Grunge (ARC)

by Larry Correia

  “Head back to the city?” Louis said.

  “I’d probably head to the nearest restaurant,” I said. “Where I can pay to pig out. Assuming he’s got any cash.”

  “We’ll change back into regular gear,” Doctor Nelson said. “Get rooms at the local hotel. If we don’t get him today, we’re going to be here for a while. And stake out all the local restaurants. Especially at breakfast. Look for someone disheveled that’s eating like he hasn’t eaten in weeks. Best chance we’ve got.”

  “MCB will freak the hell out if we have to do a take-down in public,” Jesse pointed out.

  “We’ll try to get him out of public,” Doctor Nelson said. “And use a silencer if it comes to that.”

  There was exactly one restaurant in the immediate area which was part of the one hotel in the immediate area: the Cascadia Inn. It was just past dawn when we pulled up and I, personally, was ready to eat a horse. Unfortunately, the café didn’t open until nine AM. Also, several of the rooms were already being used by the Federal Government so we were stuck with two: a double twin and a “family bunk room” consisting of a queen and two bunk beds. And they wouldn’t have any rooms available until after noon.

  We’d put away all the heavy gear and I’d thrown on a windbreaker to conceal my .45. While waiting for the rooms or the café to open up I sat on the front steps and watched the world go by. The weather had changed to the classic “early morning rain” of the marching cadence. With the sun starting to come up and peak through the cloud cover I could finally get a look around. I could see why people would move here. It was the quintessential small town, like nothing had changed in decades. And it was a beautiful setting. The tree clad mountains surrounding the town were green with spring growth. Truly a beautiful and peaceful setting for horror. The recent attacks had been the first thing of significance to happen in years and you could tell they’d really put a damper on the local community. The few people walking around were hunched and looked fearful. That wasn’t right.

  As I was sitting there, minding my own damned business, a hiker came walking down the railroad tracks. He was about six two with a bushy but recent beard and hair that was growing out from what had been a fairly short cut at one point. He had on new boots that looked as if they’d come from some catalog store and the backpack he was carrying looked fairly new as well. The jeans and flannel shirt he was wearing were sized for someone much heavier. Right length but the jeans were held on with a rope and were clearly eight or nine sizes too large. This had once been a big, “robust,” fat really, guy, who had recently lost at least a hundred pounds. Fast.

  “Oh, you have got to be shitting me,” I muttered as he walked over towards the hotel. He looked both ways before crossing the street. As he got closer I could tell he’d recently washed down. His hair was still wet and his face was washed but he looked as if he’d been living rough otherwise. “Café doesn’t open till nine.”

  “Damn,” the man said, looking at the sign. “I’ve been out camping for the last two weeks. I could really use a good meal.”

  “Looks like you’ve lost some weight, though,” I suggested.

  “Yeah,” the man said, looking a little nervous. “Hiking’s a good diet plan.”

  “Surprised you’ve got the guts for it, what with the bear attacks and all.”

  By then Louis had come out on the porch and was eyeing the newcomer.

  “Bear attacks?” the man asked.

  “Two of them,” Louis said. “One last night and one the day before. The first one got a hiker the second one got a couple of local kids.”

  “I…hadn’t heard about that.” He didn’t seem worried about it. More ashamed.

  “The kids were fifteen and seventeen,” I said. “Just a couple of high school kids parking. Real shame.”

  “Yeah,” the man said, his head hanging low. “Sounds like it.”

  “I bet you could murder a steak about now, couldn’t you?” Louis said.

  The man looked up and seemed to realize he was the center of both of our attention.

  “I’m fine. Just…waiting for the restaurant to open.”

  “Transforming really takes it out of you, doesn’t it?” Louis asked. “I hear it hurts, too. Not as much as getting torn apart, though.”

  The man’s eyes narrowed.

  “I’ll just go looking for another restaurant…”

  “Don’t think so,” Louis said. “Now, we can do this here in front of God and everybody or we can slip around back to continue the discussion. Your choice.”

