Scattered, Smothered and Chunked - Bubba the Monster Hunter Season 1

by John G. Hartness

  "You want a spot?" Jason said from the door of the barn. I'd never needed a spot in my life, I was always strong as a damn bull, but when we were kids I used to let Jason pretend to spot me so he'd feel like he was helping. Jason lifted too, but he was a skinny kid, with lean muscles like a distance runner or a diver. He didn't have the mass to move four hundred pounds on the bench press like I could, but I didn't have anything like his vertical leap or reaction time.

  "Sure. Come on." I looked up at the 225 pounds on the bar, the weight I would have tried to press as many times as possible at the NFL combine in a couple years if I hadn't blown out my knee, and shook my head. That life was over. It was time to get off my ass and grow up a little. I gripped the bar and dropped the weight to my chest, blowing out hard as I pressed it up. That was harder than I remembered. I managed three sets of ten on the bench, alternating with leg extensions that made my bad knee scream. I went through about an hour of weight training, with Jason by my side the whole time. When I was done, I sat down on the bench and draped a towel over my head.

  "Damn." I said, breathing hard.

  Jason handed me a bottle of water. "We told you. You got fat."

  "I knew I got fat. I didn't know I got so damn weak."

  "It'll come back. You just gotta train. I'll help. Get you on some cardio, lose that belly."

  "Yeah, I need to get down to my playing weight. Down around three-twenty, three-thirty."

  "That wouldn't be bad. Wouldn't be bad to see you closer to three even, but it depends on how much muscle you pack on. Might be okay at three-forty if it's all muscle. But we'll get you there. Now get up, fatass, let's go run."

  "Bubba don't run, little brother."

  "Bubba does now. 'Cause Bubba ain't a football player no more. Bubba's a monster hunter, and that means going where the monsters go. And you can't always drive there. So come on." Jason got up and walked out of the barn, stretching a little as he went. I wiped the worst of the sweat off my face, finished the bottle of water, and followed him.

  That little bastard ran me ragged that day, and every day after that for four months. We got into a routine, though. We'd run first thing in the morning, then have a breakfast that I argued couldn't really be called breakfast because there was no bacon to be seen, then we'd hit the weights. By the end of the first week I was back to three sets of fifteen on the 225 bench, and before we got me into what we deemed "good shape" I was pressing a max of almost 500 pounds and could do four sets of fifteen at 225. I was running three miles every day, and ten miles on Saturday. My little slave driver did give me Sunday off, but that's when Pop and Grandpappy took over.

  After church every Sunday we spent the rest of the day in class. At least here Jason wasn't too far ahead of me, so he had to work to keep up, too. They drilled us on monsters, their haunts, their strengths, weaknesses and how best to attack them. We had at least one mock battle every Sunday afternoon, and I looked forward to those like used to look forward to crushing a quarterback on Saturdays. It was usually me and Jason against Pop and Grandpappy, and the age difference was our only advantage. Those old farts were sneaky, and since they always played the monsters, they could fight as dirty as they wanted. I got kicked in the balls by my grandfather that spring more often that I want to think about.

  Me and Jase counted it a victory if one of us escaped the pair of them, figuring if we could run for help we could come back with the National Guard or the Ghostbusters or some damn thing. Because we never managed to "kill" even one of them. Think about it: two full-grown men in the prime of their strength took on our father and grandfather in war games every Sunday for months and never managed to score a single kill. It was a little disheartening. I said as much to Grandpappy one Sunday night as we tucked into four plates heaped with fried chicken, biscuits and gravy. Sunday was the one day of the week that everything I ate wasn't measured religiously by my food nazi little brother.

  At the end of four months I was back into what I considered fighting shape, down to about three-twenty and faster than I'd ever been in my life. I still wasn't crazy about the forced change of my life's plans, but I figured I'd live through it at least. Jase and me were on better terms than we'd ever been, probably because we were still getting our asses kicked by Pop and Grandpappy every Sunday. He was a lot stronger, too. He'd never catch up with me size-wise, but his bench press was up to three hundred, and he was still crazy fast.

