Protect All Monsters Read online

  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 ja
m-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.

  She didn’t stir at his approach.

  A glass shelf housed whips, dildos, butt plugs, anal beads, leather and BDSM outfits, bodices, condoms, fourteen different flavors of lubricant, domination gear, a hanging net for suspended sex, blow-up dolls—for the guys who wanted to fuck a doll in front of a woman; he’d considered doing it himself sometime—and a variety of other novelties.

  He introduced himself. “My name’s Joe. My friends call me Joey.”

  The woman wasn’t impressed. She stayed silent.

  “I see you want to skip to it. That’s fine with me.”

  He removed his button-up shirt. He opened the glass shelf and nabbed a lubricated Trojan condom. “Do you need K-Y?”

  No response to his polite question.

  This bitch is giving me the silent treatment.

  “You tell me if you do, okay?” He was growing impatient. “Why don’t you talk? I’m not going to ask you to have a long-ass conversation with me. I’m just being nice. Warming up things. Like a runner has to stretch before the race, right?”

  The silk sheets shifted awkwardly. He tensed up, eying the surface in horror. The sheets stretched out tight, then surged upward as if many hands were clawing and digging into the mattress to reach through it. And with frenzied tearing and ripping sounds, a jet of fluid that resembled hair gel shot upward through serrated folds of the cloth , ripping the grate from the air duct in the ceiling in one shot.

  He reeled backward. “Goddamn!”

  He raced over to save the woman, but the gel split up into dozens of ropey tendrils and lifted the unconscious rag doll up into the duct, dragging her to the ceiling. Her body was pale, but her face was tomato red, deprived of air. Asphyxiated.

  Using his shock as energy, Joe seized her legs to retrieve her, but the gel was slick and powerful and so much stronger than him.

  “Let her go!”

  He panicked, breathing spasmodically, unable to process this strange creature. There were only supposed to be zombies, vampires, wolves and the occasional ghost on the island, and now this goop!

  The woman was sucked into the duct despite his efforts. Taken, her body rattled and banged against the aluminum and was carried to an unknown hideaway. Joe was poised to call for help when a larger wad of gel attached to his body, firing out of the duct hole with a glooooooop. Around his face, it slithered up his nostrils, pried open his lips, crawled between his teeth in fluid fashion, clogged his throat, jammed down into his esophagus and anchored in his internal organs. New branches like arteries spread out inside of him from head to toe, taking grip. He was hoisted up into the grate and dragged through the duct system. Where he finally ended up, the gel became something new, something much more horrific and deadly than the other creatures he’d encountered.

  He was long dead before that creature came to life.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Richard was on a new mission. The island, the communication blackout and Brenner’s seizure of his spies were all shuffled to the bottom of the deck. Douglas Parnell reached the top of his shit list. He faced the scumbag right now in a special section of the PAM Complex he called his private room. Douglas stood against the wall only in his underwear, cowering in place, shivering in the cold, his eyes wide as a frightened child’s, his mouth trembling to conceive words to validate the sparing of his life.

  “Don’t bother speaking to me. You’re as good as dead.”

  He was three steps from the mouth of the beast. The machine was called the Demolisher. The Demolisher was as long as a semirig and had the appearance of an industrial-size dishwasher. The mouth was curtained off by rubber flaps, and inside lay double-sided saw blades that churned and spun, ready to downgrade any object into pulp. Once cut up, the pieces were hermetically sealed together and sucked into a tube and shot down to the sublevel for the zombies to feast on.

  “You know damn well why you’re here. I talked to Addey. She said you offered her drugs for sex. When she turned your sorry ass down, you threw her into the pit. How many poor victims have you done this to? What you’ve done is beyond acceptable.”

  Douglas blathered his defense on his knees. “It’s not what you think. Yes, I asked her to have sex with me. I asked. I then offered her drugs. What’s so bad? I didn’t shove her down the slide. She fell. It happens all the time. It was an accident—an accident!”

  “That’s not what Addey said. You’re a liar!”

  “No—no, no, no.” He waved his hands. “Yes, I pressured her to have sex with me. But a lot of these bitches consider it a favor. Addey didn’t, so I panicked. I yelled at her. Big deal, right? Why do you care about her? She’s just another worker with a nice pair. She’s nobody.”

  Richard picked up a metal rod, what was used to shove the dead bodies into the blades. He squeezed the cold steel in his hands. He needed Addey. She could hold her own, and he needed an ally as much as a friend in his present circumstances, especially after his spies had gone missing and were probably dead. She was currently in the med wing recuperating. She would recuperate rather nicely, he was reassured by the med st
aff.

  “Nothing pisses me off more than abuse of power. I always knew you were up to some scheming, slimy shit, but I couldn’t prove it. I’ve investigated you. Fourteen women you’ve thrown into the pit. I had witnesses. Testimonies. But Brenner wouldn’t do anything. No; Brenner was protecting you because he didn’t want everybody lashing out at their shift managers. He wanted order against the chaos. But I’m doing this behind his back. This is between you and me.”

  The sniveling man closed his eyes. Then he pissed himself, the fluid running down his legs and staining the front of his boxer briefs. “Oh God…please don’t…I’m so sorry.” He wept, putting his hands together to beg. “Okay, okay—I threw her down the slide. That bitch wasn’t afraid of me. I had to show her—to show everybody else I was in charge. I did it, and I admit I was wrong. I was wrong!”

  “You just wanted to get your dick wet. And you did many times. I hope it was worth it.”

  “Brenner will have your ass for this. You’re abusing your power. You will be the one punished next, you fucking asshole.”

  “The way things have been going, I won’t have a job soon anyway. If I die, I die knowing there’s one less asshole raping women. Who knows what else you’ve committed behind closed doors?”

  Douglas’s eyes were ice cold. He was sorry he was going to die, but he was lacking in remorse for his wrongdoings. “Then what are you going to do with me? Shove me into the blades?” His lips were trembling. “Why can’t you shoot me instead? It’d be faster.”