Women In The Night

Campfire Chat

Dean had taken the two of them to some camping grounds in the Kawartha Lakes region, not too far north from Toronto.

The plan was to head to the house of an old friend of Dean’s;  Dr. Quinn Iorfida. He – along with Daisy – had taught Dean pretty much everything there was to know about monster hunting. He used to be a professor of archaeology and sociology at Queen’s University in Kingston, specializing in myths and legends. Dean didn’t give all of the details, but Dr. Iorfida’s husband had died on a dig due to supernatural causes. In turn, he’d dedicated his life to the research of the paranormal and dangerous, which eventually led him to the hunter community.

It was a short drive – only about four hours. But Opal wasn’t about to say no to some camping to get used to living in the van.

So, Dean and Opal were camped out on a rocky shore, sitting in front of the fire, drinks in hand.

“Hey, so, I’ve been meaning to ask,” Dean said as she took a sip of beer, “and you don’t gotta answer if you don’t wanna.”

“Dean, it’s fine,” Opal chuckled, “What’s up?”

“Well, what do your folks think about all this?” Dean asked with a vague gesture of her bottle, “I mean, I remember them being really chill, but obviously that was years and years ago. Now, you’re packing up your entire life to travel the country with a girl you knew nearly two decades ago. Are they seriously cool with it?”

Opal sighed very deeply, looking into the flames. She took a long sip of her drink before speaking, still not looking at Dean. 

“Well uh, they’re dead.”

Dean felt her heart stutter.

“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t –”

“It’s okay!” Opal quickly assured, “You didn’t know, and there’s no way for you to have known that.”

“I feel like I should’ve, though.”

“It’s okay.”

There was a moment of silence between them before Dean got the courage to ask a question.

“How did they die?”

Opal sighed again and Dean immediately regretted opening her mouth.

“Y’know, nevermind. Shitty thing to ask.”

“No, you deserve to know,” Opal said, “It was gonna come up eventually.” She took another drink before speaking, “It was a plane crash, about three years back. They were um, they were on their way back from a cruise in Jamaica. Suicide by pilot. Crashed into a soy field in Québec. No survivors.”

“My god. I’m...I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay. Well, it’s kinda not….” Opal chuckled nervously, “Sorry, I never really know how to react when people apologize for my dead parents. I haven’t been around death a whole lot in my life, but I guess I gotta get used to it, huh?”

Dean shrugged, “You never do. I mean, you kinda become numb to the death and destruction of it, but condolences never get any less awkward. I can’t count the amount of times I’ve apologized about a stranger’s death, and I wasn’t even the cause of their death – most of the time, anyways.”

“That’s good to know.”

The two of them watched the fire crackle, the light dancing on the waves. It was quiet in the Kawartha Highlands before Dean spoke again.

“What else don’t we know about each other?”

Opal shrugged, “A lot, probably. It’s been just over fifteen years since we last saw each other. A lot happens between grade five and your twenties.” Opal smiled at her friend, “But I’d like to know as much as I can.”

“Yeah, well,” Dean scoffed, “we’ll have loads of time to get to know each other on the road.”

Very suddenly, Opal sprang up from her seat and started running towards the van.

“Woah, Opal!” Dean cried, standing up as well, “You good? Did you see something?”

“No! I had an idea!”

“What?”

A couple seconds later, Opal returned with a notepad and pen, a grin on her face.

“Let’s make a list.”

“Excuse me?”

“We’re going to be travelling together,” Opal continued, writing a title at the top of the page, “so we may as well make a list of things we should do together. Like a bucket list! That way we can get to know each other a lot more.”

“I guess it could be fun. So uh, what do you wanna do?”’

“Karaoke.” 

“Excuse me?”

“Yeah, me and my roommates in uni used to do it all the time, it’s a great bonding experience.”

“Will there be alcohol?”

“If you want, sure.”

“Bet.”

“Hmm, let’s see….” Opal said as she tapped her pen on her lips, “I’m trying to think of things best friends do. Sleepovers are at the top of the list, but we’re kinda already doing that.”

“So, we’re just listing things to do with each other?” Dean asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah!”

“Okay, uh…. Well, I’ve always wanted a hiking buddy.”

“Oh really?’

