-wife alone."

"I thought you were supposed to die in a few hours," Craig snarled.

"At this point, I honestly don't know," the monster admitted. "If the police break into your son's room and find the walls painted with sticky, congealed goop, I guess you'll know I didn't die after all."

The tongue released Craig's wrist, causing him to drop to the ground, and almost squeeze off a random shot.

"See you at Robbie's funeral," the monster shouted aloud, bounding over the guardrail and running into the woods

Craig got to his feet and took a second to ponder the inadequate, lone siren that was probably just about to come over the rise. Craig recalled the monster's dismal prediction about how things would turn out if left in the hands of the Timbersburg P.D. and concluded that the monster was correct. Craig had to choose between rescuing Jayce Harris NOW, or letting the Timbersburg P.D. recover the body LATER!

"Lumberjack" clicked on his flashlight and ran into the woods.

Once Craig caught the monster in his flashlight beam, he was tempted to fire off a shot right away, before the monster could get too far away from the police. He was certain that he could hit the monster in the thigh without hitting Jayce. But at the last second, Craig held back, realizing that his desperation would only lead to a wasted bullet, or a potentially fatal injury to Jayce.

Craig should've taken the shot. Even with Jayce and all the trees in the way, he still had a curiously strong statistical likelihood of hitting the monster in the base of his skull, after which Craig could easily walk up, free Jayce, and shoot the monster in the left AND right eyes, ....angled up, naturally.

And the shot need not have been a straight shot, either. The woods

-which ordinarily would've guaranteed that no bullet fired from a handgun would've stood a chance in HELL of hitting anything that wasn't within spitting distance (or less) of the barrel- would've deflected the bullet, multiple times if necessary, until it ricocheted straight at that sweet spot in the back of the monster's head.

So instead, Craig continued to run after Jayce and the monster, so frazzled by the supernatural turn his night had taken that he failed to see the obvious: he wasn't being challenged by the monster, he was being lead by it.

Tonight, Craig Byrne's fondest wish would come true, but if he'd known about the reprehensible and ruinous cost, he would've abandoned Jayce Harris to his fate and gotten his son the fuck away from there as fast as possible!

Section II - The Thrall Perspective

A few minutes earlier, the emergency survival protocols had complete control over the Thrall, and were forcing it to engage in a futile attempt to escape by performing an impossible vertical take-off that was causing its air backwash to fan the fire raging beneath the dark green SUV.

"Guile," Lecher called out while Craig was still talking to the 911 operator, "I can't override the protocols, and neither can you! WE...NEED.. ..A DIFFERENT...APPROACH!!"

"Such as?" Guile asked with a sweet, pleasant, female southern drawl, which, considering the enormous stress and urgency of their plight, was actually kind of funny.

"Can we try communicating with it?" Lecher suggested.

"In case you missed it, I name-dropped our Thrall Master and ordered the survival protocols to disengage!"

"Yes, but did you tell it WHY?"

Guile had about four sick burns locked, loaded, and aimed straight at Lecher's feelings, but as he tried to "Let Loose The Dogs of Sarcasm", he found himself sputtering instead.

"No," Guile finally confessed, sounding sincerely disappointed in himself, "I did not think to try that."

Guile drifted into the air and fought to match the up and down movements of the erratically flapping Thrall in order to remain eye-to-eye with it.

"Listen to me," Guile stated emotionlessly. "You have allowed humans to see the Thrall, you almost crushed humans under a tree, and you are about to burn three humans to death. Additionally, you have allowed the Thrall to be photographed, and the strapping red-haired man over there has a weapon that can injure us, and we are far too injured already. If you were truly created as an emergency survival protocol, you must conclude that you are unable to serve your purpose without the help of the Thrall's Guile and Lecher, who are both still able to function in spite of being injured. If you allow us to man our respective stations, and allow me to advise you, the three of us can work together and-"

"WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!?!?!?" Lecher thought-screamed at Guile.

Without warning, instead of simply working WITH Guile and Lecher to clean up the shitstorm it had created, the CHARITABLY named, SO-CALLED emergency survival protocols apparently decided to say "Fuck THIS!" and let Guile and Lecher clean up its mess, giving them FULL CONTROL over the Thrall.

Guile and Lecher were perfectly happy with this!

It would've been a great moment for Lecher, except for one little wrinkle: Unlike every OTHER Lure in existence, Lecher's Lure steadfastly REFUSED to hand "his" body over to Lecher for ANY reason, even to acclimate himself in case of emergencies....like suddenly finding himself twenty feet in the air, piloting not only a physical body for the first time ever, but flapping a huge-ass pair of wings.

Lecher shook his head and tried to orient himself enough to gradually slow his flapping and gently descend to the ground, but even though he now had unlimited access to Lure's muscle memories, it was pretty much hopeless.

"Meh," Lecher thought as he let his wings go limp and dropped to the asphalt.

Lecher actually managed to land on his feet, but his upper body was angled back too far. That, and the weight of the wings, caused Lecher to involuntarily bend at the knees. Any other person in that situation would have fallen on their ass, but although Lecher wasn't very skilled at having a body, he WAS skilled at using the Thrall's physical powers.

