Well, this is the end. Yes, sad, isn’t it? I’ve had fun and I hope everyone else has, too. I am in the workings of a sequel with a lot of twists and turns, so that’ll be fun. Don’t hold me to getting right on posting it, though. I need to think – stop laughing now, I can think sometimes.

Anyways, it’s been fun.

On with the Shoe before I really get blabbering…

/-/-/-/-/-/

“We deserved some sweet dreams after this nightmare.”

I lifted my wrists off the keyboard and read over that last sentence again. It was the lamest ending ever. No one would believe it; no one who read the rest of the book, anyways. It was just too sappy an ending for everything that had happened. This was a thriller. There was always something more, right up until the very end. That ending left the audience thinking life was fine, life was good and we were all going to live happily ever after. Well, we weren’t, even though it looked like that was the way things were turning out to be. That was the problem with writing real life; things never seemed to turn out the way you wanted them to.

I rubbed at my hand for a minute, tracing my fingers over the still healing wound on my palm. It had been a month and a half since I’d let Dale slit it open and it still hurt from time to time. Reed said it was just everything healing and I should take it easy, just little things to keep the muscles from locking up. He’d even gone as far as to make Mom buy me the laptop I was working on so I wouldn’t use a pen and cause the muscles to cramp and heal wrong. He didn’t understand my sudden obsession with writing this story and I supposed he never would, but he did understand it was something I had to do and there was no way he could stop me. That and it was about time Mom caught up with the rest of the world and invested in a computer. You can bet I was embarrassed growing up when I was the only one I knew who had to go to the library and stay late at school to type up any paper I was assigned. But that’s not the point. He figured at least this way I could use my left hand and give my right one a bit of a break so I didn’t strain anything that was working to heal. The stitches were gone after a week and the bandages weren’t long to follow, either, but it was sore if I used it too much. The red line across my palm was still bright from the whole ordeal, but Reed assured me it would fade. I’d have a scar from this adventure that would remind me about everything that happened and keep me from forgetting what secrets in our family could do. And yet, only Kane, Dale and I would ever know just what that secret was, but it was enough.

I sighed, standing up from the kitchen table. I’d been sitting in one of the hard back chairs for the past few hours and it was making me stiff. But I was bound and determined to stay where I was until someone else got home. I’d felt like I was being watched for the last hour and a half. Call me a pessimist, but after everything, I knew what it felt like to be watched. After ‘It’ died, I felt suspiciously naked and vulnerable in the world. But I also felt liberated in a way similar to how I’d felt when I got my license and Mom wasn’t watching my every move in the car with criticism. Right now I felt watched and the familiarity unnerved me as wall as comforted me. I wasn’t going to ignore that feeling anymore and I wasn’t going to let my guard down. I ran a hand over my back pocket where my pocketknife sat, open and ready. I would have to be careful sitting down again or I was going to spear a hole through my jeans. I’d bought new ones after the incident because I wasn’t willing to get the bloodstains out of any of the clothes I had been wearing that night and I sure as hell didn’t need to patch a hole in these ones already. Add on the fact I didn’t know how to sew and you can see where I was going with the knife bit. As for the knife, I knew it wouldn’t do any good against anything supernatural, but it made me feel batter to have it. There were sick people out there – not in this little town, mind you – that I wouldn’t want to run into unarmed.

A floorboard creaked in the dining room and I smiled. Only Kane, Reed and I knew that floorboard creaked. At least that ruled out anything serious to deal with. Still, I grabbed the saltshaker and leaned against the counter, casually waiting.

“I know you’ve been watching,” I said casually “It’s not polite.”

“That’s a hunter’s instinct.”

I slumped with relief, letting my guard down. Why wasn’t I surprised?

“Why don’t you come on in, Dale? I’ve got coffee on.”

