by T L Barrett
“Have you figured out where zis monster sleeps?” Kahn asked.
“Usually, he’s at his bastard friend, Mark’s.”
“You should go zere during ze cleansing hours of ze sun and cut off ze monster’s head,” he said.
She giggled. “Although, I’d like to, I don’t think I could do that.”
“At least put up some garlic over your windows,” he said.
“Seriously, I don’t know why it took me so long to realize I had been dating my father all along. So, typical, really.”
“Zat is disgusting! How could you do such a thing?”
“I know, totally, huh?” she smirked sadly.
“It is typical to bed with your father in New York State?” he asked incredulously.
“Well, I’d say it is a universal condition.”
“What? I have never heard of something so ludicrous!” He edged away from her to the outskirts of the bed.
“Wait, you’re serious? I didn’t mean literally. Have you ever been, you know diagnosed? I suspect that you might be on the spectrum,” she said.
“I never take ze drugs, nor have I ever have heard of zis spectrum!” he said, getting off the bed.
“No, actually, I was talking about autism, because I think you are definitely on the spectrum. Anyway, would you like me to cook you breakfast or anything?”
“No, I must go. Every moment those I pursue are getting farther away from me. Thank you for ze sex. It was glorious,” he said and gave a little bow.
“Well, you weren’t so bad yourself. Just, do me a favor, okay. You seem pretty driven. I’m not sure that it’s a healthy thing to be like that all the time. Maybe it has something to do with this lost love of yours. I’m sure she was swell, and all, but you shouldn’t lose sight of the good things in life, too. We’re not all monsters.”
He stood beside the bed. At first Gretchen thought he was thinking about what she had said. Then she became decidedly uncomfortable under his unblinking stare.
“Well, all right. Good luck with everything,” she said.
“Good-bye, mein frauline,” Kahn said, gathered his clothes and left.
* * * *
When Kahn drove out of her drive way he noticed the black sports car parked on the other side of a small line of trees outside Gretchen’s house. He pulled up alongside it.
An unshaven man in his thirties was sitting in the driver seat with a pair of binoculars on his lap. Kahn rolled down his window and leaned over. The man’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“Excuse me, are you ze one they call Carl?” Kahn asked.
“I might be? Who the hell are you?”
“My name is L. P. Kahn. I take it you are ze monster that Gretchen told me about?”
“That little bitch! She’s fucking freaks just to spite me now?”
Kahn pulled out his pistol with the silencer and silver tipped bullets. He fired a single shot into the middle of Carl’s forehead. Carl slumped over on to the steering wheel. The sports car’s horn let out a long mournful honk.
Kahn drove away.
* * * *
As Kahn’s jeep approached a turn off from the highway, he got a deep itching tingle in his gut. He had learned to follow these tingles. Inevitably these led to the lairs of the monstrous and obscene. They had kept Kahn alive in the secret and deadly world of the night creatures that fed on the unsuspecting people of the world.
Kahn had inherited this ability from his maternal grandmother, of which he had been told very little. He knew she had once worked as a fortune teller in one of Europe’s last great traveling circus sideshow. She married a rich German businessmen. Her daughter had married the son of this rich businessman’s partner.
L. P. Kahn senior, the partner’s son, was a distant but demanding father for his diminutive son. He insisted that Kahn enter business school and follow in his father’s footsteps so that he could one day take his seat as chairman of his father’s firm. L.P. the younger knew his father was embarrassed of him. He grew tired of ignoring the snide looks of his father’s ambitious partners and left home to find a life on the road with a “variety show” that catered to the exotic and often prurient interests of Europe’s rich and famous.
Hermann Gottliech ran his carnival of freaks and performers with an iron fist and a cruel tongue. Kahn had slaved away, juggling, knife-throwing and debasing himself in great estate houses for a number of years without complaint. He took this abuse because he met the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, a contortionist with a heart of gold. He also was so accustomed to this treatment from his father that he knew no other way. Without realizing it, he had traded one life with a demanding father for another.
