Protect All Monsters (7 page)

“It’s a free country.”

The bar was located across the food court in a circle island with a tiki-style roof. The man at the bar was older, in his sixties. He wore a black vest and white button-up shirt. His face was bored like the other chefs, ready to take an order to have it filled and be done with it.

She plopped on a stool and asked the bartender, “Give me a double shot of your best vodka.”

“You’ve got it, ma’am.”

He poured it, and she hammered it down with a vengeance. Herman leaned against the bar. “Say, barkeep, do you have any cigars by any chance?”

“My own,” the man dug under the counter, “but I’ll share. A good Monte Cristo will do you justice. You deserve it. I couldn’t do what you folks are going to be doing. That’s why I’m glad I got this gig.” He poured himself a shot of whiskey and downed it. “It’s kinda lonely, though. And the vertigo’s a bitch when I do get off this thing every now and again.”

“How did they pin you down?” she inquired.

The barkeep frowned. “I’m not at liberty to say.” The man rearranged the beer mugs overhead, dusting them off.

She laughed softly. “Conversation time is over.”

Herman lit his cigar and asked her, “I do have something else to ask you. Do you think that packet we read was horseshit, or what?”

“Why are you asking me?”

He leaned in closer. “I saw you sneak below. What did you see?”

She knew there was a motive for his visit. He was as interested as her in what they were getting into. The others at the table yukked it up to escape the future reality, and she couldn’t blame them, but she was scared, and the shot of alcohol only muted that lurking fear.

Addey asked the barkeep for another double shot—something she’d sip and nurse on for a time. A cloud of grayish-white smoke was unleashed from Herman’s thick lips. He closed his eyes and hummed softly under his breath. “
Mmmm
, that’s a fine cigar.”

“I think everything they claim is correct,” she began. “The picture of the pack of wolves is real. I saw a few of them sleeping behind cages. There are also stockpiles of supplies, like human bodies, animals and organs and blood. All kinds of gross shit. They’re feeding the monsters all right, and we’re the caregivers to the damn things.”

Herman finished his beer and asked for a shot of whiskey. He challenged her to finish her double shot with him. She did so after little chiding, but afterward, she decided to slow down. Four shots would keep her mellow, though she didn’t want to be stinking drunk when she arrived on the island.

“I swear I saw a vampire when I was a teenager,” he said. “I was driving on a country road with my girlfriend at the time. Just wasting time, you know, what teenagers do when they’re looking for a place to hug and kiss. The town called this clearing in the woods Lover’s Lane. How original, right?” He winked. “We’re at that point I pull down the backseat of her dad’s cherry Cadillac. But then something smashes the back window, reaches through and bites my shoulder. Really bit it, you understand?”

He pulls over his work shirt to show her a series of white puckered scars in the shape of teeth over his deltoid. “The teeth punctured through, and he sucked up the blood.” Herman’s eyes were wide. “I caught a face. Slit eyes. Sharpened teeth. Forked tongue. The police tried to say it was Parker Adams who’d escaped from the booby hatch the previous week. He was later found bloated and dead in the creek days after my ordeal. Authorities think he was taking a dip and smashed his head on a rock and drowned. But that wasn’t Parker Adams who sucked the blood from my wounds.

“And you know, every now and then, I run into people, whether it’s in crowded traffic or busy restaurants, or on the bus, that just don’t look right. Barely human, or they’re trying too hard to mimic us. People get into scrapes that should’ve cost their lives, and they come out of it healthy in the end. My point is, I believe in monsters. The others I’ve talked to—especially those hippies—think it’s bullshit. But I know. I know.”

“I believe in what I see,” Addey said. “The wolves do exist. Absolutely. I was stopped before I could see into another chamber. They were like rooms of an asylum, but the peepholes were blocked with tarps and blankets. What I don’t get is why not kill them? How hard would it be?”

