>>18548

3 - Damages

I had said that I hoped to never see another Jissouseki ever again. The week after the first Jissou call I received two more. The week after that, half a dozen, and more than ten the week after that.

You can probably see a pattern here.

They were not as bad as the first call, for the most part. We used the poisoned rat bait to great effect, and it cut our work easily in half. The news about the Jissouseki spread fast, and people were learning to keep them out of their homes at all costs. The infestations we did deal with usually were not as advanced as our initial experience.

Disposing of the Jissou we caught became somewhat of a problem. The city solid waste department wasn't happy about taking bagfuls of dead Jissou. They're smelly when they are alive and beyond rank when rotting. Especially by the dumpster full. They hiked my fees through the roof. I even had to get a second dumpster a few months after the plague started. I would fill the first one to overflowing before trash collection each week. My neighbors were not very happy with me.

It wasn't long before people were becoming very unhappy with the Jissouseki in general. While people had mostly ignored them in the beginning, Jissou baiting and torture was becoming a very popular pastime. Younger people in particular seemed to enjoy killing the things in the most imaginative ways possible, then uploading videos of it to websites that specialized in that sort of thing.

However, it seemed like no matter how many were killed there was always another to take its place.

Jissou related property damage was becoming a large problem. That two hundred fifty billion dollar price tag on Jissou damaged sounded outrageously high when I first read it, but after thinking about it for a while it didn't seem so unlikely.

Take my first Jissou job, for instance. That old woman's entire house was covered in their waste. All the carpets, wallpaper, drapes, sheets, bedding and even the floor would probably have to be replaced. All the furniture would have to be reupholstered, and all appliances given a thorough cleaning or replaced entirely. Even replacing all the food eaten by the Jissou would probably cost several hundred dollars, at least.

And that is just material costs, it doesn't even include the labor to actually do all those things. I would hate to be the poor slob who had to clean out that woman's kitchen. It probably cost somewhere between ten and twenty-five thousand dollars to restore her house. If you multiply that by all damaged houses across the entire nation, than you're talking a significant chunk of change.

Of course, for some business there was a silver lining. Or green lining, depending on how you look at it. The carpet manufacturing business was booming, especially factories that made green carpet, oddly enough. Green clothes suddenly became all the rage, as did tie-dye and camouflage. 'If people can't tell a dress or shirt or carpet or sofa is stained, then you wouldn't have to replace it' seemed to become a justification for turning just about anything green.

Some cities and municipalities tried to enact Jissou eradication programs, but they were never very successful. Even if a city or town somehow managed to rid themselves off all Jissou, the ones in the next town over would simply expand into the now vacant area.

Jissou were even getting into the factories that manufactured everything we used. It was very common for us to get calls to come clean out an infested factory or warehouse. Jissou would get in during the night or weekend, and though there usually wasn't much food, would explore everywhere, leaving trails of excrement behind them. They would sometimes get trapped in machinery, which when activated the next morning would usually grind the Jissou into chunks and foul the mechanisms. Productivity would go down as a result, potentially costing a company tens of thousands of dollars.

The worst aspect of the plague was when the Jissou started getting into the food supply. Anywhere food was served, cooked, stored, processed or grown was a target. When Jissou invaded a large food production plant, the whole place would have to be shut down, cleaned and inspected by the FDA before it was allowed to operate again.

You know how there are supposed to be acceptable amounts of contaminants in food, such as so many bug legs per jar of peanut butter, or X amount of rat crap per loaf of bread? Well, the FDA soon issued guidelines concerning Jissou contamination. Anything less than one percent Jissou parts or waste in most foodstuffs was deemed acceptable and edible. People all across the country were outraged at the guidelines, but the FDA put it bluntly: Get used to eating Jissou contaminated food, or starve.

Vegetarians were disgusted, Jews and Muslims furious(for Jissou were about as un-kosher as it was possible to be), and everyone else felt slightly sick to their stomach.

Indeed, Jissou were consuming a significant portion of all the food grown in the United States. A large part was from unsecured food in homes, and still more from packaging and distributions centers. By far the largest proportion was eaten right at the point of origin though, right where the food was grown, which leads us into my next tale.

4 - A Different Kind of Call

I received a call about a half a year after the plague started that was very unusual. As an exterminator, I work primarily in and around houses and buildings, keeping Jissou and more normal pests away from where humans live, work and sleep.

This call was from a farmer.

His name was Juan, and he grew corn. He said that he had been having problems with Jissouseki in his fields for the past five or six months. At first he had been able to keep them under control with poisoned bait, which had worked for several months. Then the poison stopped working, so he switched to a different type of poison. The new stuff worked, for a while.

