The Monster Games (Fright Squad Book 2) Read online

  Fright Squad 2

  The Monster Games

  Flint Maxwell

  Copyright © 2018 by Flint Maxwell

  Cover Design © 2018 by Carmen Rodriguez

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions email: [email protected]

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The author greatly appreciates you taking the time to read his work.

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  For Louis, Lola, and Kevin

  Say your name over two hundred times and discover you are no one.

  Richard Bachman, The Running Man

  1

  A Midnight Message

  Here’s my advice:

  If you ever get invited to the Monster Games, decline. Just stay away from any and all packed arenas crawling with supernatural creatures. Especially the ones that don’t like humans.

  There’s more to this, of course. I’ll get there.

  As you may remember, I no longer work at BEAST. A couple of SOD agents offered me a job working for them in southern Ohio, the same SOD agents who had lobbied for the closure of our branch (and who are quite the assholes, if I’m being totally honest).

  Instead of accepting, Zack, Maddie, and myself opened Fright Squad, a freelance monster hunting business that was destined to fail, mainly because we know nothing about businesses.

  Suffice to say our prices are very reasonable. Probably too reasonable, but what do I know?

  Go ahead and call us if you like. Not many do.

  The only one who ever seems to call us is Lieutenant Walker of the Akron Police Department. Usually he’s drunk and mad about what happened at City Hospital a few months ago—R.I.P to the rookie who had his head torn off. I listen, nod (though he can’t see me nodding), and tell him I’m sorry.

  When he’s not calling to tell me I’m a bleeping bleep-head, he’s telling us about some supernatural entity up to no good in the city or one of Akron’s neighboring suburbs.

  I usually answer. If not, he leaves a message.

  That is where this particular chapter of my young life begins. With a message.

  It was a Thursday. Maddie and Zack and I had just gotten home from our bowling league over at Westgate Lanes. Zack somehow swindled the bartender into giving him a bucket full of beers. I never drank the stuff, not usually, but somehow Zack also swindled me into helping him polish them off over the course of our two games against a team of bro-town frat boys whose name was mighty suggestive: We Love Balls!

  They kicked our ass. Even with the handicap.

  And they really loved their balls. I’m serious. After each frame, they gave their gear a solid wipe-down and a kiss. I’ve never seen so many balls kissed in one night. Also, whenever one of them got a strike, they’d bump chests, which Maddie had so astutely pointed out wasn’t actually chest-bumping, since it was their genitals doing all the touching. I thought that was mighty…odd. But hey, whatever floated their boats, I guess. They did love balls.

  I was glad to get out of there after we wrote our final scores down. Losing was all right as long as Zack and Maddie were there losing with me.

  Maddie drove us home while Zack and I belted out Ricky Martin’s “Livin’ La Vida Loca.” About twenty seconds into our rendition of this once smash-hit song, Maddie turned the volume down. Told us she was going to pull her ears off if she had to hear any more of that.

  But that didn’t stop us. We drove back to my apartment, terrible voices screeching, our hips wiggling in the seats, alcohol making us forget about any and all pressing matters—like the fact we were technically on the job that night. Being a monster hunter doesn’t allow one to stick to normal hours. We’re always on the job.

  The apartment doubled as our Fright Squad headquarters. There, Zack and I would probably play video games and eat junk food, crash, wake up hungover from our two beers, and say we’d never do that again for as long as we lived. No job tonight, right? All play, no work.

  Just as we were walking up the flight of steps that led to my floor, my left arm and Zack’s right around Maddie’s shoulders, my cell phone went off.

  It was a text message from Walker.

  I glanced at the screen, showed Maddie mostly because I couldn’t decipher the squiggly lines and symbols that made up the English language without feeling slightly nauseous doing so.

  “Great,” she said.

  I sensed minor sarcasm.

  Zack asked, “A job?” I nodded. “Nice!” he grinned, his bloodshot eyes covered by his sunglasses, like normal. “What is it, the job?”

  I shrugged, not wanting to admit I hadn’t actually read Walker’s text. Maybe I’d forgotten how to read. Oh, no. That wasn’t good. Part of me knew I was just a lightweight when it came to booze, but the drunk part of me told me I was screwed. I didn’t know which part to believe.

  We passed a couple of Akron University students that lived in the building and whose names I’d forgotten. They smelled the beer and the bowling alley cigarette smoke drifting off of us and gave us a knowing head nod. Zack high-fived them.

  Maddie growled something unintelligible.

  The college students went in the direction opposite of us, laughing. I wondered where they were going. Probably some awesome party. I think part of me wished they’d invite us along with them. I knew I’d have to say no. I’d never be truly normal.

  There would always be something holding me back from a normal life. Being a monster hunter out for revenge was one of them.

  Not even my love life was safe.

  After saving Lola from the hands of Doctor Blood, we had kissed, and then things went terribly awkward. We went out on a couple of dates that just didn’t really click. My mind was always elsewhere, on Doctor Blood, on avenging my father. The next thing I knew Lola was taking a job in SOD about a hundred miles away from me, making a relationship between us next to impossible. I still texted her from time to time, but the responses were few. I once got the dreaded “K” reply, which I wasn’t prepared for. If you get the “K,” according to various articles in Cosmopolitan Magazine, you’ve done something wrong. What that was, I’ve still yet to find out.

