First Contract
Isabelle is a lone girl trying to survive the only way she knows how in the abandoned bayous of Louisiana. But contract kills on the rising mutant population—creatures that feed on humanity—are hard enough to come by when you're an adult, let alone barely more than a child. When the choice is between starving or something worse, even the smallest would bend the rules to land their first contract.
Isabelle’s hand brushed her hip, fleetingly, out of habit. Cool steel, tucked against her skin under two layers of ragged, green, third-hand military surplus clothing, answered back with unforgiving firmness. She glanced down and convinced herself nobody could see the blade from the outside. Similarly, she flexed her wrists and felt reassurance at unbending steel against her forearms. She knew her unique skill set, but now she needed to convince the rest.
In the old-world, people scoffed at the idea of bounty hunters, and relegated them to the underbelly of society. They hunted humans who had simply gone too deep into life’s debauchery, often not far from the bottom themselves. The Fall flipped the underbelly to the surface, and now names like Dustin Langley were lauded as heroes throughout the Americas for hunting down the scourges of humankind. Abnormals who fought back too hard, and the animals that grew a penchant for human flesh, became the bounty.
The longer people lived without fighting back, the more a piece of the pie the night took.
Isabelle understood you couldn’t just let them take what they wanted. Don’t fight back. Fighting back meant you already lost ground. Fight first. A back against the wall lost the ability to maneuver.
“You lost, kid?”
A man, with a week’s growth of beard and a brown roll of tobacco hanging off his lower lip, leaned against a telephone pole. His body and the beam cantilevered in opposite directions, like his mass was responsible for holding up the old wooden post, whose support cables had long since fallen and been spirited away for unknown purposes. He spit a line of brown liquid on the ground at her feet. She knew the look. The crooked grin barely hidden by stubble and the wrinkles at the corner of the eyes. The one that asked “boy or girl?” and then decided, “it didn’t matter.”
“No,” she answered and strode toward the doors of Hunter’s Bar, ignoring the chuckle and sound of a footstep threatening to follow her in.
Throughout Baton Rouge, everyone knew Hunter. He earned his coincidental birth moniker. In the first year after the Fall, he had hunted down one of the first Hulks in the swamp, all eight feet muscled frame and inhuman strength, killed it, mounted its hands over the bar in memorial, and retired. People said he did it with a Bowie knife, similarly mounted.
She sniffed as she approached the bar, and a mosquito went up her nose. Feeling the eyes of the man trailing behind her, and two ahead staring her down, Isabelle sniffed harder and hocked up phlegm, concurrently spitting to the ground. Disgust forced the same action a second time.
Hunter’s Bar stood on a small hillock, barely five feet above the surrounding desolation. Without dikes or the corps of engineers to maintain them, the ocean rose and fell year after year, carving out new lanes each season for the Mississippi floodwaters to run to the sea. As bad as Baton Rouge became, the ruination of New Orleans reigned over it. Now predominantly underwater, its old buildings stuck out of the brackish morass like rotting mushrooms and bony fingers. That graveyard of the old kept spitting out devils into the world of the living.
Trickling water ran under a three-plank bridge across to the rise to welcome guests to the bar that rose from the swamp like a beacon of defiant hope.
A handful of abandoned buildings in sight, that had been flooded, broken, boarded up and then repurposed, as homes for the wayward, homeless, drunks and bastards of the world, eyed the structure on the hill with envy. Isabelle knew those kinds of places, where women did well to hide their gender, sleep lightly and plan routes of retreat.
Hunter constructed his home with neat lines of hand-sawn lumber from local overgrown trees and painted them with light brown waterproofing lacquer to give them a shine even in the night under the perpetual damp glow of the moon. In the daylight, it veritably glowed. No hint of recycled remains from the wasted world showed in the dancing lights that filtered out of new glass panes.
Smoke and haze greeted Isabelle when she pushed open the door. Smells of tobacco and weed mingled together and threatened to choke her worse than the mosquito in the lung. She stood with her eyes below the shoulders of the doorman, who looked her up and down once, but didn’t stop her.
Try and figure it out you fucking pervert.
