1.04 Bump in the Night

The Season 1 Titlecard.

## Episode

Following on from last episode, Shane can be seen in his garage (what he deems his "hunting headquarters" searching more on Demon lore than ever before, he also continues his search for Lamashtu by looking up possible "strange sightings" from around the UK and even the world however he is unsuccessful, he researches for hours before holding his head and stating: "I need to do something else" as he is clearly burnt out.

A few hours later, Shane can be seen in his gaming setup playing games and comically headbanging to music saying that "he can't dance so he does that instead" to his friends on voice chat.

"That's the third time today mate, you really need to get out more" his friend says in a mocking tone.

"Yeah yeah, you know I can't do that, duty calls" Shane replies to which his other friend says "You mean your girlfriend?"

"Nah...I don't have a girlfriend" Shane says before comically spinning his chair in a 360 and laughing.

Another friend adds: "Oh come on, you can't be serious...you've been sitting here for over three hours! You're single as fuck!"

Shane laughs and says "Yeah...I am, but one day someone will come" before turning back to his game.

After a few minutes, he receives a call from a number he doesn't recognize.
"Hey, it's me" A voice says.

"Who the hell is this?" Shane asks annoyed.

"I thought you might want to know that your friend that's in hospital is going to pull through and won't be needing any surgery" the voice says.

"I don't have any friends in hospital right now" Shane says in a confused tone before saying "Is this a scam?"

"No, I'm just letting you know that your friend is going to live" the voice replies.

"Who's in hospital then? the invisible man? because I've said no one I know is in hospital right now" Shane says with a slightly sarcastic tone that turns into more of a grumpy one.

"Do you know who I am?" The voice asks.

"No" Shane answers "Why should I?"

"Well I'm called..." the voice starts to speak.

"I don't care, I've got better things to do than listen to you prattle on about nothing" Shane says angrily.

There's a pause before the voice speaks again "If you knew who I was, you wouldn't be acting like this..." before the line goes dead.
A few hours pass and Shane is in bed, fast asleep and dreaming when he hears a loud noise outside his window, he sits bolt upright and checks the clock on his phone - it's 3.30 AM, he questions what could be making that noise as he is on the upstairs level of his house, he slowly opens his blinds and sees something large moving around in the garden below, he closes the blinds quickly and heads back to sleep hoping it's a dream.

The next morning, Shane wakes up with a start and looks at his phone - he goes to work and returns without issue, he doesn't mention the incident to anyone as he doesn't want to be labeled as crazy or having a hallucination.
Over the following weeks, Shane keeps hearing the sound of something moving around outside his house late at night and early in the mornings, he decides to investigate himself rather than tell anyone about it - he sets up a trail camera in his front garden before going to sleep as normal.

He wakes up in the middle of the night and looks out of his bedroom window, the camera is showing a clear image of what appears to be a large shape moving around in the garden below - Shane uses the microphone on the camera to scream at the creature to see if he can make any features out or to get it to look at the camera - but the creature remains motionless, he then tries to open his window to get a closer view, but the creature notices this and moves away to where he can't see it and runs round the back.

Shane goes downstairs and looks out of the kitchen window, the creature has moved to another part of his garden and is now looking towards him, he panics and goes to wake his mum and dad up but sees that the creature is now gone.

Shane rubs his eyes and heads back to bed, he then goes to check the camera at 9AM the next morning to find that it has captured over 100 still images of the creature in various angles.

Shane is watching this footage back on his laptop and it shows the creature walking past the house, he pauses the video to zoom in on the creature's face and identifies it as a large black wolf-like animal.

He then gets a notification that there are new messages from the strange number that called him a few weeks ago, he reads the message aloud:
"Hi Shane, it's me again, the person who told you about your friend in hospital" the message then goes on a tangent saying that it got the "facts wrong" as there were none of Shane's friends in hospital and puts it down as an error in communication, it then goes onto say "I hope you haven't forgotten me by now. I've been keeping an eye on you since we spoke and I know that you have been hearing noises outside your house for some time now. I also understand that you have seen a creature in your garden. It seems like you have a visitor or two."
Shane is shocked to hear that someone else knows about the mysterious creature in his garden, he then gets a second message:
"I've left you my contact details below, please feel free to contact me whenever you wish." The message then ends.

Shane reaches for his phone and sends a message to the unknown number, he thinks about it for a minute about what to say "Hello, I don't know how you got this number or what your intentions are but I would like to put a face to a voice so meet me on the village green at 7pm today."
It takes a couple of minutes before he receives a reply "Ok, I'll be there at 7PM sharp!"

