Madman's Monster

  Chris Barnes.

  My best friend, former LAPD medical examiner and dead man these past two years.

  At first I didn't recognize him. I was too shocked by the absurdity of the costume he was wearing, but when he raised the aluminum room-service tray over his head and shouted, "HAVE AT YOU!" at the remaining enemy, his identity clicked. Truly, I had never known anyone else THAT crazy. Chris ran into the room and I just watched in stunned fascination as he brought the room-service tray down once again on the man's head. Then a final resounding "CLANG" deformed the tray around the man's skull in a manner that suggested a professional wrestling scene; however, this tray was no prop and had the density to deliver a force strong enough to incapacitate the recipient of the blow.

  My legs were weak, because I had held my dear friend as he died helping to save my people. I had watched over his body afterward, carried it to the coroner and attended his funeral. In the days that followed, Alpha had cryptically mentioned Chris once, but when it never came up again, I just assumed he was helping me cope with the loss. Now Chris stood in front of me...well, he was actually on the ground kneeling over the man he had just clobbered, dressed as Dracula, fully animated and alive.

  I stood and tried to get my bearings as Chris repeatedly hit the man on the head with the tray, screaming at the top of his lungs with every blow as he hit him again and again...

  "I got him!"

  CLANG!

  "I got him!"

  CLANG!

  "I got you now!"

  CLANG!

  "You're mine!"

  CLANG!

  "Show a knife to me!?!"

  CLANG!

  "I'll teach you!"

  CLANG!

  Of course the man was completely unconscious at this point, but Chris was just...being Chris.

  "Chris?" the word barely escaped my throat, as my voice was gone, amidst the shock at seeing my dead friend so fully animated.

  "This is for me!"

  CLANG!

  "This is for being too damn tall!"

  CLANG!

  "This is for the Titanic!"

  CLANG!

  "This is for Ole Purdue!"

  CLANG!

  "Chris!" I had to shout to get my voice to work, but all the noise and chaos he was creating was more than I could register and, frankly, I would have probably shouted anyway.

  Chris froze in mid-strike, still perched on top of the man as he looked at me,

  "Into the breech, Steve! Into the..."

  Chris' words were cut off as Chris seemed to suddenly realize the man beneath him was totally out for the count.

  "Oh right," Chris climbed off the man and stood smiling in front of me. He was about to say something when a moan escaped from the man on the ground.

  CLANG!

  "Chris!" I shouted and ran to my friend.

  Chapter 36

  "He the last one, or do you need to clear the halls? Go ahead, I've got this one covered!" Chris was holding the room service tray over his head ready to slam it down again.

  The insanity of the scene had me mumbling, "He's got him covered...with a room service tin?"

  Chris apparently heard me, "Never argue with results."

  "Chris..."

  "The LAPD should make these things standard issue."

  "Chris!"

  "WHAT?!"

  "How is it you're still alive?"

  Chris looked confused and then turned to Alpha, "You were supposed to tell him."

  Alpha dismissed Chris' statement with a wave of his hand, "I was in the process, before our friends so rudely interrupted us."

  Chris set the tray down and walked over to me. My long dead best friend just walked over, with his ridiculous cape waving behind him, and he just stood in front of me and held out his arms, "C'mon bro, man-hug time."

  I let out a sound that was a half laugh and half cry as I embraced my friend. He was really here. Alive, well, and as eccentric as ever.

  Chris laughed along with me, and when we held the hug a bit longer than two men, comfortable with their heterosexuality could properly excuse, we began giving each other manly slaps on the back as we let go.

  I managed to stammer out, "How?"

  Chris nodded and turned to Alpha as he said with heavy sarcasm, "Good a time as any for explanations."

  Alpha merely shrugged, and stepping over the bodies to check on Lei.

  We began moving the bodies into the room, were checking them for heartbeats, as Chris started talking.

