My name’s Roy Lentz, and I’m a mutie-killer. Let me just start out be pointing out that the real-life profession of mutant extermination isn’t all fun like that Elijah Wood asshole made it look in that damned "Killer for Hire" movie. Granted, we do get paid a lot and the chicks love us, but it’s a dirty job. I’ve spent half my time crawling through sewers, up to my armpits in human and mutie waste. The authorities call us in when they don’t want to risk their own people. It’s dangerous, too. I once heard someone say that there were only three kinds of mutie-killers: young ones, dead ones, and good ones. I like to think that I’m in the last category. I’m almost thirty and I’ve been killing muties for almost five years and I’ve racked up three hundred forty-four kills. That’s since I turned professional, anyway. That makes me the second-best mutie killer in the nation Hell, I pegged my first mutie back in ‘15 when the crisis first hit. I was fourteen then and had just watched the son of a bitch shred my dad. Those were not fun times, I’ll tell you that. Overnight a quarter of the world’s population turns to blood-thirsty savages and begin wiping out anybody who’s normal. Nobody could ever figure out why this all happened, either. Some places got hit harder than others, of course. The Panama Wall is all that stands between us and the hordes of muties who took over South America. Up here in the good ol’ Great Lakes Confederation of America, we’ve got the problem almost under control. Almost. Despite what the "Save the Mutie" idiots say, they want to wipe us out as badly as we want to wipe them out. We’re locked in a war of genocide. The side that wins gets the planet. There is no second place. At least we have guns.

Which brings me to my story.

I had received a call from the mayor of Pittsburgh about a minor mutie problem. She didn’t specify what the problem was, but she offered me a hundred grand. The next thing I know I’m standing on the lip of a manhole in the middle of the Strip District.

I stared down at the empty darkness for a few moments and then looked up at the chief of police, Guido. He was fat and a bit vacant-looking and was probably doing the city a service sitting behind a desk than by doing any real police work.

"So what’s the story?" I asked.

"Well," he began, polluting the world with his sour breath, "two nights ago a band of about a dozen muties broke into the hospital and raided the maternity ward." He paused for effect.

I wasn’t too impressed. Muties did that all the time. I lit a cigarette to take my mind off his breath.

"Anyway," he continued, "they killed three guards and five nurses. They were seen fleeing into this old sewer system. We immediately dispatched a group of officers to pursue and annihilate them, but nobody came back. We did get a map of the group’s progress before we lost contact, though."

He had used the word "annihlate" as though he had just looked it up in the dictionary and had been looking for an excuse to use it in a sentence. Why couldn’t muties just kill morons? "Okay," I said. "Let me get my stuff."

I had parked my car right inside the police barricade, barely a yard from the sea of reporters. As I approached, they got loud, all trying to ask me different questions simultaneously. It’s not that I don’t like reporters, I just don’t like it when they act like idiots. I had learned to ignore them until they settle down enough to ask questions one at a time. As I popped open the trunk of my car and checked my rifle, they began to quiet down.

"Mister Lentz," a cute female reporter said, "do you think you’ll have any trouble dealing with these mutants?"

"Just a job like any other," I answered, speaking around my cigarette. I slung my rifle over my shoulder and went through the same mental checklist for my pistol..

"Do you have any comment on the efforts of some to unionize mutant exterminators?" she asked again.

"Only the losers who can’t make a buck on their own want a union," I said as I holstered my pistol. I was almost ready.

"Do you have anything to say about the disappearance of Marvin Bowser on a recent mission?" a male reporter asked.

That question caught me off guard. Bowser had been the top-ranked mutie-killer on the continent. I slammed the trunk shut and grinned into the cameras. "All I can say is, I’m number one."

I turned away from the lights of the cameras and walked back to the manhole. I was the man. Best mutie-killer on Earth. I’d have to get an agent and maybe a haircut. I was feeling pretty damn good, mostly because it would have taken me forever to catch up to that son-of-a-bitch’s kill count.

"Alright," I said as arrived back at the manhole. "Let’s get cracking."

"Johnson, Limmer," the chief said to a couple of wide-eyed young officers dressed in body armor, "get the lead out. You guys got some learning to do." The pair walked to the manhole and gingerly climbed down the ladder into the darkness.

"Whoa, hold it," I said to the chief. "I work alone, dipshit. I don’t need a couple of idiot rookies to shoot me in the back the first time a rat squeals."

"We’re payin’ the bill," the chief said, "we’ll tell you whether or not you need help. We need some experienced people on this force if we’re ever going to deal with the muties." God, his breath stank.

