The Midnight Hunt

Amy sat, staring at her computer. Her usually calm and collected demeanor had been somewhat disturbed, and in place of her normally professional, well-groomed appearance she was jumpy, twitchy, unkempt, and bedraggled. The computer screen was flashing the words ‘Reset Your Password’, but in lieu of the calming blue screen with white letters that she had set, the screen was black with red lettering.

A rapping noise came from inside the monitor, the hollow, ringing sound of knuckles on glass, which didn’t make much sense as the monitor was a LCD as opposed to a CRT, but whatever was knocking didn’t seem to mind much. A raspy voice called “Let me out”. The rapping became a banging and cracks appeared in the screen, disappearing almost instantly. “LET ME OUT!” The voice and the noise didn’t emanate through the speakers, but rather came from the screen itself.

Amy jumped and whimpered as her phone rang. She didn’t want to answer, she knew what it would be, but it might be work, or someone else calling. She tried checking the caller ID, but, as always these past three days, the screen only displayed the message of ‘Reset Your Password’ in red letters on a black background. A single tear rolled down her cheek as she picked up the phone and whispered “Hello?”

“LET ME OUT!” screamed the raspy voice, through the phone this time. Amy screamed and threw her phone against the wall, then broke down sobbing. At the sound of more knocking she screamed again and nearly jumped out of her skin, before realizing that it was coming from the door, and was the ‘Shave and a Haircut’ rhythm, which might startle someone but is scientifically impossible to be scary. As such, she slowly and cautiously made her way to the front door.

Upon reaching the front door, she peered through the peephole, as you do, and saw two men that she didn’t recognize, one well-dressed in a simple suit, the other casually dressed in a comic book themed t-shirt and jeans. Both were roughly six feet tall, with the well-dressed man being muscular and wiry at the same time, and the casually dressed man having larger shoulders and being more...shall we say rotund. They appeared to be arguing about something, but she couldn’t make out what through the door. She carefully opened the door and could suddenly make out what they were saying.

“Three times is just obscene!” said the well-dressed man.

“My contract stipulates—“ began the casually dressed man before they both froze and looked at Amy.

“My apologies, ma’am” said the well-dressed man, his voice taking on a professional quality, reminding Amy of a bank teller. “I know this is a terribly unprofessional way to make an entrance, but we have to iron something out quickly, do you mind waiting for just a moment?” Amy shook her head slowly in response, confused by the whole exchange. “Wonderful! Now, where was I? Ah, yes.” The professional note left his voice as he turned back to the casually dressed man. “Three times your monthly wage for a single field mission? You must be out of your mind!”

In response the casually dressed man calmly pulled out a sheaf of papers, turned to a specific page, and presented it to the well-dressed man. “If you would kindly consult with my contract, you will notice, that if I am given a field assignment, my monthly pay triples, at my discretion.”

“You carry a copy of your contract with you?” asked the well-dressed man, incredulous.

“For matters such as these, yes.” responded the casually dressed man.

The well-dressed man responded by pulling out his own bundle of papers. “I also carry around a copy of your contract, because, nothing personal, I just don’t trust you.”

“I don’t know, that sounds kinda personal” said the casually dressed man, as the well-dressed man consulted his own copy of the contract.

“Huh” said the well-dressed man, impressed. “Well, look at that, there it is.”

“Yup. Got that put in there the day I became a desk agent.” said the casually dressed man. “You know, my wife worries, ever since…”

“Ah, yeah, that incident. With your leg, and the...well, everything else” stated the well-dressed man, understanding dawning on him.

“Well!” exclaimed the casually dressed man cheerily. “Now that we have that ironed out,” he turned to address Amy and put on a stoic, businesslike face. “Ma’am, is there something strange...in your neighborhood? Who are you going to call?” The well-dressed man buried his face in his hands, as the casually dressed man continued. “Is there something weird...and it don’t look good? Who...are you going to call?”

The well-dressed man shook his head. “No. Just...just stop.”

“Fine” sighed the casually dressed man, exasperated. “Good afternoon, I’m Bob Bobbinson, and this is my assistant, Anol Buttlicker.”

Anol shot a glare at Bob. “Bobbinson? Really? That’s the name that you’re going with? Also, I’m your boss, in what world am I your assistant?”

“Really?” asked Bob. “Those are your issues? You aren’t even going to mention the fact that I gave you the moniker Anol Buttlicker?”

“I was getting to that. I’m David, and we’re from a group of demon hunters” said the man who apparently wasn’t named Anol Buttlicker.

Amy looked at the two potentially insane men skeptically. “I’m sorry, who are you?”

Bob looked at Amy, slightly exasperated. “Really? Where did we lose you? I’m Bob, this is Dave, we hunt demons, demons exist, and you should be more open to this idea than most because you’ve been terrorized by a demon in your computer for the past few days. Can we come in?”

