The only sound left in the room was the wind and the sobbing gasps of us trying to get our breath back. The goblin let out a long moldy fart, making Annalyce gag and I stepped back and held her hand. Both of us were shaking and tired. Two goblins in one night was a lot and we both knew that more would come. Goblins are clannish, kill one and you will be killing for them life—they always want revenge and they have long memories.
Her apartment was no longer a haven. Annalyce went to the closet and took out a book bag.
“Grenades,” she said in response to my look, “My brother was in the Army and he sent two back to me to keep as a souvenir for him. He died over there so I doubt he would mind me using them.”
We sat at an all-night diner drinking trucker’s coffee. You know the kind, it’s the kind of high-octane brew you can eat with a spoon or pour it in your gas tank if you have a mind to. Plates filled with scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browns, and toast with jelly sat in front of us. On her side of the table there was a large slice of cherry pie. She had given me the evil eye when I made a joke about her appetite so I decided not to ask her for a bite of the pie even though it looked pretty good.
“They came about a year ago,” Annalyce said tiredly as she pushed back a strand of her hair, “They took over the street girls first. I could see them, but who was I going to tell? As a kid, I learned not to say anyone because the goblins…they hide so well, you know, nobody even believes they are here. I saw them kill a whole family I was spending the night with. I got lucky and got out of a bedroom window and ran like hell. They never came after me because they never knew that I knew they were goblins. And I never told anyone about them; I just said men came in and killed everyone…”
“Anyway, I saw them taking over. The girls they couldn’t pimp they killed, but that is typical behavior of any gang of street thugs and the cops never really pay any attention to the small things like who is running a side when they have so many bigger fish to fry. Next they hit the strip clubs. Girls who were decent and unwilling to trick or go on the needle got bounced out if they were lucky and found dead of overdoses if they weren’t.”
“They wiped out another gang and took over the drug side of the street. The cops were so thrilled not to have to clean up behind the other thugs anymore that they probably thought about giving them a medal, but they settled for ignoring them instead.”
“Lesser of two evils,” I murmured and she nodded.
I knew that story well. Goblins ran out of gold right around the time men learned to mine. They dug into the earth and the goblins found themselves with nowhere to hide, so they came out into the light wearing their disguises. At first they were easy to spot—back then, people were smaller and the goblins had not yet learned how to handle the glamour they stole from the fairies. And I know that it sounds like humans forced goblins out of hiding and then needed protection from them, but the truth is that goblins always killed and ate humans, especially small children, and now that they walk among us they have grown even more vicious. They have that inborn greed, much like people, and they are ruthless, again like most of the people on the planet, and they are willing to kill for gain, again a human trait, but the difference is that there are good and decent human beings out there. There is no such thing as a good and decent goblin. They would see the entire human race in chains or on a plate if they could.
The diner was warm and filled with the odors of wet clothes and hair, fried onions and sizzling patties of hamburger meat. The tang of mustard lay close to every surface and grease covered the very walls. It was one of those spots that serve up meatloaf with a side of heartburn added on at no charge. Every booth was filled by a family or a couple, and at every stool sat potbellied men or barfly women, everyone eating and talking or staring moodily into their cups like they could see the secrets of the Universe in the bottoms. Life clashed and howled and ran along at speeds nobody noticed, something that never ceased to amaze me. In that place the idea of goblins was laughable, ludicrous.
But we knew the truth of it. Annalyce told me that she had plans to blow the motel up and she was willing to die doing it, if necessary. She said that last bit with a crooked smile and a mildly hysterical note in her voice but she had been serious and I knew it. That night was meant to be a scouting expedition; the next would have been the fireworks. I didn’t tell her, because something in her face said she knew, that she would have been on a mattress and goblin ridden before that night was over. That she had known that made me uneasy, but the fact that she had been willing made me cold; there is something terrifying about those who are willing to do anything because they have accepted that they have already lost everything.
“I killed five of them before tonight,” she said as she blew breath across the murky surface of her coffee. “I did it in the daylight and left nothing behind so they would not be able to track me. I needed practice and what is more, I needed…I needed…”
“Who did they take of yours?” It was a quiet question but her eyes blazed with things no person should know as she answered me, “My girlfriend Elaine. She was a hooker when she was a kid,” Those eyes were on fire with a dare for me to judge but I said nothing, “And she ran this outreach program. They killed a few of her girls and she got mad. I told her, time and again, not to fuck with them but she didn’t listen. I even tried to explain how I see goblins but…” Her voice broke and I reached across the table for her hand, but she yanked hers back. I kept my voice even.
“We have no choice but to light the nest on fire and then get the hell out of here as fast as we can. The truth is, there are too many of them and no time to call for reinforcements, so we have to do it and we have to do it fast.”
“Reinforcements? There are others?”
“Yes—in fact there is a large group of hunters that you should meet. They protect each other and kill goblins at the same time. I mean, you can’t stay here and you can’t keep going it alone.”
“I could stay with you.”
I hate it when that happens. “No,” I said as gently as possible, “You can’t.”
