#iHunt

Frankstein’s
Monster
(Sort Of)
(But Not Really)

by

Olivia Hill
 Killing Monsters in the Gig Economy 

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#iHunt is a series of stories and games about millennials hunting monsters in the gig economy.

It’s like Buffy meets Uber, Supernatural meets Fiverr. It’s a world of horror where eviction is

scarier than any monster.

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 CONTENTS

Chapter One: #BLINDEDWITHSCIENCE ...1

Chapter Two: #NOKIA...................................8

Chapter Three: #PLEISTOCENE.................14

Chapter Four: #ソーラン節 ..............................21

Chapter Five: #NIETZSCH...SP?..................30

Chapter Six: #AMBITION.............................37

 #iHunt Frankenstein’s Monster
(sort of)
(but not really)

By Olivia Hill

Editing By: Filamena Young

Cover Art By: Olivia Hill

Content Warning: This novel contains graphic depictions

of assault, drug abuse, blood transfusion, and murder.

If you like this story, please check out the other #iHunt
novels, #iHunt: Killing Monsters in the Gig Economy,
#iHunt A Transylvanian Prince in Southern California,
and #iHunt Mayhem in Movieland.

© 2018 Olivia Hill

You can reach the author at OliviaHillWords@Gmail.com

Released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommer-

cial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). You
can share this work, cut it up, remix it, and tinker with it however
you like so long as you attribute the author and you do not charge
money for it. You can find more about this license at http://www.
creativecommons.org.
 #BLINDEDWITHSCIENCE
CHAPTER ONE

Cocaine is a hell of a drug. If you ask a medical professional

about its effects, they’ll tell you all sorts of terrible things.
Loss of appetite. Convulsions. Lack of sleep. Paranoia. Rage.
Depression. Anxiety. If that’s what it was really like, nobody
would do it. They do it because it’s amazing. People do it
because it’s an immediate, foot-on-the-fucking-pedal trip
out of crippling self-doubt and despair. They do it because
cocaine tells you that you’re awesome when the whole rest of
the goddamned world is busy telling you that you’re shit. Sure,
you feel achy and out of it for a while after the high subsides.
But you can say the same thing about a good workout, and I
don’t hear people complaining about that.

Cocaine’s not always great but nothing ever is. Sometimes

you do stupid shit when you’re on cocaine. But I’m just gonna
go out on a limb and say that the target market for cocaine
is people that are probably used to doing stupid shit anyway.
I know I am. Besides, a lot of the bigger risks with cocaine

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 #iHunt Frankenstein’s Monster (Sort Of) (But Not Really)

come from its illegality. If you get a gram one day, and a
gram the next, even from the same dealer, they might have
completely different composition. One might be too much
for you. One might not be enough. If we’d just legalize it, we
could work toward safer standards and that’d save lives.

In my line of work, cocaine’s weird. It’s a bit different for a

few big reasons. Usually, you take it for the high. You take
it because it feels good. For me, it has a more utilitarian role.
It’s not just bonus level #selfcare. Right now, I’m taking it
because I need the confidence and I need the strength. I’m
about to get into a fight to the death, and I can’t afford to
flinch if the monster I’m fighting hits me. I can’t afford to let
my body tell me to hold back, because every punch and every
kick has to land like a fucking freight train or I’m dead. And
if I’m gonna be honest with myself, there’s a good chance this
fight will kill me. If I’m gonna die, I don’t want to die crying
on the ground in pain. I want to die euphoric. I want to die
ripping off some asshole’s face. I want to die historic. I want to
die legendary. Cocaine’s good for dying legendary.

The other, subtler difference is that monster hunters live

different lives than your average cocaine user. There’s a thing
cocaine users do while high. Maybe not all of them, but most
of them. They like to pretend they know dead people. Not like
in the Haley Joel Osment “I see dead people” sort of way. But
more in the, “if you see a news report about a girl who died in
a car crash, you tell your friends about how you went to school

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 #BLINDEDWITHSCIENCE

with her and how you were totally BFFs.” You make up
stories to fill the gaps. At least in the immediate, you believe
the stories. You do it because you want to connect with people.
Your entire system’s cranked up to eleven. You want to feel,
because every feeling’s just so fucking big. You want an excuse
to cry, because on cocaine, crying’s kind of great. So, hang
around cocaine users long enough, and they will tell you about
dead people.

Monster hunters know dead people. We all do. Even

rookies. Veterans know more dead people than some folks
know living people. Our whole thing is saving the world from
monsters. But monsters are scary. Monsters are badass. And,
most of the time, monsters are people—people you have to kill.
You know you’ve got to kill them, but they’ve got faces with
smiles and they’ve got families and they’ve got names. They’re
just as dead once you’ve killed them. Hell, some are worse,
because of just how much harm you have to cause to actually
end them. A human gets shot in the head—it’s over. A vampire,
you can feed kicking and screaming through a woodchipper
and  they don’t stop moving until the last possible second. Also,
our job isn’t safe. We kill monsters, but just as often, monsters
kill us. It’s not like we get a lot of chances to fail and learn
from our mistakes. So every hunter knows dead monsters,
dead victims, dead collateral damage, and dead hunters. This
gives us a whole different relationship with the dead, and with
cocaine.

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 #iHunt Frankenstein’s Monster (Sort Of) (But Not Really)

I cut up a gram. When I was younger, 600 milligrams would

do me fine. Over time, your body just doesn’t respond to those
kinds of doses. I snort it from my kitchenette bar. It goes
down easy. With some drugs, snorting hurts like a sonofabitch.
Cocaine maybe stings a little, but everything goes numb pretty
much instantly so it doesn’t matter. It’s also quick. With some
drugs, you never really know how it’s going to work, or even
if it’s going to work. Sometimes you have to wait an hour
or so to know what your night’s gonna look like. Cocaine’s
consistent. I like consistent. I like knowing the terms when I’m
going out to pick a fight.

I get in the car. Everything’s a little bigger, a little bolder.

The lights are brighter. The darks are darker. Everything
stands in stark contrast, which makes nighttime driving just
a little easier. Every headlight’s got a halo. I see the little bugs
flying under every streetlight. I’m aware of every stupid little
detail and then some. With some drugs, you see shit that isn’t
there. With cocaine, you see too much of the shit that’s actually
there.

Tonight’s fight to the death is with a Frankenstein. Before

you pedants get in my shit, yes, it’s more like a Frankenstein’s
monster. The Shelley monster wasn’t named Frankenstein—
that was the doctor. But this one was made by a woman
named Rebecca Evans. If I told you I was going to fight an
Adam, an Evans, or an Evans’s monster, you’d have had no
idea what I was talking about. If I say Frankenstein, you get it.

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 #BLINDEDWITHSCIENCE

I drive. I’m headed for the Cedar Hills overlooking San

Jenaro. Mad scientists are totally a thing, and Rebecca Evans
is one of them. They’re actually way more common than
anyone would like to admit. Only some of them make artificial
life, though. Rebecca Evans worked at a tech firm. She was
frustrated her company wasn’t becoming the next Google. She
thought she’d break the glass ceiling and make Osculate the
biggest company in the world. She thought she’d do that by
creating fake people with artificial intelligence which could
serve as a slave class. Her wife, Geena Evans, told her this was
totally fucked up and she should stop. Instead of listening, she
left her wife. That was almost a year ago.

The whole thing went terribly awry. The prototype—Eve—

broke free of the lab and killed Rebecca. It killed a few of
Rebecca’s assistants as well, then went hiding in the hills.
Geena, bless her heart, was keeping an eye on the whole thing,
and contacted me to stop the monster.

Cedar Hills is dark at night. Everyone’s either in the city

working or going to bed early because they don’t have to work
two jobs. Good for them. Geena told me she spotted the
monster in a model home. She told me she’d keep an eye out in
case the monster left. As I get a few blocks away, I drop her a
text.

