by Bones Monroe
Lamia had seen past all that. She’d been the ultimate negotiator, always looking for the win-win situation. When she finished with the human politicians, no one got everything they wanted, but each party was relatively happy. She was one of a kind.
And now she was gone.
The sour scent of unfulfilled vengeance tainted the air.
There was an uneasy murmuring punctuated by various growls as everyone they settled into the chairs.
Ben and Grace kept quiet and sat in the outermost seats. The two of them had concluded that even if they would be short-time residents (according to Ben’s plan), they should still attempt to take part in local affairs. Regardless, they both agreed that justice had to be served. In a short time, they had grown fond of Lamia.
As soon as they took their seats, they saw others giving them furtive glances or openly glaring at them. The random chit-chat came to a halt. The silence was deafening.
“I told you we should have brought a few crosses and some wolfsbane,” Ben whispered to Grace.
Grace shushed him. “No way,” she muttered. After she secretly removed all the crosses from the apartment, with all the recent dramas, Ben hadn’t thought to ask about them.
“Why are they here?” someone whispered, shooting the father and daughter dark looks.
“Do you think they’re spies?” another asked.
“I don’t care about them! They’re harmless,” a blonde zombie in the center circle shouted. She would have been a very attractive lady if her left eyeball would stay in its socket. Her nostril flapped every time she moved her head. “They aren’t the problem, their kind are! Killing two ants won’t harm the nest; go after the Queen!
A chorus of agreement came from the crowd.
“But Lamia was keeping the peace! What are we going to do now?” a voice shouted.
“A lot of good that did us. All these years they have stuck us in this place and we get no services. Nothing. They ignore us and, did you know? They have plans to push us further away from the City so they can develop North Wellon for more ‘upscale’ human housing?” That came from a large menacing man with definite wolfish features. He was literally foaming at the mouth in anger, drool dripping from his jaw.
He continued growling as his body moved in unnatural ways. The bones visibly shifted under his skin, making him look like a marionette jerking back and forth.
A slight woman with almond eyes approached and laid a hand on his undulating shoulder.
“Valfred, please calm down. You know it’s impolite to shift in public. You’re better than that,” she said.
Valfred calmed down at the sound of her voice. His body stopped contorting and reverted to a human shape.
“It’s just that I get so angry. Lamia wanted everyone to be so happy, but you can’t get along with those types of people,” Valfred finished the sentence by pointing at Ben and Grace, challenging them. “What do you have to say for yourselves? Huh?”
Ben raised his hands to show they meant no harm, “I came here to support you. We—”
“Ha! Support he says,” Valfred said mockingly.
“Honey,” Valfred’s wife interrupted him. “Those two humans are not responsible for their entire species, just like you aren’t responsible for everything that shifters have done.”
“What? You’re on the human's side now? That’s rich. My wife is protecting the same people that killed Lamia. I don’t know—”
The wife raised her hand. The sound of the slap ricocheted around the cul-de-sac. Ben and Grace gasped. They looked around and were surprised to see that no one else was alarmed.
Valfred deflated instantly as her hand fell away. “Bad boy! You have been a bad, bad boy! No treats for you tonight!” she scolded.
Valfred whimpered. “I was just so angry Vionica. Lamia and I didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of things, but I respected her and I really liked her. Someone killed her!”
Vionica pointed at Ben and Grace. “Those two had no part. Stop making them scapegoats! They may be human, but they are part of our community. They live here now. They are new, and they braved coming out to this meeting, alone in a sea of strangers, to pay their respects with us. And this is how you treat them?” She raised her voice to address the entire crowd. “If we blame these two, then we are no better than those we hate. Do we really want to sink to their level?”
A confused murmur swept through the crowd.
“They live here now. I don’t know why they ended up here, and I don’t care, neither should you. If we don’t stick together, then what do we have?” She ended with fire in her eyes.
Valfred threw his head back and howled in agreement.
The timbre of the crowd changed. The anger subsided somewhat and was no longer directed at Ben and Grace. One zombie gave Ben a friendly pat on the shoulder. Ben tried his best to ignore the errant maggot that fell off the zombie's hand, crawled on his shoulder and made its way back home. Zombie maggots always looked for a way back to their master.
“Fine, these two are ok. They live here, but what about the real problem? Lamia’s dead, and we have no representation. You know how sneaky those humans are. You can’t trust a human,” someone said.
“Filthy humans,” a voice grumbled. The crowd murmured in approval.
Valfred roused himself from his chair. “We need to take some initiative. We have been getting lazy letting Lamia take care of everything for us. Well, I loved her, we all loved her, but she’s gone. We know who did it. Some humans. And we need to stand up for ourselves. Enough is enough!” he shouted. The crowd roared in approval.
When the roar subsided, there was prolonged coughing from Ben and Grace’s left. A family of three vampires sat apart from the rest of the crowd.
The mother stood unsteadily on her feet and addressed the crowd. “We have a sickness. We wanted to show our support, but we’re getting worse.”
The father nodded at her words and patted his listless son. Saying that the son looked like he was dead would have been a moot point since technically he was already dead. However, the point was, he looked like Hell.