  “Look,” the man said, his eyes turning an odd shade of gold. “I don’t want any trouble.”

  “Oh, it’s not going to be any trouble,” Louis said.

  As the werewolf started to transform I rolled back off the steps and came to my feet with my .45 in a two-handed grip. He’d managed to tag me with his growing finger nails but just barely. Ripped the hell out of my windbreaker.

  If you’re new to this business and have never seen a werewolf transform it’s ugly and, yeah, it’s gotta hurt. You can hear bones cracking as they lengthen and bend to the new form. The jaw deforms outwards, teeth pop into place.

  With newer werewolves it also takes a bit. Like minute or more. And this guy was clearly fairly new at it. He should have controlled the transformation and attacked in human form. Human form werewolves are nearly as strong and just as durable. They still regenerate like nobody’s business.

  By trying to transform it gave us the opportunity to fill it full of silver without being in any real danger.

  Louis had backed up the porch and engaged while I was avoiding the slash from the hiker/werewolf. By the time I came up and opened fire it was already down. Werewolves are tough until they run into silver. Even then they’re tough but eight rounds of .45 pretty much do the trick.

  The good part was we didn’t disturb the morning calm with gunfire. We were both using silencers.

  The problem being that people were just getting up and heading to work and there was, for Skykomish, a fair amount of traffic on the road. As I pushed the body to make sure it wasn’t going to get up again, a school bus drove past. The kids were all looking out the window and could clearly see that some guy had just been gunned down for, apparently, no reason at all. Most of them that weren’t looking at the body were looking at Louis. I’m sure for some of them it was their first look at a black man and the conditions couldn’t have been worse.

  “I’ll go get a tablecloth or something,” I said, putting away the pistol. “You get to explain what just happened.”

  “I think the MCB guys are already upstairs asleep,” Louis said. “Go bang on their door after you get the tablecloth.”

  And that was how I killed my first werewolf.

  The management of the historic Cascadia Hotel politely asked us to leave as soon as possible what with us murdering a potential customer on their front step. I suggested hydrogen peroxide as a good way to get the stain out of the walk-way. As soon as the MCB had confirmed werewolf and we took samples we were back on the road, headed home.

  I slept like a baby the whole way.

  Pro-tip: Werewolves gotta eat. Werewolves gotta eat lots. When you’re hunting a werewolf, stake out potential food sources if that’s the best you can do. And since they transform, stake out restaurants if it makes sense.

  For the Skykomish Werewolf, hunger killed the beast.

  CHAPTER 8

  Two months later I’d settled into a steady, for a hunter, routine. Unless I had a late night, and those were frequent what with the nature of the job and my obsessive skirt chasing, my alarm would go off at 0430. One hour of painful stretching—my wounds were still there and I’d been adding a few new ones—and I was ready to go running.

  I’d moved into a ground floor apartment in the university district. Given my dislike for academia in general that might sound counter intuitive. But I liked the energy of the area and the one thing to be said for any university area was an abundance of pretty g
irls, many of whom were open-minded. It also had a slew of great hole-in-the-wall restaurants many of which were open late or even twenty-four hours. Given my irregular schedule it was the right area to live, in my opinion. And my irregular schedule wasn’t really out of place. People didn’t ask too many questions. There were always people moving in and out of the area. All good reasons. But, mostly, it was the coeds.

  So after stretching I’d go running. Given my job I had a rational paranoia about being out in the dark jogging. I never wore a Walkman running. I wanted my ears free. And I’d rig up to run.

  Socks, running shoes, pants appropriate to the weather but even in winter Seattle rarely gets very cold so generally shorts. T-shirt. Chainmail shirt snugged over a low profile vest. Utility belt with my side-arm, spare magazines, ASP baton, Mini-mag, pager and a pouch for ID, keys and some cash. University of Washington windbreaker or hoodie.

