"This really needs surgery." He said, pulling out supplies. "Or at least treatment in a sterile environment."
"No time, Doc." I said. "So let's get me stitched up and on the road." He bent his head down and started sewing. I winced a couple of times, but it didn't really hurt much more than getting cut in the first place. About fifteen minutes later he was done, and all I was worried about was infection and making sure he'd sewn my tattoos back together straight.
"Now," I said, standing up. "Is there a car dealership in this town? I seem to be in need of a truck." Everybody shook their heads, so I pressed my Bluetooth to call Skeeter and arrange for transport. I knew something was wrong the second I heard his voice. He sounded even more frantic than usual, worse than the time his toy poodle had been impregnated by the Great Dane next door. I told him that dog was a slut.
"What's wrong, Skeeter?"
"It's Joe."
"What about Uncle Father Joe?" Uncle Father Joe was Skeeter's uncle. He was also a Catholic priest, and our handler for The Church.
"He called me a few minutes ago."
"So what? Does he have another gig for us?" I was feeling pretty righteous after killing the Goblin King, even if he looked nothing like David Bowie.
"I'll play it for you." I could hear Skeeter pushing some buttons, then his voice came into my ear, only recorded.
"Hey Joe, what's going on?" Recorded Skeeter said.
A voice that was as far from Uncle Father Joe's, or anything holy, as I'd ever heard came on the line. "Joe can't come to the phone right now, but if you hear from my son, he'll know where to find us."
There was a click, then Skeeter's normal voice came back. "Was that him?"
"What? Was that my dad? Yeah. It was. Sounds like he's got Joe. I've been waiting for this. Skeeter, you lock up your place tight. Turn on every defensive measure we installed last summer, and don't you open that door for anybody, not even me, unless I know the code."
"What's the code?" Skeeter asked.
"Open the damn door, Skeeter." I said.
"That's a stupid code!" He protested.
"Yeah? Well while everybody else is trying to figure out some kinda code, I'm just gonna do like I always do and tell you to open the damn door, and you'll know it's really me. Not such a dumb idea now, is it?"
"It's still a pretty dumb idea, but I don't have anything better. You coming here first?"
"Yeah, I'll need a couple things from my place before I go after him. I'll be there late tonight."
"Will do. I'll start getting gear ready. And Bubba?"
"Yeah, Skeet?"
"Hurry. He's the only real family I've got."
"I know the feeling, Skeeter. I'll be there as fast as I can." I turned to Agent Amy, who already had the keys to her Suburban in her hand.
"Well, Miss Government Agent-Lady, looks like you're in this mess now whether you want to be or not."
"I'm in." She said, not smiling.
"Well, let's go kill a dead man." I limped to the Suburban and we peeled rubber out of Ford, West Virginia in search of a werewolf that I thought I'd killed ten years ago. This time I was gonna make sure.
Family Tradition
Prologue
"I reckon if you're gonna be my wheel-babe, you deserve to know the whole story." Agent Amy Hall was behind the wheel of her government-issued black Suburban, black shades covering her eyes. I was in the passenger seat taking inventory of my weapons. I had Bertha, my Desert Eagle .50 pistol, with one magazine left. I had my Saiga semi-automatic shotgun, with no ammunition whatsoever, and I had Grandpappy's sword. At least it never needed reloading.
"Whatever you think I need to know, Bubba. I'm here to help."
"Yeah, I've heard that from government folk my whole life." I looked over at her with a grin on my face, but it fell away when I saw the hurt look she was wearing.
"I mean it. I really am here to help. I'm not just some government stooge, Bubba. I like you, and I want to help."
I didn't want to get into any big love-fest with the cute agent of the Department of ExtraDimensional, Mythical and Occult Nuisances, no matter how nice her boobs looked with the seatbelt cutting across the front of her white blouse. That never ended well for me or the women involved, which was why I'd spent the last decade mapping the shortest distance between any two titty bars in the Southern U.S. But now, I had to admit I needed her. And for more than transportation, even though that was true, too. My beloved F-250 had gotten smashed in a fight with a troll that morning, and Agent Amy had the only set of wheels I could use to rescue Uncle Father Joe, my handler for the Holy Roman Catholic Church, who just happened to be my best friend's uncle.
