The Rake Vs Dogman: And Other Stories

By Tim Sonski

Bounty hunter siblings Meredith Caplan, known as Murray, and Travis Peck are hired to catch a skeletal creeping figure roaming the neighborhoods of their small Mississippi town. Masking her soft vulnerability under a tough, thick candy shell, Murray packs up her shotgun Jinx and her dog Karma to prepare for the hunt. Meanwhile, two redneck ranchers provoke a roving pack of wild Dogmen and find themselves suddenly the prey instead of the poachers. As their paths collide with Murray at an abandoned ranger station in the darkest corner of the forest, two young amateur hikers, Janine and Holly, find themselves trapped amongst the instigators between two monstrous forces eager to savor the taste of their marrow. As if things couldn’t become more desperate, the vicious Officer Nathanial Dixon, scarred by Murray years before has also found himself at the center of the carnage. Hellbent on taking his revenge upon the woman, he won’t let the threat of warring supernatural beasts deter him from collecting his pound of flesh. Summoning an inner strength that has nothing to do with muscle mass, Murray must overcome not only the demons at her door but the demons from her past in order to survive.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Sep 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9781665570763

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© 2022 Tim Sonski. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 09/19/2022

ISBN: 978-1-6655-7075-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-7076-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022917075

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Illustrations done by Mr. X-Dreams.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Author’s Note

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Voicemails in The Dark

The Devil’s Picnic

Acknowledgements

First thing’s first.

Thank you, Lindsey Stirling.

You’re an earthbound angel with transparent wings, a heart of gold and fantastic legs.

Call me.

This project would not have been possible without the support of the YouTube community. The jagged point of that metaphorical spear being Unit 522, who humored my tendencies to scribble out an occasional story for his channel. If this project ever had a shot of finding an audience, it was because of his willingness to produce the original audio drama. His endless hours of heavy-eyed editing, weaving all the respective talents into a harrowing, macabre tapestry of excellence paved the way for this novelization. I’m sure he would have rather been drunk watching Resident Evil.

On the chessboard, the queen has the most range and power, and no analogy could better suit our leading lady Eden, who’s practically internet royalty herself. She not only provided the voice for Murray but gave her the heart of a lion and the soul of a warrior. Thanks to her range and power, she transformed a character on the page into the heroine of our dreams.

To the supporting cast of voice actors, narrators, artists, and musicians who helped bring the audio drama and the bonus stories to life, it’s ingenuity and support like yours that holds up the Roman Colosseum to this day.

Special thanks to Mr. X-Dreams for creating the illustrations for this novel. Had you been drawing during the Renaissance, marble statues of you would doubtlessly adorn our museums today. If mine is the only book ever to be painted with your brush, the world is truly unjust.

To the fans, there’s so many more of you than I could have hoped, and I’m forever grateful for your support. Thanks to you, a wish became a dream, and a dream became a reality.

To Neil Marshall, thanks for directing "Dog Soldiers and The Descent." Inspiration for this story was harvested from your creative labors.

To my family and friends, who entertained and encouraged my desire to write scary stories and gave me advice on how to load ammo, suture wounds, and restructure a sentence, your patience with me is greatly appreciated. An additional gold-plated cornucopia of gratitude to my cousin Brianna for allowing me to shamelessly make her German Shepard Karma look so heroic.

And finally, to Sean and Maria, thank you for waiting patiently beside that ravine as I constructed this story. It was the bridge that led me to you.

Oh, and I guess Drew...

Author’s Note

Just a head’s up for those who listened to the original Creepypasta, this is not going to be a verbatim transcript. Obviously, a script designed for an audio drama won’t read like a novel, so the narrative structure has been reformatted. As such, this provided me the opportunity to make some minor alterations to help the adapted story shine on its own. I hope the fans won’t begrudge me a little creative polishing.

Don’t worry, Karma’s still in it.

The Rake vs Dogman isn’t just a story about scary monsters. It’s a story about people. It’s a story about how far people are willing to go to survive. But more than that, it’s about how much of a struggle it truly is to maintain your sense of humanity when surrounded by monsters. Actual monsters and those pretending to be human. This story is an unforgettable journey that will leave you thrilled, spellbound, heartbroken and screaming for the heroine as she kicks ass.

-Eden, aka Murray

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1

AUGUST 2016

Jasper Womack washed the blood from his hands in the rapidly moving current of the street runoff right before it disappeared into the storm drain. The water was freezing cold and spotted with soggy cigarette butts, and he had a dismal certainty that someone had just puked not far upstream as well.

