* * *
The Microtel campus was a set of beautiful buildings set in a parklike area in Redmond. All glass and chrome, surrounded by tree-covered mountains, working in the offices must have been a real treat.
The Quality Control department was deep in the bowels of a secondary building. We had to go down three flights of stairs. Even if we’d use one under the circumstances there was no elevator. Between the flickering fluorescent lights on the landings, half of which were out, and a strange smell that was half chemical, half decomposition, it was a creepy and eerie place before we even got to the demons.
“I guess that’s the demon smell?” I asked. New guy and all. “And they’re futzing with the lighting?”
“Nah,” Jesse said. “I used to have a buddy who worked here. This is what it’s always like.”
“He get a new job?” I asked as we got to the door at the bottom. It was built like a bank-vault door.
“Some sort of trans-dimensional portal opened up while he was testing a new piece of software. He sank halfway into the floor before it closed. Horrible way to go.”
“Microtel QC has the highest death rate of any job in the nation,” Brad said. “Not that you’re going to find that in any open report. Between the supernatural outbreaks, suicides…”
“That one accountant who killed ten coworkers with a letter opener…”
Brad keyed in the code for the door and it opened with a long, eerie, creak.
“Well, that’ll tell ’em we’re here,” Jesse said.
There was a secondary door after that one, a set-up called a “man-trap.” You couldn’t open the second one until the first one closed. In addition, it had an electronic locking bar across it on our side. It had been locked from this side to prevent anything, or anyone, from getting out. Probably by remote.
On the wall of the mantrap was a motivational poster of piles of seeds. There was a large pile of what must have been tiny mixed seeds, that looked nearly identical, and two smaller piles of them separated.
The caption read:
“At Microtel, Quality Control is our number one concern.”
There was a small window looking into the far room. There was a smeared red hand-print on the window and splatters of blood.
We all crowded into what was for all intents and purposes an airlock, closed the outer door and opened the inner. Another long creak.
As the door opened there was a scuttling sound like large spiders and a cackle of unearthly laughter. We’d found our targets.
Microtel QC’s offices were a large room absolutely packed with computers and monitors. There were no cubicles. Just battered and broken chairs in a dozen different styles, most of them looked like dining room chairs that had been picked up second hand, and four banks of tables consisting of raw plywood on trestles that ran from end to end of the long room. The computers were packed cheek-by-jowl into the room so that the occupants must have had to sit shoulder to shoulder to use them. The tables were packed closely enough you could have barely gotten out of your chair.
There had been several people in the room. Now they were splashed in every direction. Heads and limbs were everywhere. Ripped apart torsos littered the floor and tables, guts stretched around the room like a cat’s cradle. It looked like a bomb had gone off.
The air was close and thick between the smell of blood and shit and the awful chemical/ decomposition reek. The blood on the malfunctioning fluorescent lights cast the room in a red glow. Every single monitor was showing a weird flickering blue screen covered in cryptic, eldritch codes. The combination of the malefic colors created a sickening, lambent purple that gnawed at the very soul.
“Looks pretty much like the last time I was here,” Brad said, thoughtfully.
“Oh, God,” Jesse said, breathing shakily. “Not the blue screen of death. Not that again.”
There was another scuttling noise and something darted from one table to the next.
“Target!” I yelled, firing a round of buckshot at the creature.
There was a screech as the silver buckshot tagged the creature but didn’t stop it. It darted out of sight.
“What the hell is it this time?” Jesse asked.
“Probably something we’re going to have to update the PUFF table again. You know you can never know what’s going to emerge from the blue screen of death.”
As Brad said that it happened. A creature began pulling itself out of one of the monitors. First two green clawed hands appeared. Then bat ears. Then, between the bat ears and on top of the skull, four large multifaceted purple eyes. A mouth surrounded by tentacles. Hairs that writhed like snakes. A body like a twisted, four-armed, baboon.
