Calling All The Monsters

Chapter 1

BRRAAAIINNSSS

"Braaaaiiinnnssss…."

Twitching, I dragged my left leg behind me, the limb clad in ripped white fishnets and smeared with blackened blood.

A grunt came from behind me. It was Bucky, his white button-down shirt bloodied and torn into long shreds, his skin an unhealthy gray in the dim light of the room, creased with shadows that shouldn't be there.

"Braaaiiinnnsss…."

My croak filled the small, cold room, echoed off the slabs of wood that served as floors and walls. A howl came from another part of the house, followed by a deep growl that shook the floorboards, then a terrible scream.

The scent of sawdust and cigarette smoke was heavy in the house, but there was something else underneath, something sweaty and all-too-human.

Fear.

It might've been mine.

To my right was a darkened hall, and along with a cold draft the walls could never contain, there came a sound. Whispers.

They were here.

Before they appeared… before I saw him… I checked my white nurse's costume. It was stained with blood, and so were the long clumps of matted hair which I tugged over one eye.

I was unrecognizable. I needed to be unrecognizable.

I wouldn't let him remember me.

The whispers grew louder and suddenly he was there with his friends. Six feet away from me.

Zed Necrodopolus, creator of ZombieLand, the popular horror website with thousands of followers.

The guy I needed to terrify.

But I jerked to a stop at his face. Stared. My mouth gaped open and drool threatened to spill out.

My heart started thumping wildly in my chest, like it'd just learned how.

Zed Necrodopolus was hot.

Zed had been my middle school classmate. Not a friend. A guy we… I… made fun of. At thirteen, he'd been bony under his black hoodies, unnaturally pale, one eye peeking out from a mop of dark brown hair.

This Zed… This Zed had bright green hair and was about six-foot-seven. Solidly muscled, like he spent half the day doing pull-ups on low ceiling beams in some industrial warehouse, his torso bare and gleaming with sweat.

To recap: hot.

"Braaaaiiinnnnssss?"

My gaze met his. I froze, every muscle in my body tense, waiting for him to recognize me. A shiver ran through my body as we locked eyes, like an icy breeze had blown across my skin.

Behind him came a dark poofy-haired guy and a pretty curly-haired girl in skinny jeans. Bucky thumped his feet heavily behind me, groaning and moving towards them, but I was rooted in place.

I needed to do something here. Be undead. Stop staring at his pecs.

I reached a crooked arm out and closed and opened my mouth a few times, probably looking like a dying trout, until I finally managed to rasp, "Going to eat your… broad chest… strong thighs…"

The girl with the wild curls clamped a hand over her mouth and started giggling.

"Braaaaiiinnsss!" Bucky shrieked from behind me. "We're going to eat your braaaiiinnnnssss!"

It was more of a reminder to me than an attempt to scare the three of them. Which completely hadn't happened.

It was dim where they stood, shadowy, but I saw the corner of Zed's mouth turn up into a smile. His eyes flicked down my body quickly, taking in the fishnets and my tight white uniform.

"Braaaaiiinnnssss! I'm going to eat your braaaaiiinnnssss!" I screamed quickly.

But it was over. His two friends were trying to hold back laughs, and not in a nervous, scared-but-excited way, but like they were watching Monty Python. Zed was more subdued, trying to be polite and contain his amusement… and throwing frequent glances at me.

"Uh, thanks," he said, smiling a little.

Thanks?

They strolled by us to the nearest exit unconcerned, unhurried, as if we weren't two hungry undead ready to consume their flesh.

Bucky reached out a clawed hand to them, but Zed's friend just brushed it off like a gnat, still laughing.

They disappeared into the shadows as the guy stage-whispered to Zed, "I think that zombie nurse liked you, bro."

They reached the next booth with the Mad Scientist. There was a metallic zap as he rent the air with his electrodes and the curly haired girl screamed.

So at least there was that.

Bucky sighed dramatically and straightened up.

I turned to face him, still in a trance.

"Hey, Addison, if you want to know the moment you lost us our Halloween bonus tonight, it's the point when you went from scaring the visitors to sexually harassing them." He unearthed a granola bar from the pocket of his blood-splattered pants, unwrapped it, and took a bite.

