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  Mr. Durand leaned forward. “Okay, let’s talk about your fee, assumin’ this monster of ours is a magical critter. Gimme a solid number.”

  KC and Mack looked at one another for a second. Mack shrugged and nodded to KC. “Well, how about instead of money you do us a small favor as a sort of retainer. We live in a skoolie.”

  “A what now?” Mr. Durand interrupted.

  “A school bus, a 2006 Blue Bird All American to be exact, converted into a motorhome, a tiny house on wheels,” KC explained. “Due to our calling, we lead a rather nomadic lifestyle, traveling the country, constantly moving from here to there, and a converted school bus is significantly less expensive than buying an RV. What we’d like is your permission to park our skoolie on your property. We’re completely off the grid, so we wouldn’t need to tie into your electric, but we’d like to be able to refill our freshwater tanks and probably dump our gray water tanks into your septic if that’s possible.”

  “It’ll also allow us to be on hand when the monster shows up,” Mack said.

  “And if it’s just a critter?” Mr. Durand pressed.

  “The Order of St. Hubert will eventually pay us $500 for it once we’ve jumped through all their hoops proving that it was, indeed, a skunk ape or Grassman or whatever, which will just about cover our fuel and ammo costs for this job,” KC replied. “Honestly, letting us camp on your land for the duration will save us $50 a night in KOA fees and all the gas for the truck to drive back and forth between here and there. We’ll break even, worst case scenario for us, but if you feel like you have to pay us, you can write us a check for $500 when it’s all done, not before.”

  “Free camping space as a retainer, $500 as a completion fee? How’s that sound to you, Leann?” Mr. Durand asked.

  “Better than I’d feared,” Mrs. Durand replied.

  “Then, we have an agreement?” KC asked, standing and offering her hand to Mr. Durand.

  “Sounds like it,” Mr. Durand agreed, shaking her hand.

  “Okay, I’ll get my laptop and we’ll draft up a proper contract for everyone’s protection, and while we’re doing that Mack will go fetch Busster,” KC said crisply.

  Chapter Two

  Lewisburg, West Virginia

  Monday, October 29, 2018

  AFTER HEARING THAT Mack and KC’s bus didn’t have a washer or dryer and that they frequented laundromats to clean their clothes, Mrs. Durand insisted that a load or two of clothes washing be added to the “retainer” in the contract that KC had drawn up. The contract was based on a program that their lawyer friend had commissioned. Their monster slaying service contract was pretty basic, but the program allowed it to be tailored to the individual needs of each client. When completed, the parties could sign the contract virtually using a stylus as well as including their Social Security Number for identification. With an internet connection witnesses could verify the contract remotely. The Durands chose their adult daughter who balked at signing at first until she read through the contract and saw how well protected her parents were by the document. KC’s witness was her lawyer, Emma Gomez.

  By the time they were done with the paperwork, KC figured that Mack should be back at the RV park. He would need at least a half hour to unhook their bus from the KOA’s services, and knowing him, he’d go ahead and dump their gray tanks while he was there. Then, he’d have to pay for what they’d already used and need a half hour to forty-five minutes to drive back to the Durand farm. KC estimated she had another ninety minutes to two hours to wait for Mack to come back.

  Before he’d left, in addition to grabbing her laptop bag from the back seat of the truck, she’d also grabbed the soft rifle case that held her Ruger AR556. The weapon was relatively new. Previously, she and Mack had owned a matching set of Ruger M556 Takedown rifles, which had come with a .300 Blackout barrel and magazines labeled “.300BLK”. The .300 Blackout had the exact same size casing as the 5.56mm NATO round that the rifles took their name from, so either round could be loaded into the same magazine. However, one could not fire a .300 Blackout through a 5.56mm barrel. The results would be comical at best, potentially deadly at worst. They’d kept the .300 Blackout barrels and labeled magazines when they’d transitioned from the M556 to the AR556, and Mack had cannibalized parts from the old rifles to build new AR15s for friends.