“It’s not that simple,” Richard said, sitting next to them uninvited. He had ordered a Guinness and sucked on the foamy head. “Yeah, we could firebomb the island into smithereens. That would be fun to watch too. But vampires, zombies and werewolves keep popping up in other countries, including our own. The problem isn’t conquered, and there’s so many already, it’s cheaper and safer to keep them appeased and content through the work we do. We can’t fight them on our homeland. A certain demographic would raise hell, start shooting people that aren’t monsters, and that’s the problem. Innocent people would get murdered and the laws of nature would take hold. Nobody would survive that long term.”

Herman enjoyed the speech, but he was dying to break in on Richard’s explanation. “The government has gone to a lot of trouble to kidnap us. There has to be more to it than that. What do these monsters do that’s worth lavishing them with food and shelter and safety?”

She eyed Richard, feeling sorry for the man who absorbed the blame. He was a cog in the machine. He wasn’t the machine itself. “Richard’s like us, Herman. He works with them because he has to. It’s not like he drew up the plans and picked you for the unlucky lottery.”

Richard lightened his countenance. He wasn’t used to anybody sticking up for him, and he appreciated it. Then he confessed the real reason for the island. “Mutually assured destruction.”

Herman sucked in another toke of his cigar. “Excuse me?”

“You remember the Cold War? Mutually assured destruction? Everybody can produce these atomic and nuclear weapons, but they don’t have an island full of creatures at their disposal.”

“Or do they?” Herman challenged.

“Nobody else can afford spending the money we’ve piled into this project. This costs billions a year. Billions.”

“No wonder public schools suck,” Addey said. “Our money goes to stealing people and feeding monsters.”

Richard pounded his fist against the counter. “This is very necessary. Monsters would decimate the poor third world countries, and then we’d be next. We’d be outnumbered rather quickly. We’re studying them for weaknesses so if they do decide to rise up, we can put them right back down. And this is a scientific anomaly. Monsters aren’t supposed to exist. We have to monitor and study them. I suppose if life on Mars beamed down from space saucers, you’d want to waste ’em before we got to know them. Is that what you’d do?

“These monsters have been around for centuries, some of them, but actually studied, they’ve only been under a microscope for maybe fifty years. How long have we been trying to cure cancer and AIDS? These studies and findings and conclusions take many years to make. And it’s not like the monsters are allowing us to take blood samples, and they sure as shit don’t fill out surveys or tell us about their lineage and family trees.”

She wasn’t sure about studying them, but protecting them from civilians struck true to her. “Herman, what did you do when you were at Lover’s Lane? Did you throw punches at what bit you?”

He shook his head. “No, no, I just did whatever the hell I could to escape. I'm damn lucky I did.”

“Exactly. You couldn’t fight them. The majority of the people wouldn’t know how to protect themselves. Americans don’t want chaos. They want safety, the good life. When you think about it, America’s never really been a war zone, aside from centuries ago when we were colonists. We wouldn’t stand a chance against the monsters.”

“I beg to differ.” Herman enjoyed the last word. “I think we’d come up with some impressive war ingenuity. You’d be surprised what we could accomplish with the right motivation.”

Richard finished his Guinness. “It doesn’t matter what we think or believe. Hindsight won’t change this project. If it ain’t broke, then don’t fix it. It’s worked for now; why not keep it going? Maybe one day we’ll see the end of this. Until then, there’s work to do.”

The man retreated up a set of stairs into a tower that led to the observation deck.

“I’m not sure how I feel about that guy.” Herman eyed where the man had been sitting with distaste. “Pent up or crazy. I don’t know which.”

“I’m sure we’ll both be that way eventually, if not worse. He’s seen a lot of things, probably.”

Herman sighed. “We’re here for good, aren’t we?”

She absorbed Herman’s question. “Until we’re dead.”

Chapter Nine

She secluded herself from any more conversations after she said good-bye to Herman. The afternoon passed at a crawl. She was tipsy, though the sensation was short-lived and later gave her a headache. Bored of staring out at the ocean, she returned to her room to study the monster files again. Looking them over, she decided the photos were genuine.

