Protect All Monsters (26 page)

Each word and rasp from the vampire had made her shiver. She didn’t realize she was covered in blood from the soiled sheets. Desperate to locate anybody to help her, she came to a different woman who looked to be a shift manager.

She beckoned her. “I need a gun, a knife—anything!”

The woman was older, her hair gray, her face shut-in white from constant work indoors. “I’m afraid we don’t have access to extra weapons on this floor.” The smile failed to withhold a private pleasure. “Grace, my sister, has advised me not to give you anything. But you do have a special request. My, my, you’re popular. Everybody’s talking about you. You’re one tough bitch, apparently. Well, I guess we get to see you in action.”

She was afraid to find out what that meant, especially from Grace Mooney’s sister. “What do you mean?”

“The guest in room 313 wants you to deliver him a late-night snack.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Angela Mooney shoved a metal cart in front of Addey, stocked with an empty china plate. Beside the plate, a bucket of ice housed a bottle of merlot. Angela pointed to the vending machines at the back. “Our guest insists on a heart…
the blood sauce will be from you
. He wants it slathered on the meat in his presence. It gets him off,” rolling her eyes, “it gets them all off watching humans cut themselves.”

“Were you always crazy, or did something snap while being here?” Her wits and backbone were being tested simultaneously, and she refused to falter at this critical moment. “I’ll do it, but where’s the knife—where’s an instrument to derive the blood?”

She was rationalizing her own bloodletting, but the idea of crafting a sharp weapon enticed her to bargain.

But Angela wasn’t to be bargained with. “He has tools in his room. He says he has a specific craving. I guess you disturbed his roost below, and now he’s pissed.”

“Just leave me to it.”
You bitch.

She veered the cart toward the vending machine. She punched the button for a heart, but a head bounced out instead. It was of an old man whose eyes had been removed. His flesh was icy white. She punched the machine twice, repulsed and infuriated at the machine’s mess-up. “This is so wrong!”

Two arms and a torso plopped out next, each freezer burned in sections. “How do people live with themselves? This is so vile.”

A hand touched her back, a soft caress. She turned to a butch woman. She was five feet high and two hundred pounds. Her bleach-blonde hair was styled into a crew cut, and a stud pierced her lip. She wore a red bandanna around her head.

The woman frowned at the mess on the floor, not saying a word.

“I’m so sorry.” Addey felt strange apologizing to frozen appendages. “I…pressed the button, and y-you see, the head came out instead of a heart, and then the parts kept falling out.”

“I’m Jessica Ladd,” the blonde introduced herself, ignoring the weird apology. “I’ve mopped up blood on the sublevel, I’ve hollowed out organs from the torsos of cadavers and slapped them on a cart for the wolves, and I’ve drained blood out of bodies like a mortician so the vamps can guzzle it from tubes hanging from the ceiling. I’ve done just about everything except suck off men in the red-light district.”

Before Addey could react, Jessica kept speaking, “Tonight, everything’s going down. We’ve planned an uprising of our own. The managerial staff has no idea, so keep your cool. You’re going to room 313, right?” She looked behind her back, not seeing any managers within earshot. “That’s James Sorelli’s pad. He’s not one to tangle with, and if he’s asking you by name, then he’s tasted your blood before. I’m not dying on this island, and neither are you. Watch your back in there.”

Addey studied the break room. Nobody was listening in, and neither of the Mooney sisters were in the room. “Then what’s the plan?”

“I can’t say yet,” Jessica whispered. “You hold your own in that vampire’s room for long enough, you’ll know when it’s happening.”

Addey was honest about her fear of the approaching situation. “I’m afraid I don’t know how I can defend myself against that vampire. I’m unarmed.”

Jessica offered her a boning knife, housed in a holster on her belt. “I stole this from the kitchen. You know what to do with this. Gut him. Slit his throat. Cut his head off. They can die like anybody, remember that. All of them can die like us.” She looked throughout the room, reading the faces and feeling the odd vibe in the air. “You’ll know when everything’s going down. Be careful. If it’s any interest, you have inspired a lot of people, including me.”

