Jabberwock Jack

by Dennis Liggio

  Tor rose from the fire he tended. He was much older than us. We were in our early twenties, but Tor was in his fifties. However, because of his resilient Nordic heritage, he didn't seem like he had lost much of his vitality and sometimes seemed more energetic than either of us. Lines etched his face and his hair was whitening, but his tall form still had more bulk and visible muscle then either my brother or myself. We were more the thin, wiry types, while Tor was probably descended from Vikings. Neither Szandor nor I would be surprised if he had a horned helmet stashed away in the RV. His beard was much more trim and controlled than the wild mess you see in Viking movies, but I'm sure he would be ready to board a longboat and pillage villages at a moment's notice if those times returned. Okay, maybe not. Tor was actually one of the nicest people I've ever met. You'd never know he hunted and skinned dangerous monsters.

  "Have you slain the beast?" said Tor. He had emigrated from Norway in his teens and had never totally lost his accent. There was never any difficulty understanding him, but there was always a weird sound to his pronunciations here and there, his sentences always slightly more awkward than they needed to be.

  My brother and I both smiled and nodded. We were happy, but also drained. Our adrenaline had run out on the way back to camp. The mud that covered us also added to our weariness.

  "We kicked its ass," said Szandor.

  "At the same spot, yes? Or did you need to change plans?" asked Tor. We had talked out our plan with him, since he wanted to make sure we weren't doing something so stupid as to be suicidal. He was our teacher in this. While it needed to be our plan to claim our training was completed, it didn't mean he couldn't advise.

  "The same spot," I said. "We only had minor complication." I looked over to Szandor.

  "Very minor complications," he said.

  "You boys take some showers," said Tor. "It's refilled and hot. Then relax. We've been preparing to celebrate your victory! Tonight we feast!"

  Tor walked off into the woods alone. We were in the forest north of the New Avalon, outside of the Avalon basin. Unlike most Avalon monsters, trolls often travelled far from the Avalon basin, and so did Tor. But Tor knew these woods like the back of his hands. He feared nothing and knew where he was going. So neither us nor his daughters had any concern with him walking off into the trees with few supplies as sundown approached. That was what he did.

  I let Szandor have the first shower and sat outside with Tor's three daughters. Still covered in mud, I kept away from the tents and chairs, the only close company the dogs. Brigit, Tor's oldest daughter at twenty, tended the fire and the meat smoker. Astrid, the middle daughter, eighteen years old, helped prep food for the feast. She was also handling the cooler. She had always made sure I had a beer when I wasn't hunting, so she was my favorite. She handed me one now. Elsa, the youngest at sixteen and who had an unhealthy crush on Szandor, made an awkward comment about him being naked right now in the shower, but no one responded to it. When I say unhealthy crush, it was probably healthy for her, but not so much for my twenty year old brother. All of Tor's daughters, Elsa included, were beautiful. They were also remarkably good natured, salt-of-the-earth sort of people. Hell, Astrid was handing out beers but was not having any herself simply because her dad had said no - even when he wasn't around. Not at all the jaded city goers we usually meet, which made them fun and happy... and more attractive.

  They were also all trained in the family business. I'm not sure if they had graduated and had killed trolls yet, but I knew they were all lethal in a fight.

  They were Tor's daughters, so Szandor and I had talked about this before we came up here. They were absolutely off-limits. Inter-hunter dating was generally a bad idea, but hooking up with the daughter of the man teaching us, housing us, and feeding us? Definitely bad taste. So far, neither of us had crossed that line. I was between girlfriends and questioning what I wanted in dating, so I wouldn't have been pursuing the girls even if we were back in New Avalon. Szandor was also single, but other than the continual attention from Elsa, he had been pretty good at keeping that line uncrossed. This would be our last night here, so hopefully we could keep to our pledge.

  I heard Elsa talking in dreamy tones and therefore knew that Szandor had finished with his shower and come out. He looked much better without the mud. He was shorter than me, had short dark hair, and a lip piercing. He had a few tattoos on him, but he was hardly full sleeve. He had recently started growing a beard, my guess was for the purpose of looking more manly. Every time he has tried to grow a beard it always looks a bit off to me. It's always short cropped, so I always think he looks like he's from the Evil Star Trek Mirror Universe. But he seems happy with it, so who am I to criticize? I mean, other than when it's really funny to criticize.

  As I passed him on the way into the RV, I gave him The Look, the one that said, don't have sex with any of Tor's daughters while I'm gone. Then I took my own blissfully hot shower. I must have lost track of time, because by the time I got out and dressed, keeping a towel to dry my long hair, it was dark and Tor had returned with the troll's body.

  Tor had the body at the far edge of the camp site, downwind of us all. He had it hanging feet first from a tree over a bin. His main work would start on it tomorrow after we left. Tor skinned trolls. We think he sold the hides, but we've always been a little sketchy on the details and Tor had always been a little cagey when we asked. Since he was our host and no doubt could gut us in our sleep and get away with it this far away from civilization, we decided not to pursue the issue.

  As I came out, Tor cleaned his hands and came over to Szandor and myself. Towering over us, he put his arms around both our shoulders. "Ah, my two young friends! It's been a good day, yes? A great victory! In my family, this would have marked the day you two became men!"

