Use Enough Gun (Legends of the Monster Hunter Book 3)

by Joshua Reynolds

  Hill held up his free hand remembering the scalding energies raging against his face and hands. His skin was red as if he’d spent an hour too long at the beach, but nothing more. “Are we…?”

  Cyrus shrugged. “I don’t feel dead.”

  “Me either. And if you shrug again, I’m gonna belt you.”

  “The Lord defends those who defend themselves.”

  “Bite me.”

  Cyrus laughed.

  That did raise some interesting questions. Were they healed already when they arrived or had they mended before regaining consciousness? Suppose time itself were affected? Hill turned to face the cabin. “So what—”

  The impact came like a sledgehammer blow.

  Pain erupted from his chest an instant before the sound of cracking bones reached his ears. He struck the ground, rolling on a shoulder, his training almost enough to counter the agony and deposit him in a crouch. Instead he sprawled on hands and knees, gasping to force air into his lungs.

  Cyrus lay unmoving a dozen meters away, near a glossy spire of rock.

  The Glock, halfway between the cabin and Hill, lay propped on its magazine pointing into the demonic sky. Beyond, the wreck of the cabin heaved.

  “You just…” Hill winced from the pain of trying to speak. Deep in his chest he felt movement followed by an audible crunch. He could breathe again. “You just don’t quit, do you?”

  Wooden panels along the cabin’s outer walls quivered like the flanks of a massive beast. A beam split away from the left wall and planted solidly on the ground like a leg. Then another on the right.

  Hill sprinted for the Glock. This had to end.

  The roof cracked down the middle and slid back as the interior of the place thrust upward through the opening. Where a door and a window had been before, a single jagged opening had formed, opening into a growing darkness.

  Hill snatched the weapon from the dirt, pulling back the slide.

  Standing, he sent a few dozen rounds hammering down the thing’s throat in a two-second burst. The transforming cabin didn’t even flinch. He moved the aim of the weapon with his gaze.

  Where now? What were its weaknesses?

  The cabin drug itself toward him on two huge legs, dozens of smaller appendages scrabbling beneath its bulk as it continued to change. He fired a burst at a narrow joint on the left leg. Chunks of wood flew away under the hailstorm of 9mm but the thing hardly faltered. The blasted pieces of wood and dust hovered in the air in places and scuttled across the ground in others, taking on minds of their own.

  The injured leg raised skyward and slammed down like a telephone pole only meters away. Hill jumped back, too slow on the uptake as another beam whipped at him from the other side.

  As the still-forming appendage struck, it split, forming a claw that encircled his waist, biting into his abdomen as it squeezed and lifted. He doubled over like a ragdoll as the cabin whipped him to one side. Hill barely managed to track enough with his eyes and wits to twist as the claw brought him down, no doubt intending to impale him on the spire of rock where Cyrus lay motionless. Only Cyrus was gone.

  The air around him convulsed with heat, deafening him and blurring his vision. The claw around his waist loosened, slivers and splinters falling to the ground below as more vine-like fibers snaked in to replace them. Pain and rage, slippery and wreaking of copper ran down his legs.

  This was it.

  The thought of failure had never occurred to him, until now.

  Amazed the Glock was still in his hand, Hill blasted straight down the maw of the thing as it drew him close. The quaint idyllic structure he and Cyrus had tried to exorcise all those years ago was gone. This abomination intended nothing less than to devour him.

  A wave of strength rushed through him in what he was sure was his body’s final act of defiance. Hill heard his thoughts articulated as raspy words. “You see what it takes to stop me, you bastard?”

  Bullets raked across the beam of the claw, sending more pieces of self-animate wood scrambling toward him along the arm. The slide of the Glock locked in the back position, smoke pouring from its barrel.

  Another explosion shook them, buffeting Hill in the claw’s grasp, the beast staggering to one side. Cyrus screamed but Hill couldn’t make out the words above the ringing in his ears.

  “You see,” spat Hill, blood spraying from his lips. “You see…what it takes just to…stop me?”