Dale stepped into the room, looking pleased as he went to the table and sat down beside the laptop. I poured the cup and watched as he read over what was on the screen. I let him, figuring there was no harm in him reading it. Mom on the other hand I wasn’t too keen on. For some reason I wasn’t entirely confident in the fact she would read the book and put our injuries and the events together to form her own opinion on how they occurred. I was still surprised that we’d gotten away with the whole car crash story when there was obviously no crashed car to be found. I wasn’t looking that gift horse in the mouth; I just had to wonder. I glanced over at Dale and figured I’d start with him.

“So, Mr. Gilroy Frankfurt,” I started, catching the small smirk playing on his lips, “It was real nice of you to use your insurance card to pay for our hospital bills. And then to never even bring up a claim with the insurance company. It was like you settled up everything and never even existed. Tell me, is that a hunter’s talent?”

“No, I saw it on TV once and thought I’d try it out. My first time using it, too. I’m glad no one caught onto it.”

I smiled, wondering what kind of TV shows he was into. He looked like he had been watching a lot of TV since that night. He was rested and looked a lot less stressed than he had when I first met him. Who said bed rest wasn’t helpful?

“Just me and Kane,” I told him, knowing the reasons were obvious, and set a cup of coffee down in front of him

“So, you’re writing it?”

“Yeah,” I answered, sitting down beside him, watching Dale skim over the page with sharp eyes “Is that going to be a problem?”

“No,” he answered, “People generally don’t believe this stuff can ever be true. There are a lot of us who write up all of this when we get out of the business just so we can remember the glory days. It’s a good thing you’re getting it all out now. It makes for less hyperbolizing.”

I smiled then. He thought it was a good idea. Man, that was a comforting thought.

“Good, because the publishing place I found thinks it’s going to be gold,” I informed him

“Just make sure you change all the names. ’Don’t need to let everyone know who we are,” Dale minded

“Already been working on it, Gilroy.”

Dale threw me a look and laughed. I smiled myself and saved the file before something could happen to it. It was like my baby or something. I was bound and determined to keep it safe from the world until it was ready. And from the way I had been doting on it since the accident, well, it had better stay safe. I didn’t know if I had it in me to re-write the entire thing again.

“So, did you just come around for kicks?” I asked, studying my cup

“No, I had something I wanted to ask you and your brother.”

“Honey, I’m home!”

And it was one of those ‘speak of the devil’ moments. Kane strolled in and was wearing the biggest smile imaginable along with a half a ton of dirt and sweat clinging to every part of him. But I was willing to give him a break. You see, I got obsessed with writing our story. He decided he was long over due for a vacation. So he lit out one morning with his duffle and no one had seen hide or hair of him in weeks. I knew he’d come home. He gets tired of his own cooking after a while.

“Hi, honey,” I replied with a smile. We’d been doing that ‘honey’ bit for years when one of us came home “How was your trip?”

“Fantastic. You would not believe how the flood changed the undergrowth,” he told me, going right to the sink without a look over in my direction “I had to retrace every path with no real idea of where the old ones were, there was this huge patch of poison oak I had the unfortunate experience of walking through – you can bet my shins itched for a week and I did not wear shorts after that one – and then there was dodging that damn park ranger. You’d think he’d have something better to do, like saving kids from Yogi, not that Yogi would bother with them while I was in the woods, but you get my point. And before you can ask, Yogi’s still grouchy as ever if you don’t share your fish with him. Got bowled over and was gifted with a new scratch right down my back because I forgot about him.”

Kane lifted up his shirt so I could see, but there was little to actually see. Looked like a little scratch faded fast. Maybe I should take a moment and explain Yogi. You see, Kane and I have been camping every summer since we were little. We’d been going on our own since we were 13. It was two years ago that we ran across a dead bear. She was a big old Grizzly and had two cubs hanging around. They were pretty skittish for a couple days, but they seemed to figure out we had food pretty fast. So we kind of let them hang around and made sure they got some of our breakfast and didn’t starve. They were cute and pretty comical, so we didn’t really mind. We even named them – Yogi and Boo-boo. Anyways, at the end of the trip, we told the park ranger about the bear and the cubs. He couldn’t do anything about the cubs and next year it was just Yogi, three times as big as he was the year before, who sauntered into our campsite and tried to climb in Kane’s lap. We never did figure out what happened to Boo-boo, but Yogi always seemed to find us whenever we were in the forest. I read up on it once and found out that bears stay with their mothers for the first two to three years. Yogi most likely thought Kane was Mama it wrong to giggle at that thoguht?