  As the great Kurt Vonnegut once said: So it goes.

  Anyway, BEAST gave each of us a hefty severance package. Lorne and Dalton offered us jobs again. We refused. Time went on. I still had a good amount of that money left over, plus all I had saved in my year working for BEAST.

  The problem was that the money would run out. We needed clients and we needed them fast.

  So, even though two-thirds of the Fright Squad were under the influence, we had to take this job.

  I made a motion back toward the stairs. Maddie grabbed my ear. “Uh-uh, not yet,” she said.

  “But the job,” I pleaded.

  “Just a second. We need to get you sobered up first,” she replied. “Not to mention, you know, we need gear.”

  “Right,” I said.

  Zack said, “Yeah, Abe. Duhhhhh!”

  I tried punching him and missed his shoulder by a pretty wide margin.

  We approached my door.

  Zack laughed. “Sixty-eight plus one is what?”

  I live in apartment 68, one away from 69, or what Zac
k calls “The Sex Number.”

  Neither Maddie nor I answered.

  He let it go after a few moments. I pulled my keys out and went for the lock. Unlocking the door while drunk was not easy going. Luckily Maddie was there and she took my keys right out of my hand and did it for me.

  In we went.

  “Slayer!” Zack yelled.

  The goblin flicked his gaze toward the door. A smile spread on his face. Then he flicked his gaze back to the television. He was watching Spongebob Squarepants, a show he’d been obsessed with ever since discovering it in the back of Zack’s rented SUV outside of Perdition Cemetery. We’d taken part of our severance packages and bought the little guy the complete series on DVD. He’s watched it three times through already, I think. Who would’ve thought a goblin would like Spongebob Squarepants? Then again, who doesn’t like that show?

  “Hey, buddy!” I said.

  He raised a hand at me, mumbled something that vaguely sounded like human speech for “Hi,” and went back to his show. He sat very close to the screen. I wanted to tell him he might go blind like my own mother had told me when I used to do the same thing, but that was probably bull. I decided to let the goblin enjoy himself while he could.

  The apartment was not a very tidy workspace, nor a big one for that matter, but it did the trick.

  Maddie put on a pot of coffee. I didn’t know I had a coffee maker.

  Zack and I sat on the couch. Watched Spongebob argue with some giant fish about where the pickles on his Krabby Patty had gone. I’d seen this episode probably twenty times in my life and it was still entertaining. Like I said, who doesn’t like Spongebob?

  I was sobering up. I could feel it. With the sobering, came a headache. Once, Storm had told me that the only way to beat a hangover was to never stop drinking. Stay drunk. Right then, that didn’t seem like a bad idea. But we didn’t have any booze and the college guys I was sort-of acquainted with had already left the building.

  So instead of booze I drank black coffee. It was bitter but no worse than the sudsy urine so coyly disguised as Budweiser we had had at the bowling alley.

  Maddie was laying gear and weapons out on the table. Once the items stopped spinning, I identified a vial of holy water, an EMF meter, which would detect movement from a source of electrical energy i.e. spirits, a trio of crucifixes and leather-bound Bibles, some rosary beads, three stained surplices and cassocks from the closet, which were what priests so commonly wore, and finally a ghost catcher designed by Storm. The ghost catcher was essentially a jar containing a bright light. Ghosts are attracted to great energies, like moths to a flame, so the idea of the ghost catcher was to draw the entity into the jar and close the lid tight.

  It worked. Usually.

  Drunk or not, I knew this job was an exorcism.

  So did Zack.

  “You can’t be serious,” Zack said. “Not an exorcism.”

  Maddie nodded.

  “They’re the literal worst,” he said, slurring his words only slightly.

  “I like exorcisms,” Maddie said. “They’re fun.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Zack said. “Me, too, I mean. I like exorcisms, too.”

  “Nice save,” I mumbled.

  “It’s a paycheck anyway, right?” Maddie said.

  I shrugged, sipped some of the gross black coffee Maddie had brought, and grimaced. “Maybe. Hopefully.”

  “Won’t pay us if we kill the person they’re in,” Zack added.

  He was right, of course. Exorcisms are tricky things. Contrary to popular belief, a member of a church doesn’t need to give permission for one if you know what you’re doing. Fright Squad knew what they were doing thanks to our extensive training at the Academy. Also contrary to popular belief, most of the people suffering from possessions weren’t suffering from mental illnesses. That was, to my understanding, just an excuse for the churches to deny an “official” exorcism. They apparently didn’t like doing them, either.

  I didn’t blame them.

  “Where’s it at?” I asked.

  “Woodhaven,” Maddie answered. She shoved another steaming hot cup of coffee in Zack’s hand and dragged him away from the TV. “More beer,” she lied.

  Zack’s face lit up and he gulped the coffee down before realizing it was hot and not beer. His face turned red and he winced, but that was the extent of his reaction. In his eyes, I think, Maddie could do no wrong.