  What had drawn KC to the AR556 was that Ruger offered different colored cerakotes for that model. She was significantly shorter than Mack, and the stock on her old M556 had been adjusted perfectly for her. However, since both rifles looked the same at a glance, she had a 50/50 chance of grabbing the wrong gun in the heat of the moment. Not any more. Mack’s AR556 was the traditional basic black that some many people thought made the gun scary. KC had chosen turquoise cerakote. Blue was her favorite color, and the bright blue of the turquoise stuck out in their gun cabinet.

  Mr. Durand had chores that had to be done, so he’d left his wife to keep KC company. KC had offered to escort him on his rounds, but he’d waved her off.

  “The monster doesn’t generally come out in the day time ‘less it’s overcast or rainin’,” the farmer had explained.

  All the same, KC had readied her blue rifle in case she was needed. Before even coming out to the Durand farm, she’d swapped the 5.56mm barrel for the .300 Blackout barrel. The .300 Blackout performed as the functional equivalent of the 7.62x39mm round used in Russian Kalashnikovs, which made it a nice intermediate round between the 5.56mm and the 7.62x51mm NATO. Faced with a large cryptid like a skunk ape or grassman at close to medium range, KC preferred the .300 to the 5.56mm.

  Between the front living room and the kitchen on the back side of the house, KC had a pretty good view of the farm, which allowed her to track Mr. Durand. Passing through the living room she noticed that the Durands had pretty extensive bookcases. She stopped to look at the titles on the spines. She presumed that the almanacs and the Westerns likely belonged to Mr. Durand, but the shelves of romance novels had to belong to Mrs. Durand. KC was quite impressed with the breadth of sub-genres that Mrs. Durand had collected.

  One shelf was stuffed past convenient capacity with slim little Harlequin Romance mass market paperbacks. Another shelf featured books based on Hallmark Channel romances. Then, there were a couple of shelves that held an eclectic mix of Amish and Christian romance novels, mostly in the large trade paperback format. In the midst of all the other books were several shelves of what could be described as “fantasy” novels. Each shelf was dedicated to a single author, and all of the books were either hardcover or trade paperback.

  “Do you read, dear?” Mrs. Durand asked.

  “Yes, ma’am, but all of my books are on my Kindle,” KC admitted. “We don’t have the space for a physical collection like this.”

  “I don’t really like reading on a tablet,” Mrs. Durand opined as she ran her hand across the spines of several of her books. “I love the feel of real paper.”

  “I’m fond of the smell myself,” KC replied with a wistful smile, “but you get used to a tablet or your phone, and it does have the advantage of being able to carry all these books in your pocket.”

  “That would be the only advantage,” Mrs. Durand agreed.

  KC stopped browsing on one shelf and pulled out a particular book. The cover was rather lurid, as most romance novel covers were, featuring a red haired woman in a long coat, a low cut top, and high cut shorts armed with a katana facing off against what looked like zombies. At her back was a good looking man with long, flowing black hair dual-wielding a pair of sawed-off pump shotguns.

  “Have you read any of The Chronicles of Zoe Kenneth?” Mrs. Durand asked with a barely restrained touch of glee in her voice.

  “I’ve read all of them,” KC said with a grin of delight.

  Mrs. Durand actually bounded in place on the balls of her feet and clapped her hands in front of her chest like she was about to pray. She squealed, “Oooh! A fellow Montana Llewellyn fan!” She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial wh
isper and leaned closer to KC. “He won’t admit it, but Ryan loves the Zoe Kenneth books, too. Most especially the ones that recount Zoe’s adventures in the Wild West.”

  “Have you read any of Monty’s older stuff like the Kid Jackson Adventures or the Sir Owen & Lady Hawke series?”

  Mrs. Durand’s mouth dropped open. “She didn’t even write those under her name! Very few fans actually know about those stories. My, but you are quite familiar with Miss Montana Llewellyn, aren’t you?”

  KC smiled. “Far more familiar than you might realize.” She turned and looked out the front window. “Ah, Mack’s back.”

  Mrs. Durand frowned. “Really? I didn’t hear anything.”

  “I have very good hearing,” KC replied as she headed for the back door. “I’ll get Mr. Durand and let him know so he can tell us where to park.”