  "I was gut shot remember? Those ass-faces literally blew my guts out in the Pharmanetics lobby and left me for dead while they hunted you and Alpha down. I lost a lot of blood, not to mention that the junk in my intestines was going to poison me. I figured I was done and the last thing I remembered was telling Alpha to go and help you before, I guess, I passed out. Well, next thing I knew I woke up and was hooked to some machine with a couple of IV bags pumping life back into me. Turns out your boy Alpha pushed some of his own blood into me back at Pharmanetics, which kept me from dying from the systemic infection that gut shots are known for, and was pumping even more of his blood into me through a direct transfusion."

  "Alpha gave his...a direct..." it was the process where a healthy person had their blood pumped directly into the body of someone who needed it via a clean tube. We had done it with many of our kind who were in the throes of madness, but Alpha never used his blood for the process. He had said that over the centuries his blood wasn't really compatible with human blood anymore and it would have strange side effects on whomever received it.

  "Yeah," Chris continued, "I've heard that it isn't a regular thing?"

  "No," I said, still stunned. "It's not."

  Chris shrugged, "Oh well, guess there has to be a first time for everything. Anyway, I recovered pretty slowly, and it took me nearly six months to be able to eat solid food again, and another six before I could walk normally. I guess I was pretty messed up. In the meantime Alpha and his people treated me like royalty, and when I could finally move around on my own again I found out there were some new...shall we say "rules" I had to follow to keep myself alive."

  I looked at Chris' face and guessed what was making him so cheery, "You're one of us now, aren't you?"

  Chris bowed formally and adopted an Hungarian accent, akin to the Bella Lugosi Dracula costume he was wearing, "I am a fully-fledged, card carrying Vam-Pire," Chris pumped his fist, "Yeah baby!"

  Lei turned away from Alpha and muttered in mock disgust, "There goes the neighborhood."

  "Hey!" Chris responded with equal mock indignation.

  Lei flashed him a look and Chris pointed two fingers at his eyes and then pointed them at Lei in a threatening manner.

  I shook my head, "Why didn't anyone tell me."

  Chris saw my face and toned down the frivolity, "Man I am so sorry about that. I thought you knew. Alpha said that he was going to tell you when the time was right, but I never thought it would have been this long."

  Lei moved to my side and I asked her, "Did you know?"

  She looked a little uncomfortable, but she didn't lie to me, "Yes."

  I let out a breath I had been holding and shook my head as I pinched the spot between my eyes where a headache was creeping in.

  "Why all the secrets?"

  Lei shrugged, "He needed to recover without distractions. You felt so guilty you would have wasted your life at his bedside and distracted him from properly recovering. That wouldn't have done you or Chris any good."

  I wanted to be angry about that, but knew she was right. Chris had gotten shot helping me with a fight that wasn't his in the first place. He was helping me because he was my friend, so the responsibility fell on me when he died. I would have babied the hell out of him if I had known he was still alive.

  "That doesn't explain why I wasn't told after he recovered."

  Alpha decided to join the conversation and said, "Your friend had to learn what it meant to be one of us. That took time," Alph
a paused to look at Chris and snorted, "a lot more time than most."

  Chris rolled his eyes.

  "But, what did you mean when you said that I was, ready"?" I asked.

  "I meant that Chris was finally ready," Alpha looked back at Chris, "Could you take the ridiculous costume off now?"

  Chris sighed, "Spoiled my big entrance, dammit."

  "I take it Chris is our back up?" I asked as if already knowing the answer.

  "That was my intention. I had thought that this might be the perfect time to..." Alpha seemed to search for the proper words.

  Lei sighed, "Test him?"

  "Test?" I repeated the word in confusion before the realization struck, "You want him to be a Hunter?!"

  Lei covered her face with her hand, but if she was shocked or stifling a laugh I couldn't tell.

  "What better time to test him than with my two best Hunters, just to make sure he isn't overwhelmed?"

  Lei had recovered from...whatever... and pointed out, "We don't usually test new candidates in the middle of active operations."