  "I already thought I was a man," said Szandor.

  "You're not even old enough to legally drink," I said.

  "Soon," he replied. Szandor's twenty-first birthday was later this week.

  "Now!" said Tor, tightening his grip on us, his massive Viking muscles digging into our shoulders. "To my family, you are both men! Tonight is a feast in your honor! You drink and take what you want!"

  "I could get into that," said Szandor.

  "Then let the feast begin!" said Tor. His daughters all cheered.

  What followed was some of the best eating and drinking I had ever done. Besides hunting monsters, Tor was also an accomplished non-monster hunter. Living mostly out in the woods, wild game accounted for much of his food. And that made up a large portion of the feast. Grilled, smoked, and blackened venison, rabbit, and squirrel. Have you ever eaten squirrel? As a born and raised city boy, I had never once imagined what one of those little critters I had seen in Glenntown and the Ville might taste like. Turns out, not bad. I began wondering what the ever-present New Avalon pigeons might taste like. As an appeasement to our urban ways and probably wondering if we might balk at some of the game, he also had sent Brigit into town to get more conventional meats, so we had some beef steaks and chicken. He needn't have bothered, but we appreciated the gesture.

  After most of our eating, Tor brought out a bottle of Aquavit. Before staying with Tor, we had never heard of such a thing. Think flavored Scandinavian Vodka. Not the vodka you see in liquor stores with the fancy bottles. This was Viking stuff. Probably made by Valkyries somewhere else on the World Tree. It was spicy and smooth. He offered the bottle to us both and toasted us as heroes.

  "Tell me we're not heading out too early," said Szandor, eyeing the bottle. Normally a whiskey drinker, he had tried Aquavit for the first time a few nights ago and had become a fan. This would be his first chance to have more than a brief taste.

  "Remember what tomorrow is," I warned with a frown. "So get as drunk as you need to." Then I watched as Astrid brought him a shot of Aquavit with a smile. "Just remember the rule."

  "You too," he said, as Brigit brought me my own shot. I had seen that smile on girls before. I usually liked
it. Here it just made me sweat. I decided that I would need to be a very careful drunk tonight.

  The morning found me tangled up in a sleeping bag inside our tent. When I felt a body next to me, I worried that I had been the one to break our rule. My mind went in two directions. First I wondered which of Tor's beautiful daughters I had gone to bed with and how proud of myself I should be. The second direction was berating myself for not even following my own rule after giving my brother shit about it.

  It took only a second of full wakefulness for me to recognize a familiar snore coming from the body. I relaxed. It was just my brother. He only snores like that when he's gotten really drunk and has fallen asleep in a strange position. Since he's spent long stretches on my couch, I had heard that snore too often.

  As my gaze fell upon my brother, I noticed in the dim light that there was another form beyond him. Great, we still fucked up. Sure, it was my brother who had broken the rule and I could give him shit about it until the end of time, but we had still done something bad and our relationship with Tor was going to get real awkward. I wondered if we could just quickly get into our van Dukes of Hazard style and speed off without saying anything.

  However, there was something strange about the other body in the tent. It didn't look like any of Tor's daughters, not with that hair. I strained my eyes to adjust to the light. Was that... was that a tail? I leaned forward over Szandor's sleeping body. I was greeted by a slobbering tongue. I pulled my head back and wiped my face. Definitely not one of Tor's daughters. Just one of the dogs that had come in during the night to snuggle with Szandor. I relaxed. Neither of us had fucked up.

  More memory of the night before came back. I remember Tor going to bed early to wake with the dawn and do hunter things. I remember Brigit hanging on my every word while I resisted my typical flirting game plan. Szandor and Astrid surprisingly hit things off. I remember looking across the campfire and attempting to use nonexistent psychic powers to remind him to keep everything platonic. I also remember Elsa pouting a lot, due to Astrid taking up Szandor's time. I think that Szandor got up on the hood of the pickup truck and sung songs for a bit, drunkenly dancing along as the girls clapped. I may have joined him. It's still unclear.

  I pulled myself to a sitting position and crawled out of the tent. The chipper voices of Tor's daughters greeting me in unison was a little too much for my head. I lit up a cigarette and was soon given a cup of coffee. I don't know who was my benefactor, I just recall it was just thrust into my hand. My brother soon came out of the tent, his hair messy and covered in dog slobber. He sat down next to me on a log and started sipping a cup of coffee as he stared into space. It was about two minutes before he looked in his hand.

  "Wait. Where did I get coffee?" he asked. The girls laughed.

  Those darling Nordic angels made us breakfast since we were too hungover to do anything else. With greasy food in our stomachs, our mood began to improve. The girls went off to do various cleanup from the feast the night before, while Szandor and I sat in front of the smoking embers of the fire trying to focus our brains. Szandor complained he was out of his hangover cure. Probably half an hour later I was feeling well enough to stand up.

  "Good timing!" said Tor. His good mood was like bright sunlight and I almost wanted to shield my eyes. "I'd love to have you two stay and help, but you are going back to Avalon, yes?"

