The Tome of Bill Series: Books 5-8 (Goddamned Freaky Monsters, Half A Prayer, The Wicked Dead, The Last Coven)

by Rick Gualtieri

  “Crystal.”

  “Good, so let’s cut the crap and go get your meatwad of a friend.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  I had never given thought to what a Sasquatch nursery would be like. Seeing one now, it made me really rethink ever wanting kids of my own. I remember attending kindergarten. I also have a few younger cousins. Little kids are loud, messy, sticky, and pretty much all around stupid.

  Now imagine those kids at least five feet tall, covered in matted fur, and smelling like they just spent the day making mud pies out of dog shit.

  That’s pretty much the sight that greeted us when we entered the now unguarded hut. The hoots and grunts coming from within were now more distinct than the sounds of battle outside. As we stepped in, though, silence descended as half a dozen pairs of wide eyes turned our way.

  Great! First a couple of chicks, and now I had to beat the snot out of Sasquatch children. Some legendary vampire warrior I was. What was next, pimp-slapping a newborn?

  Thankfully, the adolescents in the room didn’t appear to want to fight us any more than I did them. After a few seconds of silent staring, they screeched in terror and retreated to a far corner where they all stood huddling and – ewww – pissing themselves in fear.

  “It’s about fucking time!”

  The voice was familiar; Ed’s obviously, but the form wasn’t.

  For a moment, I thought it might be my eyes, but then I remembered that the dim light of the hut wouldn’t mean shit to my vampiric vision. “What the fuck did they do to you?”

  Behind me, I could hear Sally try, and fail, to contain a snort of laughter.

  Ed walked toward us, looking none too pleased. “Well, first they tore off my clothes. Said they smelled bad. Then, after I protested that I wasn’t all too keen on my dick swaying in the wind, they gave me this wonderful outfit.” He pointed to the filthy-looking garment – a deer hide maybe – tied around his waist. “Oh, and just because they could, my litter mates over there decided to finger paint on me, except they don’t stock paint in this daycare so they used...”

  “I get the picture.”

  He stepped up to me, the look on his face one of pure murder. “Do you?”

  “Relax, Tarzan,” I said. “You look ... fine.”

  “That’s one word for it,” Sally added, smirking in the gloom of the place. “But let me just be the first to say, if you’re thinking about hugging us as way of thanks for our daring rescue, do yourself a favor and don’t. You’ll live longer. Trust me.”

  The Monster Squad

  “So what’s the plan?”

  “What do you think, Mowgli?” I replied. “We get the fuck out of here.”

  “I know that, dickhead. More specifically.”

  “We’re heading back to the house,” Sally said. “Christy and the others went there to find Tom.”

  “Yeah,” I added. “With any luck, they made it with no problems and found him. If so, we can meet up with them and teleport the fuck out of here.”

  We scrambled through the brush, having finally left the Sasquatch encampment. As feared, Ed’s clothes had been shredded, leaving him stuck in his jungle boy attire until we could find something better. At least we’d found his shoes still relatively intact. One of the Sasquatch toddlers had been using them as a chew toy. Teeth marks aside, it was a fuckload better than running barefoot through the woods.

  Screeches, cries, and occasional gunfire – guess Gan had brought more than just medieval toys to the party – still sounded, but they were to our back. With any luck, the worst was behind us.

  Yeah, one should never even think something like that. It’s an instant invitation for fate to flip you a big middle finger.

  And this middle finger was big indeed.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  One moment, we’d stepped into a clearing so as to gather our bearings, and the next, the scent of Sasquatch surrounded us – appearing as if out of nowhere.

  Fuck! I’d forgotten they had some magical affinity for the forest and could use it in ways that I had no fucking clue about. Four Sasquatches stepped out from behind the trees surrounding us. That was bad enough, but then a fifth, bigger and uglier than the rest, joined his brothers.

  Turd wore a bandolier of skulls, similar to the one he’d worn up in the Woods of Mourning, although it was a fair bet he didn’t have an iPod hidden in them this time.

