Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Original Fiction Aurthor Gifford's Strange Day 1/1 (by J. Gibson)

Poster's Note:
The following fic is not mine. I'm posting it on behalf of the author, a very talented friend of mine with an intriguing original universe. She wants some good critique on her work, so any feedback will be much appreciated. So without further ado:

Aurthor Gifford's Strange Day
by Jessica Gibson


"So, you say you've met demons."
"Yeah, well, at least one was. I think one of them was a vampire."
"Alright Mr. Gifford, I'd like you to start the story from the beginning."
___________________________________________________________

Aurthur Gifford was having trouble sleeping. He wasn't sure how he had been convinced to camp in the woods; with the cold, hard, wet ground and all these bugs, but here he was. He grabbed a cigarette out of his backpack and sat down on a log near the fire. Lighting the cigarette, he stared at the second tent in the campsite.

"Of course he can sleep just fine." He muttered to himself.
"Or he knows better than to leave the tent when the crickets are silent."
Aurthur leaped from the log so fast that he nearly landed in the fire. When he turned around and let his eyes adjust he saw a tall, somewhat pale woman with shoulder length black hair watching him. There was something unnerving about the way she was staring at him, or perhaps it was the fact she seemed to appear from nowhere.
"Where did you come from?!"
"Over by the river."
"Why did you come in our campsite?"
"I saw a fire, I decided to investigate."
Aurthur felt his heart start to settle. Maybe she's just really quiet and used to the outdoors. He wasn't expecting anyone so that's why he probably didn't notice her walking up.
"Is your campsite nearby?"
"... yeah."
Aurthur looked at his watch. It was almost 1 in the morning.
"It's pretty late."
"Yes."
"Well, I guess that's that then. Nice meeting you I guess."
She just stood there continuing to stare. After a minute she spoke up again.
"Who's your friend?"
"Darren?"
"Yeah."
"He's Darren... Uh, he wanted to go camping out here this weekend, and somehow convinced me to join him."
"Ah." She seemed to think for a minute. "Goodbye then." She began walking off into the dark.
Aurthur stared after her for a minute, feeling like this would perhaps be the strangest encounter of his life. He was about to sit back down at the fire, when Darren stumbled out of his tent.
"Who were you just talking to, man?"
"I dunno, some freaky chick just walked into our camp, asked who you were and then just walked off."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah man."
"Ok well, I gotta take a leak." Darren walked off into the trees.
While Darren was busy, Aurthur stuck the pack of cigarettes and lighter into a low pocket on his cargo shorts. He was probably gonna be up for a while after that encounter.
Suddenly Darren yelped and ran back into the campsite, closely followed by a man in hunters camo and carrying a gun. Aurthur immediately stuck his hands up in the air.
"We weren't hunting, we won't be taking any kills man. Please don't hurt us!"
The man in camo stared him down. "Shut up." After a long pause, during which both Darren and Aurthur began to tremble, the man looked somewhat disgusted. "Coulda sworn there was a demon around here. I guess I'll let the rest know he got away."
He turned around, and suddenly the woman dropped out of the tree behind him silently. Aurthur and Darren were dumbstruck momentarily, then Darren yelled "Hey!"
The man turned around just in time to see a large branch careen into his head. He dropped to the ground in a heap. The woman stared at him for a minute.
"I'm a she." She muttered quietly and picked the crumpled heap of a man up. She had a small look of satisfaction after checking his breathing. "Good, still alive. You will make much better bait alive." She patted the man and began walking off. Darren looked shaken and walked back into his tent, muttering about a crazy dream. Aurthur had far worse survival instincts however, and ran after the woman.
"Hey what the hell? Who are you?"
She looked back at him over her shoulder and slowed down, but did not stop.
"Who are you?"
"Aurthur. So, again, who are you?"
She was quiet for a little bit. "Ebony."
"So what where you talking about, him being bait? Are you hunting demons too?" Aurthur couldn't help but nearly laugh at that sentence. The idea of demons was ridiculous. He guessed it showed, because her next response was: "No. Not demons. You do not believe in demons?"
"Well of course not. They're just superstition. So what would you hunt that you need to use a man for bait, and isn't that illegal?"
"I am hunting demon hunters. An injured demon hunter is the best bait for that prey. Also, things are only illegal if someone tells authority that it was done. If no one knows, who can say it was illegal?"
Aurthur was beginning to think he should have stayed in the tent. He suspected there was a hidden threat in that sentence. He decided to be safe. "I was never fond of authority. I wouldn't tell it anything."
"Probably in your best interest tonight." They were heading fairly deep into the woods. Suddenly she stopped, and moved what turned out to be a sheet. Light spilled out into the night.
There were several people sitting around a small fire. Two women, a girl and two men. All looked up when they entered, and there was quite a bit of surprised expressions.
The girl spoke up first. "How'd you get one to willingly follow you?"
Ebony dumped the demon hunter down on the ground and collected some rope. "The one still walking is not a demon hunter. He is just stupid."
