I Kill Monsters: The Revenants (Book 2)

by Tony Monchinski

  Boone stepped through it all to the bed. In the center of the slashed mattress, a grey stain of ash. A vampire had died on it.

  Leaving the room, Boone descended the keep, passing the door he’d entered by. More soldiers littered the winding stairwell. Perhaps it was his heightened senses, awaiting the next attack, but Boone had the sense of descending for some time. When the stairwell ended it did in a tight, winding passageway. The air felt damp here. There were two directions to choose from and Boone decided on the passage to his left.

  The corridor was tight and claustrophobic, the floor earthen. Torches crackled in their sconces.

  A heavy door gave unto the dungeon. Boone stepped onto a stone landing and looked about the room. A short stairwell gave to a larger chamber dug from the earth. Three people were chained to the furthest wall across from and beneath him. They stood in place, their wrists shackled. One man looked up as Boone entered and flashed his fangs, growling.

  Bloodsucker, Boone corrected himself. Fucker was no man.

  Secured to a leather chair, a seated form had its back to Boone. Something that looked like a traffic cone obscured its head.

  “Gossitch?” Boone called and the traffic cone stirred.

  He stepped down into the dungeon, crossing the open space to the man in the chair. The torches were few and far between here, casting much of the chamber in shadow and dark. The thing on the wall was still hissing at him, fangs bared.

  Boone ignored it, taken aback by the condition of the seated figure.

  The hands had been removed at the wrists and funnels were attached to the stumps, stapled into place. Blood dripped through clear tubes that connected the funnels to collection bottles on the ground. IVs were inserted in the man’s upper arms, the intravenous bags hanging from stands. The traffic cone wasn’t a traffic cone. It was a dunce cap, pushed down over the man’s head to his shoulders.

  Boone reached out and removed it, revealing a head of curly graying hair, a big crooked nose above a gag. Gossitch’s upper body bare, his arms, chest and neck riddled with puncture scars from vampire bites. The bites teemed with maggots.

  “Gossitch.” Boone went down on his knees, overcome with emotion. “Frank…”

  “Mmmmmph—” Gossitch through his gag.

  “They did this to you, Goose…” Boone near tears as he fumbled with a side flap. “They did this to you.” His hand came away with a pack of cigarettes, Marlboros. “Look what I got for you, Frank.” He fumbled for the lighter.

  “Mmmmmph!” Gossitch trying to tell Boone something.

  “It’s okay now, Frank,” Lighting the cigarette, Boone puffed at it, “I’m here,” got it going. They were feeding off him. He dislodged the gag, holding the smoke up to Frank’s mouth. The bloodsucker fuck freaks were feeding off him—

  “Kid—” Gossitch ignored the cigarette “—behind you!”

  Lightning exploded in Boone’s head and he went down, the red glow of the cigarette arcing across the room.

  Beeeeeep

  Hi, Cathy? Cath, it’s me.

  It’s Bill.

  You there? Scott? Todd? It’s dad, either of you…no.

  Look, Cath, I was just calling to say hello, calling to…like I said, say hello. See how you’re doing. We haven’t spoken for awhile. I just wanted to check in, check on you and the boys.

  Hey boys. How’re you two doing? How ‘bout them Yankees, huh Scott?

  Look Cathy, ah, you get a chance, give me a call back. It won’t hurt, you know? The thing is, I saw this group—rock ‘n roll band—and I wanted to tell you about them, figured they’d be right up your alley. Reminded me of one of the shows we’d catch at the Village East back in the, well, you remember them days don’t you? See, boys, the Village East is what they renamed the old Filmore East over on Second Avenue, this was after it closed back in, what was that, Cath, ’70, ’71? No, it was ’71. The Allman’s played there, you can hear on Eat a Peach but—Christ, listen to me.

  Rambling away.

  Sorry.

  Anyhow, uh, Scott, Todd, I hope you boys are well and looking out for your mother. Same goes for you, Cath. Hope you’re all fine.

  I’m fine.

  You know me, staying out of trouble.

  Yeah, you know me.