Nearby. Everything OK?

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 #iHunt Frankenstein’s Monster (Sort Of) (But Not Really)

She responds immediately.

Yes. The AI is still inside. I can see

it moving. It’s watching TV.

She likes to call it “The AI.” I guess that makes sense. She
doesn’t want to use its name, because she doesn’t see it as
a person. She sees it as a monster. She sees it as the killer
death robot that got her wife to leave her, then killed the poor
woman.

I park a block away and get out of the car. As I lock up

the car, an old car passes by, playing The Eagles’s Hotel
California. Immediately I picture Carmen, a girl I used to date.
She shouldn’t have died. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right.

I feel tears coming to my eyes. They’re hot against my cheeks.

It’s California cold out. Not cold by any reasonable person’s
standards. But nobody in California’s reasonable.

Fuck.

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#BLINDEDWITHSCIENCE

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 #iHunt Frankenstein’s Monster (Sort Of) (But Not Really)

#NOKIA
CHAPTER TWO

When you get these feelings, you have to ride them out. You
have to work through them. I take a deep breath, then another,
then another. I walk carefully toward the model home. It’s big
by my standards. Then again, a one-bedroom apartment’s big
by my standards. I grew up in a mobile home, and one of the
bedrooms was closed off because it was so full of junk.

I think back to Carmen. I have to shake this off before I

confront the monster.

No distractions, Lana.

I was taking classes at Schuster Park Community College. I

majored in Psychology—I wanted to be a therapist. I figured
I’d break my family’s record and be the first to graduate from
college. Because my mom was paranoid about the Feds and
my dad was nowhere to be found, I couldn’t get financial aid. I
was already hunting monsters at that point, and it was enough

8
 #NOKIA

to keep me fed and pay tuition.

This was way before the iHunt app. Hell, this was before
smartphones. I had a little Nokia 3310. I couldn’t take
contracts to murder monsters on my phone. I couldn’t find the
nearest Tacos Tomas on my phone. But I could play Snake.
Better times. I wonder if I can play Snake on my iPhone?

Carmen was in my theater class. I took it because it was

the only elective I could get scheduled. She wanted to be an
actress. Then again, so does every pretty girl in San Jenaro.
She got a couple of small parts on TV. The white girl’s
Chicana friend. The white girl’s Chola enemy. The tough
but wise Chola the white girl meets in rehab. The Chicana
prostitute whose white friend was murdered by a serial rapist
the Special Crimes Division is investigating. She was really
good—I helped her film her demo reel.

I fell hard for her. I loved her. It was different with her.
Nobody had to be in charge of the situation. It was always
tender and mushy, the way I pretend I hate until someone
actually gets that way with me then I go all teenage crush.

I never told her about the monsters, or what I did. I

probably should have. When you hunt, there’s basically three
ways you can handle relationships:

A lot of hunters just write off relationships entirely. This

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 #iHunt Frankenstein’s Monster (Sort Of) (But Not Really)

first type might have one-night stands, or flings in different

cities if they travel, but they never get serious. I used to hate
those types. It felt like macho “love ’em and leave ’em” bullshit.
Around the time I lost my third boyfriend or girlfriend to
monsters, I stopped judging them.

The second type of hunter only hooks up with people who

are already in the know. This is probably the easiest path
to take from a relationship standpoint, but very few people
actually know, so your dating pool falls just south of “I only
date people with birthmarks in the shape of major nations
of the world” level. Usually this means dating other hunters.
Dating other hunters sucks. It’s like dating coworkers—there’s
a bunch of shitty power dynamics involved. Not just any
coworkers, either, but coworkers in a job where you earn
commission. You can either fight over contract scraps, or
you can work together. Working together is begging for
heartbreak—monster hunting isn’t exactly a low-mortality gig.

The third type of hunter lets their partners in on the secrets.

“Hi honey, vampires are real.” This is probably the smartest
way to approach romantic life as a monster hunter, but it’s also
the most gut-wrenching and awful. The idea is, people deserve
to know the things that’ll put them in danger, and they deserve
to consent to the reality of the relationship. Would you tell
your partner that you’re an undercover cop before getting in
too deep? Don’t they deserve to know that you’re in a high-risk
field? Well, with monster hunting, it’s maybe a little more like

10
 #NOKIA

coming out of the closet. It’s almost never clean. Sometimes

they call you crazy. Sometimes they try to make it about them,
like they did something wrong and you’re acting out to hurt
them. Sometimes they just reject you outright, even if they
believe you, they think you’re some awful piece of shit that’s
not worth their time. Sometimes, they act like they’re all cool
about it, but then they spend from here to eternity trying to
“save you,” to rescue you from your awful life choices. They also
do this thing where once they’re aware, they suspect everyone.
“Oh my god Lana. Is that guy a vampire? He’s totally a
vampire.” Just like when I came out as bi. “Oh my god Lana.
Is that girl a lesbian? She’s totally a lesbian.” Sometimes, just
sometimes, I’m told that people will just be chill with it and
move on. I’ve never seen it.

So far, I’ve been the fourth type. I’ve been an asshole, trying
to hide the truth from the people I care about. It’s never gone
well. Case in point, Carmen.

I creep across the lawn, up to the house. The monster, Eve,

is sitting on a faux leather sofa, watching The Big Bang
Theory. Any chance for mercy just went out the window. Also,
she’s covered in blood. Not like “she cut her hand and it bled
all over,” but like, “she thinks that she won’t get older if she
bathes in the blood of the innocent.” She’s wearing clothes, but
they’re so bloodsoaked I couldn’t guess what color they were
supposed to be.

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 #iHunt Frankenstein’s Monster (Sort Of) (But Not Really)

When I was with Carmen, I got this gig in Los Hoyos.

Los Hoyos is a tar pit right dead fucking center of San
Jenaro. They’ve got it fenced off, and there’s museums and
shit, full of dinosaur bones. There’s a cute little gift shop full
of gyroscopes and astronaut candy for… some reason. A few
people went missing. One of the museum curators said there’d
been sightings of a lizard person stalking the area where some
of the visitors went missing.

Everything about that said it was an easy job. Lizard people

aren’t uncommon at all. They’re even more common than Alex
Jones says, except they’re not politicians or Zionists or actors—
they’re just bipedal lizard things that eat humans. They’re
animalistic, and they go down quick and easy if you know
what you’re doing.

I had plans with Carmen. We were going to hit the liquor

store, grab something pink and fizzy, and watch Raul Julia’s
entire career starting with Overdrawn at the Memory Bank
because his earlier stuff’s hard to find. We didn’t expect to
get half-way through that one anyway, since we were in that
really hands-on, fiery stage of the relationship. While we were
driving, I got a call from the curator. He told me the monster
was spotted, and the park was closed. So I took Carmen there,
we drove in as far as we could, and I told her to wait in the car.
She asked what I was doing. I told her “a work thing.” She

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 #NOKIA

pushed for more information. I told her I’d explain later—I

planned to, and drunk with Raul Julia was as good a time as
any.

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 #iHunt Frankenstein’s Monster (Sort Of) (But Not Really)

#PLEISTOCENE
CHAPTER THREE

Carmen was in the car, parked inside the main gates to

the Los Hoyos Tar Pits. I had my machete firm in hand,
and I marched through the park, navigating through the
walkways between massive pools of pitch. We had to go
here in elementary school. Most kids took the permission
slip home and got it signed, and their parents gave them the
$20 spending money the teachers requested. You know, so
the kids could buy overpriced “educational” gifts for family
members. My parents were never there to sign anything, and
acted like it was some huge bother if I asked. So I always
had to wait until the last possible day, and I just forged their
signature. My teachers knew, but they felt bad for me so they
didn’t say anything. A couple of times my teachers slipped me
a $10 bill because they didn’t want me to be the only kid in the
gift shop not getting anything.