  Smoke erupted where droplets of blood struck the cabin’s arm, fibers of wood hissing as they shriveled.

  The stench of wet soil from a thousand graves, festering and rotting, washed over him, a visible mist swelling out of the cabin’s hungry mouth. Sections of what had been the roof and porch twisted, unraveling and reforming into a single articulated limb, pointed at the end like a Medieval lance. Creaks and pops resounded as the cabin pulled back the newly formed weapon for a final, decisive strike.

  Blasts of gunfire now. Cyrus must be out of grenades.

  Splintered sections, blown free, swarmed across him like angry hornets, slicing at his face and arms before dropping away so a fresh wave could replace their fallen comrades.

  Fallen.

  The ground below was littered with chunks of the cabin. Only moments ago, they too had been attacking him. Biting and clawing his skin. Now they were immobile. Fallen because of him.

  Adrenalin surged through Hill, his muscles bulging in the grip of the massive claw.

  “See,” he coughed, “…what you’ve become?”

  Hill reached over his shoulder and pulled free the SOG. His hands were slick with his own blood and the knife was hard to hold firmly, but he did.

  The blade pierced bone easily as he thrust, twisted and pulled.

  A gush of red from his chest shot into the gullet of the beast.

  The roar was deafening, the ground and sky forming a blurred line between his legs. Gunfire and screams were all that remained as the blackness swam up from below.

  “Let me go,” she said. Her voice was a mix of wind chimes and gentle breezes against his skin, a brook whispering over stones outside the temple. “I belong here now.”

  “No, I can bring you back. I know how.” He’d spent two years tracking the chaya oracle who could find her, bring her home. He begged her to come back to him, an incoherent stream of pleas and tears. When he’d finally stopped, his throat raw, she said only three words. “It’s beautiful here.” And she was gone.

  He woke, rocks digging into his back.

  Cyrus knelt over him, dabbing at his chest with a strip of cloth.

  “You take a refresher course I didn’t know about?” His tongue was thick with the taste of copper.

  “Doesn’t matter, anyway,” said Cyrus.

  “You really suck at this. You don’t tell the dying man he’s gonna die, asshole.” Only, he felt pretty good.

  “Some property of this place, I guess,” said Cyrus, tapping his own chest through the tear.

  Hill gingerly touched his chest where he’d plunged the knife. The tissue was thick with scabs that shifted beneath his touch. He shuddered and, for a moment, thought he might puke. Pushing through, he sat up, head swimming. If he was healing, then the cabin—

  Cyrus placed a hand on his shoulder, and pointed into the distance. “Don’t worry.”

  A hundred meters away lay a smoldering heap, a hybrid of debris somewhere between a bombed out house and a rotting whale. It had been amazingly resilient in their world. The same must work in reverse. Hell, they probably didn’t need to worry about the radiation from Pripyat either.

  “Well, I’ll be fu—”

  Cyrus coughed. “I hear you, brother. You and me both.”

  Hill swiped a droplet of thickening blood from his forearm.

  Water was powerful. Oil, more so. But blood.

  He should have known. He kind of already did, he supposed. People always had, in all religions—belief systems, natural and supernatural.

  The sky above slowly turned, lightning
flashing here and there. “What now?”

  Long seconds passed. “We…could look for Elaina.”

  Hill looked up at his partner who kept his own gaze on the horizon. “This place is different, I’ll give you, but I can’t imagine her calling it beautiful.”

  Cyrus nodded. Hands on his hips and elbows thrust out like a freaking superhero, he took a slow lungful of air. The only thing missing from the image was a flapping cape. “Multiple planes, then.”

  “Hell, maybe a different one for everybody.” A different one for everything. Behind them debris continued to smolder. Gouts of brown and orange smoke spewed from the remains, twisting and turning in the air like oil in water. He wrinkled his nose at the smell. A mixture of burning wood and charred flesh.