"Sorry." Dammit. I really needed that money.

Bonzo, our manager at the Monster Shack, had given us a 'Special Talk' before we opened earlier that Monday evening. "Everyone needs to be at their freakiest tonight," he'd said. "We just found out that Zed Necrodopolus is going to be coming through our house sometime in the next six hours."

I'd flinched at the name. I hadn't heard it in a long time. Hadn't wanted to.

"As some of you may know, Zed is the king of horror geeks in this region of the country. He runs ZombieLand," Bonzo explained, the gravity he was trying to impose on his words somewhat ruined by the fact he was dressed as a clown with crazily-smeared red lipstick. "By all rights, we should hate him because he's twenty and already has a successful website, and youtube channel, and all that bullshit. But he's visiting all the haunted houses in the area and ranking them this month. And that means something to a lot of horror fans."

Bonzo cleared his throat and adjusted his bright orange wig before continuing.

"If we make the top three this year, we're going to make a killing with the publicity. And that's all of us." He twirled his index finger around the room. "You get us to be at the top of the ZombieLand haunted house list in the region, and I'm giving you all a big fat Halloween bonus. So let's give him some nightmares, shall we?"

I'd straightened up, tugging my nurse costume down over my blood-splattered legs. I needed that money… desperately. I vowed to put on extra makeup to disguise myself and scare the crap out of Zed Necrodopolus. I'd done it years ago… how hard could it be now?

Back in the zombie room, I groaned, resting my forehead against a wooden support beam next to Bucky. It had been hard. Zed wasn't going to have nightmares about me, but I'd sure as hell be having daydreams about him. That face. That body.

That person who hates you, a little voice inside me said.

I groaned again, but there were shuffles and more voices nearby, from the darkened hall on the right. Bucky stuffed his granola bar back into his pocket. "Showtime again. Try not to eye-fuck any of these people. Not that it matters anymore."

My forehead still against the beam, I closed my eyes and listened for a second for Zed's group in the opposite direction. From the sounds of the past two minutes, they'd gone past the vampire and the werewolves and were nearing the Bigfoot room… which was really the weakest link in our haunted house. After that, they'd stumble down a dark hallway, until they exited outside where Jacey chased them with his chainsaw all the way out.

I opened my eyes. Jerked my head up. "It's not over. I can still get him."

Bucky, ignoring me, started grunting and clawing for the next round of visitors.

I ran to the back of the room, sliding open a panel and slipping into the bowels of the house.

There were corridors we haunted house workers used to move in and out of position, communicate, have a quick smoke. The scent of cigarettes hung heavy there, and on cold nights your skin puckered in goosebumps immediately because it was so drafty.

The hall was also shadowy, lit only by the subdued light seeping from the rooms, but I knew my way around.

I moved quickly towards the exit, my fingertips grazing the walls.

ZzZzZzZzZ

Here's what you need to know about me: I'm a monster. I'm very good at it. You could say I've been practicing all my life.

In middle school I was popular. I thought it was because I was prettier, smarter, and more talented than anyone else. As I grew older I realized it was just my legs, my clothes, and the way I was mean to other people.

"Hey, Jeepers Creepers," I would say to Zed Necrodopolus as he opened up his locker three down from mine, his hoodie partially obscuring his face. "I didn't see you there at first, what with all the creeping you were doing." My friends behind me giggled. It wasn't so much that what I said was so mean, it was more the way I said it… like I thought he was the biggest piece of shit on the face of the planet.

He never responded, just hunched over his locker more, hiding his face.

My voice was an instrument, and I'd always been able to use it to tease a crush or terrify a boy.

I didn't really know Zed then, I just knew that he wore that black hoodie almost constantly and drew weird skulls in class and barely spoke. But under my vast influence, I soon had half the school calling him that nickname to his face: Jeepers Creepers. Some of us even forgot his real name, and I thought I had too. I was wrong.

There, back in the haunted house, their voices were nearing the exit, and I started running down the corridor to the end of the tour where Jacey waited with his chainsaw.