The son’s head lolled to the left, his swollen tongue had a small trickle of drool dripping from his chin, striving to contact his chest. Just as the drool was about to reach its life’s goal, the mother snatched it away by wiping her son’s chin. She tidied him up as best she could, but as soon as she turned to pay attention to the meeting, her son’s head lolled again.
Undeterred, the drool began its downward trek again.
“Menos isn’t looking that great,” Valfred said, looking at the son. “Why don’t you all go home, and we’ll fill you in later? Get some rest. We know you were here. You did your part. Take care of your family.”
Vlad nodded. The three of them slowly shuffled away.
“We are all dying,” Vionica said, not realizing the irony of her words since about half of the members in attendance were already dead. “This sickness has taken Lamia and several others. I fear there may be more.”
“CURE will be here soon,” Valfred told the crowd.
A loud rumble of anger flowed through the crowd.
“I know, I know,” Valfred told them. “But there’s nothing we can do to stop them. They’ll think there’s an outbreak. You know how they are,”
Protests rose up from the crowd.
“That’s just an excuse to take us away, to keep us apart!”
“I heard they want to kick us out of North Wellon and develop it for the humans!”
“They want to drive us out!”
“We need to fight back!”
“Make them pay! Show them we aren’t afraid of a few meatbags!”
“Make them pay!” the crowd chanted.
Ben was getting nervous. The zombie next to him leaned over, a large fleck of skin falling off his cheek. “I ssshhhink you should goooo nooowww,” he said with his partially decomposed tongue.
Ben took his advice, grabbed Grace by the hand, and they quietly left the
meeting without anyone noticing.
After they left, Valfred called out to get everyone’s attention.
“Ok people, we have a situation on our hands. I think you know where I stand on this. The humans have come into our homes and killed our own.” He held up his hands for silence. “No, I don’t have concrete proof they did it, but honestly, who else could it be? It’s not like we can take the entire species to court and have them sentenced. You all know we have had a hard time with humans. They want the planet to themselves. They hate anything different. They did it, somehow, I know it.”
There were several shouts of agreement.
“I’m not as eloquent or forgiving as Lamia was. ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,’ like the humans say. We need to prepare ourselves for war. They are coming for us, and we will not cower in fear or be driven from our homes just so they can live here. We stand, and we fight! Who’s with me?” Valfred said, pumping his fist in the air.
A chorus of excited roars answered him.
“Great! We have a lot to do. Let’s get started.”
Valfred moved around the gathering, separating the attendees into groups similar to the special forces’ detachments. Each group had one special talent: an ability to fly, wolf shifting. By the end of the meeting, he had organized the community.
Reader, how could you let this happen? Lamia was the only one that cared about us! Our only friend in this God-forsaken neighborhood and we had to watch her decompose in front of our eyes. In just a few seconds, she was gone, just ashes. Do you have any idea how traumatizing that is?
I know you didn’t do this, but you can’t just sit there in good conscience and see another human suffer, can you? Are you that cruel and indifferent? I’m human, doesn’t that matter to you? Does anything matter to you?
You know, I’ve been thinking. Am I a puppet on a string? That other guy, the Author. He just pulls a string, and I do his bidding. He’s a murderer, killing people for fun. That’s not right, and I hold you responsible for that.
Okay, Lamia was an ancient vampire, and you know how much I dislike the undead and inhumans but there are exceptions. She looked after the neighborhood; she took me under her wing. If it weren’t for her, I’d never know you were always there watching me.
If you can see me, did you see her? Who killed her? How did she die? Can you answer that at least? Give me a sign or something!
And just so you know—you better not let anything happen to Grace. Seriously, I don’t know what I’ll do, but I will find a way to hurt you. You might be some pan-dimensional being, but you can’t be invincible. Grace is the light of my life, and I will not tolerate anyone, ANYONE toying with her. She deserves a fair shot at life.
I know she has a wild streak in her, but she’s a teenager. What can you expect? It’s my duty as a parent to temper that until she has more self-control. Surely, you can see that. She’s not a bad kid. Not at all.
She even got a job and is doing well at it. How’s them pickles? Her first job, and she loves it. She’s even helping around the house. I’m so proud of her.
I guess I’m trying to say please, please don’t let anything happen to her. I’ll do anything you want, but you need to give me some sign, some direction.
And by the way, what’s up with the Author? I get different feelings when you are watching me. He’s a twisted freak. You know how you get a certain vibe from some people? Yeah, just like that. I get that ‘watch out for this hombre’ vibe from him. Are you two friends? I kinda think you are, but then again, I have no way of knowing. You might not know each other at all.
I don’t even know what you are. Are you a God, or an alien or something? I don’t know. Whatever you are, please look after us. We need your help. I’m planning to get out of North Wellon soon, but with all that has happened and my sucky interviews, I think it’ll take a little longer than I planned.
Wait a second. You don’t have something like the Prime Directive, do you? Like you aren’t supposed to intervene in the lives of us lower beings?
I don’t know. Maybe you’re just shy. I can’t figure you out.
I gotta go. If I stay too long, Grace will wonder where I am.
