I am the owner and only worker of a store in the Sierra Nevada mountains. It is a bait and tackle shop on a lake surrounded by woodland. That’s the cover I use, anyways. The average person walks in to see gas station food, reels, buck knives and other outdoor products. My customers are tourists on vacation who pass through to get supplies ready for a fishing trip. This usually means bags of beef jerky and cheap beer.
Only a small number get to see what is in the back. I never advertise my unusual supply in the open. This is where my true profit comes from.
Traps of all varieties are there, and not the kind you see on a trading website. Footholds, body-grips and snares line the shelves of my hidden chamber. They are not intended for normal wildlife. They maim, injure, and kill all varieties of evil. To find out what I am a merchant of, let alone reach me, is not easy. I provide the rarest tools to combat supernatural pestilences.
The items I have for sale are not meant only for paranormal hunters but those ready to engage in warfare. My choice to sell such things comes from my hatred of the otherworldly. The pay is an added benefit.
I am good at what I do. I have cornered the market since I do not have any competition in the region.
A man walked in when the place was empty. It was right around closing time and the sun had started to fall. He was large of stature and had a red flannel jacket on. His eyes were dry, as though he might have been drinking. These features gave me a warning to keep my guard up.
“Can I help you find something?” I asked.
“Vanguard,” he said with a cough.
One of the stipulations required for anyone to discuss one of my traps was to know the password. He did.
I tried not to sigh. It was a tiring day and I did not expect a patron so late.
I grabbed the master key and secured the front doors. I closed the blinds and guided the man to the back and offered him a seat. He sat next to two metal contraptions with razor sharp blades. He stared at them in a combination of awe and slight worry.
“Don’t touch them and you’ll be fine,” I said. “What’s your name?”
“Jason.”
“Tell me about your case. What have you been experiencing?”
“I bought a house with some money I made in real estate,” he said. “It’s two stories and has a pine growing through the middle of the foyer. It’s a breathtaking property and I love it despite me living alone. Something visits at night. Every time I look out my window, it stares back at me with perfect eye contact. My vision is getting weaker ever since I glanced at the thing. At first I yelled at it to go away and it didn’t listen. I called the police and they treated me like I was an insane person. I tried to film it and couldn’t. I’ve already shot at it. The rounds didn’t stop it. The vile bastard came back the next sundown.”
“What does it look like?” I asked.
“It changes form,” he said. “Some nights he seems as big as me, others bigger. Others he’s small like a child, and then some moons he comes out hairless, or has flowing blond or ginger locks. My wife and kid died in a hotel resort fire a few years ago and sometimes it shows up as them.”
He choked on his words when he finished his recounting.
“You have a shape-shifter stalking you,” I said. “You will live with a fraud, a mimic who acts like they are your loved ones, even those who have passed away. They will hypnotize you into a demented state if you’re not careful. You may get to the point where you believe the person whose form it’s taking is them. The malevolent entity has intent to drain you of your sanity and soul. Don’t worry – I have the right trap to sell you tonight.”
I pulled out a box from a bottom drawer and placed it on one of my work benches. I opened the top and retrieved different assembly parts before I pieced it all together in front of him.
Once finished in under a thirty seconds, it was an orb-shaped object the size of an earth globe model. The surface of it was reflective material. The inside contained cobalt, manganese, and other rare minerals.
“This is the Cambyuskan,” I said. “Once this is set, the shifter will glimpse its own true form, which is hideous. It will be stricken with terror. It will try to run away, but this device will open up and consume your burdensome creature. Shape-shifters are conniving but not strong. This will hold it until the thing perishes within the item.”
“I’ll take it,” he said.
“It will cost you four grand.”
He gritted his teeth and nodded in reluctant approval. I snapped my fingers at him.
“Now listen,” I said. “I want you know that if I could, I would install this on your property for you. Usually that is a service I offer. With something like this intent is everything. One of the main tenets you have to follow is it’s put there by you.”
He gave me a side-eyed glance.
