I Kill Monsters

by Dennis Liggio

  I was in no state to run. I was exhausted and had been running on fumes all day. The adrenaline kicked in, but even with that lift I knew this was going to suck. But what choice did I have? The cops weren't coming, Mikkel was probably still sleeping, and if I faltered now, Jessica might never be seen again.

  Whoever her kidnapper was, he was fast. It was all I could do keep him in sight. I had no breath left to scream obscenities at him or appeal to help. I'm not sure there was any help to be found. As I dashed after him, the kidnapper took strange turns down more alleys, in between buildings. We came to a fence and he vaulted it with ease, Jessica's screaming weight doing nothing to deter him. I was much slower getting over the fence.

  When I got to the intersection right after the fence I couldn't see him. I gasped a curse, thinking I had lost him. But then I heard the fall of a trash can to my right and took off running. In a narrow aisle behind restaurants I caught up with him. He had slowed down when he lost me but now he took off running again. Why wasn't he just willing to stop and fight? Couldn't we take a little break?

  Since the alley was narrow, he began tipping trash bins behind him, causing me to jump over them. I had never run track and field before - my high school didn't even have field - but I suddenly had a vast appreciation for how difficult it was.

  I gained on him and other times lost what I had gained. He had a weird loping gait that I would think made him slower, but he moved very quickly. He almost lost me in a few places, but he was loud so I was able to pick up his trail by sound. I wasn't sure where exactly we were anymore. I knew enough that he wasn't taking a straight line to his destination; this convoluted route was to throw me off, but he hadn't succeeded yet.

  The chase through the alleys finally ended when he skidded to a stop next to another man in a similarly dark raincoat. He was standing next to an open manhole cover and was pointing down. The first one handed Jessica's struggling body down into manhole. Her screams changed in pitch as they changed from fear of kidnapping to the horror of being thrown down into a dark sewer.

  "Stop!" I shouted as I closed the distance.

  Both raincoated figures turned to look at me. The light was better here and I was closer. I took in their ugly faces, their bad but sharp teeth, their slightly pointed ears, and their strange eyes. The man's strange athleticism made more sense now, since I knew he wasn't technically he a man. I knew exactly what they were: ghouls.

  Neither wanted to wait for me. Once Jessica had disappeared into the darkness with a shriek, one of them jumped down into it. It was a casual gesture, like hopping down into a manhole and the ten to fifteen foot drop were nothing of note. As I approached, the second ghoul stopped to bellow at me, a deep growling snarl, which caused me to pause and prepare to be attacked. But it was a feint. As soon as I had stopped, the second one also hopped into the dark hole.

  I stepped forward to the manhole, panting as I stared down into its depths. A foul stench flooded my lungs and I turned my head away until I had a real breath. Then I gazed at the rungs of the ladder descending into darkness. Footsteps echoed up from the blackness.

  Why were ghouls pulling her off the street? Why did they want her so badly? Why were they wearing raincoats?

  I lit a flare and dropped it down the manhole. In that light I could see that none of the ghouls had stayed behind as a guard. Nobody to slow me down, but it meant I was hunting two, maybe three ghouls that were on the move. Maybe more, if they all had been down in the sewer waiting.

  I climbed down, trying to make my tired brain work. I wasn't sure of my course of action yet, but that had never stopped me from acting before. I knew every second I wasted would mean a greater chance of them getting away with Jessica. I had to move forward assuming I was going to run after them like an idiot, and if I thought of a better plan somewhere along the line I could go with that. Right, business as usual, I thought.

  At the bottom of the ladder I pulled out an LED light, clicked it on and clipped it to my jacket. I pulled out a flashlight too. You can never have too much light in a sewer, and if you were hunting a pack of cannibalistic humanoids who could see in the dark, you wanted a lot of light. I looked down at the ground and saw two discarded raincoats. Their echoing footsteps clearly told me which way they went. With my lead pipe in my right hand and the flashlight in my left, I headed after them.

