Chapter 1~

I hate this box. I refuse to fill it out.

I silently pulled my silver stake from the werewolf’s chest. The surprise in his eyes still lingered. He had not expected his life to end like this, but he had betrayed us. As we watched, the wolf slowly started to grow out his curly blonde hair again, and then his grey skin started to turn back to the tan color he had been when in his human form. Werewolves are giant, grey, furless, canines who can walk on their two back legs. They don’t remember what they had done when they wake up and most don’t even know that they are werewolves. The worst part is their eyes. They have human eyes. All that crap about then turning into giant, fluffy dogs that have any mental ability at all is false.

There are many types of evil creatures and crazy monsters. That is why my brother and I are here: to take them out before they can have a chance to pull anything too disastrous. We are called Watchers. We are the close cousin to Hunters, but we don’t kill every creature in sight. We watch them to make sure nothing bad will happen if we let them continue to live. We will do a follow up a year or two later. This creature had been quiet for the passed seven years since we met him. He had just gone about his normal moon phasing, but never killing anyone. That is, until the last two times. He killed Kim and Gabe, my best friend and my, kind of, boyfriend that I had been Watching with. I had to convince my brother, Nick, to leave his teaching job so he could help me. I feel guilty almost every time I look at him, but a single person cannot take down a werewolf and live to tell the tale.

My brother, Nick, kneeled down beside me and patted my shoulder. “Come on, Sage,” he said pulling me back up. I hated killing wolves. Everyone has a weakness. They just have to find it. Werewolves were my weakness, especially the ones I had known for a long time. “Let’s go home.”

I don’t remember anything from when my dad died. I was only a little over a year old. My brother, Nick, was almost five. I have heard the story told the same way for years, by Nick and by my mom when she was still alive.

 

We lived outside of Springfield, Nebraska, which is almost smack in the center of the United States depending on the shoreline. In Springfield, there seemed to be tornado warnings and watches every other day, and mosquitoes were everywhere all the time. On the other hand, it was a white-picked fence town, and most of its citizens were kind enough to let their neighbor borrow a cup of sugar as long as they were paid back in cash, or half of whatever was made with the sugar.

Our neighbor, Fred, was one of the few neighbors that did not want anything back. He helped just to help. He was around my parent’s age and he was my dad’s best friend since my grandparents moved into my old house. That was the last house my dad’s parents had moved into, and eventually, they died in that house too. After that, the house had been handed down to their only child, Thomas, my dad.

Fred had been over because there was some football game on, but the fun quickly ended. An announcer interrupted the game, with much moaning and cursing from my family and Fred, and explained that a tornado was spotted and was coming straight at them. Only then did anyone look outside. The television was quickly turned off. It was a little after noon, but the sky outside looked like it was midnight. It had been was obvious that this would be a big storm. Fred looked up at the sky with worried eyes before opening the front door to the strong winds. “Hey Tom, I’m going to go over to my house really quick to get some extra supplies. Get your family safe. I’ll be in the shelter in five,” Fred had said, running out of our house. Thunder rumbled in the distance and then there was silence. Fred stopped running for a second.

My dad had opened the screen door and yelled out to him, “Fred, we have plenty of supplies in the shelter! We don’t need anything else.” Fred turned back to my father with a smile and then continued running towards his house. My grandparents and Fred’s parents had not have a basement under their houses, so they had made a tornado shelter in the middle of the two properties. Why the people who built the houses didn’t think that a basement was necessary even though Nebraska is in the middle of Tornado Ally, I do not know and I doubt I would ever get the logic.

My father watched until Fred’s door closed and then he had turned to my mom. “Catherine, get Sage, I’ll get Nick and Bradley.” Bradley was our golden retriever. My mom nodded and went to get me. My father grabbed my brother’s hand and whistled for Bradley. When my dad opened the door, Bradley went running out like the excited puppy he was. My dad swore as he almost tripped over him. Catherine came rushing out with me in one arm and her “mom bag” (everything that she might need if her child-me-needed anything) in the other.

“Ready?” she asked, a little breathless. My father nodded. “This one’s going to be a fighter one day! She packs a punch, just like her mommy!” She had smiled at me and had given me an Eskimo kiss like most mothers’ do.

“Catherine,” my father said, nodding at the sky, “Tornado. Kids. Shelter. Now.”

“Oh right.” Everyone was soon settled in the shelter, except Fred. We heard a bark. Apparently, Bradley wasn’t there either. My father volunteered to go up and get them both.