I had been afraid of this. The damn things reproduced so fast that poison resistant strains were bound to appear sooner or later. All it took was one Jissou that was slightly resistant surviving. Its offspring would inherit the resistance, and the next time the same poison was used, less would die. If the same poison was used continuously, then Jissouseki that were practically immune would eventually result.

Rotating poisons would help, but in the end would only prolong the inevitable. What was needed was a more comprehensive eradication program, where poisons were only a part of the whole. I was very interested in the job, as it presented several new challenges to overcome. I told Juan that I would take it, but would need several days to plan an attack. Juan thanked me, but told me not to take too long.

"If those cursed things aren't out of my fields by harvest time, they'll make a right mess of my harvesters."

I could imagine it all to easily. Fields of Jissou being swept into the rotating blades of the harvesters, contaminating what little corn they hadn't already eaten before it was even fully harvested. Something like that could easily bankrupt a small farmer like Juan.

I thought hard for about thirty minutes, going over and over my long experience as an exterminator in my mind, forming a nascent plan. The offensive on Juan's Jissouseki problem would require a three pronged approach: chemical, physical, and biological.

The chemical prong would be a continuation of the poisons, rotated to reduce the chances of further resistances developing in the Jissou populations near Juan's farm. I had access to industrial strength pesticides and rodenticides that the Jissou would not have been exposed to yet. Care would have to be taken to ensure that the corn crop wasn't contaminated, but with proper precautions it should be feasible.

The physical aspect would be manual removal or extermination of the Jissou. I had an idea about what might work best on Juan's farm. Chasing them down and bagging them would take far to long out in the open fields, so another method would be needed. I would have to make a call to an old friend of mine to consult his expertise.

The third prong, biological, was probably going to be the most effective long term solution for Juan. What was needed were things that would do to the Jissou what they did to everything else: eat them.

When farmers had problems with aphids, they bought bags of ladybugs and released them in their fields. The ladybugs are voracious predators of the insect world and would make short work of the aphids. What I needed was something that liked the taste of Jissou flesh.

I had not noticed any regular parasites or pathogens associated with the Jissou we removed from the homes and business in my city. I would have to call around to other exterminators, preferably from a wide range of places and climates, and see if anyone had any information on potential Jissouvores.

But first I had to call my old buddy, Solomon. I needed his knowledge and experience. He was a master as his chosen hobby. I say hobby, but really it was his life. He retired several years ago, and has been able to devote himself to it almost exclusively since. You see, Solomon was a hunter. He had developed, refined and honed his skills to a fine tempered point over a long lifetime. He was just the person I needed, for I was thinking about going on a little expedition, a little Jissou hunt.

Getting hold of Solomon could be hard. He was usually out on extended hunting trips during the weekend. During the weekdays he often took shorter jaunts, hunting whatever was in season locally. He also never carried a cell phone. I dialed his number hopefully. I could leave a message if I needed to, but really needed to talk to him as soon as possible. Luckily, he picked up right after the second ring.

"Hello?"

"Hi Solomon, how're you doing?"

"Hey, Jack! Pretty good, pretty good. I haven't talked to you in awhile. How have you been?"

"Terrible."

"Aww, how come? Is business bad?"

"No, it's booming like never before. It's just the type of business I'm getting tends to take the spring out of a man's step. It's actually why I called you today. I need your help."

"Really? What can an old codger like me possibly have that would help an exterminator?"

"Well, I've got this customer." I said, and proceeded to give him the whole story. He listened raptly while I described the farmer's plight and my plans for his farm's salvation. After I finished he was silent for several moments, thinking.

Finally he said, "I think I can help you. It certainly is an interesting thing to think about. I've got a bit of a ethical qualm about it though; I always eat what I kill. I consider it extremely rude to kill something then not eat it, and there is no way in heaven or hell that I'm going to eat one of those things, those Jissouseki. No, I wouldn't eat a single one, let alone the dozens or hundreds or thousands we would have to kill to clear that poor fellow's fields."

"Yeah, I thought you might say that. Listen, just think about all the people that farmer can feed with a good crop of corn. Now, think about that all going to waste because of an ugly little troll that will eat it instead, and shit on what it doesn't eat. Then eat the shit."

"Hmmm, you've got a point. All right, I'll help, but on one condition."

"Oh, what's that?"

"You've got to come with me on one of my next trips! It makes the whole trip that much more pleasurable if you've got company. Good friends, good drink, and good food make for a wonderful time, Jack."

"You've got a deal. I'll call you in a day or so and let you know when we're going to do this. It will be sometime in the next few days."