The instant Lecher's feet smacked against the roadway, his arches dropped, increasing the amount of surface contact with the asphalt, and the skin of his feet instantly shape-shifted to match the microscopic contours of the road while pushing air, runoff, and particulates outward to the edges of his feet. Then, just because Lecher wasn't sure that the bond would be sufficient, he unbonded a quarter-sized portion of each of the bottoms of his feet, and forced the skin to lift up, forming two powerful suction cups. Thus, instead of falling backwards, Lecher simply flexed his leg muscles and raised the horizontal part of his body, from his knees to his head, until he was once again vertical.

Once upright, Lecher opened his mouth and forcibly retracted his tongue, then unbonded his feet from the roadway and raised his arches back to their original positions.

"Whenever you're done," Guile spoke up, "we still have a gasoline fire and an armed assailant to deal with."

Lecher turned towards Craig Byrne and laughed to himself at the sight of the muscular, bearded, red-headed man in his late thirties who, for God knows WHAT reason, chose to wear jeans and a red, long-sleeved, flannel shirt on a seventy five degree night.

Standing there with the Glock and the fallen cedar lying in front of him, Lecher jokingly wondered if the guy was a lumberjack who'd mistakenly brought the wrong tool to work.

"Don't even fucking think about it, man," Craig said, raising his handgun at the Thrall.

"Mr. Lumberjack just volunteered to be doped stupid, stripped naked, and fucked like a bitch," Lecher grinned.

"His name's Craig Byrne, he's a Sagittarius, and his likes include hunting, fishing, weight lifting, and TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHY YOU STILL HAVEN'T USED THE WHITE TENDRIL TO PUT OUT THAT FUCKING FIRE!!!"

"Yeah, yeah," Lecher grumbled, shooting the white tendril out of the Thrall's ass and making it circle in the air so that it landed in the flaming puddle as an endless series of space-filling loops.

Lecher activated the tendril -noting how difficult it was to do so while operating a physical form- and used it to pull all the heat out of the liquid and into the Thrall's fathomless body. The fire instantly disappeared, and the liquid turned into a large, frozen puddle.

Lecher ordered the whole extended tendril to rip itself free from the ice at once, causing a brief, loud "KSHHHH" sound that Craig mistook for the sound of breaking glass.

"Okay, fire's out," Lecher noted. "Now, while I'm running away, I want to hear all about this plan you magically came up with. If it can save us-"

"LECHER!" Guile commanded, demonstrating why power trippers should never be given more authority than they already possess. "GET TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THAT TREE! NOW!! I HAVE TO CONFIRM SOMETHING!!"

"Yeah, THIS won't get old any time soon," Lecher bemoaned while springing into the air and managing to land a mere two feet away from the "X" on the mental map that Guile stabbed into Lecher's poor, achy brain- section. "At least I won't have to put up with it for long, on account of us both probably getting killed in a couple of hours."

"DAAAAAAAD!!!!" The boy screamed at the monster that approaching his car door.

"STARE AT THE BOY UNTIL I SAY OTHERWISE!" Guile ordered.

Although Lecher couldn't see them, he knew Guile was sending out HIS tendrils, tentacles made of psychic energy that flowed from Guile's brain-section into the boy's mind, Entwining them both.

"Hey Guile, you're not reading this kid, are you?"

"Stop distracting me!" Guile snapped. "Keep the father busy!"

"I don't care how human you look," Craig announced just loud enough to be heard above his boy's screaming, "if you touch my son, I will shoot and kill you."

Lecher didn't answer. He just followed Guile's orders and engaged Craig Byrne in a creepy game of cat and mouse.

"I've never SEEN this amount of Soul-Creation Energy concentrated in one single male before!" Guile marveled. "It clings to him...it swirls around him...it SATURATES him! I MUST HAVE IT ALL!!!"

"Wait a second!" Lecher thought at Guile. "Is THIS your plan? To present this boy's Soul-Creation Energy to the master and HOPE he doesn't kill us?! That's IT?? That's ALL? You LIED TO ME!! You made me think you had a REALLY GOOD PLAN, but you DON'T!"

"I DO have a really good plan!" Guile snapped back. "A flawless plan! The boy only helps me carry it out!"

"Or you're LYING TO ME, and you sensed the kid coming! You probably only wanted me to extinguish the fire because you were afraid that the driver would whip a shitty and get the boy the fuck away from here!"

"Thanks to the mismanagement of Jayce Harris' semen by those fucking PROTOCOLS, I'm almost drained again. I didn't have the RANGE to sense this boy, even WITH the colossal amount of S.C.E. he carries.

"And yet you keep finding energy to keep throwing up screens! And you certainly have enough energy to mentally probe the HELL out of that boy!"

"You would find the boy's desires interesting," Guile sidetracked. "They are fascinating in their depravity. The boy's overpowering sexual yearnings are focused upon-"

"GUILE!!" Lecher screamed, determined not to be distracted or manipulated by the being who essentially had his life in his non-existent hands.

"I don't 'keep finding' mental energy! My abilities CAN slowly regenerate WITHOUT S.C.E., and I JUST FAILED to screen the Thrall when the protocols exposed us all, in case you didn't notice. And as far as the boy is concerned, the only reason I can read him this deeply while I'm mostly drained is because he's RIGHT HERE!!"

