Monster

 Final interview with Alan Reyd,
Excerpted from Heroes and Monsters

 

I’m the guy that gave him his name.  I was the first one to call him Monster.

I… I don’t really know what else to say.

I know I agreed to talk about it, but… shit.  Okay.  I guess I’ll just start then, tell you how it happened.

I was a camera guy for Apex studios.  This was a while back.  The country hadn’t split yet, no East and West.  It was just the United States.  Anyway, we were in LA, working on the pilot for some stupid teen drama.  I don’t even remember the name anymore.

It was the middle of the day.  We’d been working all morning, trying to finish as quick as we could.  The director was some kinda big shot or something, had to fly out to New York for a movie the next day.  Only reason he was on a crappy little show like that… it was because his nephew was one of the leads.  Or he would have been, I guess.

So I’m standing there, and I’m waiting for the twenty four year old chick they’ve got dressed up as a teenager to remember her lines.  All about how her boyfriend’s lyin to her or something, when this guy walks in.  He wasn’t a big guy, just kinda average sized.  Dressed pretty weird too, all in black leather, like those motorcycle guys wear.  The ones that do the jumping and stuff, not the street gangs.  He’s got this big helmet, all metal and with no visor or anything.  It’s just got a narrow little slit in front of his eyes.

At first no one notices, I don’t even know which door he came through.  This guy walks right up to the director and just stands there.  The director’s name was… Mitchell Tanning? Turner?  Fuck.  Anyway, Mitch turns around and asks the guy what he’s doing on the set.  This is a film studio, so weird clothes don’t exactly stand out.  Some guy getting in a director’s face, that stands out.  So Mitch is just startin to tell him off, his face is getting all red, when his phone rings.

Like I said, this is a while back, so cell phones were still those big clunky things, the size of your hand.  No one had em built into watches or whatever yet, and they’re still really expensive.  So instead of yelling, he answers the phone.  He listens for a minute, and his face goes from red to white, just like that.  His eyes get all big and he says something I couldn’t hear.

That’s when the guy in black stabs him in the gut.  Mitch just folded up, slumped over the knife.  I got no idea where he had the thing before that.  It was a big one, like a hunting knife or one of those ones guys in the military carry.  So, everyone starts shoutin and runnin one way or the other.  The normal people are running for the doors, screaming for help and all.  The heroes rushed him.  Even that chick, the one who couldn’t remember her lines, tries to stop him.  The cowards, like me, we just froze in place.

He killed em.  There were maybe four or five guys, and that actress, brave enough to go after him without hesitating.  Well, he just stabs them, too.  And he’s fast, like I could see what he was doing but I couldn’t track it.  I’ve seen the video since then.  It’s just neck, face, chest, he steps to the side then back, back and they’re all down.  Never laid a hand on him.  While that’s going on, all those regular people, the ones who ran for it?  They couldn’t get out.

I mean, this was California, right?  Back when the states still meant something.  We had all kinds of fire safety laws and stuff.  So, there’s at least three doors, and all of em are supposed to be unlocked.  Not one of em will open for these guys.  He just walks from one group to the other, calm as if he’s walkin down the street, and he kills them too.  Most of em he stabs in the back or he cuts their throats, but anyone who tries to fight back… he gets them in the stomach.  I could hear em screaming.  They all died… but the ones who fought back?  They didn’t die quick.

After that he starts going for the stragglers.  Some of us try and hide, but he just walks up and kills em.  Eventually it’s just me and a woman from crafts.  Mary?  I didn’t know her or anything, just saw her around every now and then.   So it’s me and her, trying to get a door open.  I’ve got a crowbar that was lying around somewhere, I still can’t remember picking it up, and we’re both pulling on it.  The door won’t open though.

So, I see him walking over, and I see the door, and I see Mary pulling on the bar as hard she can.  I know there’s no way we’re getting out of this.  There’s no way we’re gonna stop him.  But… I see a way I can live a little longer.  I… oh God help me!  I pushed her back towards him.  The last thing I saw of her was her face.  She just looked so surprised, or maybe confused, like she doesn’t get what’s going on.  He cuts her throat from behind and she kinda falls down on her knees.  Her face goes blank, then she sorta slumps to the side, and I know she’s dead.

Then he points at my camera.  I’m standing there, shaking and begging him not to kill me, and he goes on pointing.  Eventually, I get what he wants me to do.  I walk back over and get the camera pointed at him and running.  He just stands there, at first.  When he finally talks, his voice is all messed up.  It’s hoarse, raspy.  Like a guy that’s been screaming at a concert or something, but worse.

“A man who does this…” and it’s hard for him to talk, you can hear the pain in his voice.  It’s still scary as fuck.  “What do you call such a man?”

And he’s waving that big knife around, pointing at the bodies and the people that are still dying.  I don’t remember answering but you can hear my voice on the video.  I know I sure as hell thought it.

“M-  Monster.”

Then he just nods his head, like he’s got what he came for, and he walks away.  That door me and Mar-, we were trying to open?  He just walks up to it, turns the knob, and walks right out.

…

Oh, and the director?  Mitchell whatever?  The phone call that he got right before Monster stabbed him, it was from his wife.  Apparently, he’d been at the guy’s place before he came to the studio.  Gutted his wife and killed their son.  She spent the last couple hours of her life crawlin across the floor…  I can’t even imagine what it musta been like.  Then she finally gets to the phone, can’t have been thinking right at this point, and she calls her husband.  Just in time so that her bleeding out is the last thing Mitch heard, what he got to think about while he was dying from that knife wound in his gut.  Least that was what the papers said, that last little detail that made him a household name.

Fucking Monster

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