At the top of the winding and slanted tunnel, it opened into a small alcove. It was wide enough for maybe both of us lying down, which helped, since it was not tall enough to stand without crouching. The long side of the alcove had a long opening, almost like a window with light flickering through it. We leaned away from that window while we hunkered down so we wouldn't signal our presence to whoever might have the light. Before we looked out the window, we looked down at the floor of the alcove to see a small bit of fluorescent spray paint in an X. Next to that was an envelope. We soon found it was a note from "E". I pulled off my night vision goggles so I could look at the note in the flickering light.
Wait here until the appointed time.
"That's gr-" I began to whisper, but Mikkel slapped his hand over my mouth. I tried to shrug him off and wonder what the deal was, but he held tight and pointed out the window with his other hand.
I leaned my head forward and looked out the window. I held my jaw tight so I didn't gasp.
Outside that alcove and below us by about fifty feet were the a lot of people. Oh, did I say people? I'm sorry.
Down below us were the most ghouls I had ever seen.
Chemical Warfare
We had seen ghouls in groups before. But this was something else.
In the past, we'd seen clusters of about half a dozen ghouls sleeping in what we called nests, but we had never seen more than that in one place. Since we are monster hunters and not monster sociologists, we never thought that hard about it. Whenever we had ever encountered a ghoul, it was usually either trying to kill us or we were trying to kill them. They've always struck us as being rather feral, more animal than human, despite their humanoid appearance. Because of this, we thought they simply ran in packs - small hunting groups that shared kills, food, and protection.
My assumptions were now being questioned. As I stared out of the alcove down at the ghouls, I was looking at far more than half a dozen ghouls. I didn't try to count them, but there had to have been somewhere in the ballpark of fifty ghouls. That alone was a shocking and dangerous fact. But their strange behavior went farther than that. They weren't acting feral or even chaotic. They weren't scuffing about aimlessly, they weren't eating, sleeping, or even fighting. They were... organized.
Almost all the ghouls faced the same direction. Almost all were on their knees and kowtowing continuously, as if in prayer. They were dressed similar to how we were used to seeing ghouls - either in rags or completely naked. Their pale skin flickered in the firelight. Placed around the chamber were old pots and buckets burning an unknown fuel, illuminating the chamber and filling it with a thin but musky smoke. The ghouls all faced the front of the chamber where blocks of stone were stacked to create a dais. Two ghouls in strangely decorative masks stood next to the dais and directed the worshippers. But it was what was on the top of the dais that drew the most attention.
Propped up on the dais was what I would at first call a suit of armor. It's not what you're thinking, though. It wasn't a medieval suit of knight's armor. Mikkel would confirm that later. Mikkel loves fantasy movies. He just loves them, from Lord of the Rings to Camelot. So he knows ancient armor and weapons at least by sight. That metal suit looked nothing like anything he had ever seen anywhere... not European, not Asian, not even American Gladiators.
I knew it wasn't medieval even without Mikkel's confirmation because it wasn't made of steel or iron. That was a big giveaway. So then why did I think it was a suit of armor and not a crazy robot or... I don't know, an alien or something? It's because it looked obviously empty. The helmet was simply placed right on top of the armor, lacking a head or neck. In front, there was an opening at the chest where a human(?) would enter and then close the suit. The absence of a body inside the suit was obvious - it was intended to enclose someone, but right now it was propped up empty on the dais.
Other than appearing to be a suit of some sort of armor, it was unlike any suit I had ever seen. As I said, it wasn't steel, it wasn't iron, it wasn't a plastic hazmat suit. It was made of Avalon Brass. I was sure of it by the way it shimmered in the light. I had first thought the ghouls were burning things to create light to see by, since their dark vision had limited distance. Now I was fairly confident they were burning things to make the Brass armor shimmer.
