I Kill Monsters

by Dennis Liggio

  "Let's go!"

  The first order of business was getting as far away from those three downed ghouls. Maybe the new ghouls could track us, maybe they couldn't, but nothing would be gained by staying around.

  I ran, pulling Jessica along with me. I had both sources of light, so she was lost without me. We didn't have time to switch the LED clip light to her and it didn't shine more than a few feet away, so I needed the flashlight to find our way.

  After running for a few minutes, I paused. Jessica began to stay something, probably to ask why we stopped, but I shushed her. I needed to listen.

  It was low, but I definitely heard the quick shuffling of ghoul feet. Whether they knew we were here or not, they were coming in our direction.

  "Crap, they're after us," I said in a low voice.

  "Okay, let's get out of here, then," she said.

  "Yeah, about that..." I said. "I didn't exactly leave a trail of breadcrumbs when I came after you. I was more interested in not losing you. So..."

  "So you have no idea where we are," she said bitterly.

  "Also no idea how to get out of here..." I said. I started walking one direction, sweeping the flashlight around. "Theoretically, we should just be able to take any of these ladders up to a manhole cover. But who knows where we're going to come out?"

  "Does that matter?" she asked. "It seems anywhere is going to better than here."

  I figured now was not the time to protest and anecdotally recount the times when such reasoning had worked out very badly for my brother and I. I understood her sentiment and knew that it generally worked... for anyone else but Mikkel and I.

  I found the closest ladder. Handing her the flashlight, I began climbing its rungs. Ever climb a sewer ladder? They have metal rungs that are always cold and wet. Not wet like super slippery, but wet like they're damp from the evaporation of several tons of sewage rushing by it. I immediately regretted not wearing any gloves. They were in my backpack, but we didn't really have the time for me to fish them out and my hands were already covered in ick. So I began climbing.

  I found that whenever my boots found purchase on a rung below me, it let out a loud echoing metal sound. I winced every time because I knew it was telling the ghouls exactly where we were. But I couldn't help but make it.

  "I can hear them!" said Jessica in a half-whisper.

  I began to climb more furiously. I finally reached the top and remembered the thing I hated about manhole covers: they're heavy. Above ground there are tools made for opening them that rely on leverage to account for their weight. But from below ground the cover relies heavily on strength; typically sewer workers were expected to go back up the manholes they entered, not opening manholes in random locations from below.

  I didn't have the opportunity to return to where we came in, so I braced myself on the ladder and then used both arms to push against the manhole. I grunted, but so far it didn't move.

  "They're coming!" said Jessica, sweeping the flashlight back the way we came. I didn't have the same view she had, but I heard the footsteps and could vaguely see movement at the end of the beam of light.

  Crap.

  "Start climbing the ladder!" I said.

  "Can we get out there?" she asked. "Did you get it open?"

  "It will be soon! But we're running out of time!"

  I pushed even harder on the manhole cover. I tried to channel any fear-panic adrenaline I had into it, but worried I had hit my limit. I started talking to my muscles. Body, I'm going to let you know that if we don't do this, we're going to die and probably get eaten. I know you've barely had any sleep in the last day, you've exhausted yourself fighting both zombies and ghouls, and you'd be unconscious right now if it weren't for half a dozen black coffees, but I really need you to do this. I'll... uh... treat you or something if we do this. Y'know, if not dead.

  I'm not sure if it was my passionate speech to my physical form, sheer will, or persistence in pushing, but finally something happened. My flexing arms felt the manhole cover push loose from its position. I groaned and kept pushing, moving the cover aside.

  "It's open!" I called down. I looked down and could see the hopping gait of ghouls as they reached the bottom of the ladder

  "Where does it go?" asked Jessica, pulling herself up the ladder behind me.

  "Doesn't matter!" I said, pulling myself up and out.

  It was another dark alley. Because some days it seems like New Avalon is more dark alleys than it is streets and buildings. Goddamn, for once couldn't we have come up next to a hospital or a police station? Maybe an all night monster hunter bar? Just once?

