I Kill Monsters

by Dennis Liggio

  - E

  There was a map attached to the email. It detailed a path deep down into the bowels of New Avalon. It wasn't an area I was very familiar with. The map's path went through the sewers, into some older train tunnels, and then twisted into disused sections in the northeast portion of the city. This wasn't one manhole cover from the surface, this was down through a maze of desolation. When we've needed to, we've gone into such places, but we didn't go so deep routinely. Generally if it's that far from where people actually went, we didn't worry about clearing it out. We kill monsters, but our main focus is doing it to protect people. Despite many things we might say when feeling boastful or drunk, we don't usually go looking for a fight.

  Normally, I'd be the first to call bullshit on this. Not that we have really any human enemies, but it sounded like a trap. They were asking us to go to some pre-chosen location we didn't know in a very remote area without even really telling us why. I'd ignore it entirely if it hadn't mentioned Jessica.

  Mikkel echoed my opinion.

  "It's bullshit," he said over the phone. "Utter bullshit."

  I had gone downstairs to the sidewalk outside the office door and lit up a cigarette before calling him.

  "Yes, that's what I thought," I said, taking a drag, "but it's a lead on Jessica."

  "Maybe," said Mikkel. "It mentions her and that's about it. I'm not sure if this is a lead or somebody fucking with us. It could be a trap."

  "That's a chance we need to take," I said. "We need to find her."

  "Maybe," said Mikkel. "Remember, we're monster hunters, not kidnap rescuers... or whatever the term is for that. Do you really think she's in some tunnel somewhere? Unless that's a mad scientist lair, I doubt they're keeping her there."

  "No... but this E claims they'll give us information if we go. That could help us find her."

  "But rescuing her from... whoever those soldiers were is not our job," said Mikkel.

  "Fuck our job, we need to save Jessica!"

  "Wow, you sleep with a girl one time and you get all attached..."

  I bristled at the implication. "Hey, you want to get paid, don't you? We find her, we can get paid. Rich people money, remember? You were excited about that."

  "That's true, but I want to be alive to spend it," said Mikkel. "That precludes fatal traps. And this sounds like a trap." He paused. "I'll admit that I am intrigued. But it's risky. What if we get down there and it's a bunch of revenants waiting for us? Or something worse?"

  "Then we go in armed and cautious," I said.

  "We don't even know what we'd be fighting," he said. "We can't prepare for shit. That's our edge - advance preparation. In this case, we'd be going into the depths of who knows where to see who knows what on the instructions of who the fuck knows. Those are not good odds."

  "So what? We're just going to abandon a lead?"

  "I'm not saying that... Shit, I don't know what we should do. This is trouble. It doesn't matter if it's on the level and a lead on Jessica. It's trouble, mark my words. As much as I would have loved to get paid, this Jessica situation is way bigger than us. We're out of our depth. Our advantage is in situations we can control. We can't control this one, Szandor. And it's going to fuck us. Just think about those commandos... shit, man. We are not prepared for that. I'm not sure how we would be."

  "So that's it? We're going to walk away?" I said. "Sorry, Jessica, we hope someone else helps you out, but see you later?"

  "I'm not happy about it," said Mikkel. "But this anonymous map seems like it's going to fuck us. And even if she did employ us to stop monsters, we did that. You rescued her. Whatever is happening now is not us; it's not monsters. If we do this, it's going to bite us in the ass."

  Mikkel was right. I knew that. The risk was high, the likelihood of payoff was low, and we were leaving our comfort zone. We weren't kidnapping rescue specialists. We kill monsters and those commandos weren't monsters, even if they seemed to strangely seize all the ghouls. Mikkel was right.

  Unfortunately, I was the asshole among us this day. I'm not why I was so attached to saving Jessica. Maybe Mikkel was right and it was the sex. Maybe it was a personal slight when someone I was protecting was yanked out of my own apartment. Maybe it was everyone seeing me in my boxers. And maybe it's a White Knight complex my ex accused me of. But I couldn't let it go. It didn't help that I was still exhausted and the argument with Yasmin was still fresh. I was angry for all the wrong reasons. And that meant being an asshole.