  “Stupid, T’lunta,” he growled, drool pouring over his bottom lip. “You no escape Turd.”

  How the fuck was he here? Sally and I were doused in Gan’s potion. We smelled absolutely neutral. He couldn’t have sniffed us ... oh shit. I glanced at Ed, standing there smelling ripe as a month-old pile of fruit.

  As if in confirmation of this, Turd smiled. “Your cub. Or now Turd’s cub.” He clasped his hands behind his back, an almost human-looking gesture. “Stupid cub. Turd would have raised you well. Now Turd think he smash your skull instead.”

  “All things considered, asshole,” Ed replied, “I’d sooner go with the smashed skull.”

  “Really?” Sally asked.

  “It’s just a figure of speech.”

  “Perhaps Turd will keep T’lunta’s mate as his own.”

  Sally raised an eyebrow and turned to Ed. “I see what you mean about preferring the smashed skull.”

  “Oh, c’mon,” I protested, “I thought girls like you were always on the lookout for a sugar daddy.”

  “Syrup is a six-billion-dollar industry,” Ed casually remarked.

  Sadly, the mention of his busted deal with François did not go over well with Turd. He let out a roar of rage and swung a fist – shattering a nearby tree into splinters. “Leave.”

  Huh? Did he mean us?

  “Mighty Turd?” one of the other Sasquatches asked.

  Oh yeah. Guess that was just wishful thinking on my part.

  “Leave!” Turd repeated. “T’lunta, she-T’lunta, and cub are mine.”

  Great. At least we were going to die as one big happy family.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Without a single word of protest, the four Sasquatch reinforcements stepped behind nearby trees and disappeared from sight. All trace of them, even their scent, was gone.

  That definitely changed the odds a bit. We went from being outnumbered five to three, to – well, probably still being outnumbered. Pumped up as I was on all the vampire blood I’d ingested – and I had a feeling my time was running short there – I still didn’t like our odds.

  “What do we do?” Ed asked.

  “We don’t do anything. Stay the fuck out of this. Let Sally and me handle it.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” she said. “This asshole doesn’t look so tough.”

  “Let me guess. You don’t remember the last time we fought him.”

  “Should I?”

  “Probably best you don’t.”

  “Enough talk!” Turd roared, eloquent as ever. The monster ape charged us, giving me a momentary feel for what it felt like to be in the path of a runaway train.

  Thankfully, it only lasted a moment. Sasquatches like Turd had an advantage when it came to size, strength, and being scary as all fuck, but they couldn’t match a vampire’s speed.

  Mind-wiped or not, Sally dove out of his way. I grabbed Ed and did the same in the opposite direction. Turd flew past us, unable to stop his forward momentum in time.

  Sadly, I landed atop Ed – made all the more uncomfortable by his current state of undress. Why couldn’t this shit ever happen when it was a hot chick wrapped in a dirty deer pelt? Fuck it, my fantasies weren’t picky.

  “Run!”

  “It’s dark,” he complained. “I can’t see shit. Where the fuck should I run to?”

  “For starters, anywhere but here would probably be good.”

  “Fuck that. I’m not leaving...”

  Another roar of rage interrupted him and I glanced up just in time to see about ten feet of tree trunk fl
ying at us. I grabbed hold of Ed again and rolled us out of the way a split second before it smashed into the ground where we’d been lying just a moment earlier.

  Ed looked to where it landed, then back at me wide-eyed. “On second thought, you might have a point.”

  “No shit. Now run, Forrest, run!”

  Ed might have been loyal to a fault, but he wasn’t stupid. Without his shotgun, he knew he was essentially useless in this fight. The best he could hope to do was bleed all over Turd and, since neither of us had any clue whether that would do jack shit to a Sasquatch, that seemed a poor strategy at best.

  We both got back to our feet just as Sally tackled Turd from the side. He barely budged, taking a step at most before swatting her away like a fly.

  Shit!

  “She’ll be fine. Go!” I gave him a shove before he got any bright ideas. “We’ll find you later.” The way he smelled, it wouldn’t be hard. There was also no way I could concentrate on this fight with him around. Thankfully, he finally got the hint.