This place trapped dinosaurs and mammoths and all sorts

of weird shit over tens of thousands of years. If you fall in those

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 #PLEISTOCENE

pools, you’re as good as dead. Maybe in thirty thousand years,

some other culture will dredge out your bones and put them
on display for snot-nosed little kids.

I kept hearing little hints of movement. I couldn’t tell if they

were random wildlife or our man-eating lizard person. I must
have looked like a doofus, poking around in the bushes with a
machete. This was before the time of reliable cell towers, so I
couldn’t message Carmen and apologize for being more than
the fifteen minutes I promised.

Then I heard her scream. “Lana!” She yelled, clearly not

from inside the car like I told her.

“I’ll be right there! Get in the car!” I shouted back, and

realized I was damned near on the other side of the park. I
started a jog back through the park toward the car.

“No! Call for help! This thing…” She snapped back. “No!”

I broke into a full sprint, jumping over shrubs and hopping

over tar pits to shortcut. I tore up my ankles on the brush,
and lost a shoe in a mud puddle or tar puddle or I can’t even
remember.

I saw the monster before I saw Carmen. It wasn’t attacking.

It was just standing there in the shadows—I could barely
make it out. Human-sized, with human-like arms and a big

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 #iHunt Frankenstein’s Monster (Sort Of) (But Not Really)

kind of human head. Is there a word for that? Humanoid

maybe? I think that’s humanoid.

“I’ll be right there Carmen! Just stay calm! You’re gonna be

okay!” I shouted, even though my lungs wanted to explode
from the running.

She didn’t respond.

The monster turned toward me. I wouldn’t have made it if

I hadn’t smacked my face into a tree branch just then. While I
was stunned, I looked away from its face and to the top of its
head. The head writhed with tentacles. Not tentacles—snakes.

Lamia. Not a fucking lizard person. A goddamned Medusa.

I rolled to the side and hid behind a bush. It slithered

toward me; its entire bottom half was a giant serpent tail
holding the rest of the body upright. The tail whipped around
as it dashed in my direction.

Lamia don’t eat victims. They don’t even kill people, at least,
they don’t properly kill people. If you catch a Lamia’s gaze, you
turn to stone, just like in the old Greek stories and shitty 80s
movies.

Also just like in the Greek stories, you can use a reflection, a
mirror, to fight. If you’ve ever tried to write backwards, you

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 #PLEISTOCENE

have an idea how hard it is to fight with a mirror.

I held up my machete. I was so fucking glad I sharpened it

and polished it before this job. The shiny surface was good
enough to see the Lamia charging for me. As it got near the
bush, I jumped out and swung wide, taking off one of its arms.
It hissed. Its eyes went bright red—it was trying to catch my
gaze, and I wasn’t having it. I rolled along the grass away from
her, then wiped off my machete. The thing’s blood was already
decaying my machete—I only had a few seconds to end it. So I
took a defensive stance, watching her out of the reflection. She
dove for me, and I took an upward swing that tore her head
clean off.

The head rolled along the ground, so I closed my eyes. They

don’t stay deadly forever, but they’ve got a good thirty seconds
after they die where if you look at the face, you’re still just as
fucked.

Once I heard the snakes stop hissing, I went to collect the

head so I could guarantee the bounty. Then I remembered
Carmen. I ran, snake-haired decapitated head in hand, back
to my car. Carmen was leaning against it, but Carmen wasn’t
Carmen. Carmen was solid gray stone. Like an old weathered
statue.

I dropped the head and ran over to her. I already knew it

was too late. There’s no turning a person back from a Lamia’s

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 #iHunt Frankenstein’s Monster (Sort Of) (But Not Really)

gaze. But I tried. Well, I shook her. I cried. I screamed. I

begged for everything to be better.

In a fit, I tried to shove her into my car. That wasn’t

happening. My car was too small to even fit her, and these
kinds of statue remains weigh about five hundred pounds.
Besides, what was I going to do with a statue of Carmen?

In the midst of everything, in trying to finagle her into my

car, she fell to the ground and broke right in half. Even if there
was some kind of unknown magical serum to bring her back,
breaking in half meant that wasn’t even a possibility.

I cried it out. I bawled. I told the sky, I told nobody in

particular that it wasn’t fair. Of course it wasn’t fair—this shit’s
never fair. Then, when I came back to my senses, I took a
mallet from my trunk, broke her apart, and tossed her in the tar
pits. Maybe elementary school kids would find her in 30,000
years. Maybe they’d think she was a goddess. The patron saint
of San Jenaro. San Carmen.

I held her head for a while. I considered taking it home.

Then I realized it’d just remind me of this. Of what happened.
Of how she would be alive if I hadn’t made such a stupid
rookie mistake.

I tossed the head right in the middle of the deepest tar pit.
It floated a little too long, like she was begging me to jump in

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 #PLEISTOCENE

after her. To save her.

I cut up the Lamia and got rid of her as well. Then I met the
curator, gave him the snake-covered head, and took my bounty.
Then I locked myself in my apartment for ten days and I don’t
even know how I survived, if I ate, if I slept, or even how much
of that story was real.

See? I’m on cocaine, and I’m talking about dead people and
I’m not even sure how much of the story is real.

I wipe the tears from my eyes. I snort in a bunch of snot.

Then, I peek in the window. I scan the living room where
the monster, Eve, sits and watches shitty sitcoms, covered in
blood. I scan the room, taking everything in. This won’t be an
easy fight—Geena said the thing’s basically a tank. So knowing
the environment’s essential.

Where I’m looking in, this huge front window along the
frontside, the south end of the property, there’s three exercise
machines lining the wall. There’s an exercise bike in the
southeast corner. There’s a weight set right in front of me.
There’s a treadmill along the southeast corner, near the main
entrance to the foyer. Eve’s dead center, in a faux leather sofa
pointed north. There’s a matching loveseat on either side,
angled inward. They’re all facing toward this huge TV along

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the north wall. In the northwest corner, there’s a huge wooden

thing. Maybe a record player? There’s also a door open to the
kitchen along the northeast. The east wall has the door to the
foyer, a door to the master bedroom, and a fireplace with two
large vases to the sides.

I play over strategies in my head. Eight plans come to mind.

I settle on one. I’m ready to go.

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 #ソーラン節

#ソーラン節
CHAPTER FOUR

I make my way around to the southeast end of the house, to

the main entrance. I stand there for a moment, crossing my
arms, holding myself.

Should I even be here? I can walk away.

Despite her revolutionary artificial intelligence, Eve didn’t

bother to lock the front door. Convenient. I think back to
Geena’s commentary. She said Rebecca housed the AI and
all the important computing stuff in Eve’s head. To me, that
sounds stupid. Why make your godless monster weak in the
same place the humans it’s emulating are? But hey, I’m not
complaining. I take the pickaxe off my backpack sling and
slowly, quietly push open the door with the handle.

She’s watching a group of nerdy men make jokes about

sexually assaulting fashion models, with a laugh track backing
it. She’s not laughing. She’s licking her fingers clean of blood.

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I briefly wonder if she’s killing people based on sitcom plots.

While I’m curious, it’s probably wrong to let the monster
continue murdering just because I think it might be funny.

Monster hunters don’t really do “fights.” We do

assassinations. We do assaults. We do struggles to stay alive.
We do cheap shots. We do beginner’s luck. A lot of times,
we just die. Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo, this ain’t. Fights
are usually won by the person most willing to do something
ridiculous and brutal. Since most monsters have no problem
with jumping straight to over-the-top murder, hunters have to
beat them to the punch.

That’s why I brought my pickaxe.

