Dead Matter

1

When it came to working for New York City’s favorite underfunded supersecret paranormal investigation agency-known as the Department of Extraordinary Affairs-high-stakes decision making was par for the course. People lived or died when it came down to fighting ghosts, cultists… even the occasional chupacabra. My personal stress from handling the caseload of Other Division meant I barely kept my sanity as it was, but right now I was facing the hardest decision of my life. “Choose, Simon,” my ex-cultist-turned-girlfriend Jane said in a stern tone.

“I… I can’t.”

“For God’s sake,” she said, giving me a gentle swat to my arm. “It’s cheese. How hard can it be to pick a cheese?”

I turned away from the assortment of cheeses in the display cooler in front of me to look at her. Jane wore jeans and a tight black T-shirt with a cartoon-ghost corpse on it that read CASPER WASN’T SO FRIENDLY. Her normally big blue Bambi eyes were narrowed at me in mock disgust, the rounded contour of her face looking a little sharper since her long blond hair was pulled back from her face into a ponytail. In the background behind her the rest of my local supermarket went about its own business, but the look Jane was giving me made it feel like she was shining a spotlight on me.

I turned back to the display. “Clearly you don’t understand Taco Night, then,” I said. “We could go for the Mexican blend, which seems like an obvious choice. But! We also have pepper jack, which in my opinion gives the tacos a hot, zesty flavor.”

Jane reached past me, grabbed a packet of the Mexican blend, and threw it in her basket. “I cannot believe we’re discussing this,” she said. “Can’t you use your psychometry to divine which cheese to pick?”

I glared at her. “It doesn’t work that way,” I said. I held up my gloved hands. “Yes, I can touch objects and read their histories, but that doesn’t help me figure out which cheese to choose.”

“Wearing your gloves again, I see,” Jane said.

I nodded. “Yeah,” I said.

“I thought you were in control of your power these days.”

I let out a tired sigh. “The way I’ve been using my psychometry on casework for the Department lately, it’s just easier to wear them to keep from triggering on stuff outside of work. I’d like to go a whole evening without using my psychometry, if only to keep from taking a power-induced hit to my blood sugar.”

Jane’s look was stern, concerned. “You should really take better care of your health like that,” she said. “You’re working too hard. This is your first night off from the Department in weeks…”

“Someone’s got to pick up the slack with Connor out,” I said, feeling a little on the spot.

“I know, I know.” Jane looked as if she was about to go into full-blown agitation, but stopped herself. She closed her eyes, let out a long breath, then opened them. “I know,” she said, softer this time. “I’m being selfish. Connor’s your partner and I know he’s entitled to all his vacation time, but taking it all at once?”

“Can we not talk about Connor Christos or work right now?” I asked. “Can we just concentrate on us and tonight…?”

“Fine,” Jane said, smiling. She held her hands palms up to the heavens. “Let us not spoil the sanctity of the sacred Taco Night.”

We wandered off together arm in arm, each with our own basket, in search of the other ingredients. The rest of our shopping trip took only a few more minutes-sour cream, ground beef, lettuce, tomato-but when I hit the canned-goods section, I had to stop. Once again, I was at a crossroads.

“Refried beans,” I said, looking around. “I mean, is there any other option? Do they offer just fried beans? And what beans are they frying in the first place?”

“Just grab a can, Seinfeld,” Jane said. She checked her watch. “I’d like Taco Night to happen, you know, while it’s still Taco Night.”

“But I wanted to make everything from scratch,” I said. Jane glared at me. “Hey, I used to be quite the cook, you know, in my bachelor days.”

Jane reached into the basket I was carrying. She held up a bright yellow box with a cartoon sombrero on it. “I see,” she said, rattling it around. “I suppose these pre-made taco shells meet your ‘from scratch’ criteria?”

I opened my mouth to explain, but instead shut it and grabbed a can of refried beans off the shelf. I could see that the novelty of spending all night in the grocery store striving for authenticity was starting to wear on both of us. We headed off to the registers, but I stopped just short of getting in line.

“What did you forget?” Jane asked, laughing and shaking her head.

“Salsa,” I said. I leaned over and kissed her forehead. “Be right back.”

Jane nodded. “I’ll hold our place.”

I ran off in search of the elusive condiment, but halfway down one of the aisles I heard the clatter of several items falling over, followed by the sound of screaming coming from one of the other aisles. I ran up the one I was in, rounded the corner, and turned into the next, stopping dead in my tracks.