  Mikkel and I are not great human beings We fight monsters and try to do the right thing, but we're still two young guys that have had arguably shitty lives. Dad walked out, mother dead, didn't get that bike we wanted for Christmas when we were eight shitty. We both have anger issues. We both have been known to be jerks. But more importantly, we both had buttons to push. And I had enough issues that I was going to push my brother's buttons to get what I want.

  Ain't family grand?

  "I didn't realize you'd be such a pussy about it," I said.

  "What? Now wait a second..."

  "I mean, you're always talking about how brave you are and shit. How we always take care of the shit that needs to be done. But if you think it's going to be too much, I guess we could call in some backup. Now that I think about it, I bet we could convince Paulie and Meat to come along. It'd be like some weak Call."

  "What the fuck man?"

  "No, it's perfect," I said. "Knowing the right thing to do but thinking it's not the right thing to do? That's right up Paulie's alley. He would totally respect it. You wanna be like Paulie? You two could be BFFs, sitting at home, writing conspiracy theories, ignoring the cries of people who need help. I can just see it now..."

  "Shut the fuck up, Sandy."

  "I mean, if you want to stay home, I can call Paulie right now and tell him you two are going on a man-date tonight."

  "Fuck off, man. That's not cool."

  "You know what isn't cool?" I said. "Having our client kidnapped right in front of us and having no leads except one we won't take. I mean, shit, what if the only lead on Mom would have been down there?"

  "Fuck, goddammit, Szandor!" I could tell by his voice how pissed he was. I think I may have heard him kick or throw something on the other end. I'm glad he didn't have a dog or cat to kick. "I get your damn point, you don't have to bring Mom into it. Jesus, Sandy, what's wrong with you?"

  I admit I may have overstepped the boundaries there. Mom's a touchy subject for both of us. If he had brought her up like that to me, I would have punched him in the face. I'm the more hotheaded one of the two of us - but that doesn't mean he doesn't get angry. I may still have had a punch coming to me the next time I saw him.

  "I'm sorry," I said, backpeddling. "I got a little worked up. I think we need to do this. I think it's the right thing."

  "Maybe it is, but goddamn it, Szandor!" He paused a few moments - I didn't have any response either, so the silence hung between us. When he spoke again, his voice was less agitated. "Okay, I'll do it. We'll see what is going on there at 10pm tonight. I think it's a bad idea, but clearly it matters to you. But you need to chill the fuck out. You do not bring up Mom just to get your way. You hear me? That is not cool and being my brother is not enough to save you next time you pull that shit. Got it?"

  "Yes," I said.

  "And mentioning Paulie was a little below the belt," he said.

  "I wonder if he knows that comparisons to him are our below-the-belt."

  Mikkel chuckled, breaking more of the tension. "Probably not. And right now, before we do any planning, I want to go on the record that this is a terrible idea. We're going to be led down into some dark tunnels and fucked in some dark corner. I guarantee it."

  "W-what?"

  "It's metaphorical," he said. "A metaphorical guarantee. Not literally fucked in a corner. But we're going to be screwed pretty bad. Metaphorically."

  "Metaphorically, that's frightening."

  "That's the magnitude of bad idea this is," said
Mikkel. "I'm doing it as a favor for you, brother, so appreciate it. And if I die, I'm holding this against you. I'll haunt you from the grave if I have to."

  "Are you going to just hang around and go, 'wooooo, I'm Mikkel and I'm a pussy who got killed'? Because that won't be very scary."

  "I'll haunt you enough that you won't get laid again," he said. "I'll make sure of that."

  "Okay, now that is scary," I said.

  "Then don't get me killed."

  Working in the Coal Mine

  The rest of my day scraped by as I both looked forward to and dreaded our evening excursion. There was a Cold War going on in the aisle between Yasmin and I. We didn't speak, but there was a palpable strangeness between us that both Steve and Leesa remarked about loudly. Neither I nor Yasmin rose to this bait. I'm not sure if we were both too proud or too angry, but neither of us said anything for the rest of the day and we managed to exit the building without seeing each other.

