Notes: Lyrics from Guns 'N' Roses "Don't Damn Me"
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Don't damn me
When I speak a piece of my mind
'Cause silence isn't golden
When I'm holding it inside
'Cause I've been where I have been
An I've seen what I have seen

"I knew she was crazy the first time I laid eyes on her. It was in some dank little techno nightclub in the south end, can't even remember the name. She was drawing men in with one hand and pushing them away with the other, laughing right in their faces like they were the funniest thing she'd ever seen. Laughing, always laughing, even when she danced like it was some personal war. A Barbie doll girl, with glitter in her hair and murder in her eyes. God she was beautiful."

"I like to picture her like that. When she was happy and I was stupid. Clichéd as fuck isn't it? Looking back. But I don't have a helluva lot to do, do I? And of all the things I could think about before dawn, she's the best one."

"Anyway, I got a clue what she was when she started eating people as she danced. Should've known really. But a bloodbath is a great icebreaker when you're trying to get it together with a girl. And all the screaming drowning out the music as she just started ripping through them was just amazing. I could have just watched her work and been happy, but some things just have to be done as a couple, you know what I mean? "

Isaac paused for a moment, not really expecting an answer. He hadn't seen anyone for nights, hadn't been fed for a week. And when he had woken for the night he'd found himself in the "pit" as it was fairly unimaginatively called. He'd been threatened with it when he didn't give them what they wanted. Guess they figured he wasn't useful anymore. Four bare walls, one bare floor, one bare ceiling. The room to die in when you weren't even worth a bullet. Oh well ...

"We were standing in the middle of the dance floor and there was nothing but the dead and dying left. I think I said some daft thing about getting the hell out and she just shook her head and kissed me. The sweetest little kiss, her blood, my blood, their blood. We slow danced to the last song and got some of the cops as we left. She wore one of the helmets all the way home. Still got it some place. Good times."

Agent Woodman watched the thing talk to itself from behind the one-way mirror, eating stale donuts and barely registering the taste. He wondered whether he should bother recording this little ramble as he stretched in the only office chair. His legs were crossed loosely on the coffee table before him; it was too damn late to be observing office etiquette. Absently he ran a hand over his jaw, the stubble he had ignored for days was beginning to have delusions of beard-dom.

Probably wasn't worth it. Sounded like it was talking about the other one they'd caught. She was already bagged and tagged. Nothing new there.

Perfunctorily he turned his attention to the figure in the room, lying flat on it's back on the empty floor, talking to an apparently uncaring ceiling in a whimsical tone of voice. He looked like such a nice young lad. Sandy hair, a little long. Young, no more than twenty. Bit of a baby face really. The boy next door, you'd be happy for your daughter to date him. If he had a daughter, Woodman inserted on his train of thoughts, or in fact any kind of life outside this place.

But that was what was so wrong. That something so evil could look like something so innocent. You could pass these freaks in the street and never look twice. It was enough to keep you at home behind crosses and garlic for the rest of your life.

It got the rookies the most. Like they'd expected some half bat half demon instead of the everyday people they got a glimpse of through the cell doors. Half of them washed out after the first week, even with all the training. Just couldn't take it. Wanted to go back out and try and forget there were things out there that could literally eat you for breakfast.

He wanted it to shut up. It was near death now. The other one had just crumpled in on itself in a day, why the hell was this one so bloody stubborn? Always talking. On and on and on. His hand hovered on the intercom switch, wanting to yell into that bare room for the thing to just die already. But he just closed his eyes and tried to ignore the ramblings, two more hours and his replacement on death-watch would be here.

"So there we were in France, couple of years back. Good eating there, and don't let anyone tell you different. The garlic goes into the blood you see, absorbed right fast. Gives it this tang, ruins you for English take-out. She dragged me all over, said that she just had to see all the sights. She wanted me to steal a gargoyle for her at Notre Dame. See if it talked like in that Disney flick. We ended up just nicking a priest and going for a joy ride with him strapped to the bumper. It was her smile you see. You know when women have that smile? That's just for you? And you do the craziest things just to see it. Yeah, well, Holy Man dodgems was what did it that night. She kept his rosary and put what was left of his teeth where the beads were. Gave it me for Christmas. She was like that, did the sweetest things..."

Isaac blinked dull eyes as another voice cut across his from the tanoy in the ceiling, hissed out words with the kind of restrained anger he often engendered in even the most even tempered of his pack-mates.

"Will you just have the decency to die in peace?"

This was going to be easier than he'd thought. "I can talk all night meat, and you can't do jack about it."

Woodman gritted his teeth, bent over the microphone, the finger pressing the speak button white with the pressure for a moment, then released as he flung himself back into his chair. He wasn't meant to talk to the things. They were there to be forgotten and carted out when they stopped moving. He'd done a hundred death watches, seen them go down a hundred different ways. Some of them screamed, some of them spent hours throwing themselves at the walls like animals, some even had the grace to go easy. This was the first one that had decided to share about his girlfriend and for some reason it was making him angry. Like it had a right to talk, let alone to him.

An hour and a half to go.

"France got boring after a bit, so we went to Italy, she wanted to see if the Vatican was all that holy. Funny story - it really wasn't ..."