Excerpt from Support Your Local Monster Hunter, Available August 2016!
Tomorrow's Money
I clipped the tiny camera to the "DELIVERIES ONLY" sign at the mouth of the alley. I smoothed my hair and my clothes, though the darkness from nighttime probably made fine details irrelevant for the video. I stood in front of the camera and took a deep breath.
"Hello, my name is Szandor Nowak, and welcome to my FundstarterGoGo campaign!"
I kept my face smiling, trying to ignore the fact that saying that made me feel like a tool. However, there was no reason my eventual watchers needed to see the crack in my persona, to know what I thought of doing this. I needed a new introduction video for my campaign, and the convention was that everyone in those videos always seemed overly excited to the point of possible drug use. It seemed backers liked that.
"Tonight I'm in a dark alley in a small town north of New Avalon," I continued. "The owners of the establishment - I won't say which one - says they've been having weird occurrences in the back that make their dogs go crazy with barking. They thought it was a bobcat but it could be something very different! I'm here to see if there's any monstrous activity. Because remember, I kill monsters!"
I grinned stupidly at the camera and tried to look as cheesy as that line. Oh god, I was terrible at marketing.
I grabbed the tiny camera and clipped it to my jacket. It was one of those new small video cameras used by bikers, rock climbers, and other extreme sport aficionados to record and upload all their crazy stuff for the internet. I figured it should record monster hunting just as well. It had limited night vision capability, so it should at least get grayscale video in the low light. I'd just look like one of those stupid ghost shows.
Pulling out my lead pipe, my weapon of choice, I headed into the alley. I didn't think I'd find anything there, but on the off chance I did, I wanted to record it for my internet funding campaign. Little did I know I'd get something far stranger on video.
Down the alley behind the restaurant, I found a rusted smoker, an old junk car, the back door for deliveries, and a garage that had seen better days. Past the garage was a field of brush that eventually became wooded terrain. It would be very easy for a creature to come and go. It could possibly be a hellhound like we had killed earlier in the night, but Paulie assured me that was what we investigated was the only set of reports in the whole area.
I shined my flashlight on the ground, trying to look for tracks or any marks that would give me an idea of what was here. I've never been good at tracking, so unless there was an obvious foot print, blood, or some other sign, I wouldn't find a trail. I saw heavy tire tracks in the now-dried mud, as well as footprints. Nothing animal-like, but if this was instead a ghoul or zombie problem, the tracks would look human to a cursory examination, which was all I was skilled for.
As I examined the area with my flashlight, I heard a noise. I wasn't sure exactly what I heard - a squeak of metal, maybe a rustle of a plastic bag. I swung the beam of my flashlight around to the garage. The noise had come from that direction. On the side of the garage, someone had stacked a bunch of trash bags and debris. There were some rusted tires near it too. I walked the beam along that area, trying to discern anything that could have caused the noise.
I had almost given up when I saw the trash bags move. I raised my lead pipe and began slowly stepping toward the bags, ready for a zombie, ghoul, or even an albino alligator to burst out of it. I was rusty, but I would be able to deal with one monster as long as it wasn't a troll or a revenant.
There was more movement and one of the trash bags slid out of place, revealing a pale arm. That rogue arm did nothing more, it just lay motionless. This made me think this wasn't a ghoul. As feral underground dwellers, a ghoul would be poised to strike, coiled into a pounce. A zombie would also be possible, but they tended to not just lay around when a possible victim was near. Though if the zombie had lost the means to get up due to decay or damage, it might be laying motionless. Of course, there was still the possibility that it was just a regular old human corpse and the movement was due to a rat moving under the trash bags. A corpse would be the safest option. And let me tell you, when that is one of the preferred non-dangerous outcomes in your work, odds are that you're a monster hunter.
I carefully reached out the lead pipe and with its tip, I poked at the trash bags, attempting to move them aside so that I could see whatever owned the arm. I heard a feeble groan from under that mess and pulled back my arm. But I had jabbed the bags enough that there was a minor avalanche as trash fell away, revealing a man underneath.
He was pale, something evident even in the poor lighting. He was bald, his head almost seeming bulbous in the light. He didn't have eyebrows either, so he looked almost like an alien. He wore street clothes that didn't look bad enough for him to be homeless; not long term homeless at least. His eyes were light, his lips full and quivering. He was either sick or afraid.
"Puh-please," he said feebly. "Leave me alone... I c-can't hear the voice anymore..."