We chatted for a few more minutes, catching up and chewing the fat, then said our goodbyes and hung up. Good, that was one problem well on the way to being solved. Now to figure out what in the world would want to eat Jissouseki. I spent several moments fantasizing about letting several bears loose in a cornfield full of Jissou. Then I stopped with a sigh. While such a thing would doubtless be entertaining to watch, it probably wasn't very practical. I started making some more calls.

5 - Down on the Farm

Danny and I met Solomon at his house the morning of the hunt. Solomon had everything we needed already loaded up in his vehicle, and so we set out for Juan's farm immediately.

Juan lived a bit past the edge of the city, where urban sprawl gives way to rural serenity, then to raw countryside. His farm wasn't large, which was good. A larger farm would have taken far longer to scourge clean of Jissouseki.

We pulled in around seven o'clock in the morning. Solomon had insisted on an early start. Juan was waiting for us on his porch, sipping coffee and reading the newspaper. He invited us into his nice, warm living room so we could discuss the plans for the day.

After making the necessary introductions, we all settled in to Juan's easy chairs. I explained what we would be doing.

"First, we'll be thinning the Jissou in your fields manually, as much as we can. It would take far to long to chase them down on foot, so we'll be baiting them out into the open. After a sizable number of them have come out of the fields and gathered around the bait, we'll then open fire."

"Open fire?" Juan asked. "We're going to shoot them? Isn't that a bit much?"

"If we used standard sized hunting rifles and ammo it would be, but that is why I brought Solomon with me today. He is an accomplished hunter. He knows exactly how much force we need, and how to apply it." I replied.

I nodded to Solomon, and he took over.

"Jack is right. Supposed we used a large caliber weapon, like a thirty-thirty. It would kill the Jissou, alright, but the noise would also probably scare a large portion of our quarry away. It would also discourage the Jissou still in the fields from leaving them and taking our bait."

Solomon reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of shiny brass.

"I have several different sizes of ammunition here to show you. Here is a large caliber rifle round." he continued, holding up the largest piece.

"I recognize that," said Juan, "it's a thirty aught-six shell."

"You know your ammunition." said Solomon with a smile. "Yes, it is. It would also turn a large Jissouseki into something akin to applesauce. Far too much power for what we need, and also far too expensive. Each round is more than a dollar, if you buy from a quality manufacturer."

He raised a much smaller round and said, "This is a twenty-two caliber long rifle shell. They are much cheaper, costing cents per round instead of dollars, but are also a bit more powerful than we need. They have a distinctive cracking sound when fired, which might scare the Jissou."

He placed the round back in his palm, and raised up an even smaller one.

"This is a twenty-two caliber short. More quiet than the long rifle version, and a bit cheaper. We could fire these off all day long and not spend more than a hundred dollars. They also have less power and penetration, which is ideal for our needs."

He gestured around him and said, "I know we're not in the city anymore, but there are still people around. We'll be firing a lot of rounds today, and I don't want any chance of ricochets or strays hitting someone. I saw several houses near while driving here."

"Yes, safety is first priority when dealing with guns." said Juan.

"I'm glad you said that." replied Solomon. "To many people these days don't know the barrel from the butt of a gun. Ignorance is dangerous."

He reached into his other pocket and pulled out some bright red objects.

"This is a twelve gauge shotgun shell. Even loaded with the finest bird shot, it would have far to much power for a group of Jissou at close range."

He held out a smaller version of the previous round.

"This is a four-ten shell. Smaller, cheaper, quieter and less powerful than the twelve gauge, it still packs a punch. It is louder than the twenty-two short, but will devastate groups of Jissou clustered around our bait. I have several rifles of each, twenty-two short and four-ten, so you can pick whichever you prefer."

He looked at Danny, then at Juan. "Jack hunts with me occasionally, so I know he knows his firearm safety, but before we begin I'll want to go over the basics with you two. I don't want any accidents today."

They both nodded in acceptance. Then Juan asked, "This sounds good for my current problem, but what will keep the Jissou in the surrounding countryside from returning to my fields tomorrow?"

"I have several solutions for that." I replied. "First, we'll continue with the poisonings for awhile. I have much more powerful stuff than you can buy at the local hardware store. If we rotate it every few weeks, Jissou resistant to one poison should be knocked down by the next. The poison is just a stop-gap measure though. What you really need is a natural pest control method. One that will take a bit of work to set in motion, but will be very low maintenance afterwards."

"What would that be?" asked Juan.

"Predators. Ideally cheap, native animals or insects that would love to take a bite out of a Jissou. I've called around and located some people who could supply us with what you need." I said.

