The day we lost Susan, my heart got ripped out and stomped flat. She was the only woman I’d ever met I was willing to give up my lecherous ways for. I’ll love that woman to the day I die. The worst part is, it still feels like my fault.
Enough. She’d heard about Elkins and Carlos had already suggested me. I assured her I was in good enough shape to get through the training and was scheduled for the next class in January.
January 5th, 1985, I showed up at the MHI compound in Cazador.
* * *
I figure that most of the people reading this have been through MHI training so I’ll skip most of that. This intro has run long and I want to get to the real stuff: The Hunts.
I’ll cover a few things, mostly the people, just for the history involved.
At the time, the President of MHI was Raymond Shackleford III. In his mid-fifties he was, in his opinion anyway, in the prime of his hunting years. Tall, wiry, with slightly graying black hair and a grip like an industrial press. The guy was a monster himself, I swear. Tough as fricking nails. I’d thought Drill Instructors were tough till I met Ray III. He was missing his right eye from a ghoul that got too close but it didn’t slow him down any. Guy hated being stuck in the office which was a frequent problem. He was also a walking encyclopedia of monsters, how to kill most efficiently.
“Don’t mess around. Find the quickest, safest, most efficient way to dispatch the monster and do the job. Kill monsters, get paid, don’t mess around. You’re more likely to live to enjoy the money.”
Dude could also seriously party. He drank me under the table one time in New Orleans and that takes some doing. You’ll be running into him from time to time in these memoirs. You knew when the Boss was going to show. When the shit had hit the fan and there seemed to be no stopping it, there’d be Ray III.
The Operations Officer was a guy named Earl Harbinger. Average looking, but he swaggered like James Cagney in a mob movie. The swagger was deserved. Earl was a living legend in the monster killing field. He always wore this beat-up old leather bomber jacket and, usually, jeans. Primary weapon was a Thompson. I’d considered a Thompson when I was hunting around for a good .45 sub-gun. But I’d fired one with Mr. Brentwood back in the day and knew they were a beast to keep on target. Earl would fire it one-handed and nail the eye of a gnat. It took me some time to figure out how any human could do something like that.
You might know the answer to that or not. Not up to me to say. Sort of becomes obvious in the New Orleans memoirs when he was never around when we needed him. Don’t want to blow Earl’s cover though.
Then there was Raymond Shackleford IV. Tall, like his father, but much broader and heavier bodied. Strikingly good looking guy, like a male model. We mostly talked in the gym and the guy could pump more iron than Arnold Schwarzenegger. Another guy who was a walking encyclopedia of monsters. He also probably knew more about their genesis and the deep dark arts that created many of them than his dad. Guy was spectacularly smart and that was by my standards. He understood the monsters in a way I never quite got although a few of his lessons I’ve used over the years.
Ray IV is tragic character on the order of Hamlet. Lately I’ve been trying to get him out of his funk over losing Susan but there doesn’t seem to be anything to do. He barely talks to his kids much less me.
But back then were the good times, though. Ray was around most of the time I was going through training and always around to help a Newbie. I didn’t really need much help; I’d been pre-trained in weapons and soaked up the monster information like a sponge. I’d even gotten back in enough shape the PT didn’t bother me. But he never minded having his brain picked and he’d quiz me on advanced stuff while we were working out. Best work-out buddy I’ve ever had. I hear he’s been getting better lately.
Then there was Susan. Ah, Susan. Tall enough that the couple of times I got a hug in regular clothing I had to be careful where I put my face. Long legs, tight body, face like an angel except for a couple of minor scars that somehow just added to the look. Woman should have tried out for the Olympic shooting team. Especially long range. And she was one hell of a hand at kung-fu. She’d studied Dragon, initially, which I sort of considered a show-art. But she’d moved into wah-lum later and we occasionally sparred. I won’t say she could kick my ass, but it was close.
