Protect All Monsters (11 page)

“I’ve come to powder your nose.” He stuck out the tip of his tongue and bit it softly. “It’s gets your mind off of the corpses real fucking quick. What do you say?”

A surge of white-hot heat coursed up her back. Something wasn’t right. “I want to leave this island.”

“Coke will do that. Come on, I know all about you, Addey Ruanova. How else do you people work shitty jobs? You drink, you shoot up, you fuck around—
we should fuck around
.”

She leaned against the wall, weak in the body. The room was air-conditioned, and she breathed in as much air as she could. How did the rest of them survive? Fear, self-control or did some of them simply not care anymore?

He unzipped the back of her suit and unsnapped her bra. “Let’s have a look, shall we?”

She shook her head, unable to react quickly enough to stop him. “I don’t want you to touch me.”

“I’ll trade services. I’ve read your file. I know you. Your brother was a dope dealer. I’m sure he hooked you up. Camden, New Jersey, isn’t a walk in the park either. Piss-poor ghettos. I’m sure you’ve serviced yourself out. Imagine me as a customer, you the merchandise. You’re here forever, so why not be out of your head and feel good?”

“I said no.”

He kissed her neck. “I say
yes
.”

Nobody will hold it against me!

She came alive the very moment his lips touched her neck. She slammed her fist into his nose. She heard the distinct snap and shift of cartilage. Blood mushroomed from his nostrils. He stumbled three steps back and lowered to his knees, blood oozing down his face and lips.

His eyes burned into her. “
You—stupid—bitch
.”

He raced at her and zipped her back into the suit. “You won’t play nice, then you won’t get to play at all!”

He worked his suit back on himself, then grabbed her arm in a tight clamp. He pushed her through the door and then through the showers. “You might’ve broken my nose, but what happens to you will be worse. If you won’t be my fuck buddy, then you’ll be my example.”

She was forced back onto the work floor. Andy, the gatekeeper, opened the gates without the command being issued. A smile was in his eyes. He’d seen Douglas’s attempts at sex succeed and fail, and the man obviously enjoyed one outcome over the other.

“Show her a good time?”

“Go to hell, Andy!”

She searched for a place to run, but there were no options. As they entered the work zone, the workers were disturbed by their arrival. They watched her, nameless and faceless in their suits. Douglas twisted her arm behind her back. “Listen up, people. I tried to make this woman’s job a bit easier. All the females in the room take note: if you want hardcore narcotics, it’s perfectly legal. The cops won’t bust you. I’m your dealer. Every shift manager has access to serious shit, so if you want some, come and get it. I’m nice to you, you’re nice to me, comprehend?

“You can work the same job for months, perhaps years. I’ve supervised you bastards for nine years. Nobody’s going home. And if you think this job is bad, imagine what else you could be doing on the island complex?”

He twisted Addey’s arm. “This is Addey Ruanova. She assaulted me when I offered her drugs. When I make an offer, you be polite. She was very rude, and to assault a shift manager, that merits punishment.”

He shoved her toward the metal slide. “Down you go!”

The other workers stood by in helpless fascination.

She thrashed and tried to slip out of his hold, but it was no use. He kicked her in the back, and she tumbled to the edge. On the ground, inches from the slide, he shoved her the rest of the way down by a kick to her head. “See you in hell!”

Spinning, pivoting and speeding down the slick metal, she careened into the pit of the dead.

Chapter Fourteen

The blood-lubricated steel incline kept flipping her body. She was an article of clothing in a washing machine, spin-cycle style. Slamming both shoulders and the back of her head repeatedly, she was stunned before landing at the bottom of the slide. Crashing and splashing into a thick puddle, her landing was cushioned by liquid. Collecting herself, opening her eyes, coming to a higher form of alert, though dizzy and panging with hurt, she came to realize she was wading in human jelly. Her faceplate was smeared in gore. The tramping of steps, something or somethings were closing in on her. She had no choice but to remove the head part of the suit. The rancid stench was so powerful, it caused her eyes to water and her throat to close up.

