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  UNDEAD AS A DOORNAIL

  Phoenix Bones: International Monster Hunter #1

  William F. Aicher

  © 2019 William F. Aicher

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the author.

  www.williamfaicher.com

  Chapter One

  I was already dead by the time I was born, and I’ve died a lot of times since then. But somehow, someway, I came back. I always come back.

  The night of that freak winter storm thirty-six years ago? Dead. Stillborn is what they call it. Didn’t take though. At least not for long. While my momma stared at me, her vacant eyes dead with shock, and my daddy sat in the corner bawling his eyes out, I was reborn.

  And no, the doctors weren’t wrong. There was no mistake. I was born a corpse.

  But like I said, I came back. My name is Phoenix Bones and I always come back.

  Thing is though, I’m not sure I’m coming back from this one.

  You’re probably wondering how I got here. I’ll tell you. Promise. First, though, I have to find a way out of this mess.

  First, I have to pry this goddamn bloodsucker off my neck and a slam stake through his heart to send him where he belongs.

  The one thing most of the movies don’t tell you about vampires is how damned horrendous their breath is. Not that this should come as any surprise. Dead for decades. Centuries. Millenia. Not eating anything but whatever they find rotting around. Maybe some human blood once in a while, but that delicacy is on the menu less often than you’d expect.

  Honest-to-goodness bloodsucking? Reserved for special occasions only. Like vampire treats—crimson champagne splurged on only once every so often. Makes sense, though, when you think about it. With so many vampires roaming the world they’d be doing a pretty piss poor job of keeping to the shadows if every night they had to suck a human dry. People would start to notice all the other missing people.

  So yeah, they’re smelly bastards. And when they move in close like this guy right here, snapping his jaws as he tries his best to sink those pearly whites into the juicy flesh of my neck, you’re gifted if you can stop from gagging. Stink probably even works as a tool on their side sometimes. Take the victim by surprise, and while they’re choking on the rancid exhale they’re distracted, and the vamp can chomp on down.

  I’ve tried garlic, and I’ve tried crucifixes. Way back when I first got my feet wet in this world. Thought it’d work just like in the movies, but it’s a bunch of bullshit. Hell, half the vampires I’ve come across are atheists. Any religion they had gone out the window the realized no self-respecting god would condemn a man to never-ending life. The only thing from the storybooks that does work is the good old wooden stake through the heart. Can’t be a bullet, can’t be a sword. Has to be wood. Damned if I know why.

  Problem is, I don’t have any stakes on me. Momma always told me to be prepared for the unexpected, and I see now I should have listened better to her. But coming into this I wasn’t expecting vampires. A graveyard in the dead of a late summer night in rural Bulgaria? Wasn’t expecting vampires. But probably should have.

  He snaps at me again, the putrid stink enveloping my head like a toxic cloud. I hold my breath and clutch my car keys. One out between the fingers like a stabby little brass knuckle. I take a swing, and next thing you know old vampie’s stumbling and screaming. All the while, my dangling keys play jingle bells as they hang from the hole they punched in his throat.

  One of those little headstones—the ankle-high kind people who don’t have fortunes to spare buy for their loved ones when they pass—one of those headstones trips him up, and he’s down on the ground. Still squealing like a stuck pig as his hand scrabbles at the keys to my rental. He tears them free, and in the distance, my panic alarm starts to shout in the night. Yellow and orange lights flicker in the distance. I tear a branch from the nearest tree, lunge at him while he’s distracted, and my stick finds home.

  Wham. Boom. Straight to the heart, and I’m to blame.

  He doesn’t bleed—vamp hearts don’t pump blood. Not like the rest of us. Instead his body just kind of swells up, like a worn-out blow-up doll that’s seen a little too much fun. As his eyes bulge from his head he gives me one of those “now what’d you have to go and do that for?” looks. Then he pops. A big old mess coats the graveyard … and me as well.

