I don’t like guns and I had no idea how to use one, but it was clear to me that anyone associated with this story was walking around with a target on their back. Realizing that nobody else was going to protect me, I decided I had to protect myself. It was time for me to get a weapon.

Gerry’s Resale was one of only two second-hand stores in Cold Hollow. While it had apparently once been a thriving general store frequented by the locals, it was now in a state of disarray and typically avoided in favor of the Dollar General. The store’s namesake, Gerry Priest Sr., died several years ago, and left the store to his son, Gerry Jr. Jordan at the Cold Hollow Cafe had warned me about going to the store back when I first arrived and was in the process of furnishing my apartment. Gerry Jr, he assured me, wasn’t someone people associate with unless they’re looking for trouble.

The parking lot in front of the shop was unsurprisingly deserted. From my car, I could see junk piled high in the windows, and wondered if the place was actually even opened for business, or if Gerry was just using it for storage. I tugged at the heavy metal framed door and a bell overhead clanged loudly announcing my entrance. The place smelled like dust, mildew, and stale cigar smoke. Leaning against a glass countertop at the back of the shop was Gerry Jr. himself, hunched over a handheld radio listening to a static-filled broadcast.

“Hi,” I said,but couldn’t bring myself to smile. I was here for business, not small talk. “I want to buy a gun.”

“A gun, huh?” He laughed patronizingly. “Okay, what kind of gun are you looking for?”

He must have been in his mid-thirties or so, but the rolling beer gut that hung over the waistband of his jeans and his gravelly voice suggested he might have been older. He leaned across the glass case with his elbows jutting out and offered a curious, almost flirtatious grin on his fat red face. I refused to look him in the eye.
            “I don’t really know. Just, um, something for protection, I guess,” I said peering through the fingerprint-covered glass case beneath his thick forearms. One of the four handguns, a large silver revolver, looked particularly intimidating. Pull that gun on someone, I thought, and chances are you wouldn’t even actually have to use it. “What’s that one?” I asked, pointing to where it was sitting on the glass shelf inside the case.

“Let’s see here,” Gerry said and grunted as he sank down onto his knees with some effort to unlock the sliding glass doors of the case. Jordan had also told me he was a low-level drug dealer, mostly prescription pills. It made sense why he sold drugs on the side based on the clear lack of activity the resale store got. Every item was covered in a thick layer of dust like nothing had been moved or touched since Gerry Sr.’s death. “That there is a .357 Magnum. Probably be pretty good for what you’re looking for,” he said and laid the pistol down on the counter top.

It must have been clear to him that I didn’t know anything about guns. All I knew was that if I stood a chance at getting to the bottom of Nicole’s death, I would need to be able to protect myself.

“Maybe that’s too big for you,” he said in that same condescending tone. “Hold on, I got a couple more in the back.”

“No, no,” I said, stopping him. “That’s the one I want and impulsively picked it up from the counter.”

Gerry smiled. “Okay, well...” he said, and took the gun from my hand rather rudely. “I’ll just go find you some ammo.”

As Gerry Jr. hobbled off into the back, I leaned up against the counter and took a look around. There were racks of faded old t-shirts and musty jackets, endless piles of worn-out records and cassette tapes, cheap figurines and sports memorabilia. Junk, mostly.

My mind was fried from the events of the last week. I was thinking a lot about Owen and the miserable state I saw him in last night. I was still upset at him for refusing to help me, but I was concerned too. I kept thinking about the “demon woman” he described. Who or what was she and what role did she play in all of this? I couldn’t understand why Owen wasn’t interested in solving the case. He literally had nothing left to lose. I had developed a soft spot for Owen and a part of me wanted to go check on him again, but if he wasn’t going to help me, then I didn’t have time for babysitting him.

I turned towards the counter and, acting on instinct, felt my back pocket for my wallet. I had taken out a huge wad of cash from my bank account and, despite how small Cold Hollow was, I was a little paranoid about carrying so much money on my person.

I heard Gerry drop something and curse in the back.

