MonsterVille

River was still trembling when they arrived at the lake. He wasn’t sure leaving the house was a good idea; in fact Mellie had repeatedly stated that he shouldn’t leave the house for any reason. But how did he argue with a monster house guest who had already saved his life thrice? Answer; he couldn’t, and he would admit a part of him was curious what a monster party looked like.

They emerged from the woods onto the sand and it turned out the answer was it looked like any other wild frat party he had attended, just a slightly themed one. Torches burnt along the edge of the water providing light and marking a clear dividing line between sand and lake.

There were a half dozen bonfires sending up flames in wicked pyres spread around the lake, each of which had a large party of men and women, mostly human appearing, spread around them. There were keg stands, coolers and a couple of trucks backed up to the edge of the sand with speakers booming off the back. A woman stood atop one of the Utes with an improvised disc turner that she was filtering the music through. It was melodic and a touch ancient with drums, lutes and lyres pumping through the system.

Women in white flitted along the beach, dancing to the beat in a blur of motion that River could scarcely follow. The women had their hair braided back and one in three wielded a staff writhing in vines. One of the women paused in her dance and River saw the frenzy in her eyes, the utter wild abandon before she leapt over the bonfire and returned to her frantic dance.

“Looks like a frat party,” River remarked as they headed towards the nearest bonfire.

“Humans and monsters aren’t all that different; in fact we intermingle at your parties quite often.” Katie’s eyes flicked over the party goers, roaming over the semi-clad men and women with an appreciative gaze, “Has Mellie told you there are other humans in town?” she asked.

“My friends?”

Katie-Cam smiled, “Them as well, but I meant humans who serve at the beck and call of the monsters. Human servants, slaves if you will, who are cared for in exchange for their service. Mostly by the night walkers since the arrangement allows them a source of fresh human blood, but other monsters also indulge in such relationships from time to time.” She cast her gaze out over the party goers, “I count five humans on the beach. Let’s make a game of it shall we? If you can pick two of the humans before we leave I will,” she leant in close and whispered into his ear. Her promises left his cheeks burning red.

“And—” he coughed to clear his throat, “—and if I can’t pick them?” he asked.

“Well then,” she leant back in and what followed was so scandalous that he was left gaping in shock.

“I’m just a chew toy to you aren’t I?” he asked. Katie smiled wickedly, ruffled his hair and gave him a push towards the crowd.

“Have fun honey.”

River stumbled towards the nearest bonfire and for a second he wondered what he was doing. Walking towards a bunch of monsters that liked to eat humans? He glanced back at Katie-Cam who waved encouragingly.

“Neutral zone.” He reminded himself, “It’s a neutral zone,” he said again a little more convincingly. So he was safe right? Nobody was going to rip him apart on the sand—something rippled through the water and River stared hard at the gleam of silver scales sliding beneath the surface and cutting towards the land. A woman’s head emerged from the still water, she flung her hair back and smoothed it down away from her face as she continued to emerge. River watched as gleaming silver scales retreated into her body, becoming flawless white skin. She rose up and her tail split into a pair of shapely legs as she seamlessly transitioned to land. Webbed hands retreated and with one last flick of hands smoothing down her wet hair she was the epitome of a woman, smooth skin, supple curves and very naked.

River averted his gaze but she apparently had no such concerns for her modesty, and she was heading straight for him.

“Human,” she said as she drew to a halt in front of him. She played with the word, tested it, teased it out. “You’re the one that belongs to Melanie.” Her voice was melodic, smooth.

“Ah yes?” River replied, “I’m Mellie’s human, I’m River. And you, um, you’re a mermaid?”

She flashed him pearly white teeth as she smiled, “Mermaid. Yes. That might be the term to describe me, mermaid, skin-walker of the deep blue sea. I prefer the term Siren.” River was flashing back on his Greek mythology. Sirens had been women of captivating beauty, which was a definite check, and it was said they had entranced sailors to a death upon rocky shores with their voices.

She stepped into his body until the beads of water that still clung to her soaked through his shirt.

“Aura,” she whispered, “that is my name. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance human, River.” That would be the moment she turned her head into him and her lips scrapped across his, it wasn’t unpleasant by any stretch of the imagination but it was cold, clammy. Her teeth grazed his lip and came away bloody.

River winced as Aura licked the blood from her lips and murmured in satisfaction. She smiled at him and without another word she returned to the lake. The water smoothly flowing around her until she vanished beneath the surface without so much as a ripple to mark her passing.

A mermaid, he thought. Monsters were terrifying, true, but a mermaid was kind of every man’s childhood fantasy come to life.