  The New Avalon sewer system is different than that of most major cities. The entire convoluted network of train tunnels and sewers beneath the city were the brainchild of visionary[16] architect, Roger Carmichael. We heard about him in elementary school, as he was one of Avalon's favored sons. The current citizens owe him for much of New Avalon's architecture, both the good parts, like parts of Old Avalon and Wellington, and the destroyed neighborhoods, such as Egan and Huskerville. His architecture was far beyond his time - even now, some historians of New Avalon don't know if some of his designs were innovative in ways we don't understand or just convoluted for no reason. The sewers and train tunnels are definitely like this. They were all carved out of the limestone beneath New Avalon. Since they were blasted and dug through solid rock, you might think that the tunnels are narrow and utilitarian. That would be underestimating Carmichael. The New Avalon sewers are almost expansive caverns. Gold painted words and mosaics designate major intersections. In a few disused tunnels, we've even seen strange designs painted into the walls. I imagine it's probably the classiest looking sewer system in the country - or would be if it wasn't falling apart with age and lack of maintenance.

  Maintenance on the tunnels is minimal, because they are dangerous. The city will repair the structure but they don't give a damn about Carmichael's extraneous decoration - who wants to repair that when you could get killed down there? And nobody's going to see the decorative touches. New Avalon sewer workers typically work in teams where one member carries a shotgun at all times. The city has not admitted they know about monsters, but they do know the maintenance work is much more hazardous than most cities. The ghouls tend to keep to disused parts of the tunnels and typically run at human contact, but occasionally when food is scarce or they find a lone person lost and alone, they attack. It's the pockets of zombies which are usually more trouble. Once uncovered or stumbled upon, zombies will keep moving, usually toward the more well-travelled areas, until they find someone to bite or they are killed. The train tunnels are dustier, louder, and without the ever present stink of human effluence[17], but otherwise similarly dangerous.

  I regretted not having a breather mask. If you've ever spent any amount of time in any city's sewer, you know that the stench of a fully functional sewer is one of the most horrible smells in the universe. I'm convinced permanent sewer workers who spend a lot of time down there either have some cutting edge nasal technology we don't know about or are some sort of mutants who have severely different senses of smell. You might argue that you just get used to the smell of sewers over time, but you'd be wrong. Every time the stench hits you like something new, as if someone just uncorked a new bottle of vintage putrescence. And you don't get used to it by spending hours down there. After a long time in the sewers, you discover there's an indescribable funk that pervades everything - and that's if you haven't thrown up from prolonged exposure to the smell. You notice the worst thing after time underground without a mask: not only do you now smell like the sewer, but particles of that stank now rest in your nasal cavities themselves, twisted in your nostril hairs. If this sounds gross, realize that it's nowhere near as gross as actually smelling sewer stench. If things go wrong, you might get caught under the sewers unprepared, but if you know you're going there, bring a mask or hope you have a really bad cold that day.

  Jogging after ghouls in a dark dank sewer is a dangerous proposition in any situation, but with no idea where I was going and already knowing I was outnumbered was even worse. After the first few seconds, I no longer heard the running feet of ghouls They must have realized I was tracking them by that or they had gotten tired of running. Fortuna
tely, I could still hear the muffled screams of Jessica, though it was harder to navigate by that in the echoing tunnels. And whenever a train rumbled by in an adjacent subway tunnel, I had to stop and wait to hear her cries again.

  The second problem was the natural advantage ghouls had over me: they could see in the dark. Mikkel and I had learned this the hard way - Mikkel still had a scar from that encounter with a ghoul in darkness. What we did know is while they could see in the dark, they couldn't see very far, maybe ten or twenty feet. Any farther than that and they needed light like we did. So if they were in complete darkness, either they were moving slow or knew the way very well. I hoped that it was the first part, since that meant I could catch up to them.

  I suddenly realized I hadn't heard Jessica's whimper in nearly thirty seconds. I turned one corner and then another, sweeping my flashlight to look for any clues. I had no idea where they had gone.

