Goddamned Freaky Monsters (The Tome of Bill Book 5)

by Rick Gualtieri

  Thankfully, my friends’ version of the classic steel chair cheap shot was to pepper this thing’s midsection with bullets. As they blasted the shit out of it, I briefly prayed it didn’t decide to use me as a shield against them. I could probably count on Ed to stop shooting if that happened. Sally...well...

  And then, I was airborne as the beast flung me toward my former coven partner, she the far better shot of the two.

  Proving herself to be a team player, she caught me mid-throw and gently lowered me to the ground without further injury.

  Oh, wait...that’s what I was hoping would happen.

  In reality, Sally stepped nimbly to the side and a fucking smirk lit up her face as I flew past - bitch - allowing me to gently slam face first into a tree trunk.

  Ouch.

  Next time, I was gonna go investigate the abandoned building and James could stay outside to trade blows with King Kong.

  A deafening barrage of gunfire erupted as I slowly peeled myself off the tree. I checked to see if any of my teeth were lodged in the bark, then turned back to the fight.

  To my amazement, the big goon was down on one knee. His torso contained enough bullet holes that I was sure he’d set off the metal detectors at airports a hundred miles away.

  Ed was reloading, but Sally approached with her gun held out - apparently with a few shots left to spare.

  The creature raised its head. Hatred shone in its eyes, but that was the extent of the fight it had left - thank God. It was good to know that something could stop these fucking freight trains on legs.

  “What did you do to the people who lived here?” I asked, partially to test whether I could still speak following the beating I’d just received.

  It raised its lips in an ugly imitation of a sneer and growled, “Muff kill them. Muff eat them. Muff eat you all!”

  Muff? Its name was Muff?! Jesus fucking Christ! How in hell did these things expect us to take them seriously when...

  I nearly jumped out of my skin as Sally pulled the trigger, splitting Muff’s head with one of the mini-torpedoes from her heavy gun.

  “Muff ate the people,” Ed commented, once the echo of the shot had died down. “Normally, it’s the other way around.”

  “Too easy, dude.”

  “Sorry, couldn’t pass up the opportunity.”

  “Sally,” I asked, likewise unable to resist, “tap any good Muff lately?”

  “I still have one bullet left.”

  “Shutting up now.”

  Giant Furry People Eaters

  Unfortunately for us, where there was one Muff, there were more...sorta. An angry howl rose up in the distance, followed by another. I had no way of knowing how far away, but I’d seen these things move. In the open, they couldn’t match a vampire’s speed, but they had some sort of freaky affinity with the trees - able to use them to sneak up on creatures that would otherwise smell them coming a mile off.

  “How much ammo do we have left?” I asked, hoping for a good answer.

  “Probably not enough,” came the unsurprising reply.

  Just then, the high-pitched whine of a military-grade machine gun filled the air.

  Ed and I instinctively ducked before the realization hit that it wasn’t us being fired upon.

  “Looks like our backup has arrived,” Sally nonchalantly commented, rolling her eyes in my direction.

  A moment later, the black form of our chopper roared past overhead, its guns still spitting death.

  “It’s about fucking time!” I screamed to the heavens.

  “One should have clear targets before one opens fire unless one has a grudge against treetops,” a voice said from right behind me. I nearly jumped out of my skin again as I spun to find James and Calibra had rejoined us, their stealth nearly matching that of the apes.

  Momentarily forgetting myself, I asked, “Where the fuck were you while Konga was busy testing out what would shatter first, my face or its...urk!”

  I finished my accusation with a croak as I suddenly found my throat being crushed by Calibra. “Freewill or not, your insolence is growing tiresome.”

  I expected - and hoped - that James would come to my rescue, telling her that he was well used to my eccentricities. Much to my surprise, though, it was Sally who responded first - by pointing her gun right at the Prefect’s face.