The pie was fresh. Her fork did not shatter the crust it split it and a ripe berry stained her lips. Again a feeling of bad portents being given crept over me but I dismissed it. I had had a long night and worse was coming. The goblins that had taken over that city were numerous, powerful, and now, pissed off at us. We were two women alone against a goblin horde and the odds were not good. To know that was to accept that we were facing death. To acknowledge death was to feel the old need, to fight it surging through my veins. I had no idea if she felt the same way.
“We need to blow them up and blow town. I have a bike hidden and we could take it. They will be riled and upset, but there will be human cops everywhere and they’ll have no choice but to let us go. They can’t track us beyond ten miles or so. We’ll be well out of their kill zone by dawn.”
“Unless they kill us going in, you mean. We can’t set a fire and hope for the best, we have to get the women they have in there out first, and if we go in it’s doubtful we will make it back out.”
“You’re right.”
If she had thought I would reassure her she was wrong. She knew the odds and sugar coating them would not make them any less long. The last thing I needed was some Pollyanna with a gun and a cheerful grin caroling out how it would all work out in the end. She straightened her shoulders, gulped down the last of the coffee in her cup and spoke.
“We are going to go inside the nest and get anyone in there out first. Then we will blow it up, even if it means killing ourselves with them.” The bag of weapons sat at her feet and she gave it a kick, making me very nervous. There was a low tone of finality in her voice, a sort of sorrowful determination that made me feel even jumpier.
We went out into the fog and the wind and the rain. She walked like a soldier, her head up and her back very straight. I couldn’t look at the way her hair spun around her; it made me want too many things so I watched the shadows for goblins in
stead. All I saw was my own reflection in the darkened windows.
The motel pulsed with a light that would not be noticed by the average passersby, but Annalyce and I knew damn well the smoky green glow meant goblins. A lot of them. They were in there, they were pissed and something bad was going to happen.
“Are you okay with dying here?”
Calm acceptance lay in her eyes but her chin jutted forward. She was determined to take few of them with her and I applauded that courage but I wished she had not said that, in the stillness it seemed like a curse upon us.
“I’m going to do my best not to.” I replied.
Her hands hung delicate and pale, her shoulders slim but set and she said, “You first.”
“I’m a gentleman, ladies first.”
A grin cracked her lips and I wanted to hug her, to kiss her but instead we just started walking, side by side, in perfect unison. Whatever was in that motel we were going to face it and do what we could to beat it. I knew I could be killed but I had to do it. I had to and so did she. We took one last look at each other and then we opened the glass door and went in.
A group of goblins sat at a table playing gin. I yanked the gun up and out of my waistband holster and they went down. One made it to his feet, took a few stumbling steps towards me and then realized he was dead and fell over. The clerk, who was human, screamed in fear but it did him no good, Annalyce shot him right through the face. Humans who work for goblins are traitors and a disgrace. They deserve nothing even close to mercy and she knew it.
A gibbering monster ran at us with his arms spread wide and his hands balled into fists. I opened the bottle of rosewater and tossed it into his face.
“Pretty,” he said in his thick, clotted voice. Then I popped the top on the vial of acid—that was not as nice. His face ran off so fast it was like watching it in fast forward and Annalyce proved she was human after all; she took two steps back and hurled on the dead goblin that had been running at me.
“Sorry,” she squeaked and shot a goblin that had been peeking through the bathroom door in the chest three times before wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
We moved grimly towards the stairs and she put her hand on the small of my back and whispered, “Our Father who art in Heaven…”
I said the prayer with her as we moved up the stairs; we spoke it in sibilant whispers that somehow managed to echo. The place was too quiet, the halls splitting off from the main staircase dank and empty. The smell of old blood and cheap perfume filled the air, and from a distance came a smothered sob. A whir went past my head and I ducked. There was a hard splat and I looked back to see Annalyce rolling across the floor. She was not dead however, she had seen the huge ax coming and had rolled underneath. The goblin swinging it was old, his eyes sunk into black surrounded fold of skin. He came after me grunting like a swine. His grey teeth and hairy toes registered in my mind before I sunk two knives into him: one in the chest, one in the neck. He died with a look of shock twisting his lips.
The rooms were all empty and spoke of what went on there. Beds huddled miserably underneath a ceiling cracked and broken. I wondered how many women had counted those cracks, had peered over their captor’s or buyer’s shoulders as they lay helpless on the thin and stained mattresses. How many had died on those miserable and stinking beds so goblins could fulfill their love for gold and worse, how many had died so human monsters could fulfill theirs? I hated the thought. More than ever I wanted to see the place burn.
Thumps and bumps announced something big coming but nothing could have prepared me for the goblin that came down the hallway swinging a mace in his left hand and an evilly curved blade in his right.
“Fuck me,” Annalyce breathed and for once I could not be bothered to make a nasty comment. I just stared. The thing was so tall it had to walk bowed over. Its body was wide enough that it blocked the view of everything behind it and the feet on that thing would have crushed a small city. Plaster sifted down from the ceiling and the floor gave ominous little aftershocks at every step.
