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

by John G. Hartness

  Just when all the noise had died down and the helicopters peeled off back to base, a battered red Pinto sped into the parking lot with a horde of zombies staggering along in its wake. The scrawny necromancer behind the wheel pulled to a tire-screeching stop behind me and got out, waving a six-pack of Bud over his head and shouting orders to his zombies. The passenger door to his car opened up and Elvis Presley stepped out in all his white jumpsuit glory, a Glock 19 on his hip and a shotgun in his hands. Wayne McCalla, the doppelganger I saved from prison in Atlanta a while back, stepped up onto the roof of the Pinto and shouted out “Elvis has NOT left the building!”

  “Here’s my army, little bro. It’s every civilian and monster I’ve helped out in the past two years. I’ve got half of Brar’kin’s sasquatch clan, a rakshasa with an unfortunate LSU fetish, a doppelganger, more bikers and vampires than you can shake a stick at, a snake-man, a preacher, and an entire damn government agency backing me up. Now do you still want to throw down, or do you and your people want to turn around and go the hell home?”

  He stared at me for a second, and I swear I almost saw him froth at the mouth. I’d never seen Jason so pissed, not even when I pantsed him in the middle of the gym at his Junior Prom. His head whipped from side to side, little drops of sweat flying from his hair as he looked to his band of monsters. They all looked a lot less interested in this fight now that it wasn’t just three of us standing between them and a human tapas bar.

  “Attack!” Jason screamed, and he drew Great-Grandpappy’s sword as he came at me. He shifted into his half-wolf form, which put him over seven feet tall and three hundred pounds of nothing but muscle. The Zippo lighter flew out of his hands toward the pyre, but a shot rang out over the parking lot and it exploded harmlessly several feet away.

  “I’m in position on top of the press box,” Skeeter said in my ear.

  “Nice shot,” I replied.

  “I’ve been practicing. Now kick his ass, Bubba. I’ve got your six.” Skeeter clicked off and I drew my kukris just as Jason slammed into me and hell erupted all across the Sanford Stadium parking lot. I heard Amy’s MP5 chatter out three-round bursts, and Joe and Hank’s shotguns spat fire into the night, then I was neck-deep in my own battle and knew nothing but hair and muscle and blood.

  Jason was big, bigger than me, and stronger. I knew it, too, so for once I concentrated on being faster and more fluid. I’ve always been the straight-on bruiser, so when I went backwards onto my butt and back as Jason hit me, it caught him flat-footed. I planted one of my own feet right into his gut, and shoved off as I rolled backward. But my brother was ridiculously agile in his half-wolf form, so he just flipped onto his feet while I was sprawled on my back like a tattooed turtle. I rolled over and jumped to my feet, but Jason was already on me, slashing at my middle with the sword. I blocked his strike with my kukri, bending his wrists and strike down toward the ground with the curved blade. He spun around and came at my neck in a nasty overhead strike that probably would have cut me in half if it had landed, but I crossed my blades under his, pushed up to open his arms in front of his body, and kicked him in the balls with my steel-toed Wolverines.

  Let’s face it, if you’re gonna fight naked, eventually somebody’s going to hit you in the junk. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t pretty, and it certainly wasn’t sporting. I also didn’t give a single shit about any of that. Jason’s eyes went wide and he sucked in a breath as his testicles bounced off his liver, and I twisted around with his sword still trapped in my kukri blades. He couldn’t hold his sword and grip his swollen nuts at the same time, so as I spun around, the sword, and my kukri, clattered to the pavement.

  I reached down to my belt and slid my hands into my caestus, custom-built silver-lined and -spiked armored gloves that Amy gave me for Christmas. I flexed my fingers a couple of times to get the fit just right, then waded in to scrap with Jason. My first punch landed on the side of his elongated snout, opening a deep red furrow and making him howl with the pain. He lashed out at my midsection with his claws, but the ceramic plates in my body armor held up. After a couple of worthless swipes like that while I jabbed at his tender nose, he changed tactics and punched me in the chest, swinging from the hips in a solid uppercut. I heard the armor plate shatter, but I was too busy gasping for air to think about what that meant. Jason followed up with a double axe-handle shot to my head, but I rolled out of the way and caught it on a shoulder instead. My left arm went instantly numb and I heard the crack that mean I’d broken my clavicle. Again.