If you didn't grow up in New Avalon and get the school-mandated heritage lesson, the name Avalon Brass might be misleading. It's not what the rest of the world knows as brass. When it was found back in the 19th century, nobody knew exactly what to call it. Some thought that it was just a different type of brass, so they started calling it Avalon Brass. When it finally got scientific classification, it was too late. The name Avalon Brass had already stuck.
Avalon Brass has only been found in the mines outside of New Avalon. It's the only place on Earth it's ever been found, which made it very valuable for a time. For a long time it was sought after merely for its decorative qualities, since it is pretty fancy looking and it was rarer than gold. Only now after the mines are pretty much tapped has some modern genius discovered that Avalon Brass might be the best superconductor ever discovered. Oops. Hunting down all the decorative Brass and buying it has been found to be slightly profitable but for the most part not worth it, since much of the decorative Brass is in rich people's houses and historic sites. There are still companies looking for new veins of Avalon Brass in the mines, but they've had no luck so far. Their mining operations are a shadow of what they were back in the day.
Visually, Avalon Brass is somewhat brass-like... to be fair to the original person who gave it the name, Avalon Brass probably looks more like real brass than any other metal. But Avalon Brass is not an alloy and has a much golder look to it than real brass. But even more interesting, Avalon Brass reflects light in a way that most of us without degrees in metallurgy and optics would call weird. It gives off a shimmer unlike anything I had ever seen. Sometimes it's almost mesmerizing how it reflects light and creates strange colors. That shimmer is how I knew this suit of armor was made of it.
As I stared at the light dancing off the armor, I noticed a vague murmur from down below I hadn't been conscious of at first. It was the low chant of fifty throats and it was coming from the ghouls. Were they praying? Why were they worshipping the armor? Where had it come from? Why were we sent to see this by the mysterious E?
I grabbed my phone and made damn sure the flash was off on its camera. I took a few pictures of the worshipping ghouls and the Brass armor. Whether we had answers to our questions or not, this was too weird to not go on our website. Honestly, this could change some of our ideas on how ghouls lived. We'd still have to kill them if they attacked people, but if they had a real society then... well, I'm not sure what the conclusion was, but this seemed significant.
As I finished taking the photos, I noticed the time on my phone said 9:59. The mysterious E wanted us here at 10:00, so was this what they wanted us to see? Ghouls worshipping were seriously freaking me out, but I didn't see how it related to Jessica's kidnapping.
"I've got a bad feeling," said Mikkel.
I nodded and tightened my grip on my bat. Mikkel's sixth sense again, the one that saved my leg from the bear trap and helped us at other times. It's evolved since back then, but it's just as mysterious. He's described it a few times as kind of like a hot flash, right before he had to fend off menopause jokes. His scar throbs and he has a sense of uneasiness. It always sounds just like nerves, but as we've seen, he tends to be right. If he has a bad feeling, we need to drop what we're doing and pay attention.
When the time clicked over to 10:00, I found out what we were meant to see. When E said 10:00, they weren't kidding. It went off like clockwork. It went off like a coordinated strike.
There was a click, then a hissing noise. A canister trailing white smoke was hurled into the center of the praying ghouls. As it tumbled to the ground, it furiously spurted a very large cloud of white smoke, blotting out some of the light from the burning cans. Two more canisters f
ollowed as the ghouls began to run.
"Shit, masks!" said Mikkel as we fumbled for our rebreather masks. They were no good if we went down into that cloud of gas; they wouldn't be able to function in the sweet spot of three gas grenades. But here on the periphery, it would give us a few minutes before the filters were overloaded. Assuming we stayed a few minutes - I suddenly wanted to bolt.
Mikkel mumbled something through his mask. What the fuck is going on?[32]
I mumbled something back. I think this is what we were supposed to see.
He gestured to the scattering ghouls. Fear gas?[33]
I shook my head and shrugged. I looked down to the ghouls. There was definitely a panic down there, ghouls running all over the place and screeching, but none were falling to the ground. So it wasn't poison gas or knock out gas. That was... comforting, I guess? That seemed hardly the word for the panic below us.
