MonsterVille
Twenty One

The berserker’s were passed out in drunken stupors, a couple of them on the deck, one of them on the shredded couch in the living room, and the rest had occupied Katie’s bed in the basement. They had occupied it very loudly for a number of hours before they had started their raucous snoring that filled every room of the house.

All except for the large berserker, the one that spoke for the others. He had drunk as much as any of them but rather than being inebriated he was out in the woods. The occasional scream of a rat monster pierced the silence of the day and every now and then he would come trundling out of the woods with bloody claws and a beast slung over his back to add to his growing pile. Mellie had had no idea they were so numerous in the woods, nor that so many of them nested within an easy walk of her home.

The rats were little more than vermin whether they were in the monster state or masked and for so many to nest so close… she was surprised they hadn’t begun spilling out sooner. Another scream was followed by the sound of a meaty thwunk. The berserker seemed to be very intent on killing the beasts. When Mellie had asked him why he had simply shrugged off his vest to fully reveal the mountain of scar tissue crisscrossing his bulging muscular physique. Not to mention the sweat that made those muscles glisten beneath the midday sun. He wiped off his sweaty brow, smiled and just headed back into the woods, his clawed fist scraping chunks of bark from the trees he passed.

“Berserkers, such a fun crowd.”

Mellie didn’t bother to turn, she was quite content with her feet dangling off the edge of her deck and watching the back of that muscular berserker as he walked away. It really was a nice back.

“What can I do you for?” Mellie asked absently.

“Is that anyway to treat your mother?” Analyn asked in mock shock.

“My mother?” Mellie asked quaintly, “My mother who decided to abandon her daughter because she wasn’t monster enough? My mother who left her daughter to fend for herself in a town full of vicious monsters, most of whom hate me because my mother is an ice cold bitch and part of an apex’ inner circle? Please mother, do tell me how I should treat you.” Mellie’s voice never changed, never rose or fell, there was no anger, no rage, no sorrow or pain, for all the world would know she could have been speaking to a complete stranger. A stranger who was hovering behind her while Mellie refused to turn and acknowledge her presence.

Analyn took a seat beside Mellie, her legs dangling off the edge of the deck as she sighed quietly.

“The situation is complicated,”

“Complicated?” Mellie echoed, she felt like she should be laughing, complicated didn’t even begin to describe the situation.

“Look,” Mellie said, “I get it. I’m a big girl now, I need to fend for myself and I’m ok with that, I’m even managing to survive.” Her mother made a noise, if it had come from anyone less dignified Mellie would have said it was a snort. But her mother didn’t snort, the very idea was ludicrous.

“Managing to survive?” Analyn said, “The rats have attacked your property thrice now. If the rats, the weakest, lowest creatures among us have such gall how long before the others decide to come for you?”

“You may notice,” Mellie said, “but they have paid in blood for each attempt.” It was at that moment the wind changed and brought the putrid stench of the corpses filling her lawn up to the two women. Analyn didn’t seem particularly convinced.

“The Wendigo protected your human, killed the rats. While she lived within your walls you had a measure of protection beyond even what I could provide, but now she is gone.” Analyn pointed out.

“Katie didn’t do this.” Mellie pointed out.

“No,” Analyn agreed, “but taking up with the berserkers isn’t salvation, its damnation. They are wild, little more than beasts, little more than the rats. With their leader dead—” Mellie wondered if her mother knew she was the one who killed the berserker leader. She appeared well informed on everything else “—they will become unhinged, violent and anyone near them will be caught in the crossfire.

“Crossfire?”

Mellie saw Analyn turning in her peripheral vision as she spoke, “They will fight amongst one another until the strongest claims command. It will be bloody and violent and many of them will die, many others will die as well. For whatever reason they have chosen to take your home as their own you will be at the centre of the infighting.”

“For whatever reason?” Mellie repeated.

Analyn waved her off, “I know what you’re implying daughter of mine. Don’t allow your ego to cost you your life. You killed one berserker but it wasn’t skill, it wasn’t your power, it was luck. You got lucky, any one of those men would rip you apart and not break a sweat in the process.”

Luck? Mellie thought, in a way that was true. The emergence of her monster nature was unstable, chaotic, it came and went as it willed so in that respect it had been luck that it emerged during the fight, and it had been lucky the others had run off so quickly since her other nature was such a drain on her. She didn’t even know if she could do it again without… she let the thought trail off. She didn’t need to go there, not yet. Not ever.

“What do you want mother?” Mellie said tiredly.

“I want you to live.” Analyn replied simply.

“Why?”

One word and yet it drained her emotionally and mentally to ask it. She turned to look into her mother’s eyes and saw the surprise. It was the most emotion she had seen her mother display since she was a child.

“You are my daughter.” She declared as if that was everything.

“Right,” Mellie nodded, “I die and you look weak, I get it. I’ll try not to embarrass you too much,” she stood up to walk away and her mother grabbed her wrist. An iron clad grip that put the lie to her mother’s petite human form. She could have crushed concrete with that grip, it was certainly sufficient to keep Mellie poised above her, helpless to escape.

“If I meant so damn much to you then why did you cut me loose?” Mellie demanded. “Because your big bad apex didn’t want one of his special little pets to look pathetic, to be tied down? Because I’m so god damn useless, so powerless, because I’m like this?!” she gestured at her pale human body, the body that was truly her own and not just a mask for a monster to hide behind, “Because your apex didn’t like his precious Aswang to look weak?”

Mellie was crying and she hated herself for it. What had happened to the cold bitch that could pretend she didn’t care about her mother, about what she thought?

