Chapter 22 - He's out there

By the time Eddard has driven them to Logan's place (dropping them off some distance away) and after much limping and exhausted sneaking to get into the house unnoticed, it is 1.30AM when the Hunters reach the safety of the Monster HQ, Logan's attic.



They find Benny asleep with Ripper, surrounded by lots of VHS tapes and comics (including gorey horror titles that are definitely unsuitable watching material for a six-year old). The boy carries on sleeping, but the puppy makes a big racket as soon as she smells Alana is back. They have a hard time calming her down and settling her to a reasonable noise level.

Benny eventually wakes up, asking drowsily "What did I miss? [YAAAAWN] Did you destroy the fulcrum, then?"

Then, remembering something - "oh, Anna wants to talk to you both, Al and Logan. Shit... did they beat you up??" he reacts, noticing Logan's achy movements and visible bruises. Alice and Bev also look quite battered.

"Benny!" Al reprimands him. "You're not allowed to swear. And you're not allowed time with Ripper anymore either!"

She picks up the puppy and hugs her, drawing some strength from the little animal after all that scary stuff that happened earlier. She somehow managed not to get hurt through all of it, but she still feels really horrible about it. And scared about the future. "Well, let's go talk to Anna then," she tells Logan, not letting go of Ripper.

Logan lies down slowly on one of the mats and sleeping bag cots they had prepared earlier (to give their sleepover cover some validity), groaning in pain.
"Beat up?... Let's... say I've... I've been... better." he replies weakly. As soon as he finishes saying that, you hear his breathing change into deep sleep.

"You're the dummyhead!" Al replies to Benny before crawling into a sleeping bag, Ripper resting at the foot of her mattress. She won't be able to fall asleep for a long time, but she'll try at least. She is really exhausted after all.

Bev wraps a blanket round herself and sits near the window, her back against the wall. She thinks about things Brian has said about concussions and sleeping.

"What do we do now," she asks anyone who's awake. I don't know if I should go to bed...

"Is there anything we can even do?"

"No, there isn't," Al mumbles from inside her sleeping bag. She's trying to sleep but failing, precisely because exactly those thoughts keep swirling around her mind. "We had the fulcrum. We had a plan. We even had Alice there to help. And we still failed. And now Solomon has the fulcrum and he still has Chet and his goons. There's nothing more we can do..." She pauses until an idea suddenly comes to her. "...except!"

Al sits up, still wrapped in her sleeping bag. "Our opponents are a bunch of kids and a ghost. So if we want to level the playing field, we need a ghost of our own!"

Bev gets another bout of vertigo at Al's suggestion. Another ghost...

"You can't just summon a ghost, can you?"

I should know; I've tried, she thinks to herself picturing her Ouija Board at home, stashed under her bed.

"I can't!" Al says. As the plan forms in her mind, her enthusiasm returns and a grin forms on her face. "But I know someone who can!"

She wiggles out of her sleeping back and moves over to Logan. "Loey, wake up!" she tells him as she shakes him. "You got hurt!" It's an incredibly obvious statement but something in Al's voice makes it sound like it's important.

"Solomon and his goons hurt you! And you're a kid. So if we tell your mom - or rather your grandma, I guess - everything that happened, then she'll get mad at him. So mad, that she'll sic Mother Ruth on him! And if we team up with her, then no way Solomon can stop us!" She grins proudly.

"I dunno, guys..." Alice's muffled voice chips in from deep within her sleeping bag.

"I mean... I signed up for kicking Chet and his bully's butt... and I think we did alright, too. But that top hat guy... the way his body changed and how he made everything go dark..."

She peeks out with an eye, "gives me the shivers. And now, as if one ghost isn't enough, you wanna call ghost number two?!?"

Logan groans in discomfort and annoyance. "What? My grandma? M-Mother Ruth?... You're crazy, Alana. Go to sleep."

"You're crazy," Al grumbles, disappointed that the others aren't as excited about her idea as she is. "Think about it. It's a great plan!"

She wanders back over to her sleeping bag and climbs inside again.

"I think it's a great plan," Bev mutters. She slides away from the wall, curls in a ball under her blanket and closes her eyes to see if sleep comes to her.

Johnny is silent for most of the way back to Logan's house, replaying in his mind how things went in the gazebo. Just about everyone got hurt, Eddard got possessed, Solomon got the unlocked Fulcrum and Chet managed to get away. All in all, everything went terribly with the single exception of the Hunters managing to get Ripper back safe & sound. Small victories over big ones.

I dunno what we can do to get the Fulcrum back now... Johnny whispered in the hush of the night. Calling up something else dangerous that we can't control probably isn't the answer either. he covered himself up in the old quilt stored in a corner of the drafty attic. But I wonder if Solomon knows about the Fulcrum making monsters every 3 am? If not, I hope he's in for a wild night...

The morning after


As they wake up, Logan's face is in worse condition than the night before. Bruises have got darker, and there is some swelling.
He groans, checking himself in a mirror. His movements are also painful and stiff.


"OK... emergency plan." he opens a drawer and gets out a face-painting kit. "This is from last Halloween. I need one of you to be my makeup artist..."


"I'll do it!!"


The operation takes them a good half an hour, at the end of which Logan's face is a combination of various monsters, half lizardman, half vampire, with painted fangs and thickly painted scales. They hear Logan's Grandma calling them for breakfast, and go downstairs, dog and all.



At the kitchen table, a small portable TV is on on the worktop. The Hunters catch a snippet of news as they take their places at the table.She turns and reacts in amusement, seeing Logan face-painted, Oh my! (chuckles) You have been having your own li'l Halloween, last night?"


Anna stares at the dog, then at Alana and Logan, looking annoyed. "Let's have a chat after breakfast, Logan."

Al is super curious what Anna wants to talk about, but she's also starving after their adventure last night, so she nods at the cool older girl and then turns to her breakfast. As she's munching on it, she turns to Ellen. "Mrs. uhm..." She looks at Logan. "Loey, what's your last name, actually?" She's not sure if she's ever heard it. It just doesn't tend to come up in conversation between them. She then turns back to Ellen. "Mrs. Logan's grandma," she says, trying to sound casual. "What would you do if an evil ghost attacked Logan? I bet you'd be super angry and would want a different ghost to kick his butt, right?"

Punctuating Al's question, Bev chokes on her OJ and goes into a coughing fit.

Smooth, Al.

It was unusually difficult to drag himself out of the cozy quilt once everyone was stirring. By the time he'd managed to throw the covers off Logan already had half his face "fixed" by Bennie and stared, bleary-eyed, at the two trying to mask Logan's beatdown. That's not gonna last in this heat so we'll need a story to cover for it before you get home tonight.

Johnny was still a bit fuzzy in the head as Logan's family served breakfast. Their name is Henry... Johnny interjected before Bev choked on her Oj. It's on the fancy mailbox outside. He smirked, partly at Alana's question and partly at Bev nearly drowning in her OJ, and tried to hide his goofy grin behind his hand. After the serious nature of last night he needed something to lighten his mood.