Chadwick

Hairy Man Road

"Get anything yet?" Will asked, about 3 hours into the trip.

"As far as the house? Nope. It's clean, it's miles from Bushy Creek, and has nothing to do with The Hairy Man. I thought maybe his family was headed in that direction but they were actually going in the opposite direction, then I thought maybe the someone from the stagecoach that killed Vos lived there but the house was just recently built about a year ago," I explained.

"Why don't we just kill the fucker with the potion?" Will asked, I glared at him.

"That might've worked for the death ship but I've been thinking about that. Ghosts follow patterns, rules. The Death Ship didn't have any."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that The Death Ship might not have been a ghost ship at all," I explained.

"That's not possible, mom's potion worked on the captain, and the boat too."

"That's the thing, the legend goes that The Death Ship just predicts the deaths, and I think that the ship predicts them, and the captain actually kills them," I said looking over at Will to see if he was following me, he wasn't. "The Captain was a ghost, so we could kill him, the ship, on the other hand was not. That's why the ship predicted Anika's death, and she still died."

"So, you're saying that the ship was a part of the Captain, and that because the Captain killed people and was a ghost, the ship and the crew were too?" Will clarified.

"I think so."

Will sighed, "never seen that before. Something connected to someone enough to become permanently linked to that person, even through death."

"I think that they were almost cursed, the ship and the crew predicted the Captains killings because of the Captain but the Captain killed because of the ship and crew. And both were connected to the Captains bones so both were banished back to hell when we added the potion. The pattern is that there is no pattern." Will nodded in agreement.

"Not bad, Liz, not bad," he said.

"What do you mean?" I asked and he started giggling, which turned to chuckling which turned to full on dying of laughter. "What?!"

"Oh God, would you be mad if I told you that I figured that out seconds after we poured the potion into the lake?"

"You're joking." He kept laughing, "you son of a bitch!" I punched his shoulder.

"Hey! No distracting the driver," Will said, laughed a bit more then finally calmed down. "Alright, alright, what did you find out about The Hairy Man?"

"You didn't figure it out yet?" I asked tilting Tulip's phone away.

"Ah, come on Liz! I just wanted to see if you were up to the task of being a hunter. It's dangerous work, and despite how much you think you're a hunting genius. I've been doing it longer and I know more than you do. You passed the test, now what did you find?"

"It's not really information but a group of people are headed out to the woods tonight to try to find The Hairy Man. Idiots obviously, they got their own website they call Random Happy Ideas. But they fill the site up with ghost hunting tips and facts on the biggest legend in town, The Hairy Man." I gave in.

"And you're telling me about them because...?"

"Because they're locals that obviously love the subject enough to go looking for him. I signed you and I up to join-"

"Aw come on. I don't wanna go hunting with a bunch of dorks!" Will argued.

"I don't either, but they might know something we don't. Besides, they might actually find The Hairy Man, who's gonna save their sorry asses when they find out that you don't need night vision googles to see a ghost and that they can't pull their Ouija board out and make peace with the dude," I said.

"Alright, fine."

"Turn here," I said excitedly, pointing across him to Hairy Man rd.

"I know, jeez."

"Where'd Micah go?"

"Back to her house, she didn't want to come. I can't blame her."

"Stop." Will parked behind another car, a big white van with Random Happy Thoughts written in bloody letters. This is officially the most ironic thing I've ever seen.

Will and I got out of the car and I grabbed the salt and the potion I made in the car from my duffle bag and shoved them in a small bag. We moved around the van to find about 4 men, aged 18-30 with their EMP devices, night visions cameras and ouija boards, classic "ghost hunters".

"Hey, are you guys the ghost hunters searching for The Hairy Man?" Will asked, attracting their attention.

"Yeah, who are you?" The oldest asked, stepping forward, "who's she?"

"We're fans of your website. My names Liz and this is my brother Will," I said.

"A girl? A fan of our website?" The 18 year old laughed, "did your brother drag you out here?"

"Sorry, doll face," a 19 year old said, trying to act cool. No one looks cool with night vision googles, "you're going to have to stay here. It's dangerous out there."

I actually started laughing, "you're kidding, right?" I asked, the weird ghost hunter thing they got, that I expected. I didn't expect for them to be sexist.

They didn't say anything and I stopped laughing. "She's coming with us, she's just as big of a fan as you are," Will stepped in.

"Why don't we test that?" The 30 year old said, "what's the Hairy Man's name?" He asked, we didn't have time for this but I'd much rather answer his questions than wait in the car.

"Brent Vos."

"What time did he become the Hairy Man?"

"1800's."

"What would he do when he was alive?"

"Terrorize anyone who entered his domain."

"Who killed him?"

"A stagecoach."

"Ha! So you don't know as much as us. What was the stagecoaches name? Huh?"

I tilted my head and looked at Will, "you know his name?"

"It's Bennie Schulz, but I guess you can come with. Just stay close." He said and returned back to his team and I moved closer to Will.

"Schulz, that's Micah's last name, isn't it?" I whispered.

"Yeah, it is. Do you think that the Hairy Man is killing Micah's family because Bennie killed him?" Will asked.

"100%. It makes since. That's why the Hairy Man hasn't killed for so long but didn't haunt Micah's family until they moved her and entered his domain."

"So the Hairy Man can't leave his domain?"

"I bet he could, but the legend is that he's a hermit. He doesn't want to leave."

"Alright, you two. Follow us and get out your tools," the 30 year old said.

"Uh, we don't have any. We'll just tag along," Will said.

"Amateurs," he said, rolling his eyes. I rolled my eyes back and followed them into the woods.