  Shit had just gotten real.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “And what do you intend to do with that, child?” Calibra asked scornfully.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Sally replied, careful to stay out of the older vampire’s reach. “Maybe celebrate my homecoming with some fireworks.”

  “I order you to cease this nonsense or I will...”

  “Get to experience the unique sensation of your fucking skull being blown apart? Like I said, I don’t answer to you.”

  “Yes, but you answer to me,” James bluntly said, then turned to Calibra. “You as well. I understand tensions are high, but now is not the time.”

  For a second, neither of them budged. “Do not make me say it twice.” The tone of his voice sent icicles down my spine.

  Sally quickly lowered her gun. Calibra released my throat a scant second later.

  “Thank you,” he said frostily. “Now, in answer to your question, Dr. Death, I was doing exactly as I said. We were searching Norfolk Coven’s nest for survivors - trusting that you could handle yourselves, which you did.”

  “Oh...well, did you find any?”

  “No, but we did find clues as to what occurred here.”

  “Awesome. Like what?”

  “Let us get back into the air first. There is nothing more for us here.”

  Sadly, that order was easier said than done.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  James led us to the clearing with downed trees we’d seen earlier. The chopper couldn’t land there, but the space was wide enough for it to descend for a pickup.

  Being at ground level afforded us a much more sobering view of the scale of what had occurred. Trees, many snapped off at the trunk level, were strewn about haphazardly as if a tornado had touched down. The body we’d spied from above was only the tip of the iceberg. Over a dozen of those hairy, four-armed, whatever-the-fucks lay crushed beneath the debris as if they were no more than ants that had run afoul of a really big boot.

  “Okay, anyone want to explain what the hell these things are?” Ed asked.

  “The Alma, obviously,” James replied.

  “I kind of figured that,” I said. “But what kind? They sure as shit don’t look like the fun bunch we met up north. Are these like Mega-Sasquatches or something?”

  “Hardly. The Alma are forest spirits. Their tangible forms are malleable. What you saw up in Canada was how they choose to manifest themselves during times of peace.”

  “As ten-foot fanged gorillas? That doesn’t exactly scream happy little pixies to me.”

  “Be that as it may,” he continued, “when they go to war, their appearance is decisively less friendly.”

  “I’d hate to see them really pissed off.”

  “As usual, Bill, you’re missing the real point,” Sally added, raising her voice to compensate for the whine of the descending chopper.

  “Care to enlighten me, Miss Marple?”

  “With pleasure. Who cares what the fuck they look like?” She nudged one of the hairy bodies with her foot. “What you should be asking yourself is why they’re dead.”

  There was just one little problem with her theory: they weren’t...at least, not all of them.

  The attack came without warning. Though we were all on our guard, weapons at the ready, the creatures still somehow got the drop on us. I could see why they used the trees. Out in the open, it was pretty hard to miss something that looked like Mighty Joe Young’s pissed off cousin. In the forest, though, these things were like the fucking Predator - minus, thankfully, the laser blaster.

  One reared up behind James, but its element of surprise was short-lived. He’d fought these cre
atures before and had survived an attack that had claimed even his sire.

  Its club-like arms were still descending when he spun. A blade appeared in his hand from seemingly nowhere. In less time than it took to blink, he’d buried the knife hilt-deep in the creature’s unarmored stomach.

  Calibra was nearly as fast, leaping upon the Sasquatch’s back before the rest of us could even raise our weapons. I was now glad James had interceded earlier. Seeing her move, I wasn’t entirely convinced Sally could have fired before this chick would have disarmed her and finished off both of us.

  With a sharp crack, she broke the beast’s neck, nearly twisting its head around one hundred and eighty degrees. The battle was over before it had even begun.

  Or so I thought.

  It had just been a diversion - a desperate gambit that drew our attention long enough for our enemies to figuratively fuck us in the ass. Gee, and they didn’t even treat us to dinner first.

  A roar of rage turned all of our eyes skyward. Two of Muff’s buddies - hopefully not named Twat and Pubes - leapt from the trees, their target the chopper.

