Protect All Monsters (15 page)

My life only gets crazier by the moment. I’m taken from my life, nearly cannibalized, and now I wake up and I’m a secret agent.

But who would hurt her if they found out she was helping Richard?

“I’ll eat later,” she told the nurse. “I want to go back to my room.”

“It’s up to you,” she tsk-tsked, waiting a moment to let Addey think over her decision. “Okay, I’ll get you a wheelchair.”

“No. I can walk.”

She got up, and she realized she was wearing a gown, the back loose for the world to see her naked ass. “Do you have any clothes I can wear?”

The nurse understood. She left and returned promptly with a black skirt and a white button-up top. “Don’t worry. Nobody’s going to look down upon you if you’re worried about your appearance. I’ve worked with a lot of injured people, and it’s different here. People understand. They’ve heard about your battle. Everybody’s in awe of you, actually.”

Thanks, Deke, for saving my ass. Now everybody thinks I’m a ball-busting, ass-kicking monster slayer.

But you are,
she thought.
You beat the shit out of those zombies.

Who am I kidding? I was chow to those things.

The stitches were the evidence.

A few swift punches didn’t compare to a form of mutilation.

She was careful slipping on the sandals the nurse provided. Her toes had been victim to teeth as well. Many of the nails were taken out completely.

The nurse followed her out of the rooms to the front receiving desk. “Give it a few weeks, and your wounds should heal just fine.” Then a warning. “Watch yourself, Ms. Ruanova. It’s not safe, not for anybody.”

Thanks for the words of encouragement.

Addey left the medical wing, and it wasn’t long before she approached the cafeteria on the way to her room. Everybody sat in their friendly cliques, talking, chatting and bantering as if things were normal. Humans were resilient in that respect when they weren’t given a choice.

She avoided the cafeteria and walked by the leisure section of the complex. Couples and friends walked to the movies. The dance club flashed with people cutting loose. Those inside obviously had shopped the stores frequently and currently wore designer clothes.

She caught the gym next, and that’s when people eyed her with interest. Respect. Fear. Awe, as the nurse had phrased it.

This is ridiculous.

Richard had faith in her from the beginning, when she was on the cruiser. Maybe she was good at thinking through high danger/high stress situations, but defending herself? She wasn’t so sure about that. She hadn’t come face-to-face with any of the other monsters yet, but that would come later, she was certain.

Exhaustion was setting in after a short walk. Her knees and ankles were sore, her stitches numb but also emanating a soft pang. She completed the trek to her room. The nurse had handed her a tote bag upon leaving. Inside were her clothes and her key card. Richard must’ve rooted through her locker on the sublevel and retrieved them.

She closed her room’s door behind her and folded onto the bed. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep but couldn’t, despite her physical condition. So she flipped on the light, and she dressed in work clothes—the only clothes she had—and ventured outside her room.

The halls were just as busy as they had been when she first arrived. Most of the people flocked to the break room or farther down the corridor to the gym or the cafeteria. She wasn’t ready to venture out too far. She was a child again, limited to the front yard in this new, unknown place.

She supposed a shift had just let out, many of the crew stalking the vending machines and setting up camp in front of the video game consoles. They wore distant, unreadable faces.

They’ve found their escape. I guess you’ll have to find yours.

She kept reminding herself,
I didn’t choose this. This is worse than a draft. If I die here, nobody would care.

Widescreen plasma televisions played ESPN, Showtime and HBO, and a group of guys and girls ventured to watch a nudie channel. They laughed and chided each other, nursing a bottle of high-end bourbon they passed around. Addey wasn’t interested, and her choices were drying up quickly until she caught the sign on the wall:
Library
.

It would be calm inside, and chances were nobody would bother her. She hoped there was information on the island, any piece of history to read up on. The library was the size of a modest public facility. There were no computers, and she supposed the Internet was the reason. People would e-mail for help.

She hadn’t come upon another person. Compared to television and drinking, reading took a backseat, she thought.

Addey cleared her throat. She hadn’t spoken in hours. “Is anybody here?”

She waited.

The response was from a sleep-choked voice. “Oh, somebody’s out there. Hey, I’ll be right there.”

Behind the help desk, a head poked up, disbelieving somebody had ventured into the library. The old man was in his seventies, his thin white hair disheveled. He adjusted his oversize black-rimmed glasses to get a good look at her. “Hello. My name’s George Neiman. What’s yours?”

“Addey Ruanova.”

“Ruanova, what is that?”

“Mexican.”

George looked impressed, and she didn’t know why. Perhaps he was lonely. “What can I help you find? Are you looking for good fiction or nonfiction? I wish we had a nice fireplace. You could warm up and nestle in a blanket and read to your heart’s content.”

“I’m new here. I’m practically right off the boat.”

He instinctively touched her shoulder, eyeing her as if she could detonate. “Do you need anything? I’ve got coffee, water or anything else you might want.”

“I’m interested in information.”

He was taken aback by her response. Then he smiled. “Oh, do you now?”

“Do you have any information on the island? Construction, history, anything like that?”

“Not much,” George said, extending his lower lip. “Hmmm. One thing, and that’s it. It’s a document.” He walked around the desk and came to her side. “I’ll show you. It’s in a frame, actually. Unfortunately, Brenner—the director of this fine facility—doesn’t believe information is productive. He doesn’t want people knowing too much about the place. If you ask me, they want us to be scared. They can control us better that way. Screw them. They win no matter what. My advice? Have fun. Meet a nice guy, drink until you can’t stand, and enjoy their food. Do anything to forget whatever job they give you. It’s the only way we can spit in their faces. Reading won’t help you here.”

She ignored his last statement. “So where’s this framed thing?”

