The Troll Hunters

Chapter One

I am here

Smoke this thick should bother me…

She knew who I was, Darlene. Even before I knew myself. And she knew why I was there. I was the means to an end for her, a heaping helping of I had it comin’ as she would say, but that meal was never served. Straight to dessert, past the meat and potatoes, right to the admission of guilt she expected would satisfy her hunger. It was a lie she convinced herself to be true, or she would have never screamed.

You still there? I asked aloud.

Yes, forever. No one else was available to answer.

I was never going to shoot her. Too easy of an out. People are meant to pay for their transgressions, born for it even, especially her. They pray for forgiveness. Let God be the judge is code for I refuse to take responsibility. Blood for blood was a possibility, but she didn’t have enough. No, if any blood spilled it would have to be by her hand, not mine.

Come for me! What about me? I asked.

My plea for salvation played over in my head many times, but no one heard me. Maybe the lesser known gods did but were too far down the list to worry about me being their responsibility. Nope, not my job. I didn’t make him in my likeness. He’s your problem.

Something is out there, a higher power. I know because I am here exacting justice on the ever deserving.

Judgment is instantaneous, good or bad. There is no trial, no verdict to be read, only sentencing. I’ve never had to think about it, never had to dwell on it, like it had been written down and given to my brain prior to any incurred infraction.

So I am here, disallowed to choke on black smoke, breathing thoughts and memories of air, completely unaffected by the fire. I’m daydreaming of burned lungs and eyes too hot to open. If either were the case I would surely know at that point that I was going to die, although I would never accept it.

I would try anything to stay alive. I wonder if that’s how she felt, Darlene. If I feared death from this fire I would jump into the water and earn an excellent chance to die from hypothermia instead. That would be a stand-up proper delivery for a well-deserved sentence. Irony at its finest. That I may die and be enlightened alongside her assuming that would be my reward in the hereafter. I would get what I had coming one way or another, for all the lives I ended my compensation would be death and therefore enlightenment, a glimpse into the mysteries of the universe. But I did die, and now I am here, alone. Where is she then?

I enjoy no answers, there was no bright light to follow. I am neither here nor there, alive or dead as much as I have ever recognized either to be. If God judged me and found me undeserving I really have to complain because I was not one who did not take responsibility for his actions. I simply didn’t care. Give me a ticket, sure I ran the red light, who cares? No, not because I was in a hurry, or thought it would be cool, or even because I wanted to. I just did.

I am here, but how? Why? Am I here just to watch it all burn? A comfortable seat for the destruction of mother earth. Was I delivered from your rocky womb? Was my first breath taken outside your dank swamp vagina? Who was my father? Was he God, the moon, or a random passing orbital body, making his way through the universe and then there you were. You, with your big, blue eyes, like mine back when I brought color into the world, I chastised her.

I’m done yelling at her.

Hello? Mom? You are on fire, and it appears to be serious, I mean, engulfed. What? Fine, fine, everything is fine except I’m not alive anymore. How should I know? I figured you had something to do with it. You or Dad anyways. What do you mean you have to…? What? Hello? Hello?, she hung up.

She did it to herself, like Darlene. Hot lightning is a losing general falling on his sword. She’s combing the figurative lice from her hair. Rather burn it than let them destroy it, going out on her own terms, again, like Darlene. It’s an easy decision when you know you can come back, pure.

I am here! I screamed, I think.

I am here, somehow. I fell in the water and died. I found myself, my body. I saw my reflection, and I was no longer a man, if I ever had been. Part spirit, part unknown, I exist as a wraith, a cloaked black shadow unaware of who or what may see me, may hear me. I am the what is it, the who is it, the is it real. I am what has been with me in my own shadow for as long as I can remember. I am not death, that job is taken for whoever holds it, took me. Not the opposite, but me, trapped in a time between who I remember being and whatever it is I am to become.

In the smoke from the encroaching forest fire, I picked out an anomaly. It came and went, mocking me, flying through my peripheral like a crow on the darkest night. It was the smoke itself, until it became something more. A figure, a man, a tall, thin man donning a top hat, smiling.

Ghost? I asked.

He laughed and stepped forward. His face was painted as a skull, accentuating his high cheek bones and long powerful jaw. He wore a black body suit sans any noticeable seams or buttons. The edges were dulled and cloudy as if knitted from the smoke of the fire. He carried and spun the shiny cane of a dancer that he didn’t seem to need at all. The white tip left trails in the air like a kid with a sparkler.