He didn't look wounded in any way. Why was he in the trash? He said he was hearing voices, or had previously. Was he mentally ill? Whatever the reason, he didn't belong here. I decided I would be a good Samaritan.
"I got you, buddy," I said, reaching forward to grab him to help him up.
"No! N-no!" he said, his eyes bugging out with fear. "D-don't touch me!"
"It's cool, man. I'm not a mugger. Let me help you up and we'll get you inside where we can figure out how to help you." I reached out again.
"N-no!" he said, using what little energy he had to wriggle away from me. It was a valiant effort, but not very effective. He got just an inch or two more into the pile of trash. "D-don't! Leave me alone!"
"C'mon, man, you're in a pile of trash in someone else's back alley. Even if you don't want help, you can't stay here. C'mon!" I decided this needed some tough love. I lunged forward quick and grabbed his shoulder to pull him up.
He had been scared before, but now he went into panic mode. His wide eyes were fixed on my hand at his shoulder as if my very touch was acid.
"N-no! NOOOOO!" he howled, a scream of pain and anguish.
And then his head exploded.
It's hard to explain something so sudden and awful as this. It took only an instant as a rapid chain of events lead to his entire head no longer existing anymore. For a split second before the explosion, it seemed almost like his scalp tried to expand, but it then found no flexibility. Then his skull violently ruptured. Blood, bone, and bits of brain were flung in all directions, as if his head were simply an overfull balloon that had been burst. I was covered in the goriest parts of the man's head, blood all over my face and body.
Shock set in. No other reaction would have made sense. No person in the world would have been prepared for this. No one should ever have to witness that, especially not up close. I stood still, not even knowing what had happened. Thoughts screamed across my head, but none found a voice louder than the others, so I couldn't decide how to act or how to feel. As I stood there in confusion, I felt that the blood painted on me begin to drip. I was pretty sure there was bone and brain in my hair.
This was something I had never experienced before.
I had stalked and destroyed the living dead, been pursued by a tribe of cannibalistic underground dwellers, burned down an insectoid hive, fought an eight foot tall troll, and had nearly been killed by a gargantuan white serpent. Yet somehow, having someone's head explode in my face was one of the memories that most sticks with me. Maybe it was the sudden gore, the blood all over me. Maybe it was that I had no idea what had happened. Maybe it was feeling I had somehow caused that.
And maybe, just maybe this experience has stuck with me for a simple reason: while this was the first time it happened, it was not going to be the last.
"Hello, my name is Szandor Nowak, and welcome to my FundstarterGoGo campaign!"
I kept my face smiling, trying to ignore the fact that saying that made me feel like a tool. However, there was no reason my eventual watchers needed to see the crack in my persona, to know what I thought of doing this. I needed a new introduction video for my campaign, and the convention was that everyone in those videos always seemed overly excited to the point of possible drug use. It seemed backers liked that.
"Tonight I'm in a dark alley in a small town north of New Avalon," I continued. "The owners of the establishment - I won't say which one - says they've been having weird occurrences in the back that make their dogs go crazy with barking. They thought it was a bobcat but it could be something very different! I'm here to see if there's any monstrous activity. Because remember, I kill monsters!"
I grinned stupidly at the camera and tried to look as cheesy as that line. Oh god, I was terrible at marketing.
I grabbed the tiny camera and clipped it to my jacket. It was one of those new small video cameras used by bikers, rock climbers, and other extreme sport aficionados to record and upload all their crazy stuff for the internet. I figured it should record monster hunting just as well. It had limited night vision capability, so it should at least get grayscale video in the low light. I'd just look like one of those stupid ghost shows.
Pulling out my lead pipe, my weapon of choice, I headed into the alley. I didn't think I'd find anything there, but on the off chance I did, I wanted to record it for my internet funding campaign. Little did I know I'd get something far stranger on video.
Down the alley behind the restaurant, I found a rusted smoker, an old junk car, the back door for deliveries, and a garage that had seen better days. Past the garage was a field of brush that eventually became wooded terrain. It would be very easy for a creature to come and go. It could possibly be a hellhound like we had killed earlier in the night, but Paulie assured me that was what we investigated was the only set of reports in the whole area.
I shined my flashlight on the ground, trying to look for tracks or any marks that would give me an idea of what was here. I've never been good at tracking, so unless there was an obvious foot print, blood, or some other sign, I wouldn't find a trail. I saw heavy tire tracks in the now-dried mud, as well as footprints. Nothing animal-like, but if this was instead a ghoul or zombie problem, the tracks would look human to a cursory examination, which was all I was skilled for.