As I waited for him to return, I noticed a lone book sitting on top of a shelf behind the counter. It was a fairly small, thin volume wrapped in aged verdant green book cloth. I squinted to read the faded gold leaf on the spine. The Wolf Clan Of Erin. Immediately, my interest was piqued. Wolf clan? I picked it up, opened it, and flipped through the lengthy opening until I stopped on a passage that grabbed my attention.

But the memory of man is short and now even the songs are forgotten by all but a few. It was Bres, some of Prince Elatha the Fomor and Ériu of the TuathDé, the clan of the gods, who betrayed and enslaved our folk. How many now await rest at Tech Duinn, the House of the Dark One...

I wasn’t sure what I was reading. The content reminded me of mythology but the prose read like a memoir. I read on until I discovered passages about “the Wolf clan,” a tribe of people in the kingdom of Ossory capable of shape-shifting into giant wolves. Was it a coincidence that a book about werewolves was sitting in this resale shop in Cold Hollow just days after my supposed sighting? I had never believed in fate, but the strange coincidences of the past few days had caused me to rethink a lot of what I thought I knew before arriving in Cold Hollow. Perhaps the book was waiting for me to find it all along.

“Alright, here we go,” Gerry Jr. smiled a little too big at me as he put several old boxes of ammunition on the counter. I could feel him taking his time looking me up and down. “Now, just so you know, this ain’t no toy,” he said opening the cylinder of the Magnum. “It’s got a lot of kick, so you can’t be scared of it when you fire, ya know?”

He handed the gun to me then and I cautiously wrapped my hand around the grip and held it. The weight of it felt unnatural. It was almost difficult to hold up with just one hand. I pointed the gun at the wall and suddenly understood why people buy guns. The power that you feel with that cold metal in your hands is frightening, but intoxicating at the same time. I really felt like I could take on anything. “I’ll take it.”

I handed the gun back to Gerry Jr. and he showed me how to load it, then began packing it and the bullets in an old cardboard box.

“No.” I stopped him. “I’ll just take it as it is. I don’t need the box.”

Gerry looked at me as if he wanted to say something clever, but couldn’t find the words. “Suit yourself. Just wait to load it until you’re outside the store, okay,” he said and handed the gun back to me.

As I tucked the gun into my waistband and stuffed the boxes of ammunition into my pockets, I pointed at the faded green book behind the counter.

“I’ll take that, too.”

“What? That old book?” He seemed a bit surprised by the random last minute purchase. I assumed that people who buy guns from a man like Gerry Priest don’t often buy antiquarian books at the same time. “Alright, then,” he said and began penciling on an old pad of yellow receipts. He didn’t bother with a cash register, probably because he didn’t bother with paying taxes. “That’ll be two-hundred eighty bucks. Cash only, please” he said.

I handed over the money and was glad to be done with him.

I went home and put my new purchase underneath my bed. I moved it to the upper shelf in the closet a few minutes later. I finally settled on keeping it in my bedside drawer. I didn’t know why, but I felt like it should be close to me while I slept. As soon as the gun was stashed away, I made a cup of Instant Noodles and sat down on my bed to examine the strange book I had found at Gerry’s.

As I thumbed through the pages, I realized it was not just a translation of what purported to be an ancient text that, according to the preface, had been lost for many years. It also contained an introduction by the man who claimed to have discovered the book, one G.F. Colton. Colton recalled how he came to take possession of the book by a man he referred to only as “The Fenian Stranger” who, according to the author, had claimed to suffer from a hereditary affliction that was apparently exclusive to people descended from an ancient Irish clan.

In addition to being a Fenian, the Irish gentleman also told me that he had been afflicted for many years by a condition that he long believed native to Ireland – a condition whereby a man may, on occasion, become like a wolf, and even take the shape and temperament of a wolf.

After Colton’s introduction, the ancient text depicted the early life of a man called Maewyn, who later became known as Saint Patrick and how he discovered the tribe of werewolves in Ossory. The book was published in 1929 and the publisher’s introduction spoke of great trepidation for releasing the document to the public.

My body went rigid when I read those words over and over again. “A man may, on occasion, become like a wolf...” I wanted to scream aloud. This book, this ancient text, provided an ancient historical account of lycanthropy. I knew there was a possibility that it was fake or creative non-fiction, but my instincts told me it was true. It had to be. Why else would I have stumbled upon it on a forgotten shelf in a resale store in the same town where an apparent werewolf lived?