  One of the pair underestimated the descent rate of the helicopter and went high. This brought him into direct contact with the spinning blades. The Sasquatch exploded into a shower of blood and guts that rained down upon us like we were standing in Hell’s shower stall.

  Sadly, the helicopter’s rotor didn’t fare much better in the exchange. With a shriek of rent metal, what had been a controlled descent now became an imminent crash landing. The second Sasquatch hung halfway in the cabin, clawing at the pilot, as the aircraft spun wildly out of control.

  I’m not exactly what one might call a trained soldier, but even I know not to stand there gawking like a dipshit when a ton of whirling metallic death is headed my way. Thankfully, I had vampire reflexes at my disposal.

  Ed had taken the brunt of the Sasquatch shower and was suitably distracted by what must have been twenty pounds of entrails landing smack dab on his head. Fortunately, he had an awesome friend like me by his side to save his ass.

  Make that friends, as Sally apparently had the same idea. We both grabbed hold of him and dove for safety - fortunately, not in separate directions. That would have been pretty fucking awkward. I trusted James and Calibra were both doing the same. Tough as they were, a shank of twisted metal through the heart would fuck up any vamp’s day.

  We sought cover behind the trunks of the trees. Whatever magic had caused their unnatural growth had thankfully been thorough. Although they couldn’t have been more than a few days old, they had all the thickness and strength of trees that had stood tall for a hundred years. The Feet might have worse hygiene than a cracked out hobo with a case of cheap wine, but they didn’t fuck around when it came to whatever plant magic they employed.

  The ground shook as the chopper slammed into it, accompanied by the sound of metal folding in on itself and the tortured engine blowing out.

  After a few seconds, when I was fairly sure no flying chunks of helicopter blade would decapitate me, I dared a peek. The chopper was pretty much trashed - definitely not in any condition to fly us back to Boston anytime soon. Even so, a flash of light from inside the cockpit told me it was in better shape than the pilot.

  The Sasquatch tore loose from the wreckage, bleeding freely from several wounds, but otherwise very much alive. It held up the now empty helmet of our former pilot and screeched triumphantly.

  For about one second anyway.

  James’s knife buried itself hilt deep into the creature’s neck with barely a sound of its passage. The Sasquatch’s right eye then exploded in a spray of blood a scant moment before the roar of a gunshot reached my ears.

  Without further ado, the ugly fucker - arms still raised in victory - fell backward to land with a meaty thud, one more body to add to the pile.

  I shared a quick glance with Ed, who merely inclined his head and shrugged. It was close to embarrassing how quickly the older vamps could take down creatures that were capable of breaking me in half like the wishbone of a Thanksgiving turkey.

  James stepped out of the tree line, followed by Calibra, and retrieved his knife. He wiped the blood off on his pants leg before returning the blade to its sheath. Damn. Not only was he a badass, but he looked cool doing it too.

  Of course, cool or not, he was equally as fucked as the rest of us.

  We joined him in the clearing and wordlessly began to search through the wreckage for anything salvageable. We looked for weapons and ammo mostly, although Sally made it a point to retrieve her duffle bag, too.

  “Really?” I asked. “Thinking we might run into a floating rave out here in the woods?”

  “If so, then things wouldn’t be any different than they are in New York. I’d get in and you wouldn’t.”

  I shot her a glare. “We should probably get out of here before the rest of those things find us.”

  “I agree we should get moving,” James said, “but for different reasons.”

  “Oh?”

  “Is it not obvious, Freewill?” Calibra gestured at the corpses lying about. “The rest are all around us.”

  “There could be others,” I sheepishly pointed out.

  “Not in the immediate area,” James replied. “The few who attacked us were merely the remnants of their force.”

  “This is odd.” Sally bent over and examined one of the Sasquatch bodies. After a few moments, she moved on and did the same to another. “No bullet holes on these - just lots of broken bones. I’m thinking this wasn’t done by humans.”