A lumbering figure filled the entire width of the aisle, menacing a few people farther along it. It was humanoid, but only if I pictured a human made out of melted wax. It looked naked, pale, with its shoulders nearly reaching from shelf to shelf. Its hands and feet looked like claws and were made of something hard that clicked against the smooth surface of the store floor. When it heard me, it whipped its head around and a wave of terror ran over me as I saw its face for the first time. Its mouth was a gnarled mass of giant pointed teeth that stuck out in every direction. A mix of slobber and decay hung from its maw, dripping onto the laminated tiles of the store floor.

The few people who had been in the aisle ran off as Jane rounded the corner at the front end of it. The monster spun its head around to face her, letting out a low growl through its maw of tangled teeth. Wary, it turned its body so it could easily keep an eye on both of us, but it took its time because its talons kept sliding against the smooth surface of the store’s floor.

I took a few steps down the aisle toward it, more to get closer to Jane at the far end of it than to cozy up with the creature itself. “How’s it looking down there?” I shouted down to Jane. “Is it clear?” She looked off to both sides, then nodded.

“Good, then,” I said. “You might want to run.”

Much to her credit, Jane stood her ground. Slowly she took her basket and placed it on top of a stack of nearby cereal boxes. She wasn’t about to leave me to deal with this thing alone-or at least she was putting on one hell of a brave front. Personally, I was having a tough time doing it, but at least I had my trusty retractable bat hanging just inside my black leather coat.

I felt like a gunslinger preparing for high noon. I reached inside my coat and undid the safety strap that held the collapsed steel of the bat in its custom holster. I kept my movements subtle. I didn’t want to do anything sudden to alarm the creature, but I wanted to be prepared if it charged me, and the bat was my preferred weapon of choice. When it came to combating the supernatural, blunt trauma beat guns almost every time.

I looked the creature over. I had no clue what the hell it was, but one thing was for sure… Someone had beaten this monstrosity with not one but two ugly sticks.

“What’s it going to be, fugly?” I said. I looked to Jane. “Sweetie, Director Wesker’s still got you categorizing all those occult books at Tome, Sweet Tome for Greater and Lesser Arcana, yes?”

Jane squinted with a quizzical look but nodded.

“Awesome sauce,” I said, “because now would be an amazing time for you to bust out some book smarts and identify this creature for us.”

Jane looked it over with greater care before she spoke up. “Sorry, hon,” she said with a shrug. “You’ve got me. Most of the material I’m working on right now is more phenomenon based. More sightings and mystic events than para-anthropology. Maybe it’s a demon…?”

“I’m not sure,” I said, wishing I had paid more attention when the Department of Extraordinary Affairs had offered the A Walking Study in Demonology seminar. “I’m pretty sure they’re more hellfire-ish. I think it would maybe have a flaming sword or be flaming itself, and not in a West Village kind of way, either.”

Jane gave a weak laugh at that, which seemed to set something off in the creature. Its growl turned into a full-on snarl, revealing even more of its twist of teeth. It turned away from me and started with caution down the aisle toward Jane.

Screw this, I thought. I pulled my bat out and hit the button on the side of it, extending it to its full length. I started tapping it against one of the nearby shelves, the sound of metal on metal ringing out in a staccato clatter.

“Hey, dick,” I called out. “No one gets all hot and heavy with my girlfriend but me.”

Jane snorted from the other end of the aisle. “Sexist,” she said back to me.

“Would you rather take the first crack at him?”

Jane looked over the vicious, slobbering monstrosity. “No,” she said, sounding a little unsure. “You can go first. Wouldn’t want to emasculate you on date night, after all.”

“I appreciate that,” I said, grabbing a can from the nearest shelf. I spun it in my hand to look at it. Beets. I gauged the distance to the creature. “Batter up.”

I threw the can up in the air, cocked my bat back, and swung. I hit the can with a loud crack, only denting it but launching it perfectly toward the creature’s chest. The can hit hard against it, causing the monster to pause for a moment, but now it no longer looked undecided on whom to attack. It twisted all the way around toward me, flailing as it slipped on the floor tiles, its powerful arms knocking cans from the shelves with a savage ferocity I did not want to see leveled at me. It was getting ready to charge, and it would, once its talons found purchase on the floor. Wanting to both get it away from Jane and find a better position for myself, I mentally considered one of the cardinal rules I had learned on day one when joining the Department of Extraordinary Affairs:

Running is always an option.

I turned and hauled ass down the aisle while the monster got itself together and gave chase. I knocked whatever I could down as I ran, hoping to slow the creature, but all I heard behind me was the crunch of cans and the shattering of bottles as it closed in pursuit. When I turned from one aisle to the next, I was able to buy myself a second, as it had a hard time cornering on the tiles. The monster slid and slammed into the end cap items. Then it picked itself up and got back to its lightning speed in no time.