The layers of clothing, the scarf about her neck and the goggles on her face, as well as the wide brim hat served not just as sun and insect protection. All of them added to her bulk, filling out her hundred-ten-pound frame. With each step toward the long polished wooden bar, a single tree trunk felled with the building built around it, she felt the secret metal against her skin boost her confidence.
“You wander up in the wrong place, boy?” asked one of the men at the bar.
“Maybe you need to order some milk. I bet old Mamma over there will give you a free ride and let you suckle if you ask real nice like,” said another.
A woman sitting a table away cuddled against a burly, hairy man-ape with a pool cue in hand. Through dim lighting of flickering candles and filtered sun through smoke-glass windows it wasn’t easy to guess at age, but sometimes it didn’t matter. Her halter top covered her nipples, but barely. A short skirt rode high enough to show stained pink underwear. Disgust welled up inside Isabelle, and she tasted bile. The whore might as well just go belly up and surrender to the world.
“I’m here for the contract,” she answered.
A round of laughter from the early morning bar patrons rose and fell quickly.
“Go home, kid,” said the bartender.
She looked him over. Hunter. He stood out from his patrons like a polished ruby in a pile of sand and stone. His neatly combed hair, more pepper than salt, flopped down toward his clean-shaven face. His hands, spotlessly clean, moved constantly wiping and polishing. He openly wore a large knife on his hip which matched the one on the wall over his head.
Her eyes went from the Bowie on the wall to the mounted hands. Each finger as large around as any two or three of hers, they waited in a menacing grip for a target they would never choke the life from. She squinted and took the goggles off her head, revealing her sharp blue eyes.
“Big one.”
“He was. But I had to do what I had to do. So do you, so go home,” he said again. “This ain’t a place for prepubescent boys trying to be men.”
“Men? Who won’t take care of one ghoul?”
Muttering circled through the half dozen around the bar.
“Maybe he thinks he’s some kind of mancer,” one said. A round of nods joined him. “That it boy? You a mancer thinking you can live a life among normies by hunting your own kind?”
“Real hunters are men, who protect from magic breeds.”
“You a magic bred mancer, thinking you’re just like us?
“You still squeak like boy. Come back when you sound like a man,” taunted the first man again.
One of the largest men drew closer, and Isabelle unwittingly sighed at him. He placed his hand on her shoulder, squeezing too tightly against her skin thought the layers of cloth. He used those dirty, hard fingers to try and steer her away from the bar, and her business. Her opposite arm shot out, her small tightly balled fist punching him directly in the eye, her pointer finger’s knuckle leading the way.
Not expecting any retaliation from a child, he barely ducked in time to deflect the blow off the bone of his eye socket and still caught the glancing impact directly in its orbit. He released her immediately and grabbed his face with both hands.
“You fucking runt!”
“That weren’t wise, kid,” laughed another.
Metal on worn leather sounded as two of his friends drew knives.
“Enough,” Hunter said with force but without raising his voice. The command flowed over them, not with magic, but with authority born of respect. “Fine kid, you want to die making a name for yourself, I won’t stop you. I don’t care if you’re a mancer, or an Abbie. In this case the ghoul needs killing. You say they won’t take care of it? Well, three tried, none came back. If you want to die being eaten alive by the undead, be my guest.”
“There are no undead,” she said with confidence, rasping out the same grumbled half whisper she used to hide her female voice.
She meant every word. Bravado for bravado’s sake killed foolish hunters. The fallen world had spit up a lot of things to gut mankind, but the undead wasn’t one of them. Not yet.
“One hundred Southern Dollars on the bounty,” she said, pointing at the poster behind Hunter. The same poster hung five miles south where she had first seen it, and pulled it off the tree trunk. “I’ll take ninety-five later and a breakfast before I head out.”
“We don’t pay up front,” Hunter said. “No matter how spirited you might be.”
“I don’t carry Southern State money, and I don’t hunt on an empty stomach.” Her knotted belly chose that moment to grumble and she took another step toward the bar to cover the sound in footfalls and creaking boards. She put the man still holding his swelling eye just off to her back left, like an afterthought who meant nothing. She stared hard with her blue eyes into Hunter’s brown ones and pointed at the contract on the board behind him. “We have a deal, or not?”
