MonsterVille
Forty

Tableau. A series of still images.

River sat in the dirt. The world had turned to a monochromatic still image of the events unfolding. Colourless. Fake. A mockery of the tragedy taking place. Except for the blood. That was all too real. The vibrant red running down Mellie’s chest, staining the curled claws protruding from her back. Red was the only colour left in his world.

Nobody moved. Not a monster, a slave or even an Apex. They just watched.

The moment ended. Indreas slowly drew his arm from Mellie’s body. She went limp. Collapsing to the ground, face down. Indreas licked the blood from his fingers. Closed his eyes and savoured the taste. It was over. Mellie was dead. River couldn’t believe it, she couldn’t be dead!

The world exploded in red.

Analyn’s claws raked across Indreas and shredded the human flesh—his startled cry broke the silence and the clearing erupted in violence incarnate. Wails and screams of monsters and humans, clicks of rats, growls of beasts and roars of berserkers. Like ants bursting forth from their mounds a torrential flood of monsters crested the edges of the clearing and poured into the feast. The barks of blemmyes, accompanied by the rush of bipedal snickering rats and the screams of beasts the likes of which River had never before seen. It was sheer insanity. A seething mass of unrestrained, uncontrolled, undirected malevolent death. Monsters and humans alike were swept up before they had registered the assault.

Nicodemus sighed, and River’s attention jerked towards him.

“Every year.” Nicodemus said, he glanced down at River, “Every single year. We have this glorious feast and it devolves into unbridled chaos”—a rat screeched beside River and Nicodemus casually backhanded it, the rat curled in on itself, whimpered and died—“You think someone would get the message.”

The crisp aroma of scorched air filled the day, bolts of lightning obliterating one of the tables. Torrents of blood filled the clearing, intermingled with the fearsome war cries and strangled utterances of death.

“Your Master is not yet dead boy, you should tend to her.”

River gasped, turned, and scrambled under the table while Nicodemus casually sat back down and watched the ensuing mayhem.

“Mellie?” River asked hesitantly. Her skin was like ice, and there was so much blood. Hell he was kneeling in her blood, it was soaking through his clothes, as he turned her over. “Oh god Mellie…”

How could she possibly still be alive? Nicodemus was toying with him. There was too much blood, not to mention the gaping wound in her chest.

“What can I do?” he begged her corpse. “What can I do??!”

Overhead Analyn was ripping Indreas’ to shreds. Blood, flesh and gore was flinging off in every direction.

“Analyn,” Indreas cautioned her, apparently oblivious to the wounds inflicted upon him, “be reasonable. She’s dead, and you’re finally free. Stop this petulance.” River didn’t think there would be any reasoning with her. Analyn’s eyes were pitch black, her skin was gaunt, there was no sanity there. Only a mother’s grief.

“Ri-River?”

“Mellie?!” he cried. “You’re alive!”

“I’m so cold…”

River draped his jacket over her and pulled her into his lap, rubbing at her arms in an attempt to soothe her, to warm her. He didn’t know what he was trying to do really. Maybe he just hoped he could offer a little comfort. He looked up at the carnage as monster battled monster in a vicious bloody slaughterhouse, as humans were callously cut down where they stood. There appeared to be no end to the seething mass of rats surging down into the clearing, there had to be hundreds of them, maybe thousands… just an ocean of black monsters over running everyone and everything by sheer numbers. River couldn’t tell who was fighting against them, or alongside them, it was just one big mess. And eerily laughter, the booming raucous revelry of monsters having a good time.

“What can I do Mellie? How can I help you?!”

Her fingers curled along his arm, holding him weakly.

“Please tell me what to do!”

“Run…”

“I can’t. You’ll die.”

“I’m dead anyway,” she breathed out, there were tears in her eyes, even with all that blood he could still see those tears as she pleaded with him. “Please, run…”

“Now, what would be the point in that?”

River looked up sharply. The Rat-Bitch was back. Still wearing her half broken face, her fur running along her throat, and down her shoulders, like a luxurious coat. Her beady black eyes took in Mellie’s frail form with satisfaction. Her gaze flicked to Analyn behind them, she was down, Indreas cracking fist after fist across her face.

“How all things come to an end.” The Rat-Bitch knelt over Mellie, straddling her, as she leant down—her eyes never leaving Mellie’s—and she lapped the blood from her chest and shuddered. She licked the last drop of blood from her lips and arched back.

“Please—”

“Begging Melanie? How very human of you.”

“Let River go. Kill me, but let him go.”

Those beady black eyes flicked to River. “Kill you?” she chortled, Why would I want to do that? Death is so final. I think given this rather delightful turn of events I’m going to keep you, take you back to my nest and let my children enjoy you.”

A heavy thump resounded behind River, he couldn’t help but glance back to see a stomach filled with teeth and larger than life eyes. Danny. He roared primal fury, a savage defiant claim.

River’s breath emerged like frost as the temperature plummeted, a gust of glacial wind swept over him and a figure in shimmering blue appeared. Ice-crusting along her arms, turning fingers to blades of frost as Madelina also stood defiantly in the face of the Rat-Queen. For the second time that night someone River thought was dead still lived. Blood stained her throat where the Rat had struck her, but beyond that she looked the picture of life—furious life.

“Really? Shall we do this again children? To what end when I have bested you both once this day.” When neither of them deigned to respond she sighed and gestured, “Well then, let us dispense with these banalities.”

Nicodemus sat behind his wooden table watching events unfold. River found his gaze compelled across the field, he looked towards the Mayor. Seated on her gilded wooden throne, like Nicodemus she was relaxed, unaffected by the chaos surrounding her. In fact there was a clear space being maintained, as if the oceans of blood and death themselves broke around her. Like Nicodemus her attention was all for the theatre playing out around Mellie. Counterpoints, staring across their field of battle.

Danny went low, surging across the ground while Madelina went high, leaping into the air and striking from above with the frosty winds driving her down.

“River…”

“I’m here Mellie,” he reassured her. He looked away from the battlefield, down into her eyes.

“Oh River…” her eyes opened, eyes that had been consumed with the red of her other nature, she licked her lips, “Why didn’t you run?”

He never had a chance to scream.