by Alan Spencer
“So the complex took five years to build. Animals were delivered to the island for slaughter and blood draining. That was back when the beasts’ needs were simple. The problem, in my opinion, is that their needs keep evolving just as their DNA kept changing. Guards were randomly attacked and used for food. The deaths were kept off the books and records. That’s when the guards smartened up and begged the United States to consider new options. That’s when James proposed the use of real blood after he’d successfully received his island. Drain the blood of the recently deceased and have it delivered here. That request eventually turned into transporting the bodies of the recently dead along with their precious blood to the island.
“During the Vietnam War, James decided to ask for the bodies of fallen soldiers to eat. Their demands weren’t met, of course, and half the workers here were butchered and consumed instead.” He smiled awkwardly. “Well, the government wouldn’t have their fallen soldiers sent here, so what did they do, maybe you’re thinking? They delivered death-row convicts fresh from the cooker. That snowballed into sending life-term prisoners—alive, mind you—into their midst. And then, scraping the bottom of the barrel, they sent people from lunatic asylums. They come in with the shipments of new workers and supplies all the time.”
George hunched close to her. She could smell coffee and cigarettes on his breath. “If you ask me, they’ve kept evolving, and they’ve been hush-hush about it. They’ve smartened up, our monsters. But so far, they’ve gotten what they want, and it’ll keep going down that way. But one day, everything will fall apart. I hope I’m dead by then. I pray I am.”
She was nervous at his speech, and George sensed the stiffness of her body. He kindly backed off.
“This place is unbelievable,” she said, forcing conversation. “All of it.”
“You bet. Make the best of it is all I can tell you. I’ve been here the better part of fifteen years. Too long for anybody, but since I don’t have a choice, I enjoy myself the best I can. Just don’t get depressed, or if you do, hide it well.” He raised his thick eyebrows harshly. “Instead of sending you to a psychologist or prescribing pills, they’ll send you to the meat grinder.”
She was about to ask what meat grinder, but George hushed her. “I’ve said too much. I’ve managed to petrify you, and you haven’t even started working here yet.”
Finished talking about life and death and the many ways the island could have its way with her, she exited the library.
Chapter Twenty-One
She returned to her room because there was nowhere else she felt comfortable to venture. There were so many strangers and places she wasn’t familiar with, and this was her only refuge. Sitting in bed trying to clear her mind, she overheard rattling in the air duct. At first, it sounded like a piece of gravel bouncing down the shaft and pinging downward. Then it was a steady tick-tick-tick, like the slow drag of metal against metal.
She peeked through the grates, startled and curious at once, but it was too dark to see anything. The noises didn’t cease. Whatever the source was, it wasn’t afraid to be noticed. Training her senses harder, she backed up at the sound of trickling water—so strange! The stream must’ve been ice cold, she thought. She could feel the chilly sensation blow through the grates. A soft mewl added to the strange chorus, though it was faded by distance, as if someone was calling out, but the words were indistinct. Trying to view the anomaly, she caught a glint of something wet shoot past the grates—or was it the gel of an eye peering in at her?
Horrified, she backed off. She wasn’t going to have a creature or monster sneak into her room via the duct system, and deciding this, she pushed back the bedpost and shoved the bookshelf flush against the grate, creating a barrier.
“Stay out…whatever you are.”
She kept her back to the far wall adjacent to the duct, waiting for anything else to happen. The pillowcase in her lap smelled of bleach, institutionalized clean, but the strange scent didn’t prevent her from crying into it. Overwhelmed by everything that had happened and what she imagined was going to happen soon, she muffled a wide-mouthed scream. Then, shutting her eyes tight because her body forced her to, she fell limp on top of her bed. She closed her eyes and slept.
It was then that the creature in the duct moved on to another room to invade.
Angela’s Garden was showing in theater six, and Barry Engel and Elisa Thompson were alone. They always watched movies alone. Empty theaters stirred up Elisa’s juices. Public places aroused her, period. The chance of someone spying them doing the nasty, she claimed, made any sex hot. Elisa craved sex in a public bathroom, behind the booze bar at the courtyard outside, or even during their fifteen-minute break from serving cocktails to the level-two zombies. But Barry had grown to enjoy it as well. Every time they stepped out together for a date, the promise of sex entered his mind, and more often than not, it was fulfilled.
Angela’s Garden had played for three weeks, and three weeks was far too long when nobody cared for the movie. The romantic comedy was one of the rare art-house films to flash on the silver screen here on the island. Barry knew nothing about the movie because he was fingering Elisa. It was only ten minutes into the movie, as if the lights going down was foreplay enough for her.
“We might not be alone,” she whispered, acting like a virginal teenager. “I don’t want anybody to see us. What if they tell on us? What if they kick us out? If my parents find out…”
Barry could guarantee they were alone. They were the first in the theater, and the only ones, and he’d scrutinized both entrances before the movie started. He wouldn’t ruin it for her, though, and lied. “There’s somebody up in front, but if you keep your mouth shut, we’re in the clear.”
She moaned at his reassurances. She unzipped him, enjoying the bulge in his pants. “Then get it out. Hurry.”
