Monstrous Jobs

There are some jobs The Monster has us work that no one, not the sickest motherfucker, would enjoy. It calls a few of us in every once in a while, lets us get in on the action it reserves for its 'favorites.' Seeing as I'm pretty high on the totem pole, I guess, I get asked to participate or at least show up for these jobs pretty often. That's what happened yesterday, before I put up the first post.

Allow me to explain what that's like.

First there's the call. Someone higher up the chain from me rings my cell, I panic, these days a number I don't recognize is either a telemarketer or it's someone calling to set up one of these nasty jobs. When it's the job, the call almost always goes like it did last night.

"Hey man, look, you gotta show up for this warehouse job in the city tonight, 6 PM. The Monster wants you there."

"Shit, are you serious? I have plans already, goddammit!"

"Nigga, we all gotta show up tonight, don't pussy out. If you aren't there, we'll all come find you, and ain't nobody gonna be able to find you when we done with you. The Monster's orders. We all gotta do this, suck it up, bitch."

"Fine, fine, jesus...fuck this."

"You preachin' to the choir, mothafucka."

Then it's over, and I've only got an hour and a half to prepare for whatever's next, fuck it's so close. Why does it have to be so close?

When my plans are cancelled and I'm all set, I drive to the warehouse where The Monster usually does this sort of business, and I get together with all the other boys working this job outside the warehouse where we're summoned. We don't talk. Conversation would be admitting that some shit is about to go down, although silence is pretty much the same thing.

After about fifteen minutes standing in a circle, smoking cigarettes, one of us will get the call, the all clear. It's time to go inside. We enter through one of the doors around the back, because we don't want to be seen. The clean up job will be superb, like always, but it's still a risk The Monster might kill us for taking.

Something waits for us in the warehouse when we enter, it's different every time. Last night...last night it was people, three grown men, strung up by their toes against the wall. All of them are unconscious and we stare at them, not sure what to do, not sure who they are, but knowing that whatever's about to happen to them is not going to be pretty.

That's when we see it. The Monster.

It's sitting on the other end of the warehouse, across from us, staring at us with those foggy grey eyes like it lives in a world a million miles away. Maybe it does, I don't know, I don't want to know. When we enter, The Monster stands up, and strides across the room, like its trying to appear majestic.

"Hello, boys, hello!"

We all try not to shiver. The Monster is wearing a robe, a robe made of something peach-colored, with suspiciously human-looking "fur" around the collar. Its hands are shaking violently, they always are.

"I'm so glad you could make it!" The Monster says, cheerfully, like it's invited us to a tea party. "I've got a veeeeeery special job for you all today. Do you see these men? These traitors? Oh, yes, they're ours! Or they were ours, until they decided they'd go to the police, try to break out operation apart piece by piece by piece. They were in it together, you see, against us! Against our entire operation!"

The Monster's voice is like a siren, echoing off the walls of the warehouse, unabashed and free, like it doesn't care who hears. It probably doesn't. It sounds happy. I wish it didn't sound happy. None of us move, we wait for the boss to tell us what to do.

"Kill them." The Monster says. "Cut out their organs for me, and make them eat each other's insides. Take them apart piece by piece by piece."

Of course. It had to be something sick, something to do with eating flesh. I've seen The Monster kill and eat people before. It never leaves anything behind. It tears people to shreds for food, for fun. The guys hanging by their toes, they'll wake up in time to feel their organs being ripped out, in time to watch someone else get force-fed their liver or their heart or their bladder. It's fucking horrible.

So of course we have to do this job, we have to make these guys eat each other. The boss won't like it if we say no, the boss will probably make one of us kill the chicken.

That happened, last night, to one of the boys. I think it was the guy who called me in the first place.

Fuck.

I can't write about this right now.

The Monster sent us home when we were done. I haven't stopped shaking since.