Read Chapter One of I F*cking Hate Monsters (FREE)
“Now listen very carefully. There is only one way to stop the Turipads.”
A set of old, gnarled fingers started clicking in my face.
“Hey, lardo? You listening?”
“Uh-huh… how to stop turbans…” I recited, my sight still set on the tall, blond girl as she leaned over the coffee shop countertop, her tight-fitted, black yoga pants stretching as she bent oh-so-seductively over to fetch her coffee.
The old man shook his liver-spotted head.
“No, no, Turipads,” he said at the side of my head. “You stinking, festering pile of dung…” he added, carefully enunciating the single syllable in the word dung. Not very nice in my opinion. Real unprofessional.
“Look, dude, you want my help or not?” I asked, taking a moment to crane my head upwards as she brushed past my side. With lips teasingly parting, she took a sip of her chai latte with skimmed milk and a sprinkle of chocolate just covering the foam. What I would give to have been that coffee cup. Her hips grazed my side; the fabric of her yoga pants sent shivers through my body for the faintest of moments before she exited out the front door.
My gaze followed her all the way outside into the beaming sunshine where she looked in my direction and flashed a lipsticked smile at me before her swaying hips took her down the street and so abruptly out of my life.
Farewell dream girl, I sighed and turned back to face him.
The old man looked like he was ready to pounce, much alike how I wanted to pounce on the girl—him in a less sexually-charged way, however. His fingers drummed against the coffee-stained table. From where I sat, it seemed perhaps he had given up on using words with me and had reverted to the age-old form of Morse code.
He began talking again, but this time my attention wandered over to the next college student as she leaned over the low and wide countertop to fetch her faraway coffee the soul-patch sporting, shaggy-haired barista had so expertly placed outside of her immediate reach. The old man might not have been much of a conversationalist, but he sure knew how to pick the best seat in the house.
Suddenly, his hand darted forward. His crusty, gnarled fingers curled up into a pincer and latched onto my lips. His yellow fingernails pierced my cheeks as he yanked me over the table towards him. His bushy brow furrowed so deep into the hollows of his eyes that it was like staring at two hairy, grey caterpillars standing sentinel over the bottomless pits they called home.
“Listen here, you little punk,” he growled. Spittle spattered against my face. “If I could do this damn thing myself, I wouldn’t have to ask for your help. Now, you are going to listen this time, or else—”
“Or else what?” I asked, my curiosity piqued. He was going to have to be a lot more specific.
“What do you think?”
“Try to drown me in your spit?” I suggested, wincing as his grip grew tighter. He threw my head back against the chair and I fell to the ground. A deep sigh escaped from his frail, old chest as he massaged his temples with those crusty pincers. I had to give the man credit: he might not have looked like much—but he sure could pinch a mean cheek when he wanted to.
“All right, all right. I yield! Jeez—you could have just asked! You wanted some help with turnips, right?” I asked, pulling myself back onto my seat and rubbing the feeling back into my aching cheeks and lips.
His hand latched on again, this time pulling me over the table until his bushy grey eyebrows were almost touching my forehead. His hand squeezed my mouth into an almost triangular shape. An oblong triangle, for those curious enough to know the exact dimensions.
“Turnips?!” he bellowed. “—Turnips? You think you are being funny? You snivelling, little rotten piece of—”
“Can I get you gentlemen anything?” a young waitress asked nervously. The old man lifted his gaze slowly towards her, his grip not loosening one bit on me.
“Coffee. Black,” he said, before turning back towards me. “You want anything?”
“Just another espresso, please.”
She took a quick look at us before deciding that she didn’t get paid enough to deal with these kind of scenarios. He watched her leave before he began speaking again.
“The Turipads are nasty little critters… I know for a fact that one of their spies has taken refuge in my home. Perhaps to gather intel for their queen. They might look like regular spiders to normal folk, but I—oh no, you see, I know better…”
He tapped his forehead with a crooked finger.
