Larry Correia: Monster Hunter International

"Hey, guys, Z's awake," said a voice. "Dude, you've got to be the clumsiest, most accident-prone oaf I've ever known. I'm amazed you've lived this long."

"Trip?" I asked, trying to rise up so I could look around. My head ached, and I did not need to touch the back of my skull to know that there was a huge lump. "You're alive?"

"Can't kill a brother that easy." He laughed, and began to cough. His armor had been cut away and bandages encircled his chest and most of his head. One leg was propped up and had been tied to a splint. We were lying on blankets, set under the shade of a tree. The morning sun was rising in the distance. Several other wounded Hunters were also resting here. "No thanks to Holly," he joked.

"Shut up, dick," Holly said from the other side. "It was a good idea at the time." She was kneeling next to an unconscious Hunter that I did not know and applying a clean bandage to his arm. She appeared to be fine. "Besides, one little hit on the head and you sleep through the whole battle, while me, Sam and Milo get to kill like half a million wights."

"I'm just lucky that kudzu broke my fall," he mumbled.

"Sam and Milo are okay?" I asked. I slowly sat up. I was awfully woozy.

"Yeah, but the worst injured have been evacuated to the nearest hospital. We'll be trucking everybody else there in a few minutes. Sam got busted up. At the end, he was killing wights with his teeth since everything else was paralyzed. And Milo? After his little light show against Julie's mom, they're calling him Saint Milo now."

"Told you not to make fun of religious folks," Trip said.

"Julie?"

"Fine, she's wandering around here somewhere."

"Lee?" The last I had seen he had been hit pretty bad.

"He's going to live. But he's probably going to lose his leg. Gretchen did her best, but she wasn't sure." She sounded sad. "He was one of the lucky ones."

"Who else?" I asked. The others grew somber.

"We lost fifteen Hunters. We have another couple that are critical and might not make it. And then we have about twenty wounded. Once the Masters closed the distance, it got ugly. I guess they finally used the wargs to quickly evacuate everybody out of one side of the valley, so they could bomb the hell out of it. Then they concentrated on the last vamp."

"Are they all destroyed?"

"According to Julie, you killed the German, so we got six out of the seven," Trip answered.

"Let me guess." It was too much to hope. "Susan?"

"Yep. My mom got away," Julie said. She appeared in front of me, hands on her hips. Surprisingly, she looked fine, a little pale, but fine nonetheless. Not bad considering that I had watched her throat get cut only a few hours before. She extended her hand to me, I took it, and she did her best to pull me up, but failed miserably. I pulled her down with me. Despite the news of her mother, she laughed when she hit the ground.

"I'm glad to see you're okay," I said.

"Yeah, and you have some explaining to do. How the hell am I even alive? The last thing I remember is the pain, and then I started losing blood, and I was out. I woke up down here."

"Thrall saved your life. The last little bit of evil magic he had on his body, he gave to you. He held it on your neck and then it flew away."

"That would explain this." She brushed her hair aside. The side of her throat was still red and tender, but there was now a thick black line across the side, almost like a tattoo. "I'm not really into the whole body art thing, you know."

"Does it hurt?" I asked.

"Not really."

"Does it feel… evil?"

"Not that I can tell. If I get the sudden urge to drown a bag of kittens, I'll let you know."

"Well, let's not knock it then." I moved in for a kiss.

"Slow down. You've got Cursed One and vampire blood all over your face. No offense, but I'm not kissing that."

"Holly! Canteen." I snapped my fingers. "This is a medical emergency."

"Going to have a medical emergency when I shoot your ass," she answered as she tossed me a canteen. I unscrewed the lid and poured the cool water down my face. It felt good to scrub off the disgusting dried mess. I wiped my face on my arm.

"Okay, now I'm kissable."

"Whoa." Julie's eyes betrayed her shock.

Holly leaned over to see. "Holy shit!"

I raised my hands to my face. What was so surprising?

"What? Let me see!" Trip said.

My skin was smooth. It felt normal. Too normal. My scars were gone. The thick ridge of tissue that had stretched from the top of my head to the side of my nose was gone. I poured some of the water on my chest. All of the scars from my battle with the werewolf Huffman had disappeared. The still-healing road rash on my arms was gone. I probed my molars with my tongue. The missing teeth had returned. My body had been totally repaired.

"The Old Ones… When they fixed me so that I could fight and sacrifice Lord Machado…" I did not know what to say. I had grown used to the scars and injuries. They were all fixed. It was amazing.

"Wow… It's like ancient evil ultimate makeover," Holly said.

Julie caressed the side of my face, then she leaned in and kissed me passionately. Her lips were soft, and it felt good to be alive. Thankfully the others refrained from any snide comments.

When we had come up for air, I had to ask. "I thought chicks dig scars?"

"Right now, I could care less. I'm just glad we're still alive."

"Me too."

We cleared out the rest of the wounded. Between the chaos of the mighty storm and the undead-inflicted carnage across the state, most of the hospitals from here to Birmingham were working around the clock. We still had a lot of cleaning up to do, but for today, MHI was done.

Gretchen had ridden up on the back of a mighty warg. She had taken one look at the back of my head and pronounced me something incomprehensible. I did not know if it was good or bad, but the other orcs had laughed at me, so I took that to be a good thing.

Harbinger was still missing, so Julie and her grandfather had effectively taken control of the chaos. Her brother Nate stood protectively nearby. I barely knew the kid, but he was not going to let any of his remaining family out of his sight. I could respect that. Once the wounded were safely gone, the rest of the gear was packed into the surviving vehicles, and then finally the dead. It was a somber duty, but we were not going to leave our dead in the hands of the local authorities.

I helped to lift one of the shrouded bodies into the back of a van. It was Chuck Mead. He had fought hard, and died bravely. But in the end, even the bravest of us would eventually buy it. We had trained together, and I was going to miss the big, simple Ranger. He had been a good man.

Priest said prayers over the bodies of our fallen. He stepped around the corpses, one arm coated in dried blood and slung to his chest. He ignored it. He had work to do. Our comrades would be taken back to the compound where we could perform a proper Hunter's funeral. It was grisly business, but in our line of work, having your friends cut your head off was the final sign of respect.

"It seems bad, but considering what we were up against," the senior Shackleford stated, "we did good. We did very good."

"Grandpa, has anyone seen Earl since last night?" Julie asked.

" 'Fraid not, dear," he answered quietly. "Some of VanZant's boys saw him go past the mortar emplacement after he killed that Master. They said he looked mighty tore up. He was heading into the woods."

"I hope he's okay," she said softly.

"Um…" I was sorry to intrude on the family moment, but I had to know. "So Earl's a werewolf. I mean, I'm cool with that. It isn't the first time I've had a werewolf boss, you know."

"Yes. He's a werewolf," the Boss answered, using his hook to tap me on the chest for emphasis, "and that information doesn't go outside of MHI. When that bastard Myers quit and joined the Feds, they found out about him, and he had all manner of trouble. The Feds wanted to kill him."