We walked off towards the cafeteria. It was nearby and we took a seat by the food vendor.
Trudie was checking her phone in-between talking. She was an IT major, and a real tech-junkie. She practically lived off the dark energies of the internet.
“So,” Trudie said, flaring her nostrils. “Late night?”
I frowned. So, she could smell it.
“How could you tell?”
“Because you always have a late night. And…”
Trudie whipped out a surgical glove and leant over to pick something from my hair. A flake of skin. I would have wretched last year. Was the norm now. Seems Trudie had even become accustomed to it.
“Aren’t there any day-time jobs?” Trudie frowned, putting the flake in a plastic bag and tossing it in the bin. She was too prepared for this…
“Undead are most active at night.”
“So, get some jobs hunting non-undead. Maybe hunt unicorns.”
“Most people don’t categorize unicorns as monsters,” I replied, smiling faintly as I stealthily picked fries from Trudie’s lunch.
“Those people are wrong. Damn one-horned bastards.”
“Remind me, why do you hate unicorns so much?”
“’Cause nobody else does. Everybody loves them. It’s not like they’re prettier than everything else. They’re just horses with a horn. Still fine to kill fairies for their parts, but the Rifts all collapse on us if you dare think of harming a precious unicorn.”
Trudie bit into a handful of chips and muttered, mouth full, “Wannabe horse bastards.”
I chuckled and stood to go buy myself some lunch. My previous mirth abated as I handed over some of the money. I hoped the cashier didn’t notice the black-red stain on the note.
“You’ve been pretty out of it lately,” Trudie said as I sat down again. I shrugged. Trudie took some bites of my noodles in exchange for my previous marauding.
“History has me running ragged.”
“Not the late-nights?”
“Slaying is quick. It doesn’t get dull. You track your target, which is easy due to the moaning, and then cut its head off. Finished. History is interesting, sure, but not all of it. After three hundred pages of badly-written prose on the Cataclysm, I’d rather be facing down an armoured and armed wight.”
Trudie’s frown deepened. “So, you do it cause it’s fun?”
I shrugged again. “I do it because it’s a way to put food on the table. Not all of us have a family paying for tuition and lunch.”
That seemed to sting Trudie a little. I looked down at my food.
“I’m just worried, Kat. It’s dangerous.”
“And I can handle it.”
Trudie nodded, slowly. She stood up and checked her phone.
“I better be off to class.”
She pushed the remainder of her lunch in front of me. I nodded in thanks.
“She is concerned about you,” Treth said.
There were too many people around for me to reply without looking mad. I didn’t need to reply. I understood why Trudie was worried. She didn’t understand or like magic. Weylines meant nothing to her, just wi-fi. And her family was alive to pay her bills.
Maybe Trudie’s concern was justified. But it didn’t matter. I had a job to do. Not just to put food on the table, but as Treth would so often remind me – because it was the right thing to do.
I got to history on time, energised by my double breakfast of noodles and fries. The air conditioner was on full throttle, and while unpleasant, would hopefully keep me awake. Fellow students filed in, and finally, the lecturer.
“I like this man,” Treth commented.
“Because you don’t know if he’s wrong or not,” I replied in a whisper.
“He reminds me of my mentor at the Order.”
“Morning…I mean afternoon, class,” Professor Crowley stuttered, and then calmed. “Today we’re revising some post-cataclysm history of Hope City.”
This was a topic I did enjoy. Despite all my complaints, this was my city and I liked to know as much as I could about it. The lecturer began, his stuttering abating as he got into his topic of expertise. I hastily took down notes. Treth was silent. He must’ve been interested.
But, despite my interest about the discovery of the ancient primordial titan asleep under Table Mountain, the escapades of last night were finally catching up with me. My writing became gibberish and my vision blurred. Darkness engulfed me as I embraced the hard wood and papers before me.
Chapter 3. Ghost in the Shell
My parents had been killed when I was still in school.
My aunt, Mandy Caleb, looked after me for as long as she could, but she had her own life and an important job. Despite me being a seventeen-year-old girl in a hell-hole of a city, Mandy had to go back to New Zealand. I couldn’t follow. Border control was strict and New Zealand wasn’t much better than Hope City. The elves and human denizens of the country periodically engaged in brutal civil wars that made the gang battles in Hope City look like pillow fights.
New Zealand was no place for me.
But, neither was Hope City.
My aunt still sent me a stipend, when she could, but being a mediator between two sides that didn’t see eye to eye did not pay well and Hope City had a high cost of living. So, at the age of seventeen, entering my first year of university only next year, I had to become self-reliant. This took the form of odd-jobs, freelance work and anything that a high school education could give you.
One such job brought me to a leafy suburb of Hope City, where I was baby-sitting two children as their parents went hobnobbing at a magicorp function. The pay was reasonable, and jobs were scarce, so I was thankful.
But gratitude wasn’t endless, and I soon learned that money couldn’t buy patience. That night, I found myself in a battlefield of entitled shits, bargaining with halflings – if not demons.
“Your mom said to be in bed by 8pm,” I said calmly, restraining myself as much as possible. The room was dark, with just the glimmer of the TV painting a translucent blue light show across the lounge.
