Monster Of Monsters #1 Part One: Mortem's Opening Read online

  The group of forty plus people followed her into the large corporate building and into a large lobby where she had them form five lines with eight people in each, and there was also a sixth line with four people standing in it. There were three men and one other woman with the same Knecht Ruprecht Corporation ID badge who helped arrange the forty plus people into smaller groups.

  "I'll tell you a little history of our great corporation," Mrs. Peacock began as a few people were still coming in. "The Knecht Ruprecht were companions to Saint Nicholas who assisted in his work. The charity they helped bring about is one of the goals of the Knecht Ruprecht Corporation and is also one of the reasons we hold this contest a few times a year." She paused as she received a text message, and then Mrs. Peacock said, "Stay in your lines and please follow us into the next room."

  The forty people were led to a reception area where student desks had been set up with paper and pens. The forty people were instructed to sit and look through the papers.

  "After you have filled out your paperwork, you will be assigned a locker in the men's or women's area," Mrs. Peacock told them. "Go there and store any personal items that you have on you for none will be permitted in the contest area, and then you are to change into your contestant colors. These jumpsuits will mark which of the five color teams you will belong to."

  The contestants did as instructed and soon about half the group was in their designated locker rooms changing.

  One of the male contestants stood up and stated, "I left my license in my car in your parking garage across the street. I'll be right back."

  Mrs. Peacock nodded, and the male contestant rushed to the front and out, running into a person who was not part of the group.

  "Watch out there, buddy," the male contestant shouted over his shoulder as he continued out.

  The Brown Deliveries worker paused, then continued into the building, pulling a truck cart dolly, and went into the lobby and stopped. The worker held an old fashion clipboard and tucked it under their arm as they removed a piece a paper, read it over, put the paper back in their pants' back pocket, and then walked over to the unmanned receptionist desk. The worker wore a brown cap, jacket, gloves, and pants, along with a white t-shirt, and the jacket and cap bore the insignia of Brown Deliveries which was an image of a truck cart dolly. The worker also had a brown single strap backpack over their shoulder. They parked the dolly beside the desk and waited.

  Mrs. Peacock noticed the new person who had their back to her, so she walked over to them and said, "You're late. You will need to hurry and join the other contestants over..."

  "I'm actually here to make a delivery."

  Mrs. Peacock noticed the Brown Deliveries insignia when the person turned and faced her, and she also noticed a small dolly that had been hidden from view behind the tall receptionist desk. The dolly had five boxes on it.

  Mrs. Peacock read their embroidered name on their jacket, held out her hand, and said, "Terry, we don't normally receive deliveries on contest day. Please let me see the delivery slip."

  Terry handed her the clipboard just as the male contestant returned with his license and went back over to his desk.

  Mrs. Peacock looked over the invoice and then arched an eyebrow as she said, "Please wait here."

  Terry nodded as Mrs. Peacock made her way to the security desk and made a call.

  "Ah yes, I wanted to ask about... Oh, sorry, I thought I was talking to Controller. Sir, I have this person here from Brown Deliveries with five packages for Basement Level. One of the packages has to be signed for. I can have them wait and go down after the contest is over." Mrs. Peacock listened to the person on the other end, and then she said, "Understood. Good-bye."

  By the reception desk, Terry glanced around at all the people sitting at desks in the next area, and after a few minutes, Mrs. Peacock returned.

  "Wear this around your neck," Mrs. Peacock instructed. "The ID badge will allow you to work the elevator, so don't lose it. It will only allow you to go up and down once, so make sure you have everything before you go to make your deliveries. I don't need to be bothered by you again." Mrs. Peacock motioned to a single elevator as she said, "Use the one elevator that is over there. Press the B button, and the rooms you are looking for will all be on that level. Do hurry... I would like you out of the building before our contest begins."

  "Are you running some sort of game show?" Terry asked.

  "You could say that," Mrs. Peacock replied.

  "Is it like the Price Is Right?"

  "No, I would say it is more like Survivor," Mrs. Peacock replied with a grin. "Remember to hurry and stick to the instructions written on the delivery slip."

  Terry took the lanyard, put it on, and headed for the elevator with the dolly in tow. Mrs. Peacock watched till Terry reached the elevator, and then Ms. Peacock turned and went back to the two people who remained of her group that were still working on their paperwork.

  In another section of the building, a control center was set up and a controller prepared to start the next contest. Five feeds on a wall in front of him showed video of five unknown locations, and at each location, a mysterious person was represented only by their hands, an object, and a code name. Their faces never appeared on the feeds only their hands and the object. The first person, male, held a sword with a metal purple rose decorating its hilt. The second person, female, held a silver ink pen with a blue wolf imprinted on it. The third person, also female, had a bone china cup with a red phoenix on it. The fourth person, male, held a large clear marble with a yellow dragon on it. The fifth and final person, male, held a cane with a green serpent head and on his hand was a ring with a family crest. Each of these people sponsored one of the color teams, and they had selected these people from all over the country and brought them together for this contest. The Draft as they called it, happened a month earlier.