Elisa seized his dick. She spat on it with the vigor of a practiced harlot, stroking it.
He wrapped his arm around her back to bring her in for a kiss when her body arched up straight. “Aaaack!”
She was strangled by an invisible force. Her body was lifted inches up off the chair. Elisa’s eyes shut tight, clamped in agony. She closed her mouth, her throat visibly constricting, as if a fist were making its way up her esophagus. Her head was cranked upward, facing the ceiling.
He disbelieved his eyes and what had happened in mere seconds. Elisa’s strange paralysis shifted. And that’s when he peeked up at the ceiling and finally discovered what force had overtaken her.
“JESUS CHRIST!”
Elisa’s flesh along her face, neck and shoulders rippled. Then in one blink, the skin on the top half of her body split into hundreds of strings, as if yarn were being unwoven, and strand by strand, her flesh was sucked up to the ceiling in rivulets. Her blood soon followed, rising up like reverse rain.
The mass above them was an oil slick covered in octopus nodules. It was the size of a small body of water.
The stolen items reached the vessel, received with wet, lapping noises, the nodules like suckling mouths.
“Uhwup! Aaaagggggh!”
Her mouth was pried open by invisible hands, the force great enough to dislocate her jaw in one uncouth snap. The nodules were working, and with the sound of hundreds of guppy mouths puckering open and closed at once, it was gaining power. So much power, Elisa’s intestines were forced out of her mouth, the innards spring-ejected at high pressure in bolts and gobs.
Barry attempted to throw Elisa aside and escape, though it was awkward with his pants down. Sensing his retreat, she opened her eyes to plead to him, but they too were suctioned out and hovered up to the hungry creature, the eyes trailing tails of pink orbital tissue. Then, as if her entire body was turned inside out, she exploded in a ball of blood and bits of bone, all of which was sucked up to the ceiling.
It wasn’t too much longer before Barry endured the same harrowing demise.
Starting his workday, Robbie Cornwell entered the factory-like area. The spa
ce was occupied by thirty-five steel processing vats as large as beer fermentation units. The concrete floor and white cinder-block walls glowed with a freshly clean sheen, everything sterile. Today, he was in training, his first day on duty. His trainer was only in his early twenties, a built fellow named Alan Jacoby. They both wore a blue painter’s suit with thick black rubber gloves and matching boots as they advanced into the work space.
Alan dumped pieces of information at him as they moved deeper into the facility. “This chamber is where the blood from the cruise liner is processed. This room is strictly for the vampires’ benefit. You see, the vampire arena and their living quarters are all rigged with plastic tubing, what’s hooked up to the ceiling of their rooms. This network channels blood to their rooms at regular intervals throughout the day. Once every hour.”
Three people in the painter’s suits operated mixing machines. The vats boiled with blood, similar to tomato soup, but darker. The sight perplexed Robbie. “Why are they cooking the blood?”
His trainer appreciated the question. “The blood comes mainly from slaughterhouses. The government pays stipends for cattle, pig, sheep and goat’s blood. The blood has to go down special drains and feed into reservoirs for delivery. But first, we have to remove hair, flesh, clothing, bones, everything from the blood before serving it. The vampires prefer it that way. They get testy if the blood tastes questionable.”
They crossed into an open area where wooden crates moved via a conveyer belt. At the end of the belt, the crates were broken open. Foam peanuts and wadded-up newspapers were knee-high in some areas. Inside the strewn packaging, what looked to Robbie like large IV bags were stocked ten to a crate. The blood bags were placed on another conveyor belt and delivered to individual stations, and Alan stopped him at an empty one.
Alan handed him a box cutter. “Careful with this sucker. They’re sharpened daily. It’ll cut your thumb off as soon as it would cut off your dick. Your job is to slice open the blood bags and pour them down this steel slide. Simple.”
The steel slide was a contraption that hovered over each of the boiling vats. This was a dump site, he surmised. Nine other people were around him, slicing blood packets and pouring them down the chute. He’d make ten.
The line stopped when the conveyor belts were bare of product. A man on the line, his shirt labeled Bruce, complained to Alan. “What the hell, are we short of blood again?”
“Take a break,” Alan shot back. “Pipe down. Rest your hands. Think about your pretty girlfriend, or whoever you’re fucking these days, and calm down.”
“Does that happen a lot?” Robbie asked.
Alan was stolen from a thought by the question. “Uh, does what happen a lot?”
“Blood shortages?”
Bruce answered for Alan. “It seems like we’re short all the time, as of lately. It’s like the vampires are drinking more.”
Alan was quick to correct the man. “Or what we’re giving them just isn’t doing the trick anymore.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
The best kind of rest was a dreamless slumber, the kind Addey was getting right then, but the knock at the door stirred her awake and rudely ended that bliss. She wasn’t sure how long she’d slept. She checked the clock. It was one o’clock in the morning. Curious as to who was visiting her at this hour, she worked to her feet, groggy-headed. She wore the same skirt and top as before, and though the ensemble was wrinkled, she didn’t care. She opened the door to be met by Herman. He regarded her with concern.