I thought for a moment. A hundred grand was a lot to walk away from, and if I ditched this job, the flock of reporters might not report on it favorably. "Make it one-twenty and you have a deal."

"A hundred and twenty thousand?" the chief said, flabbergasted.

"Or I walk."

It was the chief’s turn to think. He didn’t appear to be too swift and it took awhile. "Fine," he grumbled. One-twenty." He handed me a map of the sewer system. "Now go get those muties."

I took the map out of his hands and began climbing down the ladder.

"Oh, and Lentz," the chief said.

I paused and looked up at him. "What now?"

"Better lose the cigarette. The system hasn’t been used for years, but there may still be flammable gases down there."

I flipped my mostly-used cigarette onto the sidewalk. "Thanks for the tip." I looked up at the night sky, but there were no stars to say goodbye to. Then I climbed down into the darkness. I jumped the last three feet into two inches of thick liquid. I was definitely appreciating my water-proofed boots. The place made the chief’s breath smell like daisies.

The two rookies were looking at me expectantly.

"Okay," I said, "Which one of you is which?"

"I’m Johnson," one said.

"I’m Limmer," the other answered in a slightly higher voice.

In the poor light I could barely make out any of their facial features. Limmer was slightly taller than Johnson, but that was the only difference I could see. I don’t suppose it really mattered, though. I didn’t need to know which was which. I turned on the flashlight that was strapped to my wrist and looked at the map. "Let’s go, kids," I said as I began walking nonchalantly down the sewer. I wasn’t too concerned yet because the map didn’t mark first contact until the first junction. Before that, there was nowhere for a mutie to hide.

"Now the first lesson about hunting muties," I said, "Is to be the fuck quiet. If muties are good at one thing, it’s ambushing. If they know you’re coming, they’ll be waiting for you. Starting now, I don’t want to hear any talking. If something has to be said, I’ll say it. Got it?"

"Yes, sir," they said, nearly in unison. They were disciplined little bastards, I’ll give them that.

"And stay about ten paces behind me, got it?"

"Yes, sir."

"And if you shoot me in the back, I’ll kill you."

Right about then I realized what a dangerous situation I was in. I wasn’t too worried about the muties, it was the two dipshits behind me with itchy trigger fingers. They were the wild cards. They were the ones who could make this my last job. I was actually a little bit afraid.

We trudged through the stinking tunnels for a few hundred feet until the junction was in sight. For whatever reason, muties don’t seem to see visible light so I wasn’t concerned about the flashlights. They can hear, though, and they can hear damn well. I motioned for Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum to be quiet. I walked forward slowly, barely lifting my feet from the slimy floor, not breaking the surface of the water as I walked. The rookies behind me were making a little bit of noise, but it wasn’t too bad.

Soon the four-way junction was in sight. I had this part down to a science. I put my back to the wall (slimy and grimy as it was) and slid up to the lip of the junction. That way I could see down three branches of the junction and then hopefully surprise anything that was waiting for me around the corner. It had worked pretty well up until then.

I had inched up the edge of the wall and was steeling myself to lunge around the corner when one of the rookies screamed. My head snapped around and I saw their flashlights flailing wildly, throwing agitated blobs of light bouncing across the tunnel. I pointed my rifle at the commotion and trotted forward.

It took me a few seconds to figure out what was happening with only my flashlight to illuminate the scene. One of the rookies was sitting in the muck, staring up at the corpse of one of the cops that had come in before. The body was pinned to the wall with large metal spikes driven through its arms. Its chest and stomach cavity had been torn open and emptied. A smiling skull with a few shreds of blackened fleshwas all that was left of his face. His feet had been nibbled to the ankle, probably by rats.

The other rookie (Limmer, I think) was looking at me sheepishly. "Sorry, sir," he said. "It just--" Suddenly Limmer’s faced changed from one of a kid about to get yelled at to pure terror. "Look out!"

I spun around just in time to see a mutie lunging for me. Its mouth was a sadistic smile, full of jagged teeth. You could almost see how it had once been human. Instinctively I ducked down a little, braced my rifle under its chest, and flipped it headfirst onto the ground. Then I turned to face the rest of the onslaught.

One of them had almost gotten into arm’s reach of me, its claws nearly shredding my flesh. They say that if a mutie gets to within ten feet of you, you’re dead. It had happened three times in my life and I’d obviously lived, but it was close every time. I barely got my rifle up in time. The instant before I pulled the trigger I looked into it’s black, shriveled eyes. Then I fired at point-blank range, blowing a gaping hole in its chest. I was peppered with droplets of brown mutie-blood. Three hundred forty-five. I blasted the head of another as it charged down the tunnel at me. Three hundred forty-six. Then I put a bullet through the head of the one I had thrown to the ground as it tried to regain its footing. Three hundred forty-seven. They never made any noise, even when you killed them. It was too bad, too, because hearing their death cries would have been gratifying.

