I Am Chosen

Sledgehammer

Before unhooking the car, Kacey and Hollis went and had a look at the cabin. Coming up to the front door, Kacey frowned and stopped. There were claw marks, large ones, in the wooden door frame and down the door itself. Hollis stepped up. "Hunh," he said. "Bear."

Kacey turned to him. "I've seen this before," he continued. "When I was a kid at my parents' cabin. Bear broke into their cabin searching for food."

"Even if it got in, there shouldn't be any-" Kacey began but then she thought of J.D. When she had run into him at the grocery store a while back he had been pushing a cartful of groceries and had hinted at the fact that he was cooking for someone. Maybe he had brought that same someone out here to the cabin...

She turned the key in the lock and stepped in, followed by Hollis. There was a large, open seating area on the right side, a dining room to the left and connected to that, the kitchen. The cabin was, thankfully, empty. Kacey proceeded to the cabinets and opened them. Sure enough, there was food in there. So maybe J.D. was bringing someone out here from time to time. If so, that was great. "Looks like my brother's been using the cabin," she told Hollis. A deep pang of guilt struck her over the thoughts that had invaded her mind earlier, the negative and hateful thoughts toward her brother.

That wasn't you. It was the stone.

"We might wanna remove the food when we leave," Hollis said. "That way if the bear does break in hopefully it'll leave disappointed and not come back." Kacey nodded and made a mental note to call J.D. when they were done. "Okay," she said. "Let's get this over with."

Hollis had brought a Taser. After unhooking the Daytona from the tow truck and driving it around to the back of the property, he pulled out his backup gun, put it on a wooden bench on the back porch, then handed the Taser to Kacey and said "okay," if I start acting like I might try to hurt you, zap me."

"You know I don't need this to put you on your ass, right?"

"Hey," Hollis said. "I may be old, but I've still got some moves."

Kacey put up her hands in mock surrender. "Okay, Mister Miyagi. Taser it is."

The car was parked about fifteen yards back-far enough away that the stone didn't appear to be affecting either one of them. Yet.

Hollis felt like a bit of an idiot, truth be told.

Here he was, out in the middle of God-knew-where, trying to kill a rock. Jesus, how stupid did that sound? Right now he was just hoping to hell that this wasn't all a huge waste of time. Kacey had told him to use his jacket to wrap around the stone and pick it up, which he did, hefting it from the trunk and walking it over toward the property's edge. As he did so, he waited for some crazy, hallucinogenic acid trip visions to go blasting through his mind.

Nothing.

So what did that mean? Did the stone's mojo work on Kacey but not him? Was it currently... inactive? Or, on top of everything else was his partner nuttier than a can of Planters?

Either way they needed to get on with it. Hollis placed the stone on the stump, retrieved his jacket and stepped away. He turned and gave the thumbs up to Kacey, who crossed to where the Taurus was parked, trunk open. She retrieved the Winchester as Hollis returned to the porch. He stood next to the girl, fingers in his ears, as she stood at the base of the back steps and took aim.

BOOM! The rifle thundered, sending its report echoing through the forest.

The stone hadn't moved. He wasn't sure what he was expecting. For it to split in half? Explode? But for it not to move even the slightest bit... "must have missed," he said to Kacey, his fingers pulled out an inch from his ears.

"I don't miss," she said testily, frowning at the stone, the rifle lowered. After working the lever Kacey raised the rifle again, took careful aim, and squeezed off another shot. Hollis had turned back to watch the stone, but again there had been no sign that it had been hit.

"Take this," Kacey said, handing the rifle over to him. She walked about halfway from the porch toward the stump and stood, staring. "I don't even see a mark where the bullets hit," she called without turning. "But I know I got it..."

She came back, shaking her head. Hollis had an idea. He looked over to the northern side of the property, where a beat-up old structure sat. "That a tool shed?" he asked.

"Yeah," Kacey answered. "Got a key?" Hollis enquired.

Kacey did. They walked over and she opened the shed for him. Less than a minute later Hollis had found something that just might do the trick: a stone sledgehammer.

"Worth a shot I suppose," Kacey said.

"I feel like Peter Gabriel," Hollis said.

"Who the hell is Peter Gabriel?" Kacey asked. Hollis sighed and shook his head, not caring to explain that he was a singer who had a number one hit called "sledgehammer." Freaking kids, he thought. All they care about are these "YouTubers." There was a time you had to have talent to be a celebrity.

Kacey headed back over to the back porch as Hollis closed to within a few feet of the stone, staring down for a moment at its featureless black surface. Again he waited for some malign intelligence to reach out and try to warp his thoughts. But again no assault came.

He hefted the hammer with both hands, swung it down toward the ground in an arc, then back up, around, and down, scoring a perfect hit on the top of the rock.

The vibration of the impact traveled though the hammer head, the wooden hammer handle and into his arms, rattling him to the bone. He imagined that to an outside observer he must look like some cartoon character, his teeth about to shake loose from his mouth. He dropped the hammer and stumbled back a step, eyeing the stone.

It sat there, completely intact, not a mark on it.

Hollis shook the dizziness from his head and took a few deep breaths. He was surprised not to hear uproarious laughter coming from the back porch. Surely Kacey must have thought this was hilarious. Hell, she probably took video of the whole- but as he turned his head toward his partner he saw that she had closed the distance between the porch and the stone halfway. She had the rifle raised, not pointed at the rock, but pointed at him. What he could see of her facial expression was completely blank.

No. Oh no.

Hollis stood, waiting for Kacey to say the words "I am chosen" and pull the trigger.

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You lucky ducks get an early update! I'll be at Emerald City Comic Con Thursday and Friday, so here you go! Of course, this also means if you read this right away you have an extra day to wait for the next update!