  I grab my keys from the ground, turn off my alarm, and head back to the car. Blood drips from the tree behind me with the soft pitter-patter of a rain shower.

  My name’s Phoenix Bones. I hunt monsters.

  THEN

  Chapter Two

  Three weeks ago. That’s when this whole mess got started. Or, at least, when I first got sucked into it all. The disappearances themselves started much earlier. I just didn’t hear about them at first. Police tend to keep a low profile on these kinds of things. Which is kind of surprising given how quickly they usually issue alerts. A missing kid’s no joke. But when the kids go missing from a locked house with no signs of forced entry? When there aren’t any leads or clues or anything to help make the cops look like they have a damned clue as to what they’re doing? Those are the ones they try to keep secret.

  After all, these kids weren’t really kids. They were teenagers. Even worse, teenagers from the wrong part of town. The part of town where cops didn’t give a shit what happened. The part of town where kids run off all the time—which was probably what these kids did. Or, at least, so their parents hoped. Thing is, these kids usually tend to come back. Might take a day or a week, but they’re back soon enough. Life on the street is hard. Harder than any of them might think. And even if they’ve spent days out there, nothing prepares them for the nights. Some push through. Make it a few days. But usually they give up when they realize as shitty as life might be back home, things aren’t as bad as they could be … now they’ve caught a glimpse of the alternatives.

  But for some kids, when it comes to life on the street vs. life in a home filled with hate (or worse, indifference), the street wins.

  So no, they didn’t register the disappearances. At least not until they started to spread out of the poor places and into the well-lighted streets of suburbia. Not until 17-year-old Nancy Langenkamp went missing from the second story bedroom in her parents’ five-bedroom, 4300 square-foot house on the corner of North Genesee and Elm.

  That was the first one I heard about. The call came through on the scanner while I was out on my rounds. Amber alert. No details of where she might be or who she might be with. Just a pretty white girl with blonde hair and a big pearly-toothed smile gone missing and the community should be on alert. Check your phones. Check the news. Check social media. Her photo’s already everywhere.

  I didn’t bother to check anything. I already knew they wouldn’t find her. When a girl goes missing from a locked house in the middle of the night, all the windows are still closed tight, and nothing’s missing, it’s never a kidnapper. And it’s never a runaway. It’s one of them.

  Trust me. I speak from experience.

  Which kind of them? Who the hell knows. But they’re the ones who get you. The ones who sneak around at night, scurrying from shadow to shadow. Monsters. Boogeymen. Spooks, specters, and ghosts. Figments of our imagination. They’re the ones that got Nancy. I was sure of it.

  Problem was, I couldn’t do much to help her. At least not until I got rid of the raccoon.

  The call came in around eleven. Something in the attic making a hell of a racket. Usually, when these things happen, people tend to call the cops first. Either
that or the wife sends her husband up the ladder with a baseball bat to investigate. Then the husband has to make a choice: put on his big-boy pants and head up those steps and retain is masculinity or call the police himself since he’s seen enough horror movies in his day to know you never go climbing around a dusty old attic in the middle of the night.

  Once in a while though you encounter someone who’s been around the block a few times. They’ve heard the scratching and the scuttling before, and they recognize that racket as some damned creature making itself comfortable somewhere in the house. And that’s when they call me: Mr. Animal Control Specialist.

  Truth is though, even when they call, the cops get sucked in somewhere down the line. They call the cops, cops check out the “disturbance” and see a pair of beady little eyes in the corner, then bug out and give me a ring. Back in the old days, they just shot the things and called it a day. But now everyone’s all soft and goo-goo-eyed like “Look at the fluffy little raccoon. He must miss his mommy.” So, they call me. And I slip on my heavy-duty leather gloves, hop in the truck and head on over to rectify the situation.

