Support Your Local Monster Hunter

by Dennis Liggio

  Both Silva and Williams raised an eyebrow at me.

  "Some dudes were after me," I said.

  "And you believe that those men killed the victim?" said Williams.

  I shook my head sadly. "Unfortunately, no."

  "Unfortunately?" said Silva.

  "Like, those were bad dudes, and I would love to say it was them, get them in trouble," I said. "But you want honesty, I'll tell you that I don't think they did it. But I have no fucking clue why that guy's head exploded, so maybe they did have something to do with it." I shrugged. "I have no idea."

  "So you just happened to bump into - no, fall from a building onto - the victim, and his head explodes?" said Silva. "Is that what you're going with?"

  I winced. "Yes? I mean, it's the truth. I think if I was gonna lie, I'd have a much better lie."

  Silva shook his head, but there was a ringing. Williams pulled out her phone, glanced at the number, and reluctantly answered it. She listened for a moment. "Crap. Send him in." She hung up.

  "Huh?" said Silva.

  "Mr. Nowak's lawyer is here."

  "No shit?" I said with disbelief.

  The door opened by a uniformed officer. Next through the door was an unlikely figure. It was Paulie, but not as I had known him. His hair was pulled back and slicked down. He had donned a cheap gray suit and tie. He carried with him a suitcase to complete the look.

  "You okay?" asked Paulie as he sat down. He looked me over. "Did they hit you?"

  "Oh come on!" said Silva in exasperation, his head leaning backward as he rolled his eyes.

  "No, I'm fine. All this wasn't them," I said, gesturing to my bruises and cuts.

  Paulie nodded. "Don't say anything else. At all." He then turned to the detectives. "Have you charged my client with anything?"

  "We've been thinking of double homicide," said Silva.

  "Have you charged him?" persisted Paulie.

  "No," said Silva.

  "Which means you don't have enough to," said Paulie.

  "I didn't say that -" started Silva.

  "Do you have a murder weapon?" asked Paulie, not waiting on Silva to finish.

  Silence.

  "Do you have a murder weapon?" asked Paulie again.

  "We found weapons on Szandor," said Silva. "A knife in his boot, a nasty lead pipe."

  "Both of which are legal to carry," said Paulie.

  "We have your client at both crime scenes, he's admitted that much," said Silva.

  "Other than showing that my client is active in his travels around this area, that doesn't show anything. There's no necessary connection," said Paulie. "And you would need a necessary connection for the trial. What has the D.A. said?"

  "We're conducting a murder investigation here!" said Silva.

  "And I am protecting my client's rights," said Paulie.

  Williams rubbed her eyes. She turned to Silva. "Just let him go."

  "We can hold him for four days without charging him," said Silva. "We got this!"

  "And he's not going to say a single word because of his lawyer," said Williams. "Cut him loose. We'll get more evidence and get him back here."

  "I assure you, you will not be able to obtain any evidence of my client's guilt," said Paulie.

  "We get it, you've won for now," said Williams. "Get out of here. But don't leave town, Mr. Nowak."

  Paulie nodded and picked up his briefcase. My handcuffs were unlocked, and I followed Paulie out of the room, rubbing my wrists and elated to be freed.

  "How did you know I was here?" I said.

  "You were all over the police scanner," he said. "Now shut up. No talking until we're out of the building."

  I went through the whole release process, getting back all my personal items that hadn't been seized as evidence. That meant I was still wearing NAPD sweat gear by the time I got out, but I had my wallet and phone. I hardly believed it was true when I finally walked out the doors of the NAPD station out into freedom. Despite the exhaust of cars and the overcast day, freedom tasted sweet.

  Paulie immediately lit up a cigarette and then started walking away.

  "Thanks for saving my ass -" I started.

  Paulie wheeled around, pointing his fingers which held his cigarette in my face. "Kid, get your shit together. I don't know what the fuck you think you're doing lately, but you need to clean the fuck up! Stop making us have to clean up for you! Get your shit together!"