  He shook his head to clear it and the slosh of blood against the inside of his temples made him immediately sorry. Too many questions. At least the important ones he could put to rest.

  Next to him, Cyrus cleared his throat and made a show of squinting into the horizon. “I don’t know how long the days are here—or if there is a day-night cycle, for that matter—but we should probably establish some sort of shelter.”

  Hill wiped the dust from his eyes. “Cyrus.”

  “Hill.”

  “You know what I hate?”

  “Everything?”

  “Besides that.”

  “What?”

  Pushing to his feet, he swatted dust from his pants. The inverse sky was hard to ignore but he imagined they’d get used to it. They were going to need shelter and food. In the distance knotted trees like skeletal fingers jutted skyward. Those just might make a decent lean-to. “I hate…house hunting.”

  William R.D. Wood lives in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley in an old farmhouse turned backwards to the road. His profound love of horror and science fiction routinely leads him to destroy the world, whether by alien artifact, zombie apocalypse or teddy bear. http://writebrane.blogspot.com.

  The Longest Night

  H. L. Yates

  The darkness soothes me now, even more than before. As far back as I can remember I have preferred the night, but it wasn’t until a year ago that the darkness brought true comfort to me, along with the feeling that I belonged. The belonging I owed to the power, and the power is what feeds my strength, makes me feel alive. The irony is that the night also brings the demons; certain death to almost anyone with whom they cross paths, but not me. Not anymore. The night brings me the power along with its demons, and I feel more alive as a singular thrill comes over me, and all I can think is it’s is time to hunt.

  I have only been a hunter for about a year. Before then, I was a detective, able to see ghosts that others couldn’t and help the murdered bring their killers to justice. One of those cases led to an encounter with a deadly spirit and my barely killing it. To this day, I don’t remember everything that happened in that battle, but as the spirit died, my powers were born and my reality was changed forever.

  The next case I had was the first time I got to use those powers, although I still did not know what I was doing. I was in Ireland investigating a murder with my partner, Michael. In an overlooked video I was able to see a kelpie when no one else could, leading me to a lake and to the kelpie that had Michael trapped in its seductive gaze. The creature did not recognise me for what I was, and projected an illusion that I could easily see through. When it realised that the illusion failed, it attacked me in a flash. The fight was short, and the spirit would have easily devoured me had I not had the power surge through me. As I threw out a hand and touched the kelpie, the power burst through my fingers, dissolving the demon horse into a pile of rotting flesh.

  That is when I discovered that the power of death lay literally within my fingertips.

  Since that night, I’ve become a hunter. This is a good thing, really, because over the last year there have been a great many strange goings-on here in Ravenbrooke. This place seems to revel in its reputation as a town of bad omens, and I have met my share.

  Some need only taste the steel of my twin tantō blades before they fall (and yes, I guess I could use a gun, but my mentor Yuji reminds me that they are loud and believes that the best hunters are quiet before, during and after they take their prey. I listen to Yuji because to tackle the beasts, I have to be the best hunter that I can be…) but the dangerous demons can only be killed by the power.

  Over the last few weeks, there have been corpses. They bear strange marks along their necks and arms, and have had all of their blood drained. This trail of corpses seemed to be pointing north, and every day that passed I expected Yuji to appear and send me into battle, but he remained absent. My anticipation grew almost unbearable until the moment came and my mobile phone beside me rang.

  “There’s another creature, Ash,” Yuji said in a flat tone. He was never one to greet someone on the phone. Well, he doesn’t greet me anyway.

  I sat up, “Where?”

  “In the park, lurking and waiting.”

  “What is it?”

  “I believe that you are about to encounter your first vampire.”

  That’s all I needed to hear. I don’t think I could have gotten changed any faster. Maybe it’s pure vanity but I don’t think I should go out in what could end up being a monster bloodbath wearing in just any old clothes—jogging pants and a hoodie were not going to cut it. To think like a hunter, you have to dress like one, and I know it sounds very ritualistic but I like to dress in black when I hunt. Fingerless leather gloves, boots, jeans, vest, jacket, even my weapons-belt is black.