  Like that night. The night of the raccoon … and the night all this shit started. I was up watching one of those late-night talk-shows that come on after the news, and I heard the call come in over the police scanner — something banging around in an attic down at 401 East 2nd Street. Units were on their way to investigate the disturbance. Could’ve been a burglar. Could’ve … but wasn’t. I’d been out to Eleanor Jackson’s house enough times now to recognize the address. And I’d told her time and time again to call a professional out there to fix the busted vent on her roof. But did she listen? Of course not. So, I was already halfway to her house by the time my cell rang, and they officially called me in.

  Now here I am, up in Old Lady Jackson’s attic with a pissed off raccoon hissing at me from the corner. She looks familiar. Big fatty, like the one I pulled from here a few weeks ago. Left her out in the woods miles from here, but still, I wouldn’t be surprised if she came back. Then again, it could just be another that looks like her. I’m not that good with raccoon faces.

  They’re are an infestation, you know. People think raccoons are these cute little bandits living a sweet, innocuous life out in the country and come through occasionally to knock over a trashcan, but that’s what PETA wants you to think. Truth is, they’re everywhere in the country and worse in the city. Bigger nuisance than rats, some might say—since at least those vermin tend to stick to the sewers. Raccoons have gotten fat and stupid around people, and when the sun goes down, the little bastards come out in swarms. If they weren’t so smart, they wouldn’t be so much of a problem, but raccoons are just as clever as they are curious. If a raccoon sets its sights on getting in somewhere and exploring (or heaven-forbid, building a nest), that nasty furball is going to find a way.

  And for some reason, Jackson’s damn attic was like a goddamn halfway house for wayward raccoons.

  There we were, the raccoon and I, staring each other down. Like a pair of gunslingers set for a duel at noon. I’m waving my Ketch-All trying to find an angle where I can loop her, and she’s growling something fierce, looking for a way to scoot past me and into the maze of dusty boxes on the other side of the room. I know if she gets in there, I won’t be getting her out and will have to set a trap. But traps are the worst. Sure, they’re clean and fairly effective, but they also mean I have to come back later and pick up the damn thing once they’ve done their job and snagged the beast. Most people don’t have the patience for them either because once you’ve got an animal trapped, it can start to make a holy racket. People don’t like rackets. Not when they’re trying to sleep or enjoy their morning coffee while some animal’s upstairs screaming and jumping and shitting all over itself.

  I moved in slow, tried to distract her with my voice while I brought my loop down, and she made a break for freedom. Quicker than you can say “Gideon’s Bible” I snagged her—and that’s when I heard the call come through on my portable scanner.

  "All patrols be advised, Amber alert. Seventeen-year-old female, last seen wearing blue and white plaid pajama pants with a navy shirt with a polar bear print at 1428 North Genesee Avenue at 9:00 p.m. No vehicle or suspect information. No signs of forced entry."

  Now call me paranoid, but when people up and go missing, I always fear the worst, especially the times there are no suspects or any immediate leads. 99 times out of 100 some leads do turn up. Sometimes they’re the bad kinds of leads, where your gut’s been screaming, even before you the bad news call comes in. Other times it’s the kids running off on their own or with a boyfriend or girlfriend. The times when I hear a call with no information is when my heart pauses … sometimes so long I wonder if it will ever start back up again. And that’s what happened when I heard this call. The constant thud of my blood pumper ceased, and I knew this was one of those one-in-a-hundred calls where the cops couldn’t do shit.

  But I could.

  So, I shoved old mask-face into my sack, all the while she was nipping and clawing and making a racket like no other. The woman of the house knocked on the door once or twice, probably wondering what I’d been up to and hoping none of her storage boxes got knocked over. Not that it’d matter though. I didn’t have the heart to tell her, but half them boxes were soaking up raccoon piss and would have to be tossed in the dumpster sooner or later.

  Bag waggling in my arms, screams still bellowing through the canvas, I pushed down the attic door and ladder and lowered myself back into the living quarters, while Old Lady Jackson stood at the foot of the steps, arms crossed, wearing nothing but her nightgown and a scowl. I gave her a tip of my cap and slung the sack over my shoulder like a hillbilly Santa Claus and moseyed on out. Told her the county’d send her the bill in the mail.