  “Woodhaven again?” I said.

  It wasn’t my favorite place.

  “Trust me, I don’t want to go back there, either,” Maddie said. “Not after seeing a werewolf’s penis turn into a tentacle.”

  “Which slapped Abe in the face!” Zack said and broke into laughter.

  Slayer laughed along with him, but then the opening theme song for Spongebob began and he mumbled and grunted through the words as he bounced around in front of the TV.

  They would never let me live that unfortunate incident down. But hey, at least I was man enough to take one for the team, right?

  I said nothing. Wasn’t much I could say in that instance. What was done was done.

  “Are you guys feeling any better?” Maddie asked.

  “I’ve never felt better—” Zack began then convulsed. His cheeks puffed out like a squirrel hiding nuts and he moved faster than I’d ever seen him move toward my broom closet of a bathroom. From there, I heard him heave his guts up. This went on for a few moments before he came back out wiping his mouth with balled-up toilet paper and said, “Correction. Now I’ve never felt better. Oh…and Abe?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re gonna need a new shower curtain. Sorry,” Zack said.

  I shrugged. “Comes out of your paycheck.”

  He looked at me. Shrugged back.

  “Okay, now that that’s out of your system,” Maddie said, “we got an exorcism to preform. Oh—” she put up a finger, “—I’m definitely not kissing you until you use some mouthwash, Zack, so don’t even ask.”

  “Aw,” he said.

  Slayer snickered, made kissing noises.

  I got up from the couch, downed the rest of my coffee, which had become cold and somehow more bitter.

  I really was feeling better. That was good.

  We gathered up the equipment, said bye to Slayer, and headed out the door. Just as Maddie was pulling the door shut, Zack said, “Wait!”

  “What now? Are you gonna puke again?” she asked.

  Zack chuckled. “No. We forgot something.”

  I couldn’t imagine what it was that we forgot. It seemed, judging by all the equipment in our arms, that we were ready to take on an entire ghost army.

  “What?” Maddie asked. “I went through the BEAST handbook, checked everything off of the list.”

  Zack squeezed past her and back into my apartment, which now smelled of coffee, booze, and vomit all mixed together. As if my place wasn’t bad enough. Zack came back a couple minutes later, holding a boom box and a CD with ZACK’S EXORCISM MIX written on it in shaky handwriting.

  Maddie saw this and said, “Oh, damn it. I thought we broke that CD a few months ago Office Space style.” She was, of course, referring to the cult classic film where the main characters brutally destroy a malfunctioning printer to the tune of “Still” by Geto Boys. I was pretty sure we had done that, actually.

  “Nope,” he said. “Those were decoys. See, I knew you’d do that, especially after last time.”

  “That’s because last time the spirit danced with you,” Maddie said.

  “Right into the ghost catcher,” Zack replied.

  He was right.

  “No,” Maddie said, firmly.

  “Abe?” Zack asked.

  I shrugged.

  “Just let me bring it as a backup, pleasssseeeee?” Zack whined, batting those sad-kitten eyes at his girlfriend.

  Maddie replied by rolling her own and saying, “Fine. Just as a backup.”

  Lieutenant Walker stood outside the two-story brownstone in a very small g
ated community in Woodhaven. He was with Officer Stephanie Derringer, also of the Akron PD. Around them was a heavier set man in a cowboy hat, holding a cup of coffee from the local gas station. This was Woodhaven’s sheriff, whose name I’m totally blanking on. The lights of his SUV with WOODHAVEN SHERIFF stenciled on the side painted the sleepy community in red and blue. So much for being inconspicuous.

  Maddie parked the PT Cruiser in the driveway behind a cherry-red Buick.

  “Ah, the cavalry has arrived!” Walker said, waving at us as we got out of the car.

  “Well, I’ll be getting on,” the sheriff said. “Seems ya’ll have it handled.” He gave us a contemptuous look, noting our surplices, and smiled uneasily. With that, Woodhaven’s sheriff left. He was, evidently, not a very good sheriff.

  “Been a while,” Walker said. He sniffed the air. “Is that beer I smell?”

  I shrugged.

  “Thursday nights are bowling nights, Walker,” Zack said.

  “No,” Maddie said, “Thursday nights are getting drunk off of two beers and throwing up on Abe’s shower curtain nights.”

  Zack shrugged.

  I shrugged.

  “Ah, to be young again,” Walker said. He glanced over at Stephanie Derringer and said, “Whoops. You guys have met Steph, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “How’s it going?”

  “Good,” Stephanie said.

  “Now that you’re here,” Walker continued, “I guess we’ll be on our way, too.”

  “Not gonna stay as backup?” I asked.

  Walker shook his head. His skin had gone the color of sea foam. “No way, my friend. I shun the supernatural stuff. Ever since Johnson…well, you know.”

  “That’s not what you said.” Stephanie frowned at Walker. “You said we were gonna see what the Fright Squad does firsthand.”

  Walker said, “Eh. It’s different now that I’ve got a look at what we’re dealing with.”