Grits, Guns & Glory - Bubba the Monster Hunter Season 2

by John G. Hartness

  I made a lap of my floor—nothing. I made a lap of the floor above me, which was mainly the Cardiac Unit and the Psych Ward—more nothing. I took a loop down by the nursery, stopping to make stupid faces in the window until all the little ankle-biters were crying and the charge nurse ran me off, but still found nothing. I even stuck my head in at the hospital chapel and asked the preacher down there if he’d seen anything out of the ordinary. He gave me a look that told me a 6’5”, 345-pound man with a walker and a kukri at his side was definitely the most out of the ordinary thing he’d seen in a long time, but he had nothing for me either.

  It took me a good hour or so to make my rounds, then I headed back to my room. I hadn’t made it in the door when Nurse Elizabeth appeared at my elbow. I must have been more out of it than I thought because I never heard the squeak of nursey shoes or anything to give me a hint she was coming. She was just suddenly there, smelling faintly of jasmine with a hint of something underneath it. I breathed deep, but couldn’t place the scent. It was a little acrid, like maybe something burnt, but I pushed it from my mind and tried to hide the artillery I was packing, both in my holster and the artillery that had suddenly become very apparent in the front of my jeans as well.

  “What are you doing out of bed, Mr. Brabham?” she asked, opening the door and placing a hand in the small of my back just an inch or so above the gun. I slouched a little to keep her hand from drifting down onto the pistol and let her guide me into the room and toward the bed. I sat down on the edge of the bed and kicked off my shoes, trying to make thankful noises to the amazingly hot nurse while adjusting all my equipment to let me lay down comfortably. Some of that equipment was attached, and that was the least manageable gear, if you get my drift.

  “Let me help you, Bubba.” She put her hands on my shoulders and pushed me backwards. Even as weak as I was, I didn’t expect that kind of strength out of her. I flopped onto my back like a bass in the bottom of a boat, and then winced and tried to roll over as the Beretta dug into my spine.

  “Lay still, this’ll make you feel better,” Nurse Elizabeth said and put one hand on the center of my chest. I stopped moving. I didn’t have a choice, I couldn’t move. She slapped a palm down on my chest and held me flat like I was nothing more than a newborn thrashing around. I could move my arms and legs, but she had me pinned and didn’t look like she was even trying.

  “What the hell are you, lady?” I wheezed, even though it felt like she was cracking all my ribs at once.

  “Oh come on, Bubba. Big bad monster hunter’s never seen a succubus? Well don’t worry, this won’t hurt a bit. Unless you count killing you as hurting. But what a way to go, right?” She turned to me, and every thought of escape flew from my head. The second I breathed in her scent, all seemed right with the world, and all I wanted to do was fall asleep in her arms, surrounded by the welcoming smell of jasmine and sulfur.

  Sulfur? Brimstone? Only demons smell like . . . I snapped out of her spell with a start and gave one mighty thrash, throwing her off me and onto the floor. She landed on her butt with a thump and I reached around behind me for my gun, simultaneously rolling onto the floor and putting the bed between us. I felt something tear in my gut as I hit the floor and my vision went white. I looked up to see Nurse Elizabeth, make that Succubus Elizabeth, coming over the bed at me. I pressed the barrel of the Beretta against her forehead and she froze.

  “Bullets won’t hurt me.”

  “These silver hollow-points have holy water in the tips.”

  “I just have to wait here for you to bleed out, then I’ll have you for my dinner.”

  “I just have to squeeze the trigger and you don’t have to wait for anything.”

  The predator vanished from her eyes and a wave of jasmine rolled over me. Suddenly she was the sweet, innocent caregiver that I was quickly falling in love with. I dropped the gun from her forehead and stared as she talked.

  “You don’t really want to shoot me, do you, Bubba? You just want to make me happy, and I just want to make you feel good. I like you, Bubba. I’d never do anything to hurt you.”

  That one brought me back to reality. “The last time a woman said that to me, it cost me a thousand bucks and two courses of penicillin to get over her.” I felt warmth spreading across my belly; I’d really ripped something important loose. My vision started to do that funny tunnel thing, so I did the only thing I could think of to stay alive.