“If you wanted me to stop them, then why didn’t you just say so?” I asked through the tiny air hole my mouth had become.
His grip loosened. I groaned aloud, hoping to rub some feeling into my puckered lips.
“You want the job or not?”
“Depends on the pay,” I answered, raising my hands up to protect my jaws should his pincer-like hands try to latch on again. Thankfully, this time his hands remained holstered by his sides where I could see them.
“Is saving your fellow man not pay enough?”
“Not unless that pays my rent.”
He leaned forward. I flinched, raising my hands up in the best karate stance I could muster. Luckily for him, my shirt was far too tight to allow him to see the true extent of my awesome skills. Plus I couldn’t risk blowing the tiny minds of the other two bored-out-of-their-minds staff who shuffled around the café.
Unamused, his beady eyes regarded me for a long moment as I demonstrated some basic karate chops, cutting the air just inches away from his face. In my field, it’s all about intimidation. You need to let the client know you aren’t afraid and can handle anything. I may not be good at reading people’s expressions, but from what I could tell, he was about ready to piss himself in sheer terror.
“You done?”
I nodded and lowered my hands back to the sides of the table. No one ever wants to see the full extent of my karate skills.
“You’ll get your money,” he promised. “After the job is complete. You gonna write this down?”
I scooped up my ripped, plaid jacket and dug out my notepad from my front pocket. I set my multi-colour clicky pen to a more serious bright green. The threat of pain or the promise of money is usually enough to get my attention. Plus all the hot college girls had just left and the café was pretty much empty bar this old, turnip-smelling, cheek-pinching lunatic and me.
“There is only one way to stop the Turipads I know of…” he paused as I scribbled down ‘things to do: squish weird bug thing for crazy old dude. Then overcharge him.’
His eyes wandered from my notepad back up to me. I tried to move my forearm to block out the words before he could finish reading. He let out a tired sigh before continuing.
“As I was saying. There is only one way to stop a Turipad.”
“Enough with the drama. Jeez, get to the damn point already.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Please, and thank you?”
He sighed again.
“The only way to stop a Turipad is with a rolled up newspaper.”
I couldn’t help but start laughing.
“Dude, I could just go right on down to nearest 7-Eleven and—”
His icy stare was enough to silence me for now.
“You need a rolled up newspaper,” he said over my continuing laughter, “but it must be from the fourth day of the month and it must have been a Tuesday.”
He paused, leaning in closer until his wrinkled face mashed into mine. I wrote what he had just said while trying to keep the smirk from my face. When I finally stopped writing, I raised my eyes to see his face pressed up against mine, silently evaluating me.
“So let me get this straight. I need to squish this spider thing, a turip… turna… tura…”
“Turipad,” he corrected.
“Right, right, a Turipad with an old rolled up newspaper, but it must be of the fourth day of the month and it must have fallen on a Tuesday.”
I raised an eyebrow up at him, wondering if the flash of white beneath the bright green turtleneck he wore was actually a gown from a mental home.
“There’s just one more thing.”
His hand grabbed my arm. He dug his gnarled, old fingers in so tight that I could feel the blood being cut off to my fingers. The pen twitched in my fingers, desperately trying to write ‘help me’ by its own violation.
“You’re not going to like it,” he cautioned.
“Let go of my arm, you damn freak!”
His grip loosened slightly.
“Do you have any ears of corn at home?”
“Yeah, probably?” I said, managing to shake him off at last. “Why?”
“Good. Because if you are to truly kill a Turipad, before you hit it with the newspaper you will need to shove a piece of corn up your ass.”
“Whoa… nope. No way! Okay, buddy, this weird little act of yours was fun and all, but count me the hell out!” I threw my hands up and started to rise up out of my seat. He latched on again. Unperturbed, I continued moving, trying to put as much distance as possible between me and this raving lunatic.