  I heard Jessica scream. I crouched down to grab her hand. She hadn't been struck by a ghoul, but they were climbing the ladder below her, hot on her heels. That phrase had meant something different just an hour ago.

  Using all the strength left in my already exhausted muscles, I pulled her out of the manhole. Then with aching and shaking muscles, I used my lead pipe as a lever to put the manhole cover back into place. Even once it was in place, the ghouls were pushing against it. I wasn't surprised, because ghouls were strong and at least some of them came up through manholes. The manhole cover lifted, ghoul fingers reaching out to grab the edge of the cover's edge.

  I took a running jump and landed on the manhole cover, which resulted in a howl from the ghoul whose fingers I had just crushed under the manhole cover's edge. A moment later, I could feel the ghouls pressing under me, but my weight seemed to be enough to keep them from pushing up. Of course, this was just a temporary solution. I couldn't stand there forever.

  My mind quickly charged into motion. What did we need right now? Shotguns, cigarettes, firebombs. I shook my head. What did we actually have? I looked around the alley. There were a few dumpsters, some vague neon from a broken bar sign, and puddles of water. Not the place I wanted to make a stand against a group of ghouls.

  I had an idea.

  "I need you to take over for me," I said to Jessica.

  "Are you kidding?" she said. "If you haven't noticed, we don't exactly weigh the same amount."

  I nodded. She was more petite. I might have been lean and wiry, but I bet I still weighed a bunch more than her.

  "I need you to keep them down there," I said. "I need you to stall."

  "How? If I stood on it, I wouldn't last a minute."

  I shrugged. "Shoot at them."

  "There's a lot of them, I only have so many bullets," she said. "And I admit I'm a terrible shot."

  "Maybe none of them will want to get shot," I said. "But our other option is for you to run for it and I hold them off here. If I survive, I'll come find you." I looked down to the cover at my feet, feeling them pounding away at it.

  "No, I'm not getting separated from you," she said. "Who knows if there's another group just down the block waiting to grab me?"

  A horrifying possibility, but I understood what she was saying. "Then I need you to stall them. Can you do that?"

  She reached into her purse and pulled out the gun. She switched the safety off. "I can try," she said.

  I nodded. "Are you ready?"

  Jessica took a deep breath. She put one foot on the manhole cover next to me, leaning her weight on it. She also pointed the gun down near the manhole.

  "Ready," she said.

  I jumped off the manhole. Jessica immediately leaned forward to put more of her weight on the manhole cover. I could hear the ghouls thumping at the cover and hoped she could keep them down there. I trotted a few feet to the nearest dumpster. I prayed that it wasn't chained to the wall or otherwise locked in place. When a place gets vandalized a lot, they sometimes do that. It's not usual, but neither is vandalism. Even if they did lock it up, they need to unlock it the night before for the garbage trucks, so I might be in luck. I learned that from Mikkel.

  Maneuvering around the other side, I began pushing on the dumpster. For the first moment, it didn't move. Then it slowly started giving way.

  "They're coming through!" s
aid Jessica. The manhole cover had already been lifted enough that she pulled her foot off it. There was now an arm reaching up out of it. They must have somehow known that Jessica was right above it, as the hand was grabbing blindly. Jessica nervously leveled her pistol at the arm.

  I was still pushing the dumpster when I heard the gun fire. In this alley, the reverberations made it sound like thunder. I heard it once, then twice. I heard the sound of the manhole cover slamming down. Then I heard the gun again. And again.

  "Whoa, take a break!" I said, grunting around the dumpster. From my view I could tell that she had fired the last two shots at the closed manhole cover in panic.

  She said nothing, but I must have gotten through to her, as she didn't fire again.

  I had just heard the sound of the manhole cover lifting from its position when I finally got the dumpster moving, rolling it right on top of the manhole. The wheel of the dumpster flattened the cover, sliding it back down.

  Letting go of the dumpster, I ran around to the manhole. The entire dumpster was sitting on the manhole. That was a huge amount of weight for them to lift with no leverage. I was pretty sure they couldn't do it.

