Innocence is No Defense Part 1

Innocence Is No Defense

Jonathan Carrillo

Prologue
I hate to start this way but, it all started with a dream. It was pitch black. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. The only sound to break the utter silence was my heavy breathing, like I had just run an entire marathon for every step I took. I reached out, tried to embrace something, anything. I grasped away at empty air.
“Hello?” I called out.
Nothing. The silence disheartened me but my heart jumped as I felt something cold and metallic. I turned to study it. I ran my hand over its face. It was round and light. I picked it up and felt relief flood my stomach. A flashlight. I flicked at the switch. I swore, slammed it against my palm, desperately trying to ignite it. I checked for batteries. There was nothing there. My heart broke. Now we were right back at square one. I stuffed the tiny flashlight into my pocket.
I felt a wall. I groped for some type of light switch, anything. I felt the shelf the flashlight had been on, reached forward; then brought my hand back with a handful of batteries. I smiled. I yanked out the flashlight from his pocket and inserted the batteries. I secured the flashlight, dropped the four remaining batteries into his pocket. I flicked the flashlight on and the night came alive with bright light.
I wished I had never found the flashlight, right then and there as I saw the wall. It looked like a worn down shack, the place did. The only thing that made it unordinary was the thing the wall was covered with. It was stained with a splash of deep maroon. Bile rose in my throat.
“Blood,” I said the word aloud, almost to reassure myself that is still could speak. I looked down at my feet, and then quickly looked back up. I took a deep breath. My chest burned. I looked back downwards, and choked. I knew instantly where the blood was from.
It was a man, leaning against the wall. His hands lay limp and lifeless by his side, palms up. His head was tilted to the side. His eyes stared straight ahead, but they were empty and white. His forehead was covered in sticky red paste.
I examined the man’s gruesome chest. It too, was stained with blood. His shirt was torn in the middle. I leaned down and ripped it apart to reveal an enormous gash in his chest.
“Oh my gosh,” I gasped. I turned away. I had to get out fast. Bad things had happened here. What was to stop them from happening again? The room was small. The only visible door was 4 feet ahead.
And it was shaking.
The door vibrated on its hinges violently. It was as if there was someone on the other side slamming it with their shoulder. Suddenly the door snapped in half. Dust flew everywhere and fragments of wood went soaring. I shielded my eyes. When I looked back up, there he was. The man I had seen dead, on his feet again.
I looked back at the spot where he had been. Nothing there except the blood. I looked back at the man, stared at his face, stared at his cruel smile and his yellow teeth. I looked up right into his face, and my heart went cold. I was filled with a certain feeling, a feeling of death, that everything wasn’t going to be alright, and I knew that I was dying as I stared into the hopeless, black pits that had become this man’s eyes. A glint of light filled my eyes as he raised an enormous pick axe above my head.
Chapter 1
I screamed.
“Daniel, it was just a dream, shh,” Rose whispered.
Warmth filled my chest as I heard her beautiful voice. It filled my gasping lungs with air and I felt myself come alive. “Just a dream, just a dream,” I whispered to myself. But I couldn’t shake the thought of the pick axe ripping through my skull though. It had felt so real.
I shoved it out of mind. I tried to focus on what was real, like wonderful Rose, standing before me.
“Are we there?” I asked.
“I think we’re almost there.”
We were on a small ferry traveling through a large lake on vacation. We passed underneath a bridge. I heard the sound of cars rushing overhead. The place was beautiful, I had to admit. The perfect place to escape to when no one else wanted to see you anymore. It hadn’t always been like that. I used to be famous, an accomplished horror writer. However, like an old toy the public had forgotten about me after I had suffered in a terrible car crash. I was stuck in rehab for months, and when I came back I haven’t been able to write a word.
My phone rang.
I pulled it out, answered it.
“Hey, Danny!” Mike yelled happily. “I’ve been trying to reach you. So, how’s the place?”
“It’s nice,” I said reluctantly. Mike was my agent, and my best friend. He had more hope for me than anyone else, and it would kill me to let him down. He had taken me in at the beginning of my career. Without him, I was nothing. But you could have the best agent in the world, but if you can’t put words onto paper, then well, you’re screwed.
Another thing about Mike was that he was absolutely determined to make sure 5 minutes didn’t pass without him calling me. It was annoying, but I wasn’t about to say it to his face after everything that he’d done for me. The guy was a bundle of energy, and I didn’t want to dampen his spirits, as irritating as it could become.