  Alpha nodded, "True, but my point remains."

  "You want him to be a Hunter?" I asked again, although this time it was more of a statement to myself, than a question to Alpha.

  Alpha looked at me and raised an eyebrow, "Yes."

  "A Hunter?" I asked again.

  Alpha looked even more confused, "Yes?"

  I pointed to Chris, "Him?"

  "Hey!" Chris said indignantly, but was half laughing when he did.

  Alpha seemed to suddenly understand, "A lot has happened in two years. Perhaps you will learn something as well?"

  I hadn't completely come to terms with the fact that my best friend was still alive and now I was supposed to accept that he had been trained as a Hunter. And in less than two years?

  "Alpha you have got to be…"

  Lei interrupted me by saying, "Can we work this out on the way to the restaurant? Larson is waiting there for us."

  "…kidding me!" as I finished my thought. I don't like being cut off.

  Chris turned away from me and looked at Lei, "Restaurant?"

  "It's a medical clinic, too." Lei volunteered

  Chris' eyebrows went up, "Huh?"

  Lei nodded "Don't worry, we'll explain."

  Chris' drew the cape around his body and half of his face, and scowled at me, Dracula style, and with a terrible Transylvanian accent he said, "Vell den, allow me to put on something, less formal," and he sauntered out of the room never dropping the cape from his face.

  Chapter 37

  Chris changed out of his Halloween costume in favor of a pair of jeans, hiking boots and a T-shirt that read "Team Edward" as he headed for the lobby with Lei. I wanted to stay behind and talk to Alpha, but with all the bodies lying around I figured we needed to clear out pretty quickly. Alpha and I strode out of the hotel and found a walk-up bar less than two blocks from the hotel. My intentions were to talk, they really were, but I wasn't sure I was going to be able to resist the urge I had to beat the crap out of the man. I had always considered Alpha like a father to me, which made it even harder for me to accept the fact that he and Lei had kept the secret of Chris’ being alive away from me for so long.

  I barely waited for the waitress to walk away with our drink order before I started in on him.

  "How could you?!" I demanded.

  Alpha just peered inscrutably at me, those bottomless black eyes of his now hidden behind mirrored sunglasses.

  "No - No! None of that Lord and Master vampire attitude crap!" I was pointing an index finger in his face before I had realized I had moved, to which he simply sat on the edge of his seat and rested his elbows on the bar as he watched me.

  I continued, not trying to regulate the volume of my voice, "This is Chris we're talking about here! MY friend, my respons..."

  "There!" Alpha slapped my finger away and pointed with his own, cutting me off before I could finish, "There is the answer to your 'why' for what I did."

  I started to protest, but Alpha cut me off again, "You want me to take away the "inscrutable" attitude? Well then, don't take an indignant one with me."

  I shut my mouth and let Alpha continue, "What have you been doing this past year and a half?" Alpha asked.

  I was a bit shocked by the question, but Alpha answered for me when I didn't speak up right away, "You and Lei have found over a dozen lost and abducted children, found nearly two dozen of our people and saved them by bringing them into the fold, not to mention the way the relationship between you and Lei has grown."

  Alpha seemed to consider that last statement before saying, "I really don't understand why you haven't married the girl yet. Anyhow, look at how much you have accomplished, and then think about how much you would have done if you had sat at his bedside the entire time, holding your friend's hand throughout his recovery because you felt it was your fault."

  My voice caught in my throat, "I..."

  Alpha waved a hand, "No, you may not like it, in fact I'm sure you don't like what I did, but that doesn't mean it wasn't the right thing for me to do."

  My face tightened and I probably should have just dropped it, and moved on, but sometimes my anger can override the filter between my brain and mouth, "It doesn't matter if I had wasted my life, Chris' life, Lei's life, or anyone else's. The real point here is that you took the choice away from me. If I had decided to waste my life and support my friend above all else, then that should have been my choice. It might be a selfish choice, given the way you just presented it, but the choice of how MY life was spent would have been mine, not yours."