Hunter stared at her, into her, up and down once and nodded. His eyes flashed something new. He figured her out. He knew her lie, her secret. He understood, and he respected it. More importantly to her, he protected it.
“We have hash and bread,” he answered turning his back to them, and prepared a plate.
Stories spoke about heroic actions of hunters who dashed in and out of danger despite the odds. Those men you heard one, maybe two tales. Dustin Langley, spoken of in hushed tones by all the hunters of Abnormals and beasts, always planned, always trapped, and always had a second idea. More importantly, a dozen stories followed in his wake. She didn’t want to be one story. Isabelle knew you emulate the ones who lived the longest, but she didn’t have much in the way of back up plans, and she didn’t have anything in the way of resources, outside of her nine-millimeter surprise and a single clip of ammunition.
Patience and observation served as fine substitutes.
“No wonder they died,” she whispered to herself.
The crook of the tree which cradled her body fifteen feet off the sodden earth afforded her an excellent view of an old learning center’s grounds. Settled up on a hill now surrounded almost entirely by a thin green duckweed swamp of cat tails and snakes, the words “Knock, Knock,” remained visible in vibrant human-sized silver letters screwed into a faded green brick backdrop of the building’s front. Glass had been shattered on several of the veneers from floor to ceiling, in some cases she guessed, quite deliberately, by the new inhabitants.
Two lounged in the old, wet, rotting ropes of an indoor children’s climbing castle. A third she watched amble about in the back of the building passing in and out of sight, one time carrying a forearm.
“Fucking cannibals, not ghouls you assholes. Certainly not just one of them.”
Certainly, something wrong, and inhuman about them now. She surmised intelligence had faded by the repetitious way they moved, the languid absence of planning in their motions. More than animals, less than human now. A new kind of Abnormal birthed into existence by the collective fears and beliefs about the subhuman nature of cannibalistic killers. She wondered if they had even felt the transformation coming on.
Patterns emerged. Fact followed belief in the new world, and once one had done it, others could follow more easily. The first bastard to control fire was just an aberration, now they were pyromancers. The first person to read a mind was a freak, now they were just iconomancers. What the hell had happened to this crew to turn them strange she couldn’t guess. Cannibalism itself wasn’t news in the post-Fall world. Everyone did things they needed to do to survive.
There was no warning as the sky, perpetually gray all through the day, opened up, and rain like sheets drove against the building and Isabell’s’ thin frame in a rapidly rising storm-front. Her boots, already soaked from her trudge through the swamp, grew colder.
There was no redeeming feature about the damn wetlands. Barely tolerable before the dikes and levees had surrendered to the sea, and now with the Mississippi charting new courses yearly, it grew worse. When she left, she would be sure to find nothing to recommend it.
Except perhaps the cover of the rain, she considered, but she needed to be quick. Storms like this blew themselves out ere long.
She swung down, her hands on a branch, her feet dangling, and jumped the last ten feet, tucking her knees to absorb the impact before taking off at a run through the marshlands. A meandering path wound its way up to the front of the building in cracked and heaving concrete. That way was a scuicide walk. Laws of the old world required every public space to have a back door, and that was how she intended to get in.
The basement maintenance entrance sat lower than the rest of the building, flush to ground level on the sloping hills around the site, and wasn’t hard to find, even in the greyed-out sheets of rain.
The door stood ajar, propped by a pile of rocks, leaving the lowest level gapping open, exposed to the elements, and flooded. She posted up behind it, waiting for just a moment. Dustin wouldn’t rush in. She wouldn’t rush in. Keen observation and slow ingress to the building saved her life. A fourth target, waded about in the basement. Ripples in waist high green muck lapped out of the door, to be met by splattering rain drops and wind-driven waves. A splash gave away the cannibal man’s proximity, no more than a few feet from the doorframe. Despite the cacophony of the storm and clap of thunder she held her breath.
A rapid peak around the corner of the rusting old metal door revealed slick skin, wet with water and coated in a layer of algae which showed vibrant growth in the corners and recesses.