"Sorry." I said quietly. I took a deep breath. "This is a big deal. It's bad now, with Joe being kidnapped, and it's probably going to get worse before it gets better. This is more dangerous than anything you've ever faced, and I can't promise I can protect you. You okay with that?"
"Bubba, I told you. I am a highly trained federal agent with years of experience dealing with everything the supernatural world can throw at --"
"You don't know shit." I didn't raise my voice. I didn't beat on the dashboard. I just looked at her and told her the truth - that she didn't know shit.
Amy looked over at me, and something in my face must have convinced her that I wasn't screwing around. "Well, why don't you tell me something, then?" She pulled the Suburban onto the highway and pointed it toward Georgia, where I hoped Uncle Father Joe was still alive and waiting on me to burst through the door, guns blazing.
I started talking, and for the first time since it happened, I told somebody the whole story.
Chapter 1
It was 2003, and I was home from school, permanently. I'd gone to the University of Georgia on a football scholarship, and had the good fortune to be on the SEC championship team that year. We played Arkansas in the Georgia Dome in Atlanta for the title, and beat the hell out of them. That got us into the Sugar Bowl, but I didn't travel with the team. I broke my leg in the third quarter of the conference championship game, and I knew I was done. It was a bad break in more ways than one, both medically and luck-wise. I broke my femur, which is a son of a bitch to heal, and that meant that I was done playing football. And that meant that I was done going to college. My grades weren't awful, but my scholarship went to a kid who could play, and I went home to Dalton and the family business.
I never wanted to be a monster hunter, that was Jason's dream. Of course, he was smaller than me, slower than me and just less suited for the job, so it was all he ever wanted. I was built big, strong and stupid, so I was perfect to hunt down things that go bump in the night and shoot the shit out of them. So of course I wanted to do anything but.
So I was home in Dalton "recuperating," which really meant playing a lot of Nintendo and whining a lot. My leg was mostly healed, and I had rehabbed it down to just a limp, so of course Pop wanted me to go out hunting with him. He'd uncovered what looked like a nest of vamps just north of Chattanooga, maybe an hour away, and he figured it'd be a good way for me to get my feet wet.
"I don't want to go. Take Jason." I said from my spot on the couch. Since coming home from Athens, I'd developed an almost unhealthy bond with that couch. My ass-groove was worn into my spot, and sometimes it felt like the Nintendo controller was welded into my hands. When a beer bottle wasn't there instead.
"I don't give a green turd if you want to go or not, you're going. Now get your fuzzy ass off my couch and get in the damn truck." Pop said. Pop was always the poet of the family. He tossed me a shotgun and a flashlight and stomped out of the den. I heaved myself off the couch and groaned as I put weight on my leg. The combination of holiday cooking and no physical activity for months had turned me into a giant slug of almost four hundred pounds. I broke a sweat just standing up and thought that Pop might be right, maybe the activity would do me a little good. If I didn't blow out the shock on the truck before we got to the killing part of the trip.
"You done got fat, Bubba." Jason said from behind me. He carried a Desert Eagle pistol on his hip, and the damn thing looked like it was gonna make him tip over at any moment. Jason was the exact opposite of me -- smart, skinny, short, blonde hair, couldn't grow a beard if you covered his face in fertilizer. He might have weight one-sixty with all his gear on, and he had all the gear. He was loaded down with extra magazines, a kukri on his belt opposite the Desert Eagle, a big ol' machete slung over his back, and a flak jacket.
"You ready to go?" He asked. "Dad's got the truck running. I got shotgun."
"Hell you do. You're sitting in the middle like always. Lemme put some pants on and I'll be good to go. I limped back to my bedroom and threw on a pair of overalls, my Wolverine steel-toe boots, and stuck a Buck hunting knife in one boot. I grabbed my twelve-gauge, an old Army rucksack with a first aid kit and a bunch of shotgun shells, and walked back out to the living room. I jammed my UGA SEC Champions cap onto my head, and followed Jason out to go kill something.
We pulled off the road about twenty miles north of Chattanooga, and Pop opened the door. "We're here."
I got out and slung my shotgun over my shoulder. "What's here?"