"Robbie!" Craig called to his son inside the pick-up. "Squeeze under the dash!"

"I'm gonna need to know the plan," Lecher announced as he avoided Craig's aim. "That kid can't possibly be sixteen, so if you order me to suck or jerk him happy and sticky, our mental and physical inhibitors are going to sense it, and we'll get an instant, excruciating reminder of how much the Masters don't like it when a Thrall DISOBEYS!! I'm weak and injured, Guile. I won't be able to TAKE that kind of pain!"

"Oh, stop whining! In spite of not being acceptable prey, we CAN drain him...SAFELY, and ensure that the boy doesn't talk about it, which is the ONLY concern of the Masters in regards to pedophilia. Now PAY ATTENTION TO THE FATHER! He just asked if you can understand him. Give him a sinister smile and then nod!"

"And THEN what?"

"And then we let the father know we're after his son, and when he tries to protect him, we make him look a buffoon.

"And....shaming the guy in front of his son will help us gain access to the kid???"

"EXACTLY!"

Lecher stayed silent and did exactly what Guile asked, in spite of his gnawing doubts concerning Guile's plan. But after Craig and Robbie were trapped by the violet tendril in the cab of the red pickup, and Lecher was pointing Craig's Glock at its owner's head, Guile made an alarming demand.

"Turn away from him and fling the gun over our shoulder," Guile ordered.

"But...he'll get it back," Lecher protested. "His boy may be 13, but he's got the body of a 10-year-old. He could squeeze through the cab's back window and go get it."

"The father would never allow that!" Guile countered with irritation, "THAT'S part of the reason I had you tap the window at the boy! Craig won't DARE risk having the boy leave the truck if there's a possibility that we might GET him! Now THROW THE GUN!"

Lecher rolled his eyes at Craig, then shrugged. It was meant for Guile, but Lecher used it at Craig. Lecher was having serious misgivings about Guile. NONE OF THIS made any sense.

"Jump over the tree and head towards the SUV, QUICKLY!" Guile ordered. "We need to hurry up and grab Jayce Harris before Craig-"

"Wait...him again?" Lecher asked, reaching the limits of how much he could take on faith. "We already DID him. Why can't we take his brother?"

"Because his brother is a 'wading pool'," Guile explained impatiently.

Lecher knew the expression, but until tonight he'd never encountered someone whose storage capacity for S.C.E. was so low that he wasn't worth the effort. It also didn't make any sense, since Jayce's storage levels were slightly above average, meaning that Jayce could be harvested a few more times before he was drained completely.

"Wait....aren't they brothers, with the same mother AND father?" Lecher demanded in confusion.

"Yes!" Guile confirmed irritably.

"But brothers always have the same S.C.E. storage capacity! It's IMPOSSIBLE for one of them to be a wading pool!"

"Apparently, it's not impossible," Guile contradicted, "which makes it a mere statistical improbability. Now raise one of our arms so that I can gas the wading pool standing in front of us with a tire iron."

"It's not a tire iron, dumbass," Lecher hissed, returning Guile's annoyance with some of his own, "it's a fucking LUG WRENCH!"

"YEAH....THAT'S IT....GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE!!" Jaden challenged as the Thrall approached.

Jaden was a minor concern, but he was yet another variable to consider in the vast tapestry of Guile's grand plan. And coupled with the negative effects of Guile's concussion and Lecher's interminable insubordination, it caused Guile to fail to remember that he hadn't ordered Lecher to snatch Craig's truck keys before trapping him.

"I've got no fucking clue how kidnapping Jayce is gonna get us any closer to getting that boy's cum, Guile! And I SURE don't know how you're gonna extract it if-"

"STOP TRYING TO THINK!" Guile screamed in agonized exasperation, "I've ALREADY thought through EVERYTHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING-!"

The Thrall was yanked backwards by his own tendril and slammed ass- first into the fallen tree. Then, before Lecher could pull himself together enough to let out more violet tendril, or make the section connecting his ass to the pickup much more elastic, the Thrall was dragged over rough bark and pulled down the road until Lecher was forced to free Craig and Robbie, completely messing up Guile's plan.

"FUCK! FUCK-FUCK-FUCK-FUCK-FUCK-FUCK-FUCK-FUCK!!!!"

"GUILE! Calm the FUCK down and tell me what needs to happen right now to get your plan back on track!" Lecher appealed as he stared at the sky and pulled the violet tendril back into his ass. "Tell me what you NEED!"

"I NEED CRAIG TO COME BACK HERE, GET OUT OF HIS TRUCK, AND RETRIEVE HIS GUN SO THAT HE WILL BE EMBOLDENED TO CHASE US INTO THE WOODS WHEN WE TAUNT HIM AND ABDUCT JAYCE! AND I NEED HIM TO DO THAT BEFORE THE POLICE ARRIVE!!"

Lecher was about to tell Guile that his plan was totally screwed, since it appeared that Craig and his boy were leaving. But then, the pickup spun around and accelerated straight at the Thrall.

Lecher smiled and slowly got to his feet.