He walked her to the back wall behind the periodicals section. The framed document was on a floor display surrounded by a Plexiglas barrier. The bronze plate read,
Declaration of James Sorelli
.

“James Sorelli, who is that?”

He itched the stubbles on his face. “He’s a vampire. You should read his declaration before you ask anything else. You’ll have better questions later. His statement is a rough essay, really.” He pointed at the frame. “Go ahead and read it.”

He wore the “I dare you—or are you too scared?” expression.

The document was handwritten, but it appeared to be copied, the ink too black and too clear to be from hand, maybe a lithograph copy. The cursive was rough in parts, but clear enough to be legible.

She read it.

These words come from a man behind the rusted bars of an iron cage. You throw raw meat at me like a lion or a tiger at the zoo. I am a vicious predator to the human race. But I am human. I am flesh and blood, though altered. How many babies will be born with our defects? Does the human race wish to hide us, or do you aim for higher goals, such as curing us? How can scientists do any good to curb our condition when we’re locked up and left to stew in darkness? Yes, we are irrational. We are violent. Hungry for what we can’t eat, thirsty for what we can’t drink. We can’t be a part of society until we are cured.

But the cave gets smaller and more claustrophobic by the week. More continue to arrive here in chains and shackles. This is an epidemic, not a trend. Vampires and creatures like me won’t pass. It’s human evolution. Think about humans in general. Our population is booming despite what the world war tolls may be, and our DNA has crossed many X and Y chromosomes and will continue to advance and change. The template of DNA is evolving. I have a heart that craves human blood. I have no conscience when it comes to my victims, which is all the reason more to heed me.

What does a cage do to an abomination like me? The raw meat you serve us does little. I crave more than a plate of food. My body is acclimating to the conditions. I’m stronger even without the nourishment I need. I’ll eventually twist the bars, shatter the locks and remove the shackles you have provided, and I’ll run rampant. This is not a threat. It will happen, and I won’t be the only one. Can you imagine hundreds of us free to conquer you? We’ll sup the human race for what it’s worth, and nobody will be left, and in the meantime, your generation is continuing to give birth to walking dead men, snarling beasts and wolves and blood drinkers. Our evolution will evolve again and again. We’ll be nothing compared to what you birth next. The cages won’t hold us, I promise you.

What am I proposing you do? The caves you’ve buried us in are meant to seclude us. We need to be separated from innocent human life, but we also must be fed, nurtured and kept content. This current situation you have us in is an escalating one. We require blood, meat, animals to hunt and, most of all, release from these horrible cages. I can barely stand up and stretch in the one I currently reside in. So seclude us somewhere with more space, far away from cities, towns and populations. Somewhere where we can’t hurt anyone.

Where should we be relocated? I suggest an island deep in the ocean. Somewhere too far to swim to the nearest piece of land, kept in a zone illegal for anybody to fly over and sail to, and a place big enough to house hundreds, if not thousands, of us. I have spoken to my fellow vampires. They have volunteered to build any construction of your choosing. We’ll put our backs into the facility, and in return, you will receive safety, our threat moved out of the homeland.

This arrangement is in the United States government’s hands one hundred percent. President Truman can do as he wishes. He can hire other people to build the facility, or maybe he has another vision different from mine. I welcome talks or negotiations. I am open-minded as the rest of us are. In this declaration, I am conveying the fact that we are agreeing to come along peaceably to this island. Deep down, we are still human, thus sensible. Our lives are in your hands, but the public’s safety is in yours. As creatures and animals, we can’t predict our future behavior in these cages. That’s why prevention and precautions must be taken. Our rebellion in these cages isn’t a threat. It’s inevitable. Please listen to reason as much as you do your hearts, I implore you.

Addey rubbed her eyes. They ached from straining to read the document under the harsh glare of the overhead lights.

“It’s amazing what James’s letter accomplished.” George had returned, sipping from a mug of steaming coffee. “The story I hear that makes the most sense is that James reached through the bars and managed to hold one of the guards in a death grip by the neck. He simply asked for a pen and pad of paper to spare his life. The guard did so, gratefully. When the guard read James’s scrawl, he was affected by it. He proposed it to his superiors, and it eventually reached President Harry Truman’s desk. Truman decided to play with the idea of building an island and shipping them out. Harry was a practical man, a farm boy from a small town, and he felt for the common people who were afflicted with such debilitating diseases. He was a damn good president.

“So the complex took five years to build. Animals were delivered to the island for slaughter and blood draining. That was back when the beasts’ needs were simple. The problem, in my opinion, is that their needs keep evolving just as their DNA kept changing. Guards were randomly attacked and used for food. The deaths were kept off the books and records. That’s when the guards smartened up and begged the United States to consider new options. That’s when James proposed the use of real blood after he’d successfully received his island. Drain the blood of the recently deceased and have it delivered here. That request eventually turned into transporting the bodies of the recently dead along with their precious blood to the island.

“During the Vietnam War, James decided to ask for the bodies of fallen soldiers to eat. Their demands weren’t met, of course, and half the workers here were butchered and consumed instead.” He smiled awkwardly. “Well, the government wouldn’t have their fallen soldiers sent here, so what did they do, maybe you’re thinking? They delivered death-row convicts fresh from the cooker. That snowballed into sending life-term prisoners—alive, mind you—into their midst. And then, scraping the bottom of the barrel, they sent people from lunatic asylums. They come in with the shipments of new workers and supplies all the time.”

George hunched close to her. She could smell coffee and cigarettes on his breath. “If you ask me, they’ve kept evolving, and they’ve been hush-hush about it. They’ve smartened up, our monsters. But so far, they’ve gotten what they want, and it’ll keep going down that way. But one day, everything will fall apart. I hope I’m dead by then. I pray I am.”