“My mom isn’t here,” the imperious little imp, who was allegedly a human child, said, ramming a fistful of chips into his mouth. I do not know when or how we got those.
“Our bedtime is way too early, miss,” the imp’s sister added. She was much more agreeable but still played the accomplice to her rebel brother.
“Take that up with your mother. I received instructions to have you in bed by 8 and I’m going to stick to them.”
“I’d like to see you try.”
I should have been thankful for the lights being off, as my glare may have been capable of burning a hole in whoever saw it. Finally, I sighed and left the room, making my way to the extravagant kitchen. It was almost the size of my entire apartment.
Two hours till their parents get back. Two hours to get them in bed.
I just needed to ensure that they didn’t get into anything that would keep them awake till ten. I opened the fridge and began moving all the caffeinated drinks to the top shelf. I hoped that the parents wouldn’t notice nor mind. I couldn’t be sure with this family. I got instructions to be strict, but the kids acted like they’d never been given orders in their life.
I sighed. I’d been doing it a lot tonight.
The parents probably couldn’t rein their own kids in themselves so were hoping I could.
I closed the fridge and turned. A countertop dominated the centre of the kitchen. Perched on top of it was a knife-block. I winced. I hoped the imp wouldn’t get any ideas. I wouldn’t put it past him to think that he was impervious to stabs.
I heard gunshots and an explosion.
The imp had turned up the volume on the TV. Worst of all, it wasn’t even a good movie. Just some mass-produced garbage checking all the criteria to take money from tasteless movie-goers.
“That’s it,” I said to myself. “No more Miss-Nice-Girl!”
I marched into the living room. T
he kids’ faces were glued to a scene of the muscle-bound protagonist using a dirt-bike to destroy an attack helicopter. I proceeded to the TV. The kids didn’t seem to notice, or care. I bent down, and the TV switched off.
“What the hell did you do?!”
I stared at my finger, only a sliver of moonlight illuminating it as it was about to turn off the power to the TV.
“Come on, miss. Please put it back on. I promise I’ll go to sleep when it’s done.”
I stood up. The light in the hallway had also gone off.
“Turn it back on!”
I raised my hand to silence them and whispered. “That wasn’t me.”
A boom. Not thunder. Not like the gunshots and explosions of the action movie. Something otherworldly. The closest comparison would be a thousand speakers exploding from feedback. If it was thunder, no rain followed. Only an ethereal blue-white flash. I had seen the likes of it before, on a documentary about rifts. The rifts that opened portals to other realms, allowing all manner of beasts into our world.
“Kids, I need you to listen to me very carefully.”
The imp looked about to speak.
“I’m serious.”
My tone gagged him.
“Do you have a panic room?”
The girl nodded, catching some moonlight so I could see the motion.
“We must get there now and shut ourselves in.”
Hesitantly, the pair stood and exited the room. In the halls, the moonlight lessened. I followed the children’s semi-human shadowy forms in the dark. My heart beat hard and fast. It took all my willpower to keep my breathing under control. Fortunately, it seemed the children were just shocked enough to become obedient, but not so much that they became hysterical.
A thump. We stopped. Footsteps. Oddly human, but staggered. I stopped breathing. My head went faint. I had heard those types of steps before. And I had heard what followed. A moaning. A mournful, animalistic cry reverberating from the throat of something that resembled humanity. I could have cried then, the strain of the trauma becoming too much to bear. But I didn’t. I nudged the kids onwards. I hoped that the panic room wasn’t too far. But in this inky black, I couldn’t be sure that we would even get there.
The children led me down the hall, a few open rooms with windows letting moonlight pool into the house. The moaning didn’t stop. I knew it never did. It hadn’t stopped from last time. It continued, forever, and ever and ever. A mob became a horde and they kept on coming. Rotting, moaning, shambling, devouring. The Dead never stopped…
“Miss…”
I had stopped. I looked at the shapes of my hands in the blackness. I felt them shivering, but I wasn’t cold. A hand in the dark snapped me out of my reverie. It was warm. Small.
“Miss?” It inquired.
“Keep going,” I said. “I’ll keep you safe.”
This was a big house. Much bigger than the one-room apartment I was able to afford with Auntie Mandy’s stipend. Hopefully big enough to put as much in the way of us and the Dead as possible.
The thumping and moaning stopped. I almost breathed a sigh of relief, but I had seen plenty of horror movies before. And like all calms before a storm, it was ended by a loud noise. A breaking of glass and the pooling of shards on the ground.
A scream.
Was it me?
My mouth was closed. I grabbed in front and held the girl close, covering her mouth. Even then, I still felt the scream could have been mine. It would have been, years before. I must have screamed like that back then, when the Dead surrounded me, and through their rotting bodies, I saw my father chained to a rock, as a young man held an obsidian dagger towards the sky, chanting gibberish that made my primordial mind want to tear itself apart.
“Keep going,” I whispered.