Their visit was not over. The worst was yet to come. I hoped.

Back in middle school, I made fun of others, too. This girl in my English class who wore these patchworked clothes and obviously diy-ed earrings and looked like she never brushed her hair. "Cheep, cheep," I'd say from behind her. "Is there a little birdie in your nest of hair?" She never responded, either.

Like I said: monster.

I got better. My parents had always fought, mostly over my mom's constant drinking, but she was doing better and going to AA. We moved to a different town for high school, and I was popular there too, but sophomore year my mom started to relapse. We got into a car accident. My dad was killed instantly and my mom was in the hospital for a long time recovering. I managed to come out unscathed… except... for some reason the trauma made my hair turn bright white. The doctors couldn't explain it and dye wouldn't cover it. "Hey, Snowball," my friends started calling me… not meanly, but I hated the reminder that I wasn't perfect anymore, something so noticeable that it could be pointed out. I felt awful, and I remembered Zed and the girl. I started feeling guilty. I started becoming human. By sixteen I was decent, by seventeen what would pass as a nice person.

In the Monster Shack, I finally reached the back, my breath coming quick. The murmur of the crowd lined up became louder. Through the narrow opening at the end of the secret passage, I saw the rear of the house illuminated by the bright cone of a streetlight, the dark sky spotted with stars behind. The piney scent of sawdust filling my nose, I took a deep breath.

Last year, at nineteen, I'd walked into a coffee shop in town and there was the girl from my middle school English class behind the counter. She recognized me, judging by the look on her face, fear and anger flashing over her features. I walked up and ordered an iced chai tea latte, tentatively, trying desperately to show her that now I was a Nice Girl. We were the only two people there, and she rang up my order in silence. But instead of handing me my latte, she dumped it all over my head. I'd sputtered over the cold sweet chai running over my eyelashes and nose and ran out of there, never to return.

Those people I had hurt back then, they didn't want to see me, didn't want to hear from me. And I didn't want to be reminded of them… of how awful I had been, how much of a monster I was.

The footsteps and shuffling of Zed and his friends approached, I squeezed out the opening in the passage, stepped on a wooden crate, and climbed up the low roof of the Shack. Jacey, a hockey mask over his face, tilted his head up to watch me. I put a finger to my lips.

Despite my terrible zombie routine earlier, I was actually good at this. I started working at the Monster Shack during Halloween two years ago because the money was awesome. I never thought I'd like it so much. But I had fast become one of the star performers, as Bonzo would say. I brought the freak.

I crouched down on the roof directly over the exit.

The dark-poofy-haired guy and the girl came out first. Giggling, stumbling a little from walking over the mossy floor by the exit. Not at all frightened.

Then I saw Zed. Zed with all his savory parts on full display… messy green hair, strong jaw, broad shoulders. Jesus, did the son of a bitch haul lumber in his spare time? You didn't get shoulders like that from playing video games.

I licked my lips. I wondered what color his eyes were. I couldn't remember, and it'd been too dark earlier.

Swearing, I gritted my teeth as I reminded myself why I was there: to scare. That big fat Halloween bonus should have been the only thing that was getting my blood pumping.

Jacey, standing in the wood chips by the exit with his hockey mask, started gunning his chainsaw. And gunning. And gunning.

It didn't start. I cringed.

They started laughing… even Zed. They thought this was all such a joke.

Jacey, resigned and probably a little high, simply shrugged and didn't even try to lunge at them as they walked toward the parking lot.

"Wait a second, guys." Zed paused, pulled his phone out of his pocket, and turned around. Not noticing me, he held it up… probably to take a picture of the worst haunted house he'd be going to that week.

That was when I did it.

I jumped off the roof right in front of him.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Halloween is my all-time favorite holiday. I live and breathe it. It hit me about a week ago that I'd never written a Halloween story! (More Than Flesh & Bone is close, but it's not an actual Halloween story). Anyways... I'll be posting once a day every day (except for weekends because I'm crazy busy) leading up to the 31st with the last chapter posting on Halloween. Thanks for giving yet another one of my stories a chance! Hope you enjoy this one! Feel free to leave me your thoughts!