Out of that swirling smoke was a familiar sound. I had last heard it at my apartment. It was the buzzing sound of whatever that taken down the ghouls in the hallway. Mikkel had seen the weird rifles the commandos had and I knew the ghouls had been stunned, so we had put it together and figured out they were ghoul-strength stun guns. As we looked down, I saw familiar forms step through the smoke. Black combat armor, black helmets, black masks, black boots, no decals or designation. The same soldiers from my apartment. The same ones that had taken Jessica away and given Mikkel his black eye.
Oh shit, I mumbled. Yeah, this is definitely what E wanted us to see. Jackbooted thugs busting up a ghoul gathering with tear gas. I just didn't yet know why E wanted us to see this.
Mikkel and I stared down from the window, ready to run at any moment, seeing the soldiers stun the ever living fuck out of as many ghouls as possible. The ghouls scattered, but many fell to the commandos. While the main vanguard of soldiers went on stunning, others began carting away stunned ghouls in collars.
We only got to watch for a minute because we were dumbasses. We were looking at awe and maybe a little horror as the commandos did their thing when we noticed one of them pointing upward... right at us. It seems in our desire to watch what was happening, we had maybe stuck our heads too far up.
Mikkel and I looked at each other. Let's get the fuck out of here!
We scrambled back from the window opening just in time to see sparking flashes shoot through it, making dark singes on the ceiling above us. Those fuckers were shooting at us! Holding our weapons tightly, we ran like hell. First, we half jumped, half shuffled down the uneven path to the broken hole in the wall. Now out of the range of the ghouls' flickering light, we pulled down our night vision goggles, covering the world with a familiar but revealing green tint.
Outside the hole in the wall, there was chaos. Gas filled some of the hallway and frightened ghouls were running by the opening. We made a quick judgment call that the ghouls had bigger things to deal with and wouldn't be bothered if we went running down the tunnel with them. We at least hoped so... the last thing we wanted was a bunch of ghouls to dog pile us and then have the commandos stun the ghouls and drag us out. The soldiers had let us go last time, but what if that was because we were on a city street with everyone looking out their windows? Down here, there were no witnesses at all. Nobody would miss two guys known for hunting dangerous monsters...
Fear and adrenaline surging through our veins, we ran for our lives, hearing the shock-zap sound of the commando's guns behind us. We kept pace with a few ghouls also running. I notice Mikkel turning his head to nod at the ghoul that was running approximately at our pace. The ghoul did not return the acknowledgement.
We really didn't know how far away we needed to run, just we needed to get the fuck out of there. We didn't know this part of the underground well, so we took some likely turns, trying to remember the route we took down here without the benefit of pulling out the map. I felt my memory was better so I took the lead.
There was nothing so comforting as seeing a ladder. Normally, a ladder like this would be a sad sight - it was so rusted and corroded into sharp edges that it looked like it could give us tetanus by staring at it too long. But when we desperately needed an exit, this was perfect.
I leapt onto the ladder, feeling one of my hands slip as that rung disintegrated under my grip. Not a good sign, but I still had hope in this ladder. Pulling myself upwards I felt the next rung groan, but it held my weight enough that I could scamper farther up the ladder. Once I was partly up, I stupidly yelled at muffled Come on! back to Mikkel, not noticing he was right behind me. Neither of us wanted to wait down below.
The ladder ended at a manhole cover. It was older and heavier than the typical sewer covers. It also seemed to have not been moved in a while, as it was stuck at first. But fear-induced adrenaline strength and the desperate need to get away from insane military commandos pushed it up and over. We pulled ourselves up and then replaced the manhole cover. We ripped off our goggles and masks. We lay on the floor, gasping for breath.
This particular ladder led up to an old disused utility shack adjacent to some above-ground rail lines on the northeast side of town. The interior of the shack was covered with dust and cobwebs. Metal shelving held a variety of scrap and tools. If we hadn't been laying on the floor struggling for breath, I might have considered salvaging this place. Clearly no one was using it.