“You don’t understand!” he pleaded as I tried to walk out of the café, dragging the old man along the floor beside me.
“You need the corn up your ass or else it won’t work! This is the only way to stop the Turipads or else they’ll enslave humanity!”
A nearby couple stopped cuddling one another and looked in horror as I dragged him past.
“It’s going to take a whole lot of money for me to shove a piece of corn up my ass!” I shouted down at him.
“Ear of corn,” he began enunciating as I fought for each step closer to the front door. “Ear of corn.”
A businesswoman who had just walked in the front door overheard us. She lowered the cell phone from her ear to take a long, hard look at both of us. After hearing the words ‘corn’ and ‘ass’ used multiple times in the same sentence, she decided it was best to take her custom elsewhere.
“You mean you’ll do it?”
I paused, wondering why I had even entertained this old man for so long. Money can be a powerful motivator, and an angry landlord who’s owed rent an even better one.
His eyes twinkled from somewhere in the depths of his wild eyebrows as he looked up at me from the floor. A customer stepped over him and exited the café, finally deciding eating lunch at his office with all the people he hated probably wasn’t such a bad idea. The staff seemed impassive to the whole scene, like it was just an average Monday afternoon for them.
Regardless of what this old guy was saying, there was no way I was going to shove an ear of corn up my ass and go rooting around for an old newspaper from whenever the hell it needed to be from. Still, a man’s got to eat somehow and as I mentioned before, I’m a big, and usually very hungry guy.
“How much you got?”
“More than I know what to do with.”
“Promise you’ll pay my overly-extravagant rates?
His head bobbed up and down.
“All right then. I guess I’ll do it…”
“Oh, thank you! Oh, thank the heavens!”
He released me from his grip and started bowing and kissing the filthy floor as I tried to back away. I moved into a defensive karate stance, taking care not to rip my pants like the last time a client was unfortunate enough to startle me. Dirt and old sandwich crumbs mashed into the front of his face, chest, and thick eyebrows.
“I have something that might help you.”
He jumped to his feet and raced over to our table, almost knocking aside one of the staff as he did so—although, the angst-ridden teenager seemed to hardly notice. He rummaged through his vintage suitcase, spilling old papers, leather-bound books, obscure talismans, and strange red-coated coins onto the table top. Finally, with a loud ‘aha!’ he turned back around—an old, brown, rotten piece of corn held in his grasp.
“You’ll need this,” he held it out for me. “This helped me defeat the Turipads last time they came. Now I’m too old and my colon is too damaged for me to fight them anymore.”
The stench, which I feel is better left to your imagination, hit my nostrils. I felt my stomach churn and try to escape out of my mouth.
“Please, you must take it if you are going to stand a chance against them.”
He tried pushing it into my hands, but I continued backing away, preparing myself to bolt out the front door or throw one of the horrified couple in his path should he move any closer.
“Look, I appreciate the help and all, but I’m a professional, okay? I can go to the grocery store and buy my own damn corn if it’s that important to you.”
My patience thin, and the lack of attractive customers to stare at, I hastily made my way towards the exit, leaving the old man and his disgusting piece of corn behind.
“My address is apartment five on the third floor, Zook Road, just off Lindbergh,” he yelled after me as the door swung open and a little bell chimed overhead. “Be sure to come prepared! Those Turipads are one mean monster, let me tell you!”
I took one last look at the old man, shaking my head as I mentally calculated if I really needed this job and how far my last thirty dollars could stretch.
“I’m going to regret this,” I said aloud and began jotting down the address. The old man continued yelling from inside the café. As I looked at him, he hooted and hollered, jumping up and down like a runner who had just won a gold medal in the crazy Olympics. He grabbed one of the waitresses and tried to dance with her before she pushed him away. As he tumbled to the ground, I caught a glance of a yellow collar hanging around his wrist and a red stamp on his hand which suspiciously read ‘insane’.
