Protect All Monsters (13 page)

“Fine, but if I find out anything about you,” Brenner snarled, “I promise you won’t live to see another day.”

They walked down two sets of stairs. Blood prints slathered each tier. In the bottom clearing, there was an inch of standing blood. They stamped through it, taking in the rank smell.

Brenner rushed ahead to the opening in the ceiling that still leaked drops of blood. The outline of heads looked down at them. “Hey, you stay back!”

He fired twice from his service revolver.

The shots rendered sparks where they hit. Then he spat into his walkie, “Operator, dispatch two maintenance workers to the east wing of the living quarters. Have them bring materials to patch a wooden hatch and to create a makeshift lock.”

Richard cocked his head to the side. “Why did the zombies stay inside? They had time to climb down and escape. Lots of time. And they didn’t. It makes no damn sense.”

Brenner grimaced. “Somebody has control over these zombies, and it’s not me…
not anymore
.”

Richard gasped when Brenner seized him by the collar. He thought they were going to fight, but the director was pleading with him. “You’re my only ally right now, Richard. Stay on my side. We might snuff out this insurgency.”

“I
am
on your side. Always have been, sir.”

“We’re government babies. This is where we belong.” Brenner was sweating. He released his grip on Richard’s collar. Then he took a calming breath. “The island must remain secure. I have a pressing piece of business to take care of, but I’ll be back. Will you investigate this corridor and make sure the idiots show up to repair that hatch correctly?”

Richard was happy to be rid of the man. “Of course. I’ll make sure the shit gets done right.”

Brenner left him alone in the dank, bloody corridor.

Chapter Sixteen

Security has been breached.

The insurgency is inevitable.

Brenner ducked into his office, fighting horrible thoughts. He threw his office door shut, then searched in his desk for that bottle of bourbon. He hammered back three big-mouthed gulps. The alcohol burned his stomach, yet it did nothing to abate the rage coursing through him. He bypassed his desk and opened the back door to a private room. When he flipped on the light, the beam revealed three dead bodies tied to chairs. They were John Sullivan, shift manager for the vampire floor; Eddie Parker, shift manger of the werewolf complex; and Roberta Gonzalez, ship cargo manager. Each had been bled out by a variety of cruel knife wounds. A woman hung from the ceiling, bound by the wrists. She was Annie Fuentez, a level-one zombie caterer.

The woman still had a spark of life left in her.

He was in the mood to snuff it out.

He’d stripped Annie naked to humiliate her. He’d created inch-long incisions along her entirety and scalped half her skull. Brenner couldn’t see her facial features, for they were obscured under clotted, bloody trails.

She moaned softly at his presence, frightened. He regarded the corpses first. He’d submitted them to torture. He refused to use truth serum. Truth serum ruined the fun. He’d ripped fingernails with pinch clamps. Shot testicles with pellet guns. Burned flesh and cauterized wounds. If he couldn’t force information from them, he decided, then he’d enjoy himself anyway.

He unsheathed his Ka-Bar knife and petted Annie’s face with it. “Richard and I have found one of the monsters’ secret hideouts. Sorelli has everything to do with it. He’s planning an insurgency. But you are the last of the four spies left. Why were you snooping in my office? I caught you each in here. Why? What are you looking for?
Tell me
.”

Annie didn’t stir. Her eyes were caked shut in gook. Brenner jammed the knife hilt-deep into her collarbone. One thrust, he was so strong. The handle jutted out of her. She tried to scream. He cupped her mouth shut. Muffled screams. Her head writhed. “Why am I being investigated? Tell me!”

He removed his hand. She was coughing up blood. Her words were soft, but he could hear her say, “You’ve been found out, Brenner. A new deal with the monsters has been made.” She said this with pleasure. “And you’re on the outside of it. You’ll be dead in no time.”

Brenner shook her hard, trying to jar the knowledge from her body. “What kind of a deal? What do they know about me? Speak up, you dead bitch!”

Her eyes rolled into the back of her head. She aspirated on blood, and then finally died from the prolonged blood loss.

He stood among the row of corpses in silence.