Amy nodded numbly “Yeah, come on in.” She led them through the dark house to the office, where her computer was.

Dave picked up a game case from next to the computer. “Did the problems start shortly after you installed this?”

Amy nodded “Yeah, I mean, sorta. You can keep it. If I never see it again it’ll be too soon.”

“Yoink!” said Bob, grabbing the case from Dave. He opened the case and gingerly touched the disc. “Noice!” Bob looked at Dave “You let me keep this and I’ll waive half my field work fee, so you’ll just end up paying me half again as much as my normal pay.”

Dave blinked in surprise and a little confusion “I mean...fine? Could you find a more confusing way to phrase that?”

Bob thought for a second. “...Yes. Not off the top of my head, but yes. But that isn’t the point right now.” He turned to Amy “This reappears back here whenever you try to get rid of it, right?”

“Yeah” nodded Amy. “I thought it was just gonna be a fun indie game, I didn’t expect…” she trailed off and choked back tears.

“It’s okay” said Dave consolingly. “We won’t let anything happen to you. But if you’re up to giving us any more information, that would probably help us in ridding you of this demon.”

Amy wiped her eyes and sniffed. “I don’t know how much help I can be. It’s a game from an unknown developer, and I found it at a pawn shop. It has four people playing humans running from some monster, that’s played by the computer. You know, that’s a fairly generic concept nowadays, but I like the genre.” Bob nodded understandingly at this explanation. “So, it started off simple enough, with the normal difficulties. The easiest was an insane doctor in an abandoned hospital, and all the different difficulties had different monsters in different settings. Once I unlocked a monster, I could face it in the other settings that I’d unlocked. It was fun enough for the first week or two. And then I unlocked the secret difficulty level…”

“Which was only single player, a decrepit crone in a black robe carrying a scythe chased you through a dark, misty wood” interjected Bob.

“Um...yeah, that’s right” confirmed Amy, as Dave just stared at him.

“Oh come on, Dave, don’t act so surprised. You know about my collection of cursed or haunted or otherwise legendary games and artifacts, how did you not expect me to know about ‘The Midnight Hunt’?” asked Bob. “I’ve been looking for it everywhere for years” he explained, walking over to the router and unplugging it. “Can’t give her a means of escape. I mean, she probably still has one, she’ll just have to work for it. Anywho, yeah, after you unlocked her she was the only monster you could face, and because it was you alone and the game was set up to only be winnable if two or more characters survive, you couldn’t win against her, and after losing against her once, the setting was your front yard, and the next time it was your house.”

“And then I started seeing her everywhere” said Amy in just above a whisper.

“Well, I’m here to see what I can do” said Bob. “I just so happen to be the best computer nerd among the demon hunters, so this should be done shortly” he continued, taking a seat in front of her computer. He then strapped on what looked like a small keyboard to his forearm. Pressing a part on the end of the keyboard, a flash drive popped out, which he then proceeded to plug into the computer. “I dropped six grand on this through Alchemy Net” said Bob, turning to point at Dave “and you’re gonna reimburse me for every cent ‘cuz I’m proving that it’s for work right now!”

“That seems reasonable” agreed Dave.

“What’s Alchemy Net?” asked Amy.

“Oh, that’s right!” said Bob. “No normal people actually know what Alchemy Net is. So, you got your normal interwebs, where if you aren’t careful, your computer will get a virus. Then you got you your Dark Web, where if you aren’t careful, someone shows up at your doorstep with a baseball bat to break your kneecaps.” Bob then turned back to the computer. “And Alchemy Net is what magic users use instead of the Dark Web. Got a bunch of cooler stuff, but more dangerous and unstable people who don’t even need to show up at your door to break your knees. And physical harm is the least of your worries if you cross the wrong person there.”

“Thank you Captain Exposition” stated Dave, bored. “You willing to get to doing your job yet?

Bob tossed a booklet from inside the game case to Dave. “Take a gander at this. I haven’t seen one of these included with a game in years. It’s got info and lore on all the monsters, players, and levels. Including the secret level.”

Dave thumbed through it and murmured “Could be useful.”

“It’s just flavor text” said Amy. “It doesn’t actually give any tips for winning.”

“She’s a powerful witch that died, but refused to die?” said Dave, impressed.

“It also claims that she’s wearing the robe and wielding the scythe of a reaper, so that’s fun” commented Bob. “Now,” he handed a slip of paper to Amy “this is going to be your new password, at least until you change it again.” He stretched and rolled his shoulders “So, as the kids are saying these days, let us get this bread.”

“I don’t think anyone’s saying that…” muttered Dave, looking over Bob’s shoulder.