  I pulled the trigger.

  And missed. From three feet away with a balanced weapon, I fired at a demon and missed. It was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life, right up there with the afternoon I lost my virginity. Elizabeth shrieked, dodged, and flew out the door in a heartbeat. I had just enough time to realize she was gone and shove the gun under the mattress before Nurse Ethel came in like there was a hellhound on her tail. Little did she know the hell-creature had just been there, and my tail wasn’t the part she was after.

  “What the hell was that?” she bellowed. “What the hell happened here?”

  I didn’t answer, being too intent on bleeding out on the floor at her feet. She finally noticed my condition and slapped a button on the wall. A few seconds later, a bunch of other people rushed into the room, and I felt safe enough to pass out. Good thing, since I didn’t have a whole lot of choice in the matter.

  It was daylight when I woke up, and I was strapped to the bed. I tested my bonds, but I didn’t have anywhere near my normal strength, and I can’t vouch for being able to rip leather straps at my best.

  “Don’t strain, you’ll hurt yourself,” a deep voice came from the chair beside me. I looked over at a hospital security guard who looked like he took too much advantage of the cheap doughnuts and not enough of the free gym, but who was I to judge. “I’ll go get the nurse.”

  He got up and walked to the door. “Hey,” I said.

  He stopped.

  “Can you help me out of this mess so I can take a leak?”

  “No way. Ethel said if I help you in any way, she’ll cut my nuts off.”

  “Dude, she wouldn’t do that.”

  “You believe that?” He gave me a flat look, and I had to admit that no, I was full of crap and she probably would cut his nuts off, and take great pleasure in doing so.

  “Fair enough. Go get Ethel. I’ll take my punishment.”

  He gave me a grin. “Your funeral.”

  Ethel came in, but it wasn’t the same bust-my-ass-Ethel that I’d come to know and fear. This woman looked old, shaken, and haggard. I thought she might have been crying, but then decided it was a trick of the light. Everybody knows Iron Man doesn’t have tear ducts.

  “You okay, Ethel?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer me, just undid the straps holding me to the bed and handed me the plastic urinal. I scooted around under the covers and relieved myself, trying to find something funny in the situation. I drew a blank, so I just laid there and peed. I finished up and put the lid back on the plastic pisser.

  Ethel reached out and took it from me, then said, “It got Miguel last night.” She didn’t look up at me, just went into the bathroom and emptied out my quart of pee. I heard a flush and she came back into the room.

  “Who’s Miguel, Ethel? And what got him?” I figured I knew the answer, but she looked like she needed to talk, and I do have some ability to be sensitive. Not much, but some.

  “Miguel cleans on the graveyard shift. He’s got a wife and two little girls. He was learning English and was so proud that his daughters were doing good in school. And it got him.”

  I asked again, my voice soft. “What got him?”

  “That bitch-thing that you tried to kill. When she couldn’t kill you, she went after Miguel. Well, we’re going after her tonight, and this time don’t miss. I’ll be back at midnight.” She reached around behind her back and laid my Beretta on my nightstand. Without another word, she turned and walked out the door.

  With nothing better to do, I watched a little TV and tried to mov
e around some until Ethel came back. Turns out either I hadn’t torn open as much of my guts as I’d thought, or I was healing faster than normal, because I was able to walk, move my arms, and swing my gun around almost at normal human speed. My legs still felt like rubber after about five minutes, but I could function.

  I pulled out the iPad Skeeter left me and dialed him up on Skype. He was wearing a Santa hat and a Grinch t-shirt, looking like the cat that had ate about sixteen canaries.

  “What’s up, Bubba?”

  “I need a hand, Skeeter.” He applauded, then laughed like that old joke had ever been funny. I didn’t laugh with him.

  “Fine, if you’re gonna be a spoilsport about it, what you need, oh mighty beached whale?”

  “What the hell has got you in such a good mood? You been drinkin’ your daddy’s eggnog again?”

  “I might have done a bit of that, but I also solved the case down here in Hot-Lanta, all by my lonesome. Well, with a little help from Agent Amy. But we took care of the Case of the Psycho Choir Director.”

