'Nope,' Julie laughed. She had a beautiful sounding laugh. 'That check is totally legit. The bounties change depending on the severity of the monster populations, and the number of human casualties. In this case lycanthrope attacks are at an all-time high, and this particular specimen had already taken a few victims the night before. Now if he had been older, or had eaten more people, then you would be looking at a bigger bounty.'
'So you're telling me that the government gives people money for killing werewolves?' I was prepared to take her word for it, but I was definitely going to limp down to the bank and try to deposit this thing as soon as they left.
'Yes, and other types of unnaturals.'
'Others? So what else is out there?'
She shrugged. 'Lots of things, but I don't want to get too far off of the subject. If you don't agree to our offer then anything I tell you can never be shared with the general public, or the government will arrange for you to have a chainsaw accident or something equally bad, and I'm not kidding about that one bit. They have a strict policy of keeping all of this secret. So before I tell you what else is out there, let me ask you if-'
I cut her off. 'Zombies? Are there really zombies?'
'Owen, please, I need to…'
'Yes, there are zombies. A whole bunch of different kinds. Slow ones, fast ones. Nasty bastards,' Harbinger said.
'Vampires?'
'Oh yeah. And let me tell you, they ain't the nice charming debonair kind of thing you see on TV, those suckers are meaner than hell. Trust me on this one; pop culture makes them all intellectual and sexy, there ain't nothing sexy about getting your carotid artery ripped out. There're actually a mess of different kinds of undead.'
Julie sighed as she gave up on her pitch. I was going to find out what exactly was real, and Harbinger was more than willing to talk. He seemed to be enjoying himself, and also getting a kick out of Julie's discomfort.
'Bigfoot, the Yeti?'
'Yep, but no bounties because they ain't really a problem.'
'Chupacabras?'
'Goat suckers. They'll tear you up.'
'Giant mutant animals?'
'Sure, but the Japanese have cornered that market.'
'Sea monsters?'
'Yes, but only bounties on the evil kind.'
'Wow, no kidding? Space aliens?'
'No intelligent little green men, if that's what you're thinking of. If those are out there we haven't ever dealt with them.'
'Ghosts?'
'We have a strict policy: we only hunt things that have physical bodies. No physical body, no contract, and no way to collect a bounty either. We stick with things that are flesh and blood, or at least bone, exoskeleton, or slime.'
We continued on like that for a few minutes, with me thinking of every creature from every horror movie I had ever seen, and Harbinger letting me know if it was real or not. Every answer he gave was in total seriousness. If he was making any of this crazy monster stuff up, I sure would hate to play a game of poker against him.
Finally after asking about the creature from the black lagoon and finding out that that was actually based on a true story, Julie had had enough and jumped in. She elbowed Harbinger in the ribs. 'Sorry guys, back to business. Owen, we're looking for new Hunters. Because of the nature of what we do, we can't exactly advertise. Usually we meet people through our business who have monster experience, and who have handled themselves well.'
'I did okay, I guess.'
Julie laughed again. Harbinger smirked. She pulled a DVD case out of her purse. 'Do you mind?' I shook my head and she stood up and put the disk in the player and turned on my TV. 'I don't think you've seen this. As far as your former company is concerned, and as far as the Dallas PD knows, this doesn't exist.'
'Put it on channel three. There you go.'
It was a black and white security video of the fourteenth floor of my former office building. The screen was split into four squares, each with a different view. It was surprising where some of the cameras were pointing, as I had never been aware of any cameras in those locations. There was even one that had a good view of Huffman's office.
'They have hidden cameras all over the place. I guess you folks have a big problem with employee theft,' Harbinger stated. I knew I should never have taken those Post-It notes home.
The video started. The digital readout showed the time as 8:05. I thought that I looked silly, as most people do when they watch video of themselves. There was no sound, but it unfolded pretty much exactly as I remembered it. Only this time I was surprised by how fast everything happened. The transformation that had seemed to take forever actually happened rather quickly when seen from a strange angle in clinical detachment. The entire battle had been over in a matter of minutes, yet for me time had dilated down so that each fraction of a second had been an eternity. The creature was not nearly as intimidating on the screen as he had been when his hot breath was straining at my face. The third camera winked into static as my body was put through the ceiling tiles. We combatants would disappear from the cameras for a moment, only to reappear jerkily in another frame a few seconds later. In black and white I was surprised how plain all of our blood appeared on the walls. Finally I watched as I snapped the werewolf's neck and pushed the desk out the window.
I realized I was breathing hard.
Julie quietly shut the TV off and carefully placed the DVD back in its case.
'You just did okay, huh? Looks to me like you put up an amazing fight. You could have given up a bunch of times. You would be surprised. Most people faced with something out of their nightmares will just freeze up. Their brains can't begin to process what they're seeing, and by then it's too late, and next thing you know something from the great beyond is flossing with their spine. Hunters don't freeze. Hunters fight.'
'Listen, I'm just a normal guy. I'm an accountant even. It doesn't get any more normal than that!' I exclaimed in defense of my average life.
Julie pulled a manila file folder out of her purse.
'What's that?' I asked.
'Your secret file from the Department of Homeland Security.'
'If the government didn't want it stolen, they shouldn't just leave it out where any master hacker can break in and get it,' Harbinger explained patiently.
'Owen Zastava Pitt, age 24. Born in Merced, California… Zastava?' Julie asked.
'My mom's family is mostly mixed Czech and Serb. It's an old family name. Like the place that made those little cars,' I answered.
'Little cars?' she asked.
'You know, the Yugo.'
'Oh.' She continued, 'Black belt in two martial arts. You wrestled in high school and took the state championship heavyweight division two years in a row. Homeland Security has you flagged because you're considered a militant right-wing gun nut. You became involved in competitive shooting at eight years old, and have a master rating in International Practical Shooting. You've placed in the top five in several different national level three-gun tactical competitions. You were ranked as one of the top young shooters in the country, though you've slipped over the last few years.'
'Working too many hours, hard to keep up the practice routine.' My father had been more drill instructor than dad, trying to prepare us for some kind of future apocalypse that existed in his paranoid imagination. I could hit targets at a quarter mile with a rifle before I could ride a bike. When normal kids went to summer camp and made crafts out of beads and twigs, my brother and I had gone on miniature death marches with giant rucksacks. Other children got sports, I got hand-to-hand combat training. I suppose showing up in a government database shouldn't have been too shocking.
'You tried to join the Army but were turned down due to some minor health problems. DHS also notes that you've participated in illegal pit fighting and in illegal sports gambling organizations.'