“You survived.” He hugged her close. She didn’t push him away. She missed that form of contact. Affection. Friendship. “I worried so much about you. I know it’s after midnight. I just got off my shift, and I had to know if you were okay. I heard about it only hours ago, and word is all over the complex. You beat the shit out of the zombies on the sublevel.” His eyes lit up. “You’re a warrior.”
“You’re joking, right?”
His honest smile eased her concern. “You’re alive, so who cares if everybody thinks you’re a crazed monster killer? Which you are. If you think about it, it’s a good thing. None of these men will fuck with you. Nobody will.”
He studied the stitches on her face and legs, his excitement pared down. “You poor thing.”
She felt the bitter warmth of tears in the backs of her eyes, but she held them back. “They were merciless. They literally tried to eat me alive.”
He diverted the subject matter to something else. “When do you work next?”
“I’m not sure. They said I’d be reassigned to easier work.”
“Hey, let’s go get a drink. Celebrate your survival. You can tell me about your mess, and I’ll tell you about my job. There’s a nice courtyard that was nixed from the tour. It has a great view of the ocean. It’s serene, considering where we are. You up for it?”
“Let me clean up. Give me fifteen or twenty minutes.”
He was delighted she accepted his offer. “I’m next door; just knock.”
Reentering her room, she changed into fresh clothes. All she had was work clothes, but then she caught sight of a Macy’s shopping bag by the shower with a note from Richard.
Enjoy some nicer clothes. Stay strong.
“When did he leave these? They weren’t here hours ago.”
He must’ve snuck in when I was asleep.
Digging into the bag, she changed into something more casual. When she exited the room, Herman was about to knock on her door again.
He eyed her ensemble. “You look nice, Addey. Real nice.”
“And you look relaxed. Real relaxed.”
Walking out, those in the break room were half drunk, staring dumbly at the television or playing aggressively at video game stations. They fought for their escape, and many times, they lost. It made her think about her new friend and his attitude. “Why are you so carefree, Herman?”
“I’ll answer that on a full stomach.”
They walked to the cafeteria. She was starving, but after yesterday, she’d never eat meat or anything resembling flesh. The dead were walking forms of raw meat themselves, and that’s all she could see on the cooking lines with hamburgers sizzling on the grill, hotdogs spinning on the warming wheels, and chicken fingers frying in grease vats.
“You need to eat,” he insisted. “You probably lost blood in that fight. Replenish yourself. Your body needs it.”
She was starving, and he was right, so she chose a pita stuffed with tomatoes, feta cheese, and onion and green bell peppers. And then she caught the ice cream bar, moving in for the kill. “I’d love a chocolate sundae.”
Herman stocked his plate with a barbecue beef sandwich, coleslaw, and French fries. “I’m going for the heart attack special.”
“Maybe that’s why people are eating so well here; they’re trying to die of heart disease on purpose. I’d call it fun suicide.”
They departed the cafeteria with their food trays in hand. Herman guided them to a walkway outside the kitchen. They descended a set of concrete stairs and walked onto a patio with tables shadowed by umbrellas. Deck lights illuminated the darkness. The ocean was oil black and vast. It rippled softly with the ebb of a strong current miles away.
They sat together at a table, and she ate her sundae first. She was halfway through her pita when Herman spoke, “The trick to surviving anything is distancing yourself from the horror—to answer your question from earlier. We’re not the monsters. Sure, some of us have to perform jobs that are vile and disgusting, but on our own as individuals, we’re still good people wishing for happiness and love. We have a small piece of that from our normal lives, and damn it, we cling to it. Otherwise, all we have is blood on our hands and fear coursing through our veins. I won’t live like that. Besides, it’s human instinct: pleasure over pain. Your pleasure is your chocolate sundae, and my pleasure is my sandwich. And you know, many of these people have it better here than they had it in their normal life. Money to buy nice things, awesome food, alcohol to no end, sex
if they want it at that strip club, and their jobs. They’re always secure despite the economy. Everybody’s needed.”
“You make it sound like such a nicely wrapped package.” She turned serious. “I was nearly killed yesterday. Eaten to death. And my shift manager almost raped me. That’s been my experience thus far.”
His face hardened at the confession. She’d thrown him a curve ball. “I can’t attest to those awful things. You’ve had a worse go of it than I have, obviously. Your zombies were good and dead. The dead people I worked with were like people who suffer from bad plastic surgery and have to deal with rigor mortis and the early stages of death. But they crave fun. Good times. It’s crazy. You should see them, for real. Minigolf, martinis, cocktails, slot machines, swimming, shuffleboard, basketball, checkers, chess and poker tournaments are going on all the time. It’s like I’m working on a fun ship cruise. My job is to serve them drinks and food and banter with them. I guess I’ve been spared the danger.”
“Compared to the shit I did, you’ve got it nice.” She humphed. “You got that right.”
Richard’s beeper rumbled at her hip.
“Duty calls?” Herman inquired, pointing at her waist. “I hate beepers. I always hated cell phones too.”
She apologized and rushed to the nearest phone built into the brick wall. She dialed the number, and Richard answered on the first ring. “Addey, meet me in your room. I’m waiting for you there.”