As I examined the area with my flashlight, I heard a noise. I wasn't sure exactly what I heard - a squeak of metal, maybe a rustle of a plastic bag. I swung the beam of my flashlight around to the garage. The noise had come from that direction. On the side of the garage, someone had stacked a bunch of trash bags and debris. There were some rusted tires near it too. I walked the beam along that area, trying to discern anything that could have caused the noise.
I had almost given up when I saw the trash bags move. I raised my lead pipe and began slowly stepping toward the bags, ready for a zombie, ghoul, or even an albino alligator to burst out of it. I was rusty, but I would be able to deal with one monster as long as it wasn't a troll or a revenant.
There was more movement and one of the trash bags slid out of place, revealing a pale arm. That rogue arm did nothing more, it just lay motionless. This made me think this wasn't a ghoul. As feral underground dwellers, a ghoul would be poised to strike, coiled into a pounce. A zombie would also be possible, but they tended to not just lay around when a possible victim was near. Though if the zombie had lost the means to get up due to decay or damage, it might be laying motionless. Of course, there was still the possibility that it was just a regular old human corpse and the movement was due to a rat moving under the trash bags. A corpse would be the safest option. And let me tell you, when that is one of the preferred non-dangerous outcomes in your work, odds are that you're a monster hunter.
I carefully reached out the lead pipe and with its tip, I poked at the trash bags, attempting to move them aside so that I could see whatever owned the arm. I heard a feeble groan from under that mess and pulled back my arm. But I had jabbed the bags enough that there was a minor avalanche as trash fell away, revealing a man underneath.
He was pale, something evident even in the poor lighting. He was bald, his head almost seeming bulbous in the light. He didn't have eyebrows either, so he looked almost like an alien. He wore street clothes that didn't look bad enough for him to be homeless; not long term homeless at least. His eyes were light, his lips full and quivering. He was either sick or afraid.
"Puh-please," he said feebly. "Leave me alone... I c-can't hear the voice anymore..."
He didn't look wounded in any way. Why was he in the trash? He said he was hearing voices, or had previously. Was he mentally ill? Whatever the reason, he didn't belong here. I decided I would be a good Samaritan.
"I got you, buddy," I said, reaching forward to grab him to help him up.
"No! N-no!" he said, his eyes bugging out with fear. "D-don't touch me!"
"It's cool, man. I'm not a mugger. Let me help you up and we'll get you inside where we can figure out how to help you." I reached out again.
"N-no!" he said, using what little energy he had to wriggle away from me. It was a valiant effort, but not very effective. He got just an inch or two more into the pile of trash. "D-don't! Leave me alone!"
"C'mon, man, you're in a pile of trash in someone else's back alley. Even if you don't want help, you can't stay here. C'mon!" I decided this needed some tough love. I lunged forward quick and grabbed his shoulder to pull him up.
He had been scared before, but now he went into panic mode. His wide eyes were fixed on my hand at his shoulder as if my very touch was acid.
"N-no! NOOOOO!" he howled, a scream of pain and anguish.
And then his head exploded.
It's hard to explain something so sudden and awful as this. It took only an instant as a rapid chain of events lead to his entire head no longer existing anymore. For a split second before the explosion, it seemed almost like his scalp tried to expand, but it then found no flexibility. Then his skull violently ruptured. Blood, bone, and bits of brain were flung in all directions, as if his head were simply an overfull balloon that had been burst. I was covered in the goriest parts of the man's head, blood all over my face and body.
Shock set in. No other reaction would have made sense. No person in the world would have been prepared for this. No one should ever have to witness that, especially not up close. I stood still, not even knowing what had happened. Thoughts screamed across my head, but none found a voice louder than the others, so I couldn't decide how to act or how to feel. As I stood there in confusion, I felt that the blood painted on me begin to drip. I was pretty sure there was bone and brain in my hair.
This was something I had never experienced before.
I had stalked and destroyed the living dead, been pursued by a tribe of cannibalistic underground dwellers, burned down an insectoid hive, fought an eight foot tall troll, and had nearly been killed by a gargantuan white serpent. Yet somehow, having someone's head explode in my face was one of the memories that most sticks with me. Maybe it was the sudden gore, the blood all over me. Maybe it was that I had no idea what had happened. Maybe it was feeling I had somehow caused that.
And maybe, just maybe this experience has stuck with me for a simple reason: while this was the first time it happened, it was not going to be the last.