“Glad to hear you enjoyed yourself.” I shook my head

“Hell yeah. Nothing better than camping under the stars illegally,” he sighed blissfully “And with a bear as your watch dog nothing bothers you. It was a little lonesome without you, but hey. I dealt with it. Started talking to Yogi a lot and once he lumbered off I started talking to myself a good bit. And then I was talking just for the sake of talking and I think I got your babble tendency.”

Huh. I wondered where that went. Nice of him to take that on vacation with him…But he left his foul mouth tendency for me. Boy was Mom impressed with my four-letter vocabulary of late…

“You know, the easiest way to cure that is to let someone else have a word in edgewise,” Dale commented

“You’re right, but then –When did you get here?” Kane asked, finally noticing Dale

“About five minutes before you,” Dale answered

“And more importantly, where the hell have you been?” Kane asked him, sitting down beside me rather than on me, for once.

“Recuperating,” he answered, “Just laying low until my shoulder healed up.”

“That’s good to hear, but you could have at least said goodbye. Hey, did you happen to read about that deer that went through the sliding glass kitchen doors at Papa Hal’s?” Kane asked, looking perfectly serious and Dale nodded

“I can’t believe they passed it off as a deer…” I sighed

“What’s so hard to believe?” Kane asked, playing with the cordless mouse

“Everything in that kitchen gets destroyed, there’s blood and salt everywhere and they blame it on Bambi. That’s the lamest thing I have ever heard,” I huffed

“Hey, not everything got destroyed. The bio-hazardous microwave from hell survived,” Kane reminded

Ever since that thing had injured his ribs he had taken to referring to it as if it had conscious intent to harm him. Personally, I would have been blaming the demon…but to each their own.

“And we’re all so relieved.” I rolled my eye and Kane smirked at me “Now, before you get me completely scatterbrained; what did you have to say, Dale?”

Dale looked up from his coffee and nodded, like he was lost in his own thoughts. How he could do that over the two of us was beyond me. What can I say; we get chatty when we haven’t seen each other in weeks.

“Yeah. While I was resting up I started thinking about everything that went on while we were killing Boss.”

Why would he want to think on that? I was going to write it down and, with any luck, never think on it again. I shrugged and waited for him to go on with whatever he had on his mind.

“Well, I was thinking that there were a lot of things that could have gone a hell of a lot smoother if you two had have been trained and prepared for what we had to do,” he paused and Kane leaned towards him on the table, his arms probably leaving wet muck trails on the clean blue table cloth.

“And were you just thinking about it randomly, or was there something more?” he asked

“Well, I'm getting older.” He shrugged “Every hunter starts thinking about the things I have been when he gets to the point in his life where he pauses and wonders how the hell he’s stayed alive so long. Dad was younger than me when he took on his apprentices, but you’re older and have good instincts.”

“Whoa. Back it up a bit,” I directed, watching Dale for any hint of madness “Are you saying you want to teach us how to hunt?”

“No, he wants to take us to the circus,” Kane muttered and I smacked him on the shoulder with my good hand “Watch the ribs!”

“Your ribs are fine!” I countered, thinking Yogi did much worse to him while he was out there

“As I was saying,” Dale interrupted the makings of a good argument “I have a job opening. If you two want it, I’ll teach you.”