  Anyway, like I said, you get a chance, pick up the phone. Give me a call. Okay, I love you all.

  Bye now.

  46.

  4:42 A.M. (CEST)

  “You…” Boone shook his head and regained his feet, having been knocked three yards across the room.

  The jailer stepped from the shadows and into the flicker of the torch flames, his features masked behind a leather steampunk gas mask hood. In one hand he grasped a bullwhip, in the other an executioner’s skull axe, double bladed, a circle of metal spikes on top and a spike on the end to jab with. Studded leather straps criss-crossed his hairy chest and stomach. Keys jangled on a ring worn at his waist. The round glass eye goggles of the mask tracked Boone.

  “Motherfuckin’ leather boy.”

  The jailer roared behind his gas mask and cracked the whip against the wall.

  “He one of the guys,” Boone spoke to Frank, keeping one eye on his opponent, the other on the discarded 12-gauge, “one of the guys done this to you, Goose?”

  The tip of the cigarette glowed red on the earthen floor.

  “Yeah.” Frank’s voice feeble. “He’s one of ‘em.”

  The jailor drew his arm back and Boone whipped the H&K UMP around, the barrel tracking, the whip cracking, knocking the submachine gun out of his hands.

  “You just crack that whip at me, faggot?” Boone yelled at the jailor and the man charged, raising the executioner’s axe overhead in one hand, swinging the whip in the other. The whip struck Boone in his side and he snarled as he pressed his arm down on it, trapping the thong as he freed the machete from its sheath on his thigh. The axe came down but Boone blocked the man’s arm with his own forearm, the whip freed but ineffective at this close range.

  The machete cleaved the air and buried itself in the jailor’s waist below the ribs, the man making a noise behind the gas mask. Boone kneed him in his right side and followed that with two more to his core. Pressed against the wall, the stone and earth cold against their bodies, each had an arm raised, Boone blocking the axe’s descent.

  Sluggish from his wound and all the blood that was pouring out of him, the jailor let go of his whip and drove his fist into Boone’s side. Boone pinned the hand the same way he’d trapped the whip, controlling the arm. He let go of the machete and drew the Anaconda, cocking the hammer with his thumb. The jailor freed his arm and brushed the revolver aside as its first round exploded out of the barrel into the wall.

  Boone reversed his blocking arm, closing his hand over the axe handle, bringing the axe down, the spiked handle driving deep into the jailor’s hairy midsection. The man squealed, the skull axe’s handle sprouting from his torso, its double blades glinting in the torchlight.

  “Yeah, you motherfucker.” Boone pressed the revolver to the jailor. “Here!”

  The Anaconda’s second round blew an enormous hole in the masked man. The impact would have knocked him off his feet but he was pressed to the wall with nowhere to go, Boone holding him up. The gas mask lowered to the man’s chest as if he were having a look. Boone put a third shot into the man’s bare chest and a fourth through the glass eye goggle of the gas mask, the thundering booms reverberating amid the dungeon.

  “Oh Frank…” Boone’s voice trembling.

  “Kid.”

  “Frank, I’m getting’ you out of here.”

  “No kid.” Blood dripped from the ends of Gossitch’s arms into the collection bottles. “Listen to me, kid. Just disappear. Let it go.”

  “I can’t let this go, Frank.” Tears in Boone’s eyes. “Not this. None of this.”

  “You have to. It’ll kill you.”

  “Oh Frank.” The vampire that had hissed at Boone mimicked him. “Oh Frank look what
they’ve done to you. Boo-hoo-hoo—”

  Boone crossed the space between them and raised the .44., cocking it, the vampire hissing at him, “So you’re Boone? You don’t look so—”

  Boom!

  “What about you?” He turned to the next man chained to the wall. “You a vamp too? Huh?”

  The man’s lip peeled back in a sneer, revealing fangs. Boom! Another cloud of dust floated to the ground.

  “Kid...”

  “How ‘bout you?” Boone turned to the third prisoner, a young woman, disheveled from her time in the dungeon but still pretty. “You a bloodsucker or not?”

  “Wait.” The way she said it, not asking, not begging.

  “What?”

