# The Monsters - An Original Short Story by K H Simmons
Everyone knew about the monsters. They weren't just a children's story. They were enough to keep you awake at night. Some said they had great big teeth, as tall as a man, that could crunch you in half in just one bite. Others said that they had serrated claws, stronger than steel and sharp enough to slice through bone like butter. The truth was all we really knew was that there were monsters outside the walls, and they wanted to get in. No one saw a monster and lived to tell the tale, at least no one like me.
I'd heard the stories growing up, just as everyone else had. It had always been my dream to become a Sentinel. They were the front line in our defence against the monsters. There was no one, fitter, stronger or better trained than a Sentinel. They were the only ones who stood any chance against the monsters. While the last remnants of humanity cowered in the dark, they would stand watch and make sure that not a single deathly beast got into the Citadel.
The problem was that I could never become a Sentinel. I wasn't born to the right family. Only the children of the lords and ladies from the inner fortress could ever be Sentinels. My mother and father were both farmers, living on the outskirts of the Citadel where the rock was always damp, making it perfect for growing the fungi that sustained us. I was destined to grow the ugly, brown mushrooms for the rest of my life.
Father always said that without people like us humanity would have been destroyed a long time ago. It made me wonder, if that was the case, why did we have to live in poverty while the rich lived in relative luxury close to the thermal vents at the middle of the Citadel. He would tell me that it had always been this way, they protected us from the monsters and in turn we grew their food.
I sighed and picked my way through the slimy rocks towards the wall, for some reason the fattest mushrooms always seemed to grow closest to the wall. It loomed up above me, so high I could only just make out the cavern roof where stalactites stretched down towards the dim lights of the Citadel beneath. The wall here was smooth, worn down by centuries of water trickling away down the rock face.
The Sentinels never came this far round. Their efforts were concentrated at the Mouth, where generations ago humanity had fled to the safety of this underground haven, chased by the monsters. The soldiers had used explosives to cave in the entrance of the cavern, sealing us inside and the monsters out. Despite the heaps of boulders blocking the entrance, supposedly that was where you could hear the monsters the loudest. The Sentinels bravely held them back.
As I took my knife out and began to carefully collect the fungi from the wall, I wished I could be that brave, I wished I could do something that heroic with my life. Instead, here I was harvesting mushrooms from the back of the cavern, well away from the riches of society and well away from monsters. Mother would have told me to be grateful if she'd still been here.
A scratching noise made my ears prick and sent a shiver tumbling down my spine. I paused. All I could hear was the sound of my breath and the distant thrumming of steam engines within the centre of the cavern. I was about to shake it off as just being my imagination when I heard it again. A faint scratching like that of metal on rock. I took a few paces along the wall to where I thought it was coming from and pressed my ear against the wall.
Sure enough, I could hear the scratching reverberating through the rock. As I pressed my hand against the cold stone it felt loose beneath my fingers. My blood chilled and my breath caught in my throat. How could they be here? It wasn't possible. They shouldn't be able to get through here. If they were this close that I could hear them digging with their gigantic claws - we were all doomed. I suppressed the urge to run and kept my ear pressed to the wall. I could hear a moaning noise; it was almost like crying. It didn't sound like a monster. It sounded miserable. Perhaps this was how they tricked you. Perhaps they lured you into a false sense of security before they crushed you like a beetle.
It was getting closer and more frantic. I tried to step away. I wanted to run, to scream, to get help, but I couldn't. I was rooted to the spot. My heart thundered in my chest almost deafening me to the scraping noise as the rocks began to shift beneath my fingers. I watched in horror as they tumbled away leaving a dark and empty space. The wall had been breached. I stared into it, waiting for my death to inevitably come in the form of jagged claws and gnashing teeth.
Nothing happened. With trembling legs, I bent down and peered into the darkness. I gripped my knife hard against my palm, unsure what use it would be against a ferocious monster. At first, I could see nothing, and then something pale and fragile stretched through the hole. They were bony and bloodied but there was no denying what they were. They were fingers - human fingers - and they stretched out towards me with a desperation I had never seen before.
‘Help us,’ whimpered a voice from through the hole.
I stared in confusion and fear as the pale fingers reached through the hole. The moaning from the other side of the wall grew louder. They whimpered and called out to me. It wasn't possible. How could anyone have survived outside the walls? I stumbled back as more of the rocks tumbled away leaving a space large enough for a child to crawl through. The knife fell from my fingers and clattered against the rock.
‘You can't be here,’ I said, finally finding my voice. It sounded more panicked than I had expected.