No normal human could survive being constantly wet. Definitely Abnormals. She tucked herself back around the corner outside, and noted the storm was subsiding. She had minutes before the torrent died back to a muted drizzle. They were just cannibals. Clinch the moment of victory, or find herself some farmer grunt to rut with and bear children. The shear repulsion of the idea set a fire in her veins.
Patience and observation. She let the storm die, subside, and only then began to gently splash in the water just outside the door sending her own ripples focused into the building.
“Mmm…” a grunt carried on the hot moist air out the door.
The slosh of a wading torso drew closer and her grip tightened around the leather-wrapped handle of her knife. The tip of a nose peaked out of the door and she stabbed twice in rapid succession, deliberately working to puncture both lungs. Tales said that people couldn’t scream with a punctured pleural sack. Unlike the heroic stories where heroes triumphantly moved on to their next task effortlessly, she stopped, and stared at the man-creature that stared back at her, dumbfounded. It leaned forward, and trickles of red trailed down the bare, hollow-chested torso. It drew open its mouth and tried to draw in a breath.
A terrible sucking wet noise filled the air and shocked Isabelle back into motion. Jamming her left arm into the open mouth, shoving deeply into the throat, she thrust the knife in her other hand again and again with wild, unskilled abandon. She jumped up to wrap her legs around the target, and missed. Outstanding pressure on her forearm, as the man bit down, kept her from falling over completely and she thanked lady luck that two layers of clothing demonstrated themselves sufficient to stop human teeth from puncturing her skin. The leverage as she fell yanked his head lower and allowed her to land on her feet as she struck at its head, arms, chest, and belly – whatever she could reach.
Panic drove her on and she rode her first kill into the water, stabbing down though two feet of liquid, splashing like a child in a pool until her conscious brain realized he’d stopped fighting back.
She stood stock still with her gun suddenly in her hand, pointed at the stairwell to the main floor, and waited for the inevitable attack to come. Her heart pounded, drowning out all other sounds. She didn’t remember drawing the weapon. She didn’t remember loading it. A glance at the butt of the gun showed her the clip locked securely in place.
No attack came.
She let out the breath she didn’t know she held, moved slowly to the stairwell, and waited there as her nerves calmed, and her clothing dripped.
Nothing about the first kill felt right. No elation filled her, no success or pride. Only fear, anxiety and a small spark of determination burned quietly. She fanned the last sensation, pushed aside the rest, and silently ascended into the building proper.
A single expanse of the building spread out in juxtaposed glory of space against its faded surfaces. Old flooring squelched underfoot, covered in the same glossy algae that grew on the skin of the cannibals, while fences painted in every color of the rainbow separated old children’s play areas. Fake trees grew from the floor, covered in real green growth of moss, and the bright butterfly mobiles spun on the wind of the passing storm.
I won’t make the same mistake twice.
Knife in her off hand, gun in the main, she waited. She’d watched the path the other had walked from the tree perch, and she would see him soon. If he hadn’t heard her commotion of course. What if they had? Could she stand her ground against three of them? What if there were more?
She did have time to consider it anymore, because the cannibal passed by in a hypnotic state, eyes glazed over, pupils too large, as he gnawed absently on arm bones. What had happened to make them so simple minded? Drips of water landed on his bald pate, and he didn’t even react.
She followed him deeper into the building and hugged the wall, her peripheral vision always aware of the two lounging in the ropes strung like giant spider’s webs across anchor points inside the building. Waiting, she crouched behind a once bright blue foam and plastic hut and anticipated his return. Drive the blade deeper this time, not faster, she reminded herself; into the heart, one blow and then to the floor.
Squish, squelch, squish, squelch, the pattern came closer from around the blind corner. A limp. This one’s gait was uneven, easy to listen for and anticipate.
He passed, and she struck with force and an involuntary grunt. The knife buried itself to the hilt in its back though spine, heart and lung, but a single cry pierced the building. Releasing the hilt of the blade she spun around and stepped out from behind the child’s play building to face the rope and plastic climbing structure. Isabelle picked her targets cleanly. Two bullets, like her father’s books had always said. Center body had too many survivable wounds to count on one single slug to do the job.