We heard him shout Bradley’s name and then we heard Bradley’s bark. Bradley had a very distinct bark. It always sounded like he was whimpering. The bark had not come from outside where we thought Bradley was, but from beside us. We heard my dad scream. My mom had immediately told Nick to stay where he was and watch me. Before Nick could object, she was back out and calling for my dad. “Thomas! Thomas, you better get back here before-” Bradley cut her off by barking. This bark came from outside. “Bradley?” Nick had heard my mom say. The screams are the only thing that I can still remember and I do not think I could ever forget them.

Nick couldn’t help his curiosity any longer. He looked out at what was happening. My mom had pulled out a small revolver from her backside and shot a shaggy golden retriever. Nick explains the dog as a zombie. His skin and fur were falling off, what fur was left was matted with blood, and the dog was slobbering everywhere as if he had rabies. The dog had killed my father.

The zombie dog had been killed with a silver bullet because the dog had been a shape shifter. The dog had been Fred. My mom never spoke of that dreaded afternoon to me or to Nick except one time to make sure we knew what happened.

 

Since my dad had been killed by what his parents should have been Watching since they moved into that house, my mom had decided that we should go back into the family business. When I had been younger, I was not read the classic children’s stories of Winnie the Pooh, Cinderella, or Sleeping Beauty. I had been told about my family’s Watching stories. Although they were more gruesome and detailed, they were normal stories, filled with love and friendship, and in the end, the villain was defeated. I had also been read Snow White because my mom said that is was not a story, that it was real. We had moved around a lot with the job, so we were home schooled.

Our home school wasn’t normal. We were taught normal classes, but with a Watcher’s twist. English came easy for me, although I still don’t use correct grammar unless I really think about it. For history, we read stories about the history of monsters, Watchers, and Hunters. For math, we had mostly word problems. “If there are 30 zombies and we behead 5 of them and then 50 rougarous appear and we kill half of them with a wooden stake, how many monsters did we kill? Explain your answer.” Answer: 5 zombies because rougarous are not killed with wood, they are killed with fire. Our science was just as interesting as math. “What happens to a djinn when you stab it with a knife dipped in lamb’s blood? Why? What can be done to change this result?” Answer: The djinn becomes very angry because he was stabbed. The knife needs to be silver and dipped into lamb’s blood to kill it. Our gym class was a mix of learning to fight and learning to use weapons. Our art class was recognizing different signs of different creatures and historical Watchers and Hunters. By the time Nick was thirteen, my mom had him Watching and when I turned fifteen, I was allowed to fight.

Our schooling continued like that until Nick was almost fourteen. He asked my mom if he could attend a real school. My mom was shocked, but allowed him. When I turned fourteen, I was forced to go to school as well. We never stayed at one school for very long though. The longest we ever stayed at a school was almost a year.

I had only been Watching for a little over a year when my mom died. There was a coven of vampires in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada. There had been about eight vampires. Churchill, Canada’s population could barely afford to have one vampire, let alone eight. These vampires were quiet and acted like the rest of Churchill’s citizens. We almost did not notice them. They never killed anyone, they only fed when they really needed to, and when they fed, they would make the person forget what had happened. Less than a week before my mom had died, the vampires made their first mistake. There were two murders. The following nights, there was one murder, three murders, and the last night my mom was alive, two children disappeared.

The following day, we planned how we would go into their nest. That night, we went in quiet and blended into the shadows. When we entered, we saw the two children, a small girl and a boy, hanging by their hands from the rafters. I was the quickest and quietest at climbing, so I put down the heavier weapons and climbed up. When I got to them, the littlest one looked at me, barely able to keep her eyes open. “Help me,” she had said, sounding scared and tired. I grabbed both children and pulled them over to the catwalk I was standing on and I quickly cut them free. As soon as I did so, they seemed to regain their strength and they snarled at me. “Watchers are so gullible,” the girl said. I considered my options. There was obviously no sunlight. I couldn’t behead them; I only had a pocketknife. I couldn’t run. They may have been children, but vampires were quick. My best option was the two syringes of dead man’s blood I had in my jacket pockets. I gasped and pointed behind them, making them turn and look where I pointed. They may have been vampires, but they were also children. I quickly stabbed the syringe into their necks. “Vampires are so gullible,” I said mockingly and then began to run. They took a few steps before the blood knocked them out.

I turned back to see the children splatter to the ground were vamps had started to emerge while I wasn’t paying attention. There were five of them. My mom and brother had started to fight them. They all looked at the bodies and then back up at me. I smiled shyly at them and wiggled my fingers in a wave. I hoped Nick or my mom would catch the distraction I had caused the vamps. My mom did. She silently beheaded the vampire that she had been fighting and then shouted Nick’s name to bring him back, but her voice also brought the vampires back as well. I had quickly climbed back down to the fight. Soon, more vampires had come in. It was three against eight. I jumped from three fourths of the way down and managed to behead a vampire before landing on my feet. “I thought there were only eight of them?” I shouted at my mom.

