Larry Correia: Monster Hunter International

"I fell down the stairs." Hey, I was on morphine. It was the best I could come up with on short notice.

The professor frowned. "Cut the crap, Pitt. We know what happened. We watched the security tapes already. Five days ago, your supervisor, one Cecil Huffman, transformed into a lycanthrope, a werewolf in this case, and attempted to kill you. You fought him off, and pushed him to his death."

I was shocked. The FBI agents seemed to not have a problem with the idea that my boss had turned into a werewolf. I was also surprised that I had been out for five straight days. But mostly I was surprised that Mr. Huffman's first name had been Cecil.

"It was self-defense. I'm the good guy here. Why the gun?"

"You know how people become werewolves, don't you, Mr. Pitt? That's one thing that the movies get right. If you're bitten by one you, too, will be infected. The DNA-altering virus lives in their saliva. If you're clawed there is a smaller chance that you can be infected, but it's still possible. If we had found a single clear bite mark on you, we would be disposing of your body right now. Under the Anti-Lycanthrope Act of '95 we're supposed to terminate all confirmed were creatures immediately. I'm sorry."

"I don't think he bit me," I squeaked. But I felt a lump of dread in my gut. He had mauled me pretty badly. Was I going to turn into a werewolf? Or was the FBI just going to shoot me first?

"Silver bullets," grunted Agent Franks. He kept the Glock centered on my head. I don't know what kind of Jackie Chan move he was expecting me to pull, but I wasn't planning on going anywhere. I could barely move. "Just in case."

"So now what?" I queried.

"We wait. A sample of your blood has been sent for testing. If it comes back positive you will have to be put down. If it comes back negative, you're free to go. We should be getting a call shortly."

He said "put down" like I was some sort of dog. This encounter was just strengthening my already strong anti-authoritarian tendencies.

"You'll just let me go?"

"Yes. Though if you ever speak of this in public you will be in violation of the Unearthly Forces Disclosure Act, and you'll be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."

Franks nodded and muttered, "Lead bullets." His conversation skills seemed rather limited.

Myers' eyes betrayed an emotion that I thought might have been pity. "Look, Mr. Pitt, this is for your own good. If you're infected, we're doing you a favor. Otherwise in three weeks you'll be eating little old ladies and babies. Hopefully the tests come back negative, and we forget this ever happened."

"So what now?"

"Just chill for a while," Agent Franks said.

"Easy for you to say."

A doctor came in and took my pulse and blood pressure. A nurse changed my IV and checked my bandages. The staff seemed intimidated by the Feds, and left without talking. Flowers were delivered. They were from Hansen Industries, with a card wishing me a speedy recovery. Along with the card there was also a letter on Hansen Industries stationary that informed me that I was fired for violating the Official Workplace Safety Code No Weapons in the Workplace Rule. If I did not want to risk an interruption to my Workers' Compensation, I had best not protest the firing. Hugs and kisses, Human Resources.

I pushed the button on the motorized bed so I could sit upright. Myers turned on the little TV and we watched Jeopardy. Watching television kept my brain occupied, and more importantly kept me from dwelling on the possibility of ending up dead, or even worse, like Huffman. Myers was pretty good, but I was destroying him. I'm a Trivia King. Franks kept the gun in his lap and sipped a Diet Coke. I tried not to think about the fact that the nice men from the government were here to shoot me in the brain with silver bullets. The feeling of helplessness was horrible. Alex Trebek had all of the answers. I just had questions.

"What is Constantinople? So, Myers, how bad was I injured?"

"You lost a lot of blood and technically died on the operating table for two minutes. No brain activity at all. You have about three hundred stitches and staples in you and some broken bones. If we don't have to shoot you, you should heal up just fine. But you won't ever be pretty. What is the Great Wall of China?"

The thought that I had actually been dead was interesting. That was kind of cool. I wondered if I could use that as a pickup line.

"Who is Ghandi? What happened to Mr. Huffman?"

"He landed on a Lincoln Navigator. The desk landed on him. He was pulped. Nobody else got hurt." He was frustrated. I was tearing him up in the Famous History category. I could tell the professor was used to winning. Ha ha sucker, eat hot trivia death! "What was the Magna Carta? Huffman didn't pull back together or anything did he?"

"Damn, you're fast. Nope. Lycanthropes can regenerate from just about anything other than silver, but it takes energy to restore tissue. There's only so much energy stored in one body, so if you inflict enough damage on them, they die."

"Fire," grunted Franks.

"Indeed, fire works great. Wait, I know this. What is uranium!" he shouted.

I made a buzzing sound. "Wrong. What is beryllium? Damn, Myers, I thought you had to have an education to be a G-man. You suck."

The senior FBI man changed the TV channel to CNN and sulked. Well, at least I had the satisfaction that if they were going to kill me, I had defended my honor on the field of useless knowledge. The news was saying something about a huge pipeline explosion in a remote part of Russia apparently caused by Chechen terrorists. I tuned it out and went back to harassing the Feds.

"Does this kind of thing happen all of the time? How did Huffman become a werewolf? Are there many more out there?"

"You ask too many questions," Franks said.

"My associate is correct, Mr. Pitt. This subject's on a need-to-know basis. You just need to know to keep your mouth shut." Fine. I figured I would just go back to sleep. Stupid Feds.

There was a knock on the door. It must have just been a mere courtesy knock because whoever it was immediately barged in. Franks barely had time to hide his Glock under an issue of Martha Stewart Living.

The man was of average height and lean, with short-cropped, sandy blond hair, probably in his mid-forties. With no really remarkable features, he was not a memorable-looking guy, but emanated an old-school toughness when he strutted into the room, an attitude like a Bogart or a Cagney from the golden age of movies. A cigarette hung lazily from the corner of his mouth in clear violation of hospital rules.

Myers grimaced and it looked like Franks gave some serious thought about pointing his gun at somebody else for a change.

"Well, if it ain't the junior danger rangers. How's the murdering witnesses business?" the man asked, reaching into the pocket of his leather bomber jacket and pulling out a business card. He stuck the card into the edge of my wrist cast. It stuck there, vibrating slightly.

"Screw you, Harbinger," Franks said.

"Situation's under control. No need for you here," the professor stated in a cold voice.

"I'll be ice-skating in hell before I believe that you federal weasels have anything under control."

"You better shut up," Franks growled.

"Or what?" the man said with calculated belligerence and just a touch of a southern accent. "Gonna arrest me? You might not like it much, but we're a legitimate business again. If you Feds hadn't booted us out of Yellowstone, that werewolf wouldn't have gotten away, that fat guy wouldn't have gotten bitten, and this guy never would have gotten attacked."

"National parks are our jurisdiction. Your people can't legally be armed in them, so you were out of luck. So you just need to calm down," Myers stated in a manner that suggested he was used to being obeyed.