I could keep outmaneuvering it, but for how long? I could already feel my body giving out, getting winded. Then a thought struck me and I headed back toward the produce aisle. Looking back, I saw the creature once again collapsed in a pile of cans, struggling back to its feet and starting up after me again.

I turned up the produce aisle, not really caring what I did or didn’t run into. The intensity with which the creature was giving chase was terrifying. As it got closer, I could actually feel fear projecting outward from it. I fought back the false sense of spiraling, wall-climbing panic it tried to wash over my heart until I was back at my healthy level of panic. I saw a glimmer of hope in one of the produce bins and I ran for it, grabbing onto it and knocking it over as I passed. I kept running until I hit the end of the aisle before I chanced a backward glance. The creature was stopped about a third of the way back down the aisle by my overturned bin, spinning around in place but otherwise unable to move. Dozens of garlic bulbs, the bane of a whole mess of paranormal boogeymen, encircled the creature. The monster had come right down the aisle behind me, unable to fully stop itself before it slid into my little aromatic trap. Score one for Team Luck.

I walked back toward the creature, marveling at it. It had gone silent as it sniffed around with caution, looking for a way out. I picked up a solid bunch of garlic in my hand and popped it up like a baseball. The bulb burst open on impact, but the individual cloves flew out of it at a wild speed. Like a shotgun blast, they hit the creature all over, causing it to hiss out in pain.

Jane came around the far corner of the next aisle, this time with a different shopping basket from before. From the way she was carrying it, the thing must have weighed a ton. The contents of it were black, boxy, and a little larger than one of my fists.

“Are those batteries?” I shouted over the creature’s roar. I scooped up another bunch of garlic and snapped it off my bat at the creature. This time it writhed as it retreated as far inside its containment circle as it could. I was hurting it.

Jane dropped the basket at her feet and when she stood, she held one of the giant batteries in her hand. She read the side of one of them. “Lantern batteries,” she said. “I feel like shedding a little light on things.” The battery in her hand began to crackle with tiny electrical sparks as Jane willed her ability over it.

Technomancy-the arcane ability to bend machines, gadgets, and raw electrical power to her will. Her boss, Thaddeus Wesker, had brought it out in her, and her natural talent for it had saved my ass a time or two. I felt the sudden need to move myself farther back from where the creature stood.

The giant battery fit perfectly into the cup of Jane’s hand and she lifted it up. I was too far away to hear anything, but it looked like she was whispering to the battery while a tiny tornado of blue sparks began to race around it. The seams along the top of it began to warp and twist. Using an underhand softball pitch, Jane wound up and launched the battery at the creature, smacking it on its right shoulder. The battery exploded with a soft pop followed by a splash of acid that sprayed in a tight circle around the monster.

My eyes were drawn to a bunch of watermelons where the acid was already eating through the green rinds at an alarming pace, the juice of the fruit running down onto the floor. The same was happening along the back of the creature, blood and fluids running down, although the monster seemed to be fighting against the tide of damage, the wounds trying desperately to heal themselves. The creature let out a tremendous roar, and I could feel its pain hitting me as I stood at the edge of the effect.

“Keep it coming,” I yelled out to Jane, who was already scooping up another battery and charging it. Bat in hand, I went for the garlic. Round after round Jane and I kept the damage coming. As I swung at bulb after bulb, I couldn’t help but feel as though I was in some sort of surreal batting cage. I kept going, weakening the creature until it fell to its knees in a pool of its own blood. Jane called out.

“Simon!”

I was midswing. I kept my eye on the bulb I was popping up as I smacked it, then looked over at Jane. She was pointing down toward my feet. When I looked down, I could see why. I had been so intent on attacking the creature with bulb after bulb of garlic that I hadn’t noticed I had cleared a path all the way through the containment barrier.

“Shit,” I said.

It looked up from where the creature knelt before me, its body heaving with its labored breath. It noticed the cleared pathway, too, then craned its head up to look at me.

“Hi,” I said in a whisper of uncertain fear. As it tensed, I raced to lift my bat. I wanted to get at least one shot in before it could do anything, but even wounded, it was far too fast for me. It leapt straight at me, knocking me over and the bat out of my hand. It landed on me, pinning me to the floor with its crushing weight. Bits of drool and chunks of meat fell from its maw down onto me. Panicked, I tried to throw the monstrosity off, but it was no use. I was trapped.