  I sat on the dirt one afternoon, holding a bunch of ice cubes wrapped in a dish towel against my head after yet another ass-whooping by the old men. I looked over at where Jase was popping his shoulder back into place up against a tree, and just grinned.

  "What are you looking at, homo? My sexy ass?" He finally got his shoulder back in the socket, and slid down against the tree.

  "Just thinking how you were right for once, shithead. This is where I'm supposed to be."

  "I told you that, dumbass." Pop said from behind me. I looked up and the old man handed me a Budweiser and threw one to Jason. I don't think he or Grandpappy either one ever knew there was another kind of beer besides Budweiser. If they did, I never saw either one of them touch it. I can't touch it now, because of them.

  Pop sat down on the dirt next to me and ruffled my hair. "It's good to finally have you back where you belong, boy. I missed you." That was the most feeling I'd ever heard come out of my pop's mouth, and I didn't know how to take it. So I just drank my beer.

  "Now we're right, boys. Now we can do anything. We are complete!" Pop said, looking at me and Jase with the kind of pride he'd never shown even when I was named third team All-SEC. Jase looked a little put out, though, like maybe his beer wasn't cold enough. But when I looked back at him he was grinning like the rest of us, so I figured I'd imagined it. I just sat back in the dirt, mopped the rest of the blood off my face, drank my beer and enjoyed the day with my family.

  Those were the good days. Me and Jase'd started making a little money wrestling on the side with an indie promotion out of Atlanta. It wasn't the WWF by any stretch, but we got to hit people, and they paid us for it. That was a pretty good combo in my book.

  My girlfriend from UGA had even come to visit a few times, and it looked like we might get back together. We broke up when I broke my leg. Well, I reckon I'd been an asshole and dumped her, because I figured there was no way she wasn't going to dump me, and I wanted to hurt her before she could hurt me. And I did. I called her all kinds of nasty stuff, from golddigger to brainless tramp of a cheerleader to all sorts of other meanness. She knew it was all wrapped up in my hurt leg, but it didn't make me any less of a bastard for saying it.

  Brittany came to visit about a month after I started training with Jase, and she came to see me every couple of weeks after that. She never called, just showed up whenever she got a wild hair, as she liked to say. She got those wild hairs about every weekend, and some weekdays that she didn't have anything important going on in her classes. We weren't saying anything for certain, but we were back together, and I was thinking that she might be the one. You know which one. I hadn't quite figured out how to tell her about the monster-hunting thing yet, though. But I thought I'd see how serious she wanted to get, then I'd tell her that every horror movie she'd ever seen was a documentary. For the time being, I just decided that drinking beer, skinny-dipping and wild monkey sex under the Georgia stars would have to do.

  My life was looking good. Until all of a sudden it wasn't.

  Chapter 4

  I woke up at my normal time and stumbled down the hall to the bathroom. I took care of business, then staggered to the kitchen and grabbed the orange juice out of the fridge. I took a long swig and put the carton back on the top shelf.

  "That's nasty, boy." Came a gravelly voice behind me.

  I jumped and turned around. Grandpappy was sitting at the kitchen table behind a plate heaped high with eggs and bacon. "You want some?"

  "Hell yeah!" I grabbed a plate and fork and fixed myself a decent breakfast. I even got a gla
ss out of the cupboard and poured myself some more OJ. "What are you doing here? You usually don't come down the hill during the week." Grandpappy lived up in the woods behind our place, in an old cabin like the one his daddy Beauregard grew up in back in West Virginia.

  "I heard the truck roll out before daybreak and wanted to find out what was so all-fired important that your Pop needed to get after it that early. So what's going on?"

  "I have no idea. I didn't even know he was gone. Hey, Jason!" I hollered. No answer. I got up and walked back to Jason's room. I pounded on the door. Still nothing. I opened the door and saw there was a real good reason he didn't answer - Jason was gone, too. I walked back to the kitchen and looked at Grandpappy.

  "They're both gone. What the hell's up that they'd leave without telling either one of us." That's when I saw the note. It was taped to the refrigerator. If it'd been a snake, I'da been dead right then. I grabbed the folded piece of paper and opened it.

  "Bubba," it said in Jason's handwriting.