“There are a set of rules you must follow,” I said. “One, you must put this item in an area where you have seen the mimic tread before. Two, the glass-like surface must not have any shade over it. If there are trees in the vicinity you must cut them down or find a spot where there aren’t any overhangs. Three, the trap must sit on a foundation of crushed vervain. I will provide that at no extra cost. Four, the trap must be on your grounds before nightfall. If any neighbors ask then tell them to mind their own business. Five, and this is the most important one, you cannot hide in waiting or look to be a spectator of its capture. You must not see the moment of its death. Go about your day the way you would any other. If that’s the case, stay in or go elsewhere. Six, you must destroy it with equal parts fire and water. So I would recommend melting the glass and dropping it in the lake the following morning. There’s a whole other list of criteria involving these beings. How to handle them and so forth. My goal is to eradicate interactions with the changeling so you won’t have to be concerned with that set of guidelines. I will provide you with the written regulations along with my phone number. Should you have any further questions, contact me.”
“What if it doesn’t work?”
“Abide by the instructions and it will.”
He averted his eyes to the ground for a while before he stood. We shook hands.
*
I have a room attached to my shop complete with necessary living and entertainment needs. There is a bed, space heater, piles of books in every corner, a closet, and a computer. It does not look like much but it was all I ever wanted.
My phone rang as I was on the verge of sleep.
“You didn’t tell me it would backfire like this,” my customer said.
I told him to calm down. He growled and gave me his address.
“Come here and shoot me in the head or burn me alive,” he said. “Slit my throat or run me over, I’ll lay down in my driveway for you. I don’t want to live anymore. That thing has gotten a hold of me and–”
His voice cut out before he could finish his sentence.
I stepped outside and made the drive to his home.
Upon my arrival, a few things were out of place in the oversized house. The doors were open, including a window on the second floor. I shone my flashlight in every corner around the property as I did a perimeter check.
Groans of pain came from upstairs.
I turned around and saw the trap. It dawned on me which of the rules the buyer had broken. I thought for sure he peered outside to witness the execution of the creature, but I was wrong.
He placed it in a clearing few hundred feet from his front door. Branches provided a slight shelter over the piece.
I walked towards it to rectify this error when the stench of sulfur filled the ether. A sound which was a combination between a hiss and a bear’s roar erupted around the area.
Leaves crunched near me. When I turned in the direction of the noise, a little girl stood there, no more than six or seven years of age. She had tangled and scorched hair. Her flesh had blisters and open wounds as fresh as any patient about to get skin grafts. One of her eyes was intact, the other lacerated and scarred. When I looked behind her, I could see Jason as he stood in the threshold of his house’s front door. He wept.
“It’s Daddy’s fault I died,” she said with hoarseness in her voice. “He let Mommy and I suffer.”
I nudged the trap an inch in diameter to the left where it needed to go per the rules.
“It hurts all over,” she said. Her voice sounded like someone trying to scream through strangulation.
“Don’t let her get to you,” I screamed at Jason as I approached him.
The little girl followed me. When I reached him, I tried to shove him back into the house. He resisted, and I could tell it was not even in defiance of me. He was in so much emotional shock he was unable to move.
“I didn’t mean to let that happen,” he said as tears rolled down his face. “I should have been there that day but I was at a meeting with my bosses…I wish I could take it back.”
I tackled him. We hit the ground, and when I stood I slammed the door shut and locked it before she could cross the threshold. I slapped him.
I went to the rear entrance of the domicile and shut the door. The little girl tracked my movements and followed from the outside. I shut the curtains and blinds.
“W-what are you doing?” Jason asked.
“We’re going to wait here until sundown,” I said, “and we are not looking out there. If you to try to exit this house, I’m knocking you out and tying you up until daylight.”
“But-”
“It’s not your daughter. Or your wife. You have to believe me. She’s hypnotized you but it’s all fake. You’ll thank me in the morning.”
The minutes ticked by and the spell wore off. I helped him dispose of the trap in the morning, even though he loathed seeing fire destroy the invention.
*
Jason called me a week later.
“I wanted to thank you for what you did back there,” he said.
“Shape-shifters are among the worst,” I said. “They cater to the most sensitive parts of our psyche. I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
“Do these things breed?” Jason asked. “Do I need to buy more of those?”
“No,” I said. “They’re isolated loners and only go around their victims of choice. They are a sad result of negative energy. Trust me when I tell you you’re in the clear, but if anything unusual happens feel free to get in touch.”
He offered to wire me more money which I accepted. I am a businessman first, after all.
I hung up and stared out the shop windows at the shimmering lake waters. I was confident in my statement of how there were not changelings around his property. I did wonder how many were in the mountains.
END