The scene was expansive and disconcerting. She couldn’t take everything in at once. Details filtered in despite her shock. Clean bones were discarded and heaped in cast-off piles. The stacks were six feet high. They formed shelters, a labyrinth for the undead to hide in. She caught sight of shadowy figures moving about within the strange hideaways, many sneaking inside with handfuls of human organs and choice appendages to enjoy in private.

Blood saturated the floor inches high everywhere. The drains were clogged in the middle of the floor with flesh and drowned flies. Mealworms and maggots and night crawlers and snakes were also in the mix, creatures that had partaken of the delicacies that would ultimately snuff their lives. The walls were festering with green mold and fungus, among other mushroom sprouts and growths unknown to her.

The walking dead were another sight to behold. There was no range of decay or freshly dead; everybody down here was a festering mess. Fat—white blobs, what Addey could only describe as mayonnaise—worked out from the flesh in gleaming wads. The flesh itself was completely blackened, near liquid and threatening to melt from the bones. Some approached with gaping jelly eyes, while others sensed her with opened sinus cavities and hollowed-out eye sockets. For many, clothing kept their internal organs from sliding free from their torsos and slopping to their feet. Together, the collective society treaded the blood at their feet to corner her.

Where could she go? She looked up, but she couldn’t see the platform above, only the gates. No escape exit or ladder to climb. Nobody was coming to save her.

Douglas had delivered her to certain death.

More of them were disturbed from their activities and coming right for her. Many were hunched over the piles of remains at the end of the chutes, ready for the next payload to pick, sort and eat up. There were hundreds of them now, and their attention was completely on Addey.

The chute was inaccessible. One problem, it was blocked by the dead. The other issue, it would be impossible to hike up the slick surface at such a steep incline.

“Hey, I won’t hurt you.” She scrambled for words and breath. She continued to choke on their wretched stink. “You won’t hurt me, right?”

Gore-smeared faces twitched and smiled in disgusting delight. Putrid maws opened, shoving aside their fly-ridden meals for a living, walking, talking meal.

She heard the distinct echo of laughter ricochet from above.

I’ll throw you down here too, Douglas, and then we’ll see how funny it is.

The closest dead thing was a woman in a wedding dress, the dress itself literally sinking into her seaweed-textured body. She bobbed after Addey, walking on nubs instead of flat feet. Without processing it, Addey punched her in the chest, her arm breaking into the sternum and out through the shoulder blades. She struggled to reclaim her arm, now caught between two ribs when she reared back. The woman seized her head, the teeth champing at empty air as she tried to bring Addey’s face into her mouth.

Addey jerked back hard enough with her arm that the woman’s spine broke in half, causing the rest of the anatomical tower to dismantle itself. Addey shook off her hand, flecking blood, flesh and goop in the air. The woman lay in a dozen pieces. She continued to twitch, still alive. This was a human being, what used to be a thinking, loving, living person. All of them had been at some point, and here they were, closing in after her to devour her flesh.

Losing hold of the sentiment of humanity in seconds, she raced to the far wall, away from the wave of the dead, but they were coming at her in a line. She was surrounded. Strategy and running were useless.

There isn’t anywhere to escape.

She was tackled from behind, driven to the ground and smothered by a wet and oozing body. Teeth clicked and clacked in her ear as bone hands tore at her clothes. A set of teeth bore down on both shoulders, digging divots into her flesh. Wicked conflagration set her nerves on fire. She elbowed and kicked through the attacker, easily dismantling the enemy, the body so soft. So fetid. The dead man faltered with a wet gargling of the throat, sinking into his failing body.

Absorbing the pain of her bite wounds, she caught a face form on the pool of blood beside her. The face beckoned her, speaking to her. “Reach through. There’s an opening!”

