Invisible Monsters

by H L Macfarlane

“Don’t do this to me right now. I’m begging you. Patrick!” she called, “Get them all back on the bus!” Poppy’s eyes moved from Andrew, to Nate, to Rachelle, then back to Andrew. “Get on the bus. I’ll speak to you soon. Just…go.”

  “How are you getting back there, King? You gonna swim in the state you’re in? Or do you suddenly know how to operate a ferry?” Fred asked, in as close to an imitation of a classic Fred voice as he could. But it sounded all wrong. Horribly, disgustingly wrong.

  Poppy indicated towards the narrow road that wound around the loch and lifted the bottle of vodka Nate was still holding out of his hand. “I’m not smart enough to work a boat,” she joked. “I’ll do just fine on my own two legs. Lord knows I need the time the walk will take to sort my head out.”

  Fred took a few steps towards her, and for a moment Andrew thought he would actually hug her. But then he sighed, and shook his head.

  “Don’t die.”

  Poppy let out a bark of laughter. “Unlikely. Look after our club for me, Sampson.”

  “You got it.”

  And with that Poppy ran off without another word, alternately swigging from the bottle of vodka and sprinting away into the darkness.

  “She’s going to collapse in the middle of nowhere in the state she’s in,” Nate said.

  “She won’t,” Andrew said assuredly, though he wished he were wrong. That way Poppy wouldn’t reach Dorian, and then Andrew could carry her back to safety, to be with her friends. To be with him.

  He knew that would never happen. It was a far-off, impossible dream, just like New Zealand always had been.

  AFTERMATH

  Fred

  “Somebody tell me what the fuck is going on!” loud-mouthed John Campbell shouted, when the bus was at least ten miles away from the loch and on its way to the nearest hospital.

  “What happened to you guys?!” Lily Johnson cried, stroking Megan’s hair as the half-dead girl sobbed in relief at the realisation that she was no longer in Dorian’s murder facility.

  “M-monsters,” she managed to get out, which was echoed by several more of the club members who had been ‘scouted’.

  “When I tried to leave last week Dorian caught me and threw me in a room with all of them,” Mateusz said, the words coming out so quickly they were barely coherent. “I heard some of his assistants say that we’d all be taken away soon. I thought I was gonna die. I thought I was gonna die. I thought –”

  “At least nothing happened to you!” Max called out blindly. “You and Francis are completely unhurt! How did that even happen?”

  “They were probably getting sold off to be eaten whole,” Fred muttered, but his voice carried across the entire bus. Everyone stared at him.

  “How do you know about that?” Francis asked, and the mute Craig Hunt nodded his head fervently. “Me and Craig and Megan are the only ones who – who saw anything. We saw –”

  “Monsters. I know,” Fred said. “I saw Dorian as one.”

  Megan’s eyes grew wide. “You saw Dorian? Then why aren’t you – how come you weren’t in the room with us if you saw –”

  “It’s a long story, but I have Poppy to thank for that.”

  “Poppy? Why? What does she have to do with everything?”

  Francis stared at Fred. “After I told you how I knew about what Ross Bridges was like – after Poppy overheard – I was taken away. And…Grace and Ciaran were taken away after they bad-mouthed her! Was Poppy doing this to us?!”

  “She didn’t have a choice!” Andrew exclaimed, speaking for the first time since Poppy herself ran off.

  “Dorian was going to kill us all,” Casey chimed in, from her position beside Patrick by the driver’s seat. “We were all supposed to die two weeks in. Poppy found out.”

  “So why are we not all dead, then?!”

  “Because Poppy reached a compromise with Dorian,” Fred finished. “She could save half the club. But she had to choose who to save, and who to…not.”

  Max laughed bitterly. “And so, what? She gave up people who had a grudge against her? That’s awfully nice of her.”

  “She gave up the worst of us first!” Andrew fired out, passionate and uncharacteristically eloquent in his desire to defend Poppy. “Ross tried to attack Casey. Angelica was bullying Jenny to the point of pushing her down the stairs. Tom and Nick tortured the goat –”

  “Oh my fucking lord,” Tom said. “You knew, even back then, didn’t you? That’s why you made sure Poppy saw what we were doing.”