  "Me and Pop are headed over to Alabama to check out a reported werewolf infestation right outside of Muscle Shoals. It's supposed to be small, so we don't all three need to go. You hang out here and keep training. We'll probably be back by nightfall, tomorrow night at the latest. Don't be pissed at Pop, he's just not used to having you back yet. See you tomorrow. Jase." I crumpled up the paper and threw it to Grandpappy.

  "The bastards left me. I been workin' my ass off and they just up and left me. Dammit!" I was pissed. I never wanted to be a damn monster hunter, but they'd busted my ass all spring long, and now the first decent call comes in and they left me behind. Yeah, I was pissed.

  "Well, ain't but one thing to do, son."

  "What's that? Follow them and kick their asses?"

  "Hell no! I got over chasin' your Pop when he was thirteen and learned how to drive. He's gone wherever the hell he wants to go ever since then. Nah, when the going gets tough, the tough -- "

  I knew this one. "Go fishin'!" My grandpappy loved to fish. He never missed an opportunity to put a line in the water. Most of my happy childhood memories involved him and a cane pole. Most of my unhappy childhood memories involved Pop and beating my ass with a cane pole. I'm pretty damned ambivalent on the subject of cane poles.

  I grabbed my tackle box out of the closet and tossed it in the back of Grandpappy's truck along with my fishing rod. His gear was in the truck already. His fishing gear was always in the truck. I pulled the tarp off his boat, hitched it up behind the truck, and we were gone in minutes. An hour later we were in the middle of the river with our anchor dropped, our hooks baited, kicked back with a beer in the early summer sun. I didn't know it then, but it was my last happy memory for a long time.

  The house was still empty when we got home that night, but we didn't care. Grandpappy went up to the cabin and brought down his old black iron skillet, saying "Can't fry fish in nothin' but a black iron skillet, son. Don't even try."

  I cleaned the fish and cut them into fillets, then breaded them with beer, flour, salt and paprika. We cooked up enough fish to feed the 101st Airborne, then sat on the porch drinking beer and eating fish and hushpuppies while the sun set. The fireflies came out just before it turned full dark, and neither one of us thought anything of it that Pop and Jase hadn't made it home yet. Muscle Shoals was a hike, and if the Weres had been any kind of challenge, they might still be up to their asses in fur and fangs while me and Grandpappy were up to our asses in Budweiser and bluegills.

  "Hey Grandpappy?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Full moon tonight. You think they ran into trouble?"

  "Nothing they can't handle. But this ain't the best time of the month to go chasing a Were, that's for damn sure."

  "Well, I'm sure they're alright. Pop's tough."

  "And that little brother of yours ain't a bad hunter, either."

  "Yeah, he's alright. He ain't no Bubba, but who is?"

  "You are, dumbass. And thank God there ain't but one." We laughed and drank more beer, then we started taking target practice on offending beer cans, and then finally went to bed.

  They still weren't home the next day when I woke up, so I decided to just get back to my workout. The first half hour of workout consisted of picking up all the beer cans that Grandpappy and me had emptied the night before. Most of them had more than one bullet hole in 'em, since we had more ammunition than sense. We had one white and red aluminum can punched full of more holes than a block of Swiss cheese, and it had skipped all the way to the edge of the yard from multiple assaults. I grabbed that last rogue can and hit the weights for an hour. Without Jase to spot me I went light, but added reps to make up for it. Then I went on a three-mile run, and came back to the house for lunch. After that I usually sparred with Jason for a couple hours, but since he wasn't there, I shadow-boxed, stretched and did some tai chi shit that Grandpappy taught us 'til sundown. Then I heated up the rest of the catfish and me and Grandpappy had supper.

  The next day started the same way, with no word from Pop or Jase. I was a little worried at that point, but I figured if there was a problem they'd have called, so I did my weights and went on my run, just like the day before. It was too quiet without Jase around to fight with, but I figured he'd be back soon enough.

  Grandpappy was in the kitchen when I got out of the shower. He fixed me a couple of turkey sandwiches and we ate in an easy silence. When we had both knocked back all we wanted to eat in the heat of the day, he looked up at me. "I'm starting to get a little concerned. I called Bo's cell phone and didn't get no answer. I left him a message last night, too, and he didn't call me back. Jason ain't answered his phone, either. That ain't like them."