Some might say that my friend, others hmm, not so much, you know? I am known by many names, many faces but this one is my favorite. This one look good on me don’t you think? Hahahahaha! he laughed.

Let me guess, a lesser god? I asked.

He became large at the prospect of answering, filling the air around me with darkness. I became twice what I was, two separate reflections of light centered respectively in the middle of dilated pupils. In his right was the former me as human as I ever remembered myself to be. In his left was the me of the now, a consciousness alive in both, struggling with the idea that I was separate as much as I was one.

White hunter of men, you may call me The Baron if you must, Samedi if you like. I am not your God for you should fear me twice as much and trust me twice as little, he said.

His voice was deep and foreboding, made of thoughts instead of decibels.

I was whole again, standing along a rocky lakeshore awash in smoke, a man hidden under a sheet made of a shadow cast by something other than human.

My salvation then? I asked.

Hahahahahaha! Is that what you are? A man who need to be saved? Hahahhahaha! You do the savin’ man, that is how it’s always been. Look at you, dead man who asks if he’s going to be a dead man. Ain’t no salvation for you man. Never was going to be, only this, cause this is what you are, who you always been, this is what you do, he said.

Riddles are for children. I have a quest— I tried to speak but Samedi interrupted.

I know you do man, and I got answers. That is why I am here, he said.

He turned his back to me, looking out over the water, admiring the scenery.

This is some beautiful country up here man. Imagine you gotta love it forever. But you know, even the most beautiful thing gets ugly if you gotta look at it long enough. A man can’t never get that you know, he never really understands. A man figure he can look on it the rest of his life and be happy. What he don’t get is his life ain’t even the smallest part, he explained.

He faced me again, a bad actor who you knew not to trust but you do anyway, just to see what happens next.

What’s your point? I asked.

See the thing is, someday you ain’t gonna kill no more, but your mind is still the mind of the man underneath. Once that goes, you will be crazy on the wind. Ain’t gonna care about little men, maybe care too much who knows? And without me you never gonna know who he was? he said.

Who? I asked.

Come now man, we both know. What you have become is what you always feared. You think you’re alone in that boat? Hahahahaha! A man beats a child, child grows to beat another child. You kill that man, you break the stick the ants walk on. He’s watching you, he’s always been watching you. He’s the one who drove you to this, he said.

Tell me, who is he? What am I now? I demanded.

All in good time my friend, all in good time, he said.

His demeanor grew more serious, laying the theatrics carefully on the floor next to the bargaining table.

I can be your salvation though after all my friend. I can free you from all of this, get you out into the world. You come work for me and do what I say and all the world is gonna know my face, gonna know who Samedi is, he said.

What’s in it for me? Answers I presume, but then what? Will you be my boss or my keeper? I’d guess the latter. No thanks, the winds might be where I belong, I said.

But what you wanna know is the answer to the riddle of a child. It’s nothing. I can give answers to questions you ain’t never dreamed about askin’ man, to worlds and places, to time. I can show you things beyond what can be taught, can be learned. I can make you a god over any man alive, he offered.

How, like what? I asked.

I can show you nothing till we have a deal. You got a gone body man, you got nothin’ left but the word that binds you to me. Men give words, men break words, but then they break themselves too. When they get to now, their word is all they got, he explained.

How do I know I’m not going from bad to worse? At least here, here I’m part of…something, I said.

Okay man, tell you what. I’ll give you a taste huh? You see it yet? Smell it? he said waving his arm in front of me.

Chapter Two

Electric Intent

I already knew what it felt like to be a ghost. Everything besides the loneliness, even though that might be the most important thing about being a ghost. What did I care about loneliness? I was alone most of my life and it never occurred to me to be lonely.

I heard it somewhere, at some point when I was alive, Everybody dies alone. Forget about being surrounded by loved ones, comrades in arms, or ultimately succumbing in the embrace of your beloved. At the end, the very end, not as you jump, not a second before you land, but when you realize the pain is over, you are hopelessly by yourself. Nobody can come with you, the journey is your own, all the way to ghost, where I was. That’s why she never told me, even though she knew what I was before I got there. It had to be my discovery, or I might not have believed it was true.

Pain is the finish line, and it is thick, at that moment, thicker than the race. It stays with you, like the phantom agony and discomfort from a long gone amputated limb. It is so tragic, so ultimately abominable that you don’t realize it doesn’t hurt anymore when it finally does stop. Then all at once it’s over and you can only remember that it hurt. That’s when you’ve already crossed the line between then and now, between everything over and something new. It was a thin line, so infinitesimal as to not give you a chance to savor the moment.

