Mason Dixon - The Wampus of Reeds Spring: Mason Dixon, #2

By Eric R. Asher

Your newest favorite monster hunter is back, and this time there are squids! 

They are the first line of defense against the things that go bump in the night. 

They are the keepers of a centuries-old legacy of The Church defending the world against the forces of darkness. 

They are a bunch of highly armed rednecks, internet video celebrities, soccer moms, and assorted broken nutjobs.

They are the new Templars, and things are about to get weird.

Mason Dixon, the internet superstar and cryptic hunter from the woods of Missouri, is back with a new adventure, new monsters to hunt, new video to shoot, and new mysteries to unravel! Mason and his much more sensible sidekick Emma re investigating a series of monster attacks when, as usual, they find much more than they bargained for. 

Can Mason figure out how to build the easy-up tree stand? 
Can they survive the fearsome Wampus? 
Will they get enough cool footage to keep Himari happy? 
How much gear can they destroy on one expense account? 
The answer to all these questions and at least one more are hidden with The Wampus of Reeds Springs! 

Mason Dixon, Monster Hunter is a series of comedy fantasy novellas set in the popular Bubba the Monster Hunter universe. These urban fantasy novellas, like Bookshots, are short, quick comic reads perfect for commutes or short plane rides.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Falstaff Books
• Release date: Jul 15, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386614555

Book preview

Chapter

One

E asy pop-up tree stand my ass. I kicked the last support as it finally settled into place, the large rounded stone under my boot giving way, causing me to flail to catch my balance .

Emma unhooked the winch—it took a damn winch to lift the thing—from the ATV without comment and glanced down at her watch. Three hours I’ll never get back. She brushed away a lock of dirty blond hair from

her

face

.

I took a deep breath and listened to the relative silence of the woods around us. The air smelled clean here, and after a weekend in Saint Louis doing paperwork with Noah, clean air was a noticeable improvement. If that bingbuffer is out here, I doubt very much we’ll be seeing it today. We’ve been the loudest thing out here for hours.

Don’t care, Emma said, snatching up a rifle case in one hand and slinging a soft cooler over her shoulder. "

Let’s

eat

."

I followed her up the ladder and settled into the camouflaged swivel seat mounted in the grated platform. A platform that gave me a rather unpleasant glimpse of where I could fall to my crunchy death.

Nice view, Emma said without inflection. "Where are we moving

to

next

?"

I narrowed my eyes and unzipped the cooler when she handed it to me. "It wasn’t that bad. This is only the third location we’ve

moved

to

."

Emma raised an eyebrow.

"The bingbuffer has been moving around more than I expected. We’ll camp here for a while. We’ve seen a lot more raccoons in the area, and that’s their favorite food source. Or so Larry says, and I tend to believe the

old

man

."

It’s been a long day, Mason.

I hesitated. "

Two

days

…"

Right.

There’s only one more spot to check after this. We can break down the tree stand and haul it to the other side of the river.

"I’m pretty sure we could have built a tree stand out of two by fours at each stop faster than it takes to set this thing up. We should have just bought the nice collapsible ladder stand and been done

with

it

."

I handed her a somewhat smashed hoagie roll piled high with roast beef before digging my own out of the bottom of the cooler. Look, I said, gesturing with my floppy sandwich, "we could be stuck up here for two or three days hunting this thing. You want to trust a rickety ladder stand

for

days

?"

Yes, she said with a vigorous nod. She took an impressively angry bite of her sandwich.

We didn’t speak for a time, just watched the slow curve of the James River pass by in the distance. The water lapped against the shore, which, in turn, gave way to what amounted to a field of river stones.

I hadn’t picked the rocky clearing out of an intentional desire to make assembling the tree stand an unholy nightmare. I picked it because the deposits of old rounded river stones were exactly the sort of place a hinge-tailed bingbuffer would come to reload on rocks.

Emma sighed and scarfed down the last bite of her sandwich. Good idea stopping by the orchard on the way down. She lifted the small jar of moonshine and shook it. "Larry’s certainly generous in his

old

age

."

"I was just happy to see the gowrows were adjusting to their

new

home

."

Emma nodded. Hasn’t been much more than a month, right? They looked a little bigger.

It’ll take them quite a while to get as big as Old Willie.