If the wall was breached the monsters wouldn't be far behind. There would be no stopping them. They'd tear their way through the Citadel leaving a bloody path in their wake. Everybody would die. I opened my mouth to scream for help when something stopped me.
A small child, thin and dirty, scrambled through the hole. She stood up on trembling legs and looked at me with teary eyes. How had a child come to be outside? I closed my mouth but didn't move any closer to the gaping hole. Now more hands were scrabbling urgently at the rock and dirt, widening the gap until more people appeared. They weren't strong or bold. These weren't sentinels trapped outside the walls. They were men and women and children, not warriors, not monsters.
I was torn through indecision, run and get help or help them through? I would be punished for not having noticed such a weakness in our defences on my land. It didn't sound like these poor people were being followed by monsters, at least not yet. I strode forward and began to help pull them through the hole. One after another until a band of twelve sorry-looking people stood before me. Some were injured, all were covered in filth and none of them looked like they had ever seen a good mushroom soup.
‘What were you doing out there?’ I asked. Kneeling down by the gap, I peered through the hole. I half expected claws to grab me and tear through my skin. There was nothing but a damp, dark tunnel. I stood up again and turned back to the group. They were shivering and weak.
‘Help me with these rocks,’ I said, and a couple of the sturdier men helped me to build a haphazard wall that would maybe keep out a cockroach. It would have to do. These people needed help. We would have to deal with the hole later and hope that they weren't followed by any monsters.
Leading the way over the rocks and fungi, I guided the group to my home. It wasn't much, it barely fit us all inside, but by the looks of things they'd never seen such a glorious house. They crowded around the fire and murmured amongst themselves. I had a pot of soup already on the hearth which I shared out amongst them. They had to share bowls and there wasn't much to go around. They didn't seem to mind though. Some of them cried out of gratitude. I could only imagine what horrors they had seen out there beyond the safety of the walls. How they had survived the monsters was beyond me.
Once they were all fed and watered, and the children were wrapped in my only blankets, I sat down on the floor to face them.
‘Who are you people?’ I asked.
A woman with greying hair and sad eyes leaned forward.
‘My name is Anna, this is my family,’ she said.
‘What were you doing outside?’ I asked.
She frowned.
‘What do you mean? We've always been outside.’
I froze. She must be lying. It wasn't possible. Perhaps I should have called the authorities straight away and be damned with the consequences. I wondered if they were some kind of cult, intent on bringing down the walls and seeing the end of humanity. And I'd helped them. My mind raced as I tried to figure out a way out of this.
‘How did you survive the monsters?’ I asked, trying to buy for time.
‘What monsters?’ she said.
She was convincing, I'll give her that. She almost seemed to genuinely not know what I was talking about. I knew that was impossible though. Everyone knew about the monsters, didn't they?
‘Outside the wall. Everyone knows about the monsters,’ I replied.
She shook her head.
‘The only monsters are those who left us out there,’ she whispered. I didn't understand. She could see my confusion. Standing up, she offered me a bony hand. My doubt must have showed. ‘Come, let me show you.’
Without seeing any other option, I followed her back outside. Two of the men, Samuel and Cor came with us. The rest stayed in the meagre comfort of my home. We picked our way back to the hole they had come through. Samuel and Cor began shifting our temporary rock wall.
‘What are you doing?’ I cried. Anna waved me back. It didn't take much to open up the tunnel again. It yawned in the rock face like a gaping mouth, ready to eat us alive.
‘Let me show you,’ Anna said again and crawled into the tunnel on her belly.
‘Don't go back out there,’ I whispered, my voice cracking.
‘You need to see, it's the only way,’ she told me.
I hesitated by the edge of the wall. It was the edge of safety, the edge of everything I'd known. Beyond was danger, uncertainty and death. I knew there were monsters out there, that's why we were here. It's what the Sentinels protected us from every single day. Despite this knowledge I felt drawn to the darkness. I got down on my front and slithered through the hole into the tunnel beyond the wall.
My hands slipped on rocks slick with moisture as the tunnel steadily climbed upwards. Despite how scrawny she was Anna climbed ahead of me like she was born to it. Samuel and Cor followed behind, making sure I didn't fall, or perhaps making sure I couldn't run. The scent of damp earth filled my nostrils. My hands were covered in it, I imagined the rest of me was too.
We spoke little as we made our ascent. I was trying my best not to let my thoughts wander to dark places. What if they were working with the monsters? What if I was their offering? There was no light here, I could feel and hear the others around me. Darkness pressed against my eyes with the weight of the earth. The tunnel felt narrow, that didn't stop my brain from picturing monsters looming out of the dark rocks.