  And then he whirled around and walked off in a huff, angrily puffing on his cigarette, a trail of smoke in his wake. I was left standing in front of the police station, alone again.

  Let's Hear It For Rock Bottom

  I slept for hours once I got home. I did not stop to call anyone, did not detour to see anyone, I did not pass Go, I did not collect $200. Pain, stress, and being awake for so many hours robbed me of my consciousness soon after I arrived home, the joy of being wrapped in the blankets of my bed the only thing that mattered.

  I awoke just as the sun was going down. I felt terrible, and it was only a supreme act of will that got me out of bed. I ached all over, and once I got in the shower, the water let me know every single cut and scratch I had in stinging detail. After the shower, I stopped at the mirror, for the first time seeing how beat up I was. I had purple bruises all over, especially on my back. My arms and shoulders were pretty scratched up by glass, but there were no serious injuries. Looking at my bruises and remembering all that happened, I was surprised that no bones were broken. I was amazed I wasn't in the hospital, which brought back many horrible memories of Jabberwock Jack's attack and my recovery. I shuddered involuntarily at the bullet barely missed.

  I put off the siren call of bed as I got dressed and then swallowed a bunch of ibuprofen - it was the best painkiller I had at the moment. I decided I'd be needing more and threw the bottle in my pocket. Next was the thing I had been putting off. I grabbed my phone and checked for messages, seeing none - something that was common lately. I pulled up Kolchak's contact info. I had been hoping to get a call or text from him, some sign of life. Was he okay? I had barely escaped from the revenants, but I hadn't been in the grenade's blast radius. Kolchak had been much closer, so there was a high possibility that he... I shook my head. Surely he was made of stronger stuff. And if he escaped them, did he escape the police?

  I looked at my phone. I wanted to call and find out what had happened, but I was a little worried about what I'd find out. Finally I decided to stop wavering, so I pressed the button and called him. I waited seven long rings, but then I got voice mail. His voice mail didn't even have a personal message, just the robotic voice telling me the number. As much as I wanted to, I didn't leave a message. After all that had happened, I realized there was every possibility someone else had the phone. Maybe the revenants, maybe the cops. If the police had the phone and they had Kolchak, my call to that number was already incriminating.

  The police had barely let me go on a murder charge and I had been told to not leave town. Likely they would be trying to get more evidence linking me to the death. They could even be tailing me. I was also covered in bruises and even with the ibuprofen, I was in pain. By all rights, I should be getting back into bed or riding out the day on my couch. Rest and laying low seemed the smart choice.

  Unfortunately, I couldn't do that. I needed to know what happened to Kolchak. Was he alive or had he died? If he was alive, he had lots of questions to answer. My anger had calmed, so his life was no longer at risk if he told me answers I didn't like, but there was too much unanswered about those folders. I needed to find him. And maybe, just maybe, I'll admit that I was a little worried about him. Just a little.

  I grabbed a hooded sweatshirt to wear under my jacket. It'd make me a little warm for September, but I figured I might want the anonymity of the hood. I was running low on weapons. I had typically kept most of them in the van my brother and I shared, but I guess since I was cut off then the van was off limits now. The police had one of my pipes and my boot knife, but I still had a
few weapons at home; nothing fancy but enough to defend myself. I pulled out another lead pipe and hid it under my jacket.

  As I walked from my apartment to the subway station, I got that feeling of being watched again. I couldn't spot whoever was doing it, but there were enough people on the street that they could be hiding. Was it the Family? Or was it just the police, hoping I'd lead them to something good? It kept me a little tense, but without an actual threat, it just gave me lingering paranoia.

  Once I got on my train, the feeling of being watched disappeared, so either they missed the train or got better at tracking me. I took the train out to Huskerville and then hiked up to where I got arrested. I was not foolish enough to walk down the street where I was arrested. There were too many, "killer returning to the scene of the crime" clichés, and I didn't want to give the cops an excuse to arrest me again. Instead, I circled around so that I was using the alleyways. I was more interested in where Kolchak's car was than the bus stop where I encountered the man with the exploding head.