Analyn’s grasp was abruptly broken and both women looked up to the towering berserker who had silently come upon them. With one effortless motion he had dislodged Analyn and just as casually he flung her single handed across the room. Mellie saw the shock on her mother’s face for an instant, the surprise that a ‘mere’ berserker had gotten the drop on her. She soared through the air and twisted like a cat to land daintily on her feet. Her blue eyes blazed with fury, burnt with crystalline clarity as she hissed and arched up.

It was the greatest display of monstrosity Mellie had ever seen in her mother. Unlike Mellie her mother had a very monstrous side, a very monstrous nature and if she wished to she could shuck that human skin and become something altogether different. Like all monsters the releasing of the human guises that bound them significantly increased what they were capable of. The thing was Analyn didn’t need to do that, didn’t need to drop the mask, she was predator enough, monster enough that in her human guise only an apex stood above her. Not even a seven foot tall, mammoth of a berserker with inhumanly rippling muscles threatened her.

He shifted ever so slightly so that he stood directly between Mellie and her mother.

“You’re quiet for an animal.” Analyn remarked.

“You were distracted.” He stated in his bass tone, although there was still a jovial edge to his voice. “Shall we fight now little berserker?” he asked without taking his eyes from Analyn, “You were quite eager before.”

“She’s my mother,” Mellie said.

“And I will be your new brother,” even though he wasn’t facing her Mellie knew he was smiling, a big oafish smile at Analyn’s expense. “Should I call you mommy now?” he asked.

Analyn’s expression narrowed.

“What is my daughter to you berserker? By what right have you entered her home, eaten her food, by what right do you stand between us?” Analyn asked fiercely.

He rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck as he rose to his full height, which Mellie guessed was closer to seven foot two than seven foot. That was a whole lot of berserker towering above her.

“Little berserker leads now, I follow.” Mellie felt like she had been punched in the gut. The silence that fell was deafening and even Analyn look shocked… that was until she began to laugh, a cackling of disbelief.

“Your leader?” Analyn repeated, “She can barely lead herself and you think she will lead the berserkers?” she cackled again, “Oh that is rich.”

“Hey,” Mellie said a little defensively. The Berserker simply stood there, that smile still on his face.

“What do you truly want with my daughter?” Analyn finally asked when her fit of cackles subsided.

“I have answered your question truthfully corpse eater.”

Analyn didn’t look quite so amused anymore.

“She’s a child.”

“She is very much a woman.”

“She is weak.”

“No.” The Berserker corrected, “She is strong.” He was so sincere, so resolute in his belief that for a moment Analyn stared at her daughter, tried to see, but she shook her head in disbelief.

“You’re a fool animal.” Analyn moved like the dead passing into hell, the sheer swiftness of her action defied every law of physics. She stood before the towering berserker, her petite body barely reached his abs and yet when she struck it was with such devastating force that he never stood a chance. He fell to his knees and tried vainly to backhand her. Under other circumstances it would have been hilarious to see a mammoth of a man swatting a petite woman only to have her catch his arm like it was nothing to her. His massive straining arm that bulged with muscles thicker than Analyn’s torso and yet she held it daintily, as if it were a sprig to be snapped. A sprig she broke in two with that same effortless grace, meat was rent and muscle shredded as thick bloodied bone protruded from all that thick flesh. The Berserker didn’t cry out, he gave no sign of having felt it, no sign of fear as Analyn drew her fist back to finish the man. Analyn spared a single moment to look at her daughter, a look that said it all.

The berserker’s death would serve as an object lesson, a demonstration of Mellie’s weakness when others tried to defend her. She didn’t know what game her mother was playing, what she thought she would achieve but Mellie was sick and tired of it. She was beyond it all, so freaking over the games and the drama. She didn’t know why the berserkers had killed the rats, not really, she didn’t understand why he had tried to protect her from her own mother but the important thing was he had tried. Mellie closed her eyes, she couldn’t watch.

The monster opened its dark crimson eyes on the scene and felt the stirring to act, the need to be the one in control when its other half gave in to weakness. There was only it, and it was in control now. Its head tilted to the side, its ash blonde hair fell along one side of its throat and it smiled. It went around the berserker but for all intents and purposes it could have gone through him. Neither he nor the Aswang saw it move, just felt the wake of its arrival.

It caught the Aswang’s descending arm like plucking a leaf from a tree, it was effortless and now the Aswang was the most shocked of them all. She looked from the pale waxen arm holding her wrist to the crimson red pupil that had consumed the iris and most of the white of the eye and for the first time the Aswang looked surprised by what it was seeing.

“What are you?” she breathed out.

It smiled, “I’m the thing you fear the most.” It whispered, “The darkness in the night, the terror you feel. I am the truth of your child, your daughter waiting to be born.” The Aswang’s eyes widened, “I am a new evolution.” It twisted and the Aswang grimaced in pain before she was shoved. She stumbled back a few steps and now It stood between the Aswang and the Berserker.

“Not weak.” The berserker remarked from his knees. The Aswang glanced down at him, at his smile, and she saw what he had seen. Saw the thing inside, the monster waiting to emerge, to be fully realised. It absently patted the berserker’s head.

“A new evolution,” she repeated.

“Leave now mother mine before you meet the truth of your daughter and the lesson cannot be unlearned. You wanted her to be strong, to stand on her own. Soon what remains of this cocoon will fade away and I will be born, I can’t wait to be born and to stand amongst the monsters of this town and remake them.”

The Aswang moved in a flitting rush of motion, darkness spiralled about her and she went over the roof and disappeared into the night. At which point It promptly collapsed. The berserker caught it with his one good arm and he kept on smiling. Berserkers loved a good fight and he knew one was coming.