  Controller, who was a man in his early fifties with salt and pepper hair and blue, kind of icy eyes, spoke to the people on the feeds, "Make your wagers. The Opening will begin in about an hour."

  Purple Rose spoke first, and he said, "I wager Team Purple will outlast Team Yellow in Overall by ten minutes."

  "I'll take that bet," Yellow Dragon spoke, and then he said, "I wager Team Yellow will have more points in the first minute than Team Red."

  "I will take that bet," Red Phoenix replied. "I wager Team Red will have fewer freeze ups than any other team.

  "I'll take that bet," Green Serpent said. "I bet none of the teams will have a winner," he spoke, and then he waited, and when no one else said anything, he questioned, "No one wants to take the wager?"

  "There has not been a contestant to win Opening in the last five years," Purple Rose stated.

  "There might be if we were allowed to select a few of the elite from the Berlin Authority," Blue Wolf stated.

  "It would make for better wagering, but–" Green Serpent said, "–I for one don't wish to catch the eye of the Berlin Authority. If they catch wind of what we've been doing here, they will shut us down and..."

  "The Mortem would be over," Controller interrupted.

  There were a few moments of silence as everyone considered the consequences, and then Green Serpent asked, "Will anyone take my wager?"

  Red Phoenix stated, "If you sweeten the deal, I might just take the wager this time. What are you willing to pay?"

  "Ten to one."

  "Not sweet enough," Red Phoenix said. "Make it fifty to one, and I will take the wager that there will be a winner for Opening."

  "Deal," Green Serpent replied.

  "Any wagers from you, Blue Wolf?" Controller questioned.

  "None besides my standard wagers," she replied. "But Red Phoenix does have a point about no one winning Opening. Maybe we should consider changing some of the rules of the Mortem so that more contestants make it through Opening."

  "No, I believe that will never happen," Controller told her. "The five of you only need to select better contestants during the Draft.
Some of you have done well in the past. I believe you have just hit a run of bad luck."

  "Five years worth," Green Serpent replied. "I believe it is high time that we have a winner for Opening just not this go around. I do want to win my wager."

  "I am confused about one thing," Yellow Dragon spoke up. "Why do you tell the contestants that the game is called the Metrom and not the Mortem?"

  Controller replied, "If you were them and the game was called the Mortem, wouldn't you want more information about it than the tidbits that we give them? It' is best to keep them in the dark until there is no escaping the darkness."

  There were other video feeds within Controller's room, and they currently showed footage of the Basement Level. Nearly all the areas of Basement Level were under surveillance. Some time passed, and Controller flipped a switch on his intercom system as he looked to video feed of the lobby.

  "Mrs. Peacock, are the teams ready to move out?"

  "They are," she replied. "We had no need to substitute any players this go around, so I already sent the four backups home."

  "Thank you, Mrs. Peacock," he told her, then turned his attention back to the Coaches, and said, "We are nearly ready to begin." Controller flipped a different switch so that he spoke to the contestants, and then he stated, "Purple, Red, Blue, Green, and Yellow teams prepare to move to your designated elevators. It is almost time to go to the Basement Level. You have twenty minutes remaining, so take that time to prepare for a game like no other."

  Earlier and elsewhere...

  The elevator Terry traveled in came to a stop on the Basement Level, and the cab doors open. Terry walked out and looked around. The Basement Level was dark and only lit by torches that lined the walls every thirty feet. The walls and floor were made out of dark brown hardwood and the place smelled old, but not musty. The elevator opened to a hallway with only one way to go, so Terry followed it for about three hundred feet till it came upon a door at the corner. There was a black arrow above the door frame, and it pointed down at the door. Terry checked the delivery slip to see if the symbol matched any of the ones on the instructions and found that the symbol didn't. The hallway made a left turn, and there was no other direction to go, so Terry followed it. The hallway was long and had no intersecting hallways that Terry could see. This stretch of the hallway was also different than the one that led to the elevator. Terry had excellent vision and had no problems seeing in dark places, but this hallway... it was almost like a darkness was in the distance, and the darkness even devoured the flame of the torches, so that they weren't visible until Terry was about ten feet away from them. The fires should light up the entire hallway, but darkness prevailed in small patches between the torches. Terry walked the hallway and came across a second door, and it was on the left side. A small pyramid was above the doorframe. The pyramid was three dimensional and symbol matched one of the ones on the delivery slip, so Terry grabbed the corresponding package and set it on the floor in front of the door, knocked, and left as the instructions stated. The third door Terry came across was on the right-hand side and had a bat above the doorframe, and the instructions again stated to leave the package at the door, knock, and immediately leave. Terry did so and continued on and came to a fourth door, and it was on the left side with a fish above the doorframe. The symbol was like a stick figure fish a child would draw. Terry left a package, knocked, and continued on. Terry came to a fifth door on the right with a beaker above the doorframe, set down the corresponding package, knocked, and left. Terry came to a sixth door on the left with nothing above the doorframe and continued on to a door on the right at another corner. The hallway ended at the corner, and a connecting hallway split in two directions, but Terry couldn't see anything in this third hallway in either direction, not even the next torch if one existed. Terry turned to the door at the corner of the second hallway, and a spider decorated the area above the doorframe, and Terry smiled at seeing it. The instructions for this door were different, so Terry grabbed the last package, knocked on the door, and entered, leaving the dolly in the hallway.