"Oh." The girl went over to help Ebony tie the man up. Aurthur felt the urge to try to defend himself.
"I am not stupid."
Ebony looked at him for a second. "You follow a woman, who just knocked a man out, deep into the woods with no way to defend yourself. Explain how you are not stupid."
Aurthur was at a loss for words. When put in that perspective, it did seem kind of stupid.
He shifted uncomfortably for a minute, looking at everyone in the camp. For some reason the redheaded woman in jeans and a green plaid shirt seemed familiar. He stared for a minute, before realizing why.
"Hey! You look just like that model on those billboards for that organic clothing brand."
She smiled at him, revealing unusually long canines. "I get that a lot. Name's Alexandria." The short blonde sitting next to her burst into laughter and fell off the rock she was sitting on. Aurthur was bewildered by her reaction.
"Oh her? Don't mind Cinder, she thinks a lot of things are funny."
"Cinder?"
"Yeah, she hates her real name so we call her Cinder."
"What's her real name?"
Cinder sprung up from behind the rock and punched Alexandria in the shoulder. "Don't you DARE."
Alexandria smirked. "Since I'd rather not suffer third degree burns, I'll just explain the nickname. She's a pyromaniac."
"A what?"
"She likes fire."
"Oh."
Ebony stood up and handed the unconscious demon hunter to a tall, lightly built teen, or young man. He grinned and threw the demon hunter over his shoulder; like he was used to this kind of thing. Also, like the guy weighed five pounds. Arthur was jealous, and felt an urge to prove his manhood, but managed to repress it. Everyone seemed to break camp as if on a cue. The fire was put out, the blankets quickly folded and tied onto backpacks. Aurthur was confused.
"It's the middle of the night, why are you breaking camp? That's dangerous, isn't it? You can't see what's in the dark and there might be a bear..."
The blonde girl burst into laughter and quickly tried to smother it, doubling over while clamping her hands over her mouth.
"what? I know there's bears in these woods."
The girl stood up, gasping. "No, no, I know there's bears. But to think they're a threat to us...." She giggled. "Well, they could be to you, but trust me, to think one would even try to attack us is funny."
Ebony looked back at the group. "Quiet, we're approaching the campsite. Khristen, Damien, Cinder; stay here until I give the order. Prepare your weapons. Make sure that shotgun is fully loaded Khristen."
Khristen nodded. Aurthur panicked.
"She has to be like, 14!"
"She is 14."
"Why does she have a shotgun?" Aurthur would have yelled it, but the fear made it come out more of a strangled gasp.
"For her safety, she knows how to use it correctly. And stay here. I do not need you getting killed and messing things up. Kevin, Alexandria, come on."
Aurthur stood well behind Khristen while she loaded the shotgun. After a few quiet minutes he heard some yelling, followed by a few seconds of silence. Then screaming. Lots of screaming that kept getting cut off.
Suddenly Ebony and the two others reappeared, all covered in blood. Alexandria was grinning kind of funny, and being partially supported by Kevin.
Alexandria was the first to speak. "Hiii guys! Know what's awesome? STARS. STARS ARE AWESOME."
Aurthur looked around at everyone. Except for Kristen’s smile while she unloaded the gun, no one seemed to be questioning this odd behavior.
"What's wrong with her?"
"She's high"
"On what?!"
"You don't want to know."
It was at about this time it occurred to Aurthur there was probably a connection between the human screams and the amount of blood on these people.
He went an interesting shade of white. "oh god, you killed those people!"
"did you see us kill them?"
"n-n-no"
"Then you can not prove we killed them. They may have just happened to die and get blood on us. Or perhaps we got a deer or rabbit and could not take it back to camp."
"That's a lot of blood."
Ebony turned to face him, a very dangerous look in her eyes. Aurthur felt feint. "Listen to me very carefully. You did not see anything, you live. If you insist that something happened here, you do NOT live. Do I MAKE. MYSELF. CLEAR?"
Aurthur mumbled out a "yes" before passing out.
Some time later he woke up at his campsite. It was still dark.
"that was strange. A... strange dream. Yeup, it was a dream." He sat up, and came face to face with Cinder.
" Ya dropped these." She handed him his cigarettes and lighter. "Lighters empty, but I bet you'll need a smoke."
Aurthur was already shaking the cigarette out and considering how he would light the damn thing on the bonfire roaring in the middle of camp.
"Here, lemme get that for you." She held up her pointer finger to the end of his cigarette and a small flame lit the end of the finger. Aurthur jumped backwards, and fell off the back of the log without lighting the smoke. Cinder laughed.
"Let's try again."
"How did you do that."
" I REALLY like fire." She helped him up.
She then lit his smoke for him, and got up to leave. "Oh, and one more thing..."
"What?"
Ebony stepped out of the shadows, and suddenly sprouted wings, claws and horns. She narrowed her eyes. "What you saw tonight did not happen. Unless you want to die..." She held up a claw to his chest "via your heart being ripped out of your chest cavity.
____________________
"And then they just walked away, and I went to bed and tried to pretend it didn't happen for 4 months."
"And why did you feel the need to come to me with the story?"
"I was hoping telling it might make it easier to sleep at night."
"Well, since you keep having nightmares, lets start discussing the parts that seemed to affect you the most..."