  "Yeah, sometime today," I said. I looked over to Szandor for agreement, but it didn't matter. He wasn't the one who was driving. I could load him in the back of the van half unconscious if I needed to.

  Tor nodded appraisingly and rubbed his beard. "So... I think now is a good time for you to go."

  I cocked my head, my thoughts coming slow. "Are... are you kicking us out?"

  Tor laughed. "No, no! It's just that I am about to start skinning the Troll. It's downwind, but you still get the smell over here, yes? The girls are used to it, but you two... after all the drinking..."

  You're worried about us puking all over your campsite, I realized. Well, they could clean that up, but he was concerned about us getting sick. A fair point, really.

  "Oh yeah," I said. "I completely understand. We'll get going. Szandor, take apart the tent!"

  "Fuck you," he said groggily. He didn't move at all. I hauled his ass up and we gathered our gear.

  A short while later after saying our goodbyes and separating the dogs from Szandor, we were in the van pulling out of the woods and onto a real road. It felt like a long time since we had seen asphalt or civilization. I don't think either of us had ever even slept in a tent before this, much less been out of New Avalon for more than a few days. It was good to be heading home, even if that meant the start of an even bigger job.

  We were in our van which I had dubbed the Pork Chop Express. It was brown with a red A-Team stripe. What can I say? I like old movies and TV shows.

  The van is pretty essential to our life as monster hunters. It carries our weapons, our equipment, and our cleanup supplies. It's carrying a lot of homemade weaponry, lethal objects donated to us or bought via the internet. Much of the van's contents are legally questionable. I don't think we have anything outright illegal, but any cop that searched our van would probably wonder if we're serial killers. Because of that, I drive the van very conservatively, especially outside of our home city of New Avalon.

  So it was about two hours home. Szandor leaned against the passenger side window, his face smushed up against the glass. He was conscious enough to answer me when I said things, but he was mostly out of it. I was silent. It began to rain again on the way home, the day time sky becoming gray. I played a few Weezer albums on our way. With Szandor out of it, my only companion was Lola Mandragora, the hula girl I have glued to the dash. She's not good conversation, but her slowly gyrating hips always fit the music. As we were driving slow on unfamiliar roads in the rain to get home after a long trip away, she was gyrating slowly, well-matched to Weezer's Island in the Sun.

  I had a long time to think on that drive. The first half of it I thought about the past. For all my talk, I wasn't in as carefree a mood as I always had been. Something was weighing on my mind. Something was wrong. I fully admit that something had been wrong for a long time, but I was not facing it. I had made a mistake in the past and I hadn't addressed it. I let her go. And then I threw myself into a succession of relationships, hoping to ignore the facts. For a while I could ignore it, but lately my relationships were shorter and shorter as it became apparent much more quickly each time they were all wrong. I'm not one to complain or put my problems in front of others. But in that lonely car ride back to Avalon, my brother groggy and the music familiar, it was just my thoughts and me. And my thoughts decided it was time to think about everything that was wrong. My thoughts were assholes.

  Eventually it was too much and I pushed my mind away from it. I started thinking about the future. Szandor and I were both curious about what lay ahead. We had been lured with the promises of a hunt unlike any other. We had stayed up and talked about it more than a few times in our tent during training. We were excited and nervous.

  We didn't just decide to get troll hunting training. Oh, Tor had been offering for a while, but that's not what made us take it. No, something big was brewing, something our friends Meat and Paulie kept hinting out. But others had concerns with our abilities, since we were young and self trained. Tor was to be an arbiter for our skill. He didn't know it, he was just training us. But others had decided if Tor was confident in our ability to kill trolls, then we had proven ourselves. That's why we took the trip up to the wilds and learned to squat in the mud to kill a type of monster we'd probably never see in the city.

  Assuming we were offered the chance, our next prey was going to be something unlike anything almost any hunter went after. It was a once in a lifetime monster that many had given their own lives and lifetimes trying to kill. We already had a theory what it was, because Szandor and I had accidentally run across it and lived. My brother and I were the first
hunters to see this creature in many years.

  We had somehow survived an encounter with Jabberwock Jack.

  Jawbreaker

  I'd like to say that we saw Jabberwock Jack on a regular job, but it wasn't one of our typical assignments. For once, we weren't killing monsters. This job wasn't even about monsters. We were there for insurance - in case monsters did show up - but even more surprisingly, we were hired for our knowledge. This was an escort job.

  If you read Szandor's story, you heard about how we saw a strange armor made of Avalon Brass deep in the train tunnels beneath New Avalon. Ghouls seemed to be worshipping it, something that was unheard of and sort of insane, and then things got crazier. The important part is that we saw the armor, took a picture, and then posted it to our website... mostly because something like that is too weird to not share with people, even if we didn't have any idea what the armor was.

  This eventually lead to an email that came in via the website. Some weird guy named Dane Monday wanted to hire us to take him and his sidekick down to see the armor. Normally we're just around to help people and kill monsters, but occasionally we take other work. Since we were the only ones who knew where the armor actually was and this guy was willing to pay just for us to lead him to the place it was and make sure him and his associate didn't die, it made sense to take the job. It seemed like easy money.