  "Jessica!" I called. The ghouls now knew where I was, but they might have known that already from my light if they weren't that far ahead of me.

  I heard a muffled scream in response that was quickly stifled. It came from my right and I began running in that direction.

  A minute later and I had lost the trail again. I heard nothing but the drip of water and the slushy sound of sewage. I was frustrated. I called out for Jessica again, hoping for a response. I felt like I was playing the worst game of Marco Polo ever.

  Then there was a long moment where I got no response at all. A sinking feeling set into my stomach. I wondered if I had lost her or they had decided to silence her... for good.

  Then I heard a scream that was quickly cut off. It was close!

  I turned to my right, sweeping my flashlight and - "Holy fuck!"

  My light had revealed a ghoul face only a few feet from me. A snarling face, sharp teeth, saliva spraying out at me. Even with my battle-hardened reflexes[18], I freaked out and recoiled, momentarily losing my footing.

  Luckily, we were mutually stunned. I had shined my flashlight right in his face. Bright directional light in darkness adjusted eyes seemed like a very bad thing, as the ghoul recoiled in pain.

  We both recovered quickly. I swept my flashlight in the direction the ghoul had come from. Not far from us were two other ghouls, one of them still carrying Jessica. The ghoul in front of me hissed while in a crouch, the other free ghoul coming forward. I was glad to have found them and that they had stopped running. Of course, now there was a new problem: three ghouls and only one of me.

  Mythologically, ghouls are supposedly some form of the undead - dead things that still walk, fight, and talk, for those of you unfamiliar with the term. Unfortunately, through all our hunts, we've never seen proof of that. There's no evidence that they're dead. Their living bodies are warm, they bleed and die from wounds, and they need to eat to survive. Unlike zombies, we've never seen someone become a ghoul. Where did they come from? Once or twice we've wondered if they were simply regular humans who grew up underground and were raised to eat human flesh. But then how could they see in the dark? We're honestly not sure of their origins.

  Ghouls are almost always pale skinned and not fans of clothing. If they wear anything, they're rags, loincloths, or cloaks. And now raincoats, it seemed. Mikkel and I once saw a ghoul wearing a decent pair of pants. Mikkel made sure we took a picture of that one's body. He thought the pants were hilarious.

  In addition to limited darkness vision, ghouls had sharp teeth, often in various stages of rot. Their finger nails were sharpened into claws. You can usually tell a ghoul by their hunched posture and hopping gait. Too much time in cramped tunnels, I guess. If they were green, we probably would have called them goblins, as Mikkel pointed out they looked just like fantasy film tunnel dwellers.

  Ghouls are higher priority kills than zombies when they're being bad. If they're harming humans, we need to stop them. But if not, we tend to leave them alone. They're like wild animals; they usually ignore or avoid humans. When they're doing that, they're like bears in a deep forest - no need to go hunting for them or to rile them up. But when they don't keep to themselves, they are very dangerous. If a hostile nest of ghouls has setup in an area, we need to take them out. Besides eating corpses and attacking lone wanderers, ghouls steal children and pets. We hear about this most often in the hills and woods closer to the mine. We think they just eat them, but who knows what they really do with the kids.

  When we have to fight a ghoul nest, we hunt it like a pack of wolves. We need to know their hunting area and where they sleep. And we go in carefully. Ghouls are brutal fighters. They're dangerous one on one, but when they have the number advantage, they are deadly. So in this situation, I lacked almost all of our usual advantages. This was a bad idea.

  The two ghouls in front of me opened their jaws and screeched. I've seen them screech like this before and had no idea what it was. A battlecry? A call for help? Were they just trying to rattle my nerves? Because my nerves were already rattled.

  I let out my own shout that sounded kind of weak next to theirs and I ran forward. I lashed out with my lead pipe. The lead ghoul blocked my swing with his arm. I could tell by the sound that it was still painful to him, but that arm kept the pipe from striking my intended target, his head. I followed up by shoving my flashlight in his face, disorienting him again. In hindsight I should have reversed these two actions.