To hell with it. He thought grimly as he wiped his hands on the side of his jeans. Life was dirty, and he couldn’t afford to be seen with stained hands. It would draw too much attention. Although to be fair, that may be a moot point now. He had just caused quite a ruckus at the strip club up the road. One of the girls had been just fine getting on top of him for a long intimate lap dance, but the moment he had put his tongue in her ear she had freaked out and slapped him. He felt he had shown a good deal of restraint when he had reciprocated by simply knocking her front teeth out instead of putting her through the window.

The bouncers had tried to hold him down but the cleverly concealed knife in his boot and the brass knuckles he kept in his back pocket had ensured his escape. Not that he had evaded capture without experiencing any personal loss. He had left his knife sticking out of the bouncer’s shoulder, and he had the type of cut under his left eye that surgeons had wet dreams about. Not to mention losing all his cash and overall being bruised, bloody and slightly perturbed that his drink had been room temperature.

He made his way at a brisk walk down the street, keeping to the shadows and putting as much distance between himself and the strip club as he could. He could faintly hear sirens in the distance, but they didn’t concern him. The police had been after him for months, but no one had been smart or capable enough to corner him. He would just slip into the shadows the way he always did and disappear.

He crossed the street and began to cut across a motel parking lot when something caught his eye. Outside one of the motel room doors stood a woman leaning against the wall smoking a cigarette. She was about five foot four with wild dark hair and a sagging tube top which generously displayed her exceptional cleavage to the world. On the ground by her bare feet sat a half-full fifth of Jack Honey.

He quickly glanced around the parking lot to make sure the two of them were alone, and then made a beeline to the woman the same way a starving wolf was drawn to a frail young doe. When he was within earshot, he called out to her.

Hey there, lovely!

She exhaled smoke through the curtain of her hair.

Hey yourself.

How much of that booze are you looking to share?

With you handsome, all of it. She responded with a hint of mischief.

Jasper walked right up to her and picked up the bottle without hesitating, throwing it back and taking three long refreshing gulps. The woman admired the cut under his eye through a crack in her low hanging bangs.

You look like you’ve just come from being a big damn hero somewhere.

He wiped at his mouth with the back of his sleeve.

And you look like you just fell from heaven to give me a good time.

Jasper leaned into her and fondled one of her breasts, his other hand still holding fast to the liquor.

The woman tossed her cigarette aside.

My man keeps disrespecting me. He doesn’t treat me right. I’m looking for someone who will fulfill my dreams. Make me a rich woman.

She leaned in and gave him a long kiss on the mouth.

Baby, I’ll make all your dreams come true. What do you like? Rough stuff I’ll bet right? Maybe another girl joining in?

The woman reached down and rested her left hand on the small of his back.

"I’m more into bondage."

Quick as a flash, she brought her right hand out from behind her back to snap a handcuff on his left wrist.

Jasper jolted backwards as the cold metal encircled his wrist.

The fuck?

The woman drove her knee up into his groin so hard he collapsed onto his knees and vomited up all the whiskey he had just swallowed.

She took advantage of his sudden paralysis to go through his pockets, but there was nothing to find except the brass knuckles.

No cash. That’s a shame.

Jasper clumsily tried to lunge at her from the ground.

You callous whore!

The woman pulled a stun gun from her back pocket and zapped him directly in the chest, causing him to collapse back onto the pavement unconscious.

That was almost original. She smirked.

With her right hand still awkwardly cuffed to his, she opened her motel room door with her left hand, rolled a wheelchair out onto the sidewalk and slowly heaved his body up into it. After she strapped him down, she undid the cuff around her wrist and attached it to the chair. Tucking the stun gun and the brass knuckles into the back pockets of her jeans she reached inside the motel room again for her leather jacket. Embroidered on the back in big bold lettering read the words The Devil You Know.

Finally, she hit the lights and closed the door.

Taking a moment to straighten her tube top, she rolled the unconscious man off the sidewalk and into the parking lot, kicking over the liquor bottle in disgust.

Gross. Why couldn’t you be a Beam drinker?

The unconscious man gave no reply. As she reached the cross walk, she heard a howling wolf somewhere in the distance. She paused and flicked her head back to toss her hair out of her eyes. That sounded like a big sucker, and it was a little too close for comfort.

Be thankful I don’t leave you for the wolves. She muttered to Jasper.

She continued to wheel him across the street and outside the reach of the parking lot’s overhead lights. In the distance came the howls of several other wolves answering the original call.