“Turipads, Turipads, one, two, three! Turipads, Turipads, can’t you see? Turipads, Turipads, your death I do decree!” he began chanting, eyes wild as he danced around the café.
“I need a new job,” I decided, before walking away.
* * *
I always thought the job of a monster hunter would be glamorous, you know, like Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Garfield the Gremlin Crusher, but instead it has just sucked since day one. Every day is like a bad first day. There’s not exactly a book of the rules or people around to tell you what to do. And before you start, yeah, I’ve tried reading everything from Lovecraft, Stoker, and Ovid to every grimoire and sparkly vampire book out there. And let me tell you—all these guys and gals? They just made their stuff up. They didn’t have to actually go kill or capture these monsters. No one bothered to tell me before I wasted all my time reading them. Not even the snickering librarian who loaned me the books in the first place after I asked what the best books on monster hunting were. There are no rules on how to deal with a vampire, for example. Sure, people now know that wooden stakes, garlic, and crosses work, but honestly, do you really think that was their first thought when they screamed, “Holy shit! A vampire?”
Who’s to say blasting them with a bazooka doesn’t work? Or beating them with a sock full of nickels? Ever think of trying that one? I did. Problem was, I only had about five nickels to my name and too many holes in my socks so it didn’t quite work as well as I’d hoped. As for the bazooka, forget it. You think I’m made of money?
But I did get rid of a vampire once by telling him England has richer blood than here in America. Something to do with the Queen and royal blood, I told him. Blue blood—it’s like caviar for vampires. You want to be a poor vampire drinking junk food blood or want to move on up in the world and only feed on classy, rich people? You deserve to be feeding on finer blood. What would all your vampire friends think if they heard you were eating McDonalds’ grade blood on a daily basis? You’d be laughed out of all the cool vampire gangs. Miss out on all the cool vampire parties. You want to be known as that classless bum of the vampire community?
Just like that he left and it was another case solved and another unhappy, overcharged client. ‘Let someone else deal with it,’ has always been my business motto. Somehow people misinterpreted what I actually meant and think I’m the person the card was referring to. I suppose I can’t really complain and be upfront with them—something about ‘being too transparent about not caring’ seems to drive potential customers away.
The clients don’t really need to see the whole show and honestly, sometimes, it’s better that way. Sometimes, all I need to do is just show up and bribe the monster to lay low for a few days—split my earnings 50/50 for the case. It can be that simple on a good day. But sadly, not always.
Honestly, I just wish people would call me over to their apartments or offices and give me money for bothering to show up. I got out of bed and got dressed, most of the time, didn’t I? I put on my shirt and pants (granted I might only have one pair and they may not be washed), but hey, it’s not like there are any other monster hunters you can call in this city. I may have even remembered to brush my teeth and put on deodorant if they’re really lucky.
For some reason, that’s just never enough.
Still, a man can always dream of a perfect world, right? Preferably one where monsters are not real or murderous, blood-sucking leeches that are afraid of Def Leppard songs or twelve-foot tall TellyTubbies that can only be banished by playing bagpipes badly at them. Don’t look at me like I’m crazy—I didn’t write all these rules. I just sort of, figured them out over time.
You know, trial and error, just like any other job.
You think discovering vampires don’t like garlic was deliberate? Or that it’s only silver bullets that can kill werewolves? Desperation and frustration can sometimes yield the answer and it’s damn near always the last one you would have expected. Like how I was the one who suggested to leprechauns that their gold coins might actually have chocolate inside them—it seemed like a good idea at the time, or at least was until they all died from lead poisoning. In my defence, I’d only discovered chocolate money that week so I suppose that might have had something to do with it.
Like I said, in this field of work it’s all trial and error. And at that time, I was unknowingly about to enter into the biggest disaster case of my life.
Release date April 1st. Available on Amazon.
The post Read Chapter One of I F*cking Hate Monsters (FREE) appeared first on Paul W Ryan.