Bob typed in the password box, and Dave rolled his eyes upon seeing that the chosen password was ‘Sugondese’. The screen flickered to life and showed the old crone peering out, from an empty, mist filled waste.

“You are not the normal one” rasped the crone.

“Perceptive, ain’t she?” smirked Bob. “What gave it away? The hair color? The hair length? The fact that she’s skinnier than I am? The fact that I’m not a woman?”

“You will suffice” responded the crone. “I will quite enjoy killing you.”

“Huh” said Bob, thoughtfully. “I have that effect on a bunch of folks. Weird.”

There was the unmistakable sound of shattering glass as the crone thrust a hand through the screen, grasping. Bob casually leaned back, just out of reach. The crone pulled her hand back into the computer, leaving no sign that it had ever gone through the screen, and Bob plugged another flash drive into the computer. From the back end of that flash drive, he detached another flash drive, which he plugged into his wrist keyboard. Upon being plugged into the wrist keyboard, a gold, shining rope stretched from the flash drive in the keyboard, through the computer screen, and darting towards the crone. She blocked the rope with her scythe, and the rope twisted around it, as Bob grabbed hold of the rope and pulled.

“Well” grunted Bob, as he was pulled towards the screen, “this isn’t exactly ideal.” He redoubled his efforts and was able to pull himself a couple inches back. “If she forces me to face her in her natural habitat this may not end the best for me…”

On hearing him, the crone yanked Bob forward with all her might, pulling him through the screen. Dave and Amy gasped as he landed surprisingly lightly. The crone swung her scythe, cutting through the golden rope, which faded and disappeared as soon as it was severed.

The crone struck at Bob with her scythe, and he ducked and twisted, narrowly avoiding being decapitated. “Dodge this!” she rasped, bringing her scythe down to stab Bob in the chest.

“I guess I’ll have to” said Bob, rolling out of the way and springing to his feet. Once he was on his feet he drew a golden, glowing dagger from the end of his wrist keyboard. “Oh, I’m so leaving him a bad review on his Alchemy Net store! He promised a full-sized blade, and this is what he sticks me with?” He absently used the dagger to block the next blow from the scythe. “I mean, I guess it works as advertised, but this isn’t a full-sized sword.”

“You blocked my blow?” questioned the crone.

“Yeah. A reaper’s blade will decay anything it comes into contact with, but killing a reaper is unprecedented, including by creatures that kill gods” responded Bob. “So, yes, you’re rumored to wield a reaper’s blade, but I’ve got a bunch of rumors about me, and very few of them are true.” He blocked another blow from the crone “Anyway, this is getting boring, time to turn the tide: Madam demon, meet señor lag!” As he made this announcement he typed something on his wrist keyboard and all the graphics turned up to a hyper-realistic level and the computer let out a high-pitched whine as it struggled to properly process the information. Bob didn’t seem to be affected, but the crone’s movement’s became slower and jerkier than they had been. “And that is why you don’t face me in a computerized environment!”

“Wait, you did want to face her in the computer?” asked Dave, mildly confused.

“Obviously” said Bob. “I can’t change reality in reality, but she never would have faced me in here if she knew how unbalanced the fight would end up being. Now, would you—ah!” he cried out in pain and collapsed to the ground as he tried and failed to jump over the scythe in time, in the crone buried the blade in his left shin.

“Now you die” rasped the crone, victoriously, standing over Bob gloatingly.

“Alas!” exclaimed Bob. “I have been wounded! If only I could have foreseen such an event! Forsooth! Woe is me! Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man!”

“Are you done yet?” interrupted Dave.

“I mean, I had more, but I guess I could cut it short.” With that announcement, Bob lunged at the crone, leaving his left leg from the knee down on the ground, burying the dagger in her chest.

She clutched at her chest and inky black blood poured between her fingers. “How…” she asked, shocked.

“That’s simple” explained Bob. “I lost that leg years ago” he said while pulling the scythe blade out of his fake leg and reattaching it.

The crone let out an earsplitting screech and exploded in a puff of smoke, leaving Bob to appear outside the computer and the computer returned to its normal function.

Dave shook his head. “Three confirmed kills. How have you killed three damned people by tricking them into attacking your fake leg?”

“Because I’m good at what I do” said Bob simply. “I mean, nobody can quite figure out what that is, but they know I’m good at it.” He handed a card to Amy. “If you have any further problems, that has a phone number and an email at which you can reach us. Now, if you don’t mind, this schmuck owes me a buffet lunch for forcing me to be on the clock during my lunch hour.”

Dave shook his head and pulled out a copy of the contract. “There’s no way that...how the hell do you have that in your contract?”

Bob shrugged. “Like I said, I’m good at what I do. I’m feeling Chinese, Chinese buffet sound good to you?”

“Sure. Let’s go” said Dave, numbly, still in shock at the nigh infinite useless clauses in that contract.