  "Yeah, try to lift that, you bastards!" I shouted.

  Jessica had found her wits again, the gun hanging limply at her side. She was still paler than usual. "Are... are we safe?"

  "I'm not going to feel entirely safe until we get the hell out of here, but I think these guys," I said, stamping the visible edge of the manhole cover, "are not a problem for the moment."

  She nodded.

  "Let's get you home," I said.

  She shook her head. "I don't think home is safe."

  "Where then?"

  "Your place," she said.

  "My place?" I said.

  My night was far from over.

  Bulletproof Heart

  I'll admit I wasn't exactly enthusiastic to have her over. Normally a girl coming back to my place would be the cause of celebration, but not in this case. Sure she was beautiful, but we were covered in grime and stinking of the sewers. Any thoughts of anything frisky were drowned by the awful stench that assaulted my nostrils. First I suggested she might be more comfortable back at her apartment. When she declined that, I suggested I could take her to a hotel. She also declined that. She said she wanted to be near me, that she'd feel safer. I wasn't sure if that was really it or if she just didn't want to stink up her own apartment.

  Getting a cab was its own ordeal. Despite all the running around, the manhole we finally escaped through was still in Midtown. I lived in the Five Spokes area. It was technically walkable from Midtown, but it wasn't a short walk by any stretch. On any other day it would have been reasonable for committed urbanites like ourselves, but we were both exhausted and feeling like ass. A forced march across town might have done us in.

  I finally flagged down the cab. He lowered the passenger window to ask where we were headed... I guess to make sure we weren't going to a neighborhood he didn't want to be in. I didn't even get as far as neighborhood. Halfway through my sentence he caught a whiff of me. He drove off, barely missing my foot.

  The second cab driver was a much kinder person. He was sympathetic to our plight but didn't want us ruining our cab. He parked and went to the trunk. He pulled out some ratty beach towels. He laid them on the back seat and required us to sit on them the entire drive. He also kept the windows open and the air conditioning on high. He also required us to take the towels with him. Jessica made sure this driver got a very big tip.

  We quickly climbed the stairs of my building. I wanted to have minimal interaction with my neighbors. My super already didn't think much of me. He might evict me if he felt I was dripping sewage all over the staircase.

  The first order of business was showers. And perhaps burning our clothes. I had splurged for an apartment with a washer and dryer - with my line of work it was essential. While she showered, I stuffed our clothes in the washer with a cocktail of detergents that I've had previous success getting sewer smell out with. Of course, I wasn't sure how viable her business clothes would be; I've always heard that such things were dry clean only.

  While she finished her shower, I waited in the living room, wearing just an old pair of sweat pants I didn't care about. It was enough to cover up my nakedness without ruining any more clothes. Eventually I heard the water go off, then heard her walking around my bedroom. I had said she could grab whatever clothes she wanted; I had no idea what she would fit in.

  When she opened the door, I was shocked. Her hair was down and washed, looking tussled but sexy. She wore an old black Misfits tee shirt of mine. That shirt was usually big on me, but on her it was enormous. That's probably why she wore it like a dress, her long legs naked as they stretched out from below it. Was she wearing anything else? Inquiring minds wanted to know, but I'd be damned if I asked. I tried not to linger too long looking at her legs, but she was smiling when I managed to wrench my eyes from them to look back at her face.

  "Your turn," she said coyly. "Go get clean, dirty boy."

  "You can..." I started. "If you want... I mean... Make yourself home."

  She smiled slyly as she walked over to the couch. She sat down and put her legs up on the coffee table. This did nothing to help with my concentration. After a few moments of noticing me still looking and not having moved shook her with a smile. "Go!" she commanded.