"Excellent! What animal did you have in mind, Jack?"

"Well, I think it might be best to go with several at once. A bird of prey, a small ground based predator, and a larger ground based predator."

I smiled, then said, "Actually, we're going to be killing two Jissou with one stone doing this. I've talked to some local conservationists who would love to set you up with some voracious but endangered species. A local variety of owl endangered by well meaning but overzealous logging companies. A subspecies of mink hunted almost to extinction by fur poachers. And, last but not least, they want to reintroduce coyotes to this area. They were extirpated from here way back in the eighteen hundreds, and the conservationists think the time is ripe to try to bring them back."

"This sounds good!" said Juan, with a big grin on his face. "My wife adores animals, she will love this."

"Of course, the poisoning will have to stop before the predators are brought in. Otherwise we'll end up with secondary poisonings and some endangered species will be even more endangered. You're actually luckier than you know. The conservationists are so excited about this, they've offered to build and install the habitats for the animals for you."

"Wonderful, wonderful! Well, that settles that. Should we get on with the day's events then?"

"Yes," said Solomon, "I think it is time to get started. Lets go outside and set up a battle plan."

So, we got up and trooped outside. Juan led us over to his fields to show us what we would be up against.

His fields were large, but not huge. If you viewed them from the sky, you would see three rectangles separated by rough dirt roads that Juan used to move his equipment and harvest. The center most field had a notch cut out of the south side. The house was situated on the south most part of the cut out, with a wide lawn surrounding and separating the house from the corn.

As we approached the edge of the cornfield, I saw a flurry of small movements at the base of the corn plants. The Jissou were retreating deeper into the corn as we came nearer. These Jissou were afraid of humans. Juan explained why.

"They don't like to get close anymore. When they first came, they would surround the house some mornings. Damn creepy. Once I started setting the dogs on them, they stopped being so bold. I had to lock my poor pups up once we started poisoning the little bastards, though. I didn't want any 'secondary poisonings', as you said earlier. Look here."

Juan bent and pointed to several of his corn plants. They looked ragged.

"They gnaw on the stems and leaves, sometimes they bring down whole stalks and eat the immature ears. I've probably lost a good portion of my crop to them."

Solomon said, "Well, lets see if we can't do something about that. I think we'll do one field at a time, starting with the center one here."

He pointed to the center of the lawn. "We'll spread a large pile of bait there, then each of us lay down behind blinds in a row behind the house. We'll each have specific fields of fire, probably about forty-five or fifty degrees across, that we won't stray from. That's a safety measure, you understand."

"Yeah, like when you're hunting birds with a bunch of friends. You walk in a line and only shoot to the front, never to the side or back." put in Danny.

"Exactly." said Solomon. "Our blinds will be about fifty feet apart. Facing the corn, I'll be center left, Juan will center right. Danny, you'll take far left, next to me, and Jack will take far right."

Solomon pointed back towards his vehicle. "I've got all the equipment we'll need in the truck. Lets unload and set it up, then spread the bait."

The blinds consisted of camouflage netting, strung up in a 'U' shaped curtain around the shooter. They would hide us from the Jissouseki. They probably were not strictly necessary, but Solomon felt that the Jissou would be less likely to panic and flee if they couldn't see where the fire was coming from.

Inside the blind we would each have a chair to sit on, and a small platform to rest our rifles on while shooting and to store extra ammunition. There was a narrow slot cut into the netting of the blind, running parallel to the ground, to shoot from.

Once the blinds were set up, Solomon unloaded his rifles and the ammunition for them. He then took Juan and Danny aside to make sure they were knowledgeable enough in gun safety to participate safely.

While he was doing that, I unloaded the food pellets we would be using as bait. I hauled several bags over to the location Solomon had indicated, then slit them open and started spreading the food out. I could see green hoods shifting and beady eyes peering out of the corn at me.

Taking a handful of the food pellets, I opened my mouth and pretended to stuff them in. I made exaggerated chewing motions, and then swallowed my mouthful of nothing. I then said, loudly and clearly, "MMMM, this FOOD sure is good." I put a lot of emphasis on the word food.

Turning my back on the corn, I started walking toward the rest of my party of hunters. I could already hear the high pitched squeals and clamor of the Jissou talking amongst themselves.

"Food, techi!"

"It might be more bad food, desu."

"But mister man ate some. He even said it was good, desu."

"Wait! Wait, maggot-chan, techi. When the tall man goes away, then we'll go eat, techi."

"Mama, so hungry, techi."

"Don't eat little sister, desu!"