  Of course, the county doesn’t send any bill for animal removal like this. Special county courtesy. But she didn’t need to know. Worst thing that happens is people take my services for granted, and they start relying on me to come on over for free forever, never taking care of their own place or plugging up the holes where the critters sneak in. I’m a lot cheaper than a handyman.

  I threw old ringtail into the bed of my Silverado and headed out of town into the country, back toward home. A few miles south of Wilkin’s farm, I pulled to the side of the road and emptied the sack. She gave me a few hisses and as nasty a scowl as a raccoon can and scampered off into the woods. I was sure I’d see her again someday. And she probably knew the same.

  The old Silverado sputtered down the lane on the chokes of its last gasps of gas until the truck finally died about a quarter-mile from the house. Normally I wouldn’t let the tank run so low, but in my rush to hurry home and see if I could still save Nancy, I did the best I could to ignore the yellow light telling me to spring for a fill-up. I rushed down the lane on foot, past the hemlocks and firs and onto the dirt path marking the entrance to Chateau Bones. More a shack than a house. It’d been here for decades. Supposedly an old hunting cabin of my father’s, though I’d never known him to hunt. Even so, he still came out here from time to time when I was growing up. Weekends with his pals, but he never came back with any kills. I don’t think he liked hurting animals.

  But that was years ago. As he got on in age and the cancer got him, he stopped coming out here. And from how beat up the place was by the time I moved in, so did his pals. Because when I first stepped foot here after mom passed and I lost the family house, there hadn’t been a single sign of anyone being here for years. Just an old Playboy with a publish date 23 years earlier water damaged and caked to the stone floor, covered in mouse droppings and mold.

  Now my father’s old “hunting shack” was the place I called home. And though it wasn’t much to look at, the dump still gave me comfort. A place of my own, away from everyone else. A place where I could focus and work on what my, what Mom called my “special purpose.” The reason I’d been put here in the first place.

  The screen slamme
d against the clapboard walls and swung shut as I barged through the door. Ripley observed from her lumpy sweatshirt bed on the floor, gave a huff, and dropped back to the wonderous kitty dreamland of slow squirrels and squeaky little mice.

  I checked my watch. Almost two hours now since the amber came through. Took longer to drive home than I wanted, and if what was happening was what I thought was happening, the trail would be as cold as a catfish and Nancy’d be lost to God-knows-where. But you can’t rush these things. Even now I was here, and ready to do my thing, I couldn’t rush. Had to take my time, pace myself, measure, and dose properly. Yes, I’d always come back before, but that didn’t mean my resurrection would always be inevitable—and that was a risk I didn’t want to take.

  I considered waking Ripley. Bringing her up here to my bedroom so she could keep watch while I traveled, but nothing had followed me back since that banshee back in February. Probably nicer to just to let her sleep.

  Besides, what the hell was a cat going to do? Call the cops? She’d probably yawn and let the damn thing eat me.

  A rusty cutlass, a vintage single-action Colt .45, and a silver flask — that’s all I had left stored in the old suitcase beneath my bed. It’d have to do. Chances were by now there’d be nothing to worry about, but still better to be safe than sorry. I slipped my makeshift PKE meter into my front pocket and pulled the night vision goggles down over my face. A green haggard ghost dressed in a pair of tan overalls marked with “Lafayette County Public Services” patch stared back at me from the mirror. I straightened up, puffed out my chest, and mentally prepared to go to work.

  Normally I left the closet door shut, just in case—an act of precaution. I sighed as I realized I hadn’t gone traveling in weeks. Hadn’t had to, thankfully. But that also meant I’d let a pile of dirty clothes pile up in front and now the door wouldn’t open. After snatching the stinky rags from the floor and tossing them into a festering heap on my worn-out twin-sized, I checked the door—smooth swing. No barriers. Shouldn’t close behind me, and if it did, I should be able to swing the old creaker open no problem.