by Hank Davis
Sadly, it turned out that Mr. Shapiro’s particular state of undeath didn’t require oxygenated blood to the brain, because from the 40th to 50th floor, the monster kept thrashing around, trying to squish Durant, and showing no indication that he missed breathing.
It seemed like the world’s slowest elevator, when in reality he’d only stepped inside a minute before. But then things got a whole lot worse when Mr. Shapiro stumbled against a control panel. Several buttons got mashed, and the ones between them and the top lit up.
The elevator stopped on the 52nd.
Bing.
When the doors slid open, there was a woman in business attire standing there. At first she didn’t seem to understand why one guy was riding piggyback on another, uglier, rotting, dead-looking guy, in an elevator smeared with bloody goo and coffee.
“Pick up that pistol and shoot this asshole in the head before he kills us all.” Durant nodded toward his gun with his head, because it was the only thing available to point with.
But she just stared, dumbfounded. “Wait. What—”
Then the doors closed and they were going up again. Some people just weren’t monster hunter material.
Somehow Mr. Shapiro tapped into that well of undead motivation again, because he crouched, then jumped high enough to smash both their bodies into the ceiling. Some of the fluorescent lights broke, as well as what Durant figured had to be one of his ribs. When they hit the floor it shook the hell out of the entire car. He lost control of Shapiro’s head on impact.
59th floor.
Breathing hurt. The remaining light was flickering. His back was to the door. Mr. Shapiro flopped off of him and crawled through the broken glass.
He realized Mindy had been kicked within reach.
Bing.
The doors slid open behind him as Durant grabbed his gun.
Mr. Shapiro kicked him in the stomach.
The undead lawyer was really figuring out the whole necromantic superstrength thing, because that hit sent Durant flying out the door and skidding across the tile. His journey was interrupted by a really heavy reception desk, which he bounced off of.
Shapiro got up. Durant sat there for a moment, head swimming as he contemplated the loafer imprint on his shirt—the fact he wasn’t puking his guts up was the reason he did all those crunches every single day—so then he started getting up too.
“Oh crap,” said the undead lawyer when he saw Ultimate Fighting Lawyer heading his way. He started mashing the close door button over and over again.
Durant pointed Mindy in one shaking hand, but his target ducked behind the corner before he could get a shot off. The doors slid shut.
Well… That hadn’t gone as good as it could have, but if this was a bodyguarding job, then he’d certainly kept Shapiro from getting to his target. That had to be worth something, right?
There was a young man behind the reception desk, who looked really startled when he saw Mindy. “Please don’t shoot me!”
Durant realized the sign behind the reception desk was for a brokerage company. “Is this Hastings and Shapiro?”
“No. They’re on sixty, up a level.”
“Shit!” He looked around. “Stairs?”
The receptionist pointed toward a door next to the bank of elevators.
Durant ran as fast as he could for the stairwell. He yanked the door open and took the stairs three at a time. It was a good thing he spent so many hours on a Stairmaster.
Everything hurt. He’d definitely broken a rib. Not the first time, but last time he’d not had to run up a flight of stairs immediately afterwards. How hard could it be? Armstrong had said about this gig. Pretty hard, boss. Thanks a lot.
He reached the door to the 60th, kicked it open, and reached the lobby of Hastings & Shapiro just as the undead and exceedingly messed up Mr. Shapiro lurched out of the elevator.
“I have returned!” he bellowed at the helpless mortals in the office. “Even the grave cannot stop me from claiming what is mine! I will harvest your souls to fulfill my unholy bargain! HA HA HA—” But then he stopped the whole evil villain laugh routine when he saw Durant coming around the corner. “Not you aga—”
Mindy punched a hole right between his eyes. The spray from the exit wound made a pattern across his name on the big bronze plaque on the wall.
Mr. Shapiro dropped like a sack of shit. Well, he wasn’t a zombie, but head shots still seemed to work pretty good.
The monster groaned.
