The Chronicles of The Adventure, Hunting, and Liquidation Committee

Book 1: The Siege of Fort Vagabond

Prologue: A Very Poltergeist Happening

“Poltergeist. You dragged me out of bed at three in the morning to hunt down some otaku nerd ghost thing. I can’t believe I listened to you, Hadrian.” Charlie growled or rather tried to growl since his voice cracked every five syllables. Bohdan looked over at the thirteen year old redhead covered in acne, and the full throws of puberty who despite his small stature had become the Captain of the middle school football league. 

Not thirty minutes ago Bohdan had been happily enjoying sneaking out of his bedroom for an all night dungeon raid in his favorite space sim that had been in pre pre alpha beta testing for the past twenty years when up popped this punk’s red speckled face. Next thing Bohdan knew he was being dragged away from his carefully laid plans for a peaceful all nighter to instead join this caper on the local country club grounds. For a boy like the thirteen year old Bohdan peace was not easy to find with his myriad of siblings, his mother pregnant with twins, and all the responsibilities being the second oldest child and oldest son of the Mayor entailed.

Bohdan was very certain this was not going to be a blissful rest filled night. Charlie was the kind of kid to tell you he’d already checked for alligators before jumping only to realize there were no gators because the pond was bone dry and out of water.

“I don’t know where you get Otaku. You should stop getting your ideas about the world from anime while hating those who like Japan, Captain. Kind of ironic,” the eleven year old Hadrian said while not looking up from the newspaper clippings he’d downloaded to his smart phone,” And yeah a violent haunting. Gregory’s sister got messed up pretty bad, and his Gramps wants the thing gone. Doesn’t care how it’s done, or who does it. So here we are.”

“Linda Peters dropped a pan of boiling water. Sure, never fun, but she’s alright last I checked. No scarring that I saw though she might go vegan for a while to get away from the revenge of the bacon,” Harald and Karl laughed a little too loud, and slapped each other and Charlie so hard the slimmer kid almost face planted. The pair of giants were a foot taller than every other middle schooler in existence, and they did not know their own strength. Just as the poor sods on the offensive line of their rival schools who found out the hard way. That kind of carnage should be illegal.

Bohdan curled his lips as he looked out over the almost ancient country club of New Venice Arkansas. The place had a distinct monster house vibe at night complete with crenulations along four towers, stone wall finishings to make Dracula proud, and utter darkness thanks to its remoteness compared to the town. The rolling golf course stretched all the way to the woods surrounding the property almost like they were standing in the middle of a grass bowl whose walls were made up of scraggly thick trees.

It was mid autumn, and all of the woods looked as dead and creepy as the Adams Family clubhouse. Bohdan got a bad vibe about the place, and unlike his fellow middle schoolers had a different understanding of the paranormal. Still, he had a hard time imagining there was anything as wild as a violent poltergeist in their little neck of the woods. 

Their dads were all on the City Council, or at least affiliated with local committees, where they all worked overtime keeping their streets and woods clean, and not just sweeping the trash. No one sold drugs, no cartels, no gangs, no big government nonsense, not even any mass immigration from the cities ruining their land. This may surprise Charlie, but this included spiritual shenanigans as well. Bohdan was the kind of kid who listened to everything around him especially when grownups thought he wasn’t paying attention, or in the rare case didn’t realize he could hear them. This was a crazy world.

“Look, we got all kinds of weirdness here for our club to cut into. There were bigfoot sightings ages ago, Indian burial grounds, cult activity before that anti witch bill took effect in the eighties during the Satanic Panic. I’m telling you this is where we're going to find some adventure in this town, “Tiny Hadrian insisted. The kid stuck to his guns even under the combined displeasure of the three man band over there. If Bohdan wasn’t already annoyed that he wasn’t in his tree house that was just close enough to tap into his family's wifi he might have been impressed.

“It’s a geezer old folks daycare clinic in disguise.” Karl said in his rumbling voice you had to lean into to hear since he never spoke loud enough. Bohdan noticed the big guy was obsessed with not being in anyone's way at school too. Bohdan’s old man would say the bigger the kid the more awkward he is till he finds his footing. Too much hanging out in the kitchen with the women makes a big man timid like a mouse the ladies scream at. Bohdan wasn’t too sure what his pops meant, but watching Karl shift his big frame in a desperate hussle to not block the flow of Charlie’s circling of the indifferent Hadrian was starting to help him understand.

“Hey guys,” a voice sprang up from the shadows of the woodline surrounding the parking lot where they were hanging out while Charlie had his frustrated ghost hunting hate dance.

Everyone jumped, and Harald, still being clumsy in the oversized body God gave him, tripped over the sidewalk and right into a pile of leaves with a high pitched squeal that was going to haunt the rest of his middle school existence. Puberty will get ya like that. Bohdan couldn’t help chuckling when he saw the big kid scuttling around like a beached whale in a mess of seaweed.

Eventually the giant managed to gain his legs with help from his cousin Karl, and they were able to properly investigate the intruding voice which turned out to belong to a twelve year old boy wearing hunting camo and cradling a .308 Winchester hunting rifle. He was wide shouldered and rugged for his age with a tanned face that spoke of being out in the sun all day, but he did only come up to Karl's chest height wise and that was while on tippy toes. Though, as stated, that was an unfair comparison since no one under the age of twenty one was as tall as those two behemoths.

The Story Will Continue Every Saturday.

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