They had one child, Julie, when I got there and another, Ray V, was born that year. Since then they’ve had a third, Nate, who’s the spitting image of his mom so far. I’ve gotten to watch those kids grow up and it’s been a real pleasure. Much as I was smitten by Susan, they were the best, the strongest, couple I’ve ever met. I’ve tried very hard to pine from afar. I just hope someday I might meet someone as great as Susan who thinks I’m good enough to lasso.
Those people made up most of MHI’s main team, the one that wears the smiley face demon patch. There were two more, Dwayne Myers, not my favorite person in the world at this point, and A. Martin Hood. Marty was a goofy kid, English and sort of doughy looking, but a great hunter. He was killed later in a “training accident” at the compound. Something about it caused Dwayne to leave the company, never got the straight story on that. Dwayne, of all damned things, joined MCB and has been a pain in the ass to the company ever since. I met him again in New Orleans and…Well, getting ahead of myself again.
But the guy I hung around the most in those days was a really young guy named Milo Anderson. I sort of avoided Milo at first. The kid looked like a hippy: scraggly pink beard and long unruly hair, ugly green socks and sandals, everybody said he was smart as a whip and I sort of had a feeling of “Oh, God, what’s a member of my family doing in MHI?” Boy, was I ever wrong.
Milo had joined MHI when he was fifteen after the rest of his large Mormon family was killed by a monster. The chief armorer of MHI at the time was a Marco Moss, a semi-retired hunter with one prosthetic arm and a disposition like a rhino with a horn-ache. Milo was his designated lackey and the guy to go to if you really needed something. (’Cause if you asked Marco he’d mostly just growl.) Milo also spent time on the happy face team but most of his time you’d find him in the cavernous MHI workshop figuring out new and better ways to create mayhem. And whenever I was in town you’d generally find me cackling alongside.
The first time I really interacted with Milo was the range day when we were told to bring any personal firearms we thought we were going to use in monster hunting. I saw that at the time, and it was confirmed later, as a way to weed out people who thought a chrome plated weapon was somehow more powerful or something.
I brought my primary 1911, the same one I’d used in Elkins, my M-14 and the Uzi. I’d left most of my stuff at the Brentwoods’.
When I opened up the hard-case with the Uzi in it, Milo came wandering over wearing his usual cargo shorts (it was January), green socks and Birkenstocks. Seriously. Hippy German tourist outfit one each.
“What is that?” Milo asked. I got the feeling at the time he didn’t like me much, either. I think we both had a chip on our shoulders. We got over that fast.
Ray IV was on the line as well and they both regarded the Uzi with caution.
“Forty-five-caliber Uzi carbine reconfigured for full auto fire. Dedicated hard-lock silencer. OEG scope. Maglite locks under the silencer with two other latch points for other items if need be. Three position firing switch. It’s calibrated to six fifty rounds per minute. About the most I can handle on full-auto with .45.”
“Who did the work?” Ray asked, holding out his hand.
“I did, sir,” I said, handing it to him. “I’ve been studying gunsmithing since I was a teen and have an FFL.”
“The Uzi mangles .45 ammo,” Milo said, dubiously. “Feeding problems?”
“Nope. It’s all about getting the internals polished right and the extractor tuned. Hang on.”
I took the weapon back, broke it down on the table and showed them where Mr. Brentwood and I had modified the bolt.
“Okay,” Milo said. “This I gott
a see.”
Ten minutes later he was grinning ear to ear. So was Ray IV.
“This thing totally rocks!” Milo crowed, putting another magazine of .45 into a target. I was impressed that some hippy-teenager could put them all into a grouping the size of his palm at fifty yards.
“Milo,” Ray IV said. “Tell Marco I want one of these.”
I’d impressed the Heir Apparent.
That evening, after training, Milo stopped by the trainee barracks.
“Chad,” he said. “Come on.”
“Where we going?” I asked. I’d gotten over my initial skepticism a bit with Milo but we weren’t exactly bosom buddies.
“Something you wanna see,” was all he said.