It hissed at us then stuck two of its four thumbs into its bat ears and waggled its fingers and spare thumbs at us, cackling in a mad, high tone.
“Cridex!” It squealed at us. “Gamification! Apness! Apness! APNESS!”
“Eat holy water!” Jesse yelled.
As the holy water hit the creature it began to smoke and let out a long scream.
“CAPTCHA! BizDee! BizDee! NewPig!” it wailed.
I shot it in the face with the shotgun. One of the purple eyes deflated and released a gray smoke. The screen shattered and it was caught in the middle, its body sticking half out like Jesse’s late friend, continually screeching in whatever eldritch tongue it was speaking. I blasted it two more times and it finally whimpered into silence.
“Ray-boot,” it whimpered as it died. “Ray-boot, by-ossse…”
The body deliquesced into a foul gray-green ichor and dripped down the now smashed computer monitor.
“Okay, good,” Brad said. “These aren’t so tough. Better than that slime demon that crawled out the last time. I thought we’d never kill that thing.”
I reloaded, turned on the Maglite taped to my Winchester 1200 and squatted down to flash the light under the tables. There were more intestines stretched around underneath like some crazed gut-web. I saw another of the things scuttling and fired at it. Between the chairs, the trestles and the guts, most of the pellets ricocheted away.
“Watch your fire,” Brad said, considering the room. “Let’s just turn the tables over. Jesse, get ready to soak them.”
“On it.”
Brad gestured at the first table and squatted to cover me. With a heave the table turned over, computers and monitors hitting the floor in an electronics cascade.
Jesse splashed it. There was a screech from one of the demons then a couple of shotgun blasts.
“That’s two,” Brad said.
As I went to the next table, one of the demons scuttled out and dove into a screen. I could see it emerge further down the way as if instantly transporting through the screen.
“That’s new,” Brad said, thoughtfully. “And it’s going to be a problem. I think the first thing we’re going to have to do is shoot all the monitors.”
“Works for me,” I said, hefting my Winchester.
For the next few minutes as Jesse covered us with the sprayer, Brad and I carefully targeted and blasted every single blue screen of death in the big room. It seemed like an awful waste of silver ammo but given it was the blue screen of death you could never be too sure.
“I wonder how these things react to fire?” I asked.
“Toss a Willie P and let’s find out.”
I threw a white phosphorus grenade towards the end of the room and was rewarded with shrieks. Two of the demons jumped up on a far table, batting at the phosphorus covering their blasphemous green pelts. Brad and I both opened up on them and turned them into demon-offal.
Suddenly one charged out from under a table, screaming a terrible eldritch war cry.
“KATMAI! KATMAI! KATMAI!” it gibbered, its claws raised and squamous face-tentacles writhing.
Jesse hit it in the face with holy water and I followed up with two rounds of buckshot. The thing popped like a balloon and covered us in ichor.
Another jumped on a table and leapt through the
air at me.
“Pee-bee-yahb! Jee-Cur! Jee-Cur!”
It was too close to shoot. I let go of the Winchester and Sword of Mourning flashed through the air, slicing the fetid beast in twain. The rent asunder upper half still landed on me and face tentacles writhed on my chest as the beasts remaining claw scrabbled at my combat vest.
“Dee-ban…” it croaked at me, its hideous breath whistling in my face. Its gibbous eyes were mere inches from my own. “Deee…”
It finally, mercifully, died and deliquesced. Ichor dripped down the front of my combat suit.
“Guess that sword really does have a purpose,” Brad commented.
“Christ, these things don’t half stink, do they?” I said.
I flicked the sword to remove the ichor then pulled a white silk cloth from a pocket on my vest and wiped it down. The blade cleaned, I removed another silk cloth from a small pouch on the left, rear of my vest and carefully reannointed the sword in oil blessed by the Rabbis of Jerusalem at the Wailing Wall. There must have been faint remaining traces of the demon’s ichor on the blade since the holy oil hissed slightly as I oiled the sword. Last I resheathed it and hefted my Winchester.
