MonsterVille
Thirty Two

In the early hours of dawn when a wash of pink and orange broke the horizon in a breathtaking array, a storm front moved in. The light was eclipsed by dark roiling clouds that turned day to night. Thunder rumbled, lightning cracked across the morning sky and the rain fell in torrents. The sound of it battering the roof drowned out the snoring of the berserker’s, the fresh heavy smell of rain washed away the putrid stench of dead rat and the musky unwashed aroma of the monsters surrounding the house.

“You’re up early,”

River didn’t turn around. The monsters might like their meat raw, but he liked his bacon cooked to a crisp and it was just about right—he nudged the sizzling edge with the spatula and watched it crack in a satisfying manner.

“Never actually went to bed.” River replied. He heard Mellie drop onto the stool at the kitchen counter.

“I uh, I know I said this last night but I’m sor—”

“For what?” River’s voice rasped as he spoke. The tell-tale sign of damage to his vocal chords. He wondered if the rasp was something he was going to have forever, it wasn’t bad. There was a certain husky allure to it—not that his future held much in the way of impressing girls. “I’m property remember, you get to do whatev—”

It was Mellie’s turn to cut him off. She was behind him in a rush of motion, a painful iron grip on his shoulder as she forced him to turn. The look in her eyes was angry—not that ‘angry’ did it justice. Rage? Or perhaps he would use the biblical ‘wrath’. That sounded more accurate. Her eyes burned with wrath, a simmering red flaring through her iris; a hint of the inner monster lurking beneath the façade of humanity. There was something else mingled with that wrath, exhaustion. She looked so tired.

“Stop it River.”

“Stop what?”

“The petty human-slave shit. You know I don’t like it any more than you do, and damn it if I haven’t proven that already.”

River sighed, the tension draining from him; the tension, the resolve. He just didn’t have the energy.

“I know Mellie, I’m sorry too. It’s just, I’m just so tired.” His head sagged forward and met hers, her skin was oddly warm against him—nearly feverish. “I’m going to die,” he was crying, not blubbering, but the tears were definitely flowing, “I know it, you know it. If this is a week in my new life I’m not going to make it two, and I’m just so tired. I can’t pretend it’s going to be ok, that I’m going to make it. Humans die where monsters tread, and it’s going to hurt. Is it pathetic that that’s the part that really scares me? How much it’s going to hurt, whether I’m going to be eaten alive or carved up. I’m tired and scared, and I just don’t think I can do this anymore.”

He would have slumped to the ground if Mellie hadn’t caught him. For someone who looked so frail she was surprisingly strong.

“I’m sorry,” he cried. He knew he was just making a mess of himself, but he couldn’t stop it, couldn’t stop the tears. He folded in on himself.

“You should have just let me die last night.”

“I think your girlfriend might have objected to that,” Mellie said wryly. She slumped beside him, her back against the kitchen cabinets.

“Ex.”

Mellie raised a brow questioningly, “Does she know that, because she was pretty insistent on trying to ‘save’ you.”

“She’s the one who broke up with me.” River huffed.

“Hmm,”

“What?”

“What do you mean what?”

“I mean why are you going ‘hmm’, like you know something I don’t.” River pushed

“Probably,” Mellie mused, “because I know a lot of things you don’t.”

“Something relevant to this particular conversation?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

Mellie laughed and ruffled his hair. “You know before I ‘won’ you, I was a loner. Katie-Cam was pretty much the only friend I had, now I have a pet human, a house full of berserker’s and an invitation to the Mayor’s Harvest Dinner.” She glanced towards the kitchen table and the open envelope—River blushed slightly.

“I could apologise again, say it was an accident.” River said.

“But?”

“But why bother with the pretence? What’s the Harvest?” he asked bluntly.

“Oh it’s a time of joy and beauty, of revelry and celebration…a time when monsters play across party lines, when the Apex’s are less rigid in their territorial bravado. When monsters like to preen and show off their acquisitions, their property, where deals are made and lives are changed, where we fornicate for the hell of it. Half the town is one big orgy during Harvest.”

“And the other half?” River asked quietly.

Mellie hesitated, “The other half—they eat. The latest human crop is served up as a bounty and monsters feast on flesh, gnaw on marrow and use your bones to pick their teeth.”

“A harvest of human lives,” River whispered.

“Lives and Alliances.” Mellie added, “Only the Apex, and the leaders of any significant power receive invitations to the Mayor’s personal feast.”

“Ah, and don’t take this the wrong but—”

“Why did I get an invite?” she finished for him. “That is a very good question.”

A grunt sounded as another thick envelope slid across the counter.

“This come for you too.” The big berserker announced gruffly, his voice hoarse from smoke and mead. He reeked of the wood-smoke from the berserker’s evening bonfire. River hadn’t paid too much attention to what the berserker’s had been up to the night before, the one time he did look across the backyard he had seen men and women in various states of beast and humanity doing—well doing the nasty was the politest way to describe it. An animalistic rutting as the others alternated between laughing, drinking and cheering them on.

“That’s not addressed to me.” Mellie pointed out.

The big berserker scratched his head and grunted, “Skati.”

“Ok?”

He pointed at Mellie. “Skati, Leader. You kill Skati. You Skati.”

“Ah I think he means—”

“I know what he means.” Mellie said quietly. “Are you sure about this?” she asked the berserker, “Representing the Berserker’s at the Mayor’s feast, that’s no small thing. It’s an official recognition of a position amongst you.”

The big berserker just shrugged and pointed at the other envelope, “You going already.”

“Hard to argue with his logic.” River murmured.

“Shut up,” Mellie growled, but not like she really meant it.

“I’m just going to ask you this once more,” Mellie said slowly. “Are you sure? If I represent you, that’s it. As far as the town is concerned I am you, I speak for you. I am one of you.”

He grunt-smiled again, “Little berserker.” As far as he was concerned that must have been the end of the discussion, he turned and ambled out of the room leaving River wondering what was going on, and Mellie looking shell-shocked.

“You look kind of pale.” River remarked.

“Thanks?”

“I mean, I know you’re always kind of pale. But you look white as a sheet.” He elaborated.

“My sheets are all black, and I think I like you more when you’re crying over monsters.” Mellie threw back, and River laughed.

“Guess I had that coming,” he wiped away the trail of tears staining his cheeks, “So what happens? Now I mean, with the party and all. Are you going to go?”

Mellie directed a hard look his way, there was nothing monster about the look, it was the same kind of look women gave men the world round when they said something particularly stupid.

“In my world little human, power and respect are fundamentals. So when the Mayor of Monster Town offers you a personal invitation to her party? It’s not so much an invitation as a summons; come hell or high water. Illness, disease or missing limbs. You attend. Or you suffer the consequences.”

“Power and respect.” River repeated.

Mellie nodded, “You don’t piss off anyone that can eat you. That’s just common sense.”

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