Around 6.45pm, Shane arrives at the village green and waits on top of the hill there for someone or even something to appear, he watches and waits for a good twenty minutes before he begins to wonder if anyone is coming. He then notices a figure walking across the bottom of the hill, the figure ascends the hill and approaches Shane, he stands up and tries to make eye contact but is unsuccessful in this, the figure says nothing and walks right past Shane.

Shane then remembers that he had turned off his phone earlier and turns it back on. He then receives a text message from the stranger saying:
"I'm sorry for not being able to meet you face to face, but I need to keep a low profile at the moment. Anyway, we should keep in touch. Look forward to seeing you soon."

The figure then walks over to a gate and makes his exit from the village green - annoyed at this and feeling like he is being played, Shane marches to go after the figure but stops when he hears an unnatural growl come from up one of the trees nearby, he turns around and sees that the creature he has been seeing has climbed into the tree and is peering down at him, realizing he is pretty much a sitting duck in this situation he just runs away.

A few days later, he receives another message from the unknown number:"Are you ok? I heard about what happened the other day and was very worried. I hope you are alright."

Shane replies with a message "You weren't much help, I didn't even get to meet you - you walked right past me and then left, which is a strange way of introducing yourself and as for this thing thats seemingly following me, you could have warned me."

The sender of the message then sends a picture of a large black wolf-like creature standing in front of a red brick wall, the sender then adds "Sorry once again, I hope you can forgive me."

Having enough of this whole ordeal, Shane buys a bus ticket from the next bus that comes along and heads into Lincoln City, he puts in his phone login and once again opens up the paranormal files, which he has since downloaded onto this phone, as well as the photo that the unknown number took of the creature to see if there are any matches in the lore, all the creatures are listed as cryptids and aren't linked to any known species, they are also classified as non-sentient and don't exhibit any signs of intelligence.

While browsing through the data, he spots a file titled 'Unknown Cryptid' , he clicks on it and sees that the file contains information on a creature that is described in several witness reports of sightings in various locations, the creature resembles a big black wolf with a long snout, small ears and a pale pink tongue, besides that though nothing is really known of this creature as the file seems to be incomplete - a video is however present in the list of files currently visible on the computer, Shane clicks on the video and its a handheld camera video of an anonymous person encountering one of these creatures, the person is attacked by the creature viciously and is forced to shoot and kill it with his pistol however it takes multiple shots and is only truly killed when shot in the head.

Shane is shaken by the footage and decides to call the unknown number, he puts his phone on loudspeaker and dials the number, he waits a while and then gets a reply "Hello."

Shane responds "Tell me what you know about this creature..."

At first there is silence before the caller replies "Ok, firstly I'm not sure why you want to know about it, but here's what I do know," the caller then explains that the creature is called a Cuthbert Wolf, the name is derived from the town of Cuthbert in Northumberland where the first sighting was reported, he goes on to explain that the creature's true origins are unknown and that the sightings began around 20 years ago, the eyewitness accounts suggest that these creatures exist in packs of 3 to 5 individuals with a male leader who is larger than the rest of the pack but otherwise they lack intelligence and are driven purely by instinct and hunger making them highly destructive - Shane then asks "Well I'm not in Northumberland, I'm in Lincolnshire so how did one get down here?"

The caller then tells Shane that there were unconfirmed sightings of one of these creatures in the village of Downham Market in Norfolk and they believe that the pack has split up for unknown reasons - Shane then pressures the caller "Changing the subject but how about you finally meet me properly...Lincoln High Street, right now" he says with an eager tone.

The caller is hesitant but agrees to meet Shane, he then hangs up and Shane rushes out of the building and towards the bus station.
As he enters the bus station, he sees a girl wearing a hoody and a baseball cap walk past him, she takes her headphones out of her ears and looks at Shane briefly before walking past him again, Shane follows her and catches up with her outside the bus station, he grabs her arm and says "Hey wait a minute!" The girl starts pulling away from Shane but he holds on to her and forces her to stay still.

She pushes Shane away and shouts "Let me go! What do you think your doing?"

Shane says "Do you recognize this phone number?" he says clearly wanting to get to the bottom of this caller mystery.

The girl then pulls out a phone and checks the number, she replies "Yeah, I got a message from that number too, but I don't know who you are or why you're following me..." she says looking him in the eyes.

Shane looks at his phone to see if he gets another message from the caller whilst in this girl's presence, he notices that he does but it's not from the same number he just spoke to - it's from a different number.

Shane ignores the message and instead continues "Look I'm sorry to do this to you but I need some answers, I've been receiving strange messages from an unknown number and told them to meet me here but they haven't shown up." he says with a stern face.

The girl looks at the ground and shakes her head, she replies "I'm not going to tell you anything..."

"Oh so you're admitting something?" Shane asks curiously.