With Aura’s disappearance River realised he had become the centre of attention, men and women stared him down, some curiously, some with hunger glowing faintly in their eyes. They looked human, sort of, but they didn’t move like humans. At least one of them looked like he didn’t have a bone in his body, given the way he twisted and turned with limp abandon.

One of the women smiled at him to reveal a mouth full of needle-point-teeth. He wasn’t sure if she was trying to scare him or be friendly so he gave a cautious wave and she returned it enthusiastically. Apparently that was invitation enough for her to head towards him. She flowed around the flickering flames of the bonfire and revealed herself to be decked out in a sleek silvery toga to go with the bacchanalia theme that pervaded the beach, although River wasn’t sure the ancients had worn silk togas ,but then what did he know? He really needed to brush up on his history given the monsters were quite fond of it—possibly because they had lived it

Coiled around the woman’s hand was a leash and as she headed towards him another woman was revealed, she was younger than River, in her late teens at best and she was dressed in provocative attire to say the least. Straps of cloth strategically placed over her body that left nothing to the imagination but actually showed very little.

They drew to a halt in front of him and the teenager dropped to her knees, she bent low in subservience to her master and as she did so the long black hair parted to either side of her face and fell like a veil dangling over the sand. River couldn’t help but notice the thick scars on her throat, scars that looked like a perfect replica of the first woman’s pointed teeth.

“I am Delphine,” the woman introduced herself, she offered her pale white hand to him. River glanced around for some idea what to do, Katie-Cam had vanished from sight, so River took the only shot he had and delicately encompassed her cool hand in his own and bowed as he placed a soft kiss on it.

Delphine moved like a viper, her hands twisted around his and raised it up to her mouth, her needle teeth grazed over the pulse at his wrist and a thin line of blood welled up.

River tensed but he didn’t pull away, he had the sense that would have been an insult and he was guessing monsters didn’t take insults well, they seemed to be a rather proud bunch of killers and cannibals after all. Delphine caught his eye and for the first time he noticed just how pretty they were, they were black for the most part but there was a thin red line around the iris reminiscent of the rings of death on an xbox, the ring of red flared for an instant as she licked his blood from her own teeth and closed her eyes to savour the taste.

“Uh, I’m River?” he offered politely despite the fact she was the second woman that night to apparently get off by dosing on his blood. She still held his exposed wrist along her cheek and he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to pull away or ask politely to be released. She turned into his wrist and drew a deep whiff of his welling blood before she let him go.

“Do you care to hazard a guess as to what flavour of monster I am?” she asked enticingly.

“Is it just me or do monsters like guessing games?”

“Do you always answer a question with a question?” Delphine replied smoothly.

“Do you always answer a question with a question?” River echoed her and she laughed softly.

“Monsters enjoy all games my little human, however should you meet the sphinx descendants tonight I would advise you to tone down the charm and answer their questions.”

“Sphinx.” River repeated, “Egyptian right? Love riddles.”

“Indeed they do, they will also remove your head if you fail to answer,” she stepped in close and whispered conspiratorially, “however they are quite vain. Complimenting them will buy you a few minutes of life.”

She laughed again, loud enough to reverberate through his chest, as if she had just shared some great secret with him. “I like the taste of you human, perhaps before this night is through I will have another?” She posed it as a question but he felt it was more of a declaration of intent.

She turned and walked away, or would that be swayed away? His eyes fell down the curve of her back and he swallowed hard at the sight of the silk toga clinging to her backside as she walked. What was with every monster he met having a freaking gorgeous human body? He supposed if he could shape his own form he would go with something pretty and fit too, but it was doing a number on his head.

Oh right, she was walking away and in his hand was a leash with the teenage girl kneeling in front of him.

“Uh, what?” he asked articulately, “Why do I have a girl on a leash?”

“I am a guest gift,” the young girl said in a husky tone, her head still bowed to the ground.

“A what?”

“My mistress tasted you this night, in exchange I am yours to do with as you will for as long as this night lasts.” She informed him, “I am yours.” She repeated, “But I am still my mistresses’ property.”

“Is that your way of saying whatever I do I shouldn’t hurt you?” River asked.

“Interpret it as you will.” The whole kneeling with her head bowed should have made her seem demure but River got the distinct impression any sense of subservience, of submission, was an act right to the core of her. Her husky voice was sensuous and cranked his libido right up but there was also a pert edge to the way she spoke, a kind of challenge for him to try and use her.

“Can you stand up or do you have to kneel?” he asked

“I will do as you will,” she replied, again the words were submissive but the tone? She sounded like she was actually saying she was going to do whatever she wanted regardless of him.

“Then I will,” River announced, “that you do whatever you want to do.”

She raised her head, her hair parting from her face like a stream of water as she smiled up at him.

“Good answer,” she smirked and rose to her feet.