  “What you were doing was sick,” Fred said, glaring at him. He rounded on the whole bus of muttering, terrified, furious, astounded club members. “Who here could say they’d have done better in Poppy’s place? She had to give up half of us – including herself!”

  “You want me to tell you the order in which she gave up or saved any of us?” he continued, standing up to ensure everyone was watching him. “Is that what you want to know? Because I have her list, and she told me how she made her decisions.” Fred looked at Andrew, who was staring right back at him with wide, teary eyes.

  “Do you want to know that she begged for Andrew’s life first, before even knowing whether she could save any of the rest of us? She didn’t think about saving herself; only him.” Fred paused for a moment, recalling everything he could remember Poppy reluctantly telling him about her list.

  “Or that she saved Gregory, so he could help with his sister’s cancer treatment? Or that Max was sacrificed because she was running out of decent reasons to give up people, and he was simply not good enough to save? Or that Ruth was last to be saved simply by process of elimination? Is that what you want to know?”

  Everyone was silent, except for Andrew, who picked his knees up onto his seat and hugged them to his chest as he sobbed.

  “I want Poppy,” he moaned. When Paul Tobin moved to sit beside him and murmur reassurances Fred worked out exactly why Paul was still here, too.

  “She could have – picked names out of a hat,” Tom said eventually, “to keep things random.”

  “You really think Poppy could have done that, and given up Andrew and Rachelle and Nate and Casey if their names weren’t drawn?”

  “Actually, she couldn’t save me,” Casey pointed out. Several heads turned sharply in her direction.

  “So how come you were never locked up?” Max asked, tone entirely accusatory.

  She glanced uncomfortably at Patrick. “Because Patrick is like Dorian. A monster. He, ah, may have bought me.”

  “And you’re okay with that?!” Rachelle exclaimed, voice cracking as she spoke. “Casey, what’s wrong with you? What’s wrong with Poppy?”

  “Look, me and Patrick worked things out.”

  Nate roared in outrage. “How do you work things out with a –”

  “Hey, I’m right here,” Patrick cut in, annoyed, “and that’s us at the hospital. I don’t owe any of you an explanation.” He looked at Casey. “You ready, Cass?”

  “Wait,” Nate said, frowning. “What do you mean is she ready?”

  Casey gave him a falsely bright smile. “We’re leaving. Together.”

  Rachelle looked just about ready to collapse. “No. No, you’re not going.”

  “I’m so sorry, Rachelle. Nate. But I’m going. And Patrick and I need to help Poppy and Dorian, anyway.”

  “You knew?” Andrew asked tearily. “You knew Poppy was going back to him the whole time, and you didn’t say anything?”

  “She only told us this afternoon,” Patrick said, not unkindly. “We didn’t know before then.”

  “But why are you helping him? Why are you –”

  “Because Dorian’s my friend, and he was only doing his job. He and I are not the villains you think we are.”

  Nobody said anything. The entire club could take no more new information, and certainly not anything that suggested they sympathise with the monsters responsible for their entire nightmare.

  “Right,” Patrick said after a few moments. “Everyone off
the bus. Cass and I have some idiots to save.”

  Fred said nothing as everyone struggled off the bus. It was only when he was left alone with Andrew, Casey and Patrick that he spoke.

  “We deserve the full story,” he said to Patrick. “You and Dorian. You owe it to all of us, even if you don’t think you do. You’ve destroyed our lives, so the least you can do is explain everything.”

  Patrick frowned. “I thought Poppy had told you two everything?” he asked, indicating towards a despondent Andrew.

  “We all know Poppy never tells the whole truth.”

  Casey laughed despite herself. “Sounds like Poppy.”

  Patrick sighed. “How about this, then: give us all a month. A month to settle and recover. Then Cass and I will be in touch, and we’ll make sure to drag Dorian and Poppy along with us. Sound good?”