The girl looks up at Shane with a serious expression, she says "No I'm not, I'm just saying that I don't feel comfortable speaking to someone I've never met before especially when he's holding onto my arm like this, please let me go so we can talk somewhere else." Shane obliges and lets go of her arm and the girl walks away slowly until she reaches a bus stop, she sits on a nearby bench and looks back at him, Shane remains standing there staring at her until she turns her attention elsewhere and he leaves the bus station.

He gets a short distance away before returning to his phone, it is here he immediately calls the new number he received, he speaks to the same person who answered the other call and he receives the same information as before, except this time it sounds like the line keeps cutting out.

After another search in the lore, Shane goes out into the streets, properly, once again however he is met with a strange snarling sound in the distance, he approaches the source of the noise and finds the creature which is nose deep in a trash bin. It's a massive wolf-like beast with dark brown fur, which has somehow made its way into the city.

Shane remains hidden as he decides to monitor the creature's activities and eventually it walks off in the direction of the bus station with the public running in several directions whilst the creature roams freely through the bus station, this is an unsettling sight for many people, one elderly man even faints as the creature passes him and he falls to the ground.

Shane watches the creature closely and observes that it seems to be searching for something, he begins to wonder if it might have something to do with the mysterious caller, he decides to walk in and engage with the creature with Shane shouting "HEY" at the creature.

The creature stops moving and turns around to look at Shane who stands there in defiance asking it "What are you then?" The creature then stares hard at Shane as another text comes through on his phone telling him to meet the caller, he refuses to as the stand off between him and the creature continues.

The creature gets up and moves to stand in front of Shane, it snarls loudly and barks at him, Shane quickly backs away as the creature charges forward and lunges at him, he dodges and runs behind a nearby wall and hides himself as the creature smashes into the wall and slides down it.

Shane peeks over the top of the wall to observe the animal's movements as it stumbles to its feet and the creature begins sniffing around the place as Shane slips away with the creature hot on his heels.

The creature jumps onto a nearby car and climbs up onto the roof of an abandoned building, it then makes an unnatural sound before jumping from a great height onto the street below, making the public scatter with fear in the process as it sniffs the air for Shane’s scent.

Shane takes refuge in a nearby shopping complex as he hears a commotion coming from a nearby walkway, he walks in to see the creature smashing its way through the double doors of the complex, he then receives a call from the caller (which is placed on loudspeaker from earlier conversations) who says "We're sorry to inform you that you will be leaving us now..."

Shane is then dragged out of the shopping complex by the creature.

Shane wakes up in an unknown location and realizes he's in some kind of underground hideout. He begins to shout for help as the creature approaches him with a knife in its mouth ready to stab him.

"So...your what's been following me around for weeks, the Cuthbert Wolf, you look lonely...where's your pack? I heard they split" Shane says defiantly.

The creature growls and sneers at Shane as it points the knife at his chest, the knife makes contact with his skin and Shane winces in pain as the blade pierces his flesh, as the creature goes to do it again: Shane kicks the front legs of the creature which causes it to fall over and the knife to cut the ropes holding Shane to the chair, a fight breaks out with Shane now wielding the knife as he continues to dodge attacks from the Cuthbert Wolf.

Eventually Shane manages to get the knife deep enough into the creature's skull to cause it to slump to the floor dead and Shane stands over it, he takes a deep breath and sighs as he places the knife back on the ground, he then notices a small hand print on the creature's forehead and sees it is indeed a child's print.

He then receives another call from the caller who tells him to stay where he is as they are coming to finally meet him, whilst waiting Shane looks around the room he was put in and even examines the corpse of the Cuthbert Wolf and finds no signs of blood or anything else suggesting it either isn't dead or just doesn't have any bodily fluids - the room also has a table in it with some red meat on it, there are several bitemarks in the meat - Shane then awaits the mysterious caller that has been contacting him for a few weeks now to arrive.

The figure from the village green all those weeks ago emerges from the shadows, their grey hoodie covering most of their facial features as they hang their head low.

"I've come to collect you now" the person says as they take out a black bag from their pocket and begin unzipping it. They pull out a small bundle of white cloth wrapped in a red ribbon.

"What does that mean?" Shane asks curiously and then adds "Another question, who or what are you?"

"You shall know soon enough" the figure says, completely ignoring the second question, before attempting to disappear once more into the shadows however Shane grabs the figure, forcing them to reveal themselves.

"Look" Shane says holding the figure closer to himself as they continue to try and escape his grasp, "you really should stop trying to hide from me" he says, looking into their eyes, "because I am right here, you have been contacting me and you have been supposedly watching me and now you have supposedly come to collect me...so here I am, do your work." Shane says in a tense way.