Where we went was the workshops, an area normally off-limits to the trainees.
I immediately fell in love. Mr. Brentwood’s shop had everything you absolutely needed for doing gun-smithing and general design and maintenance. The MHI workshops had everything you would need, want or desire. It was like stepping back into heaven. That was when Milo and I became buddies and have remained buddies ever since. Over the years not only have we spent many a happy hour in one workshop or another, I’ve covered his back and he’s covered mine. Milo is the brother I never had.
They already had two Uzi .45s in the armory but they’d mostly been wall-hangers. I showed Mr. Moss the fix I’d done on mine, which occasioned an incredibly rare smile, and we set out to do the same on the two they had. Over the next couple of weeks, working in the evening mostly, we configured both of them with the same system I’d designed. All three were put through reliability tests and passed them flawlessly. And by the time we’d finished those two we had all the jigs, tools and dies necessary to if not churn them out than reconfigure any Uzi .45 easily.
At the time, the only silver ammo MHI had available was in .45 and .308. Having a useable (unlike the Thompson) .45 subgun was a real boost. Too often teams had had to choose between using long rifles in tight spaces against monsters that could only be stopped by silver or a .45 pistol. I think probably the main contribution I made to MHI was the Iron Hand Uzi. It probably saved the lives of more MHI members than anything I ever did personally.
If an Iron Hand has ever saved your life you’re welcome.
The other main memory of Milo in training was “stake and chop” training. You know what I mean. Medical cadavers. One of a pair of trainees drives a stake into the cadaver’s heart and the other cuts off the head.
When we were told that was the next day’s exercise, I raised my hand when asked for questions.
“Can we use anything to cut off the head?” I asked.
“Anything you can see carrying on a mission.” The trainer for that day was another retired Hunter named Justin Moody. He was the main trainer for “Introduction to Common Monsters.”
“Roger,” I said.
The next day I turned up with Sword of Mourning.
“You really think you’re going to carry that with you, Chad?” Milo asked.
“I’ve been bothered by not having it every day in training, Milo,” I said, grinning. “This isn’t a sword. This is my brother.”
“I thought you hated your brother,” Milo said.
“You know what I mean.”
My partner at that point was Sidney Marshall. I haven’t really gotten into my training buddies ’cause I seemed to always be paired with the guys who didn’t make the grade. Standards were tough back then. There were plenty of recruits and although there was the usual high loss rate, MHI had a pretty full roster of employees. We lost about two thirds of our trainees over the course of the training.
I’d gone through Marine Corps Basic. I didn’t really find it that hard.
But Sidney had accepted the “stake” part. He really didn’t like getting covered in blood as the stake went into the heart.
Suck it up. This job I figured we’d spend most of our time covered in blood. My main thought on the training was that using an old fashioned wooden mallet and hickory stake was inefficient and immediately started thinking about better ways to get the job done. Really, the stakes were for when you’ve already shot them a bunch.
When it got to the chop portion, I waited till everyone else was done. Most of them had struggled with various types of cutlery. I wasn’t planning on struggling.
“Just one request, Milo,” I said. “Can I move the neck down off the metal table? I really don’t want to hammer Mourning into the metal. It might damage the table.”
“Sure,” Milo said, arms folded and eyes narrowed. I could tell he thought I was so much bushidoshit. “That’s a much harder way to cut the neck, Chad.”
“Got it.”
I grabbed the cadaver, an elderly gentleman that looked like he’d died of either stroke or heart failure, and dragged him till his head was dangling off the end of the table. Then I placed my hand on Sword of Mourning, drew and sliced in one continuous motion.
His head hit the floor and rolled. It wasn’t a nice thing to do to the poor fellow but there you go. One decapitated corpse. The cut was within a fraction of an inch of the table.
I flicked the sword to clear most of the blood, pulled out a silk cloth, wiped it down and sheathed it without really looking or thinking about it.
“Jesus,” Sidney said.
“And that’s called balling the jack,” I said.