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Travis Peck looked over from his makeshift workstation at the kitchen counter of his RV as the dog leapt up from the couch and started barking. He set down the trail camera he had been repairing and picked up his handgun, cautiously moving around the counter to place himself in front of the door. The dog continued barking loudly and leaping up, paws slipping against the sleek plastic inside of the door to get a better look out the small window into the darkness. Travis cocked the hammer back on the gun.

Murray? Is that you out there?

There was no response. The dog began snarling. He called out again, keeping his voice calm yet stern.

Murray? If that’s you, best answer!

The dog lowered her nose to the base of the door, sniffing wildly. Outside, Travis began to hear slow careful footsteps approaching. He held his weapon firmly in both hands and for a few brief seconds all he could hear was the pounding of his heartbeat in his ears. The door to the RV suddenly rattled and the dog began barking again.

Travis kept the weapon up and ready. Nudging the dog aside with his foot, he unlocked the door and swung it open fast. He found himself face to face with the business end of a sawn-off double-barrel shotgun. The woman who pointed it towards his face didn’t flinch as she stared back into the merciless eye of his own handgun.

After a heart-stopping moment they both lowered their weapons.

Jesus, Murray. You’re long overdue. What the hell kept you?

Murray pulled out her earbuds and leaned her shotgun against the outside of the RV.

You try pushing this fucking wheelchair across the forest floor in time for happy hour. Give me a hand with this asshole, will you?

She uncuffed the unconscious man’s wrist from the wheelchair and was almost immediately bowled over by the large and beautiful black German Shepard. She kissed the dog on her furry snout.

Hello Karma, my lovely girl. I’m sorry mommy took so long.

Travis heaved Jasper up out of the chair and carried him unceremoniously to the RV’s small bedroom, which Travis and Murray had turned into a makeshift cell, complete with padded walls, bars on the windows, and five locks on the door. Travis plopped him down on the room’s small cot before closing and locking the door behind him.

Did you do that do his eye?

Murray stepped inside the kitchenette and cracked open a beer from the fridge after feeding the excited dog a much-deserved treat.

I wish. He must have donated his face to the concrete before I found him.

Travis sat back down on his stool and picked up the trail camera again.

I’ll bandage him up before we leave tomorrow. Good work. I honestly didn’t think you’d locate the bastard tonight.

Just remember that we agreed on a sixty-forty split this time.

She retrieved her shotgun from outside and slammed the door shut.

Sixty-forty in your favor this time. I haven’t forgotten. Travis acknowledged with a small grin as he put his glasses back on and unscrewed a section of the bulky camera.

Murray sat down on the couch and took a long drink from her beer as Karma leapt up with her to lie across her lap. Her eyes wandered across the dozen or so framed pictures on the walls of the RV and she spotted a new picture of herself, her mother and Travis sitting awkwardly on the unfinished roof of the house that Travis’s father had been building for all of them.

Shit, she thought as she shook her head, looking at the little pigtailed girl who couldn’t have been more than eight, smiling huge for the camera to showcase her newly lost front teeth. It’s already been more than twenty years…

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Murray’s mother had been working full time at a bank back in the late seventies. She had been an innocent, pretty young thing in her early twenties with a good head for numbers and a strong desire to travel to Europe someday. One night after work a man had followed her to her car, beaten her and raped her in the back seat before taking off into the night at a brisk walk, not even worried enough to run, never to be seen again. Nine months later her mother gave birth to her on her grandmother’s couch. For several years Murray and her mother had lived a very sheltered life, rarely leaving their hometown and living in the guest room of her grandparent’s house. Then Travis and his father had come along.

Michael Peck was a Vietnam vet turned cop whose first wife had died from complications after Travis’s birth. For six long years he had tried his best to raise Travis on his own while also actively serving as a cop. They had met when Officer Peck had been in the process of writing Murray’s mother a parking ticket. The two had bonded almost immediately and her resourceful mother found a way to charm him out of the parking violation and the two had remained nearly inseparable for the rest of their lives. After Officer Peck put his savings into building a new home for the four of them, the two were finally married years later when Travis was nineteen and Murray was sixteen, though Murray never officially took her adoptive father’s last name, instead choosing to keep her mother’s name, Caplan.

The two lovebirds lived happily together overall for nearly two decades until Murray’s mother had tragically died in 2002 from esophageal cancer before she was out of her fifties, having unfortunately never made it to Europe.