  A moment later Mrs. Durand heard the rumble of a powerful diesel engine and went to the front window to look out. It was a bus, alright, painted bright blue, towing the bright blue Tacoma behind it.

  “They do seem fond of the color blue,” Mrs. Durand mused to herself.

  “YOU DO LIKE BLUE, DON’T you?” Mr. Durand chuckled when he saw the bus pulling into the front driveway.

  “It’s our favorite color,” KC agreed brightly.

  Mr. Durand stepped out in front of the bus and began directing Mack where to go. Before long they had the nearly forty foot long bus parked behind the farmhouse.

  “That’ll give you enough space you can just pull around and drive back out instead of having to back out,” Mr. Durand declared when Mack stepped down out of the big blue bus. “This used to be a school bus?”

  “Yes, sir, in Montana. What they call a ‘mountain bus.’ Not terribly great on the highway, but comfortable and serviceable. She really shines, though, if you’re climbing up into and down out of the mountains, and she can tow a heavy duty pickup just as easy as she does Little Boy Blue,” Mack expressed his pride.

  Mr. Durand pointed to the name painted in white letters next to the door. “You misspelled ‘Buster’.”

  “We did that on purpose to emphasize that she’s a bus, thus ‘Big Blue Busster’,” KC grinned.

  “She named the truck, too,” Mack snickered.

  “My goodness!” Mrs. Durand declared coming out of the house. “It really is a bus, isn’t it?”

  “You’ve shown us your hospitality. Let us show you ours,” Mack offered, waving to Busster’s entrance. “I’ll give you the nickel tour.”

  The entry stairwell took them up to the driver’s seat area. The original dash and large rear-view mirror had been removed and replaced with a wooden shelf and overhead cabinet. A cluster of small screens were mounted to the shelf facing the driver.

  “What’s all this?” Mr. Durand asked.

  Mack dropped into the driver’s seat and pointed to one of the monitors. “This is the primary back-up camera. That one is the GPS readout. These two are side cameras looking back down beside either side of the bus.” He reached up and pulled down another monitor attached to a swinging arm above his head. “And this is the forward facing camera monitor. Also, the main TV for the living area.”

  “Why so many cameras?”

  Mack reached over to the console on his left and flipped a switch. Metal shutters dropped down in front of the windshield. “Got these drop down security shutters mounted over all the windows, the front door, and the rear emergency door. We don’t always camp in the securest of places.”

  He flipped the switch again, and the shutters slowly lifted back up into place hidden away in boxes that looked like awnings.

  “One reason we chose to live in a converted school bus instead of something like a travel trailer is that school buses are built sturdy,” KC added.

  Beyond the driver’s compartment the roof of the bus had been raised from six and a half feet to a little over seven feet. The floor and the ceiling were both set with a light wood paneling.

  “This is the kitchen and living area,” KC explained as she ushered the Durands farther back into the bus.

  Directly behind the driver’s seat was a compact three burner stove and oven, a countertop, and an apartment-sized refrigerator. A bar-like table was set into the driver’s side wall from the refrigerator to the rear wall of the compartment. A pair of lightweight office chairs were held in place under the table by means of a pair of bungee cords. In the middle of the countertop between the stove and the fridge was the sink hidden away under a fitted cutting board that matched the countertop. Above the stove was an overhead convection microwave with a built-in hood fan. A shelf ran across the back from the microwave all the way to the fridge that held small appliances and cookware when not in use. Opposite the cooking area was a sofa slightly larger than a standard couch, nestled into a nook created by the entry stairwell and a large-ish cabinet built up against the back wall of the compartment.

  “This is where I sit when Mack’s driving and we’re towing the pickup,” KC said with a wave at the sofa. “We’ve got storage underneath, so it’s really more like a chest built to look like a sofa, and I like to sit here and read when we’re not working. It’s even big enough for Mack to sleep on comfortably. You know, when he needs to catch a cat nap while I’m driving or I’m mad at him and have banished him from the bedroom.”

  Mack ignored the little jab from his wife and waved at the opposite side of the compartment. “The kitchen’s my area.” He almost lovingly caressed the stove top. “I went to culinary school when I got out of the Corps, so I do most of the cooking.”