I swing it in a high arc over my head. Yay for those high

Cedar Hills ceilings. I figure the shadows will give me away,
and I’m right. But Eve can’t respond quickly enough to
stop me. I bury the pickaxe blade deep down the middle of
her skull, all the way down into her neck. She looks like she
stepped out of one of the old urban legends about lawn darts
falling back down and impaling kids. I pierce metal on the way
through. Her head tosses out a few blue and orange sparks.

It’s not quite enough.

Impaling is one of my single favorite monster hunting tools,

even when it doesn’t instantly kill. Most everything responds

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 #ソーラン節

to impaling the same exact way—they grab the thing that’s

impaling them, and they try to jerk it out. This gives you an
opening for an immediate followup.

Eve stands, grabs the pickaxe right at the base of the handle,
and starts yanking. Her hand slips from the blood.

Everything according to plan.

I take one step back, then lower my center of gravity

and slam my shoulder into her stomach, pushing her back
toward the TV. She loses grip of the pickaxe and buckles
at the stomach. I take a deep breath in, grab her by the
shoulders, and throw her right through Sheldon Cooper’s
smug motherfucking face. I’m not touching her when she
goes through the TV, but I still feel a burn and jolt, and all my
muscles go numb for a second or two.

I see Carmen again.

Not now.

I shake it off.

I couldn’t save Carmen. It was a lesson learned. I went to

college because I wanted to save people. I wanted to be a
therapist. The more I delved into the supernatural, the more I
realized there was no use trying to save people in the long-run

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so long as monsters were slaughtering them in the immediate.

That’s why I dropped out. I couldn’t be the solution. I couldn’t
be the cure. I had to be the clean needle you give to addicts to
save them right now.

As I come back to my senses, Eve’s standing back up. She

puts up a hand, palm facing me from a few feet away. A hole
opens in the palm. A spray of tiny objects starts flying out. I
obey my first instinct and jump across the room. I duck and
jump and duck like a fish fighting against waves, landing
behind the record player. It isn’t quick enough—I’m bleeding
from the stomach. I don’t have time to figure out how bad it is.
I can’t feel it. Usually that means it’s really superficial, or really
bad.

Eve walks over to the record player, and bends down to lift
it. She hefts it over her head. I grab some candies from the
candy bowl that’s now on the floor, and toss them up at her
face. She steps back once, and the record player drops behind
her. I fall down low, crouching with one knee bent all the
way, the other leg thrust outward. I thrust my palm into her
stomach and knock her back. She grabs around blindly, and
throws a piece of the destroyed TV’s frame at me. I shift to the
side and bat it out of the air. She holds up her other hand and
sprays another wave of tiny metal flechettes at me. A couple
nick my side as I dodge. She reaches around behind her and
lifts the record player again. I clasp my fists and smash her in
the stomach again, rushing past her. She drops the record

24
 #ソーラン節

player again, and I dive behind the closest love seat.

She grunts, and I hear metal grinding from inside her. She
lifts the record player back up and underhand tosses it to
me. Just like kindergarten softball, give or take two hundred
pounds of wood and electronics. I put a foot up on the
loveseat and vault upward, jumping over the record player and
swinging my leg around to kick her across the face. It hurts
my shin thanks to the pickaxe reinforcing her neck, but she
screams out with a digitized wail.

This fight should be over. She’s tougher than I thought.

She grabs the pickaxe, and rips it out. The handle splinters,
and I’m thankful it was just $35 at Home Depot. Monster
hunters don’t get to write off expenses. She doesn’t release
the blade, though, and grabs it two-handed like a baseball bat.
Since I know what’s coming next, I roll backwards behind
the main sofa. I initiate stage three of the plan. While she’s
dodging around the love seat, I grab some of the weight plates
from the free weight bench beside me. One by one, I toss them
like frisbees at her face. It doesn’t stop her, but it slows her
approach.

As I run out of weights and she gets dangerously close, I

have to dodge under a swing limbo-style. It clips me in the
boob, ripping right through my shirt, and I am really, really,
REALLY grateful for the cocaine’s numbness right now. I

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fall to the ground and scramble around the treadmill, hopping

to the side. She steps forward for another swing. I notice her
foot’s on the treadmill, so I smash the power button and put
the control console between us. She trips as the thing comes
to life, I hear her gyros whir as she tries to keep from falling
over.

I glance down. My chest and stomach are bleeding way too

much for comfort. My shirt’s soaked already.

If I don’t end this, she’s gonna kill me. I don’t even know if
I’ll survive the blood loss even if I win.

I look around, and spot one of the weight plates. 25 pounds

of cast iron. I hook my fingers into the hole in the middle,
and swing it right across her face. She flies into the picture
window, shattering it. She’s propped up against the remains of
the window, the pickaxe blade fell from her hands to the side.

No way that’s enough.

I rush forward and swing it again, taking off a chunk of her

jaw. I swing it again, crashing against her like waves, once,
twice, three times. Then I lift it over my head, and raise one
knee in the air. I drop my weight and drop the weight plate,
smashing down on her skull. I see chips and capacitors and
other things I don’t have names for. I’m pretty sure I’ve got it
in the bag, but I take one more swing for good measure.

26
 #ソーラン節

She puts a hand up and stops the weight. With her other
hand, she grabs me by the collar. She stands back up and lifts
me off the ground, then throws me across the room. My back
smashes into the fireplace. I taste blood in my mouth.

Not good. Not good at all.

On the other hand, she’s not got much of a face left. Inside,
she looks like a busted up Terminator. She swings at me, but
she’s maybe eight feet away at this point, so she’s swinging at
air. She stops as I get my bearings. Her head turns to face me
perfectly. Well, not perfectly—she looks like a rotten cyborg
Nick Nolte.

Fuck. She’s got some kind of other sensor.

She dives straight at me. I don’t have time to jump, so I just

twist my body to the side, thrusting my ass away from her, and
letting its weight carry me a few extra inches. Her dive lands
her right in the middle of the fireplace.

This wasn’t part of the plan. But it’s a welcome surprise.

I grab the fire poker, and thrust it down into her. Just like
last time I impaled her, just like every time I impale something,
she reaches for the poker. While she does that, I turn the
fireplace intensity knob all the way up and step back.

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Lights come on. I hear fans start. Some cheap-assed plastic

fake fire waves upward.

Fuck, it’s fake.

I look around for weapons, for anything. I grab the vase to

the left of the fireplace, and smash it down on the metal stump
of her face. Then I grab the vase to the right. I smash it down,
too. She’s still moving. Standing.

I need to catch my breath. Now.

I run through the door to the master bedroom. I couldn’t

get a view of this room through the windows, thanks to thick
curtains. It’s simple—wrought iron four-poster bed, dresser,
vanity. I hear her stomping after me.

No time for catching my breath. Not now.

I put my foot on the bed frame, and grab one of the iron
posts. I pull with my hands, and kick outward with my foot.
The frame collapses, and I rip the post free. Six feet of slender
iron. I feel like a ninja turtle. Eve comes through the door. I
spin the makeshift staff once to my side like a baton, then twist
it around to bat her across the remains of her head. This time,
the whole rest of the head flies off.

She falls to the side, and sparks start flying out of the neck

28
 #ソーラン節

stump. Geena said these things self-destruct, so I’m not

sticking around to see if I can survive however that happens. I
run.

Back at my car, I turn the dome lights on and sit in the

driver’s seat, checking my wounds. My left breast’s torn open
bad. It’s not as bad as the hole in my stomach though. I put
two fingers in the hole and yank out a little chunk of razor-
sharp metal. The fact that I’ve gone this long says it didn’t hit
any vitals, but the bleeding’s still awful.

I know without the cocaine, I’d be in shock right now.

There’s no way I’d be able to do what I’ve got to do next. If I
survive this, it’ll be because of the coke.

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#NIETZSCH...SP?
CHAPTER FIVE

I sit in the back of my old Hyundai Accent so I have more

space to work. You never want to perform surgery on yourself
in the driver’s seat if you can avoid it—you’ll bump your elbows
on the steering wheel or your knee on the gear shifter. You’ll
fuck everything up, and that can mean life or death.

