Grits, Guns & Glory - Bubba the Monster Hunter Season 2

by John G. Hartness

  We entered the hospital, Amy’s badge on a chain around her neck and her sidearm in full display, me just looking like a walking wall with a bad attitude. Which I suppose I kinda was. We followed the signs to reception, then asked for Andrew McCalla’s room. At first the nice lady didn’t want to give me the number, what with me looking like I eat babies for breakfast and all, but a glance at Amy’s badge changed her mind. We took the elevator to the fifth floor, the soothing music a sharp contrast to the Rob Zombie soundtrack playing in my head.

  “Last time I was in a hospital was to visit you,” Amy said quietly. She looked up at me, and her eyes were full. “Don’t you die on me, Bubba.”

  “Don’t worry. It’s not on my list. And if I recall, I managed to not die last time, despite the best efforts of my brother, a chicken shit priest, and a soul-eating nurse from Hell. I think I can manage a worried father.”

  “That looks like Elvis.”

  “A worried father that looks like Elvis. Yeah, I think I can still kick Elvis’s ass.” Then the elevator dinged for five, the doors slid open, and we were face to face with Elvis.

  Sometimes the world just throws you a curveball, like when you go to a hospital looking for a shapeshifter, and the elevator doors slide open and the King of Rock n’ Roll is standing there staring at you. I’m pretty sure I said something brilliant like “Hey,” then Elvis/McCalla threw a cup of coffee in my face, turned around and beat feet down the hall. I charged after him, wiping hot coffee out of my eyes and bellowing like a bull in a china shop, but McCalla was fast.

  Of course, so was Amy. Maybe it was not having a face full of coffee and cheap hospital creamer, or maybe it was the fact that she was about a third my size, but she kept right on McCalla’s tail as he burst through the double doors leading to the maternity ward. I hit those same doors a split second later, but they were already out of sight. I stood at a Y-intersection in the hall, trying to figure out right or left, when I heard a crash of metal off to my left. I barreled down the left-hand fork and caught sight of Elvis just as he turned right around a corner. Shit, shoulda took the hall less traveled, I thought as I gave chase. Amy was still close behind him, but she didn’t seem to be gaining any, just keeping him in sight so he couldn’t shift and disappear.

  Amy looked back at me and hollered, “Cut him off!”

  “With what? I left my sword at home!” I yelled back.

  “I mean get in front of him, dumbass!”

  I turned around and doubled back, trying to get back to the nurses’ station so I could get in front of them, but they were dashing through the nursery, overturning empty bassinets and sending one proud papa in a rocking chair ass over teakettle. I was hot on their tails when they came through the other side of the nursery, and I swiped a cigar from a confused and deliriously happy-looking grandpa. Elvis led us a merry chase, but finally turned down a hall that didn’t end in two more hallways. I swear to God and all the saints they build hospitals so nobody can ever find anything. But of course what was at the end of the hallway—stairs. He flung open the door and darted down the stairs, Amy in hot pursuit.

  I cooled my pursuit right the hell off. I’ve never liked stairs. I didn’t like stairs when Jason and me were tumbling down the dozen or so steps leading to the church basement in Vacation Bible School. I didn’t like stairs when coach made me run the steps in the stadium in college, and after I wrecked my knee, I pretty much gave up on the damn things. So five or more flights of hospital stairwell at a dead run was not gonna happen.

  I took a gamble and headed back to the elevator at a brisk walk. No point in running if I wasn’t gonna catch the guy, right? I got in and pushed the button marked “B.” If I was gonna lead somebody on a chase down a flight of stairs, I’d keep going down stairs until I was out of options, then head back into the halls. I got off the elevator in the basement and ran to the end of the hall. Sure enough, the stairwell door banged open about the time I got there and Elvis barreled right out in my direction.

  I got down in my best quarterback-crushing stance and waited for him. Agent Amy yelled, “Be careful, he’s got a—”

  But whatever she was trying to tell me he had got lost in the explosion of light, sound, and pain that erupted from my every pore when he ran into me, and I wrapped my arms around his scrawny ass, intent on driving him back into the stairwell, or through the brick wall, whichever was easier.

