Private Monkey Ghost Story

Chapter 11

Behind me, in the darkness, the phones were ringing. Behind me, four men and a woman were standing. Above me, boots slammed onto the floor, and a scream roared down the hallway.

"Fuck this," I snarled, spinning around. I began grabbing phones and yanking them from the wall plugs. Fuck whoever was calling, I didn't feel like talking on the phone.

The lights buzzed on, slowly, and the crashing stopped, before I had even yanked the third one free. I kept going though, I wanted this shit over. Cobb's nose was bleeding again, and if those dead Nazi's smelled it, they'd be on us like a hooker on a cock wrapped with $50′s.

"Everyone into the dayroom. Private Monkey, secure all the doors," Captain Bishop ordered. Everyone rushed past as I picked up the keyring. I picked the cigarette off the ground from where I'd dropped it. I didn't smoke, I just felt more comfortable with it in my hand.

By the time I was done locking the hallway doors, it was only Captain Bishop and myself in the room. As I passed him, he handed me the .45.

"Just in case, son," he told me. I nodded, and pushed through the first set of doors to outside. Outside, I could see the bare streets, with snow pulled off the banks being blown by the wind sparkling in the lights at the end of the short brick walk that led from the road to the front doors. I locked the doors, and stared for a moment at the slope of the hill across from us. The LT's car was still parked out there. I wondered if he was inside of it, coated in ice, or maybe sharing a smoke with Tandy. At the top of the hill was a fence, with concertina wire on top. I couldn't make out the guard towers but knew they were up there.

I could see the two CUC-V's, and the five-ton.

Still, I locked the doors. To the left, one time. They'd open with a push against the bar, but not from the outside. I backed up and pulled open the door, never taking my eyes from the glass doors. Now was when the body came flying through the glass, and we were already down a man, already there was somebody missing that could be slung through the glass at me.

I backed into the CQ area and locked the inner doors. I could still see outside, and still see the missing LT's car. He was in there, listening to Duran Duran, smoking a cigarette, and planning on coming in here and ripping my throat out. Then he'd drink my blood. Then he'd gnaw the flesh from my...

I shook my head to clear away those thoughts. Fuck him. I bet I could whip some undead butterbars ass. I was Private Monkey, bad motherfucker. Killing machine. Twisted steel and sex appeal. All the women love a killer.

"You alright, Private?" Captain Bishop asked. He sounded genuinely concerned, so I answered him while I locked the door to the stairwell.

"Dark monkey thoughts," I told him.

"Monkey?"

"Yes, sir. My father called my brothers and I his 'monkey-boys' out of affection. I'm a good climber," I told him.

"Oh. I thought you were saying something else," he admitted.

"We all bleed and die the same, sir," I answered, letting him know I knew what he meant by those words.

The hallway door locked firmly, the two bathroom doors did not, neither did the empty room that read "REC ROOM" above the door-jam. The boots had stopped stomping, but we were still working by flashlight. I knew there wasn't breakers tripping, it was fuses, so that meant that the wiring was bad. That was it, just bad wiring. The wind was coming in through the walls, and shifting the wiring. Tandy had gotten drunk, or maybe he was despondent about his spank-sock rejecting, or something, and had gone outside.