“We’re going to die…” I said it and Annalyce nodded. Then I pulled the gun and shot it. Annalyce fired hers and we stood there looking for the entire world like Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp, but the goblin was impervious to it. The bullets bounced off and buried themselves in the walls. A thin high scream, undeniably human, came from behind one and we exchanged looks, dropped the guns and ran at the monster, both of us screaming a prayer at the top of our lungs.
The thing hit me so hard it drove me to my knees. Stars exploded behind my eyes and blood gushed from my nose. My shoulders hit the stinking, cigarette marked carpet and I rolled to one side, came up on one knee and drove my fist into its testes. It yelped and kicked me across the hall like it was kicking an irritating little dog. I struck a wall with my back and fell on my face. I had no breath left, I was gagging and choking with the effort to breathe and through the pain I saw it hit Annalyce with the mace. She went twirling around like a ballet dancer and then crumpled to the floor, her hair spilling around her like an inky veil.
In books rage takes over. In stories the monster hunter gets so pissed at the death of the sidekick, wife, husband or girlfriend that they go insane and kill everything in the place.
In truth, rage will kill you. It makes you stupid, makes you afraid. I got to my feet and set my sights on the goblin, shutting my mind off from everything else. A cloak of total serenity dropped over me. I could see every scabby lump on the thing, every pus filled knot and protruding wart. It was big and it stunk and it was down to the point where it was going to be him or me. I was not willing to die in that damn dump.
Many centuries ago a woman with hair the color of moonlight and a laugh that sounded like clear water running over worn smooth stones loved me and I loved her in return. She had been a woman like no other and the sight of monsters walking had finally driven her to kill herself. I had followed her to Hell and she had told me then why she had done it. She had been killing goblins in secret for years and the burden had become too much. She had had the same sight Annalyce owned and it had driven her mad.
To win her soul back I had agreed to become the hunter. I have a duty and I got to my feet and faced that thing with my eyes and hands steady.
The knives hung out of him and the gun was empty. I spotted the blade the goblin had dropped, ducked under the swinging mace and went for it. Pain exploded in my back and a ripping agony followed. He had hit me with the spike-studded ball and I screamed like a wounded animal, grabbed the blade and came back up with murder on my mind.
The blade went deep. Hot stinking blood gushed out of his throat and the blade made a sickening, sawing sound as it worked through gristle and meat and his head hung sideways for an instant before falling to the floor. The huge body swayed, he took two steps forward and then fell, shuddering on the carpet.
I retrieved my knives and the guns. I turned Annalyce over and sighed when I saw the film over her magnificent grey eyes. In her hand she still clutched the grenade she had meant to blow up the place with. I pitied her and said a prayer for her soul as I went cautiously down the hall to the doors that were still closed.
I kicked the first one in and found nothing but starved terrified whores in various states of undress and hysteria.
“Run” I said wearily and that was all it took, they bolted like deer. I was almost knocked over several times and had to fight back tears as one girl of about twenty stopped, grabbed my hand, pressed it to her colorless lips and whispered, “Thank you,” before fleeing with the rest of them.
The second door held nothing but weapons. Good, I thought grimly as I surveyed the piles of ammo and explosives. From downstairs there came howls and screams and I knew the goblins who had been out had returned and they were likely too worried about what it was their captives were fleeing from to try to recapture them. I stepped into the room, saying a prayer over and over, and thinking of my love down there in Hell and Annalyce out there in the hallway.
“Hey boys,” I said cheerfully and pulled the pin on the grenade.
I dropped the grenade and it rolled across the floor, stopping at a goblin’s feet. He looked down at it, his heavy ridge of brow bone knitted together in confusion as it trembled for a moment and then let out a huge roar. I heard the roar and all the others that came after. Fire flashed and sizzled and I could feel my clothes burning off. I had time to mourn the jacket but then I was flying out of the window, glass slicing and tearing at my skin as I went down.
I woke up with my face ground into gravel and my skin crisp and aching. I raised one arm and saw the band still there. I sat up slowly, looked at the flames and the charred goblin meat lying all around me and considered taking it off, of just revealing the truth I have hidden for so long.
I had to drink goblin blood to see goblins; that is the secret behind my sight. I contain the blood of the very things I hate and fight against, and one day, one day I will lose the fragile protection of that band and I will turn into a goblin. My only hope is that there is someone standing next to me who will love me enough to kill me because one day I will be the very monster that I hunt. But, until that day comes I am going to kill every damn goblin I see.
Angel Propps is a multi-published writer of horror, erotica, and articles on feminism and body image. She’s femme leatherdyke who recently moved to the mountains of North Carolina, where she is writing a novel and editing an anthology of erotica.
In The Dark and Quiet
Josh Reynolds
It was 1923 and Bank Station had been cleared of traffic. It sat still and silent even as above, on Threadneedle Street and in the Bank of England, business continued unabated.
For Charles St. Cyprian, the silence below was more disturbing than the cacophony of London life above. Things waited in the darkness, separated from an unknowing populace only by a few thin layers of stone and soil. And it was one of those things that he was here to confront.
Use Enough Gun (Legends of the Monster Hunter Book 3) Page 26
