I'm a Monster

 Cover art by Lethorgius - - Look him up on Deviantart!

     Dr. Malforni pushed his face closer to the glass while simultaneously smashing his black rimmed glasses further up his face.  He knew what the stupid generals told him, "don't get too close," "don't look it in the eyes," "don't stick around too long…" but still the specimen in the glass case amused him.  He figured it must have been locked away in Egypt for hundreds, no, thousands of years.  It's been just waiting—it could have moved, but it didn't—it could have fought back but really, in light of everything, it didn't.

     He mused over the past 48 hours, how it opened its mouth and screamed, sending twelve men to the insane asylum. Before the men went completely insane, before several of them took their own lives he recalled the moaning: hearing the most, horrible, of things.  It was like the scream opened their ears to hell itself and drove them mad, oh, and he could never forget the bleeding—how they bled out of their eyes and ears, how the men wobbled around the desert like they were chickens with their heads cut off.   But none of that mattered now; it was captured, stuck in a sound-proof glass cage, but even so nothing added up.  It let itself get captured, it could have just kept screaming but it didn't—getting cornered in a dusty alleyway, panicking as helicopters flew above and lights beamed down, standing frozen as glass was dropped on its head—fake, all of it—it could have escaped.  But why? Why get captured?  Now that really fascinated the Doctor.

    The living dead, caught by the living, transported thousands of miles, and locked in some underground facility deep under the North American superpower, the USA—that’s what it was now. There has to be reason behind it.  The doctor shuffled even closer and tapped the glass as if to get the monsters attention.  It moved and quickly, as if instinctual.  The doctor glanced down, away from its face—no need to take any risks. He could already hear the spewing insults being prepared in the observation deck above, he just waited for the moment that some voice blew over the intercom dropping words not even he would understand about how "dangerous" the, zombie was, how "suicidal" it was to taunt it, how much it "cost" just to transport it.  How the doctor could be the sole reason it escapes. How the entire country could be in danger.

     But no voice came and a bead of sweat ran down his forehead.  Nothing at all happened.  So, gathering up his courage, he looked back up at the zombie, which had moved its gaze up, right at the observation deck's black tinted glass about twenty feet above its glass tomb.  It stared at the tinted glass, so naturally Dr. Malforni followed the gaze.  He wanted to take tests, create a weapon, naturally repeat the process, make people immortal, understand death—he wanted it all, he wanted to figure it all out, but first and foremost he wanted to know what made it tick, what were its emotions? What does it see and feel? How long has it been around? And, now more presently, why was it looking at the observation deck?  It's been locked in its glass tomb for two days now, looking nowhere expect right in front of it, why has it picked an interest in the black glass above it?  Was it because it's the only black object in such a white room? Is it because it realized it's being watched? Or does it know something more?

     The doctor looked harder, trying to see what the zombie did; something was smudged on the glass—something thick. He tried to make out what it was, something red.  Blood.  "Damn!" the doctor cursed, turning his back on the zombie and running behind his own protective glass and into the data room, even if they look at its eyes through the damn tinted glass.  The doctor smashed a small red button on one of his white computer desks, instantly alarms sounded and he heard glass cracking from where the zombie was being held.  Frazzled, he spun back around to see what the zombie was doing but was met with two beady bloodshot eyes.

     Ten million things rushed through his mind, heads decapitated and posted up on long grim sticks, pools of blood, fire, a broken castle, New York burning bodies strewn across the streets, ghouls and monsters flooding a busy transit station killing all in their path.  Himself standing on top of a burning building, an arm missing, his left eye torn out, smashed glasses embedded in his face, and covered with grime and filth.  He was commanding an army of demons with a wicked smile his teeth, suddenly sharp and jagged, glistening in the smoke-filled skies.  He spun around, a new world order had formed seemingly overnight and he, as grim as it sounded was in charge.  The entire army of hell at his bidding.