"We got a nest of vamps in a cave up in the hills. My intel says there's about six of 'em. Oughta be easy pickin's in the middle of the day. Take this." He tossed me Grandpappy's sword. I didn't miss the nasty look Jason gave me when I caught it. Jason always coveted that sword, even though he knew it passed down to the oldest son. Uncle Mark didn't get it when Grandpappy retired from monster hunting, and Jason wasn't gonna get it from Pop. I didn't know why he was giving it to me now, though.
"What do I need this for? I got my boomstick." I grinned and struck an Army of Darkness pose. Pop chuckled a little, but still shook his head at me like I was his retarded kid. Which was pretty true, come to think of it. Jason was the smart one.
"Close quarters, shithead. I don't want to be pickin' lead pellets out of my ass all weekend 'cause you can't shoot for shit."
"I shoot just fine," I protested.
"You couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with a smart bomb, Bubba. But you're strong as a damn ox. Now take the sword, and take point." I didn't bother arguing with him. There was no point arguing with him when he was right. I was a terrible shot, but I could knock a zombie's head clean off with one punch.
I've practiced my shooting since then. A lot. And don't ask about knocking zombie heads off. It's a long damn story.
So I took the floodlight and the sword and started into the woods. Now we did monster hunting a little differently back in the day. There was none of this super-powered Xenon flashlight that cuts a beam six inches around a mile away. Screw that, I wanted to see what was coming from all angles, so I carried the biggest damn battery-powered lantern I could find. It might not have lit up more than ten feet away, but I could see everything in that ten feet. And as I mentioned, I couldn't shoot nothin' any further than ten feet away anyhow.
I stopped at the mouth of the cave and crouched in the dirt, looking for tracks and listening for activity. I'd never fought vampires before, so I didn't know what to expect. Pop had told us on the drive up that they were slower during the day, but they didn't sleep all day like in the movies. I counted at least nine or ten different pairs of shoes in the dirt, and went back to relay that to Pop and Jason.
They were crouched together about twenty feet back, whispering to each other when I came up on them. Jason jumped like I'd kicked him, and shot me this guilty look. I wondered if he was ratting me out about my computer porn, but shoved that thought to the back of my mind. We had bigger fish to fry.
"We got more vampires than we thought. I count about ten sets of tracks going in and out of the cave." I said.
"That don't mean nothing. Might be victims' tracks, might be they wear more than one pair of shoes." Pop said.
I looked at him like he was completely off his nut. "Like what, Pop? These blood-sucking boots don't match my belt? I ain't never heard of fashion-conscious monsters before, and I don't think today's the day that haute friggin' couture comes to a cave in bumblefuck Tennessee. So can we make a plan, please?"
"Yeah, here's the plan. You go in there and draw 'em out. Run like hell back to the entrance, and Pop and I will set up an enfilade near the mouth of the cave and cut 'em down as they chase you." Jason said, sketching some weird shit in the dirt with his finger.
"Couple problems with that, numbnuts." I said, giving him a slap upside the head. "One, I got a bum leg. I ain't so much with the running. Two, what the shit is an 'enfilade?' Are you Arab all of a sudden?"
"That's an infitada, and no. And enfilade means that we set up along the sides of the cave and flank the vamps as they run past. If you'd taken a class that wasn't PE in that college, you might have learned something useful."
"I took a theatre class. It was fun. I got to make out with this chick and call it improv." I grinned at the memory. I got an "A" on that assignment, and the girl's phone number. Pretty good for a backup defensive end, I thought.
"Shut up, both of you." Pop smacked us both upside the head, and we paid attention. "We'll do it Jason's way. It oughta work. Now, Bubba, don't slow down when you get close to the mouth of the cave. If you do, you might get shot."
"Pop, I get ten vampires chasing my ass, the whole Alabama O-line ain't gonna slow me down. Let's get this over with." I turned back toward the cave, but caught another weird look pass between Pop and Jason as I did. I didn't know what the hell was going on, but I was damn sure gonna find out on the ride back home.