In the end, we all marry our fathers, don’t we?
* * * *
Not too soon after turning off on the side road, Kahn’s little itches led him to a seemingly nameless village surrounding a picturesque common. A great big ferocious itch told Kahn to pull over the jeep and investigate. He did so.
The village seemed totally empty. He stumped his way up to a door and rang a doorbell. Silence answered him. He walked over to the next house with the same results. At the third house, a plump woman in an old fashioned house dress answered the door. She looked out above Kahn’s head and turned to leave.
Kahn cleared his throat and the woman looked down with a little start.
“Oh, I thought I smelled someone!” The woman laughed and put a hand against her ample bosom. “Hello, sir. How can I help you?”
Kahn reached into his satchel. The woman’s nostrils flared and her eyes narrowed.
Kahn pulled out a rumpled pamphlet with smiling people harvesting wheat.
“If you have but a moment, ma’am, I’d like to talk to you about your place in a place called paradise,” Kahn smiled.
“Well, I think I’ve got a minute. Yes, yes, I do. Come right in,” she said and opened the screen door for Kahn to enter under her meaty arm.
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said.
“You don’t have to take off your boots, sir. I was just about to check on some meat pies in the oven. I hope I can interest you in a slice?”
“That would be kind of you, mein frauline,” he said as she led him to a little parlor and offered him a seat. “You live in a quiet village. I vas beginning to think that it vas totally abandoned.”
“Oh, almost everyone is down at the grange hall. They’ve called an important town meeting. Would you like some tea or coffee, sir?” she asked. Kahn politely declined. “Your accent, I take it you are German, or Austrian?”
“I am from Germany, yes,” he said and looked around at the faded and antique décor of the parlor. The woman went into her kitchen to check her pies.
“That’s fascinating. I’ve always wanted to travel to Germany,” she said from the kitchen. “Legend has it that my people got their start there in the Black Forest.”
“Is zat so?” Kahn said and raised an eyebrow.
“Diane! Who’s here?” a gruff voice growled from another room. The plump woman appeared in the doorway again.
“It’s just a visitor, Brucey. Go back to sleep.” Diane called back. “That’s just my husband, Bruce. He is recovering from a recent accident. Don’t pay him any mind. My pies will be ready in another few minutes. What was it that you wanted to talk to me about?”
“Actually, ma’am, I’m thinking I could use a cup of tea, now zat I think of it…if you don’t mind,” Kahn said.
“Oh, no, I’ll put it on and be right back.”
“Don’t worry about hurrying yourself,” Kahn said to her retreating back.
As soon as she was gone, Kahn leapt off of the arm chair and scurried to find the source of Brucey’s voice.
He crept through a short hallway and stepped into a darkened room from which issued the strenuous and steady sound of struggled breathing. A shape lay on the bed under a pulled shade. Kahn could not make out any specifics in the shadowy light, but whatever lay there had a heck of a lot of h
air.
Quick as he could, Kahn darted to the center of the room and leapt. He caught the string pull for the overhead light with the tip of his fingers.
A werewolf lay on the bed, stuck in mid transformation. His muted snout lay open as the creature struggled to breathe. Kahn could see that the beast had been injured about the chest and neck.
Brucey turned his yellow eyes toward Kahn. Kahn reached into his satchel, pulled out his pistol and fired three shots into the creatures head and chest.
Brucey gasped once, before completing his final transformation into human form.
“Brucey?” Diane’s concerned voice came from the other side of the house.
Kahn scurried back down the hallway. He entered the parlor just as Diane did from the opposite door.
Diane had sprouted a mane of hair around her plump face. Clumsy fangs jutted from her lower jaw.
“What have you done to my Brucey?” Diane growled.
“I shot him three times with silver tipped bullets,” Kahn stated.
Diane growled and leapt.
She didn’t make it halfway across the braided parlor rug.
