I Kill Monsters

by Dennis Liggio

  I cobbled together my own survival strategy. Holding on for dear life was first on my list. Bemoaning my fate and cursing the universe was next. Then there was a lot of chanting of, "Oh crap! Oh crap!" To be honest, I really didn't have anything very proactive that would get me out of it. I clung to the door as it hung open, and every time I felt even a slight movement of the door back toward the van, I got excited and then was disappointed.

  Because of this, I was mostly ignoring the SUVs that were coming up on us. Unlike the movies, none of them leaned out to shoot at us. I wasn't sure if they wanted us alive or if the shock guns wouldn't do much to the van. Or maybe someone sticking their body out a window messed with aerodynamics when they wanted to catch us. I was mostly thankful that nobody was trying to shock zap me as I hung from the door.

  Of course, the SUV drivers were still dicks. The closest SUV rammed the back of the van. I'm sure all our gear was jostled and Ezra seized up in fear. I'm sure it made Mikkel hold the wheel tight to keep from crashing and he cursed loudly. I'm sure all this happened, but I couldn't see it, nor did I care. I did care that the ramming caused my door to swing further around and slam the side of the van. It nearly broke three of my fingers that were wrapped around the door. I evaded this by moving my hand, which was not a good idea. I dropped a foot and now was dangling my one arm from the door. With a great feat of strength I pulled myself up and grabbed the door with my other hand. So now I was back to where I started from, paralyzed in fear as I dangled precariously, but at least having two hands on the door.

  I tried calling out to Mikkel, but he either didn't hear me or was unable to help. I figured Ezra would be useless. I also didn't know how they would actually help me. If they opened the sliding side door, there was a chance that it would hit the rear door and make me fall. Likewise, I didn't expect Ezra to be successful in grabbing me or the rear door from the back of the van. Mikkel could slow down or stop... but then the asshole commandos in the SUVs would shock us into submission.

  There were now two SUVs behind us. One of them was in a parallel lane and would have probably liked to slide up next to us and run us off the road, but every time the driver attempted that, they had to slow back down to dodge traffic. Or Mikkel would change lanes. I give my brother a lot of shit, but even from my precarious position outside the car, I was impressed with his driving ability.

  Unfortunately, one of the SUVs did finally manage to force itself next to us. Even more unfortunate for me, it was on the same side I was hanging on. I could look into the SUV and I freaked out seeing a commando pointing a shock rifle at me. I figured this was it. He'd fire, I'd be stunned or have a convulsion or whatever those guns did, then I'd fall from the van at eighty miles per hour and get run over by the SUV behind us. Here Lies Szandor - Road Kill.

  As moments passed and I looked in the goggled eyes of the commando, he did not fire. He kept the rifle on me, no doubt making sure he could shock me if need be, but he didn't fire. Either I lucked out and got the soldier who had never offed someone and was having second thoughts, or unlike Ezra thought, they didn't have a kill order for me and Mikkel. Of course, he did nothing to help me. Perhaps he was mesmerized by the kicking motion of my dangling feat.

  The driver of that SUV seemed to have none of the problems that the rifle commando had. With a yank of his steering wheel, the SUV came toward the van, hoping to slam into its side. As best as I could, I tried lifting my legs so that they didn't get crushed between the two vehicles. Mikkel saw the motion and had room to maneuver as the van pulled to the left and evaded their ram.

  Of course, that was just a momentary success, as the SUV driver tried again to attack. I did the same leg lifting maneuver. This time Mikkel didn't have any room to evade and the SUV collided with him. However, they made only partial contact and farther forward than where I was, so luckily I did not have my legs crushed and I did not start my life as a paraplegic monster hunter.

  The Pork Chop Express hit the highway divider hard. I heard the screech of metal and saw a few sparks even on this side of the car. I, on the other hand, found this a surprisingly good move. The door on which I hung swung all the way back to its closed position, throwing me off as I stumbled into the back of the van, tripping over gear but otherwise happy to have something under my feet.