Come to think of it, you should probably avoid having to

perform surgery on yourself altogether. But sometimes it’s
unavoidable in this line of work.

Why haven’t I named my car? Isn’t that a thing you’re

supposed to do?

I haven’t named my car because the only time I think about

naming my car is when I’m in hot pursuit or I’m bleeding out
all over the back seat. Besides, I probably won’t have this car
for long anyway; hunters burn through cars almost as far as
they burn through medical supplies.

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 #NIETZSCH...SP?

I pop open my medical kit. Everything burns. Everything

stings.

The coke’s wearing off. That’s not good.

I put the kit aside and fish through my purse for another
half gram of coke, then start the process of cutting it up. I spill
a little bit since my hands are shaking from the pain. But a
few seconds, and I’m inhaling white powder. In a few more
seconds, the pain stops being a concern. I can still feel the
wounds, but they don’t hurt.

Did I make the right choice when I dropped out of college?

Why am I even here?

I rip open the pouch containing the needle and thread.

These, the real things, are cheap. You can get a five pack of
surgical nylon suture thread and a curved needle for $8 online.
When you go to the hospital, they charge upwards of $1,500
for the same thing. Sure, labor costs. But most of the time,
it’s a three minute job. These kits are nice, since they’re pre-
threaded. I’m sure it’s to make the doctor’s job easier, but it’s
super convenient if you have to stitch yourself up when you’re
shaking with shock.

I would have needed an advanced degree to do what I

wanted anyway. There’s no way I could afford grad school. I’d
have to take a third job as a stripper. Do people like strippers

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that are covered in scars? I think scars are pretty hot. But then
again, I don’t visit strip clubs, so I guess I’m not the target
market. Can people my age even afford strip clubs? I can read
the headlines now: Millennials kill strip clubs.

I take a pair of hemostats, and clamp them shut along the

wound on my stomach.

It’s funny—I considered medical school. But I told myself I

couldn’t handle the sight of blood.

I have to keep wiping everything with little alcohol prep

pads, because the blood flow keeps me from getting a good
look at the skin.

I take a deep breath, and push the needle through.

I couldn’t afford med school anyway. Not even with a third

job. But why monster hunting? Of all the jobs in the world,
why do I put my life on the line for shit pay? Why do I choose
to go out and kill people every night?

I breathe. I push the needle through again. I breathe. I push

it through again. I keep my breathing long, deep, and slow.
Eight seconds in. Eight seconds out.

I do it because I get to be a hero. I get to save people. I

stop murderers. I stop rapists. I stop monsters. Real, literal

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monsters. People are alive today because I choose to kill

monsters yesterday.

Twelve stitches on my stomach. The worst part’s done. The

other wound looks bigger, but it’s not so deep. I take some
cotton and antiseptic, and clean off the site.

But I’m a mercenary. Can a mercenary really be a hero? I’m

not objective—I won’t work without pay. I’ve been poor all
my life. Does that make me a hypocrite? People like my family
could never afford a monster hunter, and people like my family
are the ones who need one the most.

I take some cotton pads and gauze to seal off the wound and
protect the stitches. It’s tender, even with the cocaine.

I’ve even killed plenty of monsters who might not have

deserved it. How many times have I listened to vampires tell
me they’re different; that they’re not killers? Were they lying?
On a long enough timeline, would they end up killers even if
they weren’t then? Every time, I finish the job. Every time, I
use humor and a fucked-up sense of professionalism to deflect
from what I’m actually doing.

Would I take a contract on a human if the price was right?

I clean the wound on my breast. It stings, but it’s not

unbearable. It’s one huge abrasion, the width of my wrist. But

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inside, there’s a bunch of tiny tears, some definitely needing

stitches. The abrasion keeps me from using hemostats—the
skin’s just too weak, and it’d rip open if I tried. So, extra
carefully, I start sewing the first tear shut. It hurts. The needle
has to go through already raw, ragged, sensitive flesh.

If I just worked a normal job, would Carmen be alive?

Maybe we’d be married right now if I took a job at Movieland
instead of taking that lizard monster contract.

Then again, how many people would have died if I hadn’t

killed that Lamia? Did those people deserve to die? If they
didn’t, did Carmen?

With four stitches, the first tear’s closed, and I’m on to

the second. It hurts, but I’m ready for it. It’s just pain. Like
Swayze said, pain don’t hurt. Pain’s better than death.

Maybe I just don’t deserve happiness. If I was serious about

my work, I’d commit to it full-time. I wouldn’t get distracted
with love.

I don’t even wear armor on my jobs! What kind of strong

woman hero doesn’t wear reasonable armor over her boobs?

Then again, maybe I am serious. Maybe I don’t wear armor

because I don’t think there’s a uniform for what I do. You can
take off a uniform and clock out. I never clock out. I can’t clock

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 #NIETZSCH...SP?

out. Is that the real lesson here? I don’t clock out, and that’s
why I put Carmen in the line of fire?

The second and third tear are closed. On to the fourth. It’s
a little bigger than it looked at first—the actual tear is pretty
small, but the skin around the edges is stressed and needs
reinforcement or that little tear’s gonna become something
awful.

Maybe there aren’t lessons in real life. Maybe it’s all what you
make of it. The lies you tell yourself to justify your actions.

Maybe I just do it for the high. Every job has highs and lows.
The lows bore the shit out of me. Boring jobs drive me up
a wall. I can’t stand boring. I can’t stand certainty. Am I just
allergic to stability? But most jobs never get this high. Cops
say their jobs get this high, that they’re in this much danger.
But that’s bullshit. Cops go in every day with power and
authority. I don’t get that: I’m always struggling. I never get to
start out in control of the situation. I love making it out alive
because I’m clever and creative. A therapist couldn’t survive
what I survive. A doctor wouldn’t live through what I do. A
cop would be eaten alive. That’s a fucking rush.

I clean the wounds again. I double-check for any lingering

cuts. The skin’s not great—there’s about a hand-sized area
still welling up with tiny beads of blood. But it’ll have to do. I
patch it up and fall back into the seat. My head’s spinning.

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It’s just like the cocaine. Everyone says it’s dangerous. That
it’ll kill me. But just like the cocaine, it saves me. I can’t operate
without that rush sometimes. I can’t imagine making another
choice, living another life. Maybe it’ll be a short life. Maybe
that’s okay. Maybe it’s just the best life for me.

I text Geena.

It’s done.

She gets back quickly.

Can we meet? I have some questions.

That’s now how it’s usually done, but I’m not gonna argue.

I can’t tonight. I have to get patched

up and crashed. Tomorrow?

She sends me a thumbs-up emoji.

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 #AMBITION

#AMBITION
CHAPTER SIX

Geena asked me to stop by her place in north Palo Verde.

It’s a pretty hardcore gentrified neighborhood—ten years ago
it was the kind of place conservative politicians point to when
they want to pump millions into the police force, and now it’s
mostly hipster artists and younger downtown professionals. I
read somewhere that the property values have doubled in a
decade. I knew an old guy who was a night security guard for
the old movie lots. He could walk to work every night from his
house he inherited from his father. But over the past few years,
the property taxes went up so much that it was cheaper to just
sell, get an apartment in the suburbs, and commute in every
day.

Her place is a newly renovated condo. A couple of years

ago, it was one of the only remaining rent-controlled buildings
in the area. Some developers tried buying it. When they
were denied by the state, they took it to court. It made some
news when the California Supreme Court ruled against the

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state, and allowed them to buy the building for pennies on

the dollar. They exploited some loophole that basically said
it was stunting competitive pricing for the local real estate
firms, so the state would have to pay billions in damages
if they didn’t let the place sell at a ridiculous markdown. It
went from this old building with charm and personality to
this factory-fresh, eggshell white monolith to capitalism. The
first floor is a public art gallery, showcasing local artists.
This, the developers said, was their way of giving back to the
community. I had a friend sell a piece there—the developers
take a 30% cut of every sale. Giving back, my ass.