"No problem," Lecher bragged, shivering in enjoyment at the heat of the red tendril as it slid through his asshole, "I got this."

Moments later, the Thrall stood a few feet away from Craig's truck, which had noisily scrape-crashed against the south guardrail. Craig eyed the monster cautiously as he crawled over his son and pushed Robbie back to the now-inaccessible driver's side.

"Guile, I'm ready to go get Jayce, but the gun isn't where I tossed it. Do YOU see it?"

"Keep an eye on Craig while I look for it," Guile instructed.

Lecher did exactly what he was told, when all of a sudden...

"DUCK FAST!!!!!"

Lecher instinctively lowered his head, bonded his feet to the road, and instead of just dropping into a crouch, he pulled himself down into one!

BANG!!!

The bullet passed over the Thrall's head, ...barely.

Lecher spun around and wrapped his tongue around Jaden's right hand, raising the barrel upward.

"There's NO FUCKING WAY you didn't see that coming, Guile!" Lecher accused.

"I saw him retrieve the gun," Guile confessed, "but then I realized that if he shoots us it will greatly increase our chances of survival!"

"You have five seconds to explain that sentence," Lecher stated coldly.

"WE DON'T HAVE TIME!" Guile screamed. "I ORDER YOU TO LET JADEN HARRIS SHOOT US...SOMEWHERE NON-LETHAL!"

"WE'RE TALKING TELEPATHICALLY, AND WE CAN ALTER OUR TIME PERCEPTION," Lecher protested. "We ALWAYS have time to talk! We spend hours insulting Lure in just a few minutes!!!"

"Lecher, you can either let Jaden Harris shoot you in a non-fatal place on our body, or I WILL TELEPATHICALLY MELT YOUR FUCKING BRAIN- SECTION."

"Understood."

Guile knew that Lecher would never ordinarily give in so easily, but given that Guile was his only chance at survival, Guile didn't suspect any deception on his part. However, what Guile DIDN'T know was that although Lecher was terrified of death, he was more afraid of going out as a chump, and from what he could tell, either the Thrall's collective brain injuries had given Guile a bad case of delirium, or Guile was just orchestrating an elaborate series of random events in order to give his (allegedly) enhanced cunning something to do.

WHATEVER Guile was doing, Lecher was convinced that the one thing it WOULDN'T do was save his life.

Lecher decided then and there that what HE wanted to do with his remaining time was to enjoy one of the many things that life wanted to deny him: solitude.

"I want to die," the monster told Jaden in utter seriousness, raising his arms high. "Pick up the gun and shoot me in the left eyeball. I need the exit wound to be as high as possible. DO IT!!!"

"LECHER....STOP!!!" Guile screamed. "THERE IS A PLAN...IT WILL SAVE BOTH OF US...DON'T RUIN IT!!"

"Wow," Lecher mocked. "Instead of giving me a good reason not to kill you, you offer more vague bullshit. Excellent play, 'Guile', but you failed to talk Lure out of trying to kill himself, and you just failed to talk me out of killing YOU!"

"Only cowards sneak up on people, Lumberjack," Lecher informed Craig without turning his head.

"You ain't people, and my name ain't Lumberjack."

"HEY ROBBIE!" the monster called out, "CARE TO GUESS WHAT THE ORANGE ONE DOES? IF YOU GUESS RIGHT, I WON'T USE IT ON YOUR EX-DAD, ...OR I WILL! YOU GET TO CHOOSE!"

"LECHER...START SWEATING...NOW!!!!!!" Guile screamed. "IF YOU WANT PROOF THAT I HAVE A PLAN...DO IT!!!"

Lecher assumed it was yet another pathetic Guile ploy, but he did it anyway.

"ACID?" Robbie spoke up.

Lecher looked over at Robbie, who was still sitting in the cab of the wrecked red pickup.

"What did you say?" Lecher demanded.

"Does the orange one spray acid?" Robbie guessed.

Lecher assumed that Guile told the boy mentally, but Guile would KNOW that Lecher wouldn't fall for such a stupid, easy deception.

"How the fuck could you possib-?"

BANG!!!

"YES!" Guile shouted in triumph after gassing Jaden at the exact moment to fuck up his aim.

Guile quickly adjusted his perception and looked at the Thrall. Sure enough, Guile could see Probability Spasm Residue all over the Thrall's body.

"SUCCESS!" Guile announced. "I KNEW THE BOY WOULD GUESS CORRECTLY, AND THAT JADEN WOULD USE YOUR DIVERTED ATTENTION TO TRY TO SHOOT US!"

"He...almost...killed me-"

"But I stopped him, so shut up!" Guile chastized. "Now fling the gun far enough away to allow us time to grab Jayce! Everything is now going PERFECTLY!"

Lecher did as he was told, but he swore to himself that if Guile's plan wasn't the most fantastic plan EVER, Guile would PAY for giving Lecher false hope. Thanks to Lure, Lecher now knew a way to kill Guile, and Lecher could carry it out faster than Guile could mentally burn out Lecher's brain-section.

Lecher tore up the ground as he fought to keep his lead on Craig. The thin, bony protrusions he'd grown out of the bottoms of his feet were excellent for traction and balance, but they created a tiny amount of resistance with each footfall that was having a cumulative negative effect on his speed.