I gaped at him. Was he insane? Mom would kill me if I even thought about it. She had our entire lives mapped out. I was going to work for half a year and then go to the same university as Brennan and Reed. I was going to be a teacher. Kane was supposed to be going into Psychology. I glanced at him, thinking he smelled like bear and the words ‘How do you feel about that?’ had never passed his lips before. Basically, everyone knew that would never fly. I didn't want to be a teacher, but demon hunter? Was he insane?

“Dude, We can’t be demon hunters! Our mother would kill us!” I told him and he smiled

“She still have that plan?” he asked and Kane nodded

“Yup. Bren’s the Engineer, Reed’s the Surgeon, Kale’s the teacher, and Jimmy is going to be the lawyer. You’re looking at the Shitologist.”

“Psychiatrist!” I corrected

“Same diff.” he shrugged “I’d rather be a demon hunter.”

Dale smiled at him and I shook my head at the pair of them. They were both insane.

“Glad to have you aboard. Kale?” Dale asked

“No. Absolutely not,” I told him, sitting back in my chair, very conscious of the fact I was right between the two of them “And don’t think about trying to convince me otherwise.”

“Kalee,” Kane whined “Who’s gonna watch my back and make me sandwiches and help me research and attampt to sew my socks and help me take down the bad guy?”

“Dale,” I told him

“Once you’re trained, you get to go it alone with the other apprentice I’ll choose,” Dale supplied “So you’re on your own there, unless you can talk them into it.”

“Kalee…” he prodded again

“No,” I told him sharply

“Come on! If you don’t then I might get stuck with some geeky guy who plays dungeons and dragons,” he pleaded

“Oh, we wouldn’t want that, would we?” I asked sarcastically

“Hell no. Or worse, I’ll get stuck with some uber-macho goon who makes me look like a sissy.” Kane seemed appalled by the very suggestion “Or a chick with a brain, no sense of humor, and no chest.”

I rolled my eyes at him and he gave me the puppy dog eyes. Damn him. He hadn’t pulled that since we were thirteen and Mom was against letting us disappear into the bush for a couple months. She hadn’t resisted it and he knew I couldn’t. But I could fight it.

“What would we tell people? Where would we live? How would we make money? And which one of us would have to tell Mom?” I asked

“You’d tell people you were consultants. If they asked what you consult, then you tell them it depends on the job,” Dale supplied “You’d live wherever you set up your home base and you’d make money off jobs or by the good old 9-5 job you can find in any diner or garage when things get tight or you need a cover for a few months. And as for your mother, that’s up to one of you.”

“Why can’t you do it?” Kane asked, looking him over

“Because your mother’s shit list has me at the top of it,” he answered, “She’s probably stab my eyes out if I told her.”

“Fine, I’d tell her,” Kane finally sighed, “Will you do it? For me?”

I bit my lip. I had so many plans that looked oh so boring. He was offering excitement and adventure and bonding and all that stuff I always looked for whenever I considered my next move. It wasn’t normal, it wasn’t safe…and then there were the eyes, again. I swear Dale was about to start, too. I sighed and finally nodded my head. Hell, I didn’t want to be a teacher anyway.

“Only if you promise to abide by all our current rules.”

“I promise not to bring girls home, leave my underwear laying around, and hang up dirty pictures in the bathroom. I promise to respect your space and not leave girly undergarments in the truck, even if I was preoccupied during a date. And I also promise I will keep taking your side, no matter how dumb,” he repeated and I smirked a little at him “And when I'm planning on drinking, you get the keys, no protests.”

“Alright.”

Kane smiled from ear to ear and I smiled back at him. Dale was beaming at the pair of us. It reminded me of Dad back when Brennan and Reed would do really good in school or sports or something. I smiled at him and Kane reached across the table to shake his hand.

“Looks like you got two new apprentices.”

“And I couldn’t have chosen anyone better than a couple of Slaters.” Dale shook his hand back

And it looked like this was the beginning of something special and finally the end of the Sins of the Hunter. Now, that was the cliffie ending I was looking for!

The End

Any comments at all are welcome.

See ya in the funny papers!!!

Sonah