  “Don’t kill me.”

  “Nice try.”

  Click.

  The Anaconda’s hammer fell on an empty chamber, the revolver emptied. “Fuck me.”

  “No. Listen.”

  “No.” He began reloading, his hands shaking, overcome with emotion, Frank’s state, Boone dropping shells amid the tears streaking down his face.

  “No—please.”

  “Shut up—”

  “My father—”

  Frank speaking up from the chair, “Listen to her, kid,” but Boone saying to the woman, “I said shut the—”

  “My father is a liar.”

  “What?” Boone paused as he reloaded the .44.

  “He sent you, didn’t he?”

  “Who do you think sent me?”

  “She’s his daughter, kid. It’s true.”

  Boone wiped the back of his hand across his cheek, staring at her, really seeing her for the first time. A woman, shit, she wasn’t much more than a girl, but no, no! he reminded himself, she was no girl or woman, she was a fuckin’ vampire, like all those other—

  “Get her out of here, kid. It’s too late for me.”

  “My father is a liar.”

  Boone thought of the stories Rainford had subjected him to. How much the old fuck liked to talk. “Your father is a liar. What parts?”

  “Everything.” Her gaze was steady on him. “Every bit of it.”

  “I take those things off—” Boone nodded to her shackles “—how do I know you won’t go right at me?”

  “Because I won’t.”

  “She won’t, kid. Listen to her.”

  “I want the same thing you want,” she told Boone.

  “Oh yeah, and what do you think that is?”

  “I want him dead.”

  “You know exactly who she means, kid.”

  “Free me,” the woman implored Boone, “Free me so I can kill him.”

  “Kid, she hates him as much as you do.”

  “I doubt that.” Boone fished the keys from the mess that was the jailor crumpled on the earthen floor. “Oh, I really fuckin’ doubt that.”

  He unlocked her shackles and she stepped away from the wall, massaging her wrists.

  “Thank you.” When she said it he saw the fangs in her mouth. Yeah, another fuckin’ bloodsucker.

  “Boone.” Damian stood on the stairwell landing. “Move out the way.” The grenade launcher was gone, an H&K UMP in both of the blonde’s hands.

  “The fuck Damian?”

  “Her.” Boone stood between Damian and the girl. “She doesn’t leave here.”

  “She’s Rainford’s daughter, Damian.”

  “I know what she is. And it’s not negotiable.”

  Frank in the chair with his back to Damian: “Take him out, kid.”

  “It’s got to be done, Boone. Now move aside.”

  “You mean you’ve got your orders,” the girl spoke to Damian. “Don’t you?”

  “Your orders?” Boone demanded.

  “Do it, kid.”

  “Last time I ask, Boone. Move or I go through you to get to her.”

  “I love ya kid,” Frank told him, Boone saying, “Love you too, Goose,” then to the man who stood above them, “You know, Damian, I knew not to trust you—”

  “I said move over goddammit, Boone.”

  “—knew not to trust you the minute Enfermo recognized you.”

  Rainford’s daughter dived from behind Boone, Damian swiveling on the platform, the UMP’s full-auto tear deafening, Frank jerking up straight in his chair, gouts of blood erupting from him. The girl—fast the way only a vampire could be—with the Benelli in hand, taking Damian’s legs out from under him with three quick blasts. Damian toppled off the landing, the UMP firing out into the ceiling, a jangle of shell casings on the steps.

  “Gossitch—Gossitch—Gossitch.”

  Frank was dead, sitting there with his chin on his chest. Boone checked the pulse in his neck to be sure, the last time he’d have any kind of contact with his closest friend.

  “Do you trust me now?”

  He turned to the girl. She had the muzzle of the Benelli on him, lifted it away. “Do you?”

  “I’m numb.”

  “Boone…” Damian was crawling across the floor, dragging his shredded legs behind him. “Don’t leave me here.” He was going for his cleaver, lying there just out of reach. “Not like this.”

  “No.” Rainford’s daughter stepped down on the blade as Damian’s hand wrapped around the cleaver, trapping it there. “Tell him.”

  “Boone…”

  “Tell. Him.