  The area on the inside was different than the hallway; it was as if one had stepped into an old castle or maybe the dungeon of an old castle would be a better description. Terry expected to see old dried bones chained up to the walls along with all kinds of medieval torture devices, but there was neither bones nor chains nor torture devices. Gray stones covered the walls and floor. Terry couldn't see if the gray stones also covered the ceiling for it was so high up and covered in white webbing that Terry couldn't see it. The dungeon castle area was huge, larger than the room should have been, considering how big the corporation building was on the outside and how far Terry had walked through the hallways. Terry imagined it was how the Companions felt when they walked into the Doctor's TARDIS which was bigger on the inside than the out. The TARDIS was bigger on the inside, but that was science fiction and this was reality. It was cold in the room or dungeon castle area, and a breeze swept in, blowing the white cobwebs of all different sizes. Terry carried the package a few steps in and then noticed a white borderline on the floor ten feet from the door. The line stretched across the floor from one wall to the other and stood in front of Terry like a finish line of a race. The instructions had said to call out and keep walking till the resident was found, but at seeing the white borderline which appeared to be made out of webbing, Terry decided to stay behind it.

  "Hello!" Terry called out. "I have a delivery for you, and I need for you to sign for it."

  Terry paused and listened and heard no one, so Terry started again, but louder, "Hello! I have..."

  A thunderous sound filled the dungeon castle area as if a herd of buffalo was charging for the door. Terry thought about running for the entrance, but then a signal figure appeared in the distance, and the figure was running. Whatever the thing was, it was huge about twenty feet tall and about thirty feet wide, and it had multiple legs, eight in all. The creature continued running for Terry and then stopped about five feet shy of the white borderline. The momentum the creature created from running, kicked up a gust of wind, and the windy wake filled with dust blew past and knocked Terry's brown cap to the floor.

  The huge creature before Terry spoke, "At first I thought you were a man, but now I see that you are a woman."

  Terry said nothing to the large creature's comments, she didn't even pick up the brown cap that had been blown off her head. Terry stared at the wondrously terrifying creature before her as if she was caught in a dream; it was the kind of dream one was afraid of but didn't want to leave. A giant red spider with black markings stood before her, but this spider was different than most. A woman's torso stuck out of the back of the red spider's head. The woman's torso was of a normal size if she had been human, and she wore a black kimono with red and gold flowers. The woman part of the creature looked like a beautiful Japanese woman with long black silky hair pulled up and kept in place with a flower hair pin. The torso part of her looked human except for her beautiful eight pitch-black eyes that were arranged on her face in a complimenting pattern. There was one small one on each side of her nose right on her cheekbones about the size of a pea, four larger ones along the line that human's eyes normally occupied about the size of a quarter, and two more in the center of her forehead that were about the size of cucumber slices. These eyes had human characteristics in that they could blink and that they expressed the spiderwoman's emotions.

  "You do not look like one of the contestants," the spiderwoman spoke as she looked around the room as if searching for something.

  "You're..." Terry started to speak as her eyes opened so wide her brown eyes could clearly be seen as thousands of thoughts filled her head.

  "There should be at least seven more of you," the spiderwoman interrupted her. "Where is the rest of your team?"

  "You're..." Terry repeated as she tried to form a sentence from the jumbled thoughts and emotions that filled her head and heart. She was terrified by what seeing this being meant to the
world as she knew it. If this wasn't a dream, her world was about to change drastically.

  "You do not seem as frightened by my presence as you should," the spiderwoman interrupted again. "Are you in shock?" The spiderwoman folded her arms as she peered angrily down at the one who intruded on her domain, and then she said, "You should be terrified by my mere presence. I believe you are in shock. I do not have patience for such things. You need to answer my questions, and you need to answer them now."

  "You're..." Terry repeated for a third time as she shook her head from the sheer dreadfully incredible surprise of seeing a being that shouldn't exist in her world. She thought this creature would be furious with her intrusion, but the spiderwoman almost seemed... she seemed irritated, and Terry also sensed she was somewhat disheartened over some duty she must perform.

  "I can only imagine what is going through your mind," the spiderwoman told her. "They never prepare you contestants for what you will meet down here. I almost feel sorry for you humans." The spiderwoman saw that the woman only carried a box, and she said, "They also usually give you contestants a weapon. Have you hidden yours? Has your team come up with some sort of sneak attack?"

  "You're just like her," Terry finally uttered, but she didn't say it with panic seething out of her lips; she said it as if she was very happy to see this creature that should only exist in people's nightmares. "For the longest time I thought I only dreamt about her or had made her up like an imaginary friend, but here you are." Her heart joyously raced as shear unerasable enthusiasm filled her entire being as she stated, "If you exist, she must exist, and if she exists, I can still find her."