Durant promptly force fed him the rest of the magazine. Then he dropped the empty mag, plucked a new one from his belt, reloaded, and repeated the process while everybody else there hid behind their desks. Disintegrating a cranium at conversational distance like that makes a real mess on the office floor.
He stood there, out of ammo and out of breath.
There appeared to only be a handful of people in the large office. Apparently getting a threat from a dead guy was enough to get them to send everyone home early. That seemed nice. Those were way better conditions than the firm he’d worked at. They could have had the full-on zombie apocalypse, and still have expected the junior associates to not let that cut into their billable hours.
“Are you the monster hunting contractor?” someone called out from around the corner.
“That’s me. Everything’s under control.”
“It’s all right, everyone.” A distinguished-looking older man poked his head around the corner. “Is Shapiro really dead?”
“Technically, he was dead before he got here.”
“No, I mean dead-dead?”
Durant nudged the body with his shoe. He wasn’t an expert on the subject, but he’d turned Shapiro’s head into something with the consistency of lasagna, so… “Probably?”
“I can’t believe this is all true. That moron. I always told him taking on insane people who called themselves wizards as clients was bad for business, but would he listen to me? Of course not.” The senior partner came out of hiding. “I’m Mr. Hastings.”
“Shane Durant. I’d shake your hand, but…” He was held one up to show he was covered in nastiness. And here he’d been regretting not wearing his suit to make a good first impression. That had saved him some dry cleaning! “That’s what happens when you fight a monster with superpowers in an elevator for sixty stories.”
“Most impressive, young man! Most impressive indeed!”
“I know.” He glanced over to where the secretary was hiding and trying to dial her cellphone. “Yeah, don’t call 911. They’ll just complicate things.” She put the phone away. She was kind of hot too.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“All in a day’s work,” he lied.
“Thank goodness you arrived in time,” said Mr. Hastings. “You Monster Hunter International people are as remarkable as I was told.”
“Hold on. I’m not MHI. They’re our competitors.” He whipped out his business card and handed it over. “They’re yesterday’s news, and late as usual. You’re far better off with PT Consulting for all your paranormal and security needs. I’ll call some of our professionals to clean this mess up for you, and then after I get out of the hospital, let’s you and I schedule a sit-down to discuss your keeping us under retainer.” He’d done the sales pitch enough times that doing it with a broken bone was no biggie. He flashed his most charming smile as he put Mindy away. “I’ll have to bill you our usual for this one though.”
“Oh, of course. Beats having our souls harvested or whatever.” Mr. Hastings laughed nervously. “I’ll have Cindy pencil you in.”
All in all, this was shaping up to be a good day. He’d gotten to beat the hell out of an evil abomination and probably scored the company some new business. He handed another business card to the hot secretary, because why not? He was on a roll. “That’s my cell. Call me anytime.”
She blushed.
Mr. Hastings called after him, “Do you golf, Shane?”
“Of course.” Actually, he totally hated
it, because golf cut into his work out time, but networking was vital.
“Well, then we should meet at my country club. I know the government has declared all this monster business to be secret, but I’ve got some friends there who I would love to introduce you to over drinks.”
He loved meeting CEOs and other rich dudes who could write his company checks. Profit sharing rocked. Durant gave him the finger guns. “Sounds like a plan.” Then he walked for the elevators, trying not to show that he was in a great deal of agony. He was too cool for that.
The battle-damaged elevator had already left—pity the poor bastards who called that one—but the other elevator right next to it was just arriving.
Bing.
The man who got out was nicely dressed, but even a well-tailored suit couldn’t hide that beneath it he was a brick of solid muscle. His head was shaved, there were scars on his face, and his eyes were hard. They’d never met before, but he knew the type, because like recognized like.
“Too slow, Alabama,” Durant said as he walked past the rival monster hunter.
The other hunter looked over his torn and bloodied clothing, and then to where the gaggle of lawyers were standing around the nearly decapitated body. “Aw hell… PT snaked us again?”
“Survival of the fittest. But since you’re here you can at least check if they’ll validate your parking.”