“Oh, Mike, I’ve got to go. We’re coming up on the place.” I lied. Rose gave me a raised eyebrow. I winked. She rolled her eyes then turned away to examine the scenery.
“Oh well, I’ll call you then,” he said.
“Don’t bother,” I muttered under my breath.
“What?” Mike asked.
“Uh, What? I think you’re breaking up… there’s a lot….scchhh…..static…. schhh….. I’ll see….. scchhh …… later,”
I hung up.
Rose laughed. “You know, he’s only trying to help.” She said.
“Believe me, if I didn’t know that I would’ve thought he was stalking me.”
“I’m just saying, you could treat him with a little more respect, ya know?”
I shrugged. I tried to take in the scenery the best I could while Rose studied me. My face burned and I fought the impulse to grin. She looked away and I let it all out In a gasp.
The terrain was filled with hundreds of mountains. It was like being caged in by mountains. As we passed by each mountain, I tried to imagine what it’d be like at the very peak of one of those mountains, and then falling off. I shuddered at the thought. There was no way you would survive a fall like that. Besides, most of the slopes dumped you off into open air, fifteen feet above rushing water and a large collection of sharp rocks. As dangerous as it was, it was entrancing.
The ferry pulled up on the dock, where beyond lay a homely looking town. It looked like a speck side by side with the gigantic mountains. I noticed a gas station in the distance, and what looked like an old diner. A police station and an old bookstore in the distance. Oh great. This town looked so secluded; they had probably just gotten news of the 70s.
Oh, this would be good.

“First, we need to get the key to the diner. Then, we need gas. How bout we split up. I’ll drop you off to get the keys; then I’ll go get some gas.” She pulled up to the resort lobby. “Be back in 5?”
“Sounds like a plan.” I said. I jumped out of the car then waved goodbye as she drove off.
I entered the lodge. The walls were covered with various deer heads and posters of hunters holding up carcasses of the deer they had killed.
I walked up to the front desk. Behind it stood a short, plump man. He wore a name tag that said: Hi, my name is Christian. Christian greeted me with a firm handshake and a, welcome to the neighborhood.
I collected the key quickly then exited the lodge. Rose was already pulling up to the curb. I opened the car door, stepped down into it; then slammed the door shut.
“Got the keys?” Rose asked.
“You betcha.”
Rose drove off.

The cabin was far away from the city, up in the mountains. It was an amazing view. It was an old wooden lodge, it had two stories but you could get on the roof to get a clear view of everything. It fascinated us all, Rose especially. She couldn’t get enough of it. She spent every waiting second staring out at the scene, even as the sky turned a dark grey and we had moved all our stuff in for the night.
“If you don’t stop staring like that your eyeballs are gonna roll out of your skull and roll down the mountain,” I joked.
She broke out into laughter. “It’s just so beautiful. You don’t get views like this in New York.”
I snorted. “Heck no you don’t.
I walked up behind her and laid my hand on her shoulder. “Honey, the view’s not gonna runaway. We’re here for a week and a half. You’ll get plenty of time to sight see. If you do it all know, you’ll be bored when you see the real beauty…. Homemade hot dogs on the grill under the stars! And don’t forget smores!”
“There’s a grill on the roof?” She asked.
“No, but I brought a microwave and if we pretend it’ll be just like having a grill.”
She smiled. “See, with an imagination like that, why do you have so much trouble writing books?”
I faltered. The smile vanished from my face as it all came right back to me. Reminded me that even though this place was paradise, it only lasted for another week and a half; then it was back to staring at a blank page on a typewriter. My cheeks burned as I was reminded of my severe writer’s block, and I walked out of the study.
“Meet you on the roof?” I offered hesitantly.
“Su” But I had already slammed the door shut. She sighed.
I walked into the tiny kitchen and grabbed the hot dogs from the fridge. I grabbed the buns out of the mini pantry, then finally grabbed the miniature microwave and brought them out onto the roof. I set them out on a table on the roof and then went back inside to get some other things for the hot dogs.
A chilling scream filled the night air and I stopped in my tracks.
“Rose?”
Another scream.
I took off running to the study. My heart pounded with terror and exhilaration as I flung open the study door. There was no sign of Rose.
A blast of wind hit my face from to my right. I turned; saw the gaping hole in the wall.
