Free Monster Hunter Memoirs: Grunge - eARC by Larry Correia

pulled out a lancet and a vial. “Hold out your hand.”
    I extended my hand to him and he lanced a finger and squeezed a drop of blood into the vial.
    “Don’t leave town until you are given permission. The easiest way for you to have suddenly developed super abilities instead of being thirty percent disabled is if you are, yourself, a supernatural entity. This test will determine that. If you are not, I’ll accept that the turn was taken for reasons “above my clearance level” and that the rest was just training and adrenaline. For the general subject.
    “This incident never happened. The existence of zombies or anything else supernatural is highly classified. Don’t bother to blather about rights. There are none where this is concerned. If you ever discuss this incident with any person not properly cleared, you’re lucky if you just end up in an insane asylum for the rest of your life. If you make too much trouble, Agent Franks or someone similar will shoot you in the head. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”
    “Yes, sir!” I barked. “I do understand classified, sir.”
    The sheriff walked over as he was finishing and cleared his throat.
    “Special Agent, the hunter team is here,” the sheriff said.
    “Not those bozos,” Showalter snarled. “The incident is over. Why did you even call them?”
    “I’d like to make sure that the area is completely cleared, sir,” the sheriff said. He clearly was not happy doing “diffident.”
    “Fine,” Showalter snapped. “But tell them no interaction with the witnesses.”
    “Do you have the cover story, yet?” the sheriff asked. “There’s press asking questions.”
    “The tent caught on fire,” Showalter said. “Seven dead, six injured. Most of the injured aren’t expected to make it.”
    “I’ll pass that on,” the sheriff said, drifting back into the night.
    “Gardenier,” Showalter said, turning back to me. “Don’t talk about this. Ever.”
    “Got that, sir,” I said.
    “And don’t leave town until cleared.”
    * * *
    Finally dismissed by the Feds I stood there alone in the dark at parade rest. The problem was…Adrenaline had carried me through the not particularly long fight. But now I was just locked up. I was not looking forward to the walk back to my car. I hurt from head to toe. I’d just used a lot of muscles I hadn’t used in a long time and the ones I had been using had been severely overtaxed. My right femur felt like someone had driven a stake into it. All the other, many, pins and staples and plates in my body were sending their own notes of sorrow and agony.
    I thought about it for what seemed like a long time then muttered “Fuck it” and just lay down in the grass. It was a warm night. There were some bothersome mosquitoes but nothing compared to the sand flies at Parris Island. And the patch I’d been standing on was relatively free of blood and zombie gook.
    Lying down hurt with no support but once I was horizontal it was like a wave of euphoria hit as all the pressure came off the various bits. Somebody had apparently cut the field before the disastrous tent revival. The grass was short and in the immediate area still had a fresh-cut smell that almost overwhelmed the smell of death.
    At that point I could start to think about the immediate future. I had to get my car fixed. All I really needed to do was figure out what was wrong and I could probably fix it myself if it didn’t require complicated tools. All the cars had been shut down by something, magic? So most of the damage should probably be the same. Once some other mechanic figured it out, I could probably fix it.
    You might be wondering about my easy acceptance of what had just happened. I’ve met, over the years, thousands of survivors of these sorts of things and plenty of Hunters whose first experience of the supernatural was just as “out of the blue.”
    I was raised by parents who firmly believed that while the supernatural, including any reference