  Damian looked up at Boone, his face pained. “It told me to find her…”

  “It,” Boone repeated.

  “Rainford.”

  “And?” The girl prodded.

  “…and kill her.” The blood sopped from Damian’s legs. “Rainford said she couldn’t leave here. She can’t leave here, Boone. Please, Boone, don’t—not like this.”

  “So.” She looked at Boone, who’d raised his revolver and sighted down the barrel on Damian. “Do you trust me now?”

  “No.”

  “Boone!”

  The Anaconda jerked in Boone’s hand, its blast cutting Damian off forever.

  Boone snorted and sniffled, his lower lip jutting out. He looked over at Frank slumped in the chair.

  “This way,” said Rainford’s daughter.

  New York

  Yeah

  Foley.

  Who’s this?

  It’s Bill. Gritzowski.

  True Gritz.

  How you doing Foley?

  I’m good, Bill. But why don’t you tell me how you’re doing. You’re the one calling me at, gotta be, what? Eleven o’clock Friday night.

  After eleven. I didn’t wake you up?

  No.

  How ‘bout them Yankees huh?

  Yeah, how about them Yankees. Save the small talk, Bill. We both know you’re not calling to talk baseball.

  See, that’s what I like about you, Foley. You’re an astute observer of the human animal.

  Yeah, usually after they’ve keeled over though.

  You got anything for me?

  On what? Oh wait, let me guess: our friend with the literary flair?

  Yeah, him.

  You seen his bullshit in the papers.

  I’m looking at it right now.

  What a bunch of malarkey, right?

  In what way?

  There’s no rhyme or reason. It’s like it’s all thrown together, bunch of deranged garbage. His psychosis right there in black and white.

  I don’t know.

  Bill, what do you mean you don’t know?

  There’s something, something there…

  You drinking Bill?

  You are too.

  Yeah, well, I didn’t say I wasn’t. Listen, what time is it? Hey-Zeus, I got work in the morning. Hey, look, you get like this, don’t be going and calling Cathy, okay? She’ll definitely think there’s something wrong with you. And she’d be right, too.

  I didn’t.

  Yeah, you’re a liar. Well, listen Bill, there’s nothing new from my end. He’s gonna get caught, it’s gonna be because he puts himself out there, trips himself up.

  He’
s putting himself out there right now. I’m looking at him doing it here in the newspaper in front of me.

  Yeah, well. Look, Bill, it’s getting late. Let’s call it a night.

  Sure. Good talking to you, Foley.

  Likewise, Bill. Goodnight.

  47.

  4:53 A.M. (CEST)

  They were almost to the staircase when Rainford’s daughter stopped, her arm across Boone’s chest, pressing him next to her, their backs flat against the wall in shadow. Boone about to demand what? but she’d already reached out and put a palm across his mouth. A second later two black-clad Ninja broke from the stairwell without a sound and headed down the opposite corridor, away from them. One glanced back—had he detected Boone?—but did not pause, continuing on his way, intent on their destination.

  The half dozen soldiers in their combat gear made more noise as they came down the stairs and followed in the direction the Ninjas had gone. Hidden in the shadows that reigned between each burning torch, Boone and the vampire woman could have waited patiently and escaped up the stairs. But thoughts of Frank in that chair, all those tubes in and out of him, that fucking dunce cap—

  “Hey!” Boone leveled the shotgun, stepping away from the wall, around the vampire woman, the soldiers turning towards his voice but he was already squeezing the trigger, catching the last men to pass in their backs. Hands went skyward, submachine guns tossed in the air, Boone triggering the Benelli as fast as he could work his finger, the men in the front of the line turning around to face him as they folded and went down. The shotgun blasts reverberated in the tight corridor.

  The Benelli empty in Boone’s hands, its barrel smoking, bodies crumpled in the passage.

  “Great,” remarked Rainford’s daughter, starting up the stairs, a clamor from above stopping her. More soldiers poured down the stairs, the H&K UMP in her hands blazing to life, the vampire female controlling it, one hand on the foregrip, soldiers spilling down the stairs, one man cartwheeling past.