  Once in the shower, the hot water was relieving, helping me to calm down. My shower has two sets of soap products. The first is what everyone has: soap, bodywash, and shampoo with the typical manly scents which, if I was lucky, didn't make me smell like a douchebag. The other ones are for occupational hazards. These were the heavy duty cleaners, the ones that are the strongest you can get without causing harm to yourself. These were all rough and uncomfortable soaps that will get anything clean. With enough scrubbing they will remove any smell from your body, often doing this by removing a few layers of your skin. They were so gritty it was like I was washing myself with gravel. But, after ten minutes of concerted washing, I now no longer smelled like a guy who had been stalking sewage tunnels fighting cannibalistic monsters.

  I stood another minute or two in the shower, letting the water wash over me. I knew if I spent too long there I would fall asleep on my feet. But I had barely slept, had a full day of work with an asshole boss, chased a ghoul, fought two more, and had saved a woman from a pack of probably ravenous ghouls. I don't care what anyone else might say: I deserved two minutes of me-time.

  In my foggy relaxation, I became aware that someone was in my bathroom. I'm sure I should have gone with the obvious explanation and relaxed, but I found that completely unlikely and I was suffering from tiredness delirium. So I assumed it was an intruder. I looked around the shower for a weapon. I grabbed a particularly long shampoo bottle, since it had greater leverage to utilize the power of the half empty cheap plastic bottle. I guess if you ever needed to murder me, you now know I'm at my most defenseless in the shower[20].

  A hand grabbed at the end of the shower curtain. I tensed for attack... and then Jessica's smiling face popped through the side of the curtain. The shower bottle dropped out of my hand. Before either of us said anything, her eyes slowly panned downward. Her smile grew.

  "What are you -" I started, seemingly still oblivious.

  She pulled back the shower curtain enough so that she could get her naked body in there with me. A finger touched my lips telling me to be quiet.

  I guess there are advantages to rescuing a girl. You just have to scrub the sewer smell off yourself first.

  A while later we lay in bed. She was laying on my chest, both of us sated. I was still exhausted, but I still had enough of a charge from our activities that I wasn't passing out yet.

  Her finger idly traced the ring pierced in my bottom lip.

  "You have a dangerous job..." she said languidly.

  "Yeah, but it's who I am." I felt like I should say something manly, but I didn't intend for it to come ou
t so cheesy.

  "How did you even get into it?" she said. "Did someone teach you? Or did you two just decide to do it one day?"

  "I lost a bet," I said.

  "Really?" she said, her eyes wide.

  "No, I'm just kidding."

  She mock punched me in the chest. "I'm serious."

  I frowned and sighed. "Revenge. It all started with revenge."

  "What?" She did not expect the coldness that swept through me.

  "Are you sure you want to talk about this?" I said.

  "Is it difficult to talk about?" she said.

  I started by shaking my head but that eventually turned into a nod. I sighed deeply while staring at the ceiling. Then I started the story...

  Mother

  I was an idiot when I was sixteen. I think you could have guessed that from knowing me. I mean, I'm kind of a dumbass now, but sixteen year old me was really bad. If I could go back, if I could take back what I did, what I said... well, we all have our regrets.

  At sixteen I was at that stupid age where young men fight with everyone: their friends, their enemies, their brothers, and especially their parents. My hair was dyed blue, I hung out with the wrong people, and I wore a stupid denim jacket filled with sewn-on patches of punk bands I was too young to have ever seen live. I drank, I did a few drugs I shouldn't have, and I thought I had life all figured out. I was a dumb teenager who didn't know any better but sure as hell thought he did. And I definitely didn't listen to my mom.

  Mom was all we had. Dad left when I was too young to remember... screw that, he doesn't deserve the name of Dad. Mikkel calls him that, but Mikkel knew him. I just knew his absence. Our father was a foreman for an Avalon construction business. When things started changing, when parts of the city were destroyed, his business was booming. As soon as he started doing better, the bastard thought he could do better at home too. He abandoned his wife and family. I don't know if it was some attitude from the old country where he grew up or the bloated American Dream as viewed by an immigrant, but he decided that we were holding him back. I hear that the bastard lives out in the hills somewhere with a young trophy wife. I wouldn't know him if I bumped into him, but if I ever did recognize him, that bastard should run if he knows what's good for him.