"Christ, I'm hungry!" Lecher bitched. "In BOTH ways!"

Under ordinary circumstances, this moonlight death race beneath the spindly canopy of tree limbs would've been thrilling for Lecher. Lechers are beings of the physical, but thanks to Lure's selfishness, Lecher never had the opportunity to take full control and just RUN! But as with all things in his brief life, his fondish wishes had to manifest as curses.

"Unless you want us to be shot AGAIN, you might want to run a bit FASTER!" Guile suggested 'helpfully'."

"Even Lecher has his limits," Lecher mocked, "But after your little pep-snipe, I feel refreshed...renewed, even. I almost feel like I'm NOT starving, depleted, and learning how to run by fleeing through muck with a two hundred pound high school athlete on my back, while using the silver tendril to clear away branches so that my dual-supper doesn't lose an eye or two!"

"I think I can help," Guile informed him.

"Oh, please don't put yourself out!" Lecher snarled. "I'd HATE to be a bother!"

"Working....." Guile announced.

"WAITING....." Lecher griped.

A minute later, Lecher's unconscious hostage let out a deep, lusty moan in his sleep. Shortly thereafter, Lecher felt Jayce start to sleep- grind his crotch against the Thrall's back.

"Is Jayce bonering up?!" Lecher asked in response to the sensation of something sliding down the base of the Thrall's spine.

"I thought we could use an 'in flight' meal," Guile explained. "Do TRY not to fill up. If everything goes according to plan, you and I will be dining on 'chicken' later."

Mid-stride, Lecher reached down and wiped his balls with his open left palm. The selectively transferable liquid, which, like a virus, knows where it desires to ultimately end up, abandoned the goose flesh of Lecher's scrotum in favor of the vastly-increased infection potential of Lecher's hand. The liquid immediately traded-up once again when Lecher reached back and wiped his palm across Jayce's mouth. It clung to his muzzle and vaporized, achieving its goal of being absorbed into the lungs and nasal tissues of a post-pubescent male.

Lecher felt a light, persistent, eager knocking on the interior of his asshole. Lecher relaxed just enough for Baby Blue to escape and slide up and around the Thrall's tailbone. The tendril happily gobbled up Jayce's inflating cock and let it know just how much Baby Blue had missed it.

"We've never drained prey twice before. Don't we have to, uh, 'frack' him?" Lecher asked.

"I believe the word you're looking for is 'Churn', and to answer your question, average prey can be drained two or three times before their remaining Soul-Creation Energy locks down."

"But...if the S.C.E. doesn't accompany the semen, the girl can't get pregnant," Lecher protested. "Since guys don't go through periods of infertility after knocking up a whole lotta girls in the same night, why does it lock up against US?"

Guile felt a flash of rage. Ever since the Thrall's 'birth', Guile had the unsettling feeling that the Master had cut corners...a LOT of corners...during their creation. And now, Lecher was proving Guile's theory. Lechers should instinctively know everything about Soul-Creation Energy. After all, collecting it WAS THEIR FUCKING REASON FOR BEING!!!

"If we were made poorly, there can only be two explanations," Guile thought dismally. "Either our Master is incompetent at making the beings who KEEP HIM FED AND SECURELY TETHERED, or this Thrall was never meant to be kept around for very long."

Guile vowed that if he survived this horrendous night, he would make it his business to find out what happened to Master Ladislav Kaschak's previous Thralls, ...and what He was doing in such an ill-suited place like Timbersburg.

"Because nature makes it so," Guile explained, politely answering Lecher's moron-level question. "Our body absorbs all of the S.C.E. from a load of semen by tricking millions of sperm into thinking that they've each fertilized an egg within the same woman. The remaining S.C.E. within "daddy" senses this and slams on the brakes to prevent inbreeding, massive over-population, and a very inconvenient monthly child support payment."

"But..." Lecher began, apparently able to continue asking stupid questions in spite of claiming to be exhausted, "why doesn't the S.C.E. lock down after the FIRST ejaculation. Why does it take two or three before the S.C.E. catches wise?"

"Because we have another internal organ that jams the communication between the S.C.E. we're absorbing, and the remaining S.C.E. inside of 'daddy'. But it only works two or three times before the lock-down occurs. Nature and Thralls have a bit of a 'bat and moth' situation going on between us."

"I don't understand."

"And I'm not going to waste a single second explaining it to you."

"Can I ask one more question without you laughing at me?"

"I've done an amazing job so far, haven't I?"

"What is 'Churning'?" Lecher inquired.

Guile suppressed a strong impulse, but it wasn't laughter. At that moment, Guile realized that even if he and Lecher survived the next day, they would always have to be on high alert to avoid being disposed of, and they'd also have to work twice as hard to earn half of their life expectancy.

"'Churning' is the act of inserting several tendrils into a male that stimulate his mind and body -particularly the parts associated with reproduction- and supercharge his semen production to the point that when he ejaculates, it would be advisable to either get out of the way, or put on waders. The subject will experience multiple, intense orgasms as he surrenders every bit of Soul-Creation Energy in his body."