As Durant got into the elevator he realized he still hadn’t had his morning coffee yet. He hoped there was a Starbucks between here and the emergency room.
•
Best-selling author and Hugo Award finalist Larry Correia is hopelessly addicted to two things: guns and B-horror movies. He has been a gun dealer, firearms instructor, accountant, and is now a very successful writer. He shoots competitively and is a certified concealed weapons instructor. Larry resides in Utah with his very patient wife and family. His first novel, Monster Hunter International, is now in its fourth printing. In addition to the five novels in the best-selling Monster Hunter International series, he has written the popular Grimnoir trilogy, Hard Magic, Spellbound and the Hugo Award nominated Warbound, combining alternate history, urban fantasy, and the hard-boiled private eye genre in one delirious mixture. His latest bestseller is Monster Hunter Guardian, a collaboration with Sarah A. Hoyt.
THE PEOPLE V. CRAIG MORRISON
Alex Shvartsman & Alvaro Zinos-Amaro
When cars can drive themselves, efficiently and infallibly, surely there’s no good reason for anyone to risk, not just their own life, but the lives of others by controlling their own vehicle. When Morrison went to court to try to keep his right to drive his own car, more than just his own freedom was at stake, since court decisions set precedents, and precedents have consequences…
•
Craig Morrison’s wheelchair glided to a stop near the wooden desk behind which sat five men and women in black robes. Remembering the advice he had been given by his “PR and legal strategy team”—nothing but glorified handlers, he thought—he tried to exude dignity, whatever that meant, as he turned toward the teleconferencing camera which broadcast the proceedings to the world at large.
Howard Kim, Craig’s lead attorney, stepped in front of a small podium in the center of the theatrically large room. He looked at the justices squarely and cleared his throat.
“Honorable Justices,” he began, “Mr. Morrison has had a valid Vermont driver’s license for forty-one years. He obtained a regular license in 1998 and then a special license for a car adapted to his war injuries in 2010.”
Craig took a deep breath. War injuries. He’d been warned about this, but no warning could prevent his mind from being flash-fried by the raw, instinctual, ever-present response deep in his limbic system. The room smelled like smoke, and bricks were falling all around Craig, on Craig. His future collapsing. More smoke. A subsonic thrum in his temples. Flores.
Steeling himself, he let the breath out. Keep it together, he thought. These guys are on my side.
“In all that time,” Howard Kim continued, “in those forty-one years, Mr. Morrison received only one speeding ticket—back when he was twenty-two—and four minor parking violations. An exemplary track record.” He straightened his tie. “In this context, we feel that the state overreached by electing to rescind Mr. Morrison’s driver’s license last year. There is no just cause, and more importantly, no legal precedent for doing so; claims that we intend to prove in the course of this hearing. We implore the court to overrule this unlawful decision and reinstate Mr. Morrison’s license. Thank you.”
As Kim took his seat he made brief eye contact with Craig, but Craig looked away. His gaze drifted for a moment and then settled on the Vermont coat of arms hanging behind the justices: a pine tree, a cow, some grain sheaves. Quaint, yet the symbol brought a measure of peace and distraction. But the feeling lasted only a moment. It was an illusion. The world depicted by that coat of arms was gone. Obsolete. Like Craig himself.
Lisa Washington, the lead attorney for the state, took her place at the podium. “Thirty-seven thousand and eighty-one,” she said. “That’s how many people died in motor vehicle crashes in 1998. As if that weren’t enough, there were an additional two million injuries of varying severity the year Mr. Morrison obtained his driver’s license.
“Last year, the number of fatalities caused by motor vehicles was two hundred and ninety-one. And only three”—she held up three fingers for effect—“of those tragic incidents took place in our great state.”
She turned toward Craig. Unlike Howard, there was something about Lisa, a kind of genuine fire in her plea, that drew Craig in.