  I dropped to one knee and looked up at my brother’s smiling half-wolf face. “You thought you could beat me, Bubba? You can’t even stand toe-to-toe with my for five minutes.”

  “I don’t have to,” I said, and punched him in the side of his knee. The silver one-inch spikes tore through ligament and flesh, and Jason went down. We knelt on the asphalt, gasping in the August heat.

  Jason abandoned all subtlety at that point, he just dove at me and started trying to choke me with this hands. We rolled over and over across the lot, neither one above to get a good position on the other. At some point I noticed that there were a lot of bodies piling up all over the place, then I got a claw raked across my cheek and I focused my attention back on Jason. He got into position on top of me, ready to choke the life out of me, and I slammed my head upward into his snout. I heard a crunch from his nose, and he reared his head back in pain. That gave me all the room I need to bring both silver-clad fists up under his jaw and knock him momentarily senseless. I shoved Jason off me and rolled to my feet, feeling something hard under my hand and coming up with it. I looked down at my right hand, and Great-Grandpappy’s sword was there.

  I heard Great-Grandpappy Beauregard’s voice ringing in my ears, and the last thing I thought before Jason came at me again were his words. “We hunt monsters. It’s what we do. It’s part of who we are, and it’s the thing that makes us different from normal people. You ain’t never gonna get up in the morning and go to work in some factory or sawmill. We live in the dark places, and we do the dark work so the day people ain’t got to. Now if your brother has looked too far into the heart of that darkness, it might have overtook him. And if that’s the case, well, it’s just like a dog that’s got the rabies—you can’t do nothing but put it down. But if there’s a sliver of doubt, just that littlest bit of hope in the bottom of Pandora’s box? Well, then, he’s still family, no matter what he’s done, and you got to save him if you can.”

  I looked into my brother’s eyes as he came at me again, and there was nothing human left in there. The little brother I taught to shoot, and fish, and swim, and ride a bike—he was gone. The only thing left was pain and rage. I set my feet, squared my shoulders, and as he charged me, I lifted the tip of my sword, leaned forward just a hair, and impaled him on the length of my blade. The shining metal came out of his back in a spray of crimson, and he sagged against me, all momentum shattered. I put a shoulder into his chest and pushed him back, pulling on the sword as I did. It came free with a grinding of steel on bone, and my insides quivered as I remembered the feeling from a year ago. I raised the blade, looked into my brother’s eyes one last time, and took his head off with the family sword.

  A fountain of blood shot several feet into the air and splattered everything within ten feet, including me and my mother, who was still tied to the pole awaiting her fate. Jason’s body dropped to the ground, and a sudden silence descended on the battle. Everyone froze, as if every nasty there could feel its connection to Jason suddenly snap. Almost as one, the evil sasquatch, bad vampires, werewolves and zombies all ran or shambled off from wherever they came.

  Within minutes, the only monsters left in the parking lot were the good guys, the dead guys, and Jason’s pack. A naked and very curvy female werewolf came up to me in her human form and knelt in front of me. “What should we do, Alpha?” she asked.

  “I’m not your Alpha. I’m not even a wolf,” I replied.

  “You have slain our Alpha, now you
are our Alpha. And we can make you a wolf, that’s easy.” I thought I saw a little bit of a grin on her downcast face but I couldn’t be sure.

  “Get out,” I said. “I abdicate, or surrender, or whatever. I quit as your Alpha. I’m not part of your pack. Now get out of here and do what you wish.” I motioned, and she stood up, blurring into wolf shape as she did. The remaining weres followed, and I was alone with my crew. The bikers and vamps just gave me a nod and a wave as they vanished into the night. Elvis and the idiot necromancer rolled out in their Pinto, the few surviving zombies trailing along behind. A helicopter landed in the parking lot to pick up the wounded and healthy DEMON agents, and I kissed Amy good night as she hopped in the chopper and flew off to make all this officially disappear. That left one thing to deal with.