A gangly green figure went limp like a man-sized Kermit dangling on puppet strings, but the second target moved with terrifying alacrity across the ropes. Three shots missed, tearing through glass and embedding into the wall before the cannibal disappeared from sight overhead.
Footsteps, running away from her, followed the thud of his landing. She tucked back into cover, her mind racing.
She wasn’t secret anymore, but would it hunt her in its own home or just run? Were there others she hadn’t seen? She strained her ears but heard nothing. The contract was for one, she could already claim the prize, but if they re-established a nest, she would lose face and reputation, and it was too early for that. No. Need drove her and she bolted for the stairs in the corner of the building; the direction it had moved.
She misjudged the cannibal’s intent. Wet, slippery layers of clothing mitigated the impact only slightly, as its feet slammed into her shoulders from the landing above.
Something popped in her shoulder and an arm wrapped around her throat as a head bent close, hissing and biting at her face. She instinctually grabbed the arm, like a fool, dropping her gun as she plummeted to one knee. Her only functional arm held her windpipe open and panic, exertion and attacker threatened together to drive her rapidly unconscious, from which she certainly wouldn’t wake.
Flexing with every muscle in her small frame she jumped, backwards, slamming the man-creature into the wall of the stairwell as hard as she could, loosening its grip just enough to slide her minimally responsive arm into the gap. She collapsed to the ground, deliberately landing her good hand near the gun as he landed atop her, yelling and tugging. There was no aim or intent, and she pointed over her head holding the gun as far from her ear as she could as she fired again and again.
The arm released her throat as she heard the weapon click, its magazine empty.
Her gasping for air fell on eardrums which hummed from the gun’s discharge. She lay face down on the rotted carpet of the stairs, once brightly colored but now faded to piss yellow and dull blue. Isabelle vomited. Snot and mucus filled her nose. She spit out the thick, sticky secretions and wiped her face with the sleeve of her good arm. The pain spread down from the shoulder and she forced herself to shrug slowly and rotate her limb to determine the extent of the damage. Was she hurt or was she injured?
She was surprised to discover she still had the full range of motion, even though moving was incredibly painful.
Trepidation filled her as she rolled to her side and looked behind her at the mess along the wall. She had clipped its head no less than four times, and once in the chest. She wasn’t sure which one killed it. Him?
Staring at her handiwork, she contemplated the grey-pink of the brain matter, the empty vacant stare of the one remaining blue eye that seemed so intent on the fake tips of the trees. Bared teeth that looked just like her own nestled in a cannibal’s head, sunken into pink swollen gums.
She spit on him.
A thick singular blob landed on his chest. She wasn’t entirely sure why she did it. She listened for more of them, knowing she was out of tricks except for the small knife concealed on her injured forearm. Croaks of toads and chirps of crickets filled the air. Wind rustled leaves and moved wet grasses, but in the building silence ruled. Nothing more came to harm her.
“Fuckers.”
She couldn’t feel meaning in the epithet. It just seemed the right thing to say.
Nothing unfolded correctly. Her gun sat empty, her shoulder throbbed, her calm evaporated, and her stomach in knots, she vomited again, more forcefully, bringing up the meal she had nearly died to earn.
“Didn’t expect you back so soon,” Hunter said to her in a room now filled with dozens of brusque rough looking men.
“Or at all,” ventured another man near the bar.
“How did your hunt go kid…”
She placed a decapitated head onto the bar wrapped in the tied-together scraps of jungle gym ropes, and men around her retreated, knocking over glasses and two chairs. A string of trophies from her other bounties laced through the open mouth on string like a tongue made of cannibal ears.
“For four I think the payment should be at least double. Don’t you?”
Hunter nodded.
“How did you kill four of them?”
“Are there more?”
“Du-fuck, is it?”
A half dozen questions in various guises attacked her from every angle. Hunter, still cleaning glasses behind the bar, stayed calm and looked at the head, then back to Isabelle.
“What do we call you, kid?”
“Call me … Khan.”