MonsterVille

Come morning Mellie knew she had been a bitch to her human but she was determined not to apologise. He was supposed to belong to her, to be treated as a possession so she couldn’t afford to think of him as an actual person. His life was in her hands and she knew she was going to have to make some hard choices in the next few days for her own survival, Katie-Cam’s presence bought her a little time but that was just a stop gap measure, she needed to find a way to survive on her own merits or the minute Katie left town she was going to be a goner. As much as she hated to admit it Brannagh’s offer was tempting, too tempting.

She sighed as she stepped into the shower and let the hot water beat down across her body, let it soak into her sore tired muscles and wash her fatigue away along with the small crusted scraps of blood she had gotten in her fight with the berserker. She closed her eyes and leant into the stream of water; it flowed through her hair and carried scraps of dirt down her back to spiral into the drain of her pristine white shower. The heat was blistering but it was what her body craved. The emergence of her other half left her weak even after a long night’s sleep. She could see from the light peeking through the window that the sun was near its zenith and she had lost most of her day.

While many of the monsters in town were nocturnal Mellie preferred the daylight, it was calm, peaceful, everyone who was out and about wore their human masks on the off chance normal humans passed through the town.

By day those humans were safe, by night they would be taken for the lottery, one of the many rules enforced by the apex for the protection of the town. With another wistful sigh Mellie stepped out of the shower and towelled herself off, it would have been nice to just stay there for the rest of the day and try and wash her troubles away but that kind of temptation would waste the little time Katie-Cam’s presence gained her.

She dressed quickly in black boots, jeans, a blouse and a slim fitting dark green leather jacket before she made her way downstairs. It was only as she reached the ground floor she remembered the mess she had left the living room in; surprisingly her human had done an excellent job of cleaning it up. The bodies of the rats were gone, the glass had been swept away and cardboard sheeting had been taped over the door. The heavy aroma of bleach mostly covered the smell of burned rat, and suggested he had spent the rest of the night trying to clean the rug. He had done a passable job but the couch was ruined, blood had soaked through in dark crusted splotches but it was the claws that had shredded the material that ruined it. Or rather, the nails. Mellie inspected the tears briefly and ran a finger through one of them. It had been sliced with something razor sharp but thinner than a rat monster’s pincer which meant it had been Katie-Cam during her sortie on her human.

A couch was a small price to pay for everyone being alive and well.

It was only out of the corner of her eye that Mellie noticed the blood splatter over the fireplace. She pivoted on one foot and leant in to inspect the bloody drips that had marred her painting. For a moment she felt a fine quivering rage running through her, a desire to find the rat’s nest and burn the rest of them out, her other half stirred in response and Mellie quickly swallowed her rage. The portrait of Katie-Cam was marred, but not ruined, in fact the bloody patches actually added a touch of authenticity to the wild nature of the painting. She would have preferred it had remained her perfect vision but still…

The smell of bleach had eclipsed everything else but as Mellie moved through the room she became aware of the sizzling of bacon, she sniffed the air in the direction of her kitchen and headed towards it. Sure enough she found her human bent over the stove fiddling with gas settings, he was ignorant of her presence and she took the opportunity to study him. He was taller than her and he had the physique of a swimmer who had spent many long hours in the pool.

Even through the shirt she could see the defined musculature of his shoulders and back. She realised he was humming to himself. She wasn’t sure why that surprised her so much, but he almost seemed happy? He was in a hellish position, a slave to a monster, his friends ripped away from him, his world gone forever, so his cowering, quivering terror over the past few days made sense but humming nonchalantly like he hadn’t a care in the world? That was the kind of blissful content one didn’t expect to see from a slave.

He half turned and noticed her by the door, the smile that graced his lips was genuine and he motioned for her to have a seat.

“Good Morning,” he said brightly, “I wasn’t sure when you’d be up so I made an all-day sort of breakfast.” Mellie had been so focused on his profound change in attitude that she hadn’t even noticed the spread laid out on the kitchen table. Pancakes lathered with syrup, an open tub of ice cream, juice, water, milk all ready to be poured, strips of uncooked bacon covered in herbs and garnish with a dozen slices of toast. “I cooked some and I just garnished some, I wasn’t sure if the raw meat was just a dinner thing or a dietary staple.”

“Thank you,” Mellie said. He had her seated with a plate before she could even think about it. “It looks wonderful and you did a great job with the living room.”

“Ah yeah,” he scratched his head in embarrassment, “I’d offer to replace your couch but I’m kind of broke, also you know they took my wallet when they caught me.”

His hand was resting on the table beside her and Mellie patted it out of a reflex to comfort him, he looked as surprised by the action as she felt and she quickly filled her mouth with a strip of bacon to end the conversation.

“Have you eaten?” Mellie asked after a minute, he nodded and she felt a little silly eating all alone with so much food decked out before her, “Do you mind sitting?” she asked, “You’re making me feel a little self-conscious just watching me eat.”