There were even more high pitched voices that I couldn't make out, probably the littlest Jissou and the maggots. Not a single one of them bothered to ask the most obvious question: why had 'mister man' left the food there, unguarded, in the first place?

When I reached the others, Danny turned towards me and exclaimed, "Wow, they're going for it."

I turned around and looked. They were streaming out of the corn, and several were already at the food. They hadn't even waited until I was halfway across the lawn.

They were kneeling down and scooping up great handfuls, then shoving as much as possible into their mouths. I saw several try to swallow several times, turn blue, then keel over. The food wasn't poisoned, they had just gotten so much in their mouths they couldn't breath. Instead of spitting some of it out, they had suffocated, unwilling to let go of any of the food.

Solomon looked over at me, "Ok, they're safe and ready to go." waving his hand at Danny and Juan. Each had a rifle in hand.

"What's your pleasure, twenty-two or four-ten?" Solomon asked me.

"I'll take a twenty-two, for now." I said.

"Ok, here you go. Take a couple of bricks of rounds, too." he said, handing me the rifle, some clips, and ammunition.

I tucked the ammo under my arm, and took the rifle, making sure to keep the business end pointed squarely at the ground. Each brick held a thousand rounds of twenty-two shorts. I was glad I had asked Solomon to help, he really knew what he was doing. Several thousand rounds of twenty-two shorts could be held by a single hand, but had I brought a larger weapon I would have needed a backpack to carry so many.

"Alright, take your positions, but hold your fire until I say. When I give the O.K., open up. Try to make every shot count, don't 'spray and pray' as they call it. When I say 'Hold fire', everyone stops immediately. We'll let the amount of Jissou build up, then shoot another volley. We will repeat this process until the Jissou stop gathering in significant quantities, then move on to the next field."

We all started walking towards our blinds, Solomon added, "If you get in trouble, if your rifle jams, or anything else, just yell 'Hold fire!' loudly. We'll all stop firing, and I'll come over to help.

We each settled into our positions, Danny on the far left, with a four-ten, then Solomon, with a twenty-two. Juan was next, with a four-ten("I always liked scatter-guns." he had said), and then myself on the far right.

The four-tens were pump action. Each shotgun could hold six rounds, five in the horizontal magazine under the barrel and one in the chamber. Shotguns usually had a spacer installed in the magazine to prevent several of the shells from being loaded. This was because many states had a three round limit on the size of shotgun magazines, to give birds and game a 'fair' chance. Solomon had removed these spacers, so the four-tens could be used to their full potential against the Jissou.

The twenty-two shorts were semi-automatic rifles. They usually had ten or twenty-round clips, but Solomon had some larger clips of fifty and one hundred round capacity that we used. They took awhile to load, but lasted much longer. They were not strictly legal, but then Solomon didn't hunt with them. They were purely for play, but today they would be put to some serious work.

When I had first turned to look at the bait, there had been several Jissou eating it. By the time we had finished talking and started walking to the blinds, there had been dozens. But now? Now there were at least one hundred, perhaps two or three. There were all down on their knees or bellies, pushing and shoving one another out of the way. The maggots that had managed to crawl their way over to the food were being trampled, unnoticed by their mothers and older siblings.

"Ok, ear protection and safety glasses on, please!" called out Solomon. He waited a few moments, then called out again. "Everyone ready?"

"Ready." responded Danny.

"Ready to go." said Juan.

"Ready.' I replied.

"Alright, load your weapons. Call out 'Set' when you're finished."

Having one of the semi-automatic twenty-twos, it took just a couple seconds to insert the clip, then pull back the slide. Flipping off the safety, I settled the rifle's open sights on a particularly large Jissou, aiming for just above and between the eyes.

"Set!" I called out.

Danny and Juan were a few more moments, having to load each four-ten shell individually.

"Set." said Danny, loudly.

"Set!" finished Juan, a second later.

"FIRE!" shouted Solomon.

I gently squeezed the trigger of my rifle, and a crack-pop hit my muffled ears as my well aimed bullet traveled almost instantaneously across the seventy-five feet separating me from my prey. A small hole appeared in the forehead of my first kill. The Jissou's knees buckled immediately, and it fell forward onto its face, knocking several smaller Jissou sprawling. I could see no exit wound on the back of its hooded head. Perfect.

Unlike most movies and video games, when something is shot it does not go flying backwards from the force of the bullet. Well, that is not quite true. Small things will move a bit. An empty aluminium can might jump up a few feet if you hit it right. Or wrong, depending on how you look at it. No, all of the force of a bullet is concentrated on basically a pinpoint. Whatever is behind that pinpoint will be pushed aside, mashed and broken, until the bullet runs out of energy.