“Yeah,” Dean admitted, swirling what was left of her beer around in the bottle, “I like to go hiking when I can, but it can get a bit lonely. Oh, if we’re ever in Alberta, we should go hiking at Lake Louise. No matter what trail you take, it’s gorgeous.”

“Hike at Lake Louise! Got it!”

“Cool. So um...what else?”

“I’ve always wanted to visit the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver!”

“We can do that!”

For the next little while, Dean and Opal sat by the fire and listed things they wanted to do over their travels.

“Wow,” Opal said as she put down the 50th item on the list, ‘scuba diving in Tobermory’, “you really like outdoor activities, huh?”

“I guess,” Dean said with a shrug, “I just never really liked living in cities and the fact of the matter is that it’s easier to hunt in small towns, which means I go through the wilderness a lot.”

“Makes sense. I dunno, we never really went camping a whole lot when I was a kid, I just really liked living in the city and how much there was to do.”

“Oh, there’s no shortage of things to do in a big city like Toronto,” Dean agreed, “but I just find it exhausting. It makes it damn near impossible to hunt, which is ironic since Quinn theorizes that more monsters live in cities.”

“I mean, it makes sense on pretty much all accounts,” Opal admitted, “By mere nature of numbers, a bigger population is going to see more diversity because you’re taking in a larger sample size – it would be crazy to think that everyone in a city as big as Toronto was human. Plus, there’s safety in numbers. There’s constant crime because there’s so many people, so it takes a lot for something to stick out, especially to a hunter. Like, people go missing in Toronto all the time, but that’s just because people suck. It would be so easy for a vampire to hide in Toronto.”

Dean barked a laugh, “Yeah, the Professor’s gonna love you.”

“He seems very fascinating, and important to you. I hope he likes me.”

“Yeah...he’s kinda like a second father to me. Or, step-dad? Uncle?” Dean laughed a bit awkwardly, “It’s kinda weird to define our relationship.”

Opal smiled, “Well, tell me about him. Please?”

“Sure,” Dean said with a shrug as she pulled out another beer, popping off the top using one of the thick rings on her hand, “Where to start….? Um, okay. So the Professor has ties to the hunter community, everyone knows him, and if you don’t have his number, you know someone who does. Anyways, Mom was sorta retired when we were kids but she kept tabs on the community, opened her door to those who needed a safe place to rest. When Dad died, Mom needed someone to return the favour while we figured our s**t out. The Professor offered, so we stayed with him. Eventually, it turned to her leaving me with him while she tried to find an odd job, then while she found a hunt, then I just stayed with him when we thought it was best.”

“What do you mean?” Opal asked.

“Well, y’know…” Dean gestured vaguely with her beer, “Mom had been trying to quit hunting for almost a decade, only to have it all come tumbling down around her, taking her husband with it. Obviously I was ten, so I didn’t know jack s**t, but Mom didn’t have the best mental state, definitely not fit for a kid. So, when she was on really long road trips across the country, she’d dump me with the Professor. It happened a lot until I was a teenager and I was able to go on real hunts with her, so yeah. Complicated relationship.”

“Um...yeah. Sounds complicated.”

“Yeah,” Dean scoffed, “so it’s difficult to define, but I really care about him, and I know that he’ll really like you.”

“Well, that’s good. Um, I have a question.”

“Shoot.”

“Did you ever have any friends? Like, after the fire.”

Dean shrugged, “No, not really. I never went back to school, since I rarely travelled with Mom, and when I did, we didn’t ever stay in one place too long.”

“But you spent a lot of time with the Professor, right?”

“Yeah, but he lives on an island with mostly farmers and no neighbours for a few kilometres. He’d take me into town and I might play with some kids, but it was rare.”

“So you don’t have any friends?”

“I’ve got contacts. People I’ve helped that I might consider friends.”

“Dean, you know what I mean,” Opal said.

Dean sighed, “Then no, other than you, I don't have any friends.”

“We’ll fix that,”  Opal promised.

“Um, no. Having friends is dangerous – being a monster hunter isn’t all fun and games, which is why I’m keeping you so far away from the hunt.”

“Dean, I know – those pictures from Armstrong were more than enough to make me lock my doors at night.”

“So you see why it’s a bad idea to have friends.”