I crept down into the mouth of the cave, crouching a little to keep from hitting my head. Not many caves can accommodate my 6' 4" frame, and this one was no exception. Loose rocks skittered under my feet, and I winced at every sound. The last thing I wanted was to give the vampires any warning, and there was no doubt they could hear me from half a mile away. I followed the twists and turns for about fifteen minutes before the passage turned a corner and opened out into a huge underground chamber. I looked around at the torches and candelabras blazing in every corner and doused my flashlight. Looks like I didn't need to bring my own light, I thought.
And it looked like I'd been expected, too. There was a vampire sitting in a La-Z-Boy at one end of the room, quietly reading a book. He put the leather-bound volume on a side table as I stepped into the room and stood up, smiling at me.
"Welcome. You are the young monster hunter, I presume. Would you like a drink?" He waved at a bar that lined a nearby wall, and I shook my head.
"I don't drink with monsters."
"You should keep an open mind, young hunter. Perhaps then you will be able to see who the true monsters are."
"Less talking, more killing. Where's the rest of your nest?"
"I am a solitary creature. I neither require nor desire the company of others. I have my books, and I have a high-speed internet connection. That is all I require. Well, that and a few pints of blood each night or I become irritable. But I have an arrangement with the local citizenry to provide for my needs."
"Yeah? You mean you go into town and eat somebody every few days and they cower in fear?" I drew my sword and stepped closer.
The vampire stood. "A sword? How quaint. But in answer to your question, no. I drink animal blood from the local butcher. I have not drank from a human in years. Not since the last idiot hunter came in here to kill me, as a matter of fact. But I haven't lost the taste for it." He smiled and reached behind his chair. His arm came out with a sword of his own, a broadsword with enough nicks in the blade to tell me it had seen plenty of use over the years.
I tried to think of something witty to say, but couldn't come up with anything. I just looked at the bloodsucker and said "Come get some, asshole."
Chapter 2
He roared a challenge, then he was on me. I never even saw him move, and he was right in front of me, swinging that broadsword at my throat. I got Grandpappy's blade up just in time to block the cut, and sparks from the im
pact showered over me. He lashed out three more times with the sword -- throat, leg, throat. Each time I got my blade between his sword and my flesh just in time. He lunged, and I spun out of the way, feeling my weak knee give just a little. Not much, but enough that when I went for a follow-up strike, he was gone. I felt more than heard the whistle of the blade behind me, and I tucked into a forward roll. I came up on my good knee and spun, blade raised above my head.
I heard the broadsword clang off my katana, and once again sparks rained down on me. I hooked his foot with my leg and swept him down, but the vamp just compensated into a backflip and came at me again. I threw myself flat on my back, then rolled to the left to keep from getting skewered. Again and again the sword stabbed into the dirt as I rolled over and over. I saw the cave wall coming, and reversed course, crashing into the vamp's legs and taking him down. His sword went flying, and I scrambled to my feet to press my advantage.
Except I didn't have one. He drew two daggers from his belt and came at me again, knives twirling like a food processor and me looking like a carrot. A really, really big carrot. I grimaced and kicked him in the stomach, getting about half a dozen slices along my shin for my trouble. But the vamp flew backwards and landed flat on his back with a whoof! His knives skittered across the cavern floor, but he bounded to his feet and flung himself at me again, claws out and fangs bared. He was moving a lot more slowly, or maybe I'd just figured out his timing, because I had no trouble following his movements this time. And that let me duck out of the path of his lunge and get my sword up. I ripped a jagged line down his midsection as he flew over me, and viscous vamp fluids poured out onto my head.
"That is truly nasty." I said, wiping vamp bits out of my eyes. The vamp was definitely looking the worse for wear, with part of his guts hanging out. But he had landed beside his sword, so now he had a broadsword in one hand and his intestines in the other. I'm not sure which one I wanted to get hit in the face with least. He came at me again, and again it was a throat, leg, throat combo. But this time I knew what was coming, so after the leg strike I ducked under his throat slash, came back up and slid Grandpappy's sword through his neck like a hot knife through butter. I twisted with both hands, and the vampire's head came off with a loud pop. It thumped to the floor of the cave, and I did too. I sat down hard on my ass right in the middle of the cave, staring at the nastiness smeared all over the floor. Between my blood, vampire guts, vamp blood and dirt, this place had just lost its spot on Martha Stewart's home tour.
Scattered, Smothered and Chunked - Bubba the Monster Hunter Season 1 Page 23