If the brain is behind that pinpoint, it will cease functioning and the body, directionless, falls. Usually forward. I aimed for the head. I also concentrated on the larger ones.

My second kill was a bit smaller than my first, and it also wasn't clean. I aimed at a Jissou that was facing to one side, stuffing food in it's mouth. My shot went a bit off, and instead of hitting its temple I took off its jaw.

The Jissou continued to shove food towards its face for a few seconds, then seemed to realize that something was wrong. It felt its face, then mouth, with its paws. What was left of its jaw was a pulpy mass of bone, tongue, and skin. Its eyes went even wider than normal, and it started emitting an extremely high pitched screeing sound which I could hear, barely, over the noise of the other rifles. It flailed its arms in the air, then ran haphazardly through the other Jissou, knocking those smaller than it down, and bouncing off of those larger. As it ran it fill up its panties to the brim, then past.

I considered finishing it off, but decided not to waste the bullet. A Jissou that couldn't eat was a Jissou that was already dead. Even if it managed to escape the killing field and survive its wounds, it was just a matter of time before it starved to death.

Several of the small Jissou and maggots that had been near the jawless Jissou looked at it in mild surprise and curiosity for a moment, then went back to eating when it ran away. One maggot inched over to the bloodstained wad of food that had been in my target's mouth and started to gum at it. I could just imagine the thing saying, "Mmmm, food is yummy, refu."

I popped it with well placed shot. Gore splattered everywhere. The other Jissou, so intent upon the food, hardly noticed.

Returning to the larger Jissou, I started timing my shots with my breath. Every time I exhaled, another Jissouseki died. Most of them I shot through the head. Those leaning away from me I shot in the torso. They weren't so lucky, because I didn't aim for the heart. Hell, I didn't even know where they kept it. I had never bothered to take one of the things apart to see how they were put together.

The gut shot ones usually flailed around for a while before dying, often times crushing smaller Jissou in their death throes. This got the attention of others nearby, but they didn't connect the deaths of some of their members to the popping sounds coming from across the lawn. Some of the Jissou seemed to try to help the wounded ones, though what they thought they could do is any body's guess.

Others realized that the wounded Jissou were too weak to fight back, and immediately started eating them. They would usually begin at the easy spots. Eyes went first, then the rest of the face. Smaller Jissou would tear at the ends of the arms and legs, while maggots would start in on the piles of excrement flooding out of the dying Jissou.

Still others would ignore this completely, focusing on the food scattered in the grass. I would shoot any Jissou I could get a decent shot at, and I wasn't lacking for targets.

More quickly than I had expected, my finger squeezed the trigger and all I received in return was a dry 'click!'. My clip was empty. One hundred rounds gone, and nearly one hundred dead Jissou. I glanced over at my compatriots to see how they were doing.

Danny was also in the midst of reloading. There was a pile of spent red casings at his right foot, where they dropped every time he pumped his shotgun. He had several rows of unfired rounds lined up on his platform. His fingers were working quickly but with almost unerring accuracy, shoving new shells into his rifle. I saw that each row had six shells, exactly as many as his shotgun held.

My eyes left Danny, and drifted over to Solomon. He was hunched over his twenty-two, firing at a rapid but steady pace, about one shot every second. There were several empty clips at his side. I doubted that even a single bullet had gone astray.

Juan was aiming each shot carefully, then firing. He didn't seem to be in any hurry, although when he pumped his shotgun, jacking an old shell out of the chamber and a new one in, he did it quickly and firmly.

Glancing down range, I took a moment to see what effects the shot what having on the Jissou. It wasn't pretty, not that anything associated with Jissou ever was.

The shot was very fine, for hunting animals such as small birds, squirrels, and snakes. The shotguns had a device on the end of the barrel, called the choke. The function of a choke was to either narrow down the cloud of pellets leaving the barrel, or let it go wider, depending on which way one twisted it. Solomon had set these as wide as they would go.

The pellet cloud would leave the barrel at less than an inch in diameter. By the time it got to the Jissou, about seventy-five feet away, it would be over two feet in diameter.

If a smaller Jissou was hit by enough of the pellets, it would be shredded to pieces. Jissou flesh is not as resilient as a normal animal's, so when struck by the shot, it tended to give way in spectacular fashion. The larger Jissou were injured by the pellets, but usually not fatally. At least, not immediately fatally.