Were the spies sent to kill me?

This isn’t about me. The bitch is trying to scare you. She knows nothing. The dead bitch doesn’t know shit.

He went to work wrapping each corpse in a yellow trash bag. He hauled them to the drop-off chute two halls down from his office. He called down to the zombies in the sublevel. “Enjoy these, you dead bastards. Relish them piece by piece.”

He returned to clean up his interrogation room, haunted by the fact his secrets were no longer a private matter.

How long would it be before someone finally came along and executed him?

Chapter Seventeen

If anybody was planning a rebellion, Sorelli would be the first to shake down, so Brenner ordered the third floor to be cleared of maids and workers. The director was armed with a twelve-gauge shotgun, and Richard stood beside him armed with his .28 revolver. Richard had just showed up after being summoned. Brenner was poised to kick down Sorelli’s door. “I always suspected James was up to something. That suck-head’s always been trouble. Maybe a room search will clear things up.”

Without any more adieu, the brute slammed his shoulder into the barrier, and Richard followed up by kicking through it, forcing open the door with a single wild crash.

James wasn’t in the living room.

Brenner shouted the command, “Universal precautions; check every room.”

The strike team behind them canvassed each of the rooms and soon reported nobody in the wings. Brenner searched the air duct chute behind the wet bar. It was a large, doggy-door access. He opened the flaps, and there was a sheet of steel blocking the entrance that led into the arena. The arena was the vampires’ hunting ground, a part of the complex to keep their morbid hungers abated.

“Looks like he’s blocked it off,” Richard said. “He’s not coming back to his room. We have to hollow out that secret passage and see where it leads.”

“I agree.” Brenner was displeased Sorelli wasn’t found. “We can’t trust anybody right now. Sorelli has made plans behind our backs. I guess it wasn’t good enough to give them blood and humans and victims in endless supplies, never mind safety.”

Richard shook his head, mourning the situation. “What do you expect from creatures? They appreciate nothing. They’re beasts.”

Brenner clutched his twelve-gauge with white-knuckled hands. “They’re smarter than beasts. They’re cunning. None of this back-stabbing, secretive bullshit is necessary. Sorelli could’ve negotiated new terms if he had problems. He did before in Arizona when he was rotting in his steel cage below the earth. His negotiations got him out of there—it got him a fucking island—so why not negotiate again if he was so upset?”

Richard scanned the well-furnished room and couldn’t wrap his mind around that question. “Who knows why? I’m more worried for everybody on the island. Nobody’s safe. This isn’t like anything we’ve experienced before. Communication blackouts have happened with the PSA, and that’s no big deal, but not during conspiracies of this scale. We must excavate those tunnels right now. We can’t say how long they’ve been keeping secrets, or how far along they are in their plans.”

“I’m on it.” Brenner directed the rest of the team, “Okay, everyone, I want somebody guarding this room at all hours in case Sorelli decides to return. Be ready to capture him.” Turning to Richard, he said, “Now let’s see about scouting the rest of that secret hideout.”

Chapter Eighteen

Joe Barnes punched out. His shift ended at six thirty in the evening. He’d shoveled enough human death down that silver slide to serve a horde of level-two zombies for ten hours. He was looking at two days off in a row. Walking off the work premises, he decontaminated himself in the high-pressure showers of bleach and a chemical synthetic called Chloride Blue. Taking off his hazmat suit after the hosedown, he showered to remove the body odor. He wasn’t the type to take breaks during his shift. He believed breaks were bullshit. If one paced oneself during the workday, one wouldn’t require a break. Plus, it built up his two hundred-and-forty-pound physique. Fasting and pushing his body to the limit served one ultimate purpose: increasing his virility and stamina between the sheets—or in Joe Barnes’s case, between different booths.

He dressed in a pair of brand-new Levi jeans and a red silk shirt. The envelope under his room door contained three hundred dollars’ pay. Ready to hit the town and spend it, he visited the dance club. In the club, people ground in rhythm to a high-octane techno beat. He didn’t care for dancing, honestly. People dated, courted and flirted, but Joe cut to the chase. He hammered three shots back-to-back of whiskey at the bar. Emboldened by the booze, he exited the scene and headed to the red-curtained storefront prudently named the Red-Light District.

