Monster Nation(63)

'Yes, soldier, I see that' I'm fine now, though, so''

Metal clashed to the floor behind them, a bright, jangling, piercing sound. Clark turned his head and saw Desiree Sanchez standing up. Her neck had ragged holes in it. She had knocked over the instrument tray: one scalpel had fallen into her foot and stood there quivering, sticking out of her uniform shoe. The goggles had gotten themselves wrapped around her ears in such a way that they occluded one of her eyes. The other one was blank. Her mouth opened, showing teeth stained with blood.

Clark reached down and grabbed at the belt of the blue-eyed MP. Ignoring his own order he came up with the soldier's weapon and fired one shot right through the middle of Sanchez' head. For the second time in as many minutes she fell to the ground, lifeless.

'I'm going to retire to my room now,' he told the younger men standing with him. 'I think I need to get some sleep.'





Monster Nation





Chapter Seven


I'm sorry but the number you requested is not answering. If you'd like, I can keep trying, and your phone will ring when I get through. This service will incur a seventy-five cent surcharge. Press one now. [Automated telephone message, 4/10/05]

Nilla picked at a curl of paint on the side of the shack. It came loose in her hand and she rattled it around in her fist, then threw it away from her, out into the scrub brush by the propane tank. She couldn't stand just waiting around but what else did she have to do? Eventually Singletary would give in. Eventually he would tell her what she wanted to know.

She heard him whimpering in her head, even through the wall of the shack. Begging her to go, to stay, to listen to him. He kept prattling on about his guilty man and some place up in the mountains'probably a hallucination he'd had from being out in the desert too long. She didn't give it much credence, since he was obviously crazy. Her presence was terrorizing him but she knew she couldn't just leave. Not without getting something first.

Nilla, the guilty man' you are the one he's looking for' please, it's all up to you'he moaned. The fire' it will burn up the world.

Rage spiked up inside of her and she felt him curl like a moth in the middle of a bonfire. Her emotions pained him, excruciated him, she had discovered. Normally she tried to get control of herself, to consciously calm down when he screamed like that. This time was different'she had run out of patience. She fed her rage, stoked it until it blazed.

'I'm not working for anybody!' she shouted out loud. Her words rolled around the canyon, echoing like rippling explosions but they were far louder in her head. 'Nobody but myself. I am my own'' she struggled for the right word. Boss? Master? 'My own' woman!'

The word you're looking for is 'weapon,'she thought. No, somebody else thought that. It didn't sound like something Singletary would have said.

It wasn't me!he howled. Nilla! Don't'don't go up there! You have to listen to me first!

Images unfolded in her head. A landscape of rugged mountains topped with snow. A herd of huge animals'enormous beasts, reptiles lumbering across lichen-ringed rock. A ring of fire that spread outwards, rippling, engulfing the entire world.

It made no sense.

Singletary had been sending her those pictures for days but he didn't have an explanation for them. He had received them from the last ghost that happened to pass by and somehow, she wouldn't understand but really, he knew he was supposed to pass them on to her. Because she had some duty, some sacred mission to perform relating to those mountains, those animals, that fire. Nilla had no idea what they meant, not even a frame of reference to begin to piece together their significance, if they had any.

'Stop that! You tell me what I want to know and then we can play any game you want. Stop mucking about in my head and concentrate on finding my name!'

His suffering leached into her and she felt her body shiver in the eighty degree heat. She could see him through the wall, or rather, she was so connected to him she could imagine him there perfectly. He was twisted on his plank floor, one arm constricted under his body, the circulation cut off. His back arched, drool spilled from between his lips. The pain was awful.

Then stop it, lass. Stop it forever if you find it so distasteful.

'Singletary, shut the f*ck up already!' she screamed. The psychic was beyond understanding her, though. In his pain he didn't even hear her.

I hear you just fine, love. Look up here.