  Alpha blinked at me and a half smile crossed his lips before he bent his head forward and ran his pale fingers through his snow-white hair. Then, with a sigh he said, "You're right."

  I was so ready for a rebuke that I actually stuttered, "A-A-and...uh...what?"

  Alpha rested his face in his hands and nodded before raising his head up to look me in the eyes, "You are right."

  "Um...yes, yes I am," was all I could say.

  Alpha sighed, "I've spent the last five hundred years being a leader and making decisions for our family that, I will admit, at times were extremely painful. I have had to do things that, if given a choice, I would have rather died than do and I justified my actions at every turn because I HAD to know what was best for the entire collective."

  As I watched him, Alpha, who always had been the pillar of a strength that was superhuman in proportion even for us, began to look tired and maybe even a little frail as he spoke. It was as if the front he put up had crumbled, and for the first time ever I could see the toll centuries of life had taken on him.

  "I'm sorry Steven," he spoke the words quietly, but there was no doubting the sincerity in the words, "I played the father figure for far too long. I suppose it would be accurate to assume that I don't always know when to leave it behind."

  With all of the steam having gone out of my sails, I simply turned back to face the bar top and we both just sat there in silence for about a minute before the waitress brought over our drinks. She set two bottles of some kind of Thai beer that I had never heard of in front of us before placing two small menus next to the bottles.

  "No trouble here," she said quickly as she gave us a stern look of warning. She might have wanted to say something more, but the expressions on our faces were enough to tell her to give us a little space, and she walked off to serve other customers. I picked up my beer and tilted the bottle toward Alpha. His head turned slightly as he processed my actions, then he picked up his own bottle and clinked it against mine. We both drank half the contents before setting the bottles back down on the bar top, and I looped an arm around his oversized shoulders. Alpha didn't flinch away, and I pulled on him a couple times, "You are a very good father, you know."

  Alpha snorted a laugh, "So good that a misunderstanding sent you away from me for over a decade? So good that I apparently made the wrong decision about your friend?"

  I laughed
, "I didn't say you were perfect, but at least I can understand why you did it."

  Alpha turned his head and regarded me for a time. And then he smiled and patted me on the back a couple times before saying, "We all right then?"

  "We're good, as long as we learned our lessons."

  Alpha chuckled, "Nearly six hundred years, and I wonder if I have really learned anything." He took another drink and asked, "So what now?"

  I thought for a moment before I said, "I guess it's time for dinner."

  Chapter 38

  Dr. Phineas Whelan was pacing the floor of his lab waiting for Timberland to report concerning what had happened at the village. The man had returned several hours ago and was extremely upset about something, not that Whelan cared about whatever concerns Timberland and his band of maniacs might have. What he wanted to know, needed to know, was the status and whereabouts of his patient. He was relying heavily on that individual’s success to protect him against both his enemies as well as his dubious, though necessary, allies.

  The sale of the biochemical weaponry had gone off without a hitch, as did the sale of the accompanying "vaccine" for the special forces brigades of the buyer, but Whelan knew that without his personal monster he would be vulnerable if...no, not if, when the buyer turned on him, after the sale was fully over.

  He had barely escaped two years ago when he had run from Pharmanetics and was forced to abandon all of his technological breakthroughs, but he hadn't lost the knowledge that he had gained while he had worked there, including the prize of his achievements, the "Flash Box." The device emitted a little strobe of light that resembled the red eye-reduction effect of a camera’s flash but, in fact, sent an energy impulse into a subject's Optic Nerve, thereby traveling to and influencing the brain. Now he had reached the pinnacle of his work in mind control by creating his personal monster and protector that would stand between him and the vampires if they were to ever come for him again. True, he hadn't figured out the unique variant allowing this particular subject to survive the process when all of the other test subjects had died, but Whelan didn't care. He had his weapon against the vampires now and, most delicious of all, it was his genius that had created the giant.