With a panicked haste, we all sped towards a room in the darkness. I heard the thud of flesh, the creak of wood. And the tinkle of disrupted glass pieces. The moaning was now inside the house. I wanted to tell the kids to remain calm. That they should be calm. But I’m not a hypocrite. At least, I tell myself that. And how can I tell them to be calm when my vision is blurring, my throat is tightening and the only thing veiling the pain in my chest is the numbness of oncoming hysteria?
I couldn’t. But I kept them moving. And then, lightning did strike. Another verse in the poetic horror of nature. The flash and boom made us all halt. Liquid coated my face. I was not sure if it was sweat, tears or both.
Another boom. Another flash. And a silhouette. Approaching. Closer. Closer. And with it – the moaning.
“Run,” I whispered. They did nothing.
Another flash. It was a man. His clothes were ripped and foreign. A torn, fading red doublet and fraying hosen. He looked like an unemployed Shakespearean actor. He had holes in his cheeks and rotting, pale flesh was falling from his exposed ribcage. His sickly yellow eyes, shining in the dark, were simultaneously mindless and predatory, his pupils fixed on us, cowering before him. He staggered forward another step, and I shouted:
“Run!”
The children listened when it mattered most and bolted down the unlit halls. The zombie snarled and lunged forward. I felt the air move behind me as I ran.
In my head, it was more than one zombie. It was a horde. And as I ran, skidding into furniture and sliding across smooth wooden floors, with the undead in tow, I saw a different time. I wasn’t alone. There were four of us. Four of the living. Me, my parents and a man wearing a black robe.
I saw the children at the end of the hall, struggling with a knob. I went the other way. My vision changed. I saw a horde of the undead, holding me down, salivating over me. Only the strict control of their master kept them from devouring me to sustain their endless hunger. I felt the wetness on me now, and the touch was almost the same. An unnatural clamminess. If hell had moisture, it felt like this. Pure decay.
The zombie was on my tail, its shamble turning into an efficient run. I needed to get out. To get away from it. But, what if it stayed here? Stayed with the children as I ran through the night.
I was back in the hallway near the TV room. Grunting, moaning and thumping followed. The kids were still in the house. The bratty, entitled kids whose names I couldn’t even recall. But they hadn’t seen what I had seen. They didn’t know fear like I did. And I wouldn’t wish it upon them.
I turned around and saw it coming, obscured by the shadow.
These things. And the man who had controlled them…
They had taken everything from me.
I turned into the kitchen, knocking over a chair and falling to the ground with an oomph. I grabbed for something to pull myself up on as lightning struck. The zombie was right above me. Salivating. Snarling. The light of sky flickered, feverishly. Like a crackling light bulb. The light faded, and the zombie fell upon me, sending a waft of rotting flesh my way. I kicked back, hitting a rib with my sneakers. It caught my leg and brought its teeth to it. I kicked its head away, desperately. The first blow dazed it, and then it attempted to bite again. I kicked again. And again. And again. It let go and I pulled both my legs away. Appliances and kitchen apparatus clattered to the floor. A glint of metal. I crawled towards it and felt cold wrap around my leg. I was pulled back.
I saw the rotting teeth, sharpened to points through the dark magic of necromancy. The zombie looked me in the eyes and bared its teeth, it lunged towards my neck. I grabbed onto its shoulders, pushing as one could only do instinctively to keep the vile away from the pure.
But the living always succumbed to the dead, and even my strained groans waned as my arms became afire with the pressure of the monster on top of me.
And I knew I was going to die. That all that time since then was just borrowed time. That the cause of my fear that had been with me all these years had returned to finish the job.
But it was then that I felt an anger. A rage roiling deep inside of me at the thing before me. And at the black robed man who had taken everything from me. A rage against the Dead, th
e undead and this bastard who would eat the children I was meant to protect.
And then a voice in my head spoke to me:
“Wrap your legs around it.”
What?
I hesitated. The voice spoke again:
“Wrap your legs around it and shift your weight. Get on top of it.”
I didn’t understand the alien voice within my head. Sure, I knew what it was saying, but not how, or where. But as my arms approached jellification from exertion, I obeyed.
I flanked the snarling corpse with my legs and locked it above me. I felt its fragile flesh give way to bone as I squeezed. I was close to the thing… I felt bile rise. But adrenaline took over.
My arms strengthened and in one push, I flipped the zombie onto its back.
“Great work! Now punch it.”
I did so without hesitation. I held it down with my left hand and with my right, I delivered a hard blow to its temple. Flesh tore, and bone shattered. My hand stung.
“Quickly, stand and get a weapon.”
The glint of metal, I remembered.
I scampered off the dazed undead, towards where I saw the glint of metal. The zombie groaned, and slowly began to stand.
“It won’t be dazed for long. You must skewer its brain.”
Skewer…
Skewer…
My hands searched frantically across the black pit of the kitchen floor. I heard the phlegmy gurgles behind me. They would have nauseated me before, but I was different now. Something had changed.
My hand touched something colder than the tile flooring. It tinged as my nail hit it.
“Hurry!”
The gurgles were becoming growls. Growing louder. More vociferous.
I reached for the blade and felt its point. It stung. I reached for the other end and stroked its rough, plastic handle. I grabbed.
“Stand.”
Part-Time Monster Hunter Page 3