  Even in winter the ensemble got hot. On the other hand, be it a supernatural entity or a mugger, anyone attacking me was in for a brief and nasty shock. Which happened three times during my tenure in Seattle. Two muggers and one werewolf. But that’s another story.

  Generally I’d do a light jog over to Ravenna Park then speed up through there. There were some bums living in the park but they generally didn’t bother me. I’d do a fast run through the park then head back on a different route. I always tried to vary my route. Just another paranoid thing. Never establish a really fixed routine.

  I’d stop at a diner most mornings for breakfast after the run, get bacon and eggs with all the trimmings, then walk back to my apartment. Again, not every morning but it was one of my regular stops.

  Shit, shower, shave, then it was off to yoga class. Monster hunting often involves having to move through three dimensions very fast and fluidly. I don’t care how big and muscle bound you are, things like yoga and ballet are useful. That’s the pro-tip. For a casual bachelor pro-tip: there are no better places to meet women than yoga and ballet. There’s always a steady turn-over and if they’ve got time for yoga and ballet classes they’ve got time to spend in l’ dans d’amour.

  After yoga it was hit the gym for weight conditioning until lunch. Lunch was at any number of small restaurants in the U District. There were lots and they were constantly going in and out of business. Eventually I ended up going to one bento place at lunch every day but, again, later story.

  After lunch it was either back to the gym or over to the University to hit up their stacks. I’d paid for another local course, one day a week again, which gave me access to the UW library. They had a surprisingly large occult and anthropology section. For giggles I eventually collected and read all of my mother’s papers through that source.

  It sort of made me conflicted. One thing I realized was my mom was at least as smart as I was. That was a bummer. The other thing I gathered, reading between the lines, was that she was probably as read in on the real existence of the supernatural as I was. Something about the way she wrote about it just told me she knew these things were real. Her paper on Indonesian water demons made me seriously wonder if she’d not only met one but talked to one or more. The real problem with all her papers was a complete lack of covering their weaknesses. Her paper on kappa, for example, had no notations about their various weaknesses. Fortunately, when I encountered one, I’d read other papers that did document them. Which is why I have a complete femur these days.

  Most of the stuff couldn’t be checked out but the nearby University Bookstore had another huge collection and I had the money to buy. We hadn’t been super busy but the paychecks were good, way in excess of what I was spending on general lifestyle, and I poured a bunch of that into books. At some point I was going to have to either get a bigger apartment or a house just to keep up with the book collection. I also visited the various used book stores in the area and picked up some really interesting stuff there.

  At least two afternoons a week I went to the office, if we weren’t otherwise occupied, and worked on guns in the workshop. I didn’t ask for everything I’d need, want or desire at once. I built up slowly. I started with getting all the regular spares that the various team guns would need, springs, firing pins, spare bolts and barrels, then built from there. The Nelsons weren’t gun nuts so they were happy to farm that responsibility off on me.

  Last but certainly not least, one day a week, all things being equal, I’d go to the range. I’d pick a specific firearm for that day, pistol, shotgun, subgun, long arm, and practice pretty much all day.

  Sometimes I’d end there late but generally, all things being sane, I’d leave around five and head back to the university district. Some evenings there were ongoing ju-jitsu classes. Most, though, were spent on my other calling.

  Another pro-tip for the philandering bastard: Weekends are for meeting women, weekdays are for cashing in the investment. Most evenings I’d spend either on a date or just staying in with one or another lady with whom I’d developed a mature and deep friendship. The District also had a slew of delivery places. Name the cuisine you could generally get it delivered. And I was learning, among all the rest, to cook for myself. And cook well, unlike my mother.

  So I’m at the office fixing one of Louis’ guns that had gotten knocked out of his hand by a ghoul when the telephone rings. The other reason to hang at the office was somebody had to answer the phones. If I wasn’t working on guns I’d have had to hang out at least one day a week, anyway.

  Back to the story. Telephone rings.

  “MHI, this is Chad speaking. How may I help you, sir or ma’am?”