I shined my flashlight to where the rookies had been last time I saw them. Limmer was rolling a mutie corpse off of Johnson. He stepped back quickly, a look of shock on his face. I walked up to Johnson and looked at him. The mutie had literally bitten off his face, bone and all. All that was recognizable was his lower jaw which flapped uselessly, trying to find its mate. I remember the crimson swirls his blood made as it rolled off his face into the muck. He was still alive, but he wouldn’t last long. Nobody survived mutie bites, especially not ones that bad.

I looked back up at Limmer. The kid looked like he was on the verge of tears. "Stay here with Johnson. I’ll be back soon."

Limmer didn’t answer me. He was still staring down at the twitching body.

I turned and walked back down the tunnel. I really did not want those dipshits with me in the first place. If it wasn’t for them, those muties would not have caught us by surprise and Johnson wouldn’t have died and I wouldn’t have had such a close call. Fucking rookies.

I followed the map through the winding maze of tunnels, eyes open for any sign of an ambush. The muties knew I was coming and they knew why I was coming. Soon I was approaching the point where the last team got wiped out. There was no sign of muties, but I was getting pretty nervous. I stalked carefully to where the spot where the last group was killed. It was a junction, predictably. There were no bodies, but the concrete walls were shattered in parts by recent bullet impacts. I lit up the ceiling. The claw marks I saw told me what had happened. Muties like to hang onto ceilings and drop down in the midst of large parties. I always watch for that. They obviously didn’t.

I did a three-sixty with the flashlight to make sure I was not being stalked and took a look at the map. Without the last party’s trail to follow I had to navigate on my own. Farther down the tunnel was a large chamber. I was willing to bet that that was where the muties congregated. I began to head toward it, walking as carefully as ever.

I was walking for a good five minutes or so when I spotted movement ahead. I stopped and looked hard into the darkness. Three muties were crawling along the ceiling, heading my way. When I aimed my rifle at them, they fell form the ceiling and, like cats, landed on their feet on the slimy floor. Then they charged at me. I fired two shots, killing the first two easily. Three hundred forty-nine. Then I spun around and shot the one that was sneaking up behind me. That was a another trick they used a lot. They liked to distract you with frontal assault while another sneaks up from behind. Three hundred fifty. I turned around and leisurely blew away the last mutie who was still running at me. Three hundred fifty-one. .

That diminutive battle made me feel a little better. At least the muties were playing the game by the rules. I walked casually by the three muties lying in the muck and put another bullet through one that was still moving a little. I put my rifle on my shoulder and strutted down the tunnel. I had broken three-fifty. Forty-two more and I’d have the record. Just a couple more decent jobs and that record would be mine.

As I approached the chamber, I started walking more carefully. The tunnel seemed to slope upward slightly so that I was walking on dry cement for the first time. The opening to the chamber looked like a big black mouth. The blood was pounding in my ears as I slipped up to the entrance. With the light of my flashlight, I could barely make out the far wall. I pulled a phosphorous flare out of my pocket and tossed it into the center of the room. In retrospect that was a dumb thing to do, because if the chief was right about flammable fumes in the sewers, I’d have blown myself up. I wasn’t think about it, though.

I put one hand up to keep from looking directly into the flare as it burst. I didn’t want to ruin my night vision. The room was a lot bigger than it looked on the map. The floor was strewn with bones. Some were human, some were clearly mutants (the eat their dead, by the way), and some looked like chicken bones. It wasn’t until I saw a tiny human skull that I realized that these muties hadn’t eaten chicken. Other than the after-dinner remains, the room was empty.

I stepped carefully into the room, looking in all directions to ensure there was no ambush waiting. The room smelled like week-old death with a chemical accent, typical of mutie habitations. There were three main entrances to the room and I shined my flashlight down each one to ensure they were clear. All the signs of recent mutie occupation were there, from the scratch-marks on the wall to the piles of mutie shit. They were gone now, though. When they abandoned their central nest, that usually meant that they had moved on or fled. That would explain why I met so little resistance getting here. It was going to be an easy hundred-twenty grand, that was for sure. I was a little disappointed that I wouldn’t be getting any closer to the record that day, but that’s the way things go.

I nudged one of the tiny skulls with my foot. Except for a few errant chunks of flesh in the crevices, it was completely stripped of flesh. The cranium had been split open and the brains scooped out. My theory is that muties like babies best because soft spot makes it easier to peel their skulls apart. That’s the kind of war we’re fighting. A little part of me said I should feel remorse, but I couldn’t. My remorse gland burned out years ago.