  “Y’all wait for me by the truck,” I said to Hank and Joe. Then I took my earpiece out and took the three steps over to the bonfire, where my mother was still tied up. She was struggling against her bonds now, apparently whatever Jason gave her had worn off. She smiled as I walked up.

  “Robbie, thank God—“

  I held up a hand to cut her off. “I’ve got a couple of things to say to you, and then I’m going to turn and walk away. I don’t ever want to see you again, and I don’t ever want to hear from you again. As far as I’m concerned, you died the day you walked out our front door. But I want you to know that you did this. You broke something inside my little brother, and that caused a lot of people to get hurt here tonight. So you need to know that, and you need to own that.”

  I looked at my mother, standing there with Jason’s blood spattered across her face and a look of horror in her eyes. My brother’s body lay at my feet, his blood soaking the wood and the stench of gasoline and coppery blood filling my nostrils. I reached behind her, cut the ropes holding her to the pole, and said, “Go.”

  She opened her mouth, but I just shook my head. I reached out with one finger and ran it down the side of her face. I held it up to her gaze. “You see that? That’s your son’s blood. All over your face. And whether you believe it or not, it’s all over your hands, too.” With that, I turned and walked down the pile of wood and to my truck. I slid in behind the wheel, looked over at Skeeter in the passenger seat, and drove off into the night.

  White Lightnin’

  A Beauregard the Monster Hunter Short Story

  By John G. Hartness

  “Beauregard Ulysses Brabham, get down here!” The dulcet tones of Tavvy’s voice penetrated the fog that was Bubba’s mind and dragged him forcefully from a dream into the waking world. The waking world was bright, so Bubba rolled over to limit his exposure to daylight. Unfortunately for Bubba, he had once again slept outside in his hammock, so the act of rolling over involved a rather abrupt introduction of his face to the hard-packed red clay beneath him. Sonofabitch, that woman is more likely to get me killed than any monster I hunt. And where’d my damn pants go?

  Bubba lumbered to his feet and relieved himself against a tree, then began the search for his pants. They were crumpled in a heap by the foot of the hammock, tangled around his work boots. Bubba shook his head and pulled on both pants and boots, swearing not for the first time to drink less in the future. It’s that damn preacher and his theological debatin’. He gets up here using all them big words and I figure the only way I can follow him is to be about half drunk when he starts theorizin’. But I never stop at half drunk, do I? Bubba shook his head at the two empty quart jars sitting on his porch, and started off down the hill toward his sister’s shrieks.

  “What in the seven flaming hells do you want, Tavvy?” Bubba bellowed as his father’s, now his sister’s, cabin came into view. Tavvy had nursed the old man through the last few years of his life, and now she owned the cabin and all the land to boot. The downside was that she had spent her prime courtin’ years caring for a mean old bastard of a father, and now she seemed doomed to spend the rest of her life as an old maid. It was a shame, too, Bubba thought. Tavvy wasn’t bad-looking girl, even if she was his sister. She had a decent enough face, if maybe her jaw was a little too strong and her chin a little too square. She had a decent body, too, with an impressive bosom and a healthy appetite. At a couple of inches over six feet and close to three hundred pounds, Bubba was more comfortable around a woman who could eat than some of the town girls who looked like they lived on water and air.

  “I require your assistance, Beauregard. You shall provide it as befits a gentleman of your stature.”

  “I ain’t no stature, Tavvy. I’m a real, live man, not one carved out of something.” He passed gas loudly and tried to maneuver downwind of himself. “See, Tavvy? Statures don’t fart. Now what do you need?”

  “I need for you to come inside and have lunch with Preacher Mason and myself. It would be unseemly for a lady of my approachable years to be seen dining alone with an unmarried gentleman, no matter his occupation or his motives. Which I assure you are of the purest nature.”

  “Whatever. I only understood about three words of that mouthful, but I think you said lunch is ready and Preacher Mason is coming. That about cover it?”