  Instead, I hit him in a leap, right across the middle, and wrapped my arms around his chest. Then every nerve ending in my body exploded, like little tiny nerve ending-sized grenades were going off, with strobe lights attached to them. I twitched, and jiggled, and wiggled, and spasmed, and finally fell down flat on my face right about the time his taser ran out of charge. I lay on the floor, my face very lightly touching cold tiles and the smell of burnt hair wafting out from under my shirt.

  Unfortunately for Elvis, or McCalla, I landed right on him as the momentum from my tackle left me in a rush. And since he weighed about one-eighty soaking wet with combat boots on, he wasn’t going anywhere. Judging from the wheezing noises I heard coming from underneath me, he wasn’t breathing any too well, either. I lay there for a second, then checked every orifice for sympathy. Didn’t find a drop, so I decided I didn’t give a flying shit how he felt, and I just lay there for a few more seconds while I frantically tried to gain mental control of my bladder functions.

  “That hurt, asshole,” I mumbled as I came completely back to my senses.

  “Lying under you doesn’t feel great, either, you giant buffoon. How have you ever had sex without killing someone?”

  “I use a swing and flexible women. Now if I get up offa you, you gonna try to run?”

  “He’s not going to run,” Amy said from somewhere over me. “And what was that about a swing?”

  “It’s need to know, Agent. And you don’t need to know until we’re done with this case,” I said as I got up from the floor, shaking each limb to make sure it was responding to my orders.

  Elvis stood up, his face melting into the image of the man we’d last seen on video thrashing a bank manager’s office in Shreveport. Wayne McCalla was an average-looking fella. Maybe a little shorter than normal, but I’m a bad judge of that, being halfway to giant myself. He was bald, wore glasses, and was clean-shaven. Not the kind of guy who stood out too much in a crowd, just a normal-looking dude, with the power to turn himself into anything he wanted and a string of successful bank robberies under his belt.

  “I suppose you’re here to take me away in a black helicopter for government scientists to study so you can use my DNA to make some type of self-camouflaging super-soldier. Well, it doesn’t work like that. I can become any human I want, but I can’t shape shift into any thing I like, and I’m not a chameleon. I can’t blend in with my surroundings. There’s no way to militarize what I am, so you should just let me go on about my business,” he said, directing all that at me.

  “I don’t know why you aren’t talking to the one with the badge, bro. I mean, haven’t you ever seen a movie? If ever there’s been a guy built to play the role of big dumb muscle, it’s me. I don’t negotiate. I hit what she tells me to hit, I shoot what she tells me to shoot.” I pulled a gurney over and sat down on it, turning it sideways across the hall to cut off his route to the elevator in the process.

  He turned to Amy. “Well, now that you know—”

  “Shut up.” She held up a hand. “Even if I was inclined to ignore the half dozen bank robberies you’ve piled up in the last week, which I’m not, you’d still be of great interest to my organization.” I noticed she wasn’t mentioning DEMON out loud. I thought it might be partly because it’s a stupid acronym, but it might be partly because she wasn’t convinced she was taking him in. I was kinda hoping it was the second. My Bluetooth beeped and I tapped my ear.

  “I just hacked the hospital’s computer. His kid came through the transplant, but it’s going to be a long recovery, and they aren’t sure if it will get rid of the c
ancer,” Skeeter’s voice came in my ear. I reached down with a foot and pushed the gurney a little ways down the hall so I could talk without them hearing me. I still wasn’t very steady on my feet after the tasing, but I didn’t want McCalla to think he could push past me, so I put some distance between us, hoping he wouldn’t see my legs twitch.

  “Who was the donor, Skeeter?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, lemme check.” I heard keys clicking in the background. “This is weird, it says that Andrew’s stem cells came from his twin brother, which is the closest match other than getting your own cells back.”

  “What’s weird about that?” I asked.

  “McCalla only has the one kid. Andrew is an only child.”

  “Well, apparently not, because—holy shit.” Skeeter stopped in mid-sentence.

  As soon as he said it, I understood what he meant. “Holy shit is right. I didn’t know you could even do that.” I turned back to McCalla and said, “When did you figure out how to do it?”

  “Do what?” He asked.