  As I turned to face Turd, I heard Ed’s footsteps retreating behind me.

  “Just you and me now, cupcake,” I said, hoping he wasn’t about to pound me into batter.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  What happened next was a whirlwind of movement. Turd would swing at me with his boulder-sized fists, I’d do my best to duck or block, and then throw one of my own. Thankfully, Turd’s style of fighting was of the crude “keep hitting something until it stops moving” variety. Every punch was a haymaker, but that also meant it was telegraphed from a half mile away, allowing me to use my speed to parry the worst of it.

  I got a few blows in, eliciting some angry grunts from Turd. It wasn’t quite a fair fight, strength-wise, but I had enough firepower backing me to be effective.

  “Hey, fuck-face!” a voice said.

  Turd turned his head toward the sound just in time for a good-sized rock to smash into his face. Sally was back in the game!

  Sadly, I think the rock got the worst end of that deal. I wasn’t about to ignore the opportunity for a cheap shot, though. I stepped forward and brought up my fist in an uppercut that was meant to send Turd’s balls into his chin.

  Much to my dismay, though, he picked that moment to stumble forward. The horror was twofold. His bigfoot-sized junk smashed into my face, and my punch flew wide from its intended target, landing somewhere moist and tight – oh so tight. It was only then that I realized the ugly truth of my predicament.

  Oh, sweet merciful God, no! My hand was stuck in Turd’s ass!

  “Get away, T’lunta! Turd already have enough mates.”

  What?! Sadly, I couldn’t respond with anything appropriately pithy. Otherwise, I would have ended up with a mouthful of Sasquatch dick.

  “What the hell are you doing, Bill?”

  Oh great, now I was gonna hear it from Sally too.

  I was tempted to stay where I was and let Turd pummel me to death. Surely that would have been a kinder fate, but alas, I still had friends to save.

  Before Turd could bring his massive fists down upon me, I dropped to my knees and excised myself from his rear orifice. My hand pulled free with a disturbing *schlupp* sound and I knew that no amount of paper towels would be enough to wipe Turd’s ass-grease from it.

  When, oh when, will the world stop shitting on me?

  Apparently not yet, for, just then, I caught a massive kick to the chest. I exhaled a cloud of blood as my ribs shattered and I flew back, helpless to do anything except skid along the forest floor until my body came to rest.

  I expected to be back on my feet within a few seconds at most, but instead, my body took its sweet time to heal.

  Oh no! Not now.

  Another roar sounded and only then did the burden of breathing begin to slowly lessen. My stolen power was rapidly leaving me, the last of it exerted in a move that had netted the end result of giving a rectal exam to my foe – not quite the game ender I had hoped for.

  “Chew on this, you hairy fuck!”

  Shit! I couldn’t let Sally face off against that monster alone. As quick and brutal as she was, she didn’t stand a chance. Turd was a walking brick wall. Short of some heavy firepower, there wasn’t much she was going to do except piss him off even more.

  You need my help.

  Huh?

  You heard me.

  Dr. Death had been silent ever since my rebuke of his attitude toward Sheila. I hadn’t been sure if he’d gone back to sleep in my head or was just sulking. Regardless, he was obviously paying attention.

  “I’m not...”

  She needs my help.

  As if to emphasize this, a cry of pain rang out – Sally. I struggled to sit up, my healing finally catching up to the damage inflicted. Sadly, that was it. I felt certain that effort had used up the last of the power I’d stolen from François and his minions.

  Unfortunately, now was when I needed it most. Sally had done her part to keep Turd off me when I’d fallen, but she’d paid for it.

  She staggered, holding a hand to her side, through which blood flowed freely. Though she still managed to dodge the mammoth-sized monster, it was only a matter of time. She slowed with every step, even if she was still defiant, managing to throw out, “That all you got, pussy?”

  I took a step, feeling my insides shifting around uncomfortably.

  You can’t win this alone.