Kahn knew he had to move quickly.
He scurried outside into the silent village once more. He grabbed two big canisters of fuel from the back of his jeep and struggled with them across the street. Panting, he made a circuit of the big grange hall splashing gas out on the lowest clapboards of the grange’s walls.
He could hear the werewolves growling away at each other. He made it around the third side when he heard someone shout:
“I smell gasoline!”
Kahn lit a match, threw it against the side of the building and scurried to the front of the grange hall.
Fire burst out all around the grange hall walls. Kahn threw some gas about the front and lit that, too. He drew out two guns and placed them within reach on an empty canister.
As he looked back up the werewolves started to pour out of the front door of the place. Kahn brought up his pistol and began to fire.
He took the first three directly in the chest. They rolled down the stairs and fell into the fire. A couple of werewolves leapt from the big glass windows. Kahn brought them down in midair.
A few werewolves braved the fire that coursed up the front steps. Their hair curling, they howled in pain and ran at Kahn.
Kahn lifted the other pistol and kept firing. Eventually, he had to back away slowly. The bodies began piling up. The smell of burnt hair assailed Kahn’s sensitive nostrils.
Kahn felt a deep itch in his gut. He swung around just as a fat werewolf dove at him from behind. Kahn shot the creature in the crotch, dove and rolled into the beast’s legs. The werewolf screamed in pain and stumbled onto his face. Kahn rolled up, shot him in the back and kept firing.
The werewolves kept getting closer and closer, coming so fast, Kahn did not have time to stand or reload.
A last werewolf stumbled over her dead brethren and reached a claw out for Kahn. It caught his leg and dragged him closer. Kahn hissed and pulled the triggers of both of his pistols. They were both empty.
He lurched forward and jammed the pistol into the werewolf’s maw. It clanked against the creatures teeth. Kahn withdrew his hand quickly and pulled out a silver bladed knife.
He stabbed the knife into the werewolf’s hand. The touch of the pure metal burnt the beast. It howled in pain, letting go of Kahn.
Kahn stood up, fumbled for a clip, put it in his remaining gun and fired ten bullets into the last werewolf. Kahn desisted after he realized that the woman was no longer moving on her own accord, but the body was merely jerking from the impact of the bullets that had made her head unrecognizable.
Kahn spun all around three times until he was sure that he killed every last of the fiends in the village. He stopped halfway through the second spin and waited. From behind a bush, a young werewolf scampered, trying to flee.
Kahn brought it down with a single shot and put his gun away.
He took out a bottle of hand sanitizer from his satchel and spread it generously over his hands as he walked back to his jeeps.
“I am ze best monster hunter in the history of the world,” he said. The crackling fire applauded.
* * * *
As Kahn put many miles between the burning village and himself, he worried about losing the trail in his haste.
Then, he remembered something that made his sigh with relief. Even if he did lose the monster’s trail they had advertised their destination on the side of their car. Idiots.
Chapter Seven
Hairy Cultists
By the time that Barry had driven through New York State and down into Pennsylvania, his teeth hurt from grinding them, and his head ached from driving all night in the dark. They had blared the radio after the adrenaline from running from ‘werewolf central’ wore off. When that wasn’t enough to keep Barry’s eyes from rolling up into his head, Glen took to cursing creatively in loud sudden bursts right behind Barry’s head.
Before dawn had announced itself, Barry pulled over into access roads leading into the Allegheny National Forest. They camouflaged the car and slipped into the woods to sleep like the dead.
* * * *
“Hey, you sir. Wake up! You can’t sleep here without a permit,” someone said in Barry’s dream.
“Well, that’s strange, I wasn’t sleeping at all,” Barry said. “Actually I was watching my topless aunt give this wolf a sponge bath.”
Someone kicked Barry lightly in the upper arm. His eyes flew open and saw a man wearing a park ranger hat staring down at him.