A kayak passed by in the distance, the motion of the paddle barely visible in the dying sun. I squinted, trying to see if I could make out the ripples in the water, but it was a bit

too

far

.

Emma cracked her neck and started raising the fabric around the perimeter of the tree stand. The camouflage wasn’t a perfect match, but I hoped it would be enough to keep anything interesting from noticing us. I pulled up the edge closest to me and wrapped a Velcro tie around the rail to hold

it

up

.

I checked the small case of tranquilizers at my feet. We had a good supply of darts and quite the selection of gauges to choose from depending on what came our way. I opened the butt of my tranquilizer rifle, swiveling it to the side and inserting a dart before locking it up again. I removed the old CO2 cartridge and snapped a fresh one on

as

well

.

Didn’t you just open that cartridge yesterday? Emma asked, eyeing the discarded cylinder.

Yeah, but I really don’t want to get surprised by something and not have the juice to knock it out. You remember how those darts bounced off that man-eating gowrow?

"No, Mason, I totally forgot about the giant gowrow that almost

killed

us

."

I smacked my lips and leaned forward against the gun rest, and waited.

Nightfall in the country isn’t like city living. Even small towns have a lot more light pollution than you’d think. But out here, a reasonable distance from much of anything, it was mesmerizing. No matter how many times I saw those faint lights grow into a brilliant blanket of stars, it didn’t

get

old

.

Orion’s up,

I

said

.

There are constellations besides Orion,

Emma

said

.

Even without a telescope or binoculars, the Orion nebula was clear to see. It was one of the first things my grandmother had taught me to find in the night sky, and it brought some measure of comfort, no matter how old I’d gotten, or how long she’d

been

gone

.

Emma squinted at the stars. Look at the Pleiades, she said. You can see the dust from here. Now that’s my favorite. Except for those spiral galaxies, but you can’t see them without a telescope.

Not very well at least, I said before something cracked in the distance, followed by a tremendous splash.

Emma grinned and pulled the camera out of its case. The light came on, and so did my persona. Emma kept the camera low, keeping the light beneath the edge of the fabric that concealed us in the tree stand.

Ready,

she

said

.

I leaned forward, raising my head a little to peek out into the moonlit clearing before snapping my gaze to the camera.

You’ll be surprised to hear we’re out in the woods again, I’m sure. You’ll never believe what we have for you today. We’re on the trail of the elusive hinge-tailed bingbuffer.

I shook my hands at the camera. Now I know, you’re thinking that’s one heck of a ridiculous name, but believe me, it’s not a ridiculous cryptid. The locals say it’s the size of two adult elephants in one massive creature, and it can hurl a twenty-pound stone faster than a major-league pitcher. With its tail! I paused and blinked. "Well, maybe that’s a little ridiculous, but it’s no doubt dangerous, and it would make a terrible house pet. It’s going to be a great episode."

Emma turned the camera to infrared, and I waited for my night vision to come back. Even with the light as dim as it had been, I had flashers in my vision. Emma pointed the lens out toward the river.

And we waited.

Close to an hour had passed when something low and deep rumbled through the night like the explosion of a distant fog horn. We both froze. Emma panned the camera across the river. No river here was big enough to warrant needing a fog horn of that volume.

Was that it, Mason?

Don’t know yet, I said, but it was only a moment before it blared again, fracturing into a bleating chortle. It was a hell of a lot closer

this

time

.

Something cracked below us, and a nearby oak tree shook with the force of it. I leaned back in my chair, peering through a slit in the tree stand’s fabric that passed for a window.

"

Holy

shit

."

Below us, but not as far below us as I would have preferred, was a towering creature, a shadowy form that lumbered out of the woods, trailing the thick branch it had broken off in passing.

Mason, Emma hissed. "That thing could practically step

on

us

!"

Water rolled off the back of what could easily be mistaken for a hippopotamus, only twice as tall as a hippo and as wide as an elephant. Moonlight glinted in the puddles of water the hinge-tailed bingbuffer left behind, its gray flesh slowly drying in the night air. A ponderous gait brought it ever closer to what now felt like our incredibly flimsy tree stand.

Something crunched below us, a brief scream of metal and what sounded very much like an exploding tire. The bingbuffer raised its foot and blinked its huge black eyes slowly at the pancake of metal and oil that had been an ATV a moment before.

Seriously? Emma snapped.

The wide round eyes below us swiveled up, and we ducked back into