Monster Nation(88)

'You have some friends in high places, I'll give you that. Getting you out of that shallow grave like that' it had to take some serious incentive. Or some serious threats. Somebody wants you really bad if they can talk Rick out of a thrill like that. Care to tell me about it?'

She shook her head, gently so as not to dislodge it from her neck. The vibration of the moving van made her feel as if she would fly to pieces at any moment. 'I don't know,' she said. 'There's this guy, he's dead, but like me. His name is Mael Mag Och. He said he would try to help me. That's all I know. He talks to me' he sends his thoughts into my head, like, like telepathy, and he told me he would try to help.'

Mike sat up and looked down into her face.'Mael Mag Och?What kind of name is that?' He leaned closer. 'Do you think'I mean, what kind of a deal is he making with us?'

Nilla squinted. 'Oh, he would never make a deal with you. You're the one who makes the vaccine. You're trying to stop us.'

Mike's face folded in half down the middle. 'No, that's not' I guess you don't know.' He looked over at the jar of iridescent red pills. 'That stuff's just a placebo. A sugar pill.' He stared into her eyes looking for comprehension. 'It's worthless, it doesn't do anything. This is all a scam that Rick came up with. I have a degree in environmental chemistry, I knew how to make them. Them, and the stuff that keeps the Termite marginally sane. It was Rick's idea to call it a vaccine. He called it a psychology experiment at first, he wanted to see if coming back from the dead was all in people's minds. Either that or he was bullshitting me from the start. Listen. I need to get away from him. You need to just get away. Maybe you and I can make our own deal. Maybe we can help each other out.'

She lacked the strength to turn herself invisible. She lacked the strength to sit up for very long. She couldn't imagine any way in which she could help him but she knew this was her big chance, her one long shot at getting away from Mellowman and the Space Van. Mael Mag Och would never broker a deal with a living human, of course, but maybe if she just lied, made something up'

In the end she lacked the energy to think up a convincing lie.

'I' I'll try,' she said, finally, her voice very small.

Mike's face froze, expressionless and cold. 'I hope you try hard. Rick's not like other people. He's violently insane.'

He slid back across the floor of the van and didn't speak to her for the rest of the night.

In the morning, with white light coming through the van's window, pummeling her with its heat, the van slowed down and went off road. Nilla felt it jounce and shudder and throw her around like a rag doll before it finally came to a stop. When the door opened and she could see outside again she was looking at the entrance to a cave. Warning signs covered the entrance:JUKEBOX CAVE. OFF LIMITS! A barred iron gate covered the entrance sealed with chains and a heavy padlock.

Mellowman stretched and groaned as he got up from his narrow bed. He stepped out of the van and reached deep into the front of his pants as if he was playing with himself. Eventually he pulled out his hand and revealed a steel key, which fit the padlock perfectly. He wheeled the gate open and the van backed into the burnt orange darkness of the cave. This, Nilla realized, must be his special spot.

Darkness collapsed on top of her as the van pulled further inside.





Monster Nation





Chapter Five


This smacks of Vitalism but' I can't deny those results. Repeatable, if you follow the extended lab instructions' teaching the cells to grow? The force that makes the grass run green? Come on. I'm looking at magic here, plain and simple. Somebody bring me my pointy hat and my wand. [Lab Notes, 7/21/03]

'We're about five miles from the old Air Force base at Wendover. Just across the border into Utah.' Mellowman stood silhouetted against the bare purple light at the mouth of the cave. Inside wasn't total darkness'a Coleman portable lantern painted a rough circle of yellow on the floor perhaps a dozen yards away. Nilla's eyes weren't in great shape, however, and she couldn't make much out.

'Back during the war,' he went on, 'World War II, I think, the airmen used to come up to these caves with girls they picked up in town. The girls didn't want their daddies seeing what they were doing. It got to be such a popular passtime that they brought in a cement mixer and put down the floor your are currently drooling on. It's tough to enjoy yourself with stalagmites poking you in the back. Somebody else figured they'd give the place an air of legitimacy by rigging up a jukebox in here, and that's where the name came from. Jukebox Cave. They had some great parties, my grampa used to tell me. He was one of those guys. I've always loved this place. Can't you feel it, the vibe in here? The feeling, that low-down, that dirty feeling. This is ground zero for getting it on. This is f*ck heaven. I brought some girls here myself when I was a young Mormon, back when I used to have ninety-nine sex. You ever had a ninety-nine? You know what that is?'