As she stood River could see the scars on her throat were just one set of many, not all of them were bite marks and not all of them were old. There was a pale pink scar along her ribs that was still healing, and crisscross’s of slashes, gouges and shreds decorating almost every inch of her exposed skin.

“Holy crap,” he breathed out. “How the hell are you still alive?”

She met his eyes and he saw the answer, in that moment the real her showed through and not the façade she wore, the haunted expression and the resolute determination that she would not die. She was a survivor.

“My mistress is very fond of me,” she said. “She takes great care to treat me when she’s had her fill.”

“How long have you been here?” he asked, his dismay evident.

“A few years, but trust me you don’t want to dwell on things like that, just take life a day at a time, its better that way. Better for your sanity at any rate.” She patted him on the shoulder in a commiserating manner, “Come on you look like you need a drink and us humans need to stick together. I’m Princess by the way,” he opened his mouth and she gave him a warning look, “think carefully before you speak River, that is the name my Mistress gave me when she won me.”

“And so that’s what you go by?”

She looked towards one of the coolers packed to the brim with spirits and she sighed wistfully, “Let’s get that drink and maybe I’ll tell you all about my sordid little life, trust me you’ll want a drink first.”

River and Princess settled themselves along a raised sandbank that overlooked the lake and the festivities, they were close enough for the music to be pleasant and the revelling monsters to be in sight, but not so close that they had to shout to be heard. Princess had her arms wrapped around her knees and she was staring out across the monsters with an expression he couldn’t decipher, a cool breeze came off the lake and River instinctively pulled off his jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders. She didn’t seem to notice.

They had a bottle of jack daniel’s wedged into the sand between them and River had already taken a shot, or two, to steady his nerves.

“So my sordid life story,” Princess broke the silence, “I had a happy family once upon a time,” she kept her gaze fixed over the monsters as if waiting for one of them to interrupt, one in particular kept her attention more than the others. He was an ordinary looking man, for whatever that was worth in a town of skin-walking, shape-shifting, flesh-masking, monsters, but every now and then his attention would wander up towards them. Every time he met Princesses eyes he smiled a touch wider before downing whatever he was drinking. His eyes never strayed from her for long.

“I was sixteen and my parents took me camping not too far from here, there’s some pretty intense natural wildlife and my dad was a biologist and nature enthusiast,” she began, “I hated it myself. Bugs, animals, sleeping outdoors. I just wanted to be out with my friends not stuck with my parents, I was being a brat and wasn’t talking to my parents all weekend so when I wandered off they must have thought I was just in my tent sulking. For a while I was just walking in the woods but then I heard this voice, this beautiful voice that made me want to cry and scream and rip my clothes off and run to it.” River was familiar with the sensation.

“That’s how they do it,” Princess said absently, “the town has very clear boundaries. As long as you stay on the other side of them the monsters will leave you alone… so they send Sirens and fey along their borders, they lull us from a distance and draw us in, make us come to them so they can snatch us up… When I snapped out of it I was at a party a lot like this, it looked pretty normal until the monsters started to play with their little human toy.” She didn’t go into details but he could guess what had happened, “Then they let me go.” Ok, that part surprised him. He stared at her intently as she went on, “They let me go and I ran crying to my parents, I nearly reached them when one of the monsters came out of nowhere. Broke my leg and dropped me on the ground, I screamed for help and my dad came running, they used me to lure him in… I had been such a bitch to him and the second he heard me he came running,” she was crying, not blubbering, just a few tears glistening down her cheek that she hastily wiped away.

“After that came the lottery and Delphine?” River summed up, hoping to distract her from the dark places her thoughts had gone. Of course bringing up the woman who was slicing her up probably wasn’t the best way to distract her.

“Yeah,” she agreed, “Two and a half years of Delphine, I’m lucky though, Delphine likes me and I guess I kind of like her too. It could certainly have been worse for me,” it sounded like what she was really saying was it was going to be worse for him.

“I’m doing ok so far,” he protested and she gave him an indulgent smile.

“You’ve been here a couple of days and you’ve drawn the attention of the Wendigo. Your master is a weakling. Trust me, it’s not going to end well for you.”

“Ah thanks, that’s great to know,” River said blithely.

“Hey I’ve got no illusions about how it’s going to end for me either,” Princess said. “Sooner or later Delphine is going to overdo it, or maybe one of her friends will borrow me and things will go badly.”

“Borrow? Like what I’m doing?”

She nodded.

“Does she often loan you out?” River asked.

“Whenever it will gain her something,”

“And what’s it gaining her tonight?”

Princess shrugged, “That is a very good question. Maybe she just wants to see how virile you are.”