  I returned to Mikkel's apartment to find him gone. I had a key, so that wasn't a big deal. Since he didn't go out that often, especially not at rush hour with a van, I assumed he was either out with Jillian or avoiding me. After our conversation earlier and my current realization/remorse that maybe I had acted like an ass, I was fine with delaying our next conversation. Since I was also exhausted and we had a few hours before we needed to set out, I took a nap on the couch. I barely remember laying down before I was out.

  I awoke to the sound of bad singing barely muffled by a closed door. As I became conscious, I realized it was backed by also-muffled recorded music, but it was the singing that really got me. I realized it was Mikkel in his bedroom singing along to Weezer's The Greatest Man That Ever Lived. Even with the door closed, his voice still seeped through into the living room to sound like a chain smoking frog. His normal voice wasn't raspy at all, but give him an opportunity to sing and suddenly everything was in the key of toad.

  Next were a few zombie-like minutes where I groped around his kitchen for the ingredients to make coffee. While it brewed I lit up a cigarette. Since Jillian was not around - no doubt told not to show up by Mikkel due to our upcoming date with danger - the apartment was a free-to-smoke zone. Mikkel's girlfriends invariably objected to smoking in his apartment, even those that smoked themselves. But when they were gone, it was open game to blacken up our lungs and stomachs with cigarettes and coffee, the perfect fuel for late night monster escapades.

  On the kitchen table I noticed our makeshift maps of the sewers and tunnels laid out. I guess Mikkel was cross referencing them with the map we were emailed while I slept. If we were someone like Paulie, we would have our limited maps drawn up in a 3D schematic program. At best we had printouts from Paulie which we then had drawn over and added to with our own handwriting. The sewer and train tunnels were a huge labyrinth, but having parts of them disused, retired, or falling apart meant keeping maps updated was a full time hobby.

  When Mikkel came out of the bedroom, I was on my second cigarette and first cup of coffee. He didn't really look at me, but he vaguely acknowledged my presence with a grunt. Okay, probably still mad at me. He walked over to the maps.

  "I've been looking these over," he said. "The stranger's map had us enter the sewers at Midtown, then walk for a while in the sewers before switching into a branch of the train tunnels to reach the destination. Based on our own maps, we should be able to go underground over here by the river, get directly into the tunnels by a maintenance hatch, and skip the sewers entirely."

  "You know I'm all for less sewer time," I said. "I hate that smell, even with masks. But are we going to miss anything? How recent is that part of the map? I don't want to be late because of a cave in."

  "Two months," said Mikkel, running his finger over the handwritten note on that section. "I'll take that risk. But you know I'm also completely okay with missing this rendezvous."

  I let that slide without comment. "Unless there was some breadcrumb trail on their original route, I say we go for the short cut. Fuck that E. We're already following blind errands. We're not doing extra work in addition to that if we don't have to."

  Mikkel nodded and grabbed his boots. No other conversation. I finished my coffee and we grabbed the van. Our weapon-laden, non descript, monster-killing, not-a-serial-killer van was our greatest resource on many jobs. It should have everything we needed... if we could afford it. As we drove to the tunnel entrance, we vaguely talked over the gear we needed. Not knowing what we were going to face down there meant we wanted to stay versatile. We didn't want to be stuck with the wrong gear. Think of it this way, if we were fighting werewolves, we didn't want to be stuck with wooden stakes, and if we were fighting classical vamps, we didn't want to be carrying only silver bullets[31]. The email from the mysterious E seemed to think we wouldn't need to fight, but I wasn't going to just accept that as true. Especially if this was the trap we feared, we wanted to be geared up.

  Gear-wise, the first order of business were easily cleanable jumpsuits and masks with carbon rebreathers. Besides the thick fabric protection of the jumpsuits, a long walk in underground places unknown pretty much required these two items. The train tunnels were not as bad as the sewers, but there was still an odd smell. The masks and jumpsuits were more precautionary. First, if our route unexpectedly took us back to the sewers, we wanted to be prepared. Second, the train tunnels were in parts falling apart. We didn't want a lung full of asbestos or something else dangerous.