  You can take the boy out of the Marines but you can’t take the Marines out of the boy.

  “This is Wesley Williamson, Chief of Security for Microtel,” a man’s voice answered. “We have a supernatural issue at our offices.”

  “Are you one of our contract companies, sir?” I asked. We’d generally roll for anybody who called but contract companies got first dibs. Main team was out on a call already but for a company with a contract we’d roll the secondary team. IE: Everybody who should have the day off.

  “Contract number 418-851,” Mr. Williamson replied.

  “What is the nature of your emergency, sir?”

  “We’ve had a demon outbreak in Quality Control. We think we have it confined to the QC section but we need them cleared out.”

  He sounded perfectly calm about having demons in the building as if this was a regular occurrence.

  “We’ll roll a team right away, sir. Should have a full team there in no more than a couple of hours probably less. I’ll call you when we’re on the way.”

  “Looking forward to the call,” he replied and hung up.

  The phone already was set up to beep any number of team members. I beeped all the secondary team except myself and called Doc Lu.

  “Doc, we got a call from Microtel?” The radiophone’s reception wasn’t great and I was mostly getting pops and hisses. “Demon outbreak in QC? They said they had a contract.”

  “Not again,” Doctor Nelson, Lucius, said with a sigh. “Better bring some holy water and the pressurized sprayer. God knows what sort it is this time but they mostly respond to holy water.”

  “Will do, sir,” I said as the phone started to ring.

  It was Brad and I told him the same thing. His response was mostly cursing.

  “I’ll call everyone and just tell them to bring their cars. You bring the van. Bring two five gallon cans of holy water with you. You speak Latin, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “That may come in handy. Get the big Latin Bible out of the library. Make sure you bring a shotgun. Meet us there.”

  By the time I arrived at the Microtel campus in Redmond, most of the rest of the team was there. Timmy was conspicuously absent. He tended to be. The guy had gotten a new girlfriend and she didn’t like whatever she was doing interrupted by his beeper. It wasn’t even like it was getting laid. Mostly they seemed to go clothes shopping. The girl was clearly only in
terested in his PUFF money but you couldn’t tell him that.

  So we had Brad, Jesse and myself.

  Brad was already talking to a guy in a polo shirt and jeans I took to be Mr. Williamson. Total time from the call to the arrival of the van was forty-three minutes which wasn’t bad in my opinion.

  Brad walked back over trailed by Williamson. Williamson was tall and buff. Definitely pumped weights. He walked with that robotic walk you see in a lot of former spec-ops.

  “Chad, since you haven’t met, Mr. Wesley Williamson, one of our regular customers,” Brad said. “So…Looks like a small demonic outbreak in QC. Again. Jesse, take the holy water and keep them off of us. Chad and I will handle the shotguns. Once we’ve got them banged up enough, cover in holy water and do the banishment rite. Some indication they breathe fire.”

  “How many people in the area?” I asked. “Survivors?”

  “Not important,” Williamson said. “It’s just Quality Control. We sealed the doors and called you.”

  I thought about that reply for a second.

  “Did you used to work for MCB?” I asked.

  “Yes, I did,” Williamson said. “Does it matter? Is this getting the job done?”

  “Any particular reason for the breakout?” Jesse asked. “It might give us a better idea what we’re dealing with this time.”

  “Dev was using a modified you-nix daemon in are experimental gooey,” was what he replied, phonetically. I speak nine languages and I didn’t understand a word. “I keep reminding them to use spell check. Apparently they didn’t and the daemon summoning caused a manifestation. Demon, daemon, you get the problem.”

  “Wait,” I said. “You use daemons, Greek spirits of translation, in your software?”

  “You don’t really think all this stuff works on ones and zeroes, do you? Microtel lobbied for a special dispensation from the MCB so they could do R&D involving some really low level extradimensional forces,” Brad said. “Okay, as long as it’s not like the last time we can probably handle it. Let’s rig up.”