  “You’re a Marine?” Mr. Durand exclaimed. “Me, too!”

  Mack grinned. “Yes, sir. Born and raised. My grandfather served under Chesty Puller in Korea.”

  “Semper Fi,” Mr. Durand laughed as he slapped Mack’s shoulder.

  “Where do you keep your food?” the practical Mrs. Durand asked.

  KC motioned to the cabinet at the other end of the sofa. “That’s the pantry. Well, the top three quarters are.” She pulled aside the curtain that served as the pantry’s door. Inside with shelves that pulled out like drawers. Each drawer-shelf was compartmentalized within to keep heavy jars and cans from rolling around and falling out during travel. At the bottom was another drawer that pulled out to reveal what looked like some kind of cooler.

  “It’s a Dometics chest-style refrigerator/freezer, but we use it exclusively as our deep freezer,” KC replied to Mrs. Durand’s unspoken question.

  “How you keep all this powered?”Mr. Durand asked.

  Mack spoke, “We’ve got four solar panels on the roof that generate a combined six to eight hundred watts of electrical power. Each panel feeds charge into a dedicated twelve volt battery, and that provides us with more electricity than we need, so we’re able to keep the fridge and freezer both running all the time as well as our mobile internet system. The stove, oven, and our tankless hot water heater are all supplied by a pair of forty pound propane tanks; all kept down in the ‘basement’ compartment under our feet along with a propane fueled Honda generator and our micro-split AC unit.”

  “Would you like to see our bathroom?” KC asked Mrs. Durand. “Well, you’re gonna see it anyway because we have to pass through it to get to the back of the bus.”

  The next compartment was accessed by a sliding pocket door. The bathroom wasn’t very large. On the driver’s side was a toilet and a sink, and the shower and a small linen closet were on the opposite side.

  “The shower is so nice and large!” Mrs. Durand said.

  “We’ve been known to get quite dirty at this job, so a big shower was a must,” KC replied.

  “Is that one of those composting toilets?”

  “Yes. It’s not an Airhead or a Nature’s Head, but it’s got all the same internal components, which allowed us to build it for ourselves at a quarter of the cost of an actual name brand,” KC beamed with frugal pride.

  “What’s your water situation?” Mr. Durand asked.

  “
We have two fifty gallon water tanks and two thirty-four gallon gray water tanks, one each for the two sinks, and one each for the shower. The urine diverter on the composting toilet feeds into the same gray tank as the shower, and both gray tanks are connected to handle overflow.” Mack paused and chuckled. “Considering some of the things I’ve had to wash off myself, I’m seriously considering designating the shower’s tank as black water and separating it from the other gray water tank.”

  Another pocket door slid open to reveal the next compartment. On the driver’s side was a floor to ceiling closet space that ran the entire length of the compartment. Opposite that was a cabinet a little over four feet tall that also ran the length of the compartment. Atop the cabinet was a shelf with a window providing natural light, and above the shelf was a bank of cabinets filling the space just under the roof.

  “We’re able to keep most of our clothes in this closet space here,” KC explained, “and we use these cabinets underneath the workbench to store all kinds of gear, and, of course, this is the gun cabinet where we securely store our long guns.”

  Mack pointed to the overhead cabinets. “I store my loading equipment and supplies up there, and my gunsmithing tools are down below. This workbench is where I do a lot of the maintenance on our guns, but it’s also where I do other small repair jobs that need doing. Now, what’s neat is that this space is the size of a twin bunk bed, so we got a memory foam pad that’ll fit, and we can turn the workbench into a barely comfortable guest room.”

  Yet another pocket door was opened to reveal the final compartment, the master bedroom. The bed was set up against the rear bulkhead of the bus and filled the entire space from left to right with a little area in front. Cabinets were built under the ceiling on either side of the compartment, and Mack lifted the bed up to reveal a storage space built in beneath it.

  “We wanted the vast bulk of our storage to be inside the bus where we could get to the things we need without going outside, especially when we’re in bunker mode,” Mack said as he dropped the mattress back down to its normal position.