  “As if there was only one of those,” I replied.

  “Good point. But anyway, we took care of him, now what can I do for you?”

  “I need to know how many men between twenty-five and fifty checked into this hospital in the past two days for minor surgery. They should be relatively healthy, but still hospitalized. Nobody with advanced cancer, AIDS, organ failure or anything serious.”

  “You know that information is protected by law and the hospital’s privacy policy, right?”

  “You know I know you can hack into anything if you think there might be pictures of hot naked men on a hard drive, right?”

  “Fair point. Okay, there have been two men admitted that fit your criteria. We’ve got a Kyle Cornwell, in for gastric bypass surgery tomorrow morning, in room 233, and a Nick Iammatteo, knee replacement, room 784.”

  “Either of those private rooms?”

  “784 is private, Mr. Cornwell has a roommate.”

  “That makes it easy, then. Let’s go save Mr. Iammatteo from getting his soul humped out.”

  “Is that something he’s going to really thank you for?”

  “I dunno, but it’s kinda the job. And Skeeter?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Good work on the choir director thing. Thanks for covering for me.”

  “That’s what we do. Now I’m gonna go finish getting drunk. Dad’s got about half a jug of eggnog left.” He clicked off, and Ethel walked in the door. She looked kinda like a parody of a nurse going into battle in a shopping mall. Over her nurse uniform she wore a catcher’s mask, shin guards and chest plate, straining at her prodigious bosom. Around her waist she had a belt with a hunting knife strapped to it, and she carried a metal softball bat.

  “You look . . . imposing.”

  “Thanks. Get up, Let’s go.” When I looked at her eyes through the catcher’s mask, she looked a lot less ridiculous. I stopped for a minute and thought about what she was doing. This crap was just another day at the office for me, but for her it went against a lifetime of teaching, going straight into Twilight Zone territory, and the thing we were hunting killed her friend. She was pissed, and I was pretty happy she was on my side.

  I strapped on my kukri and the Beretta, and we headed up to the 7th floor. A doctor in street clothes and a lab coat got on with us at the fourth floor but remembered an urgent appointment on five once he got a good look at our outfits. Ethel and I shared a chuckle but were all business when the doors slid open on seven. I let Ethel take the lead, and I drew my Beretta, keeping the barrel pointed low and off to the side. We rounded the corner to Iammatteo’s room and found the door locked.

  “I got this,” Ethel growled. She reared back and planted a foot just to the side of the doorknob. The door flew in with a shower of splinters, and a very startled Nurse/Succubus Elizabeth looked at us from the bed, where she was straddling a young man with short-cropped dark hair.

  “I don’t think that’s the approved way to take a patient’s temperature, Nurse Ethel.”

  “I don’t think that’s a thermometer, Bubba.”

  That was all the time the demon gave us for quips because she launched herself at us from the bed. I put three silver rounds tipped with holy water in her face, and Nurse Ethel brought the baseball bat around like she was Barry Bonds, connecting with the monster’s head in a ridiculous-sounding crack of shattered cartilage and bone. The demon dropped to the floor, and I shoved Ethel out of the way.

  Kukri in hand, I reached down to chop the thing’s head off when she reached up and crumpled me with a punch right in the nuts. My family jewels felt they’d been mashed to diamond dust, and I went down hard. I heard a hideous chuckle from the succubus right before a dull thump and oof! told me that Ethel had teed off with that softball bat again. I scrambled almost upright, clutching my kukri with one hand and my throbbing sack with the other, and took in the scene in front of me. I’d come up inside the room, leaning on the bed for support. A quick glance told me that the patient was alive, but his breathing wasn’t too steady.

  Ethel blocked the doorway in her softball samurai getup, and the succubus had abandoned any semblance of human form. The monster from Alien was looked a lot sexier than this lizard-skinned thing with the body of a hot woman and the face of an angry spinach dip with teeth. Lots of teeth. I looked around for anything that could help, but my Beretta had slid away somewhere when I went down, probably under the bed or out into the hall where it would be of absolutely no use.