“Rose!” I called. I ran up to the edge, slid on the carpet. I collapsed at the edge, my heart pounding. “Rose!?” I screamed again.
I heard the cabin groaning in protest. Floorboards creaked and moaned, and windows shattered. I screamed as the ground beneath me collapsed and tumbled. I cried out as I slid on a plank of wood, sliding down the side of a mountain. The wood beneath me shuddered as it collided with a gigantic tree, sending me flying.
I landed on my back. Groaned; then passed out.

I woke up on the side of a cliff. 3 more inches, and I would plummet 50 feet to my death. To my side, there was a car. My car, the one me and Rose had drove here in. I sat up, rubbed my head, felt the blood on my head and felt the earsplitting pain in my head. I groaned, rolled over and stood up. I felt like something someone had scraped off the sole of their shoe.
I stumbled to the car, looked at the side, and knew it was totaled. The right side had been dented beyond belief, to the point that it was hardly recognizable as a car. All the windows had shattered and hundreds of fragments of glass lay around. Three of the tires had popped, and the fourth didn’t even have a wheel.
I would have to go forward on foot.
The forest was pitch black. I could barely see. I tried my best to make my way through the brush, but I wasn’t making much progress. I needed a flashlight of some sort.
As though someone had read my mind, I stumbled upon a flashlight. I raised it and flicked the switch. The forest in front of me was light up with a white light. It burned my eyes. When I could look at the light without squinting, I began to run. The faster I found Rose, the better. But everywhere I went, all I could see was trees. After ages of searching, I finally came upon a shed. It looked old enough to not have been used in years. I reached out to open the door, but on my touch the door collapsed to the ground. Dust rose and I coughed. After the dust once again settled, I entered the shack. In it there was just one table, where there sat a tiny television. And when I say tiny, I mean tiny. The screen was about the length from my elbow to my wrist. I turned it on; not expecting it to work, but it quickly came to life.
Dark sounding music filled the room and I creepy announcer voice came on.
“Welcome back, audience, to the world of.....
I watched it for only a few more seconds. It wasn’t helping me find Rose, and for that reason, it might as well not exist. I walked back out through the empty doorway and into the open night.
I stopped and looked straight ahead, not believing what was happening right before my eyes.
The whole forest shook side to side. The trees rattled and tumbled. A loud, unnatural sound of death filled the night. A groan, a scream of terror. And then, all the trees collapsed in front of me.
Revealing an enormous eighteen wheeler, charging straight at me.
I swore and dove to my left. The eighteen wheeler raged past me, trampling the tiny shed underneath its enormous mass. I picked myself up off the ground and ran as the truck did a slow, shaky, u-turn and charged at me.
It was right at my heels, and there was no way I could outrun it, so I fell flat to the ground, buried my face into the mud, and it ran over me. I looked back up to see the truck charge into another outcropping of trees.
Then, the cargo hold’s doors that it had dragged were flung open, revealing a horrific sight.
Whether it was human or not, whatever it was wanted to kill me. That’s one of those things that you can tell instantly. I looked straight into its black eyes, and I knew that this thing wanted me dead. It jumped out of the truck, bowed its head, let out a guttural scream, and charged.
“What the?” I muttered.
It got closer with every second, and quickly regaining my senses I turned and ran.
The things was fast, whatever it was. I was running with all I had and it looked like it was barely jogging and it was gaining on me. It unsheathed a long, serrated knife. I choked on air and ran faster. It didn’t slow down, instead the creature sped up. Then it lunged for me.
I spun to see it diving for me. I turned and flashed the light right in its eyes. Midair, it stopped and howled. It rolled on the ground, clutching its face as its skin boiled and bubbled and turned a rash red.
I shined the light at it again, and it turned to shield itself. The creature screamed, loud and clear, producing a sound similar to if you tried to shove a small animal through a meat grinder. For one second, I felt a bit of pity as it stood there, screaming.
All pity that had ever been in my heart disappeared when the creature looked back at me. His face was disheveled and burnt, but it wore a look of pure murderous intent, that silenced me. It raised its head to the sky, howled like an animal, and then pounced on me.
I yelled as the thing grabbed hold of me. It swung and chopped with it’s knife, but I somehow managed to dodge the blows it prepared. I swung and grabbed its arm, tried to take the knife from it, but it grabbed my arm with a strength that no human being could ever posses and chomped down on my arm. I screamed. Its teeth were like tiny daggers, tearing my flesh. I yanked my arm away and punched the creature in the mouth. It shrieked and spat blood on me, some of my own, and some of its.
