Joe Haldeman - Work Done for Hire

He looked up defiantly. “Does that do it for you? A helpless victim gives you a hard-on?”

With a thumb Hunter pulled down the front of his own shorts, exposing nothing. “Not really.”

He stared. “You’re not… aren’t you…”

“There’s something there. Not what you might expect, and small.”

“What… are you?”

“Not human. You will have to die for knowing that. But you would die anyhow.”

Steve’s body was pale as wax under black hair. “What… what will you do?”

“Eat you, ultimately,” he said in a playful tone. “You are prey, after all, and I caught you, fair and square.”

“No.”

“It’s not a movie, though, so you won’t have to watch as I consume the minor pieces. I will kill you more or less quickly, and feed on you for several days. As you would a cow or a pig.”

“No,” he said, lying inanely. “I’m a vegetarian.”

“Another one. Do you think carrots feel no pain? You tear their skin off and chop them up into—”

Someone pounded on the door. “Open up in there!”

Hunter picked up the shotgun in the corner, smiling calmly. “A friend of yours?”

The rapping resumed and he stepped toward the door. As Steve shouted, “He has a gun!” he pointed the shotgun at about chest level and fired one deafening blast, and then two more, blowing the flimsy trailer door to pieces.

The gunstock had an elastic band that held ten or a dozen shells. He reloaded three and then kicked out what was left of the door, and stepped through blasting.

Steve could hear rifle shots and then a burst from a submachine gun. He saw Hunter jump from the top step.

For a couple of minutes there were more shots, and the sound of men shouting. Then it was quiet, and a short man wearing SWAT armor lumbered through the door with an assault rifle. “You all right, sir?”

“I’ve been better.” His voice was somehow flat and calm. “Thank you for coming.” He looked out the door. “You killed it?”

“Oh, yeah. I hit him twice myself, and he walked straight into a shotgun blast right after.”

“So it’s dead?”

“Gotta be.”

From farther away, a short spat of automatic-weapon fire. Then a shotgun barked twice, and a third time.

“Hope so.”

The coroner of Ilsworth County, Georgia, has done hundreds of autopsies, but never one of such a huge person, and he’s not looking forward to it. Mountains of messy fat to slice through before you get to the organs. But he prepares the body and makes his first incision. Then he staggers back, dropping the scalpel.

Inside, there’s no fat, and not a single organ he can identify. Some of them are shiny metal.

Its eyes snap open.

Never thought I’d be homesick for a Holiday Inn. This rustic-looking place was Mom’s Home Away from Home, which brought to mind Nelson Algren’s three rules of life: “Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom’s. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own.”

Never sleep at a place called Mom’s. And, I guess, never play cards with a man whose troubles are worse than your own, and for god’s sake, never eat with a woman called Doc. Unless you’re going to be sick, I suppose.

I couldn’t sleep anywhere, anyhow. Worrying about Kit.

At least you could write at a place called Mom’s, if you’re writing a cheesy monster novel. I finished lucky chapter thirteen. Hunter joins the ranks of the Undead.

I’d started out writing with the .38 sitting on the desk in front of me, but it was too distracting. I’d just look at it and worry. I started to put it under the pillow, but didn’t want to smell the gun oil all night, and try to sleep with the lump. Finally, I put it on the floor, slightly hidden behind the bedspread. I could still snatch it in a second.

Eight o’clock came and went with no call. I supposed they actually gained more by not calling; keep me in suspense. And for all they knew, I might be sitting in a police station or FBI office somewhere, waiting for the phone to buzz so the authorities could trace the call and rain cowboys all over their ass.

I hoped that the night’s distracted writing would satisfy Duquest. Would it be gory enough? I was more into disgust than horror.

I tried to ignore the feelings left over from trying to sleep while worrying about murderers and listening to bugs scuttle in the night. I did finally get a few hours’ sleep, but woke up feeling crawly. Crawled upon.

Quick shower and hit the road. When I turned on the shower and a thin stream of brown water came out, I was almost able to laugh. Instead I called the office, and a yawning old man came down with a key to another room, with a shower that worked. Beige water, tepid.

He acted miffed. Who would want a shower with clean water?

Turned out the place didn’t have Wi-Fi, though the sign said it did—the same sign that promised clean, comfortable rooms. I’d get back on 85 and use the first rest stop. Maybe it would even have a shower, dream on.

The main reason for stopping at a little place was to be able to check the parking lot at a glance. No big black SUV with a bullet hole.

If it had been there, though, what would I have done? Call the cops? Take out the rifle and wait for a target of opportunity?

That’s what we called it in the desert. Though that sounded inappropriately cheerful. It was rather the opposite of “opportunity” for the guy on the other end. No more opportunities.

I remembered a poem, “Dealing in Futures,” written by a soldier friend, about all the futures he had destroyed. Maybe somebody he killed would have found a cure for cancer, a car that runs without gasoline, an end to war. I read that before I was drafted, but even then, my reaction was “but maybe the soldier you decided not to kill has the bullet with your name on it.”

That was always on the top of my mind in the desert. I didn’t hate the enemy; in fact, I sort of admired them. But they can’t know that, and any one you spare might be the instrument of your own doom. “Kill ’em all,” said a slogan on my grandfather’s helmet cover in his war; “and let God sort ’em out.” He didn’t believe in God any more than I do, but he did believe in the power of statistics. The Law of Large Numbers was a phrase I remembered him using. If there’s a large number of soldiers out there absorbing bullets, maybe you’ll be the one who gets missed. Or something.

This enemy now, perhaps I should hate. They’re probably after me just for profit, hired by someone who has political motivations. Of course they’re not killing me, to be precise; just putting me in a position where somebody else can. As Uncle Sam did as my graduation present, all those ten years ago. Perfectly legal.

Maybe I should just walk out to the highway and stick my thumb out. Take me anywhere, as long as it’s out of this bizarre life. But for Kit.

Went back to my own room and turned on the television, but the only channel that worked was Random Colors & Static. Turned it off and jerked open the end table drawer. It had an old King James Bible. I opened it and flipped through to Matthew, which had pretty good poetry. But I came to a verse that stopped me in my tracks—

“And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.” Good grief. I was glad it didn’t say left hand.

There was a polite knock on the door. I went to open it, and as I pulled on the knob, thought of the .38 sitting on the floor ten feet away.