“Are you on drugs, sir?” the ranger asked and put his hand on the pepper spray canister on his belt. Barry lifted his head and looked around. He could not see Glen.
“No, umph…” Barry managed to get up, holding his hands out so not to alarm the ranger. “No, sir. I just got really sleepy and couldn’t drive any further.”
“Yeah, well, there are such things as hotels or hostels. Could I see some identification?”
Barry groped his pants pockets, and looked down, trying to get his groggy mind to give him some kind of excuse for not showing the ranger his ID. His eyes lit on where Glen’s foot had made a solid imprint into a bit of soft soil.
“Would you look at that?” Barry exclaimed and walked over quickly and pointed down at the print. “What do you think could have made this?” The park ranger kept his eyes on Barry as he walked closer, shifting his gaze down at the print. He studied it for a long moment.
“Did you put that print there, sir?”
“No, I swear, officer. I didn’t. Do you think there’s some kind of Bigfoot here? Man, I’m lucky I didn’t get eaten, huh?”
“Don’t touch it,” the ranger snapped. “I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
Barry looked up to see Glen obliviously about to enter the little clearing. Barry mouthed ‘no’ and shook his head violently. Glen saw the stooped ranger and his face grimaced with fright. He took a step backward. A twig snapped.
The ranger looked over his shoulder and saw Glen.
“Holy shit!” he said. He rose, his hand going for the gun on his belt.
Barry grabbed a thick piece of damp wood and swung it against the back of the ranger’s head. The ranger stumbled forward. The ranger rolled and went again for his gun.
“Glen, help!” Barry yelled.
Barry pranced forward like a fencer and brought the stick down again on the ranger’s hand.
The ranger screamed and grabbed the stick with his uninjured hand.
Barry jumped on top of the ranger and struggled to get the stick back. The ranger brought his knee up into Barry’s balls. Barry froze with the shock of pain and rolled off.
As the ranger struggled to pull his gun and rise at the same time, Glen came forward and grabbed the gun hand.
The ranger screamed again and struggled to free his hand from the huge monster’s grip. Glen managed to get the pistol pointed upward before the ranger fired
off five shots in succession.
The ranger kicked at Glen. Glen caught the ranger’s leg and lifted him by the wrist and shin. He threw him to the ground. The gun spun down into some ferns.
The ranger flipped through the air and landed on his back, knocking his wind from him. Glen ran forward, wrapped his arms around the gasping ranger in a sleeper hold.
The ranger gasped and struggled, but stopped after an alarmingly short period of time. His face turned red, then purple; then his eyes rolled into his head.
Glen opened his arms and dumped the unconscious ranger upon the ground.
“You killed him?” Barry asked, fingering his own crotch delicately.
“I don’t think so,” Glen said. “Man, it worked. I’ve always wanted to try that.”
“We have to go, right now!” Barry said. He limped the way toward the hidden car.
“Can’t I eat him?” Glen asked.
“No, you can’t eat him. We have enough to worry about then be chased by a homicide squad.”
“He looks like a complete dick,” Glen complained.
“Yeah, but he’s probably a dick with kids. You want to change your name to Glenwood Orphanmaker?” Barry asked.
“Well, that does have a pretty badass ring to it.”
“Get your ass into the car, now!” Barry hissed.
“All right, but you got to admit, that does sound cool,” Glen said and got into the car.
“This sucks, I don’t think we should have to always run and hide every time some asshole pokes his head in our business,” Glen said as Barry floored the car’s accelerator.
“Yeah, well, that’s the way things are, so we’ll just have to deal with it,” Barry said and winced. “At least you didn’t get kicked in the goods.”
“He tried. I guess next time you should just leave the hand to hand combat to the old Glenwood Orphanmaker.”
“Oh, brother,” Barry said, and pulled out onto the highway as dusk began to fall across Western Pennsylvania.
“Someday, we’ll be free. Just follow the drinking gourd, Barry. It will lead us right.” Glen leaned forward and whispered into Barry’s ear.