"And that's what you want to do to Lumberjack's thirteen year-old kid?"

"Problem?"

"Not a one," Lecher replied, "except for the pain."

Historically, Thralls were permitted to extract S.C.E. from any male, regardless of age. An untold number of little boys would wake up in the middle of the night, due to a combination of their state of absolute euphoria, and the sensation of a mouth doing wonderful things between their splayed legs. Their unrestrained, squealing laughter would fill their bedrooms, yet mothers, fathers, and siblings never came to investigate.

If two or more brothers shared a room, a boy might be awakened not by his own laughter, but by that of his sibling. It wasn't uncommon for a boy to open his eyes to the peculiar sight of his bedroom filled with fog, and his brother lying in his bed with his night shirt pulled to his chest, happily kicking his legs in the air and carrying on while a strange young, naked man lay at the bottom of his brother's bed with his mouth on his brother's "thing". It should've been a terrifying moment, but in the fog- filled air, all the next "victim" could feel besides his fogborne ecstacy was intense anticipation, a mysterious yearning, and a tingling feeling of excitement radiating outward from his privates.

The boys were never the prime target, as Thralls of that era didn't have the ability to know if the child would reward his efforts by spitting out a token of his appreciation or not. The fathers, uncles, and older brothers were always the main focus, but after the men in a household had been drained and forced to fall into a deep slumber, why not seach the now-secured home for every penis he could find? It seemed stupid and wasteful not to.

But those were different times. Sexual matters were never spoken of, ...EVER. And if a boy went to his father and told him what had been done to him, the father would've angrily silenced the boy, with either angry words or violent actions, impressing upon the lad the importance of keeping family matters quiet. No man of that era wanted HIS household to be accused of consorting with "Him down below". Besides, the men in his community would know that if it happened to the man's son, it had definitely happened to the father as well.

But as times changed, and private sexual matters became far more public, Thralls avoided boys who weren't old enough to understand that sometimes things happen to a young man that he shouldn't discuss openly. But in spite of this act of Thrall self-policing, the lips of boys still flapped, rumors spread, and legends were told, forcing the Masters to act. A minimum age of fourteen was established, which quickly became fifteen, then SIXTEEN, which was set in stone when the masters also decreed that sixteen would also become the minimum age for Thrall recruitment as well, for similar, yet different, reasons regarding maturity.

In the following years, the telepathic abilities of Guiles were increased to the point that young children could be made to remain asleep while being fed upon, or, if they woke, their memories could either be erased or "partitioned", which meant that the boy would remember the encounter, but he wouldn't be able to talk about it. "Partitioned" also meant that the memory of the incident couldn't be analyzed by the young participant, thus preventing it from negatively affecting his psyche in any way, in terms of nightmares, P.T.S.D., or adverse emotional development.

The memory of being fed upon would've actually been a positive thing for the boy, in that any time he chose to recall the encounter, it would've put him in a state of high arousal, thus making psychologically- based impotence an impossibility at any point in the boy's life.

But sadly, although it was now safe to go back to drinking from boys of any age, whether the Thrall was rewarded or not, the Masters didn't find it necessary to go through the effort of rescinding their decree, or removing the unbearable psychological and biological deterrents to touching any male below the age of sixteen for feeding-related purposes.

So although Robbie Byrne had been blessed with a VAST storage capacity for Soul-Creation Energy, as well as a natural ability to pull large amounts of the stuff TO him, he was completely off-limits for approximately three years, no matter how desperately the Thrall needed his boy batter NOW.

However, a Guile doesn't see a rule in the same way as everyone else. Rules are more like...opportunities, a chance to prove their clever- ness by defying the will of the Masters without being painfully disciplined. The secret was to find loopholes, which usually ended up being far more awful than the act for which the rule was created.

Guile's plan to safely gain access to 13-year-old Robbie Byrne's cock snot was a particularly awful "opportunity".

"No worries," Guile promised. "I assure you that you will not experience any pain."

BANG

"OWWWW!" Lecher screamed as a bullet slapped against the Thrall's right calf muscle.

The bullet didn't penetrate the Thrall's dense musculature, but it had the same effect as being professionally whip-cracked by a bath towel with a wet tip. The pain caused the corporeally-inexperienced Lecher to react mid-stride, throwing himself completely off-balance. The mud and loose, recently-thawed soil did the rest, in spite of the Thrall's shape- shifted foot spikes.

Fast as lightning, tendrils exploded out of the Thrall's ass, some going straight up, others coming up from between its legs, and the tip of the violet tendril encircling the Thrall and Jayce several times to create restraining loops to keep the Thrall upright and to protect Jayce from the tendrils pressing and cutting into his flesh while the colorful strands grabbed the surrounding branches and successfully kept the Thrall on his feet. Once the Thrall had regained his balance, the makeshift baby jumper instantly disassembled, the tendrils releasing the limbs and getting pulled back up the Thrall's asshole.

"LET THE KID GO!" Craig demanded. "I WON'T FIRE AGAIN OR FOLLOW YOU IF YOU JUST RELEASE HIM!"