  “I want to see her now –”

  “Andrew, c’mon,” Fred said. “You know you can’t. Poppy told you to hold on just a little bit longer. You can do that, can’t you? You’ve always been able to do that for her. So give her some time.”

  “Don’t talk to me about Poppy like that.”

  Fred sighed. “Fine, I won’t. But we’re getting off this bus, and we’re going to help everyone together, and then, in a few weeks, we’ll get the answers we want. That’s our only option, Forbes.”

  Andrew said nothing. He knew Fred was right.

  Patrick cocked his head towards the door. “Off the bus, guys. Cass and I have lots to do.”

  When Andrew passed Casey she hugged him, and Fred barely heard her whisper, “Thank you for loving Poppy.”

  It struck Fred that he’d never really acknowledged that Andrew loved Poppy, because he’d never cared about it. Nate was far more obvious in his affection for Poppy, after all, and in all the time Fred had known her she’d never been serious about having a boyfriend.

  But now that he was taking it into account, the way Andrew was reacting made far more sense. He wasn’t just upset, or horrified, or in pain. Andrew was experiencing something much, much worse, which Fred knew would make the next month all the more torturous.

  Andrew was heartbroken.

  DIVINE RETRIBUTION

  Dorian

  When Dorian woke up he knew something was wrong. A murky, early morning light was filtering into his bedroom, informing him that he’d slept for almost ten hours unimpeded. That in and of itself wasn’t strange, because he’d been exhausted, but Dorian knew that if Poppy had been with him all night he’d definitely have woken up. He twisted his body round to check out the other side of the bed.

  She wasn’t there.

  Dorian’s lungs felt like they were being crushed. Hurriedly he dressed and flung his door open. The corridor was unnervingly quiet; taking a moment to check the time he realised it wasn’t quite six in the morning. His staff wouldn’t be up yet, nor would most of the members of Poppy’s club. Hoping that Poppy had simply crept out of his bed in order to spend as much time with her friends as possible before they left for good, Dorian fished out his keys for the observation room.

  When he was greeted by screens and screens of empty rooms – including the room where every human up for auction was being held – Dorian banged on the wall with a fist and rushed back out.

  “Jane!” he exclaimed, reaching her door and slamming it open before waiting for a reply. “Everyone is gone.”

  She gazed up at him sleepily. “Everyone?”

  “Everyone! Tell me you didn’t know about this. Tell me –”

  “Of course I didn’t know anything about it.”

  “Then how did it happen at all?!”

  Jane clucked her tongue, unamused. “This was why you should have brought in more staff after you decided to keep everyone here longer than the initial two weeks. You always knew that was foolish. Your father –”

  “I’m not my father, though, am I?”

  Dorian stalked out of Jane’s room without another word, furious with himself. Of course he should have hired more staff to help secure the premises. But everything had been going so well – at least until two or three weeks ago when the sports club began to grow uneasy. Dorian, in his hubris, thought everything was going to be fine. Poppy was on his side, after all, thanks to what Fred had done to her.

  But then why was she speaking with him in her bedroom the other week…?

  Dorian’s blood froze as he realised that Poppy must have been planning to leave for a long, long time, and he’d been completely blind to it. He thundered around the facility, thrusting open doors and checking nobody was behind them on the off-chance his cameras were lying to him.

  They weren’t.

  Nobody was in the kitchen, or the social areas, or in the gym or pool or hot tub or even on the climbing walls. He could see nobody walking on the nearby hills, nor swimming in the loch, nor sitting in the meadow. It was beginning to pour with rain, and it was still only six in the morning, so nobody would have been out there, anyway; Dorian felt stupid for checking.

  When he reached the dorm rooms he didn’t want to open the door to Poppy’s. If he never opened it then she might still be inside, even though Dorian knew from his cameras that she wouldn’t be.

  He inhaled deeply and opened the door. She was nowhere to be seen.

  “Poppy King!” Dorian roared, smashing the chair in her room against the bed over and over again until it splintered into sharp, ragged pieces. He could barely breathe; everything was ruined. In a few, scant hours Steven and Aisling would arrive to cart away all of the club members who had been bought. Including Frederick Sampson, who Aisling was eagerly awaiting digging her claws into.