“Mr. Kim is attempting to argue this case as though we’re judging Mr. Morrison. We are not. He’s an upstanding citizen and a decorated war hero. But this case is not about him. It’s about saving lives, something which Mr. Morrison himself has done by serving in the military.”
Craig’s palms grew moist. Calm down. He fought the sensation of helplessness rising in the pit of his stomach. He’d never wanted this. Never wanted to end up here, in a Montpelier courtroom, center-stage freak of a media carnival. He’d never envisioned that his lawsuit, a last-ditch attempt to preserve one of his few remaining pleasures in life, would get appealed all the way up to the state Supreme Court, and that this circus would ensue.
“Honorable Justices,” Lisa Washington went on, “the unprecedented reduction in vehicular deaths we’ve witnessed in the last two decades is due to the advent of self-driving vehicles, as has been proven by study after study. Virtually all fatalities and car accidents reported in 2038 were caused by the tiny fraction of vehicles being manually driven by human beings. Mr. Morrison is an excellent driver, but statistically he’s many times more likely to cause an accident than a self-driving car. The Melinda Li bill that passed into law last year was a steppingstone toward our stated aim of saving lives.”
Craig recalled the gruesome images from the news reports about Melinda Li, a four-year-old killed in a car crash two years before. The media had turned her into a symbol of the anti-manual-driving movement in the state of Vermont. Just like my legal team, thought Craig, is trying to prop me up as a freedom-to-drive symbol.
Lisa Washington continued. “The decision made in this case will have far-reaching consequences across the country, as other states prepare referenda on implementing laws similar to the one pioneered by Vermont legislators last year. The Melinda Li bill does not, despite what you’ll surely be hearing from Mr. Morrison’s lawyers, I repeat, does not curb personal liberties. Self-driving cars enable individuals more transportation-related freedom than they’ve experienced ever before: the ability to conduct business, stay connected with loved ones, or even engage in recuperative downtime activities, all while safely and comfortably being shuttled to their chosen destinations.”
Despite the hours of grueling prep with his team, despite his pressing need to wrap his fingers around the steering wheel of his white Chevy Camaro Z28—Craig’s hands were almost trembling w
ith desire—and cruise down Bay road, Craig found himself nodding in agreement with Lisa’s speech, and only by sheer force of will stopped.
“It is true that these enhanced liberties come at a small cost,” Lisa said. “Just as we don’t allow people to shout ‘fire’ falsely in a crowded theater and cause panic, or to recreationally fly UAVs—drones—outside of community-based safety guidelines, or to travel in unrestricted fashion to areas contaminated by the Ebola virus, so too it is imperative that we don’t permit human beings—fallible, tired, easily distracted, slow-reflexed human beings—to pilot two-ton, 150-horsepower killing machines on public roads.”
Craig was again swayed by Lisa’s words, and had to consciously remind himself that in this instance she was “the enemy.” But why? Because that’s what his team had told him to believe, simple as that. He had accepted their representation even though he should have probably told them to go fuck themselves. He needed to believe she was the enemy if he ever wanted to feel enveloped by his adapted Camaro again, crisp Shelburne Bay winds caressing his skin. Right now he was stuck in his chair, stuck in this moment, and there was nothing to do except play his part and hold his face in a somber expression.
“Idleness is the enemy,” his therapist had once told him. “Simple idleness may trigger an episode.” Well, thought Craig, at least there’s nothing simple about this particular idleness.
A flicker of a smile passed over Lisa’s face. Can she sense my discomfort? Craig wondered. The thought, oddly, made her even more sympathetic to him. “There’s only a handful of holdouts,” she continued. “Car enthusiasts who insist on driving their own vehicles. Very well—there are private tracks where they can do so for sport. I understand that Mr. Morrison has a certain emotional attachment to his vintage vehicle, but saving lives takes precedence over one man’s nostalgic avocation. Like everyone else, Mr. Morrison has access to a network of free, state-provided self-driving vehicles. He may want his license, but he doesn’t need it, and we intend to argue that his perceived need in this matter in no way outweighs public safety.”