I was determined to obtain the knife. I rolled and punched, scratched and clawed, but it wouldn’t let go of the knife. With fury and rage that had been building up in me since I had lost Rose, a grabbed his hand and clawed apart his finger. I heard a crunch as I pulled his thumb back till it touched his wrist. Then I grabbed the knife.
Once I had it in my hands, felt the weight of it in my palm, this battle was being controlled by me. I rolled over and pinned the creature on its back, then brought the knife up into the air, then swung it down.
Hard.
SCHINK!
I fell onto my back, gasping with exertion. I wrenched the knife out of the creature’s neck and laid it down at my side.
I willed myself to process what I had just done. I had just killed something. Even if it wasn’t even a human, or an animal, I had murdered it. I had stabbed it in the throat. But the worst part was that it had attacked me. Why? What grudge did this thing have against failed writers?
That was what I needed to find out. And I would, because if this had anything to do with Rose disappearing, (and I expected it did) then it was now a top priority. First step: maybe I could recover some evidence from the body.
But when I sat up and looked at the spot, all that remained was a patch of liquid that looked like oil.
“What the?” I muttered. I grabbed the flashlight and the knife and looked around. Still no sign of whatever that thing was. It was gone. Maybe I hadn’t killed it after all? But no, I had stabbed it in the throat with a serrated knife. There was nothing in this reality that could survive that.
My head burned. I felt as if I was having a migraine. I couldn’t determine reality from what was all just a fragment of my always-working imagination. It was impossible! I had to be in a nightmare, but it was all too real, I could feel the ground, I could smell the terrible stench of the thing I might have killed.
What was going on?

I made my way out onto the main road, knife in hand. There were no cars. No nothing. I started to make my way down the road, standing in the very middle.
I heard leaves rustle and tree branches snap. I turned, aimed my flashlight out into the darkness.
“Hello?” I called out foolishly. If there was something there, there was no way that it would answer me. It was probably another one of those things. Suddenly, a particularly large bush began to rattle and shake. I heard twigs snapping.
And out came a dog.
Aw look! A puppy! No. This was not that kind of dog. It was enormous. It probably came up to my chest. It stepped out of the brush, and I saw it’s horrific black eyes, and my heart stopped.
“Uh… Nice Puppy?”
The dog barked, a loud and gut-wrenching sound, and it rattled through my bones and I knew that this wasn’t a puppy of any sort.
It began running towards me. I braced myself for the attack, but I wasn’t sure what to expect. At the last second, just as the dog was about to jump on top of me, I shined the light into its eyes. The dog barked and howled, then whimpered. I wanted to feel bad for it, but I knew that I should just kill it. Its back was turned from the light, so I took that as an opportunity. I charged, knife in hand, towards the dog. It looked at me and whimpered just as I stabbed it in the stomach. It barked angrily one last time; then toppled.
I made off, but left the knife by the dog, as stupid as it was. I began to jog. I needed to make more progress, but I seemed to be getting nowhere.
I ran for a long time. When I reached the town the sun was already starting to rise, and there was still no sign of Rose.
I made a beeline for the police station. When I stepped inside, I was greeted by an anxious man holding something in the palm of his hand.
“Mr. Schaefer!” He said. “Thank god I found you. You forget your key!”
Chapter 2
“Mr. Schaefer, I think you need to calm down and think. What really happened last night?”
I stared at her, mouth agape. “You don’t believe me,” I said, stunned. But part of me had always expected this.
“Promptly, no. And I think you should see a doctor.” The deputy said. “It’s not healthy to be running around with a knife, fighting things that are all in your head. You’re just lucky you didn’t get hurt.”
A moment of confusion. I looked down at my arm, where the creature had bitten me. There was nothing there. I looked back up. “Ya know, I think your right,” I said. I slowly stood up.
“Mr. Schaefer, where are you going?”
I turned and sprinted out the door. I crashed through the hallways and almost out the door.
I ran into an enormous man. He grabbed my arms and dragged me, struggling, back into the deputy’s office.
“Mr. Schaefer, you need to realize that I’m only trying to help you,” the deputy said.
“No!” I yelled. “You’re lying! It happened, I saw it! Those, those things! They took her, they took Rose!”