The text went on to describe a longstanding struggle between the werewolves of Ireland, or Ériu as it was called then, and demonic god-like creatures who attacked their clans and villages. Though the word ‘vampire’ was never used, I could easily imagine how modern readers would view the demonic creatures who drank the blood of their victims to be vampires today.

The margins of the book were marked with messy scrawls, both in English and a language I didn’t recognize. I assumed it was Irish Gaelic. At the back of the book, someone had drawn a genealogical diagram, a family tree. At the top was a surname: Doyle.

Doyle was an Irish name, I knew that, but how did it connect to Cold Hollow? Then I remembered. “Sivene! Sivene Doyle!” I shouted.

Many of the margins were difficult to read thanks to the age of the book and the interspersed use of Irish Gaelic. I flipped on the bedside lamp and held the book up close to the lightbulb.

“Cold Hollow... ritual murders and blood... ingestion...” My stomach turned, but I pushed on. I had to know more. This was it. This was the key to decode everything. The missing women. The McClintons. Nicole’s death. Sivene’s transformation. Even the demon woman that had appeared to Owen. It had to.

“1301 Valentine Drive,” was written by someone else’s hand just a few centimeters further down the margin. An address. Was this where it happened? Or possibly where it was still happening?

My pulse raced and my hands began to shake as I searched frantically through each page margin for more clues. All of my suspicions, all of my fears, my doubts, they were all coming together.

I put the book down for a moment and sprinted into the kitchen. I searched the mountainous stack of mail for the Cold Hollow phone directory that I remembered seeing buried somewhere beneath the pile. I had used it many times to order Chinese takeout over the last couple of months. I frantically pushed junk mail and unopened catalogs to the ground in search of that thick book that would give me the final answer I needed to know.

I threw it open and searched through the columns of addresses, the associated business names, and their phone numbers.

There. 1301 Valentine Drive. I slid my finger across the page to the corresponding business name. McClinton’s Meat Market.

I stepped back away from the directory. My heart was pounding painfully in my chest. McClinton’s Meat Market was the business listed at 1301 Valentine Drive, where the previous owner of The Wolf Clan of Erin claimed ritual sacrifices had happened.

I felt a terrible combination of dread, excitement, and vindication all at once. The story about the McClinton family’s involvement with witchcraft, the strange book Lilly and Nicole found in the Senator’s study the night of their disappearances. Now this. It was all starting to make sense. Sivene had been protecting Nicole or trying to, anyway.

I had to find Misty and Sivene. I had to show them the book. I ran back to my bedroom, grabbed it, and went back into the kitchen for my keys. I was bent down lacing my boots when my phone rang. The shrill sound cut through the air like a siren and my heart clenched in surprise. Whoever it was, they could wait, I thought, then I ran to my front door. But something told me to stop. The phone was still ringing. Maybe it was Owen. Maybe he wanted to help.

I jogged back to the wall and picked the phone up off the receiver. “Hello?”

“Is this Kelly Kane?” a woman’s voice asked from the other end. She sounded young, maybe even a little frightened.

“Yes,” I said quickly. “Who is this?”

“My name is Lilly. Um, Lilly McClinton.”

My heart couldn’t take any more surprises. I leaned back against the wall and let out a breath I didn’t know I had been holding. “Lilly...? How-how did you get my number?”

“You’re a reporter, right? I feel like you’re the only one I can tell. I want–I need to talk to you. My father, he’s...he’s the Senator here, and—” she started to cry.

“Lilly, where are you? I’ll come to you right now. We can talk.”

“He’s dangerous,” Lilly said between sobs. “He-he does these rituals and...Please, someone needs to know what he’s been doing. I need help. I need you to help me!”

“Where are you, Lilly? Tell me where you are and I’m on my way.”

“Th-there’s a place – the meat market,” she said and sniffled. “It’s my father’s. There’s nobody there and I have the keys. It’s called McClinton’s. Do you know where that is?”

“1301 Valentine Drive?”

“Yeah,” she said, seeming a bit surprised that I knew the address by heart.

“I’ll be there in five,” I said.