"What the fuck was that?" said Mikkel.
"What E wanted us to see," I said.
"Yeah, well, fuck E."
"At this point," I said, gasping, "I am inclined to agree with you."
This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race
When we finally were back at his apartment, Mikkel called dibs on the first shower. Sitting in a shirt and boxers, I sat down at Mikkel's out of date PC and decided to write an email to E. I'll spare you the rage and curse words I used in the email, but suffice to say, we were unhappy about being placed in a situation where we had to run for our lives in ghoul-infested sewers while jackbooted thugs were trying to stun and possibly kill us. We weren't yet sure whether it was a trap for us (in which case both Mikkel and I agreed it was a very elaborate and not-very-effective trap) or if that's what E wanted us to see and was just dickishly helpful. I signed off the email appropriately, with a big Fuck you.
The ball's in your court, E.
After the email I finally had my turn in the shower. I exited the bathroom in a borrowed bathrobe[34] while drying my hair to have a glass of Maker's Mark thrust into my hand. We often like to powwow after a job to pool our impressions. Sometimes we do this with liquor. Okay, most of the time. But this time around we needed more than just a post mortem.
"So I'm trying not to be mad about earlier today," said Mikkel, his foot up on the coffee table. He occupied the old torn up recliner, while I was on the old couch that was covered with quilts that I had been sleeping on.
"Oh... that," I said, remembering how I had been a big douche earlier and pressed some of his buttons to get him to go on a trip that did end up with us running for our lives. "Look... I'm sorry. I just got all... uh... passionate about this. I just knew we had to go. And so I had to make that happen... any way I could. Which I am sorry about."
"There are better way to do that," he said dryly.
"I know I'm sor -"
"I get it, I get it," he said. "I know you're all remorseful. You're sorry. You want forgiveness. Fine! But this isn't the first time you've gone all bullshit asshole. Jesus, Sandy, you're always so fucking wound up! You're like some perpetually tense cat backed into a corner!"
"I would say maybe something cooler, like a wolverine -"
"No, I'm going with a fucking cat, because you're not as badass as a wolverine. You lash out at people, but you're not really that dangerous, because it's bullshit needling. You are a fucking ball of angry tension. I would have thought finally getting laid again would have fixed that, but clearly it hasn't. It's just changed things. You're like one m'lady away from White Knighting."
"I am not," I said petulantly.
"But she's in danger!" I said.
"Allegedly," he said, pointing at me using one of the fingers that held his glass. "We don't know who took her, why, and where. I feel like we're in the dark as to what's actually going on. She seemed very familiar with Suitguy, so this may be some preexisting bullshit drama. Granted, it's bullshit drama with commandos and stun gun assault rifles, but it's still drama. It's not even our drama. It's only vaguely related to killing monsters. And shit, man, when you feel the need to lay into your own brother for being cautious about a mysterious lead pertaining to some girl you just met that should only really be a client, then I think you need to take a step back and look at stuff. That's like Guy Shit 101: Sometimes You're Just Too Into a Girl."
I ground my teeth together and didn't say anything. Lashing out immediately seemed the wrong idea and it may have actually confirmed what he was saying. And despite the harsh criticism, I was begrudgingly realizing he might be right. I settled for lighting a cigarette, then staring at the floor.
"I'm not saying we shouldn't see what bullshit E writes back with," he finally said, exhaling cigarette smoke. I noticed Mikkel was the picture of luxury - legs up, in a bathrobe[35], with a smoking cigarette in one hand and bourbon on the rocks in the other. "Shit, I feel like we've paid very well for any info E can give us from this point forward. If he or she wants to hire us as well, fine, but I am adding a dangerous asshole tax to the bill. And cash up front. Damn, we should use that one more often."
I Kill Monsters Page 15