“Takes forever to get that shit out of your gear,” Jesse said.
It took about an hour of careful clearance to get the last of the demons. They were neither big nor tough but they were wily and very nimble. Between the guts everywhere, the packed chairs and tables and the unholy lighting it was just a bug-hunt. Other than the one that had landed on me, the closest shave we had was one that managed to add another scar to Brad’s face.
The last demon was cornered in the back of the room by herding it with squirts of holy water. It tried to hide under a table from our fire but Brad and I just kept pouring twelve gauge into the area until it died.
By the time we were done we were all covered in ichor, blood and less recognizable remnants of the poor souls in the QC department. We did one more sweep, turning over tables, stumbling on chair legs and sliding in guts, until we were sure the large room was completely clear of the blue screen demons.
“I’m starting to get the gut crawl in training,” I said as we went back out through the man-trap. “I’m glad we don’t have to clean this up. Cleaning our gear is going to be bad enough.”
We’d taken samples of each of the demon’s ichor remains as well as Polaroids of partial demons that hadn’t deliquesced yet to turn in for the PUFF. Whatever the PUFF on this one might be.
“Microtel has a forensics cleaning company on contract as well,” Brad said. “By tomorrow this will look like it never happened and HR will have the place full of ignorant demon fodder again.”
“How often does this happen?” I asked.
“Oh, every few months they have something,” Jesse said. “Definitely our number one client.”
I swore then and there to never buy Microtel stock. There was no way that fucked up company was ever going to last.
In retrospect…Bad call financially. Spiritually, probably the right decision.
We got the PUFF report a few months later. The entities were categorized as imps. Based on the casualties and our report on their toughness they were worth eight grand apiece. Twenty-six times eight, not bad for a couple hour’s work.
It was not the last time I visited Microtel. They really were our best customer.
They still suck.
CHAPTER 9
Pro-tip of this chapter is this: Trolls aren’t as dumb as you think.
Trolls are a lot like my brother. They’re big, mean, nasty, extremely violent and also very smart. They are aware of human literature, to be exact. At least that literature that relates to trolls.
And they do not appreciate billy-goat jokes.
I was in the University library, nose deep in a book on Japanese mythology, when my pager went off. I checked the LED readout and it was a 911 call. And it’s off on another hunt.
I had a five minute walk to my apartment where my car was parked. The apartment complex had fenced parking so I’d taken the chance on leaving my stuff in the car trunk. I picked up my radiophone and called the office.
“This is Chad.”
“We got a call from Spokane,” Lucius said. “Sounds like trolls. Meet at the office. We’ll take the van.”
“On my way.” I was hoping it this was a real call. We’d had our fair share of false alarms and the last good PUFF bounty we’d gotten was the blue-screen demons at Microtel. Hunters can sometimes go months between bounties, which was why the company did the profit sharing thing, to keep us from wandering off to find normal jobs.
Drive to the office, move my bags and cases to the van. Draw straws for who was driving. I got a long straw, picked a seat towards the back.
Normally, that would be the point where I’d pass out. This time I decided to stay awake and enjoy the ride.
I really love the Northwest. I don’t like the politics but the girls are hot, the food is good and the scenery is first rate.
We took the 405 to 90 and headed up, up, up into the Cascades. The scenery was really gorgeous the whole way. Towering, tree-covered mountains, occasional glimpses of Mount Rainier. The day was overcast, it was the Pacific Northwest after all, but for a change it wasn’t raining. Really nice day.
Once you pass Keechelus Lake the environment starts to slowly dry out. When you get to Cle Elum it changes abruptly and you’re on the dry side of the range. It seems like one moment you’re in temperate rain-forest and the next you’re in a desert.
The back side of the range, though, is heavily farmed with lots of irrigation courtesy of all the rain and snow in the mountains. By Ellensburg it’s like the only green you see is irrigated fields. Everything else is dry, sere and brown. Even the trees feel stunted compared to the soaring furs just an hour back in the mountains.