Suddenly I was thrown backwards, I felt the wall crack as I fell into it. I slid down. Next thing I remember was a vampire pulling my head back with my hair. I squealed and thought about how I would be a vampire next time I opened my eyes. I would kill myself. I would have to. I would not become what I fought against. I closed my eyes, accepting what would happen. I was only sixteen, but I had had more experiences than most seventy year olds had ever dreamed of having. It would be okay. My mom would still have Nick.

I had started remembering random moments from my life. What I remember of my dad’s death. The first time I took a swing at Nick, not because I was angry, but because we were Watchers and if we could fight against each other, we could fight against anything. Bradley helping us fight a Hellhound because we couldn’t see it without him barking at it. The Rakshasi, disguised as a doll, pretending to be my friend until she tried to kill my parents. The creepily empty feeling the week after she was killed, that I had lost my best friend. Finding Berry, the cat that we took care of for two weeks until we found her an owner. The Labrador Skinwalker that we took care of in Florida. He and Bradley had become good little doggy friends. I think my mom had started to like him in his human form, but she said it was better that he was adopted. The woman that adopted him happened to be a hot model, so everything turned out fine for him in the end. Nick and I going out to the car to go to school and seeing Bradley in the middle of the street twitching and whimpering. I had started to cry, in the dream and real life.

Next thing I saw was blood splattering towards my face. I twitched back, hitting my head against the concrete wall. The vampire that had been ready to turn me was now bleeding on the floor. I looked up at my savior. It was Nick. I grabbed his hand and he helped lift me up. I leaned against the wall, blinked the fuzzy black spots out of my eyes, and then started to fight again.

We were down to five when about nine more vampires came in. “Where are they coming from? We can’t do this!” Nick had shouted at my mom, taking swings at every vampire around him with his sword. “There are too many!”

This was the second time I remember seeing fear in my mom’s eyes; the first time was when my dad died. She nodded. “Go! Take-” she swung at the nearest vampire, “-your sister and-” she swung at a vampire that had been creeping up behind her, “-go to-” both vampires were swinging hooks from the ceiling and she took a step back. Their hooks tangled around each other. My mom quickly beheaded them both, “Leslie’s house! I’ll be out in a second!” she had assured us, but a part of me had known it was just to make us go.

Nick and I had started running towards the exit. I turned around at the last second, waiting for my mom. Waiting to see that I was just over thinking, as I did so often. Waiting to see something magnificent happen so that the Lloyd’s could get on fighting as we had done for generations. I saw a vampire sneak up behind my mom who was fighting three vampires as she tried to follow us out. The vampire sunk her three fangs into my mom’s neck. My mom’s body slowly went limp and eventually her body dropped onto the ground. I jumped and let out a small squeak. The vampires had all looked at me, smiling to show off their fangs. I felt someone grab me by my arm and I screamed and fought. He would not let go. This was not Nick. Nick had green eyes, like the rest of the family and brown hair that was so light, it was almost blonde. This man had light brown eyes and curly blonde hair. “Let me go!” I had shouted and struggled.

He dragged me out and dropped me beside Nick. The only thing he said was “Go,” before he began to seizure. A few seconds later, the vamps were coming out and where the blonde stranger had once been, stood a werewolf. I had read and studied them for years, but I had never actually seen one in my life. It was awful. His human eyes blinked at us and then he had bounded toward the vampires, ripping off a head in one bite. The vampires ran inside and he had chased after them. We tried to ignore the screams and growls that came out of the old factory as Nick guided me back to the car and buckled me in. He walked over to the driver’s side and started the Opel. We drove back in silence. The only sound had been the car struggling against the wind and the slush. I had been too numb to cry. I could not bring myself to cry or move to turn on the heat when there was no temperature difference between the inside of the car and the outside, nor when my fingers were so cold they could no longer move. It had been about an hour back to Churchill. That night, I laid in bed thinking. Watching was a safer job than Hunting, but people still died. Danger still followed a Watcher. This was the life of the Watcher.

It was the life of the Watchers and Nick wanted nothing to do with it. He had decided to go to college, forget that any supernatural creatures existed, and become a teacher. I quit school and continued Watching. We had seen each other only twice every year for seven years.

Author's Note

I rewrote this and it's a lot different, I'll use that stuff later. Consider previous chapter 1 a preview. :D