  My hair, almost metallic silver, does break up the look a bit. I used to be a brunette but let’s just say that all battles leave scars, and my hair was one of the first things to turn. It’s the same with my eyes; my irises are so dark that they look like very large pupils, which freaks some people out, but that’s another feature I did not get to choose, so I have to live with it. At least the mark on my right arm looks like a tattoo. It was unnoticeably faint until I started on my path of monster hunting. Now, each time I use the power, the mark becomes darker. According to Yuji, it is the Japanese kanji symbol for Anya, which apparently means dark night. It couldn’t be more appropriate.

  I grabbed my keys and fled out of the bedsit. I ride a moped; it’s my baby. The park wasn’t too far away but it’s a good thing to be driving something fast as not every demon or monster chooses to stand and fight while you try to kill them. I parked behind a cluster of trees and found Yuji crouched in a place where he could observe the playground. I’ve known him for over a year and I am still not used to the unearthly stillness he achieves when he concentrates on something. But I shouldn’t be surprised, as he only looks human.

  Behind the human disguise, Yuji is a Shinigami—a Japanese god of death. He has existed longer than mortals can really comprehend and historians and religious fanatics would sell their souls to know what he had seen. I suspect more than a few have tried over the years. However, as he resides within a mortal body, he cannot employ most of his god-like abilities, one of which is to kill monsters. He says he that he must take this form to train me. He also says that while he himself cannot do battle, I get to do all of the dirty work. Lucky me.

  As I crouched next to him, he gazed at me with eyes that are even darker than mine and smiled, “You were fast.”

  “Is it still here?”

  He nodded and pointed, “There.”

  I looked and my eyes must have lit up when I spotted a wing-shaped silhouette on top of a swing-set. I guessed that it was invisible to the normal eye or it would be very stupid to expose its self so easily.

  “What do you reckon it is?”

  “It is hard to say as I have only seen it as a silhouette. Be careful. That is all I can suggest.” I started to stand but he grabbed hold of my wrist and said sternly, “Not yet.”

  “But it’s right there, Yuji!” I insisted, “I can be quiet. I can get it!”

  “Wait!” He demanded, gripping onto my wrist tighter
.

  I realised what he was waiting for and I glared daggers at him, “You’re waiting for some poor soul to come along and act as bait, aren’t you?”

  He stared me down, well tried to at least, “Sacrifices often have to be made. You know that.”

  I scoffed, “But sometimes they can be avoided.”

  “A hunter must know when to reveal their presence, and when not to. Wait…”

  I never had a chance to retort as drunken singing filled the night and a young woman staggered into view. She wore a ridiculously short skirt, a tiny top, and heels that were so high there should have been a warning label about vertigo written on them.

  The creature didn’t waste any time as it leapt on top of the poor girl, pinning her to the ground and crouching like an animal about to feast on its prey.

  I ran, pulling my blades free as I moved. I could hear the women making sounds like a baby kitten, and I didn’t know exactly what I was going to do to kill this creature—I just knew I had to stop it.

  I was almost on top of it when it turned and snarled at me. Blood-shot eyes glared at me as it jumped off of the woman and swiped at me, knocking me against the swing frame. I weakly put a hand to my head and felt blood seep onto my fingers. That was all I could do before I was picked up and flung across the playground further than a rugby player could throw a ball.

  I landed on my back and it was as painful as hell. I should have suffered broken bones and maybe even severe brain damage, but months ago I suspected that I wasn’t entirely human anymore, and even though my legs were shaking, I was able to stand. I held a tantō blade in each fist.

  The creature leapt towards me, wings larger than its entire body blocking out the night sky. It was then I noticed it had no legs—it was literally half of a creature, and naked at that. I guessed it was a female due to the size of its bosom, but evil knows no gender. A small and ugly red shell hung around its neck. That was all I could take in before it was on top of me, clawed hands digging into my sides.