Past Moses Lake even the irrigation gives out and you might as well be driving in Wyoming. You’ve suddenly gone from green-clad, soaring mountains to brown, arid plains. It’s a really odd transition.
By Spokane the green is starting to return. The Coeur D’Alene mountains beyond Spokane, if not the Cascades, are still green and fertile. The bit in the middle, though, is unsettling.
Spokane is a low, sprawling city. It has a few tall office buildings but mostly it’s five or six story, max, and the majority is just a couple. With plenty of room it just sprawls rather than going up like Seattle or New York. And while the green is starting to return, it’s mostly still arid. Yards are watered but everywhere else is about as dry as Salt Lake. Abandoned lots run to tough, arid grasses and weeds. I even saw a few tumbleweeds.
The troll problem was located in a construction area. An old building was being torn down to make way for, you guessed it, a parking deck. Apparently there’d been a nest of trolls in the basement of the structure for who knows how long. The old building had housed various businesses over the years. There were rumors for years it was “haunted” and stuff, and people sometimes mysteriously vanishing.
It would be nice to give some general tips to the public. Things like: If you’ve got a persistent petty theft problem and employees occasionally just up and disappear, you might want to check your basement for trolls.
Just saying.
The demolition crew had gotten the upper floors demolished and were working on the lower when two of them disappeared into a hole. The foreman, figuring they were malingering, went in to find them. And disappeared. At that point the cops were called. Two officers went into the hole, there was a sound of gunshots and screaming and…We got called. One of the workers had gotten a glimpse of something big, gray-green and rubbery. Ergo: trolls. Hopefully.
We pulled into the construction area and started clambering out. Two guys in suits immediately button-holed Doctor Nelson, Joan, and started haranguing her. I tuned it out as usual and just started suiting up.
“I thought trolls hid under bridges,” I said to Phil.
“They used to in the old days.” He was checkin
g his incendiary ordnance. “Because bridges were good shelter and they could steal stuff from passersby. These days, you find them everywhere but mostly underground.”
“They aren’t turned to stone by sunlight but they’re somewhat photosensitive,” I said, recalling my training. “Tough, strong, regenerate like mad. Fire’s the best choice.”
“Yup,” Louis said, pulling out the flame-thrower. “Kill them with fire! It’s the only way to be sure.”
“No flamethrowers,” Doctor Nelson said, her face pinched. “Minimal use of incendiaries.”
“What?” Phil said, frowning. “They’re trolls. Trolls, fire.”
“The event has so far been ‘maintained,’” Doctor Nelson said, starting to strip down to her underclothes to put on her gear. “MCB said they don’t want any fires, flames or explosions bringing attention to the incident.”
“So let them go in there with nothing but small arms!” Phil said. “I’ve got a ten pound thermite satchel charge all ready to go!”
I loved how Phil’s mind worked.
“Maybe we should just send Chad in there with his sword?” Louis asked. “That will keep the incident sort of quiet.”
“I’m up for that.”
“You’ve never actually fought trolls, Chad,” Doctor Nelson said, exasperated. “Bring the flamethrower over to the entrance and definitely bring the satchel charges. I told them we’d try to be discreet but I’m not taking casualties just to satisfy the MCB. I did point out that there was, at least, going to be a good bit of gunfire. They asked if we could use only silenced weapons and I told them to stuff it.”
I switched out my frag grenades for a couple of thermite instead. Two WP, two thermite. That would hopefully do the trick.
“Any sort of a count?” Brad asked.
Up to that point, Brad hadn’t said anything at all. Just kept getting his gear ready.
“Not a good one,” Doctor Nelson said. “At least two but could be any number from there up.”
I drew Mo No Ken and carefully oiled the blade again. I sharpened her at least once a day on silk. I was pretty sure she’d go through a troll’s neck like butter. Of course, that didn’t kill them. The only way you could kill them was burning. Wasn’t sure what we were going to do about that.
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