Just a couple of days before graduation I was pumping iron in the gym late lunch with Ray IV. It had become a regular thing. No big deal.
“Chad,” Ray said. “Team leads will be coming in to pick up Newbies at graduation. What would you think about joining the Cazador team?”
I was sort of stunned. Generally to get on the premier MHI team you had to spend time somewhere else. They were sort of MHI’s SWAT. The team you called when you knew the shit was about to hit the fan. They also did most of the overseas work and who doesn’t want to travel? Then there was the fact that since they were always busy, the PUFF bonuses were outstanding.
The flip side was, they also were a primary team in Alabama and the southeast in general.
One thing I forgot to mention. Ever since I went through Parris Island in summer, I have hated heat. I mean, I just truly hate the fuck out of it. I’d rather do a mission in the Antarctic in winter than the Southeastern United States in summer. Much less places like Colombia or Panama where the Happy Face team frequents.
I wasn’t sure how to explain that I was massively honored and awed to be asked but just really didn’t want to sweat my ass off in armor in fucking Colombia. I decided to go for truth.
“I’m incredibly honored, sir,” I said. I’d gotten to where I tended to just call him Ray so he knew something was up. “I really am.”
“But?” Ray asked, sitting up from the bench press.
“I just hate heat, Ray,” I said, shrugging uncomfortably. “I really, really do. I went to Parris Island in the summer and ever since I do absolutely everything I can to avoid ninety degree temperatures and one hundred percent humidity. Hell, if I’d gotten in shape in the summer, I’d have waited to join until at least late autumn to avoid the heat here.”
“So working mostly in the Southeast and South America is not your idea of fun?” Ray said, grinning. “Got it. Where would you like to go?”
“Seattle?” I asked. “I hear the team up there is short and I’m sure they could use a good shooter. Maybe Illinois? Somewhere, sorry, Yankee.”
“The Nelsons run the Seattle team now. They took over when Dorcas Peabody transferred,” Ray said, lying back down to pump some more iron. “Good people, good hunters and they run a good team. But I’ll warn you they tend to pick your brain. They’ll probably want to write a paper on your relationship with your family.”
“Paper?” I asked. “Oh, Jesus, not academics! I take it back! I want on Happy Face!”
“Too late,” Ray said, grinning. “Like I said, good people. They’re both doctors of Psychology but they don’t push it. Too much. I think
they’ll be good for you. But it will be up to them. If not, we’ll find you a good spot. And the offer remains open. Assuming you survive the Newbie portion, and Nelson’s people take fewer losses than most teams, you’ll end up on it eventually. You’ve got the gift.”
“God has given me many gifts, Ray. And for every gift, God gives you challenges to balance them out.”
I wish I could convince him to listen to me on that one. Losing Susan was just one of those challenges God gives us. I don’t think Ray had ever really been challenged before losing her. Now he’s just…He’ll come back to us. I know he will. Susan may be gone but we’ll get Ray back eventually. But since I was on the mission where we lost Susan, he’s not really speaking to me at the moment.
* * *
Two days later was graduation and we got to meet the team leads. I put on my most charming smile and buttonholed Doctor Lucius Nelson, MD, Psy. in the mess.
“Doctor Nelson,” I said, holding out my hand. “Oliver Chadwick Gardenier, Doctor. I go by Chad. Pleasure to meet you.”
“From what I’ve heard, not so much,” Doctor Nelson said, smiling and shaking my hand. He was the “affable and chubby” type of academic. I knew right away I was in trouble.
“Psychologically and physically abusive upbringing. Counter-academia and counseling syndrome. I loved the damned near perfect straight Cs you got in high school. That had to be tough. You go through women like a fire-hose as a way to strike back at your psychologically abusive mother not to mention your main role model growing up, your father, is a satyriast. And you found God through a near death experience. I could write an entire book about you.”
“If picking my brain gets me on your team, Doctor, I’ll do it,” I said, gritting my teeth.
Grunge (ARC) Page 9