  The demon stopped feinting and weaving, and I saw Ethel’s eyes glaze over. Apparently Evil Nurse Elizabeth could mojo chicks, too. Ethel took a step back, about to let the thing get away, when I remembered my ace in the hole.

  “Remember Miguel and his daughters!” I hollered. Ethel’s eyes cleared immediately, and the succubus turned back to me, eyes glowing red in the middle of that nasty face. I slashed out with my knife, and the monster pulled back, putting its head right in the sweet spot of Ethel’s swing. She connected with the bat square in the side of the monster’s head, and Nurse Soulsucker went down like a bag of potatoes.

  “Is it . . . dead?” Ethel asked, stepping in to look at the monster.

  I jumped over the lizard-demon in the nurse’s uniform and shoved her back, hard. “I doubt it. And haven’t you ever seen a horror movie? You don’t ever lean over the dead monster. That guarantees that it’s not a dead monster. It’s kinda like having sex in a horror movie guarantees you’re going to die.”

  “Are you propositioning me?” Ethel smiled a little at me. “I knew that skinny little government girl wouldn’t be enough for you.”

  “No, I am not propositioning you, I am trying to tell you how to stay alive in horrifying situations. Now if you would stop interrupting me . . . She’s on her feet right behind me, isn’t she?” I’d, of course, violated another rule of horror movies—never turn your back on the “dead” monster to explain things to someone else in the party because the next thing that happens is the monster stands up and kicks your ass.

  But this time I’d been waiting for it. I spun around with the curved short sword in both hands and chopped clean through the succubus’ neck. The heavy blade of the kukri was made for chopping through branches and limbs. And by limbs I mean arms and legs, so one skinny demon neck wasn’t a real problem. The monster’s head fell to the ground and rolled off under the bed, and the body dropped, spilling greenish-black ichor all over the tile. It was one of the five grossest things I’d ever seen, and I’ve shared bathrooms with SEC defensive linemen.

  “Now it’s dead,” I said to Ethel, shouldering my way past her into the hall. “You can keep the Beretta, but I’m checking out of this place. Lots of weird shit going on, makes me feel too much like home.”

  And an hour later, I was sitting in the Pink Pony trading my hospital wristband for sympathetic hugs and half-price lap dances. All was right with the world, for a few hours at least. Skeeter had survived his first solo cas
e, my guts were sewn back into the right place, Agent Amy was off in Washington doing her thing, the succubus was nothing but a nasty green spot on the hospital room floor, and I was drunk in a bar in Atlanta. All in all, a pretty good day.

  UnHoly Night

  A Skeeter the Monster Hunter Short Story

  By John G. Hartness

  “Did I mention how much I hate Christmas carols?” I hissed into the Bluetooth earpiece. The little old lady in front of me turned around and glared at me, breaking off right in the middle of “Good King Wenceslas.”

  “Did I mention I don’t give a flying rat’s ass?” came the gravelly voice in my ear.

  “Don’t swear at me, you bedridden behemoth. I’m out here doing your job while you’re the one laying on your back watching porn and eating Cheetos, while I’m the one out here freezing my chestnuts off listening to some fat white heifer invent new lyrics to ‘O Come all Ye Faithful!’” I might have gotten a little louder than I had hoped for in that last bit because this time the aforementioned fat white heifer turned around and gave me the evil eye.

  “Skeeter, shut your pie hole.” Bubba’s voice crackled over the airwaves. “I’m laid up here with tubes comin’ out of places I didn’t even know were places on account of my shithead brother sticking three feet of samurai sword through my guts, so you gotta suck it up and sing!” There was a squawk of static, a squeal, and a hum as Bubba hung up on me.

  It wasn’t really unexpected, his bad mood. He had almost died at the hands of his psychotic kid brother and right after killing his father for the second time, to boot. That kind of thing would leave anybody feeling a little under the weather, and Bubba wasn’t the type to enjoy lying around a hospital bed for very long. As a matter of fact, his enjoyment ended about the time he realized that they wouldn’t give him unlimited morphine and that all the nurses wore underpants.