  Dorian didn’t want to think about what they’d do to him once they realised he’d lost each and every one of them.

  It wasn’t just the substantial amount of money that was on the line that was sending Dorian into a frenzy, though that would certainly be one of the main factors for Steven and Aisling. It was the fact that, by failing to provide quality livestock for the monsters in Britain, it was only a matter of time before people started disappearing right off the streets, and monsters began ripping them apart in the most gruesome of ways.

  Poppy had destroyed the delicate food-chain Dorian, and his father before him, had been so integral in putting in place. She’d destroyed it like it was nothing.

  Dorian could never forgive her.

  But then he thought of Nick. Nicolas Richardson, heir to the largest, most prominent family of monsters in Europe, who would surely destroy Dorian where he stood tomorrow if Steven and Aisling didn’t do so first. Nick would no doubt begin searching for Poppy; it was only a matter of time before he found her. She couldn’t have gone that far, after all.

  Don’t be an idiot and return home, he thought, worried despite the fact he was furious with her. He moved back through the social area, fully intending to pack as quickly as possible and disappear himself. Don’t be that stupid. Go to London. Go abroad. Go literally anywhere that isn’t home.

  “Dorian.”

  Dorian’s stomach lurched at the voice. He turned to face the entrance to the facility, closing his eyes for a moment as if he didn’t want to see who had spoken.

  Poppy stood there soaking wet and shivering, her pale, guilty eyes locked unwaveringly on Dorian’s. He wanted to kill her for what she’d done. He wanted to kill her for running away. He wanted to kill her for coming back.

  He knew he never would.

  A BETRAYAL OF THE MOST IRONIC KIND

  Dorian

  “You fool. You complete and utter fucking fool. Do you know what you’ve done?!”

  Poppy held her ground, still standing outside in the rain. The grey, miserable weather washed her out, as if a particularly strong gust of wind would be enough to simply erase her existence altogether.

  “I saved as many people as I could,” Poppy said. “It was the only thing I could have done.”

  “You could’ve done as you were told and let half your club die!”

/>   All of the guilt lingering in Poppy’s eyes was gone in a moment. She slammed a hand against the glass door of the facility, the sound it made reverberating dully around them. “You don’t get to say that, Dorian. How could I ever have done that? I’ve wanted to save everyone from the beginning!”

  “What, so you never intended to stick to our deal from day one?”

  “What kind of human would?!” she cried. “Of course I was going to try and save my club!”

  Dorian shook his head in disbelief. “So what about everything you said after Frederick fucking Sampson tried to cut you to ribbons?”

  “I was angry! I was hurt! Of course I was going to feel the way I felt back then! But once the anger was gone I knew I could never live with myself if I let everyone die.”

  “But why did you save Fred? Out of everyone he deserved to die!”

  “Maybe so,” Poppy glowered, “but not by my hands. And it’s not like his actions were unwarranted. He knew something horrible was going on. He –”

  “Don’t you dare justify his actions, Poppy.”

  “Then I won’t, but that doesn’t change a damn thing! Everyone is gone, Dorian, and you’ll just have to deal with that.”

  Dorian stormed over to her, dragging Poppy back inside by the front of her jumper. He realised she was wearing clothes he had bought her, for the life they were supposed to have after summer was over. He could almost laugh at that, for summer was over and the life the two of them had left was most likely going to be frightfully short.

  “Let go of me, Dorian!” Poppy exclaimed, clawing at his hand when he ignored her. He threw her unceremoniously onto one of the sofas in the social area.

  “Why did you come back, Poppy?”

  “...what?”

  “If you were planning to betray me from the beginning – if you were planning to leave with everyone – why come back? You could have been hundreds of miles away by now.”

  Poppy didn’t look at him, pulling a blanket that lay abandoned on the floor around herself. “I didn’t want to break that part of our deal. It was the only part that was solely on me, not the club.”