I knock at her door, room 34.

“Just a second!” I hear bumping and shuffling. She sighs as

she opens the door. She forces a smile. She’s got this great
frazzled look. Long brown hair pinned up haphazardly. Mid-
tone, ethnically ambiguous. Gentle, big, vulnerable brown
eyes. She’s in a navy blue sweater and black knee-length skirt.
She moves to the side and waves me in. “I should have asked.
Are you okay with tapas?” The second she mentions it, I smell
salsas and toast and olives and shrimp and cheeses and fried
onions.

“Um. Yeah. I’m not picky. Thanks?” I step inside and look
around. I take off my Chuck Taylors and do the obligatory
search for exits you have to do when you’re a monster hunter.
I don’t think Geena’s a monster, but who knows what might

38
 #AMBITION

bust in or be hiding to jump us? The apartment’s beautiful. It’s

full of modern artwork, beautiful rugs from all over the world,
and gorgeous, dark furniture that’s probably handcrafted. I
immediately wonder how much it’d cost her if I drop some
of those sauces on her fancy rugs. Over her TV, there’s a
Greek bas-relief of a woman holding a set of scales. While
I’m not that educated, I know mythology—you need to know
mythology to fight monsters from mythology. That’s Astraea.
The Romans took her and called her Iustitia, or “Lady Justice,”
the blind woman with the scale and the sword you see all over
the damned place. “Beautiful condo.”

“Thanks. It’s a little strange here now. It feels empty.” She

moves in and starts taking platters from the kitchen to the
coffee table.

I follow to help her with the dishes. “I understand that. So,

what did you want to know about the monster?”

“The AI.” She says, taking another couple of tiny plates, these
covered in cold cuts and cheeses.

“Sorry. The AI. What do you want to know about the AI?”

“I don’t know…” She sighs and goes to get more plates with
sliced tomatoes and onion rings. No. Calamari. “Did it say
anything? Did it seem to have any pattern to its behaviors? I
don’t know why it went awry like it did.”

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I get a couple of plates with toast and assorted peppers.

“Truth be told, I didn’t get a chance to talk to her. She didn’t
seem the talking type. She was covered in blood, and I figured
she’d come at me the moment she noticed me. So I snuck up
on her. We tussled. She cut me up real damned good, but in
the end, I won. Once I took her down, she started sparking,
so I got out of there since you said she had a self-destruct
mechanism.”

She swallows hard, takes a deep breath, and nods. Her

cheeks are reddening. She’s fighting back tears. “What was she
doing when you got there? Did she have a victim there?”

I shake my head. “No. Nothing like that. Weird enough, she

was just sitting there, watching TV.”

She pats the sofa. “Have a seat. I’ll get the rest.” I sit on the
black leather sofa. It reminds me of my therapist’s office when
I was a teenager. She goes to the kitchen. I can hear the crack
in her breathing—she’s struggling. “What… What was she
watching?” She comes back with two red wine glasses and a
bottle, and puts them on the table.

“Big Bang Theory? I don’t know if she was actually watching

it, but it was on. She didn’t seem to respond. Maybe she
was just going through the motions.” I smile up to her as
she sits down beside me. I don’t even know why. Maybe I’m
subconsciously trying to compensate for her pain.

40
 #AMBITION

She winces. She doesn’t respond immediately. Instead, she

gets two small plates, and hands me one. She puts a little
metal skewer on either plate. “Becca used to watch that show.
I’d tease her about it. I told her I didn’t want it in my house. I
wonder if…” She closes her eyes and breathes deeply.

“I’m sure it’s a coincidence.” I poke a piece of toast, a piece of

tomato, and a piece of some mozzarella and put them on my
plate.

She sits there, silent for the moment, eyes closed.

“Geena?” I reach out, considering whether or not I should

put a hand on her shoulder to comfort her.

She lets loose. She bawls, she turns, and she puts her head
to my shoulder. I use all my hunter instincts to keep my plate
aloft and balanced, and carefully rest it on the table. I put an
arm around her back, and the other hand to her hair. It’s silky
soft and smells like lilac—I’m sure her product costs more than
I can imagine. “It’s okay.”

That’s one of those stupid things everyone says that’s never,

ever true.

She sobs. She chokes down a louder response. I can feel it

shudder through her. “I’m sorry.” She says, and pulls back up,
and dusts off her lap. She smiles, and every second of it looks

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like a lie. She takes her plate and starts grabbing some little
lobsters.

Or are those crayfish? I don’t know. I think maybe they’re

crayfish.

She pours wine. We eat and drink in silence for the next ten
minutes or so, until she breaks the silence. “How’d you get into
this line of work? You don’t just put in an application, do you?”

“Hm? Monster hunting?” I look around and take another

drink. “Not really. I…”

I don’t like talking about this stuff. But, she needs someone
right now.

“A demon killed my brother.” Her eyes go wide. I stab a

chunk of artichoke with a tiny plastic sword. “It was plaguing
the trailer park where we lived. It made the people there do
some really awful shit. It made him do some really, really bad
stuff. Unforgivable stuff. Then…” I pause. I sigh. I pop the
artichoke into my mouth. “The cops came for him. I don’t
know if it was the demon, or just his desperation, but he
pulled a gun on the cops.”

“Oh my god!” She says, jaw dropping.

I shrug. “Someone came to clean up the mess, to slay the

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 #AMBITION

demon. She found me. I was already suspecting weirdness.

But she explained everything to me, helped me put together
the pieces. Then asked if I wanted to stop this kind of thing
from happening again. How do you say no to that?”

“Wow. I… I don’t even know what I’d say to that.” She pops
a cherry tomato into her mouth. She’s giving me this sort of
dopey, drunk, admiring smile.

I shrug again. “You say the only thing you feel you can.
You say ‘of course, how do I start?’ But aren’t you a defense
attorney? You probably do that for a good reason too, right?”

She chuckles softly. “I’m not a public defender. I’m not a

hero—I’m a mercenary. The kind of men who can afford to
pay me? They’re mostly guilty; I just help them find loopholes
and get mistrials. I make very good money in exchange for my
conscience.” She crosses her legs on the couch to face me.

“Ouch. But, gotta do what you gotta do to get by, right? I

mean, I take contracts on monsters that… aren’t really that
monstrous sometimes. I feel bad about it. But then I ask
myself if I’m interested in eviction, and I choke it down.” I put
a knee up on the couch so I can turn toward her a bit more.

“So. I feel like Rebecca did this because of me. I judged her. I
kept telling her to not follow her dreams. To play nice with the
system. To chase grants. To be the model scientist that gets

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featured in Vanity Fair’s ‘Women in STEM’ special issue. She

felt betrayed, like she didn’t have anyone on her side. So she
went off the deep end.”

I shake my head and put a hand on her knee. “Don’t do

that to yourself. It wasn’t your fault. She made those choices.
Maybe you weren’t a perfect wife, but nobody’s perfect, and
most people don’t make monster killer death robots over it.”

She chuckles, blushes, and glances down for a moment. “I

guess you’re right. Just… I feel like I could have made different
choices, and this would have been different. That maybe she’d
still be here. You know? It’s been a year. This place is so big,
and every time I think I’ve gotten rid of the last traces of her,
I find a sock or a CD or something else that reminds me of
her. I’m tired of being alone with her ghost. In a way, I wish I
hadn’t found out about Eve. I wish she’d have just disappeared,
instead of dragging all this back up and reminding me that I’m
here and she’s not.” She looks back up to my face and bites her
lower lip.