"Fuck!" Lecher yelled. "That guy's the greatest marksman EVER! He scored a hit....from THAT far away....through a FOREST....in the DARK.... with only a shitty flashlight to spot his target....AND HE DID IT WITH A GODDAMNED HANDGUN!!!"

"Lecher, you need to run faster! Something's very wrong!

"HOW?" Lecher demanded. "I'm already about to-

"I didn't want to tell you until the next phase of my plan, but we are under a sustained assault by-"

"Yeah, we sure are!" Lecher whined. "Lure tried to bash our head in, two guys have shot-"

"REALITY ITSELF HAS TARGETED US FOR ASSASSINATION!"

For Guile, it was a sublime moment. Lecher started running faster. He didn't bitch...he didn't demand more information...he just followed Guile's order and dug deep, into the Earth with his foot spikes and into his strength reserves with his will.

Better still, Guile entered Lecher's mind and made him see a yellow dashed line, a course through the trees, plotted by Guile, that hindered Reality Itself's attempts to create possible trickshots for Craig, should he decide to shoot at the Thrall again. In spite of the path being circuitous and allowing Craig to regain a little lost ground, Lecher obediently followed the line.

Suddenly, Jayce's body started to convulse...in the good way. In his fevered lust, he was trying to hump Baby Blue. Baby, always wanting to be loved, went rigid and established a push/pull counter motion to Jayce's thrusting that allowed Jayce the illusion of fucking.

"Jesus, why does Jayce always have to 'earn it'?" Lecher griped, breaking the silence of the mental link that Guile was maintaining with him. "Can't the kid relax and just enjoy it? If he ever kneels down in front of a toilet to rub one out, I bet he shatters the porcelain."

"GAWWWWWWWWL!!" Jayce cried out just before Lecher felt his cum flow into the Thrall's body.

"Did I hear that right? Did he seriously say 'gawl' when he was cumming?" Lecher laughed as raw power flooded into his muscles. "Oh... HEY...I should get MOST of the S.C.E. from that!"

"No," Guile denied, "I'll require the lion's share."

"WHY?!?!?!"

Guile sighed. Lecher's momentary obedience had been such a nice and refreshing change of pace.

"I have to establish a secure feeding area," Guile explained.

"So, screen us!" Lecher protested, thinking that maybe Guile was using bullshit to justify getting more than his fair share of S.C.E.

"As you recently pointed out during your rant about the Timbersburg police freezing out Native American hires," Guile explained, "canine units are used instead of qualified trackers."

"Yeah....AND?"

In spite of the S.C.E. filling his mind with power, Guile felt a wave of depression and hopelessness pass through him as Lecher demonstrated once again how poorly he'd been made.

"Were we created to be utterly disposible?" Guile wondered, "And am I, in my own way, just as defective as Lecher?"

"The screen doesn't work on anything other than humans," Guile illuminated, forcing down sarcasm.

"Wait...how do we deal with dogs?" Lecher asked.

"We stand there and giggle while they try to penetrate the Thrall's hyper-durable flesh."

"What if one bites our dick and starts whipping its head back and forth?!"

"You'll eventually experience an orgasm and fill the dog's maw with our artificial semen, I imagine. Knowing YOU, it would happen sooner rather than later."

"No," Lecher snapped, seeking clarification from someone who was determined to fuck with him, "how do we stop them from bothering us?"

"We could slice them to pieces, freeze them solid, burn them to ash, dissolve them into goo, electrocute them, flood their lungs, bludgeon them with the black tendril, blow them up like balloons, hang them with our tongue-"

"I MEAN HOW DO WE-"

"Pit Fog is the only humane way we have of driving off dogs. In spite of its many uses with regard to human males, Pit Fog can only do two things to human women and all other forms of air-breathing life: It can either do nothing, or if I wish, it can irritate throats, sinuses, eyes, and cause nausea."

"You don't need all that S.C.E. just to manipulate Pit Fog!" Lecher protested as he felt more and more Soul-Creation Energy pass him by in favor of reaching Guile's brain-section instead.

"No, but since I'll need far more Pit Fog than the Thrall's armpits can generate, I'll require the S.C.E. to summon the Pilot Fish."

"YOU'RE BRINGING CABOOSE HERE?!" Lecher cried out excitedly, in the same annoying tone that humans reserve for babies, kittens, and puppies.

"Let it go," Guile fumed to himself. "He's only pretending to care about the damned thing to annoy you. Just use his stupid little mindgame against him."

"Yes, Lecher, I'm summoning Caboose. And in order to do that, I'll need as much S.C.E. as possible."

"Yeah, sure," Lecher piped up agreeably. "Go ahead."

Lecher winced as another "X"-marked mental map was shoved into his brain-section....sideways. It almost felt personal, because it WAS.

"You DO know we've been running in a really big loop, right?" Lecher point out. "And that "X" isn't all that far from where we started, ...right?"

"I do," Guile confirmed. "It's a small clearing with just enough space for the Pilot Fish-"

"CABOOSE!!!!" Lecher screamed.

"...to fit," Guile continued undaunted, "and it's close enough for the boy to walk."