  “The Norfolk Coven, then?” Ed asked. “Maybe they were able to fight back.”

  Calibra exchanged a glance with James, who gave her the barest of nods.

  “Unlikely, human,” she replied. “The master of Norfolk was a vampire named Sarah Porter. She was only one hundred and thirteen years old. The majority of her brood were far weaker - not a true warrior among them. I very much doubt they could have routed such an attack so utterly.”

  “Maybe the townsfolk helped them.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The people,” I replied, remembering the briefing Alex had given to Sally and me before sending us up to the Woods of Mourning. “Way back during the first war with the Feet, vamps and humans fought alongside each other, right? Well, who’s to say history didn’t repeat itself? Maybe together they...”

  “Do you smell any humans in the vicinity?” James asked.

  That was a good question. The only thing I’d really smelled since arriving here had been the ass-like stink of Bigfoot fur. I took a deep breath through my nostrils, trying to filter past their lingering stench. I was fairly sure my nose hairs would catch fire long before that happened. After a few fruitless seconds of trying, I shook my head.

  Sally raised an eyebrow and sighed derisively. A couple of moments later, though, a look of confusion came across her face. “Bill’s right. There aren’t any people here. Hell, I can’t even smell their bodies. How many...”

  “Nearly twelve thousand.”

  “Where’d they all go?” I asked. “That first fucker said he ate them, but that...”

  “An empty boast meant to unnerve you, in all likelihood. The Alma may be omnivorous, but they are not known for eating people. Besides which, it would take an army of them to devour a town of this size.”

  “So where...”

  “Is it not obvious, Freewill?” Calibra asked again. That was twice. Once more and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to restrain myself from taking a swing at her. She was getting really fucking annoying.

  “Pretend I’m a moron.”

  “Very well. They never left. They are all still here, standing around us.”

  The Long Walk Home

  I blinked stupidly for a few seconds. “So, what? Are they ghosts?”

  “No fucking way,” Sally gasped.

  “Holy shit. They can actually do that?” Ed asked.

  “Do what?” It was exasperating, always being the la
st person to get the freaking memo.

  “The trees, Bill,” he replied. “They didn’t grow them. Somehow, they turned the people into them.”

  I opened my eyes wide. That was shit straight out of a bad horror movie. “They can do that?”

  “Thankfully, not en masse,” Calibra replied

  “Twelve thousand people isn’t en masse?”

  “Not comparatively. Be thankful. Otherwise, our original war with them may well have ended quite differently.”

  “It’s powerful magic,” James explained as casually as if he were discussing last night’s baseball game. “Requires a lot of effort and they must destroy as much as they create - something the Alma are often loathe to do. I wouldn’t doubt that somewhere amongst this carnage is the body of one of their shamans. Likewise, if we were still capable of flight, I would expect to find a similarly sized patch of forest no more than a few miles away - dried up and devoid of all life.”

  “That doesn’t explain the Norfolk Coven,” Sally pointed out. “Were they also...”

  “No. This type of magic wouldn’t work upon us. Our life force isn’t compatible.”

  I briefly glanced at Ed and gave him the once over. “I’ll let you know if you start to sprout roots.”

  “Bite me, asshole.”

  “I’m sure Tom would be happy to help me fertilize you as often as needed.”

  “If you two are done sucking each other’s balls, maybe we can get back to the topic at hand,” Sally said before turning back toward James. “You think our guy killed these furry fuckers, don’t you?”

  James turned away from us and clasped his hands behind his back. “The remnants of his scent linger in the courthouse. There is also no denying these Alma were killed by something with considerable power.”

  “So what about the coven?”

  “Gone. No ashes. Just gone.” Once more, his voice carried a worried tone. He’d barely blinked when fighting off the Sasquatch. In fact, the entire war effort appeared to barely faze him. Something about this vampire, though, had him on edge. There was little doubt he was hiding something.