  The second ghoul came at me, hissing and screeching. Ghouls are typically in the claw-and-bite school of fighting. Oh, I've seen them punch and I've seen them use clubs[19], but they seem to really like clawing and biting. That's also how they eat, so I guess they're just tenderizing their meat.

  This time I just got the claws: two raking slashes. The first met with empty air between me and the ghoul while the second got the sleeve of my jacket. The fabric was ripped, but my arm inside was untouched.

  I swung underhand with my lead pipe. Since the ghoul already had forward momentum, he practically ran into the pipe. Its long arms were in the way, and I pulled back to avoid further attack, so I couldn't tell where I hit him. I had thought I had hit the ghoul's stomach, but after seeing his face... well, maybe I had actually gotten a vulnerable spot a little lower than that. The ghoul dropped to the ground.

  The first ghoul that I had blinded lunged toward me again. I tried to blind it with the flashlight again. That didn't work out how I wanted. Between trying to aim the light beam and the ghoul rushing forward, instead of getting the beam straight into the ghoul's face, the flashlight came at the ghoul in a downward motion and I ended up just bonking the ghoul lightly on its head. The ghoul stopped for a confused second, not knowing what happened. We both looked at each other: I was embarrassed at the weak attack and the ghoul didn't know what the action even signified.

  We both recovered from our moment of shock and I swung my pipe as the ghoul lunged again. My lead pipe smacked the ghoul on the side of its head. There was a loud donk! noise. The ghoul fell to the ground.

  That left the just third ghoul. I looked over to see that he had put Jessica down so he could deal with me. This third ghoul was the biggest of the bunch, the same one that had carried Jessica through our chase and still managed to outpace me. Even for a gangly ghoul, he was buff. His shoulders were broad, his arms thick, and his claws even longer than the others. He flexed its arms and let out a piercing screech.

  I took a deep breath and tightened my grip on both the flashlight and lead pipe. I might be tired and outclassed, but I was stubborn. I was going to take any fight the ghoul brought me.

  Of course, the ghoul had been stupid and overconfident. I didn't need to fight him. There was a thunk and the ghoul fell forward on the ground, completely unconscious.

  The ghouls had never bothered to bind or knock out Jessica. Maybe it was because they weren't used to living hostages. Maybe they were relying on their natural strength and horror to contain her. Maybe they hadn't wanted to harm her. Whatever the reason, the ghoul's fate was sealed the moment he put her on the ground. He mus
t have expected her to cower in the corner, crawling away while he and I fought. He was foolish.

  I didn't have a good look when it happened, but I could easily see what happened when the ghoul fell over. Jessica stood behind him. When put on the ground, she had simply stood up behind him, pulled the pistol from her purse, and hit the ghoul on the back of the head with the butt of the pistol. She was scared for her life, but she seemed not very afraid of ghouls themselves.

  "I started carrying this recently," she said, out of breath. "I'm glad it finally came in handy."

  I nodded, looking down at the ghouls. None of them were dead, not unless my pipe had given that one a lethal concussion. I wished that there was some way to interrogate them, but Mikkel and I had never bridged the communication barrier. We didn't know if they could even talk. Again they often seemed just like wild animals.

  I saw something strange about the ghoul right in front of me. Something glinted in the light. I'd never known ghouls to carry metal or jewelry. I crouched down. Was that an earring?

  "We should get out of here," said Jessica. There was some strange nervousness in her voice. I looked up and her eyes were all bugged out. I looked around us, but saw nothing.

  "Yeah, in a moment," I said.

  "We should get out of here now," she said very insistently. What was her deal?

  Off in the distance I heard the screen of a ghoul. Okay, maybe the screech really was a call for help. Either way, we needed to make ourselves scarce.

  I quickly reached down and tugged the earring off the ghoul. It didn't want to come off easily.

  "Leave it, we have to go!" said Jessica.

  I said nothing and tugged harder. There was some blood, but the earring came off. I slipped it into my jacket pocket. I stood up, put my lead pipe away, and grabbed her hand.