If a larger Jissou was facing towards Juan, the pellets would destroy its face and front side. Eyes would pop, teeth shatter, and cheeks rend. If the Jissou were large enough, the pellets would not pierce its skull, only crack and chip it. If slightly smaller, the pellets would penetrate to the brain, causing either immediate death, or an amusing amount of spasms and twitching. Pellets hitting the torso of the Jissou would often rip open the skin, spilling out bowels and copious amounts of blood and shit. It was hard to tell the last two apart. Arms and legs were sometimes blown partially or completely away from the body.

Yes, each shot of Juan's scatter-gun caused a small eruption of gore from the crowd of Jissou gathered on the lawn. I watched him take a bead on a rather large Jissou, sporting an even larger penis. The Jissou was facing toward the house, towards Juan and the rest of us.

The penis took the brunt of the blast, with the tip and most of the shaft virtually exploding. The smaller Jissou and maggots around the main target were annihilated, turning into mounds and puddles of green sludge. The dicked Jissou's face was also ruined, and most of its arms and legs were damaged as well.

It fell over backwards, the remains of its cock still sticking straight up in the air. It whined and mewled pathetically through what was left of its throat and mouth, and rolled from side to side trying to escape from the pain.

Returning my attention to my own rifle, I popped my empty clip out and replaced it with a fresh one. I set aside the empty clip to reload later.

Raising my rifle to my shoulder again, I resumed sending my deadly barrage of lead towards the Jissou.

6 - Results

Solomon called out a "Hold fire!" just as I was finishing my second clip. I immediately pulled my finger from the trigger, put the safety on, and removed the clip. I then pulled back the slide to check the chamber: empty, and set the rifle down on my platform. The barrel was quite hot.

I stood up and walked over to Solomon. Juan and Danny did the same.

Now, standing together, we took a long look down range at the devastation we had caused.

Jissou had continued to flood out of the corn fields as we had begun to shoot. Even the louder booms of the four-tens had not deterred them. Solomon had run through three hundred-round clips, and one fifty-round clip. Danny and Juan had each shot about forty or fifty shotgun shells, and I had two empty hundred-round clips.

Solomon asked Danny and Juan to estimate how many Jissou each shotgun blast killed. They conferred, then both agreed on a number, saying at least four or five, and as many as fifteen if they found a dense grouping of the things.

Solomon nodded, then said, "Good, that means we may have killed as many as a thousand of them this round. We'll reload our clips and wait for a few minutes. They've stopped coming out so fast. If we give them some time, they may get their courage back."

I looked back down at the scattered food and even more scattered Jissou. The ones that were not dead were either blue with shock, or gorging on food pellets and flesh. I guessed that we had killed at least seventy-five percent of the group of Jissou. Another ten or fifteen percent had received glancing blows from the shot. They would probably succumb eventually, even if they managed to survive the rest of the day. Most of the still living Jissou had been on the outskirts of the herd.

We moved back into our blinds and waited. Solomon and I reloaded our empty clips as we did. A few Jissou were still coming out of the corn, but the large initial flood had stopped. Every so often a large group or family would break cover and go pelting out towards the bait and dead and dying.

It always amazed me how Jissou could stand among a mound of bodies, and all they would think is, "All this food! How can I keep it for just myself, desu?". They completely lacked empathy. If the carnage wasn't happening in the immediate now, to them(or their family, some of them had at least that much), then they might as well be going for a nice stroll in the park. They were oblivious to the suffering of their fellows.

We waited for another few minutes, hoping that the sounds of our weapons and the lamentations of the dying had not scared the rest away. We did not wait in vain.

About five minutes after I had finished reloading and checking out my rifle, the others and I started hearing an odd sound. It was a strange sound, kind of a cross between rustling and slithering, with a high pitched murmuring and talking thrown in as well.

It was the sound of several thousand Jissouseki moving down the rows of corn, towards the bait and us, all at once. Word must have finally reach the back of the field, and they were all coming as fast as they could. The trickle of Jissou emerging from the corn started to increase slowly. First one or two here, then several groups of six or seven there. A steady stream of the things soon started emerging.

Then the dam broke completely. So many Jissou were coming out of the corn that the plants on the edge of the field were pushed over and trampled by them. Smaller Jissou and maggots not being carried were ground into paste by the larger ones hurrying towards the food and flesh in front of them.

Solomon called out, "Alright, everyone ready? Hold your fire until I give the word."

"Ready and set!" I called back in answer. Juan and Danny did likewise.

"Ok, wait for it! Waaaaiit for iiiit…" Solomon said loudly.

"Until we see the reds of they eyes?" asked Danny, with a laugh.

"FIRE!" yelled Solomon, for the second time that day.