I reach over and put my palm to her cheek. She smiles. “I’m
sorry. But it’s good you found out. You saved lives. And
fucked up as it might sound, this is closure. There’s nothing up
in the air anymore. You don’t have to be alone. You deserve it.”
The wine’s got me warm, relaxed.

“You think?” She pauses, and leans her head into my hand. “I

44
 #AMBITION

dunno.” She takes another drink, and watches me with those

huge brown eyes. “I just want a chance to just dive in, you
know? To just be together. No judgment. Just support. Just
two people connected and to hell with the rest of the world.”

My heart falls into my stomach. It’s like I’m a door covered

in keyholes, and everything she’s saying is a key. I purr. “That
sounds beautiful.”

“Yeah? I don’t think that’s what people really want.” She

smiles, watching me.

“I think you’re wrong.” I lean forward slowly, and guide her

face toward me a bit. She closes her eyes. I move in the rest of
the way, and kiss her gently. She gasps against my lips. I feel
her move in subtly as well. She puts a hand on my hand on her
lap.

Then, she chuckles and pulls away. I open my eyes, she’s

blushing. “Oh my god.”

“Huh?” I tilt my head. “Garlic breath?”

“No.” She laughs. “I mean, yes. But no. I… You?” She laughs
again.

I’m frozen in place. Dracula could jump me right now and I

don’t think I’d try to stop him. “Um, yeah? Me? Like…”

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“No offense. We can’t do this.” She shakes her head.

“Why not?” I say, narrowing my eyes. My shock is quickly

becoming hurt.

She raises an eyebrow. “Because we’re not compatible. I

have a career. You don’t have your life together.”

She’s not wrong.

“What are you talking about? I totally have my life together.”

She sighs. “Well, for one, you’re high.” That feels like a slap
across the face.

I’m feeling confrontational now. “What does that have to do

with anything?”

“You know what? Maybe you’re right. Maybe that doesn’t

matter. But you drive a broken-down old Hyundai. You’re a
paycheck away from being evicted. You put your life at risk
every day.” That feels worse than a werewolf claw to the gut.

Okay. She’s technically right. But I’m not about to let that
go.

“So what? Cops put their lives on the line all the time.”

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“It’s different and I think you know it. Look Lana, I’m sure
you’re a nice girl. But this? This just isn’t going to happen. I
think maybe you should leave.”

My face is on fire. I’m holding back tears. My fists clench. I

want to argue. I want to get in her face. I want to scream. I
want to tell her she’s doing exactly what she said drove her
dead wife away.

But I don’t. I swallow my pride, I stand, and I nod. I don’t

even know what I’m nodding to. “Sorry.”

She looks away, over toward the door. I head out.

I drive for a while. Nowhere in particular. I just drive down

the highways surrounding San Jenaro, collecting my thoughts,
letting the wine work its way out of me.

About an hour later, I get a message on iHunt.

Then I get the payment confirmation. 15% tip. I send her a

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 #iHunt Frankenstein’s Monster (Sort Of) (But Not Really)

“Thanks,” and delete her message.

She had her chance. She’s going to keep making the same
stupid mistakes, and she’s going to keep wondering why she’s
never happy.

###############################

You’ve reached the end of #iHunt Frankenstein’s Monster

(Sort Of) (But Not Really). I hope you enjoyed it! Read on to
see the first chapter of #iHunt: Killing Monsters in the Gig
Economy, which is a full-length novel starring Lana from this
story. This Frankenstein story ttakes place a little while before
#iHunt: Killing Monsters in the Gig Economy.

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 #iHunt: Killing Monsters in the Gig Economy (Sample)

#iHunt Chapter One

#SWIPELEFT

Have you ever tried cutting fabric with child-safe

scissors? This is why good vampire hunters, real vampire
hunters, don’t do stakes through the heart. It’s just not
practical. You can sharpen the stake as much as you want,
but there’s just no realistic way to put it through a rib cage
unless you’ve got a mallet and the vampire’s asleep. Only
some vampires sleep during the day. So, I prefer the tried
and true method—the machete.

I sprint after the fang-fucker. It feels good to chase these

guys. They think they’re the ultimate predators.

Then what does that make me?

I vault over a concrete and pipe barrier made to keep

cars from driving into the park. He’s running through
the playground, pushing swings aside like the villain in a

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 #iHunt: Killing Monsters in the Gig Economy (Sample)

weaker Jackie Chan movie. As I run up the slide, I won-

der if he’s trying to distract me. If I were an amateur, it’d
be a pretty good tactic. Then again, I don’t think he’d be
running away from an amateur. He’s gotta know I know
my shit.

When I hit the top of the slide, I jump as high as I can,

raising the machete over my head and bringing it down
hard. I won’t behead him with a downward slash, but I’ll
sure as hell stop him from running, and set him up for
the kill.

I miss. Damn it. The machete sprays sand and rubber

chips all over the place. I break back into a run.

Some people say vampires are vulnerable, weak to

beheading. I personally think most everything’s weak to
beheading. It’s just that vampires are strong to most other
things. Vampires are weird. There’s different families.
Each family has different strengths. Different weaknesses.
Garlic repels some of them. Some die when exposed to
sunlight. Some kill every time they feed. Part of the craft
means learning what kind of vampire you’re facing, so
you can custom-tailor the hunt to the prey.

I hate chasing vampires. They’re not completely impos-

sible to catch. They do eventually get tired out. But for the
most part, you get tired before they do. I’ve already got
hints of that burning feeling in my muscles. My lungs are
telling me to stop it. One of the first things you learn as

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 #iHunt: Killing Monsters in the Gig Economy (Sample)

a monster hunter is that you’ve got to ignore your body

sometimes. I guess marathon runners learn that, too.

He bolts out of the playground, and runs across a

big, open field. Big open spaces are terrible for fighting
vampires. They’re even worse for chasing them. They’re
tougher, faster, and stronger than you, so you’ve got to
abuse the environment. In a big open field, there’s no
environment to abuse.

I chase him into the skate park. There’s a group of teen-

agers smoking up. He knows what he’s doing. He’s trying
to shake me. Most monster hunters won’t kill in front of
innocent eyewitnesses. I haven’t decided if I will this time.
“COP!” The vampire shouts. The teens snap to attention.
They look all over the place, before noticing me. Clearly,
I’m the cop. I’m the one chasing the guy.

That’s a good plan, gotta give it to him.

Today’s prey is a “wolf.” In San Jenaro, the vampire fam-

ilies are all named after animals. From our perspective,
on the hunt, wolves are the worst. They’re strong. They’re
fast. They’re tough. And their weakness, if you could call
it that, is that they’re territorial. If you fuck with their
homes, they go all psycho killer on you. Sure, you can
abuse that sometimes and make them fly off the handle.
This is good for traps. It’s good for ambushes. But when
they get like that, they’re even stronger, faster, and tough-
er than normal. It’s a trade off.

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 #iHunt: Killing Monsters in the Gig Economy (Sample)

The kids stare. They move to intercede. They’ve been

trained well by the rising fascism in America. They know
they’ve got to act fast when authority comes down on
the people. They all pull out their smartphones and start
recording. Under other circumstances, I’d applaud their
efforts. I’d cheer them on for holding authority account-
able. “Do I look like a fucking cop?” I say, holding my
machete up high. They look between each other. When a
woman with a machete’s chasing a man twice her weight,
she probably has a good reason for it. They back off.

Witnesses. My pay’s gonna get docked for that. I’m gon-

na get a shitty review.

No time to think about that. I slow my sprint to con-

serve my energy. Vampires can always outrun you in a
chase. You’ve got to outsmart them. You’ve got to wait for
them to make a mistake. He rushes into the park’s bath-
room.

There’s his mistake.

He might have a plan. He’s probably preparing for a

final showdown, he’s probably used to fighting in closed
quarters. Vampires are deadly in closed quarters. No
guns. No big weapons. So I slow down enough to catch
my breath. Gotta be on the top of my game.