“Oh, sorry,” he apologised as he pulled up a seat beside her, “Katie and I ate this morning before she left.”

“She left?” Mellie repeated.

“She said she had to go clear some vermin out of her woods.” Vermin, Mellie mused, there was no mistaking exactly what vermin she meant, but neither Mellie nor her human needed to go into that over breakfast, “She said she’d be back before night fall.”

Mellie nodded in acknowledgement and took another bite of the bacon. The raw meat was an unpleasant texture to eat but at least the garnish added flavour. Biologically she had reached a point in her development where her body had great difficulty in processing anything other than raw meat and fluids. It tasted terrible, but it kept her from being sick and she had decided a long time ago she would rather have an unsatisfying meal than have something more pleasant and spend the next hour puking it up in her bathroom.

“Would you like to come into town with me?” Mellie asked abruptly, her human looked startled by the question.

“I thought I wasn’t supposed to leave the house?”

Mellie shrugged, “Normally no, but during day light the town is a safe place, we like to maintain a pretence of normality, so as long as we’re back before dark there won’t be any problems.”

She hesitated for a moment as something Brannagh told her filtered back through her mind. He was in such a good mood she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to sour his disposition but then again even if he hadn’t asked she knew the question must have been burning a hole in his brain, it certainly would have been for her if their positions were reversed.

“I have news about some of your friends,” she offered, “it’s not pleasant,” she warned him.

“Tell me.” He said quickly, before he added, “Please?” The look in his eyes was already so crushed she wished she hadn’t said anything.

“Two of them are dead,” she said quietly, “I don’t know the details or which two, just that they are gone.”

“Two of them,” he repeated, digesting the news. He ran a hand through the scruffy bristles of the beard beginning to grow along his cheeks. She could see the thoughts ticking through his mind like clockwork, two down, three to go.

“You should go put some shoes on,” Mellie suggested, “We’ll be leaving soon.”

River made a small entry in his note book. It was just two strokes of the pen. Two lines to indicate his fallen friends. He closed his eyes and offered a quick prayer for them. Maybe they were the lucky ones. Then again he suspected they hadn’t died peacefully, based on everything he had seen they had probably been eaten alive by one monster or another, eaten in some gruesome fashion.

River tried to push the thought from his mind. Dwelling on it achieved nothing except depressing him and depression was counterproductive, of course that was easier said than done when the thought slipped unbidden into his mind that the only reason his friends had been in that town in the first place was because they had been trying to help him get over his girl problems. On that score they had succeeded wonderfully, Madelina was the least of his worries now.

“This may be a bit of a weird question,” River said, as he and Mellie headed towards town. She set a slow, almost dawdling, pace as they walked. As if she wanted to absorb every last drop of sunlight she could get, despite the fact she was wearing shades so dark they had to have been illegal. He made a mental note that she was sensitive to the light, he was doing that a lot, making mental notes to add to the pages of his notebook.

“But after last night—”

“If it’s anything to do with Katie-Cam I’m going to stop you there,” Mellie said breezily. “All questions should be directed towards her.”

“Even awkward embarrassing ones?” he asked.

“Especially those,” Mellie confirmed wryly, a hint of a smile curving her lips, “trust me whatever it is she’ll get a kick out of you asking. She’s funny that way.”

“I’ll remember that,” he said mostly to himself. “Ah Mellie, we’re being watched.” River pointed out as they crossed into the town square. His eyes flicked over the park where the singer had tried to offer him up as a feast to all of her friends, the gazebo was empty but there was a fountain on the other side of the park where a half dozen kids with dull eyes stared at him. Dull in the sense that they were devoid of life, they looked as if they had been carved from black marble and someone had forgotten to finish chiselling them.

“The black eyed children,” she said as she glanced over at them. “Stay away from them.”

“You say that as if I don’t intend to stay away from every monster…”

“Them especially,” Mellie warned, “they look like children, they pretend to be children, to be innocent so you lower your guard but they aren’t children, not even close. Even most monsters tread carefully because it’s in our human nature to try and help kids, and in monster nature to try and take them.”

“It doesn’t end well for the monsters either?” he asked.

“Let’s just say if one of them ever comes to the door bolt it and find some place to hide, some place you can lock from the inside.” Chills shuddered down his spine and River stepped a fraction closer to Mellie.

“I thought the town was supposed to pretend to be normal during day time,” he pointed out. She glanced back at the children who had begun to skip around the fountain.

“Nobody tells the black-eyed what to do, nobody would dare.”

River swallowed nervously before Mellie slipped her arm through his in a show of support, she patted his hand comfortingly and offered a smile. “Just remember don’t talk to them, don’t open a door for them, and you’ll be fine.”

“How many monsters are there?” River asked, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer.

“In town?

“In general, I mean you and the rats and the black-eyed….” River clarified.