I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned quickly and saw a wall of muties charging at me from one of the entrances, their mouths open in a silent war cry. I raised my rifle and fired three quick bursts. Three hundred fifty-four. I glanced quickly at the other entrances. Muties were pouring out of them as well. I pointed my rifle quickly at the other streams of muties and fired. Three hundred fifty-six, three hundred fifty-nine. I retreated quickly to the wall so none could get behind me, still firing madly to keep the rising tide of claws and teeth out of reach. Three hundred sixty-six. Part of my mind was screaming at me, demanding an explanation of how many there were. They just kept coming, streaming through the entrances and climbing over the dead bodies of their comrades. Three hundred seventy-eight. I was almost out of bullets. I always brought extra-long clips, but I began to doubt if it would be enough this time. Three hundred seventy-nine. As quickly and as accurately as I was firing, they were getting closer. Three hundred eighty-three. The number bullets I had left ticked down in my mind as my kill count ticked upward. For the first time in my life, I would have been grateful for those trends to be reversed. The muties kept on coming.

Three hundred eighty-nine. The soft "click" of the hammer of my rifle striking an empty chamber hit my mind like a thunderclap. I whipped out my pistol and began firing. I only had twelve bullets in the pistol, but it was that or die. Three hundred ninety-one. They were getting really close. I shot one in the head and as it fell, its claws scraped against my shin. Three hundred ninety-two. I fired at another as it lunged at me. I leapt to the side as its corpse crashed into the wall where I had been standing. Three hundred ninety-three. Through the thick cacophony adrenaline and terror, I small bit of elation that I had tied the record for the most kills by a professional mutie killer had somehow registered in my mind.

Then the inevitable happened. I felt a mutie’s teeth sink deeply into my right shoulder. "Fucker!" I screamed as its leathery skin rubbed against my cheek. I didn’t even notice its claws raking my chest, shredding my flak jacket. I awkwardly pointed my pistol at its head and fired. Its knees buckled and, with the death grip on my shoulder, dragged me to the ground. My gun arm was pinned beneath its body. I knew it was the end. I looked up to see what I had expected to be a wave of teeth and claws descending on me. Instead, the room was empty.

I just sat there for a few seconds, staring into space before the horrible pain in my shoulder brought me back. The mutie was still locked onto my shoulder. Painfully I reached around with my left hand and fumbled for my pistol. I shot the mutie in the jawbone and instantly felt the grip slacken slightly. I slowly pried its jaws open and extricated myself from its grip. My shoulder was soaked with two different colors of blood. It burned. It burned a lot. I was dead and I knew it. At least I broke the record. No one but me would know it, but I thought that was enough. I had resigned myself to dying there, an island of humanity in a sea of mutie corpses. It was fitting.

But I didn’t die. The fairly peaceful end I had seen so many times before as bite victims just faded out didn’t happen. The pain in my shoulder grew steadily worse and began to spread all over my body. The pain grew so intense that I wanted to shoot myself, but by then I couldn’t get my arms to work. Before long, my entire body was wracked with pain. It felt like every cell was tearing apart. I don’t know how long that went on, but it felt like forever. It filled my head with visions I didn’t understand at the time, too. I saw, or rather, felt a vine in the Brazilian rainforest brushing against my cheek. I heard the snow in Tibet crunching under my feet. I saw the noon sun in the Australian sky. I tasted the sweet blood of a human on my tongue.

Soon I opened my eyes, but I didn’t see. I was using new senses. The muties were standing around me, looking down at me. We were all one. I knew what the ones around me were thinking. I knew what the ones living in the Sahara were doing. I knew who the ones in the Siberian forests were hunting. And I knew what had happened to me. It was all a set up to get me into the fold, to bring my knowledge and experience to the muties.

"Welcome to the club," I heard in my head. It was Bowser, thinking to me half a continent away.

I stood up. I felt the new blood coursing through my veins. I felt stronger muscles rippling beneath my changed skin. I looked down at my hand and saw the large claws protruding from my finger tips.

The circle of muties opened and I saw Limmer tied to a wooden stake leaning against the wall. His eyes were opened wide, focused on the light from my flashlight. To my senses, the flashlight emitted a barely perceptible glow. Limmer stared a tthe light, his eyes following the motion. Confusion and fear was written in his expression. I walked up to him and shined the flashlight into my face. Recognition followed by terror raced over his face. Then, with a single swipe of my claw, I ripped out his throat. I watched as the blood spurted out of his neck and his head slowly sank.

One.