“Mr. Schaefer, if you don’t calm down this instant, I will have you thrown into a cell, and then you can scream all you want! But who does that help? It doesn’t help your wife, and it certainly doesn’t help you.
I sat down, gasping. My heart was pounding and I was being overwhelmed. I put my head in my hands.
“First, we need to go to your cabin.”

It was a short drive from the police station to the cabin. I must’ve been walking circles around the city for a long time before I found it.
However, when we reached the spot where the cabin was, there was nothing- and I mean nothing there.
I stared at the empty spot where the cabin had been. My jaw dropped. I stepped out of the car and walked to the exact spot where it had been. Nothing, just trees.
A flash of color caught my eye, and I approached the spot where it had come from.
There, lying on the ground was the package of hot dogs from last night. I stared at it, as if expecting the cabin to just suddenly appear and say something like, ha-ha, we fooled you. But nothing happened. Of course nothing happened.
The deputy walked up behind me. “Are you sure this is the place, cuz, I hate to burst your bubble, but there’s no cabin here.”
I spun around and grabbed her shoulders. “It was here,” I said desperately. “You have to believe me.”
“Alright.” She said. “I believe you, but only because you’re so convinced that it was here. You know, there used to be a cabin here, but a tornado came, took it away,” she snapped her fingers, “just like that.”
I turned around. “Who owned it?”
“Oh, just some old family business. They moved away after that. Uh, I can’t seem to recall the name, uh, that’s right, the Andersons! They left because they thought their house was haunted. Poor folks. They said it killed their only son. But they never explained what it was. Just packed their bags and left.”
I was amazed by the story, because it said that maybe I wasn’t going crazy, that maybe I hadn’t been dreaming last night. But that also meant that Rose had been kidnapped by something, something evil and terrible.
“We have to find Rose,” I said out loud.

I woke up with a gun in one hand and a flashlight in the other. It was dark. Night again. I was in the forest. I walked through the dark brush, using the flashlight for guidance.
For a second the ground shook and the trees swung in the wind, and a earsplitting scream filled the air.
“You’ve made a mistake,” Said a voice. “You entered or world, and now you will pay for it…”
Out of nowhere, three dark figures appeared ahead of me. I raised the flashlight and shined it at the closest figure. It screamed and jumped at me, hands outstretched, clawing for me.
I shot it in midair. The creature screamed and writhed in agony, then disappeared in a shower of sparks. The other two creatures howled for their fallen brethren and attacked. One came from the side, the other came head on. I baited them in, then ducked at the last second. Confused and disheveled, the two creatures crashed into each other. I spun on my heel, aimed the pistol and delivered 3 bullets. The first collided with the closest creatures head. It exploded in a shower of sparks, leaving no trace. The second bullet hit the monster in the chest. The third bullet hit it in the shoulder, knocking it off balance. It disintegrated mid-fall.
“You fool!” The darkness screamed. “You’re only making it harder on yourself! My goblins are strong, and of them there are many. You can’t hold them back forever, and when you fall, I will be there to take you into my clutches!”
Hordes of the goblins, as she, the darkness had called them, charged me.
I turned around and ran towards the cliff edge. I didn’t know why, but something was telling me to go there.
I ran up and looked over the guard rail. What I saw will forever be burned into my brain, implanted in my brain, like it was super glued to my memory.
The darkness was growing. It was huge, it had engulfed the lake below, I could see the creatures rising up out of the lake, crawling up the rocks towards me. They snarled and growled triumphantly. As seconds went by, I could see them visibly getting a lot closer.
I caught a flash of red by my feet. I leaned down and picked the canister up.
I knew what this was.
I lit the flare and it sparked to life, igniting the air with a reddish light. I lifted it up above my head, let it hang there for a second, and then I hurled it down.
“NO!” The darkness screamed.
A chorus of screams arose as the flare reached the creatures. Hundreds of the goblins lost their grip on the rock and toppled down into the water.
Suddenly, I felt myself being lifted up in the air by my feet. I spun, caught a glimpse of a raged goblins shoving me over the guardrail and out into open air. I yelled and reached for the guardrail, my heart stuck in my throat. I caught one last fatal glimpse of the cackling goblins as I tumbled into the darkness.
I splashed down in the icy water and my body was rocked with pain. I felt like I had just been hit head to toe with a gigantic hammer. I looked down and saw my flashlight drifting slowly to the seafloor. The flashlight was my only gateway to safety, and it was about to be at the bottom of an enormous lake.