A bouncer named Marv stood vigil at his podium. The man perked up for one of his favorite patrons. “Joey, you’re a machine. You’re already back again.”

He was pleased to be a regular at this kind of establishment. He handed Marv fifty bucks. Marv tucked the wad into his front shirt pocket. “This is for a lap dance, and the rest.”

Marv was pleased with the pay, fifty dollars being a fortune on the island. “I suggest booth fourteen. She’s a new girl. They’re the least run through.” He bent in close, secretive. “No sloppy seconds—well, maybe they’re seconds, but not thirds and fourths. You get me?”

“I could care less.” A condom protected him from the nature of the business. “But I’ll try fourteen out. I’ve always enjoy your recommendations. I hope she’s got some moves. I like it when they teach me new tricks. I hate fake moaners. They might as well shut the fuck up if they’re going to play like that.” In a girl’s tone, “‘
Oh yes, oh yes’…
oh no, thank you.”

Marv agreed. “All right then, go get her. Show the sheets what you’re made of.”

Joe passed through the red partition and entered X-rated section of the complex. Beyond the heavy stage curtains, he stared down a large room with a raised stage where women gyrated and ground against stripper poles. Six women danced in unison. A Cher song remixed with a techno beat played in the background. The tables were jam-packed with patrons. Women worked the tables for cocktails in lingerie or tight bodices.

Another stage closer to the back harbored women in S&M gear, the women fake-whipping each other. The later shows were more intense. The whipping was real. The staged masochism cost double to get in and watch—a hundred bucks easily. Sex was also staged, including orgies, lesbian scenes and shows where the audience could join in on the action. That was only on Fridays and Saturdays, and that was one hundred and fifty bucks to attend.

But Joe craved one-on-one time, and he didn’t want to watch somebody else having sex, especially another dude. So he continued into the red light district, beyond the extended bar to the narrow hallway tucked behind the stripper stages. The walls were a shag-carpeted hot pink. He imagined this as a Valentine’s themed hotel. At the front, he met a butch woman in her forties. She was well over two hundred pounds, hair styled in a crew cut. She was bored and smoking cigarette after cigarette just to pass the time. Her name was Darcy.

“Joey. What’s your flavor today?”

“Does sex have a flavor?”

“If you’re an old lesbian, you bet your ass it does!”

Darcy tested her headset, asking someone in a different section of the hallway, “Any rooms open in the back?”

Joe already knew what he wanted. “Marv told me room fourteen was good.” He produced a twenty-dollar bill and folded it into quarters, handing it to her. “Was he putting me on?”

Darcy smiled from one side of her lips. She accepted the money. Then she broke out the tour guide oration of pussy vending. “Ah, she’s a newbie. Nineteen. She was actually an actress in porno, but she didn’t pay her taxes, you see. Then her ass got deported here. Not paying your taxes always lands them here, unless they’re too yuppy and don’t have a fucking backbone to stomach this shit. Then you go to jail. Lucky bastards.”

“Marv said she wasn’t run through. He failed to mention she was an ex-porn star. Oh well. I’m sure the plumbing still works. That’s what counts.”

“Tested and proven.”

That’s what Darcy said every time she made a recommendation.

“Room fourteen it is. What’s her name?”

“Real name or acting name?”

Joe groaned. “Okay, porn name.”

“Crystal Knockers.”

“What the hell does that even mean? Are her boobs crystal?”

“Maybe they’re as fragile and beautiful as crystals.”

“Whatever, let me through.”

Joe walked the pink-carpeted hall, entering Cupid’s bachelor pad. The doors were also pink-carpeted, the room numbers displayed within a wooden heart. A sudden surge of heat up his stomach; the alcohol was kicking in. He approached the room, unlocking the door with the key Darcy had given him. Entering, the room was the size of an average bedroom. A bed of red silk sheets faced him with the shape of a woman lying underneath.