  "Hell, Grandpappy, Pop don't ever answer his phone. He hates that damn thing."

  "He answers me, boy. He knows it don't matter if I live to be a hundred, I'm still his damn daddy and if I call, he better pick up the telephone if he can." I looked at the old man. Really looked at him for the first time in a long time. His life was written like a roadmap in the scars and wrinkles on his craggy face, and he looked more serious than I'd ever seen him. His eyes were usually chips of blue granite set deep in his brow, but today they were bright with worry. For the first time in my life, Grandpappy looked old.

  "Well, what do you want to do? Ain't but so many ways to get to Muscle Shoals from here, so we could set out after 'em and probably run into 'em on the way back here. Or we could wait for them here. I'm up for anything, and to be honest with you, I'm a little concerned myself. If they'd took out a Were den without me, Jase'd be all over his phone trying to brag at me about how much of a badass he is. Since we ain't heard nothing, there might be something wrong."

  "Well, let's gear up. I'll try to call both of 'em one more time, but if there ain't no answer, we're hitting the road in twenty minutes. I'll go up to the cabin and get my gear. Bring my sword. It's hell on a werewolf."

  Four hours later, we had passed through Muscle Shoals and were looking for the place Pop had described to Grandpappy. I had the window rolled down and the cool autumn air blowing through my hair. I hadn't cut it since I'd left school, and I was getting shaggy. I could hardly see through my hair, and was trying to get it all out of my mouth when Grandpappy suddenly veered off the main road. "What the hell?" I bellowed, grabbing onto the "oh shit strap" on the door.

  "I thought I saw something. Up there!" He pointed, and I grabbed the door harder. Grandpappy wasn't my favorite driver in the world most days, and today he was worried about Pop and Jase, not to mention a little hung over. So the ride down the dirt road that was little more than a deer track was even bumpier than it had to be, and I smacked my head a couple of times on the roof of the cab before he screeched to a halt.

  "That's what I was seeing, boy! Don't doubt your eagle-eyed old Grandpappy!" He yelled, pointing to a blue Ford pickup parked on the side of the road. I'd have recognized it anywhere. It was the truck I learned to drive in. Pop's truck. I got out of Grandpappy's truck and walked over
to Pop's. The engine was cold, of course, and when I got down on my hands and knees and looked under it, I saw about three days' worth of oil on the grass from the leak he never bothered to fix. Pop just carried a quart of oil around in the truck all the time,next to the duct tape and the tin of black pepper.

  "The truck's been here since they left home. They parked it here and never came back to it." I said, wiping the oil off my hands onto my overalls.

  "Weapons are gone." Grandpappy said, leaning in the cab. "Don't look like they brought any extra food, so we might have a problem."

  A lump formed in my throat and I suddenly couldn't speak. I took a deep breath and finally croaked "What do you mean?"

  "Well, I found this piece of paper on the dash, and it looks like something your Pop drew." He handed it to me, and sure enough it was one of his crappy "maps". It was just a sheet of notebook paper with the highways on it between home and Muscle Shoals, then showed a line going north, an "X" roughly where we were standing and a black hole off to the right that represented a cave full of Weres. I knew this because he'd written "WERES'RE HERE" over the black hole. Of course the map had nothing like a scale on it, so it looked like the cave (I assumed it was a cave, since most Weres didn't live in holes in the ground) was the same distance from the "X" as we were from home. But I folded it up anyway and shoved it in a back pocket.

  "Let's go, then." I said, reaching back into our truck to grab my shotgun and strap on Grandpappy's sword.

  He grabbed my arm. I looked down at the iron grip on my forearm. "Bubba, you get ahold of yourself. If you run up in there right now you'll either kill all them Weres and not get any information, or you'll get yourself killed. Either way ain't gonna do your daddy and brother any good. So follow my lead, boy. Do exactly like I tell you, and we might get out of this all right yet."

  I nodded, and the old man geared up. He reached under the seat of the truck and pulled out a belt with two foot-long Bowie knives strapped to it. "Might as well leave the scattergun here. Ain't found a Were yet that a shotgun can handle."