The Organization

“Take the Bermuda Triangle, for example.” Rolan said, gesticulating wildly with his 8th, or possibly 9th, Styrofoam cup of coffee.

“No, I can’t. Don’t ruin the triangle for me.” Miles lamented, eyeing the inky liquid as it swirled precariously close to the lip of the cup.

“I’m going to, kid. Didn’t you read the welcome manual?”

“I… uh… skimmed it.” The younger man responded sheepishly.

“Jesus wept…” Rolan shook his head and muttered under his breath “Hired into an Ultra Secret government organization and the kid can’t be assed to read the welcome manual…”

The older man carefully adjusted a rumpled tie and a… well loved, wrinkled, cream button up shirt. “We’ll address THAT shortcoming soon. But the triangle!— Classic misdirection! You think we’d really let TV shows, documentaries, and paranormal bros in salmon shorts tool around the pacific if it was really something big? Want to know where the real one is?”

Miles opened his mouth to respond but Rolan steamrolled the new hire. “Fucking LAKE. SUPERIOR!” The man laughed a humorless laugh, and raised the cup to his lips, a small drop of the sludge landed on the low pile gray carpet of the office hallway.

Miles stopped mid-step. “Lake Superior!?”

“Yep. Safer. Theres actually a ferry— Isle Royale Queen or something— goes right past it. Takes tourists to some national park. Oh! That’s another one. The YouTube conspiracy nuts are actually close with that one, some of our national parks really are coverups but its nothing close to housing Cthullu under Yellowstone or that molemen shit. It’s more like… ‘The Gateway Arch is actually a long distance antenna picking up signals from what we believe is a dead alien civilization.’”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope.”

The two kept walking, passing rows of cubicles filled with men and women in rolled-up sleeves hunched over reports. Phones rang. Printers jammed. It looked like a scene from any government office across the country. Miles tried to steal a glance and saw paperwork full of phrases like ‘entity neutralized,’ ‘classified remains,’ and ‘containment breach averted.’

Miles leaned closer to Rolan. “So… what exactly do we do here?”

Rolan’s laugh was dry. “We kill monsters, kid. And we keep the world from knowing. Ghosts, demons, cryptids, cults. If it bumps in the night, we bump harder. And then we write the reports so the rest of the world can stay fat, dumb, and happy.”

Rolan paused like a lightbulb went off, “Well, correction. WE don’t kill them. The Hunters do. But, its tough work organizing flight itineraries and rental cars. Shit, kid, try HALO jumping from a C-17 straight toward the mouth of a dragon while you’re fielding phone calls from your AirBNB host— Actually, heres a fun one. Last week one of our teams needed a car, you think they walked into a Hertz at 2am covered in blood? Nope. Lana over there by the breakroom handled it. Team was dispatched for an apartment building in Paris that had accidentally summoned a low level demon. Oh! That’s another thing, we bill cases of water as munitions…”

Rolan smirked, waiting for the question as Miles groaned “Oh my god, it’s for Holy Water isn’t it.” Miles frowned. “…so we’re… just admin?”

“Admin? Son, we’re the thin beige line between civilization and chaos.” Rolan grinned, visibly exhausted but proud. “Welcome to The Organization, kid.”

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Author's Note: Thank you to Matthew Fromm for his incredible "Hunters" story which is the inspiration for this piece (...and one other that I'm still working on, sorry Matthew. I'll finish it eventually.).

This story is a non-canon opportunity to play around in the Hunters Universe and drew inspiration from a fever dream and the Nat Geo: Drain the Bermuda Triangle documentary. Thank you Matthew and thank you for reading!

And if you haven’t read it yet, below is Matthew Fromm’s Hunters: https://vocal.media/beat/milestone-hunters-receives-full-audio-adaptation-treatment