Daikaijuzine

The first time I saw Nick Page, he was pointing a shotgun at my head and telling me not to move.  He wore a pith helmet and the khaki uniform of an old British explorer that day.  A bandoleer stuffed with sharpened wooden stakes hung over one of his skinny shoulders.  I placed him at about fifty, because of the seamed face and grey stubble.  Standing maybe five feet tall, and weighing about ninety pounds, he wasn’t much to look at.  He had a sort of manic gleam in his grey eyes.  I figured he was nuts, so I froze alright!

With an explosion of feathers, the chicken that was perched on my head flew against the far wall and slammed into the graying wood.  Nick Page lowered his shotgun, and I saw a wooden stake pinning my ex-chicken against the barn wall.  The other birds began to shriek in protest and flap wildly about the barn.

“You sir,” he said with a kind of quiet authority, “Have an infestation!”

Well, now I wasn’t about to let some shrimp nutter blow away one of my chickens.  As Nick strode past me to the pinioned beast, I grabbed a pitchfork and leveled it at his back.  ”OK, now drop the gun,” I said.

Nick ignored me, but instead opened the chicken’s mouth.  ”Observe the teeth,” he said.  ”Observe the eyes!”

Almost despite myself, I opted to lean forward and take a look rather than skewer the crazy guy in front of me.  And I saw something I’ll never forget. Chickens don’t have teeth, much less wicked-looking fangs.  They also don’t have cat-slitted, red, evil-looking eyes.

“We’ll have to burn the corpse just to make sure,” continued Nick.  He had a deep voice and British accent, which sounded pretty bizarre coming from such a shorty.

Maybe I should explain a bit about myself.  My name is Bob Cameron, and I run a farm.  I run it the old-fashioned way, and grow organics.  I stand about six feet tall, and I can flip a small car with my bare hands if I’m mad enough.

And I can tell you, I was puzzled as hell at that point.

Nick explained, and cleared up my confusion.  He was a vampire hunter.  Some desperate vamp had turned one of the animals on the farm because it couldn’t find a human, and now a whole bunch of my livestock had become bloodsucking monsters.  I had vampire cows, chickens, and pigs running around, and I’d get more every day.  Nick had tracked the bugger who caused this, and he was here to help me out.

Nick injected a fancy serum in my arm, to prevent me becoming a vampire if one bit me.  Then he asked if I had any holy water or crosses.  I dug grandma’s silver cross out of a drawer in the dining room, took a few stakes from Nick and pushed them through my belt, and I followed him out into the morning light.

Have you ever had a vampire chicken flap its wings and go for your neck?  Or have you watched a vampire bull, eyes glowing red and snorting fire, charge you from across a field?  It was the horse who came closest to punching my ticket, though.  While we hid in the stable from the pigs, he quietly leaned over his stall and just about got me in the neck.  If I hadn’t shoved the cross in his mouth while Nick lined up for a shot, it all would have ended right there.

By dusk, we had it under control.  Seventeen chickens, one horse, one bull, five cows, three goats, ten pigs, a donkey, a turtle, six rabbits, and an armadillo had been staked and dragged to an empty field.  We were covered in bites, cuts, and bruises.  Nick had to put his left arm in a sling.  He sprained it when jumping away from the danged bull.

I finished dragging tree limbs over the pile of bodies, threw in a few gallons of gasoline, and tossed in a match.  I’ve never enjoyed a bonfire so much in my life, even though I was plumb out of marshmallows.  As Nick and I sat down on a log and watched the flames leap thirty feet in the air, I pulled out a flask of my finest home-made corn whiskey and we shared a long pull.  We talked as the sun sank down into the hills.  We relaxed and thought the whole adventure was over.

But when the full moon rose, we heard a long, shivering howl from the west, and Nick and I traded a look.

“That came over from Dale’s farm next door,” I said.  ”Reckon it’s a wolf?”

“That sounds like a werewolf to me,” said Nick grimly.  ”The howl is distinctive.  It is fortuitous that I carry a stock of silver bullets!”

Now as to the rest of that night, what happened is a story for another time.  All I will say is, it’s a good thing chickens are stupid, even when they change into man-sized wolves!  By the time we drove away the werewolves and spent a week resting up, Nick and I became fast friends.

“What do you say we team up?” I asked Nick.

“It’s been a pleasure to work with you, Mr. Cameron,” he said solemnly.  He stuck out his skinny hand and shook mine.  ”I think that’s a fine idea.”

We put an ad in a few ag papers around the state, and Nick and I have stayed busy ever since.  It seems we found us a niche market in the monster-hunting business.  I’ve exorcised demons out of iguanas, battled vampire dogs, and seen mice turn into slavering wolves more times than I can count.  It’s not a glamorous job, driving around the country roads in a beat-up pickup and hunting evil livestock, but it sure beats raising squash and feeding chickens.

So if Fluffy’s eyes start to glow red, or the cows change into something unnatural when the full moon rises, you know who to call– Nick Page and Bob Cameron!