  "What are you doing?" asked Ezra incredulously, as if I had been just sitting on my ass doing nothing as he had.

  I gave him the finger and crawled up into the front seat, panting for breath. Lola, still dancing frenetically, her blue hair swishing everywhere, stared at me blankly.

  "Welcome back," said Mikkel distractedly. He had managed to pull away from the SUV on our side, but they were still close behind us. "I can't believe they did that to the Pork Chop Express."

  "Yeah, I'm okay too," I said under my breath.

  "Do you know how much body work costs?" he said.

  "Less than a funeral?" I suggested.

  "We need them off our ass, Szandor," he said.

  "I'm trying," I panted. "Did you see what I went through?"

  "I caught a few glimpses in the mirrors," said Mikkel. "It was bullshit, but we don't have time for your Poor Me Party just yet. Get them off our asses and I'll listen to all your complaints and toast you with all my beers."

  With a sigh I pulled myself out of my seat and stumbled into the back of the van again. Ezra began to say something, but I put up my hand. "I don't want to hear it."

  The back doors of the van were still open. Occasionally the van would swerve and they'd hit their closed position with a whack, but they wouldn't stay locked in place. As I slowly walked toward the open doors, I felt a twinge of new fear. I wasn't about to fall out them again, so I was being as careful as possible. I could see two SUVs rather close. Either the third never caught up, or it wasn't in view.

  One of the SUVs suddenly poured on the speed, coming right up behind us. I had a moment of a déjà vu for the Jaws movies as the SUV came up on our bumper and smashed into it. The van swerved in response and I fell on my ass. I clawed at the ribbed rubber floor of the van to make sure I didn't slip out the back of the van.

  Mikkel righted the van and I was able to pull myself up. But this was the point I decided I was officially fed up with all this shit. I had a long day at work, then I dealt with Spiders and noxious chemicals, I had hung on the side of the van, and now assholes were trying to drive their SUV up our ass. I suddenly didn't care that much about the consequences.

  I grabbed my gift from Meat and walked to the back of the van. I looked at the SUVS, daring them to come near. I'm not sure how well they could see my stern look, but I had hoped they were seeing a Szandor that couldn't take it anymore and would be intimidated.

  Unfortunately, they weren't intimidated. That same SUV accelerated behind us, once again hoping to hit our bumper. I watched as that SUV came closer and closer. I tried to glare through the windshield at the driver, to see if I could stare him down or show him the business I meant. Unfortunately, I couldn't catch his eye. This meant I was going through with it.

  As the SUV accelerated forward to within a few feet of us, I pulled out Meat's gift, the shotgun. I racked a round and then pointed it at the hood of the SUV. I think in this last second, the occupants of the SUV realized what I was doing and panicked, but it was too late.

  I pulled the trigger and with a loud noise, the gun jerked in my hand. There was now a gaping hole in the front of the SUV. I'm not sure if it was the damage I did to the engine or the panic of the driver, but the SUV screeched and swerved sharply. It fell away from us. Unfortunately, its sharp swerve put it right in front of the other SUV which was not decelerating. They crashed into each other, the second one lifting into the air and flipping over it. It was a horrible mess of twisted metal, screeching tires, and blaring horns that I watched as we sped away.

  "What the fuck was that?" bellowed Mikkel from the front.

  I carefully grabbed the swinging doors of the van and pulled them shut. I walked past
Ezra who pulled away from me since I was still carrying the shotgun. I pulled myself into the front and flopped into the passenger seat. I put the shotgun down on the floor.

  "I decided that extreme measures were called for," I said.

  Mikkel pulled his view from the road for a moment to look right at me. "I don't know who you are sometimes. There were people in that SUV. You shot someone!"

  "They were trying to kill us!" I said. "Self defense! Besides... I didn't actually shoot at someone. I shot at their engine."

  "They still crashed, someone could have died," said Mikkel.