“Watch your eyes,” I heard Jane call out. Without even giving it a thought, I shut them. The familiar thud of a battery hit the creature, followed by the dull pop of the seams giving away. The hiss of the acid filled my ears, but thankfully nothing hit my face, although I felt some of it drip down onto my coat. As the hissing got louder, I dared to open my eyes. Acid was eating into the leather of my coat the same way it was eating away at the creature’s skin. Its mouth was drawn back in a pained and horrifying expression. It looked back over its shoulder at Jane as if it was considering its options. To deal with her, it would have to get past the remaining barrier of garlic on her side. It looked down at me. Pinned there, I was no threat to it and with the circle broken on my side, it chose freedom over fight, but not before one last crush into me as it pounced off toward the exit.

I sat up, soreness kicking in the second I did. I gave myself a quick once-over, making sure none of the battery acid was about to eat through my flesh anywhere. Luckily, my coat had taken the brunt of the damage. It was totaled, unless Swiss cheese chic was going to be all the rage this season in fine leather.

Jane ran over, mindful of stepping into any of the acid pools, and offered me her hand, which I gladly took. Any paranormal encounter where you still had a hand to hold after it was okay in my book.

“You all right?” she said.

I looked around at the chaos we had made of the store, the swath of destruction that the creature had cut through it. “All things considered? Yeah.”

“You want me to go after it?”

I shook my head. “It’s long gone,” I said. “Did you see how fast that thing was?” I slid off my acid-covered coat. I barely let it fall to the floor before Jane grabbed me and hugged me. Tight. I tried not to wince given the tenderness from the fall. From the way she held me in her death grip, I could tell she was spooked. Much of her work was in the office, not in the field.

I kissed her on top of her head, hoping to calm her. “Thursdays are your day to rescue me, right?”

She laughed into my chest and I felt her grip loosen a little. She stood back and looked up at me, smiling.

“Nobody messes with Taco Night,” she said.

I reached down and gathered up my jacket. Several shards of battery casing had lodged themselves into the leather and I plucked one of the larger ones out, reading the bit of label still attached to it. “Explosion proof, my ass!”

“Hey!” a woman’s voice shouted out. I looked up and saw who I assumed was the store owner coming over to us. She was an older woman in her fifties with gray hair cut into a short bob. As she looked over the damage in the produce aisle, her eyes were so wide that I thought they might actually fall out and roll across the floor. She clutched an industrial-sized broom in her hands, but it looked puny in the face of all the damage. “What… what was that thing?”

Her accent was eight shades of old-school Brooklyn. I winced at the sound of it. “Rabid dog, ma’am,” I said, trying to put on a serious face.

“Rabid dog?” she said. “Seriously? Did you see the size of that thing? That wasn’t no dog.”

“No, really,” I said, not even buying my own story. The look on the woman’s face told me she wasn’t buying it, either. I unfolded my jacket and searched for the inside pocket, looking for one of the cards with the number for damage claims like this. I felt the edge of one and pulled it free. As I leaned forward to hand it to the store owner, the card disintegrated in my hand.

Jane slid her tiny backpack off her shoulders and produced one of her own, handing it to the woman with a reassuring smile. “You’d be surprised how big these poor mistreated animals grow when they’re left to a life in the sewers,” she said.

Something about the sweet, understanding look on Jane’s face soothed the woman. Hell, it soothed me.

“You call that number and speak to Mr. David Davidson,” Jane continued. “He’s with the Mayor’s Office. He’ll send a team out to assess the damage, and the city will see to the repairs.”

The woman remained silent, clutching the card as though it was the one thing that was keeping her mind from snapping. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that the mountain of red tape downtown to process her claim might take longer than the store would last. That was government work for you. Jane and I left the woman standing there as people started coming out of hiding and looking around. We took our baskets of groceries up toward the register area, but everyone had gone off to the produce aisle to gawk at the epicenter of the incident. I bagged our groceries and left enough cash to cover them before heading out into the streets.

Jane and I checked for signs of the creature outside the store. I followed a trail of blood for about twenty feet before it vanished in the middle of the street.

“Too late,” I said. “I had hoped it would be bleeding bad enough that we could track it, but the way that thing kept healing, it dried up the trail quick.”

Jane looked disappointed, but also hopeful. “So… where to?” she asked. “Home?”

I nodded. “Some people might find an attack on their person by some half-crazed demonic monstrosity terribly unnerving, but not me.”

“No?” Jane asked, puzzled.

“Nope,” I said. “I’m more worried about the metric ton of paperwork this is going to generate back at the office.”

We headed back to my SoHo apartment nearby. I’d call the incident in to the Department of Extraordinary Affairs tonight and worry about the paperwork tomorrow. Right now I just wanted to get home and try to enjoy the precious little time off with Jane that I was able to catch these days. Besides, like the woman said, no one messes with Taco Night.