She realized it was Deke. His face was bent in horror. He was simply a reflection.

A three-hundred-pound butterball threatened to topple on top of her. The zombie was obese in life and obese in death. She’d be smothered and picked clean in minutes.

Razor-sharp pain coiled at her legs. The assault happened in less than thirty seconds. Her calves had been chewed up by two zombies per appendage, their faces slick with fresh blood. She kicked at their faces until their heads were sunken, putrid pulps.

“Reach through and open the door!”

Deke’s reflection was disturbed by fresh ripples in the blood. She had seconds, maybe no time left at all, to enact Deke’s command.

Below the surface, she heard a distinct click.

“I’ve disengaged the lock. Open it now!”

She delved into the blood. She traced a handle, and then she felt the outline of a doorknob.

The butterball zombie collapsed, splashing blood on her entire body and coating her in the surprisingly ice-cold substance. Its face was next to hers, its yellowed eyes staring her down. Adding to her hysteria, it gagged on fluids, what sounded like eggshells being chopped up in a garbage disposal. The phalange-bare hands seized her hair, twisting it to force her into its working mouth. She edged ever so closer to those teeth that resembled half-dissolved pills, the purple-white tongue danced with fervor, hungry and perked for a taste of fresh, living flesh. Her flesh!

She couldn’t force back the handle of the door because it was rusted closed.

“Addey—no!”

The roots of her hair were stretched to near breaking; each new tug blinded her with fresh agony. The rotting face was inches from hers. The cold death breath reeked, ending her ability to breathe, giving her a preview of death itself through her nose.

“Hold on, sis! I’ll save you.”

She called out to nobody after hearing her brother call out to her again. “Hurry up; they’re eating me alive!”

Teeth munched and hands clawed up her shoulders and legs, as one dead eater became three, five, eight and then ten. Warm with blood, each attack drew new red as wounds were deepened and explored. Her devouring was nowhere near finished when a mouth ate around her knee bone. New fits and battles erupted among them for the next taste.

Unable to keep her eyes open, she drifted closer to unconsciousness as each new drop of blood exited her body and mixed with the fetid colors on the floor.

Then the hatch below her exploded.

Whup-whoosh!

A rush of wind from an unknown force shoved the zombies from her body, their bodies flailing helplessly as they tumbled feet away, an invisible hand shooing them. Some were launched so high, like debris spinning in a tornado funnel, that they back-flipped and collapsed or slammed into the wall, many unable to get up, so twisted and broken.

The hatch was in tatters below her, and she fell through it. No thanks to her efforts, but by gravity. Forward falling, blood leaked below, draining into the dark channel. She collapsed on cold concrete.

She wanted to close her eyes and avoid the horrible pain. But then she overheard something strange: distant conversation muffled and between many walls.

A seething shrill, “What the hell was that explosion?”

“Did Brenner finally find our hiding place?”

“No, he can’t—he won’t!”

“Let’s move out.”

Forcing herself up, she tramped through the blood that trickled down like a low-powered waterfall and hid at the bend of the hall.

Steps entered the hallway.

“The hatch is open!”

“Who could’ve done that? It’s reinforced steel.”

The statement was worded with dead seriousness: “Maybe a ghost.”

“Ah, blood’s getting everywhere. Christ! It’s rancid. It’s zombie feed.”

Addey peeked from the darkened corner at them, spying. One had pure white skin with a shaved head. Blue veins jutted from its tight skin. Green and black eyes, like a snake’s design. Its teeth were sharpened to match a piranha’s. She supposed it was a vampire from the picture in the file folder. Next to him was a vampire woman. She was sleek, her skin a wondrous marble gray, her hair olive black and flowing down her shoulders with silky-smooth character. The eyes were red and black, matched with the same teeth as the other creature.

The male vampire pointed up at the hatch, regarding the zombies. “Stay back. You can’t leave the area. Keep glutting yourselves. We’re not ready for your help yet.”