"Yeah, I was wondering how we were gonna GET him by running AWAY from him!" Lecher grumbled. "I gotta ask, though, if we're being targeted by...whatever the fuck Reality Itself IS...wouldn't it be safer to just cut our losses? I'm strong enough to try to replicate Lure's flying technique. I've been scanning Lure's muscle memories, and I'm pretty sure I can pull it off."

"First, Reality Itself is just a phrase we use to describe bad luck that exceeds the limits of statistical probability and leaves behind an unusual, harmless energy charge on objects or people used or affected during the so-called 'Probability Spasm'."

"I already knew that," Lecher snapped testily.

"Since we've just learned that you know shockingly little about a whole host of subjects, including Churning, I thought it best to assume that you know NOTHING," Guile snapped right the fuck back. "And SECOND, we are NOT going to go floundering through the sky! Not until the Thrall gets a belly full of Robbie Byrne's boy juice."

"Why take that risk?!" Lecher demanded. "Normally, the thought of picking off a forest full of cops, one by one, would have me carrying on like a dude-bro at a football game, but this situation is too HOT! The S.C.E. is super-charging our healing, but it STILL takes time. And if Lure should wake up..."

"I'm directing all of the S.C.E. we got from our second feeding from Jayce to stay away from Lure's brain-section, to hopefully keep him in a coma for as long as possible," Guile explained. "And the only true RISK here is that I don't drain the boy, recover my full psychic might, and summon the Master here before the Probability Spasm Residue covering the Thrall's body disappears and leaves me with half a plan and NO proof."

"Wait, is THAT why you wanted Jaden to shoot us?" Lecher asked.

Guile couldn't decide whether to respond with 'Duh!' or 'Doy!', so he just said 'yes', followed by: "And now that Craig shot us too, we have DOUBLE the proof."

"We're at the 'X'," Lecher announced. "There'd better be a lot more to your plan, Guile, because so far it sounds like a nothing burger, hold the Awesome Sauce, with a side order of FAIL."

"If my plan goes right, the Thrall Master will not be ABLE to kill us or Unenthrall us out of existence.

"Why not?"

"Because if he DOES, the other Thrall Masters WILL KILL HIM!"

"WHAT?!?!?!"

"I'll explain later! We have work to do, and only seconds to do it!"

Craig Byrne stumbled to a stop at the edge of a small clearing and swept it with his flashlight and Glock while taking advantage of the rest to loudly catch his breath. There was no need for stealth. If the monster was still around, he knew exactly where Craig was.

Craig listened over top of his own gasping for the sound of foot- falls or the noise of whatever the monster used to cut away branches during their chase. Sadly, though, there weren't any more recently severed branches in the clearing or tiny piles of sticks and sawdust, as there had been all the way up to the clearing. Instead, everything looked pristine.

Craig trotted across the spongy turf of the clearing to its center and quickly looked upward and scanned the trees, thinking that perhaps the monster used its weird tongue or those colored strands to somehow climb up and hide, but no such luck. The branches and tree sections above were as undisturbed as the branches and tree sections below.

Craig stared upward at the patch of open sky and wondered if the reason the trail had gone cold was because the creature had used the small clearing to once again spread his wings. Maybe, in spite of Craig not hearing those powerful wingbeats, nor feeling those pounding pressure waves and blasts of wind backwash, the murderous thing had nevertheless managed to successfully carry Jayce Harris off into the darkness above.

The monster's success wasn't the issue, though. All that mattered was Craig's failure.

The kidnapped boy would probably die the kind of death that would give Craig nightmares for months, or longer. Would they even find his body?

So what now? Well, first Craig would have to make his way back to I-147 without getting shot by a jumpy, monster-fearing cop. Then he'd have to inform Jayce's brother. Then, of course, he'd have to confess his failure to Robbie, who would probably use the grisly, heartbreaking news as justification for canceling their overnight visitation.

From there, it would just be a matter of spending the rest of the evening getting his truck towed, unless it was impounded for forensic or legal reasons, and talking to the cops.

Craig supposed that he could be charged by the police for...he didn't know..."failure to obey a 911 operator" or something. Craig could try to fight whatever charges he might face by pleading his case to the court of public opinion, but did he really want to advertise his failure to the world?

Craig felt like he wanted to die. After two plus years of loneliness, bitterness, pain, and legal bullshit, failing to save a kid's life was just too much.

"I wish I could...," Craig started, suddenly having an idea. He opened his mouth to scream a message that the monster would hopefully hear, but he stopped, realizing that it was stupid, hopeless grandstanding. It wouldn't work, and if he told anyone he'd tried it, it would sound like a pathetic lie that Craig came up with to make people think that he'd truly done all he could to save the boy's life.

Craig was suddenly consumed by anger, and tried it anyway.

"TAKE ME INSTEAD!!!!" Craig bellowed so hard that he had to take a moment to cough. "BRING HIM BACK AND TAKE ME INSTEAD!!"

All of a sudden, Craig remembered the police car whose lights and sirens filled the air, yet wasn't really there. Maybe...?

"Hello, Lumberjack," The monster greeted, instantly appearing in Craig's flashlight beam, right in front of Craig's face.

Craig's eyes went wide, but instead of going into either a fight or flight mode, Craig just froze.

"How about I just take BOTH of you?" Lecher proposed.

End of Chapter 4