Without another chance to add anything else, Jessica returned to shoving laundry into a machine and then folding piles of blankets like everything was normal.

Going back to her duty, Addey scooped up the heart, one of many assorted pieces on the floor, with a gloved hand and plopped it onto the plate. She left the rest of the parts behind, not knowing what the hell to do with them.

She tucked the boning knife into her waistband. She counted the room doors as she advanced, anxious and fearful to reach room 313. If James Sorelli was rational, she’d be interested in picking his brain. What were his plans tonight? Did he create the island for the sake of tearing it down and escaping years later? She was encouraged by the fact the others were banding together.

It meant there was a chance of surviving.

But only a chance.

She hit room 313 before she could think everything out. The foot-shaped shadows at the crack of the door were missing. The vampire’s bait and trap would be more elaborate this time than the jumping out of the closet. The man had her scent. Her taste was in his mouth, and he craved it. She double-checked for the knife and then hesitantly knocked on the door, spitting out her spiel. “Room service, may I come in?”

No reply.

Long moments passed. Finally, she gave in to the urge to speak again.

“Shall I come in?”

She turned the knob and cracked open the door. She angled the cart so she could use it as a barrier. Taking it all in, the room was a fine accommodation. She was expecting a slaughterhouse with bodies hanging from the ceiling, dripping blood, and the floors awash in gore. Instead, a wall-size mirror backed a bar with stools and a countertop. It reminded her of an old saloon in a spaghetti western. The carpet was white—an unsafe choice for a vampire—and with numerous telltale stains of prior activities. A coffee table was in the center of a five-piece black leather set.

Addey stared at the kitchen set nearby. “What the hell does a vampire cook?”

“The warmer the blood, the better it tastes, and besides, I like normal food too.”

James stepped out of the hallway. His entrance wasn’t what she expected. She thought he’d fall from the ceiling or crawl on the floor and creep at her like a rabid animal. Instead, he walked in, wearing a pair of leather pants and a dark blue silk shirt. His flesh was ivory. Near blue. The eyes were the most striking feature on his face. They were murky black except for a straight line of olive green down the middle. The teeth were jagged, but Addey could tell they’d been filed and carved by hand, unnaturally sharp.

He watched her for a moment. Pondering her. Then he studied the cart. “Let’s see what you’ve brought me.”

She lifted up the top and revealed the heart platter.

“It looks a bit dry…it needs color.”

He poured himself a drink of cognac from a corner station of booze.

“Why did you have me bring merlot if you’re not going to drink it?”

“I like to keep adding to my private stock. Sometimes I want something without having to ask for it.”

Mocking him, “I used to sneak milk and cookies at night when I was a kid, so I can understand.”

The vampire was amused. “You’ve only been here a short time, and you’ve already managed to ruin a lot of my plans. I would’ve had a few more months to build up my army. In the time I’ve been free to roam this island, we’ve evolved. If you live long enough, you’ll get a glimpse of what I mean.
If you live long enough
.”

He tipped his glass at her in cheers. “Fifty years of creation, and tonight, it all will be turned upside down. But you’ve put a crimp in our evolution. You’ve shortchanged my work. And you’ve managed to enrage a lot of my brethren. Locating the secret chamber for one, and then killing all those level-two zombies. And hours ago, you killed a bunch of level ones. They want you dead, and I for one can’t blame them.”

The vampire slugged back another mouthful of cognac. “And you’ve committed yet another offense against us. You’ve given your coworkers hope. But I suppose that’s in our favor too. Rage, anger, fear, retribution—it all warms up the blood.” He licked his lips, the tongue forked. “It will be one hell of a hunt before we leave this island.”

“Nobody’s going to let you touch American soil. You’ll be shot down by military jets. Somebody will see to it.”

James scowled. “My information must be different than yours. We’ve been given permission to leave.”

