THE MUDDLED MYSTERY OF THE MURDERED MUSE, Chapter 12: Hunter Grayson, Vampire Killer

The Muddled Mystery of the Murdered Muse is a full-length novel, presented to you in Medium-sized chapters twice a week (Tuesday and Friday), that tells the story of Sebastian Holden, a paranoirmal investigator who solves the strangest cases this side of Jersey City and Brooklyn.

If you missed the previous chapter, read it here; if you’ve already read this chapter, read the next one here.

CHAPTER 12: HUNTER GRAYSON, VAMPIRE KILLER

“While you’re still young, find your heart and find your song” was the last thing she ever said to Hunter Grayson.
 
And despite the fact that it was a fantastic lyric to a Cat Empire song, Hunter Grayson took it to heart.
 
Hunter was 39 years old with no credits to his name. He never caused a boom in the Universe. Never wrote the great Rumanian novel. He had James Franco’s smile but didn’t know how to use it except to land a lady for a midnight romp and howl. But once the candles were all blown out earlier that year, his loads spent on loves laid and left along a Bergen County curb, it dawned on him –– how much nothing it all amounted to, except another year wasted.
 
But it was Rachel Jennings who taught him this most valuable lesson. “Find your heart and find your song.” Well, he found his heart, but after Rachel’s little brush with a tall dark stranger, she just wasn’t the same, and Hunter didn’t know why. A couple years removed, though, he now sees clearly the path that was opened up and laid flat before him –– a path on which he would discover his rightful place in the world.
 
The funny thing was that he had been carrying this path with him all these years, since all the way back to childhood, when he would spend hours playing video games on his then brand new Nintendo Entertainment System. (NES, for all you non-gamers out there.) He didn’t own many video games, mind you; his parents couldn’t afford to buy him more than a couple NES game paks every Christmas, and maybe one or two for his birthday. But man, he could play his absolute favorite game of all time for days and nights, up until “the morning sun” would “vanquish the horrible night” once more. How he loved cracking that leather whip or chain-linked morning star at the reanimated skeletal corpses and flying Grim Reapers, facing off against Frankenstein’s monster, mummies, and even the occasional fire-breathing bone dragon. Every foot forward in this devil’s playground lead him one step closer to the Dark Lord of it all: Count Dracula!
 
 Yes, we’re talking about the greatest game that may every have been created (thanks, Konami): the original Castlevania. 
 
 Of course, he played every single game in the franchise for the NES — Castlevania, Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest, Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse — Game Boy — Castlevania: The Adventure, and The Castlevania Adventure II: Belmont’s Revenge — and the Super NES systems — Super Castlevania IV. He played, and beat, all of them.

He even got around to playing Symphony of the Night on the Sony PlayStation, which he had never owned but had friends who owned it. The only game Hunter Grayson never got to play was Castlevania: Dracula X. But by then he had given up the gameplay ghost, trading them in for something more real.
 
And then there were the additional hours spent giving his eyes a rest from the bright 8-bit color graphics and writing his own stories under the Castlevania umbrella without Konami knowing a thing about it. (“fan fiction” is the term for it now, though he was writing it long before there was a niche genre for it.) Did he ever want to be a horror writer ? Or perhaps a game designer working on the latest, greatest rendition of Castlevania, one that might outplay Konami’s critically acclaimed Symphony?

No, Destiny, Fate, or just the way of the Universe would push him in a new, yet similar direction. He would trade in his SNES controllers for a set of sharpened wooden daggers like the ones Blade would use in those old Tomb of Dracula comics from the ’70s. He’d given up the old DOS computers he’d write his stories on (we’re talking pre-Windows here) for a leather whip and a Bible in his left coat pocket, nearest his heart.

Ultimately, he’d change his name legally, not to Simon or Trevor or Christopher, but to a simple word that would foreshadow exactly what it was he would spend the rest of his life doing. Not “gaming,” but “hunting.” Hunting down evil, and eradicating that very real evil from this earth. 
 
And so Hunter Grayson was born. (Although “Gamer Grayson” would’ve been cool, too, despite the heavy-handed rhyme.)
 
But first, before Hunter would become the world’s first vampire killer, he would become the world’s first vampirologist — a scientist who dedicated his studies at the University to attaining an understanding of the undead. It would only be a mere four years before his days studying these little princes of darkness bled into long nights slaying them.

Because the fact was simple, as Hunter would discover first hand in the most unfortunate of circumstances: vampires are real. And they’re here.

And now, so was he!

>>> Continue reading: Chapter 13: Detective Emily Sparks >>>