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MONSTER NATION

by David Wellington

Prologue

Author's Note: The following is a framing device and prologue of sorts for Monster Nationï It takes place some time after the events of Monster Island but well before the beginning of Monster Planet. If thatï¿½s notconfusing enough, it takes place before their Teaser too.-David WellingtonDekalb lay back on the metal grating and drew one hand weakly across his stomach. Thehunger sat like a wildfire in his skin, consuming him, emptying him out. It was no longer hard to resist its pull. It had taken so much of him he could no longer fight it but nor could he feed it. He was too weak to move much at all.In the heat, in the darkness the mummies moved around him, tending to his bedsores.Washing his skin in pungent waters, mixtures of herbs unknown since the days of thePharaohs. They moved quietly on the catwalks, wishing not to disturb his thoughts.His thoughts, and the others. There was no real way to differentiate them anymore. Gary'shead sat at his side. Jawless and mutilated but the burns had turned to pink, new skin.Dekalb had no idea how that could happen, how Gary could get stronger but it washappening. The skull stood propped up on its cracked and yellow incisors, the empty eyesockets all Dekalb could see when he turned his head. Darker than the rest of the room.Darker than anything.

Every day I heal a little. There's more of me and less of you. You're losing this battle

,Gary told him.

If you don't eat you'll waste away to nothing. Look at you. You're as dry as sand.

Dekalb brought up his fingers and stared at them. Just bones now, with vellum-thin skinstretched across them. He was becoming an animated skeleton. Barely animated.

I destroyed you once. I'll survive long enough to do it again.

And the time after that? If I can. Others will come to take my place. Gary... can't we talk about anything else? Do you do nothing all day but sit in there and hate me?

Gary laughed and it made Dekalb's skin crawl. The mummies would hear it, of course, but they never made any sign of reaction.

There's not much else for me to do, Dekalb. Hatred, and the

eididh.

I spend a lot of time strumming the strings, jumping from memory to memory. I'm learning things. I'mlearning how to beat you.The

eididh.

The network... I can't access it, not the way you could. Or Mael. What do you see there, Gary? Don't you want to share with me? Maybe there's something constructivein there. Maybe you can tell me... how this ends. I can't see the future. Only the things the dead have written. The past. I don't know howthis ends, Dekalb. I know how it began.You know what caused the Epidemic? The media never explained it. The Centers for Disease Control said they were baffled.

Dekalb managed to sit up a little at that. He pleaded with Gary with his eyes. He needed to know.

It's a long story, and fairly complicated, and I hate the idea of entertaining you, Dekalb. I hate the notion of alleviating your suffering even a tiny bit. Still... It might help pass thetime while we wait to kill one another.

Dekalb rolled over on his side, gingerly, ever so cautiously. His neck resisted but one of the mummies came along and turned his head for him so he could face Gary directly.

Please. How does it start?With half of a memory. It ends with the other half. Let's begin.

Part 1

Chapter One

“MY BROTHER WAS ALREADY DEAD!”

Clifton Thackeray made some outrageous claims while he was being held in a Fort Collins lockupon suspicion of involvement in a truly bizarre and grizzly murder. Last Saturday he attempted to hang himself with his belt. What really happened

that night in the mountains? Our Harry Blount investigates: Page 17.[“Westword” weekly, Denver, 3/15/05]

Here’s what she had:She was dressed all in white. Drawstring pants, halter top, linen jacket. Sandals andsunglasses, with her short blonde hair pulled back in a tight bun. A niobium stud in her nose and a tribal tattoo around her belly button, a sun with wavy triangular rays thatflashed every so often as her top rode up and down with the rhythm of her walking.She felt good: she was smiling, swaying her hips a little more than she needed to. Sheremembered wanting to slip her sandals off and feel the rough rasp of the sidewalk withher feet.How much of this recollection could she trust? It was pretty threadbare and frayed aroundthe edges. All the sounds she heard when she went back to this place were low anddistorted. Oceanic vibrations. She couldn’t smell anything. The light seemed to hang inthe air in individual packets, stray photons pinned in place.Worst of all there were no words. No names or signs. She bopped right past a stop sign but in this sunny space it was just a blank red octagon. Stop, she thought to herself. Stop,stop stop! The word wouldn’t manifest.Palm trees. Rollerbladers and homeless people competing for sidewalk space. This wasCalifornia, unless a million movies had steered her wrong. No place famous, just seedyand a little run-down in a charming multi-cultural way. A four way intersection with afood market selling Goya products, a free clinic, a boarded up storefront with no sign andsome kind of bar. What she might be doing there she had no idea.Time started up and the light moved again: with the scene set the action was ready to begin. At the intersection a Jeep Cherokee slurped up onto the curb and smacked into astone bench with the sound of tin foil tearing and rattling. The car rocked on its tires, itswindows the color of oil on water. Time hovered and danced around the scene like a bumblebee in search of nectar. Cubes of broken glass spun languorously in the air whileclouds raced overhead in a fractured time lapse. She was frozen in place, in shock, inmid-stride. How much time passed? A minute? Fifteen seconds? The driver’s door opened and a man in a blue western-style shirt tumbled out.The look on his face made no sense at all.He staggered a bit. Grabbed at the bench, at the hood of his car. He was having troublewalking, standing upright.Of course she went to help him. She was supposed to—why? What was she? A doctor? Anurse? The belly tattoo and the nose ring made her think otherwise. Massage therapist?The look on his face: slack. His jaw didn’t seem to close properly and his eyes weren’t

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Part 3 for Welcome to Monster Nation

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Category:	Books - Fiction
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Upload Date:	03/22/2009
Copyright:	Attribution Non-commercial
Tags:	SciFi Humor Adventure horror Fiction survival zombie apocalypse david wellington SciFi Humor Adventure horror Fiction survival zombie apocalypse david wellington (fewer)