“Who were you talking to?” Grace asked when Ben came out of the bathroom. She had fixed herself something to eat and was on the couch spooning a soup-like mixture from a bowl into her mouth.
“What do you mean?” he said.
“I heard you talking to someone in there. You talking to the toilet?”
“No, I was just, uhh listening to a video on my phone.”
“Ohhh, I see. It sounded like you were talking to someone,” Grace said giving Ben’s phone on the coffee table the side-eye. He hadn’t taken it into the bathroom. It had been right there all the time; who did he think he was kidding?
Grace got up from the couch and walked into the kitchen to put her bowl in the sink. On her way back she stumbled and slammed into the coffee table.
“Hey, are you ok?” Ben asked as he rushed to help her up.
“Yeah, yeah. I don’t know what happened. I got dizzy suddenly.”
“It’s been quite a day. We should call it a night. You working tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “I’m pretty tired, now that you mention it.” She blew her father a kiss and walked awkwardly into the bedroom.
Next morning, Ben yelled outside Grace’s door. “Gracie, it’s time to get up. You’re going to be late.” He knocked on her door.
“Ohhh, I must have overslept,” she said weakly. “Thanks, Dad, I’ll get ready.”
Although she’d slept a full eight hours, she was so tired, it seemed like she had just crawled into bed.
She tried to pull herself out of bed, but halfway out she decided that getting out of bed was more of an aspirational goal rather than a practical one. She negotiated with herself and came to a happy medium where she decided that sitting on the bed was more than enough for a first step.
Her legs were heavy, torpid. They felt like they were full of lead. She was spent from the effort of sitting up.
The stress of the day must have affected me more than I thought. Or maybe this is a side effect of being undead? Maybe the moon had something to do with it? Sunlight? she thought. Who can I ask now about being a vampire? Perhaps I should swallow my pride and go to the weekly ‘Welcome to the Undead’ meetings the Undead Center hosted.
She stood slowly, struggling to maintain her balance. She had no energy. She showered, dressed and plopped back down on her bed. Digging under her mattress she searched for the tube of sunblock. Now with Lamia decomposed, Grace would need to find out a new supplier. That would be tricky.
Her fingers found something under the mattress, but it didn’t feel like the smooth tube of sunblock. It was a soft package, full of liquid.
She pulled it out.
It was a small foil pouch of ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Blood!’.
Aha! That’s it. I’m probably just hungry and haven’t learned to tell when I need to eat, she thought.
She extracted her fangs and bit into the soft skin-like covering at the top. The liquid coursed into her mouth and through her system filling her with a rush of energy. She felt invigorated. Things were looking up. Her outlook brightened, and she looked forward to a day working with Oliver.
She smiled to herself. See? I was just peckish, she thought, wiping an errant drop of blood off her chin.
Chapter 16
Grace gently pushed open Oliver’s door. She had knocked twice, but he didn’t answer. Because of recent events, she was afraid he had fallen to the sickness or worse, maybe some humans had hurt him.
Nonsense, she thought. I was a human until a few days ago. This talk is getting to me. Humans aren’t the bogeyman waiting to kill all of us.
She called out, “Oliver are you here? We need to start the route.”
He still didn’t answer. She heard shuffling in the back of his apartment, so she quietly followed the sound t
o the end of the hallway. There, in the floor, she saw a trapdoor that led to the basement. She hadn’t known apartments here had basements.
Grace tiptoed down the stairs.
At the bottom landing, she peeked around the support beam. There was Oliver, dressed in his usual outfit with latex gloves standing in between several large steel kegs. On the table in front of him were several vials and flasks. He looked like a mad scientist.
Grace peered around the room. If she didn’t know any better, she would have thought Oliver was a chemist. There was an old poster of the Periodic Table on the far wall. More steel kegs along the other wall and tons of liquids in flasks, pipettes, and dishes were strewn about. There was even a fume hood in the corner.
He was using a dropper to drip a substance into a flask. With a glass rod, he stirred the contents until the solution turned clear. He coughed. And she saw that he was wearing a surgical mask.
“Uhhh, Oliver?”
Oliver shrieked in surprise and dropped the glass instruments. With his inhuman reflexes, he snatched them an instant before they shattered on the floor.
“Grace! You surprised me! What are you doing here?” he said.
“It’s time to start the route. You weren’t in the living room, so I followed the sounds …”
Oliver glanced at the antique clock on the wall. The hands were stuck at noon. “Argh, I’ve been meaning to fix that stupid clock, but I never get around to it. I was just preparing a special batch of flavor boost. I wanted to have a sale to cheer people up. After losing Lamia, I think everyone needs a pick me up, don’t you think?”
Grace sidled over to the table to see what Oliver was mixing up. “There were really angry at last night’s community meeting. It was kinda scary,” she said.
“When a mob mentality takes over, no one is safe.” He transferred the liquid into several small metal containers, pulled off his gloves and mask.
“What is all this?” she asked.
“This? This is my laboratory where I develop the flavor boost. A lot of experimentation and very concentrated stuff in here. You need to be very careful with these materials.”