‘It gets very narrow here,’ Anna warned, her voice breathy and close.
I heard her scrabbling and I followed more cautiously. Stretching out with my hands I could feel that the roof of the tunnel suddenly sloped down leaving little more than a slot to squirm through. Being born in the Citadel, I was used to living underground, I was used to being surrounded by rock and earth. This, however, was different. The slit in the rock barely felt deep enough for me to slide through on my belly. I was sure my shoulders would get wedged and I'd be left there until I starved or was eaten by the monsters.
‘Come on, it's not much further, just squeeze through,’ Anna's voice encouraged me from the other side.
With my heart in my throat, I wriggled forwards. Solid rock pressed against me from above and below. My clothes snagged on it. It felt like the earth itself was pinning me there, swallowing me whole. My lungs were tight. I gasped for air and reached forwards. My shoulder rammed against the roof sending pain shooting down my arm.
‘Don't panic. Slow your breathing, take small breaths and just ease yourself towards me,’ Anna's voice came through the darkness.
Easy for her to say, she was half my size. Still, I tried to calm my breaths down. I felt the pressure of the rock lessen and it allowed me to wriggle slowly forwards. Anna took my hand and helped me slide the rest of the way. To my surprise we were now stood in a chamber just high enough for me to stand, and I could see. A dim grey light was seeping in, giving everything a ghostly shadowy look. It was a strange light, nothing like the harsh electric glow of the citadel lights, nor anything like the warm glow cast by flames. Were we at the surface?
Of course, I'd heard stories of the surface world, we all had. Lush green pastures, blue skies and a great ball of fire in the sky. It was the stuff of dreams and fantasy. It had all been snatched away from us by the monsters. Their vicious cruelty had forced us underground. The last remnants of humanity, forced to live in darkness for eternity, it was better than what waited for us outside.
I tore my eyes away from the light and helped pull Samuel and Cor through the gap. Looking at it now, in the dim light, it looked even more like the throat to some terrible beast. I shuddered at the thought. Anna picked her way towards the light. Following her, all my fears were replaced by curiosity. No one had seen the surface for generations. I wasn't sure what to expect. I wondered if it would be like the stories, or if the monsters had ruined that world. We found ourselves under a hole in the earth, it wasn't large, but it wasn't going to be a tight squeeze either. Through it all I could see was grey. My heart sank. I'd lived my entire life surrounded by grey. Grey walls, grey clothes, grey lives.
Still, I couldn't turn back now. I gave Anna a hand up, ignoring the twinge in my shoulder. She disappeared through the hole and I scrambled up after her, with a shove from Samuel. What I saw, I will never forget. I had never seen a tree before, but I had seen pictures and knew that they should be covered in green. These ones weren't. Their branches were as white as bone and stretched up to the sky as if it might gift them their leaves again. What little grass there was, was brown and withered. Some distance away huge grey towers stood even taller than trees, with hollow windows and crumbling walls. The ground itself was covered in a dusting of ash. Wind crackling through the dead trees was the only sound. Apart from us, nothing seemed to be alive. There weren't even any bugs crawling across the rocks. No monsters were waiting for us, yet this was somehow more terrifying. There was nothing here. Everything was dead.
‘This is the world that was left to us,’ Anna whispered. It seemed right to whisper, after all, this was the world's grave.
‘Where are the monsters?’ I asked, my voice barely louder than the wind which stirred the ash at my feet.
Anna turned to me and looked at me with sad eyes. Those eyes had seen hell and worse.
‘The monsters went to war with each other. Fire rained from the sky and scorched the land, it poisoned everything. When the monsters realised what they had done they fled, retreating deep under the earth where the water was still clean, and the radiation couldn't reach them. They cowered inside their walls of rock and made up stories to justify what they had done.
‘They said that we were the monsters, so they never had to let us in. There was enough room for everyone left. There was enough food for everyone left. But they feared us more than anything, because we had seen the truth. They kill us at the gates, they tell each other that we're the monsters, it makes it easier that way to slaughter the starving, the sick, the weak. It makes it easier to explain why they're trapped down there. You see, there are no monsters up here. The only monsters left are the ones within those walls.’
## About Me
I'm Katy, but go by K H Simmons officially. I write a lot of sci-fi, dark fantasy and dystopian fiction. If you're here for sparkly vampires, you're in the wrong place ;)
I frequently post short stories on my Facebook page, as well as work on full length novels. If you want more short stories like the above - check out my anthology Death, Demons & Dystopia available on Amazon/Kindle.
When I'm not writing, I can usually be found cuddling dogs, reading, at the gym or playing video games.