We did, mowing down the Jissou as fast as we could. There were so many that it was impossible to miss. I ran out of loaded clips a few minutes later, and had to reload them quickly. Juan and Danny both ran out of ammo a bit after that, and had to run to Solomon's truck to get more.

When Solomon called out a 'Hold fire!', it wasn't because there were no more Jissou left. Indeed, I think there were more living Jissou on the lawn after we stopped than when we had started. Solomon halted us because we had to let the barrels of the rifles cool. Mine wasn't quite glowing red, but I certainly couldn't touch it.

"We're going to have to give the guns a thorough cleaning before we move on to the next field." Solomon said. "Firing so many rounds through rifles in such a short period isn't good for them."

All in all, we spent about three hours killing Jissou in the first field. We lost count of how many rounds we fired during each of the five volleys we launched at them. Solomon estimated that we killed at least seven or eight thousand of the things, and perhaps as many and nine or ten thousand.

When we stopped, there were bodies stacked several Jissou deep in places, and the whole north side of the lawn was coated in blood, gore, and green shit. Jissou were still coming out of the corn, but just a few. The vast majority of Jissou that had infested Juan's center cornfield were dead and dying on the ground in front of us.

We broke for lunch, cleaning the firearms as we ate. After that we moved all the gear and guns to the west edge of the western field and set everything back up. The other two fields took slightly longer, and had more Jissou in them than the middle field. Each took about four hours to exhaust of Jissouseki. By the time we were done it was almost dark.

Loading everything into Solomon's truck, we drove back to the farmhouse. His wife had come home while we were clearing out the last field. She wasn't very happy with the mess on the lawn, but was glad that the harvest was safe.

She had cooked us a big farm dinner. A roast chicken, potatoes, carrots, gravy, wonderful homemade bread, and two different kinds of pies for dessert. We tucked in with obvious enthusiasm and satisfaction.

After I had managed to finish the last bite of my third piece of pie, I let out a contented sigh.

"Well, Juan, I might just cut your bill in half for that meal. I haven't had anything so good in years."

Danny and Solomon echoed my thanks, each having eaten so much they could barely move.

Juan's wife blushed at the compliment, and thanked us for the kind words.

"Well, what do you want to do with the dead Jissou?" I asked. "I know a guy who runs a cleaning and disposal outfit. It's not their usual thing, but I don't think they would object to the work."

"No, thank you." replied Juan, "I think I'll try to mulch them, as odd as that sounds. They might make good fertilizer, and I would be getting something back for all the pain and inconvenience they have caused us."

"Alright, sounds good. I've got several bags of poison treated food pellets in the back of my truck for you. Use them 'til the conservationists move your predators on to the farm."

"When will that be?" asked Juan.

"Well, they should come out either tomorrow or the day after. They'll have a look around and find good spots for the animal habitats. I'm not sure when they will actually move the animals here. It may take several months to work everything out properly. The poisons should keep your corn safe until then."

With that, Solomon, Danny and I stood up. Our job was done, and it was time to leave. It was a good thing to, as we were dead tired. It had been a long, weird, disgusting day. Juan and his wife followed us out to our cars to say goodbye.

"Thank you! Thank you for saving my farm." he said gratefully to all of us.

"No problem, that's what we're here for." I said with a smile. "But don't thank me yet, you haven't seen the bill I'll be sending out in about a week."

"As long as it is less than the cost of losing an entire crop's worth of corn, it will be cheap enough." he replied.

"Alright gang, lets ride!" I said to Danny and Solomon, and we did.

We stopped at Solomon's house and helped him unload his gear.

"Thanks for giving me a hand today, Solomon. I couldn't have done it without you." I said to him as I shook his hand.

"I'm glad to help a friend, Jack." he replied. "I have to admit, I had a bit of fun. Even if it was odd work."

"Make up a list of all the supplies and ammunition we used up, and how much wear you think we put on the rifles. Tack on whatever you think your time was worth then get back to me with the number. I'll add it on to Juan's bill and get you the money as soon as possible."

"Will do. I'll see you one of these next weekends! I haven't forgotten your promise!" said Solomon, smiling and waving as we left.

"I haven't forgotten either, see you then."

Danny and I got into the truck and drove back to the shop. It had been a long day, alright. I slept very well that night, but had some strange, strange dreams.

To be continued…

<Author's note>

This story is a bit different than my last one. I want to explore how Jissouseki affect all different parts of society, and doing another story about a home invasion seemed repetitive and redundant. I hope you enjoyed it.

I have another idea that I want to write about next. I've been planning it out in my head while I was writing this story. It will probably be the last Exterminator tale.

Thank you for reading.

-Jissoucutioner