The solitary confinement of the small quarters quickly shot her back onto the main deck. The people stayed together at the food court in a protective group. Darkness was beginning to fall. It was around six or seven o’clock when a loudspeaker from the observation deck announced, “Arriving at the complex in approximately fifteen minutes. Be ready to disembark. Follow our instructions. Do not walk freely into the complex. You will be told where to go. Please follow instructions or risk your personal safety.”

The island was a distant speck on the horizon.

Herman walked up beside her. “There she is, PAM herself.”

The rise in her stomach delivered a queasy spell. She leaned against the bar, pressing her forehead against the cool surface. Blood rushed to her head; then the sensation passed.

“Are you having seconds thoughts, missy?” Herman joked. “Oh, we’ll just catch the next boat out of here then.”

Go to hell.
“Very funny.”

Richard had stepped down from the lookout tower and overheard Herman’s last statement. “You’d be an idiot not to be scared.” Then he spoke into the bullhorn he was holding. “Everybody, please line up at the east wing of the ship to disembark. We’re about five minutes from parking this thing. Stay calm. Single file. Follow instructions or risk your safety. You will be told what to do and when to do it, so reserve your questions.”

Richard muttered to Addey, “Follow me. Everybody else will be right behind you.”

This was journey’s end. The government’s job was about to be unloaded upon her shoulders. She could handle heavy-duty work—she had worked construction for two months during a summer to cash in on the I-29 repairs—but to work with monsters was a different toil altogether. The wolves below everybody’s feet, they were enormous, their strength beyond human, and they were wild animals.

Once you step on this island, it’s forever.

Hesitation spread like wildfire in the group behind her. A husky man with a balding head and a sour expression lingered closer and closer to one edge of the ship. “This is serious, isn’t it?” He swayed, his legs loose. The man was hammered. “There really is an island. This is real.
This is real
!”

A woman hugged the drunkard close. “It’s okay, Frank. We’re in this together. It’s for the good of society. We’ll be okay.”

“I didn’t volunteer for this!” Frank lashed out, shoving aside the woman so hard she flopped onto her side and hit the deck. “I’m not working with monsters!”

Frank crawled over the barrier and plunged into the ocean headfirst. Before he landed, Richard opened fire with his pistol.
Puncha! Puncha!
Seconds later, Frank rose up a bleeding buoy. Two shots had landed home in his chest.

“If anybody else has any ideas like the dead man down there, I suggest you save it.” Richard’s face was enraged. “Do as we tell you, and you will remain unharmed. We don’t need cowards here. They die within the first week. Live or die, people. You decide.”

The line was eerily quiet. Interest in what occurred around Frank’s body was widespread. Two scuba divers swam out to collect the man’s corpse. They bundled the man in a net and dragged him toward the island.

“Never waste a single scrap, do they?” Richard muttered. He holstered his pistol. “Keep moving; the show’s over. Fall in.”

The island was taking shape. The white sand shore was decorated with tall-standing palm trees. The breeze was soft but cooling with the sun falling into the horizon. The island was part resort, part complex. The resort section was a square with a wide-spanning pool, open bar—huge, as if they had taken six bars and combined them—minigolf course, hot tubs, massage huts, water slides and a food court. The complex reminded her of the levels of a multilevel hotel, though there were only two levels with a possible sublevel. Each level was gigantic and the walls were comprised of steel. There were adjoining sections to the levels, perhaps private quarters or storage.

Richard checked his watch. “All right, it’s eight o’clock. That gives us an hour to disembark and to assign rooms. We’ll give you a good night’s sleep, and then in the morning, you start work. Forgive me for not showing you around. The monsters are let out at different shifts of the day for a limited time, so get a move on, people. Time’s burning.”

The boat docked. People stepped down onto the wooden pier, and Richard stayed behind to usher every person off board. Men in beige vests and cargo pants—also armed—guided them down the pier. The entrance was a short walk away. They marched down concrete steps surrounded by sand. The scent of salt water carried from the shore. Other smells tainted the air. Blood. Meat. Death. Fecundity. Many scents were so peculiar, she couldn’t identify them, but she knew they were wrong.