  “Copy your kid’s DNA.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. And I want a lawyer.”

  “You aren’t under arrest. Yet,” Amy said. She turned to me. “What are you talking about, Bubba?”

  “He turned himself into his son’s twin brother and copied him down to the DNA so he’d be a perfect match for the transplant,” I said. Skeeter let out a low whistle in my ear.

  Amy pulled a rolling stool over and sat down. “This happens so rarely as to amazing, but I’m the one behind here. Please explain to me what my large friend is babbling about.”

  McCalla looked around for a seat, then sat cross-legged on the floor. “I’m a shapeshifter. I guess you figured that out already.”

  “Nah, we thought you just looked like Elvis,” I cracked.

  McCalla glared at me, then went on. Some people just don’t appreciate humor when they meet it in real life. “A year and a few months ago, my son was diagnosed with leukemia. We went through a couple rounds of chemo, but it wasn’t working. The doctors recommended a stem cell transplant, and we did all the paperwork to run it through the insurance company.”

  “And that’s when it all went to shit,” I chimed in.

  “Yeah, that’s when it all went to shit,” McCalla agreed. “I did everything they asked for. I got letters from the doctor, from the head of Oncology, from two or three other doctors agreeing with the course of treatment, the whole damn thing. But they said no.”

  “The insurance company?” Amy asked.

  “Yes, the damn insurance company!” McCalla yelled. “Those bastards weren’t interested in helping Andrew get better. All they wanted to do was save a dollar! So I figured I’d have to get the money somehow. I ain’t been working in a few months, on account of taking care of my boy, so there wasn’t anybody who’d loan me anything. My house is mortgaged to the hilt, I don’t own my car, and all my credit cards are maxed out. I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “So you started robbing banks,” I said. I tried not to sound judgmental, or accusing in any way, ‘cause frankly, I don’t know that I woulda done any different in his place.

  “Yeah, I started robbing banks. I read up on the FDIC insurance, so I knew the people with money in there wouldn’t be losing anything, just the federal government. And fuck them. No offense, ma’am.” He blushed a little as he apologized to Amy.

  “Don’t sweat it. I feel the same way a lot of the time,” Amy replied.

  “So I robbed some banks. I never took much; I just wanted to get enough for Andrew’s surgery, and maybe a little to help get me out of the hole for once. But I wasn’t trying to get rich; I was just trying to get by. And help my kid.”

  “And then you got here, and you copied Andrew’s form down to the DNA to make for a better match,” I said.

  “Yeah,” he answered. “I knew the best match comes from taking your stem cells out and putting them back in after the chemo has killed the marrow and the cancer cells, but Andrew’s cancer was spread too far and they were worried that he’d just get cancer cells injected right back into his marrow. So they couldn’t use his cells.”

  “So you turned yourself into his twin,” I said.

  “It’s the next best thing—same DNA.”

  “I didn’t know you could do that,” Amy said.

  “I didn’t either. It’s amazing what you can do sometimes when you’re out of options.”

  “Speaking of out of options, I might have an option for your situation.” I said. I looked over at Amy with an eyebrow raised.

  Amy shrugged at me. “I don’t know, Bubba. He did rob half a dozen banks. And that is a federal offense. As a federal agent, I don’t know if I can let that slide.”

  “And he is a shapeshifter, and DEMON was created to keep dangerous creatures like that off the street,” I agreed.

  “But maybe . . . ” Amy started, then shook her head. “Nah, they’d never go for it. And how could we trust him?”

  “I’m pretty sure they would,” Skeeter said in my ear. “Go for it, that is. That is, if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking.”

  “He never hurt anybody in any of the robberies. He didn’t even try to fight us when we cornered him,” Amy added.

  “Except for that whole stun gun thing,” I grumbled. I figured I’d forgive him when I could wiggle all my toes again.

  “Oh, get over yourself,” Skeeter said. “We’re working on something here.”

  “I know, I just don’t want us to be too quick in forgetting who tased who around here,” I muttered.

  “Whom,” Skeeter replied.

  “What?” Our conversation was starting to feel like an Abbot and Costello routine.

  “Who tased whom,” was Skeeter’s reply.