  "That was a danger from how they were driving," I said. "I didn't shoot anyone. I'm not psycho crazy."

  "Just regular run of the mill Szandor crazy," said Mikkel.

  I decided this didn't require a response.

  As we sped off down the highway, the third SUV never appeared and we saw no further pursuit from the crashed SUVs. As far as we could tell, we had successfully gotten away.

  Mikkel was still uneasy about me firing the shotgun at the SUV. One of the things we believe in passionately is that we don't kill people. No matter how many monsters we might kill, no matter the entrails of humanoid creatures we might trudge through, we don't kill people. That's actually standard amongst monster hunters. I think it's some unspoken acknowledgement of the line between what we do and being a maniac. It would be too easy for a hunter without these ethics to move from monsters to start killing people who they thought were harming people - all in the name of the greater good. I don't recall hearing of any hunters that ever crossed that line, but it's one we all worry about. I still insist that my firing of the shotgun at their engine was not crossing the line. Mikkel disagreed. He kept suggesting the outcome if I had missed.

  Ezra, flustered and paranoid, finally agreed that we had lost our tail. We asked where we could drop him and he picked the heart of historic Old Avalon in the center of town where he immediately hailed a cab. It was clear he didn't want us knowing where he was hiding out.

  We pulled away and then idled the van in an alleyway until we decided on our next course of action.

  "Okay, I think we fucked up," said Mikkel.

  Exhausted and sprawled out in the passenger seat, I turned to look at him. "Which part?"

  "I mean, all of this," he said. "We can't go home."

  "I already can't go home," I said.

  "We can't go back to my apartment either now."

  "You think they're going to be waiting for us?" I said. "I thought they were after Ezra."

  "Even if they are just after him, who was the last person to see Ezra?"

  "But we don't know where he went," I said.

  "Do you think they're going to believe that?"

  "Well, fuck."

  "At this point," he said, "we have to expect that someone is waiting at our apartment to kidnap, kill, or rough us up. They know our names, so I can't imagine they wouldn't know where I live. They might have even followed us to find Ezra. We can't go home."

  "Maybe..." I started, then ended the thought. My objections in the name of sleep didn't make sense.

  "Remember, you shot their engine with a shotgun and caused a minimum of a two car accident," said Mikkel. "They'd probably feel a little vindictive if they saw you. Hell, probably me too."

  "What are you suggesting?" I said.

  "We need to lay low for a while."

  "Like some trashy flophouse?"

  "I was thinking more a motel," said Mikkel. "We need to get outside our usual area. Maybe someplace closer to the airport."

  "In The Ville?" I said.

  "We can't even afford The Ville," said Mikkel. "I'm thinking on the Husks side."

  The airport was east of town, past the river and past Huskerville. Once a set of suburbs and warehouses, Huskerville was adversely affected by the highway that was carved through it. On the south side were lower income suburbs, which had become known as The Ville. On the north side, where there were some residential areas but mostly decaying warehouses and vacant factories, it was known as the Husks. Since it was a highway between downtown and the airport, there were hotels, restaurants, and strip malls on either side of it, but the quality differed between which side you were on. So did the crime rate.

  The hotel we ended up at wasn't very good. I'd say it was something like Motel 6, but I would have loved it if we were at a Motel 6. This was alike a Motel 2 or a Motel 1.5. It would need a lot of renovation and improvement to be Motel 6. And then we probably couldn't afford it.

  That said, it had two beds that looked vaguely clean. It was good enough. I remember vaguely taking off my shirt before falling into one of the beds face first and lapsing into a blissful sleep. Mikkel was up longer. I hadn't even realized until the next day that he actually went out for a little while. I just wanted my sleep.

  Let's Have a War

  You talkin' to me? said Mikkel's phone. The recorded tone for Mikkel receiving a text.

  "Hmm," said Mikkel, reading the message and lapsing into thought.

  "What does it say?" I said through a mouthful of pancakes. We sat in the IHOP next to the motel. We had ordered huge platters for our Two In the Afternoon Breakfast, which, if you've ever had it, is the best breakfast.

