Larry Correia: Monster Hunter Vendetta

The Mexican cop stepped gingerly through the shattered window. His Mossberg was shaking and he was hyperventilating. I recognized the feeling, the feeling that a regular person gets when they find out that the world they live in was not really as it was supposed to be. It could be a real bummer. I walked slowly around the counter, my dripping hands open in front of me. I knew that I had to look terrible, covered in all manner of disgusting stuff, and I didn't want him to mistake me for another zombie.

"Hey, amigo. I'm a friend," I said calmly.

He looked at me in shock, leveled the muzzle at my chest and pulled the trigger. The click of the firing pin landing on the empty chamber was extremely loud. I jumped about two feet straight up.

"Whoa! I'm human! Easy!" I shouted, raising my hands high. "I'm one of the good guys. Soy un hombre bueno."

He nodded slowly, some comprehension dawning in his shocked eyes. I nodded back. Sirens approached. A green truck with Policia on the side screeched to a halt in front of the hotel and men with M-16s jumped out of the back. I looked back to the cop, ready to congratulate him on a job well done, but the last thing I saw was the butt of his shotgun sailing toward my forehead.

"Do you know what the penalty for having illegal firearms in Mexico are, Senor Pitt?"

"Like a million years per bullet?" I responded. The police interrogator shook his head sadly, nodded at his subordinate, and my head snapped back as the junior policeman hit me. He was wearing some sort of weighted leather glove, and it hurt pretty bad. I leaned my head forward and spit blood on the plastic table. Somehow I had managed to cultivate a hobby of being beaten up by law enforcement officers. On the bright side, this guy was a featherweight compared to my old buddy Special Agent Franks. Now that guy knew how to beat a confession out of somebody.

"You are being held on suspicion of murder, Senor Pitt. I have over seventy bodies to explain, and somebody will be held accountable. I assure you that our justice system is not as lenient as your own." I didn't think that that many tourists had been bitten, so they must be charging me for the original zombies too. I suppose the fact that they had obviously been dead for months wasn't going to help me.

I had no idea where I was, or how long I had been out, having woken up in the back of a truck with a sack tied over my head. Since the air tasted like burning tires, I was guessing that I had been taken inland, and if I had been unconscious long enough, I might even be in Mexico City. The interrogator's English was excellent. He was short, pudgy, with a bad comb-over, but his manner indicated that he was not a man to be trifled with. "Now why did you have multiple firearms and illegal military equipment in your room?"

"About that, any chance I can get some of those guns back? The shotgun and the matching set of. 45s? Those have sentimental value…" I went back to the question before he had the chance to signal the other cop to hit me again. "Really, like I already said, contact the consulate. We have written permission from your government. I'm here as an independent security consultant. Our weapons were allowed per the terms of the contract."

"And what exactly was your duty in Mexico?"

"I already told you I'm not at liberty to disclose that." The Mexican government had a policy similar to the United States' official position: Monsters Do Not Exist. The rules are idiotic, but for those of us who made our living cashing in on these governments' bounties for unnatural creatures, we always had to be careful to tiptoe around the truth with the general public. It may have been evil, it may have been stupid, but it was policy. And the people who enforced that policy had no problem shooting people like me if we talked too much. "Just call your superiors. This is all a misunderstanding."

He nodded at the other police officer, and I braced myself for the impact. This time he hit me above the kidney. I grunted. It hurt, but he didn't really drive the fist in there. When you're hitting somebody in the body, you need to punch through the target, not at it. Amateur.

"We already contacted them." The interrogator took out a pack of cigarettes, shook one out, and lit it with a gold-plated Zippo. "Sadly, they said that they had no knowledge of you, your organization, or why you are here."

It sounded like MHI had just been disavowed. Not good. "Well… there's been a mistake then."

"Certainly, merely just a, how would you say? Clerical error." He nodded, and this time I was pelted across the back of my head. At least the guy hitting me was getting some variety. This was bad, very bad. There was no way that the Mexican government had just forgotten about a team of American Monster Hunters. They were going to deny that they had ever contacted us. Better that than to admit there were supernatural creatures on their soil. They were probably already spinning some story to cover up the zombie outbreak and I was willing to bet that my team wasn't going to fit in with the official version of events.

"I can show you our copies of the contract, signed by your state governor. All I need is one phone call."

"I think not. My superiors and the governor's office have already confirmed that they have signed nothing. You are a liar and I'm tiring of this game."

Options were starting to run thin and I didn't want to spend the rest of my life in a Mexican jail. So I guess that meant it was time to see if the interrogator could handle the truth. "Okay, I'll talk."

"I'm waiting."

I gestured with my head at the other cop. It was the best I could do since my forearms and ankles had been zip-tied to the sturdy chair. "Does this guy speak English?"

The interrogator held up his thumb and forefinger. "Un poco, a little."

My whole body ached. At least if I could get rid of Cop #2 they'd quit hitting me for a while. "You might want him to wait outside. You don't want what I'm about to tell you to get out, if you know what I mean."

The interrogator slowly exhaled a thick cloud of smoke. The three of us were in a small, plain room. The only furniture was my chair, his chair, and a cheap plastic table. There was a bloody phonebook, a pair of needle-nose pliers, and a five-gallon bucket of water sitting in the corner. I didn't want to guess what those were for. Finally he gestured for the younger cop to leave. I heard the snap of a crisp salute, and then the opening and closing of the door behind me.

"Any chance we can settle this with some good old-fashioned bribery?" I asked. "My company's very generous."

"Mordida? Maybe if I only had one or two bodies. But this many? And half of them Americans? I'm afraid not. You see, someone must be executed for this. Tell me what I want to know, and it might not be you."

"Gotcha. Figured as much, but you never know until you ask. I didn't think you had the death penalty here."

He shrugged. "There is the unofficial death penalty. So let us continue, Senor Pitt. Who are you?"

"I work for a company called Monster Hunter International. We're based out of Alabama. We specialize in discreetly handling monster-related problems." He stared at me blankly. "Monsters… For example we were paid to come here to deal with a pack of goat-suckers."

"Chupacabras?" he asked slowly.

"Yes. A few weeks ago, some hikers were killed at the resort, and once those things taste people, they don't go back. We were hired because it was thought more deaths would be detrimental to tourism." I suppose a massive zombie attack rendered that a moot point. "The company I work for is considered the best in the world when it comes to dealing with things like this."

"I see… and the reason that I have never heard of this is.. " His voice betrayed no emotion.