Story One

All Rights Reserved

Rachael

“I watch the monsters day in and day out. They never notice me the lowly human. But I watch them. I know them. I know their weaknesses, their strengths, their desires. They don’t think anybody could ever figure it out. Ha! One only has to watch and listen to see what is really going on. Nobody watches. And nobody pays attention to the dying girl. The girl that is quiet and mousey, the girl that doesn’t say two words unless she is in class or spoken too. No nobody notices the dying girl. And because of that, I can watch them. Study the monsters. And learn how to kill them. I don’t have the strength to kill them. To get rid of the evil that plagues this town. But I hope that some day that humanity won’t be lost to them. I hope that some day that someone will have the strength to take them down. But I watch. That is all I can do. Watch and record. And now I want to share this all with you. Share with you how I came to find out how things go bump in the night. And the stories of Monster University.”

Rachael sat and watched the new students. Rachael was a professional student. She chose this life because she was dying. She always knew she would die young. Terminal Genetic Conditions. She snorted. People ignored her. She was always quiet. Afraid of trying to find friends. Afraid of falling in love. Why do so when you are just going to leave them? Even her parents were distant after they diagnosed her at eight. Two years later, her very healthy baby brother and sister were born. They were the only ones she really cared about in life, anyway. She always sacrificed for her brother and sister. They were her life. She gave them everything that she refused to give anybody else. Because of that, most people thought she was lost in her head a lot. Her books, her stories, her writings and musings. That she refused to get a job, even with her many degrees. Cemented that she was a bit touched in the head. But really, she was watching. Observing. Writing what she saw. And as the new students moved in and the town got a new bar, a new restaurant, new businesses… okay, let’s be honest, not that strange. They were in a college town and people moved in and out all the time. Sometimes families moved to be with their kids; sometimes people moved to make a go of a business in a college town that would have many people for at least eight of the twelve months of the year. The bonus with this town is that it was very, very close to the larger towns in the state. And was considered a larger town in of itself. So even ‘seasonal’ businesses could make a go of things year round.

One day Rachael was helping with the registrations. And she noticed some strange behavior in a group of kids. Now it was a college campus, and strange and abnormal behavior was normal. But some of these kids were speaking as if they were misplaced out of time. They dressed as if they looked into a catalog and just picked clothing to mimic what the model was wearing. 

So, Rachael did what Rachael did best and observed them. She watched them every day and eavesdropped in on their conversations. She wrote down everything. She listed everything. She discovered the truth not long after they all started. They never noticed her and talked around her. They were monsters! Vampires, werewolves, mummies, zombies, undead killers, they were all real! What could she do?

She knew she could never fight these monsters. Instead, she stayed in the shadows. She documented the monsters. She watched them day in and day out. She was dying, and they killed to live. It made her mad. It pissed her off. She watched them kill to live. She watched them kill for sport. She watched them laugh about it. She watched them live life when she would die. 

She vowed somehow that people would know their stories. Their weaknesses and their powers and their rituals; so that one day people could rise and bring them down. She wrote these stories and hid them when she was finished. 

She followed them. She got to know them. She probably knew them better than they knew each other. This went on for months. She would put the pieces together. And being a woman who was used to being in the shadows, she knew how to stay hidden.

One day Rachael had just finished documenting the last of the monsters in town. She found the rituals they had to perform. Their weaknesses. And their strengths. She wrote them as short stories. She left the bank to be surrounded by the very monsters she had been hunting. She had messed up just a few days before. She had known it too. She had gotten so angry that one of the women was so bored with life that she was just going through the motions. That she kept doing her rituals only so she wouldn’t have to pay the price of burning in hell. 

Rachael yelled at her when she went to the bar to watch one of the last monsters. She had yelled that she wished that she could live. She wished that she had the opportunity that the soul sucking monster she was had; but she was dying. She messed up and quickly finished her documents. She had to. Her will stated to publish them. To publish them as fiction so that way people would read them. But those who were smart, those who could put the pieces together, that they would understand that they were after a while. And maybe one day hunt them down and destroy them all.

Now she stood surrounded by them. Taken into a back alley into the city. She swallowed. She took a deep breath. She closed her eyes, for she knew her time had come. She asked one thing. “Let my parents bury my body…” She whispered as her world went black.

“These are my words. My stories. Read them. Understand them. And watch for the monsters hidden within our society. If you are reading this. You know my story. A girl who died too young. Her genetic condition taking her quickly as she left her ultimate piece of work in a safe deposit box to finish. These are my last words. I know when I leave this bank I will die. Be aware of the surrounding people. You never know which may hide a monster within. And if you are brave enough, strong enough, powerful enough… Please finish what I wanted to start and destroy them all…”