I swam after it, but the closer I got the faster it descended. All I wanted was to take one breath of air, and then I would be fine, but I was only getting farther from that. I looked up to judge how deep I was, but all I could see were the goblins swimming towards me.
I put my head down and stroked, grasped for the flashlight, felt it in my fingers but then it slid out. I lunged once more for it, wrapped it in my palm, then looked up to the sky and began to kick.
The pain in my chest was so unbearable I felt like I was going to give out. I looked down and saw the goblins grabbing at my legs, pulling me down like weights. I screamed underwater, then shined the flashlight down into their eyes, then took off with renewed energy. I could see that I was closing the gap.
50 more feet, 45 more feet, 40 more feet, 35 more feet, 30 more feet, 25 more feet, 20 more feet…. I was almost there; I could already feel the air touching my lungs, giving me life…..
“You will trouble me no longer,” the darkness said, then all of the sudden I was being sucked back down. I reached out, reached for the air that I knew I would never reach.
The blackness rose up from the depths, wrapped itself around my flailing legs and dragged me farther down into the lake.
“Wake up…”
I screamed, the sea engulfed me, and I lost the will to fight.
“WAKE UP!”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” I screamed.
“Calm down!” It’s me, Mike.
I opened my eyes hesitantly. No lake, no goblins. I put my head in my hands. Another dream.
“Where… where are we?”
“Your cabin,” Mike said.
I jumped up, spun in a quick circle. I looked back at him, confused. “This isn’t my cabin,” I said. “I’ve never been here before in my life,”
“Well, that’s where the deputy put you. You passed out in the car, slept all the way there. They couldn’t wake you up so they dropped you off in here,”
I felt my head. It was warm and sweaty. I felt gross, and the thing I wanted most was an icy cold shower. Mike kept blabbing on about how he had gotten a call, and how he, being a loyal agent, flew right down.
I held up my hand to silence Mike. I groaned. “You’re giving me a headache.” I said.
He frowned, looked at me contemplating like I was a kid who’d just scraped his knees.
“You alright, Danny? You don’t look to good.”
I swore. “What do you think? I just went to hell and back for no reason and now I hurt in places that I didn’t even know had feeling.” I breathed heavily. “Do I seem alright?
“Honestly, no.” He said innocently. “Need me to take you to the doctor?”
“Oh, God no.” I said. “If I spend any more time with people crowding around me like loons I’m gonna lose my mind.” I thought that sentence over; then added, “If I haven’t already.”
Mike sat down on the couch across from me, looked me right in the eyes and said, “Tell me what happened. The whole story, I don’t care how long it takes.”
I took a deep breath and then I told him everything, starting from when we had decided to go on vacation, ending at when I got to where the cabin was and there was nothing there.
For a second he just sat there, deep in thought. Then he stood up and began to pace. After a few minutes he came back to me, took a deep, dramatic breath, then he said, “That, is an interesting story.”
I let out the breath that I had been holding in for what felt like years. “So…. Do you believe me?” I asked him.
“I really don’t want to, but you’ve never opened up like that. And it, it really touched my heart.”
I sighed. “Cut it out. Do you believe me or not?”
“Of course I do.”
I blinked, confused. “Wait, what?” I said. “Really?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Is that a bad thing?”
“No,” I quickly said. “No, that’s a really good thing. I just… no one else believed me, and I didn’t expect you…”
“Hey listen,” he said. “I’m there for you when you need me.” He grinned like a twelve your old planning an adventure. It was mischievous and boyish, and it lightened my spirits to see it. This smile was as signature to Mike as it was to a twelve year old boy.
“So,” he said. “What’s the plan?”

“We need flashlights,” I said determinedly. Lots of batteries, flares, anything bright. Lanterns, glow sticks, Christmas lights, things that flash.”
“Alright,” Mike said. He scribbled it down on a small notepad then looked back up when he was finished.
“And then, we need a gun,” I said grimly.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Mike said. “Don’t you think you’re getting a little out of hand on this?”
“No,” I said. “These things, these goblins, they’re strong, and they’re not human. They will try to kill you. They don’t care. We need the best equipment available, and right now, that’s a gun.”
His eyebrows raised but he wrote it down as I said.
“Anything else?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. My eyes twinkled and I said, “we need a car.”