The figure cracks a smile and reveals their face, revealing a woman with long hair and dark blue eyes. She stares into Shane's eyes and speaks: "You were always destined to find me - I knew you would come, and now you have," she says in a calm voice, "we shall be together forever."

The figure reaches out her arms and pulls Shane close to herself, kissing him passionately but Shane rejects her with a questioning look on his face as if to say "what the hell are you doing?" - "It's time to end this, we shall be together until the end of time, and beyond. You just need to accept that and open your heart to it" The woman says but before Shane can respond, the woman begins to vanish.

"Wait!" Shane shouts grabbing the woman's arm "You didn't answer my other question...who or what are you?" however the woman remains silent as she vanishes leaving Shane in the room alone, he looks around for some kind of motivation of the Cuthbert Wolf that was in Lincolnshire however he finds nothing and heads back to his “hunting headquarters” aka his garage to update the Unknown Cryptid file to that of the Cuthbert Wolf - Shane fully expects to see another one soon and also expects to see the mysterious woman again.

A while later, after receiving a call from the unknown caller, the woman appears yet again in the same place as before, this time she is wearing a long dress covered with flowers and leaves, it seems like she came from a garden party.

"How did you get in here?" Shane asks.

"The key will fit any door" she replies, "and I was here first" she adds pointing to the 'Do Not Disturb' sign on the wall behind Shane, "don't forget that."

Shane looks at the sign for a moment before turning to the woman, "what happened to my other questions?" Shane asks.

"Well," the woman starts "I know a lot about you. You're a monster hunter…a new one at that too."

"What?" Shane says surprised.

"Yes," the woman continues "you hunt supernatural beings, you used to work for the Torchwood Institute as well, you are also interested in knowing a little bit about me too, so don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about."

"Ok" Shane says calmly and then continues: "And do you know about my friends?"

"No, I don't." the woman says as Shane closes his eyes and mutters something under his breath like he is trying to summon something whilst the woman talks about how watching Shane's life was strangely fascinating about how he balances his normal life with this whole hunting business and the fact that he hunts creatures is also fascinating.

"You mentioned you don't know anything about my friends right?" Shane questions the woman.

"That's true" the woman answers.

"Good because I have one that could mess up your day if you don't answer my question: Who or what are you?" Shane asks.

"Ah, the question that everyone wants to know" the woman says smiling "my name is Fiona" she adds.

"Fiona, ok" Shane says not convinced by her last statement "and what are you?" he asks again.

"Oh, I'm a spirit, a ghost, a spectre, a shade, a wraith, a phantom...you get the idea" the woman replies "I live in the shadows, I cannot move freely through the world I once inhabited, I must spend most of my time hiding, waiting for the day when I can finally rest in peace."

"And what do you want with me, since you have the entire scoop on me?" Shane questions.

"Everything, Shane" the woman says standing in front of him, "you are the reason why I am still here today, you gave me purpose and meaning to my existence."

"Thats not really explaining anything, and what of the Cuthbert Wolf that invaded my life?" Shane asks with more purpose.

"That is none of my concern, I have no interest in the creature, all I care about is you. All I wanted was to help you, and now that you are here, I can..."

This causes Shane to look at Fiona with a questioning look and begins to pace up and down "Clearly not getting involved is in your job description as I nearly got slaughtered in that strange room, how I got there I don't know."

"You've already had your fair share of supernatural experiences, Shane" Fiona says, "and believe me, it gets worse from here".
"But how do you know all that?" Shane asks.

"Because I lived through them" Fiona replies "it's like I said earlier; I watched you grow up and watch everything that has happened to you over the years. I even helped you on occasion - you may have seen some white feathers fall to the ground from time to time..." she says hinting at something.

"I saw those" Shane responds.

"Well, they were mine but I let them fall to the floor because I knew that you would notice them, I'm what you call a good Samaritan, a guide if you will" Fiona says.

"So, since you know so much...will I get another encounter with these Cuthbert Wolves as I feel like I have unfinished business with them." Shane says continuing to pace.

"I think you will" Fiona says.

"Fiona, do you know of the demon Lamashtu?" Shane asks seemingly out from nowhere.

"Lamashtu?" Fiona repeats, "no, I haven't heard of anyone with that name" she adds.

"Ok, just curious...you can go now" Shane says, clearly not wanting to say anything to her about him trying to find the demon.

"Are you sure? If you need me, I'll be around, you know where to find me" Fiona says.

"Thanks, Fiona" Shane says, "I have your number" he says jokingly referring to the calls he got from her, he then watches her disappear as he, once again, heads to bed, this time hoping for a proper night of sleep - Fiona, meanwhile, takes her place on top of Lincoln Cathedral however down on the ground, a group of demons can be seen looking up at her in disapproval for reasons unknown.

## Characters

* Shane
* Fiona
* Demons