  I had slept until one in the afternoon without waking. I did have a brief nightmare of hanging from the door of a van over a gigantic black void, but aside from that, I was well rested.

  I had been due at work hours ago and hadn't even called in sick. I wasn't sure if I could even call in to work. Minerva could have some super secret government phone hacking tracer monitoring my place of employment. Or something equally nefarious and unlikely. I decided I didn't care enough about work to miss it. After a high speed car chase and the prospect of invading the offices of a multinational corporation to rescue a kidnapped victim, calling in sick for work didn't seem important anymore. In the back of my mind I knew I'd probably regret that later. There would be an angry message from Frank on the phone. And wasn't I supposed to talk to Yasmin today?

  "Paulie's looked over the flash drive and he wants to talk to us about it," said Mikkel, phone in one hand, sipping coffee with the other.

  "You gave it to Paulie?" I said.

  Mikkel shrugged. "Were you going to stay up all night going over it? I wasn't. And we know we can trust Paulie to be thorough... and obsessive."

  I nodded. "He's both of those things for sure. I just wasn't sure I wanted to open this Minerva can of worms to anyone else. Especially with it being a multinational corporation. Paulie probably has all sorts of ominous theories about it."

  "If that ominous theory gets us into the Clark Building to save Jessica, then I'm fine with it."

  "So you're committed to saving her?" I said. "Because I remember a few days ago you were interested in letting this all drop."

  "I've always wanted to save her, but I wasn't into carelessly charging in half cocked," said Mikkel. "Now we have more information. And they picked the wrong people to fuck over. I'm not forgiving them for damaging the Pork Chop Express."

  "I'm sure it can be repaired," I said.

  "Yeah, but where are we getting the money for it?" said Mikkel. "Maybe if we rescue Jessica we can finally get paid." He paused. "But I'm not holding my breath. This whole job has gone bad from the start."

  "Maybe it's cursed," I said.

  "The Curse of the Job That Never Pays," said Mikkel. "Frightening."

  We took a ride to the basement of the undisclosed location which was Paulie's office[42]. I'm not sure if he slept there or elsewhere; he just called it an office rather than his home. There was no bed, only a couch. I think he was very happy keeping everyone ambiguous on where he was most vulnerable.

  Let me set the scene: a dingy basement with poor lighting. The walls were covered with white boards covered with diagrams and cork boards full of maps with push pins indicating locations. Handwritten notes, pieces of photographs, and torn articles were taped to various places on the walls. Paulie was
ruined by the invention of the post it note - there was not a piece of wall your eyes could travel more than a foot without hitting a yellow or orange post it note. There were three desks: one covered with a bank of monitors with continuous feeds, one covered with books and papers, and a third with another computer setup. Two liter bottles of full and empty Coca-cola were strewn across the floor, all of their contents very obviously flat. There was a minifridge in one corner and many of the desks were covered with empty styrofoam takeout containers. The old couch with seventies upholstery was pushed to one side.

  When we came in, the couch was occupied by Meat, whose bulk made the couch look even smaller than it was. I sighed in exasperation. I hadn't wanted Meat involved. I wanted to keep this our thing and I also worried about Meat trying to take over.

  "I hear you guys stepped in some big shit," bellowed Meat good naturedly.

  "The biggest," said Mikkel, shaking Meat's hand. "But we're looking to know how deep this turd is and whether there's a land mine at the bottom of it."

  Meat laughed. "Sometimes you just gotta dive in and figure the way out." He grabbed my hand and shook it aggressively.

  "Nobody uses land mines anymore, they use APMs," said Paulie under his breath.

  "As long as neither land mines or APMs are in the Clark Building, I don't care what metaphor we use," I said.

  "According to the schematics, they use neither," said Paulie without any irony.

  "That's comforting," I said. "So what do you think of the info? Mikkel gave you the flash drive, right?"