I said vampires are terrible in wide open spaces. I also

said they’re deadly in close quarters. These aren’t contra-
dictory ideas. They’re deadly. Vampires are really, really

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 #iHunt: Killing Monsters in the Gig Economy (Sample)

deadly. You just have to do different things to survive

them in different environments.

I step into the bathroom. There’s two sinks, two urinals,

one janitor’s closet, and one stall. I make a mental map.
I commit every single object to memory. When push
comes to shove, with a vampire, you have to use those
objects. Sinks are great because they’re hard, but when
you break them, they make really, really sharp things.
They’re great weapons. Urinals are nice because people
will usually avoid them, so if you push them toward one,
they’ll fall off balance to not touch it. Vampires are just
as concerned about touching pee as anyone. The janitor’s
closet isn’t probably that useful on the front end, but on
the back end, they tend to have industrial cleaning prod-
ucts. Those make the job a lot easier, and leave you with
far less paperwork.

That’s figurative. There isn’t any real paperwork. But if

you leave a mess, you don’t usually get paid as much. So a
little bleach goes a long way.

He’s breathing heavily in the stall. Vampires technically

don’t have to breathe, but most do. Some do it to look
more human. Some just never get out of the habit. I hear
there’s an owl family that has to breathe during the day.

I knock on the stall door. There’s no answer. He’s hop-

ing I don’t know he’s in there. I take a step back, like I’m
going to leave. He sighs in relief. At that, I turn on my

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 #iHunt: Killing Monsters in the Gig Economy (Sample)

heel and plant a size 7 Doc Marten into the door and kick,
hard. The bolt buckles and the door flies in. These kinds
of doors, metal with a little latch bolt, you can almost bust
them open by accident. I not only break the latch bolt, but
the door swings in and bends the side wall of the stall. I
briefly feel bad that I’m wasting the taxpayer money that’ll
have to go to fixing this. Then I remember how much
taxpayer money goes to the military industrial complex,
and stop caring about this bathroom stall.

He’s perched on top of the toilet so I couldn’t see his

shoes from under the door. He jumps, panicked. He’s
young. He looks maybe 25. Maybe my age. That doesn’t
mean anything for vampires—he could be 5,000 years
old. That’s not likely in San Jenaro though; we don’t have
a lot of old vampires in California. He’s in skinny jeans, a
Metallica t-shirt, and a leather jacket. He’s got short black
spiky hair. He smells like sweat and smoke. That all tells
me he’s not 5,000 years old.

“Come on. Let’s finish this.” I say and step back twice.
I don’t want to wait. I want to just end it. Unfortunately,
you can’t swing a machete in a bathroom stall. There’s just
no space.

He hesitates a moment, and steps out. I move back to-

ward the entrance, just in case he tries running.

“I have money!” He says, pleading. I don’t think he’s

aware that he could probably kill me with even a moder-

54
 #iHunt: Killing Monsters in the Gig Economy (Sample)

ately good strategy right now.

“Oh yeah? How much?” I say, shrugging.

He sighs again, relieved. “Um. I don’t know. Let me see.”

He pats his pants. He fidgets with his pockets—they’re too
tight to reasonably put a hand inside. He knocks out a few
crumpled $20 bills. I see at least a $100. “You can have it
all. Just don’t kill me.”

While he’s looking down to his pockets, trying to fish

for money, I bring the machete down wide along the
side of his neck. His head doesn’t come quite off, but it’s
enough to end him. I bury it about two thirds of the way
through. I feel it go through the spine.

I grab his money. I like to call that “the tip.” Then I

finish the job. I lift the head by the hair with my left hand,
and with my right, I put my machete—I like to call it my
sword—the rest of the way through his neck. I picture
myself as Saint George, killing the mighty dragon. Except
my magic spear is a mass produced Ontario Knife Com-
pany machete, and my mighty dragon is a 20-something
fanged Metallica fan.

“Mission accomplished. 12:42am. November 7th, 2016.

Or, November 8th I mean. Forgot, it’s after midnight.
Gotta change the date.” I say loud and clear to the GoPro.
I hold the head up next to mine, and with the other hand,
snap a quick selfie. I’ll filter it later. I like the Juno filter; it
brings out the color of the blood and does wonders with

55
 #iHunt: Killing Monsters in the Gig Economy (Sample)

my skin tone.

Then, I take the remains out behind the bathroom. I

grab some lighter fluid from my backpack and spray it
down. I strike a strike-anywhere match and drop it on the
pile. Even a young vampire like this one’s already decom-
posing rapidly by the time I get to burning the evidence.
I like that most monsters don’t leave much for forensics.
There’s still a bit of a mess inside, so I splash it with some
bleach, then turn all the faucets on and plug their drains.
Public bathrooms are great for this sort of thing, since
they usually have flood drains. And vampires don’t bleed
much to begin with. I search the janitor’s closet for an
“Out of Service” sign and put it on the door on my way
out.

I sometimes wonder why most monsters fade into

nothingness when they die. A lot of church-based hunters
say it’s because they’re being dragged back to hell. I like
to think it’s a survival trick. They die, but they don’t leave
evidence. No evidence means no torch-wielding mobs to
take down all their families.

I get back to my apartment. I pack a bowl. I light it up,

and check the iHunt app. Seven new contracts meet my
criteria. The bowl is a little weak—it’s some stuff I picked
up at a dispensary last week. They call it “Swamp Thing.”
I think back to the Wes Craven classic. I wonder where

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 #iHunt: Killing Monsters in the Gig Economy (Sample)

dispensaries come up with these names. They never really

mean anything, but my friend that used to work at a dis-
pensary told me that names are most of what a customer
looks for.

“Chupacabra sighting in the Flip.

$1,500 with collection. $500 if veri-
fied a hoax.”

Swipe left. Take a hit. It’s almost impossible to verify

hoaxes. It’s even harder to hunt a goddamned chupaca-
bra. The kinds of hunters who can catch chupacabra, they
definitely don’t use this app. They’re afraid of phones.
They think the CIA is watching them through their TVs.

“Client in Palo Verde wants to meet a

vampire to consult on her screenplay.
$500 after publication.”

Swipe left. Hold my breath for a moment. Consultation

gigs are never worth it. This one’s been sitting unclaimed
for weeks.

“Werewolves on the northeast side.

Rabies? $750 per head.”

Swipe left. Release the breath slowly. Werewolves are

way dangerous. Rabid werewolves are even worse. They’re
worth a few grand. $750 is a fucking insult. That wouldn’t
even cover expenses.

“This isn’t a charity.” I say to nobody in particular.

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 #iHunt: Killing Monsters in the Gig Economy (Sample)

“Fairy circle in Ava Blue. $2000 for

the circle. $500 for each confirmed
kill.”

”Ooooo. Interesting.” I stare at the listing for a moment.

I swipe left and shrug. “Someone else can fuck with it.
Fairies are too complicated.”

“Haunting near the shore. $2000 for

confirmed exorcism.”

“No way. I thought I told them I don’t do fucking

hauntings.” Swipe left. “And definitely no fucking exor-
cisms.”

“Gang of vampires in the resort dis-

trict. Corporate contract. $5,000 per
head.”

Now we’re fucking talking. Corporate contracts are way

rare. They’re for the elite. You have to have a consistent
average four star rating over twenty jobs to start getting
them. I guess I’ve earned my wings.

Swipe right.

I get a pop-up.

“You’ve received feedback on your

most recent gig. ‘Witnesses on site,
poorly handled. Sloppy cleanup: Police
know to look for ash piles. Wouldn’t

58
 #iHunt: Killing Monsters in the Gig Economy (Sample)

hire again. 3 stars.’”

Oh fuck you. The kinds of pricks who leave three star

reviews just don’t understand how the gig economy
works.

59