Life had never been easy for Murray after that. She quit college and got into a few bar fights. Travis and his father had bailed her out of prison each time and always provided her a place to stay, food on the table, and a loving if not a little firm sense of guidance. She was never able to hold down a job for more than a few days before inevitably nearly coming to blows with someone. What set her off most often was someone inevitably not respecting her desire to be called her preferred name, Murray instead of her birth name, Meredith.

In 2010 she had nearly killed a guy with a box cutter when she found him with his hand down the shirt of a passed-out girl at a beach party. As a result, Murray was currently wanted in three different states for skipping bail, drunken brawling and two assault-with-a-deadly-weapon charges. Always a brawler and never a lady, she could only recall two instances in her adult life when she had worn a dress. Travis had finally given her tactical weapons training he learned in the military and taken her under his wing as a bounty hunter apprentice. The slight complication being that she was still unlicensed in the state of Mississippi, which is where they currently sat in the comfortable if not a little cluttered RV, and she couldn’t deliver their criminal to the authorities without her brother’s involvement.

If you’re going to fall asleep over there, don’t complain when I start using my power drill to reassemble this thing.

Murray opened her eyes. She had indeed been nodding off, helped along by the warmth of the dog on her lap and the chill of the beer in her hand.

She smirked.

Please, you couldn’t reassemble a six-piece puzzle without an instruction video and a buxom cheerleader leaning over you.

Travis didn’t take his eyes off his project as he calmly replied. No more beer for you tonight.

Murray couldn’t help but let her smirk expand into a full smile. Travis and his father had never been anything but perfect gentleman to her growing up and exactly what she needed in an older brother and a father. A family who was there for her when she fell but didn’t stand around overbearingly waiting for her to fail. Who patiently reminded her of her shortcomings but never once lectured "I told you so." They had never made her feel unappreciated or unwelcome, and for that, she loved the two of them with all her heart.

Officer Michael Peck was still alive and well and enjoying his quiet retirement in a small condo in Denver, but his mind was steadily starting to go. Every time Murray spoke to him on the phone, she found herself reminding him again that she was no longer twenty-four years old and living with her ex-boyfriend.

Travis had grown into a towering boulder of a man. At six-four he dwarfed her by a solid foot. He had broad shoulders, massive hands and a thick brown beard shot with gray. Murray often wondered how a man of his size and strength could often be so calm and serene. When they weren’t on the road on a job they resided in their small apartment, where Travis would feed the birds in the courtyard and most of them were comfortable enough to climb into his hands where he would gently pet them. Murray couldn’t help but think if she was Travis’s size, she would have conquered the world by now.

From inside the padded cell they began to hear their bounty coming to and cursing as he slammed his bulk against the door. Murray sighed.

So much for a restful night sleep on the couch.

You can take my hammock in the other room. Travis offered. I won’t be using it.

Murray reluctantly shoved the dog off her lap. No thanks. I’d still be able to smell him.

She rested her shotgun over her shoulder, the word Jinx, engraved on the wooden handle and coaxed the dog towards the door with her.

Come on Karma. Bedtime.

Travis glanced up from his work and looked at her from over his glasses.

"Remind me. Why did you name her Karma?"

Murray looked back at him like the answer was obvious.

Because she’ll always find you and bite you in the ass.

Travis chuckled and waved.

Good night, sis.

Murray stepped outside into the crisp night air and closed the RV door behind her, Karma bounding off towards Murray’s old battered pickup truck which was parked next to Travis’s much flashier Trailblazer. She could still hear Jasper faintly pounding from the back of the RV as she strolled across the wet grass to join her dog in the bed of her truck.

She was nearly there when Karma started growling and immediately turned to stare out into the dark woods surrounding their camp. Murray lowered her shotgun off her shoulder and held it steady in both hands.

Her voice emerged in a whisper as she scanned the tree line carefully.

What is it girl? You hear something?

In her line of work her mind was always set to one of three settings. Careful, more careful, or dead. Just then inside her head when Karma had started to growl the setting had been rapidly adjusted from careful to more careful.

The hair on the back of Karma’s neck stood up and she growled deep and low, never taking her eyes off a spot about fifteen yards away shrouded in shadow between two large trees. If this thing was a bear, it would be making much more noise. If it was a deer or something else small or harmless Karma would bark until she scared it off, but she wouldn’t growl like this. Growling was confrontational. Growling was an acknowledgment of the threat and waiting for it to make the next move.

Murray raised her voice.

"All right creeper. You’d better either come