“You wouldn’t have solved that case without me, Hannah, or that cop.”

“Friend, person whom I hurt, contact.”

“You’re allowed to have friends, Dean.”

“No, I’m not.”

“So then what about me?”

“Can I be perfectly honest?” Dean asked, fixing Opal with a hard stare, the firelight reflected in her beautiful green eyes.

“Um...sure?” Opal said, shifting a bit in her seat. Dean’s gaze was piercing, and Opal wasn’t used to that.

“I think it’s a terrible idea to bring you along,” Dean said, speaking in a calm, almost cold tone, “You’re a good person who doesn’t need to be shown the horrors of the real world hidden in the shadows. Taking you along is an act of weakness on my part.”

Opal scowled, “Oh, really? You couldn’t have told me this before I dropped my life?!”

“I did try. I was kinda hoping the Armstrong case would be enough to scare you away. This is a dangerous life, and you’re one of the very few people I truly care about in this world. If something happened to you – and I have no doubt in my mind that something will  – then I will never forgive myself.”

Opal took a moment to search her friend’s face before she spoke. Dean’s expression was hard, closed off, but there was something else. Perhaps it was because of the smoke, but it almost looked like there were tears in Dean’s eyes.

No, not tears. Rather, the wetness in the eyes before crying can begin; the softness in the heart before it breaks.

So instead, Opal sighed very deeply, “Alright. Well, if we’re being totally honest with each other, then I should tell you that I am terrified, and I think I’ll still have nightmares about the Armstrong case in a couple of months. But I’m here, and I’m here for the long haul. If hunting is as bad as you make it out to be, then chances are that something bad will happen to me. But y’know...we’ll deal with it as it comes, just like normal life. We will do as needed, right?”

“Yeah. Alright.”

Obviously Opal hadn’t convinced Dean, but she didn’t think she was going to anytime soon. So instead, Opal decided to change the topic. 

“Well, speaking of honesty, why don’t we play a game?”

“A game?” Dean asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah! Like, something to get to know each other more; games like Never Have I Ever, Two Truths and a Lie, Would You Rather…”

“Twenty Questions?”

“Sure! We can play that! Here, I’ll go first – what’s your favourite movie?”

Dean chuckled and looked into the fire before she spoke, “Oh, easy decision. Jurassic Park. You know I was a dinosaur kid, and once Mom started hunting, it was difficult for me to watch any horror movies, since I knew how to defeat any monsters and the humans just seemed boring in comparison. But dinosaurs? Apex predators from millions of years ago? It’s just horrifying enough but also fun. Plus, I love the practical effects.”

“That’s a very good choice,” Opal agreed, “I used to watch those old ‘80s movies with my parents all the time. I’d say mine would have to be Howl’s Moving Castle though.”

“I’ve never seen it.”

“Oh, you have to!” Opal gushed, “It’s this Japanese animated film about a wizard and a self-conscious woman who’s cursed to look like an old woman! It’s so beautiful and soft and wonderful and it’s just such a good movie!”

Dean laughed, “I’ll take your word for it. Guess it’s my turn, huh?”

“Yup!”

“Okay. Um...first kiss. What was that like?”

“Oh, it was awkward,” Opal admitted, lifting her free hand to her cheek as she recalled the embarrassing memory, “It was a boy in my grade eight class – David Fida – who I sorta dated. We played Truth or Dare and I was dared to kiss him. I didn’t want to back down, so I kissed him. It was really quick though, and we broke up because I saw him giving notes to Taylor Auten under the yellow slide.”

“Aw man, can’t believe you had your first kiss before me!”

“Why? What was yours?”

“I was sixteen,” Dean explained, “and Mom had taken me on a hunt with her that lasted a while. I ended up hanging around the local diner, caught the attention of a group. We hung around a bit and one night by the tracks, I started talking to this really pretty girl. She had tanned skin and the cutest freckles and super big hair. She ended up kissing me and uh. Well, we didn’t have s*x but she tasted pretty damn good.”

“Nice!” Opal cheered, raising her hand in a high-five.

Dean grinned and slapped her hand, earning a slight chuckle from both of them.

“See?” Opal offered with a smile, “We know each other better already.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I suppose we do.”