  “Yes, Bubba, I suppose that about covers it.” Octavia sighed and went back into the house. Bubba clomped up the steps and into the cabin, looking around to see what Tavvy had done with the place since his last visit. The place looked good. Tavvy kept a clean house, even back when Pap was alive, and now that it was her own property, the floor fairly gleamed. She’d even polished the brass spittoon the old man had always kept in the front room, but Bubba knew damn well Tavvy’d shoot any fool who dared spit in her house. Bubba ducked by habit as he came into the dining room, and nodded to Preacher Mason, who was already seated at the head of the table. A trim man in his twenties, Charles Mason was the Baptist preacher for the whole of the area, all the way from Rome down to Atlanta. He travelled a fair bit, preaching at a different church every Sunday, but he always found time to visit with Bubba and Tavvy whenever he was in that part of the Georgia hills. He told Bubba that it was a fervent desire to rescue him from the evils of drink, but Bubba had his own thoughts about who needed rescuin’ from what, and he figured the young holy man was in more danger from his sister than Bubba was from anything that came out of his still.

  ‘Course, that was ignoring the tender state of his skull that morning. He settled his bulk into one of the cane-bottom chairs and poured himself a glass of Tavvy’s tea. “How you feelin’ this morning, Preacher?”

  “I will admit that I feel rather the worse for wear, Beauregard. What was that we were drinking last night?”

  “I call it Apple Pie, Preacher. I think it’s got a right smooth taste without puttin’ too much fire in your bowels the next day. You ain’t had no fiery shits, have you?”

  “Beauregard!” Tavvy’s voice came from right behind him, and both men winced at the volume. Bubba winced again as Tavvy smacked him upside the head with a ringing open-handed slap. “I will not have such crude talk at my table. Now behave as though you have even once been in the presence of a lady or I swear to Jesus himself that I will beat you senseless!”

  “Baby sister, I ain’t far from senseless now, but I am hung over as a dog and I swear by that frying pan right over yonder that if you smack me in the head again I’m gonna turn you over my knee and spank you ’til you don’t sit down for a week. Now you invited me, no, ordered me down here for lunch, so let’s eat so I can get back to the important work I had planned for today.”

  “And what important work would that be, Bubba? Sleeping? Or drinking?” Tavvy looked down on his with a raised eyebrow.

  “Both.” Bubba said without a hint of shame or remorse. “Not in that order. I plan to drink ’til my head quits hurting, then it’ll probably be about time to sleep again.”

  “I’m afraid I may have some news that might adversely affect those plans, Bubba. And Octavia, I believe this might be of some import to you as well.” Preacher Mason said. Bubba took a good look at him, and it was obvious the holy m
an had something on his mind other than the better part of a quart of last night white lightnin’.

  “What is it, Preacher? What’s the matter?” Bubba asked. “We ain’t gotta kill no more zombies, do we? I ain’t ashamed to tell you, I had bad dreams about that little girl for a couple weeks.” The minister and the siblings had put a halt to an unholy experiment in raising the dead some months ago, and Bubba had only recently been able to sleep through the night. He looked at Tavvy and the expression on her face told him that he wasn’t alone in having night terrors at the memory.

  “The First Bank of Georgia in Atlanta was robbed several days ago. All of the depositors’ money was cleaned out, including the life savings of several of your neighbors here on the mountain.” Mason said.

  “Well, that’s just awful, Preacher!” Tavvy said, sitting in the chair next to the minister. “What can we do to help? We don’t have much money, but it’s never seen the inside of a bank.”

  “No sir, we keep our money safe, buried in jars out back of the house. But that ain’t what’s really botherin’ you, is it?” Bubba asked.

  “No, Bubba, it’s not.” Mason admitted. “The money deposited in the bank is insured, and while insurance companies are despicable creatures, they will replace your neighbors’ funds. The Second Baptist Church keeps a safe deposit box at that bank, and several important relics were stolen. Relics that should under no circumstances fall into the wrong hands.” Tavvy went pale at the preacher’s words, but Bubba still hadn’t quite caught up.