  Unfortunately, the car wasn't there anymore. I had no idea what had happened to it. I doubted it was in any condition to drive after the grenade. So who towed it? The police? Or had it stayed undiscovered for Kolchak or someone else to have it quietly taken away? There was some debris - pieces of twisted metal, burnt bits of plastic, and torn rubber - but nothing that gave me any clues to Kolchak's location or status. I looked for tracks of Ace or Kolchak, but the area was too disturbed to find anything.

  I'll admit I did take a quick look at the crime scene, but from the safety of the shadowed alleyways. The bus stop was cordoned off with police tape, and I'm pretty sure I did see a car with plainclothes officers watching the location. I'm not sure why they were watching, but I had no idea how much evidence they had or the case they were making. Were they waiting for me to return? For someone else? I shook my head, and I turned my back on the scene - no reason to risk that.

  I headed over to the Night Market. I was already close and I thought that maybe I could pick up Kolchak's trail. If he had lost his phone and his car, maybe he had ended up there and I'd find clues from the night before. Maybe he'd expect me to end up there tonight so that we could reconnect.

  The Night Market was even more crowded than before, because it was the weekend. While a few days before it had a comfortable, fun vibe, it was downright festive now. There were so many more people, all laughing and having fun. Many were drunk, even though there wasn't any obvious stand that sold alcohol. But you saw them howl and hoot, tripping over each other and the stalls. However, nobody was violent or troublesome. There were more buskers than before. Some had even brought amps to make their music loud, though sometimes all I heard from afar was the distortion of it. There were definitely more stands and carts than before. The thicker crowd made it a pickpocket's dream and a claustrophobic's nightmare. To traverse the market without going behind the booths, you had to squeeze through crowds in certain places. I learned very well who had good hygiene and who didn't, whether I wanted to know or not.

  It wasn't going to be easy to find Kolchak in all of this, particularly if he was keeping a low profile because of the Family. If they were here, I was going to have trouble identifying them unless I happened to spy their telltale tattoos. So instead, I rode the push of the crowd, letting the natural ebb and flow of people take me. But where the other members of the crowd were checking out the stalls, the food, the music, and the wares, I was spending time looking at them. I didn't have high hopes for it, since it was trying to find a needle in a hot, undulating haystack, but still I looked for a sign of my friend or the enemies I hoped to avoid. I travelled the length of the Night Market twice, but I still felt I wasn't seeing everyone there. There was so much churn that I wasn't seeing everyone. I couldn't possibly see every person in the market, but I was going to try.

  It was on this third journey through the bump and grind of humanity, overloaded with the heat, sounds, and smells of the crowd that I saw someone that made me stop, standing still with shock as people pushed past me rudely. No, I didn't see Kolchak. No, I didn't see a member of the Family I recognized. I didn't even see something ludicrous, like my brother hunting with some new partner, let's say Lem. No, I saw someone I recognized very well, but didn't expect to see again.

  It was the man whose head had exploded three times.

  It was obvious it was him. The same bald head, the same nervous expression. I actually saw him walking in the lanes behind the stalls, as he seemed very paranoid about touching people. Since it seemed every time I jostled him his head exploded, I could see the need for caution. If that were the case, I was surprised he was even here.

  I had wondered before this if the men with exploding heads were twins, then after the third encounter, triplets. But this was now the fourth time I had seen him, and while quadruplets or whatever the word is could be possible, it seemed extremely unlikely. They didn't seem like twins - similar, but vaguely different. They seemed exactly the same. Was this somehow the same guy? It didn't seem like the bodies were disappearing from the morgue by how the detectives had talked, so I didn't think he was rising from the grave with a new head or something equally ridiculous. So what was the deal with him? Why did he keep showing up? Since every time his head had exploded it had come on an occasion where my life had taken a nose dive recently, I felt like he was personally responsible for fucking up my life. That was enough reason for me to want to get to the bottom of things. I realized that I needed to follow that guy and talk to him if I could. He had a lot of explaining to do.