Nobody could see me this time as I walked. People on the street, where I most inexplicably and suddenly found myself hadn’t any clue that I was there. I could see them as well as they could not see me. I could hear even though I did not try to be heard. I could not smell the people because for some reason I tried, nearly licking the makeup from a passing woman’s face. I would have tasted her chalky and bitter.

I passed through them unabated, and they were affected. An average man, maybe walking to work or to meet a woman strode with confidence, with intent. As his hand passed through mine his shadow died, leaving him alone, void of color and joy like an unpainted daguerreotype.

A well-dressed woman outwardly and obviously enslaved by modern flamboyant fashion strolled hand in hand with a female child, the girl wearing a bright yellow dress and white shoes with silver buckles. The woman was showing the girl her hat, probably explaining how much it cost and how she herself, the little girl could find herself in the possession of one as fine someday. She need only whore herself out to the world, with a smile and ever present thank you. The hat did all the talking for her, you could tell by the design, the color and the flair. If she spoke for the hat it would be different, they both would. It would still be pretty but maybe this time only to her, and it would be practical. If that meant the only purpose it served was to tell the world that she was in charge of her own life then so be it.

I danced between them, splitting them in two, swinging my arms gayly like an old time movie star. I pretended my hands were red hot knives that would melt through them, a child on an invisible playground inventing scenarios that were only interesting to me. If they could see me, they might think me crazy like they would if they saw that child. They would probably laugh at him, make fun of him behind his back. They never considered for a moment that they were the reason he had to play alone.

What I found so suddenly interesting was how their gates changed, as if somehow inner happiness was attached to the mechanics of their walks. It happened in one form or another to everyone I touched in this place. The little girl’s dress was still yellow, but much paler now like it had been left out in the sun too long. Neither one of them gave a shit about the hat anymore, or what they had to do in order to possess it.

Electricity was everywhere. It lived and thrived in the city. It coursed through the walls of the buildings I passed, bleeding from every light. Neon, incandescent, it didn’t matter, all were open wounds. It surged underground, a forever earthquake of electrons marching along winding bridges doomed to fail as all bridges under boots eventually crash down. It was in the air, pushing the world out of its way, looking for a way back, back into containment, into the ground or the cells of a body. Only a body with electricity can feel the effects of more, the dead are only conduits.

It pulled me in a way I had never known before. I could see myself so I must be real. If I was a picture of me I was still in the picture, moving, thinking, interacting, a collection of light particles visible to some sort of eye, my eye. If I was a thought then I originated from a brain, a mass that has cells and fibers, or maybe chips and wires. Either way it had to be something tangible, so I did exist, I did feel it. If the dead were truly only conductors then I was in some form very much alive, maybe more so than I had ever been before, when I lived.

No person I could see was amazed at anything. They were mice gathering seeds before the onset of winter cold. The cold would never come as long as they were alive, and the seeds would no longer matter. They waited on four corners for lights to change into masters telling them when they should walk, or when they should hurry.

Two truck-sized steel boxes painted a healthy grass green clicked hard next to the stop and go light. The sound felt like huge snapping fingers in my skull. Every time, the herds hurriedly exchanged corners while being scolded by the color.

The shirt I wasn’t really wearing was pouring into the box, my flesh followed along, becoming narrow as if I were a drawn cartoon. On the click I snapped back into being, a washed-away addict left high and dry wanting more. Again it happened and I tried to pull away even though I wanted it, I wanted it all and more.

That feeling, everything a man could desire, the buildup, the act and finally the release. It’s what all men chase from the moment they realize it exists. When she first noticed me among so many others I could tell her focus was on me. I didn’t want to believe it, fully involved I would be awash in pleasure and joy, but the threat of misconstrued meaning loomed large.

I advanced on her regardless of my fear, my heart fluttered, and plans for the future soared. We kissed soon thereafter, and her taste became the book from which I was written. And when the time came to be inside her I was weak and naïve falling straight up to a level of perfection in a place I never wanted to leave.

The same moment I fully gave myself was the same moment I was trapped for the same forever I used to desire. The only way out was death, hers or mine, it didn’t matter. I’m not sure how I did it besides thinking about it, but I overloaded the power. The green steel box on the corner exploded in a flurry of sparks and black smoke. Nobody on the street saw my chest out, super hero exit, possibly because I may have never been there. It was hard to be sure because at that moment I was back with him, thinking about offering him anything that I could to get back in the box again.

"The longer time