“Ah, so so many, there are the original species, things from ancient myths and legends, creatures from folklore, then there are the crossbreeds.”

“Crossbreeds?”

Mellie nodded, “With so many monsters in one place you get a lot of crossbreeding, one night stands and violent hook ups that result in progeny that are nothing like their parents and so a new crossbreed is born. If the crossbreed is sterile it will forever be known as a crossbreed and nothing more, but if it can breed? Wallah, new species.”

River smiled and waved his hand over his head, “Whoosh.”

“You’ve only been here a few days, you’ll get the hang of it soon enough. You’re a swimmer right?” Mellie asked changing the subject.

“Yeah, how did you know?”

“I’m a woman of many skills. I need to pick up some supplies from the craft store, but after that how would you like to head to the cove? It’s more of a lake really, but it’s one of dozens that all feed together.”

“You’re not going to tell me about monsters in the lake are you?” he asked.

“There are a few,” she mused, “but we won’t be going in the water today, just giving you a tour of this little old town.”

It turned out Mellie’s idea of a few supplies equated to a half dozen canvases and three large bags of paints, oils, acrylics and he had no idea what the rest of it was or what it was supposed to be used for. Art was definitely not his thing. Still despite the throbbing in his back from mildly agitating his numerous wounds it was a nice day and once they dropped the supplies back at her house Mellie took him on a circuitous and rather scenic walk towards the lake which provided an opportunity for a tour and a quiet reflection.

They had to cut through a small section of the woods to reach the edge of the lake, it was that or circle around a couple of miles. River would have been ok with circling but Mellie was confident they were safe in the light of day and it was her town… not to mention he had no choice in the matter if he wanted to keep breathing. So with a nervous tick and eyes that snapped to every rustle of leaves River followed her through the woodland until they emerged on the sandy edge of a dark blue lake.

It looked deep, ocean-fathomless-deep, and even under normal circumstances River would have been wary of water like that.

Mellie sat on the sandy ground a good dozen feet from the water and she patted the sand beside her, inviting him to join her. “It’s quiet now, but at night this is the busiest part of town, parties, mixers, games, it’s sort of a neutral-violence-free-zone.”

“You have a neutral zone?” River asked, it took a great deal of restraint on his part to avoid making a Star Trek reference.

“Zones,” she corrected, “Plural. And no Romulans.” His jaw dropped. Could she actually read his mind? It took a moment for it to click but he had seen her extensive supernatural and scifi blu rays in her second lounge room. She was a scifi geek, a monster and a geek; it was kind of awesome in a weird way.

“This zone is enforced by Bacchii,” Mellie went on, “think of them like the raging party chicks.”

“I know what Bacchii are,” River said, “I mean I know what they are in the Classical myths.”

“The myths are mostly right, the Bacchii are a bunch of party loving women possessed by the spirit of Bacchus, they’re practically a hive mind and slave to his will which makes them fearless and very dangerous.”

“And Bacchus… he’s an apex right?”

“Right.” Mellie confirmed with a smile, “See you’re getting this. And on that note I have a little something for you,” she reached into her bag and pulled out a small A5 sized package wrapped in cut shreds of canvas. “I didn’t have any wrapping paper,” she remarked as she handed it over.

“You got me a present?” he said, his eyes wide with surprise, “Thank you, but it feels kind of weird, I’m your property…”

“And my property should have nice things since you’re a reflection on me.”

It sounded like a justification but he didn’t care. He ripped open the canvas to find a sleek leather bound A5 journal. He ran his hands over the smooth leather exterior and flipped it open to find a woman’s elegant hand had transcribed a series of his own notes into its pages. More than that, opposite his entry on the rat monsters there was a beautifully hand drawn picture of one of the creatures in its monstrous form. The detail was exquisite. Mellie looked away as he flipped the page and found a picture of her, it took his breath away with its surreal flowing grace. Alongside the picture was River’s list of her likes and dislikes.

“I thought since you were trying to keep track of everything you might prefer something a little sturdier than loose notepaper.” She said by way of explanation.

River flipped to the next page and found a two page picture of Katie-Cam. If the rendering of Mellie was breathtaking he didn’t have the words to describe the way Katie was portrayed. Words couldn’t have done it justice.

“I don’t know what to say,” he whispered.

“It’s not much,” Mellie said, “I just wanted to give you something, something of your own, to make life a little bit more bearable.” River ran his fingers along the picture of Katie. “Would it be wrong if I hugged you?”

Mellie sighed melodramatically, “If you really feel the need to.”

She may have been joking, he couldn’t tell, but he threw his arms around her anyway and gave her a quick hug before he pulled away. “Thank you,” he said again. “It is so beautiful.”

Mellie seemed flustered by his continued thanks but she nodded, “I can keep illustrating your entries if you want? It was kind of fun to work on a smaller scale”

“That would be amazing.”