  He was right. Templars, a misunderstanding with Sheila ... hell, any of the crap of the past week – that stuff I could handle. But this? Had I not dallied, perhaps I could have taken him, but now there was no chance. Even taking a sip of Sally’s blood wouldn’t get me anywhere close to where I needed to be.

  But Dr. Death could.

  “Our deal?” I asked quietly.

  Still in play. You let me out and we’ll do this together.

  Turd sniffed the air and then turned toward me. For a moment, I thought he was going to charge again, but then he grinned – showing off his massive canines. “Good. Freewill T’lunta can watch as Turd crush his mate. Then Turd crush you next.”

  He turned his back on me, writing me off as no longer a threat. It was a mistake, one I’d make sure he’d regret.

  “Let’s do this.”

  Are you sure?

  “We need to stop him. Teach him a lesson. Just tell me what I have to do.”

  Nothing. Just let it happen. Let the rage flow.

  I did as he said. It wasn’t hard. Although Turd hadn’t been responsible for everything bad that had ever happened to me, he held stock in his fair share. The whole sham in the Woods of Mourning, trying to kill my friends, starting the war that threatened to engulf the world. All of it fell on his shoulders.

  As these thoughts crossed through my mind, I began to see red – the world around me appearing as if it were bathed in blood.

  I shuddered, letting the anger fill me, taking over, starting the change.

  Just as it began to take hold, crossing the point of no return, a moment of clarity hit me. I had no idea what would come next, but one thing was certain: I was afraid.

  At that thought, a low chuckle rumbled through my mind.

  You should be.

  War of the Gargantuas

  There was no time to wonder what Dr. Death meant. I fell to my knees, then to all fours as I experienced the odd sensation of every square inch of my flesh rippling. My clothes, up until now a comfortable fit, suddenly felt way too tight.

  It wasn’t just all in my mind either. The distinct sound of fabric tearing met my ears, now as sensitive as they had been under the influence of François’s blood. No, more so. I began to hear sounds that I shouldn’t have – Turd’s stomach gurgling from something he’d ate, Sally’s labored breathing, Ed’s footsteps, faint and still retreating but audible nevertheless.

  My glasses slipped from my face and fell into the dirt, yet when I looked down everything was still in clear focus. The claws at the tips of each
of my fingers expanded beyond their normal size, turning into cruel talons that I somehow knew would rend flesh and bone as easily as paper.

  My mouth opened of its own accord and I let out a snarl, feeling my canines extend until they felt like sabers that would tear my lips to shreds if I dared try to close my mouth.

  Turd’s heartbeat sped up at the sound and he turned back toward me, his eyes widening ever so slightly.

  “Freewill T’lunta. Turd remembers you this way.”

  I meant to reply, “Then you remember what happened last time,” but for some reason, all that escaped was a feral growl.

  I stood, not remembering giving my nerves the signal to. When I faced Turd, he still towered over me, but not by as much. I’d changed, but I was still me inside. Holy crap, Dr. Death hadn’t been shitting me after all.

  I made to glance down, take a look at what I’d become, but my eyes continued to focus on Turd. That’s when the worry took hold. I tried to flex my fingers, but nothing happened.

  My mouth opened and a word, barely a whisper, escaped. “Sucker.”

  “Turd not sucker. Turd chieftain. Turd your killer!”

  The pity was, I had a feeling Dr. Death’s decree hadn’t been aimed at him.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Wait, you said...

  “I lied,” a voice – mine, yet not – answered.

  But you’re a part of me.

  “Obviously the better part,” he replied.

  Although my eyes remained focused on Turd, I caught a glimpse of Sally beyond him, her mouth agape. Whether it was in surprise or fear, I didn’t know, but I hoped it was the latter.

  I wanted to shout for her to run, but instead, my body did the running – straight at Turd.

  Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion, but then I realized it was just him. I could see every movement he made, every ripple of every muscle, every hair on his body fluttering in the breeze. It was pretty wild. Sort of like having spider-sense.

  He hesitated ever so slightly, so minor I would have never noticed – even hopped up on blood as powerful as François’s. Yet now it was plain as day, as if I’d been blind to not notice such things.