“That’s disgusting.” He retorted and she shrugged again. There was a look in her eyes, something beyond the sass and the survivor’s mentality, something that said she knew exactly why she was with him and why they were being left alone and unmolested by any of the other monsters at that party despite the fact they all kept sneaking covert glances at the two of them.

Her hand rested lightly on his thigh and River jumped at the sudden touch, “What are you doing?” he asked as her hand slid along his jeans, the pressure increasing ever so slightly the higher she went.

She leant in to him, her free hand resting on his chest, so close her breath was warm and sweet across his lips. “Maybe I’m just taking the chance to enjoy a little human companionship.” She murmured.

“And maybe,” he whispered back as his hand settled over hers, her pulse was racing beneath his light touch, “You’re doing what you were told.” He peeled her hand off him and scooted back. Princess brushed her hair to one side and looked hurt by his rejection.

“You don’t think I’m pretty?”

“You’re beautiful,” he replied, “but I’m not going to have sex with you in the middle of the beach.”

“We could go somewhere else…” she suggested.

“I’m not having sex with you, period.” He said firmly. Princess rolled onto all fours as she stalked towards him, the loose straps covering her breasts fell forward leaving him with a view of her cleavage that left him wondering what he was doing.

“Is this another game?” he asked quietly, “do the monsters get off on voyeurism?”

“The monsters like to play,” she purred, “they don’t like to watch.”

“So what is this?” she was so close to him again that he could smell the faint hint of fruity perfume wafting off her, her soft hands cupped his cheek and he had to fight to keep his breathing under control.

“I can do things for you,” she purred again, “I can make tonight the best night of your life River, think about it, about how many nights you have left before your Master sells you. She’s just waiting for the right offer you know, just waiting till someone powerful enough takes an interest and who knows what kind of monster that will be or what they’ll do to you,” she sounded like she was speaking from experience, “take pleasure where you can River, live what little life you have left while you can. Let me—” her hand was reaching down again and he grabbed it.

“No.”

“Please?” she begged.

“Hell no,” he snapped. “If I thought for even a second this was what you wanted to do? If you actually wanted to throw me down and have your way with me I would be right there with you, but this isn’t what you want. I don’t know what kind of sick game this is but Delphine sent you to seduce me right? To sleep with me?”

“Yes,” she whispered through pursed lips. “And now I want to, I want to fuck you with every fibre of my being because if I don’t do you know what she will do to me? Can you begin to imagine the punishment for failing to do what my mistress wants?” she was begging him, pleading with him. When had a woman ever begged to sleep with him? How had his life come to such a hellish place that he was saying no to a gorgeous woman begging to sleep with him…?

“No. I can’t do this. I won’t do this.”

“She’ll kill me!”

River closed his eyes, she was so desperate, so scared and it wasn’t like it would be a fate worse than death. Only as he opened his eyes and stared into her terrified desperate expression he wondered if maybe it was, even if she was begging him it would still feel like rape because she didn’t want him, she just wanted to survive and he didn’t know if he could come back from that. Once he started down the path of sheer survival, sacrificing everything and anything… would Mellie pimp him out as well?

Would she start cutting him up and selling his blood off to the night walkers? He didn’t think she was like that, she was so nice most of the time and she had given him that beautiful journal. But she was a monster; he couldn’t really begin to comprehend how she thought. Maybe it had all just been a game for her as well, a way to pass the time playing with her dense human toy.

He stood up. The look of defeat in her eyes nearly crippled him, nearly made him drop his pants and just take her right there since it was what she claimed she wanted so badly.

He started to walk away and he heard her crying, heard genuine sobs come from her heaving chest. He glanced back and the monster from the bonfire, the one that had been sneaking covert glances was beside her, his hands sliding down her chest as he knelt behind her. The monster looked into River’s eyes and he smiled before he gave a little salute. His hands dug into Princesses back as she cried out and was forced face first into the sand, the monster sliced away her thin veil of strappy material and she was left exposed to the world. A dozen monsters were watching the show with rapt attention. River wanted to scream.

The monster unbuckled his belt and proudly displayed a piece of barbed quivering shaft that must have served as its genitalia. The monster waved this way and that while half the crowd cheered and half went back to their own celebrations.

River should have run away, should have averted his eyes but he was transfixed by the horror and the fact the monster with its shaking mass was crouched on River’s jacket, the jacket he had placed on Princess that must have fallen from her shoulders while she tried to seduce him.

“Walk away,” he whispered, “Just walk away. She’s probably been through a hundred times worse.” So that was a good reason to let something so horrific happen? Because she had probably already survived worse. He couldn’t help her, he couldn’t save her, the only thing he could have done was get off his high horse and give her what she wanted in the first place but he suspected that ship had sailed so now all he could do was get himself killed by trying to help her.

“Walk away.” He said again, more firmly. “Just do it. Just walk away.”

He walked.