Chapter Two

He leaped over the windowsill and dropped to one knee. He clenched the bat a little tighter when he heard the rustling of leaves again. He tried ot turn towards the sound, when it sounded like it came from the right, but when he did another came from the left. "hello?" he yelled. The answer he received was a growl. "Oh fuck." He tried to calm down but he was having some trouble. He reached into his pocket with one hand, grabbbing his phone and the card the two mysterious men had given them and started dialing the number.
"Agent Thomas." As he was about to answer the creature jumped and was on top of him. It was a blur of claws, a muzzle filled with teeth and the sound of those teeth knawing on wood. When Jack finally got a good look at this creature it wasn't really covered with fur. It looked like it was nothing but laid flat grass, matted and clumped mudd was what held it together. Its jaw snapped and wriggled trying to get through the hard maple wood. Jack pushed a little harder but his arms could not do anymore, even with his adrenaline rush, and that is what was worrying him. He lowered it closer to his face and could smell his breath, rotten leaves, moss and petrified wood. "Dude. . . Two words. Breath mint." He shoved up and over on the bat, sending the thing flying to the ground and sliding on the new wet leaves from the rain last night. He stared at its eyes and it faced off with him. He finally put his feet underneath him to stand. He put the bat between the two of them and held it more like a staff instead of a bat. He watched as it backed up as he advanced. "What in gods name. . . You have the advantage boy. Take it." He muttered uder his breath. He took another step but heard a twig snap, he looked down and as he did, the creature jumped. "Jesu. . ." He cried, pushing the bat forward and planting his feet to keep from falling over again. It stumbled and Jack took his chance to swing, like the pro-athlete his wasn't, striking the side of it's green muzzle and hearing the sound of broken branches instead of bone. It crumpled at his feet and almost seemed to dissolve into the grass.
Jack stepped back and fell over himself trying to breathe and not freak out. The bat fell from his hands and found their way into his brown hair which was sweaty, wet from the leaves sticking here and there on his head andmore sweat.
He heard something like words coming from on the ground, it was then he realized his phone was still on. He picked it up with shaking hands.
 "Mr. Carter? Are you there sir? Are you. . . No I haven't heard anything from. . ."
"I'm here agent Thomas. And uh. . . I think I found the creature you were looking for. Is it ok if it's dead?"
"It's what?"
"Dead."
"How did you. . ."
"Baseball bat." He answered. There was silence on the other end as agent Thomas tried to think of an answer.
"You killed it. With a baseball bat?"
"That is what I said."
"We'll be over in ten." Jackson could hear the car tires squealing as it turned sharply. "Where are you?"
"Outside my apartment, around the back." The line went dead and when he looked at the phone's screen it said 'call disconnected'.
"Well bye to you too." He slid it back into his pocket and made it back to his window and sat on the open sill. "Fuck it." He leaned back and got into the drawer and pulled out his Malboro Smooth pack of ciggarettes and a scorpio lighter. He slipped one out with ease of repitive practice as well as lighting it and sliding both pieces into his chest pocket.
By the time he had finished his first smoke in over 2 years the two agents had come around the back of the complex. "s'about time boys." He let out the last bit of smoke and dropped the butt to the ground, dropped down from the sill and crushed his smoldering butt. He walked towards where the body was, which he had been staring at since he had killed it.
Where is it Mr. . . Oh." He pointed at the corpse as he slid another smoke between his lips. "And you. . ." He motioned a swing with a clicking sound with his tongue."
"Right to his muzzle. Surprised I hit him really since I never was good at baseball but I guess when you're life depends on it."
"Well uh. . . Thank you very much. . ."
"You want to tell me why my life depended on this? And why the fuck this thing was around here in general. This is not a common mutt since this. . .this. . . Shit that is covering him is not fur." Jackson got louder as he went about his rant. "You wanna tell me what the fuck is going on?"
"Sir. . ." The other agent started to say.
"Shut up Frank."
"But he's. . ."
"It's kind of late for that because of our own mess." He motion to his lips towards Jack and he passed a smoke over to him and lit it. "What you killed was a scrunt. Straight from the blue world, which you should not have been able to kill it."
"Why not? because before most people can even see it. It strikes from the grass. No human response is fast enough to do anything."
"But I did."
"And the only way you could have would be if for some reason you had some inkling of where it was. They attack from behind, not the front."
There was silence among the three of them.
"I need a stiff drink." Jackson sighed.