  “This son of a bitch tased me! Pay attention, Skeeter! Now, Mr. McCalla, do you want the job or not?” I asked.

  It was finally somebody else’s turn to look confused. “What?” McCalla asked. “I thought y’all were here to arrest me.”

  “We were,” Amy answered. “But as we’ve been talking, it seems that my agency could use someone with your abilities. So we are prepared to make all of this—” she waved her hand in the air like half a dozen federal offenses and tasering my nuts off was just so much little BS, “— disappear in exchange for you coming to work for us.”

  “Work for you doing what?” McCalla asked.

  “Helping protect people from monsters. You have a gift, Mr. McCalla, and that means that you also have a responsibility to those who don’t have such gifts. People like us help people like them.” She waved her hand again, encompassing the whole hospital in her gesture. “You intended to steal, but it was to help your son. And you worked very hard not to hurt anyone. So I don’t see any reason why you need to be hurt for that.”

  “I wouldn’t go to jail?”

  “Nope.”

  “I wouldn’t have to give back the money?”

  “What money?”

  “I’d have insurance? Real insurance, not the BS plan that almost killed my boy?”

  “Trust me, with the kind of shit we get into, there’s serious health insurance.” I chimed in on that one, even though the Church paid for my health coverage.

  “And you’re sure I wouldn’t go to jail?” he asked.

  “Could one really hold you if you wanted out bad enough?” Amy asked him right back.

  He grinned a little sheepish grin and said, “Probably not.”

  So McCalla joined DEMON, and there was much rejoicing. Really, there was a lot of yelling, and threats of gunplay, and there might have been a couple of broken telephones, but in the end, Skeeter found some pictures of an Assistant Regional Director in a compromising position with a succubus, and everything turned out okay. Except for the Assistant Regional Director, who found himself transferred to the Lichtenstein field office of DEMON to watch over one particularly dangerous but completely inert artifact that hadn’t manifested a
ny abilities at all since 1907, when it glowed purple for fourteen seconds and all men within six miles got an infestation of ear mites in their genitalia.

  Don’t ask me, I don’t do the international shit. I got enough problems without the words “mite” and “genitalia” being used anywhere around me.

  THE END

  Elf off the Shelf

  A Bubba the Monster Hunter Short Story

  By John G. Hartness

  “I hate Christmas,” I grumbled from my recliner.

  “Nobody hates Christmas, Bubba. There are people who don’t believe in the story of Jesus, and there are people who believe Christmas has become too commercialized and wish it could be something simpler, but nobody really hates Christmas,” Agent Amy Hall said from her spot on the couch.

  “Nope, he’s not joking, sweet cheeks, he hates Christmas. Has for as long as I’ve know him, and that’s longer than either of us care to admit,” Skeeter said as he wove his way through the chairs, discarded shoes, and TV trays scattered across the living room. He passed me another beer, handed a mug of steaming spiced cider to Amy, and sat on the other end of the couch, his legs crossed with his feet under him and basically curled himself around a giant-sized cup of eggnog.

  “Why in the world do you hate Christmas?” Amy asked, muting the TV. I could have kissed her for that. We were in the middle of Skeeter’s annual Christmas DVD marathon, and if I saw another Glee holiday special, I was gonna shoot the television. I mean, I like a good cover song as much as the next guy, but there were not near enough guitar solos on this show for my tastes. I was afraid that if somebody didn’t save me, I was going to go out and buy a Taylor Swift record.

  “I don’t like much of anything about it, Amy. I don’t like shopping, so that sucks. I don’t like most people, and about everywhere I go is so damned crowded you can’t move, so that sucks. I don’t like Christmas music, so that starts sucking in October, and my only living family is a psychotic werewolf who wants to cut off pieces of me and use them to decorate his tree, so that sucks. Oh, and I hate tinsel.” I waved my hand around the living room, which looked just like it did every other month out of the year, except there was a skinny fake tree with white lights and a green blanket under it standing in one corner of the room. I wouldn’t have even done that, but Skeeter nagged me for three weeks until I finally went down to Big Lots and bought the cheapest tree they had that didn’t look like it came off a Charlie Brown cartoon.