Taken aback by what could be a lie or the truth, she blasted the question, “By who?”

He tsk-tsked. “Now that’s not for you to worry about.”

I’m getting tired of this fucking asshole.

She lowered her hand behind her back and edged her knife out by the handle.

His eyes lit up. “Now let’s talk about how you’re going to cut yourself open and really flavor that heart, and then afterward, we’ll—”

She flung the knife, the blade swooshing through the air like a metallic pinwheel. She hit pay dirt. The tip jutted out of his forehead, but it didn’t go in very deep. She raced to the bar and picked up a stool, preparing to supplement her assault. Working in a battle stance, she brought it down over James’s back, the swift blow driving him to the ground. Reeling from the damage inflicted upon him, he reverted into retreat mode, crawling away from her, but not before angrily yanking the knife out of his forehead and tossing it behind him.

Blood and slobber turned his words to slush. “You bitch, I’ll tear you into shreds myself!”

The vampire crawled into the square opening behind the bar. Once inside, he closed the steel slot. Lunging at it, she kicked and beat at the barrier. Impossible to open. “Come back, you coward! Don’t you want my blood? Here it is. Lick it up—
lick it the fuck up
!”

She picked up the discarded knife, weighing it in her open palm. “Now that’s a lucky shot.” She tucked it back into her belt loop without wiping off the blood.

The weapon was her new good luck charm.

She blocked James’s escape hatch with the leather couch. It wouldn't keep him out, but it would buy her time if he did return.
 

She searched the kitchen for useful weapons. The drawers were empty, the shelves also barren. The refrigerator concerned her. She couldn’t open it, knowing bodies would be piled up inside. Moving on, she scouted the corner
 
and noticed a clear tube that channeled down from the ceiling. Dried blood had spattered the tiles beneath it.

“They suck blood from tubes.
Gross
.”

Replaying the standoff between them, she was perplexed by James’s threats. He claimed they’d “evolved”. Could the creatures be any worse? Could they fly or spit fire?

Even if they could shit missiles, they can still die.

The vampire also said they’d been given permission to leave the island. What fool would do such a thing?

Name any American president.

She hastened her search, flipping on the bathroom light. She was instantaneously repelled by what was inside. One of the maids hung from the showerhead upside down, her neck stump bleeding and filling up the tub. The severed head was propped in the sink, eyes and mouth wide open.

Urgently leaving the body, she checked the bedroom. The next sight to behold in horror: there was no bed. Chains and hooks were suspended from the ceiling, so numerous she couldn’t count them. The floor was bare concrete. Skeletons were stacked in one corner beside two naked bodies—one male and one female—who were suspended upside down, also with their heads cut off. The drain in the room was blocked off and a large puddle of blood pooled two inches high in the center of the room.

The chains and hooks were suspended on exposed pipes at the ceiling. She took the time to swing one chain back and forth to uncoil it. The hook at the end was the main prize: what she considered a useful weapon. She wrapped the chain around her shoulder and charged out of the room. One step out of the door, and a deafening gunshot disturbed the air.

She raced to the break room, hearing workers crowd the area. Pushing her way inside, she caught Jessica standing over Angela Mooney’s body. Angela had been shot under the jaw, the bullet exiting her left temporal lobe. The other managers stood by the crowd in silent awe, afraid. Nobody spoke, so Addey did.

“James warned me that they were coming for us soon. He said the monsters had evolved. That they’re stronger. We don’t have much if we’re going to fight them.”

Cynthia raised her .28 pistol. She was standing to the left of them. “These guns won’t be enough to kill them either way.”

Todd Lamberson agreed. “So what other options do we have?”

Addey swung her chain and hook. “I found this in James’s room. I managed to fight him off. He escaped into that hole in the wall. It’s blocked off now, so he won’t be coming back. Maybe the other rooms have something useful, like weapons. Hell, we can turn the bottles of liquor in James’s room into Molotov cocktails. And he won’t be the only one with alcohol either.”