  We loaded down our backpacks with as much illumination as anything else. Extra flares, flashlights, attachable headlamps, clippable LED lights. Next was the highlight of our collection. One day a mysterious package showed up at Mikkel's address. Inside it was a note saying just, "From a Fan." Within we found two pairs of goggles made of Avalon Brass. The lenses were green. With that amount of Avalon Brass, they must have been expensive. We found that these goggles provided us night vision, even in some of the lowest light areas. We could see pretty clearly, the darkness tinted green. They were a trade off from professional night vision gear: being made of Avalon Brass made them very light compared to professional goggles, but the disadvantage was our sight range was much shorter. They were far enough to be perfect for underground lurking, but I wouldn't use these for sniping or wide open outdoor spaces. We let these goggles hang around our necks, ready to use, but preferring to depend on real light whenever possible.

  We also grabbed a coil of rope, climbing hooks, two MREs, canteens, GPS trackers that would probably be completely ineffectual underground, and a first aid kit. This sounds like not only a lot of weight, but also like anyone could hear us coming from a mile away. However, we had modded our backpacks with enough straps, velcro, and tape that everything fit nicely and didn't jangle around banging against each other like homeless prospectors. We had done this before and had strong backs for all the crap we carried.

  I was armed with my standard Who Knows What The Fuck We're Fighting loadout: lead pipe, machete, and wooden bat with nails jammed into it. I don't think the nails did much, but I just liked the look of the bat - it looked menacing. Mikkel brought his katana, a police baton that he had taken from an actual police officer, and a very useful crowbar. He really wanted to bring his war hammer, the Foehammer, but it was just too heavy to take when we'd probably be walking a long way.

  We parked the van by the river. We found a drainage gate we had used before. It doubled its usefulness by draining water down and letting steam move upward from the tunnels. Mikkel used the crowbar to pry off the gate and I lowered the rope. There were some maintenance handholds, but last time I had slipped off a broken one and bruised my coccyx, so I was going down the rope this time.

  The New Avalon train tunnels have seen better days. Due to the decline in mining operations and a few explosion-related collapses, there were large sections of the train tunnels which were closed as the subway system didn't need them. We hesitantly sniffed the air, wondering if it was foul enough to need our masks. It seemed okay here, which is w
hat we expected so close to our entrance. We'd probably need them later if we got to the dangerously disused parts, but for now, we filled our lungs with musty air. This was a remote access tunnel for a still operating section of the trains, so while it had cobwebs and dust, it was mostly in good repair. The rumbling roar of a train through a not too far off tunnel was oddly comforting.

  Mikkel was still mad at me. Yes, he had agreed to come with me, yes, he hadn't punched me, and yes, he wasn't actively avoiding me, but he was a little cool to me. Normally, I'm a big boy and can handle minor estrangement from friends and family, but when you're walking for far too long underground, you want someone you can bullshit with even a little bit. But no, Mikkel, was silent as stone unless it pertained to the job. So I was even more bored out of my skull. Whatever this mysterious "E" was showing us, it had better be worth it.

  Even with our shortcut, it was still about an hour until, we had finally made it into the vicinity of the map's destination. We were pretty far northeast in the tunnels. I couldn't tell if we had possibly gone under the river and were closer to the mines or if we were still in the main part of New Avalon. I could tell that this area in particular was disused by the train and city workers. Unfortunately, it wasn't entirely empty.

  I shined the flashlight down on a footprint in the dust. It wasn't a boot. It was barefoot.

  "Ghouls," said Mikkel.

  I nodded glumly. "Let's try out these night vision goggles."

  We pulled on the goggles and clicked off our lights. The world was now in shades of green. Looking more like badasses with our goggles, we continued forward. Before we had been just walking. Since we had ghoul tracks, it was show time. Now we moved into stealth mode. If E wanted us to see something, getting waylaid by ghouls probably wouldn't help.

  We almost missed our final turn. What appeared as junction on the map was instead a broken hole in the wall. I would have loved something like look for the hole in the wall in the instructions, but no such luck. Inside the hole, the broken ground immediately went upward at a rather steep grade and the walls were close together. We had to go single file, scrambling up broken masonry.