  Behind the stalls, the man was walking past where I was at in the crowd, nervously looking over his shoulder. To follow him, I suddenly reversed course in the crowd, much to the annoyance of those behind me. I found my new course slower. Not only was I going counter to the flow I had previously embraced, fighting upstream against the current of the crowd, but I was trying to move quicker than the few who did move in this direction. I could have gotten through easily by taking my time and letting the tide of onlookers take me, but trying to go faster than that had me pushing people away with my apologies. In some cases, my apologetic words were not accepted, and I had to say a louder apology while pushing on through more people. I was being rude, but I was trying to not be rude enough that someone would want to try to fight with me and cause me to lose the man with the exploding head. I hoped that my continual sorries would defuse some of that anger.

  I finally made it to the sparse part of the crowd at the end of the Night Market. The man had kept on walking past the end of the Market, still looking paranoid. The thinning crowd was a blessing and a curse. It was a blessing that I could move more freely. It was a curse when I slammed right into a woman in mechanic's overalls and knocked her over. In the thicker crowd, she would have been jostled, but she wouldn't have fallen over like she had now. I looked down at the woman. She wasn't hurt, but she wasn't happy. She reminded me of Yasmin; the two could be sisters, though this woman was probably a decade older. I was about to help the woman up, but I turned my head to look where the man was. He had heard the commotion and had turned to look, tense and paranoid. We locked eyes. Recognition spread over his face.

  He knew me! How did he know me? The others who had seen me had their heads explode moments later. How could there be recognition in this man's eyes? I didn't have time to think too much on this, as the man took off in a run. I didn't have any time to spare, I needed to chase him down. So instead of helping the woman up, I took off running.

  "Oh, thanks, asshole!" yelled the woman from behind me, but a quick glance showed some other good Samaritan was helping her to her feet. I refocused on my target.

  Though he was running and had a lead on me, the man was being cautious about his footing, which was slowing him down. If my theory that a simple jostle would set him off was true, that would make him very paranoid about tripping over something. This meant I had the advantage. I poured on the speed, making my aching muscles do double time to catch up.


  Once he was half a block away from the Market, the man took a sharp left turn down an alley. I had a sense of déjà vu. It wasn't the same alley where I encountered the vampire and Kolchak last time, but it seemed kind of like we were playing the dark alley game again. I guess it would help me to question him, assuming I didn't set off his head bomb. I turned and ran after him into the alley.

  Kids, can you guess what was waiting for me in the alley? Can we all talk about how Uncle Szandor is a big idiot? Yes, we can!

  It was a trap. I had fallen for the same play I had seen a few nights ago.

  Inside the alley were two other men who seemed to be waiting for me. My target ran past them, slowing down. I tried to stop my momentum so I didn't crash into the two in front of me. From their hiding spots at disused dumpsters behind me, two more men emerged.

  "Yep, it's him," said one of the men. "Same enemy."

  "Do we have orders?" said another, who sounded very similar. He sounded like he was itching to have orders.

  "Waiting," said a third whose voice was also very familiar.

  "Wait a second," I said, pulling out my flashlight and clicking it on. I moved the beam from one face to another, turning around to make sure I saw all four. "What the fuck is going on?"

  I didn't know if I was having a stroke or I had been drugged, but I was confused. Each of the four men in the alley were the same man. Not only were they the same man, but they were basically the same man as the bald exploding head men. I say 'basically', because though they were almost the same person, they were a little different. The bald nervous guys who exploded were all exactly the same. These four were also that man, but not the same as the bald guys. These four men all had short brown hair, and there was nothing nervous about them. If anything they seemed aggressively anxious, their hands twitching, ready and wanting to hurt me. Their expressions were mean, their eyes hard. Where they differed from each other was that each of them seemed to have a large patch of scarring on them, as if they had been burned. One had it over the left half of his face, one had it over his forehead which pushed back his scalp, another had it all over his neck, and the last had it in a large misshapen patch that stretched across his face. The only other difference was how they dressed. One was in a dress shirt and tie, one was in a faded t-shirt and running shorts, a third in a turtleneck and corduroy pants, the last in jeans and a polo shirt.