The big Cadillac pulled up in front of the towering Aon building downtown. The building and the company had been a bit of a mystery to the city of Chicago for some time now. They did advanced “research” which did not say much. But the driver of the Cadillac narrowed his eyes looking over at the building as he shut off the engine. There was a dead guard near the front doors, which meant the Posse had beat them here.

“I think this might be a good time to do your changing act.” Nate said to Deacon from the passenger seat while looking up at the building nervously. He had lit a joint down the road and paused to take a puff.

“What changing act?” Ava asked from the back seat.

“He turns into a monster.” Nate replied casually while holding in a deep drag, as if it were no big deal to see someone do such a thing.

“He does what?”

“I told you it doesn’t work that way. I dunno how it works.” Deacon replied.

“Well, I hope you can figure it out, because those guys have guns.” Nate looked back at Deacon, who was preparing to exit the vehicle. “Wouldn’t it be messed up if we just left right now? We totally should. We should just say to hell with all of this and go home. We’re not some kind of heroes.” He tried to offer a puff to Deacon but Deacon waved his hand away.

“Today…” Deacon stepped out of the car and looked back once. “I am. I mean, what are we even going to tell the police? That a Jamaican voodoo wizard took a Hollywood model hostage inside this building?”

“Well, you’re a totally metal hero then. Make sure of that. Wait, before you go…” Nate exchanged a CD in the player, clicked the button to cycle to the desired song, and then cranked the volume up on Metallica’s “Anesthesia Pulling Teeth” instrumental as loud as it would go and took another deep drag.

Hearing the deep bass solo sent a surge of adrenaline through Deacon’s system, like an electric shock his senses came alive. There was some kind of synergy, a groove that his mind and body were enjoying, with the music, his adrenaline, and the beast he could feel just underneath the surface. Deacon didn’t try to understand it. He exited the car before the song was over.

Walking towards the dangerous situation, his heart began pounding in his chest. The rage and helplessness he had felt most of his life, the gangs and bullies and poverty of the Southside, bubbled up inside of him and exploded.

Then, suddenly, he felt his muscles surge with the same frenetic energy he was feeling pent up inside of him. It was a familiar feeling…

“Fuck yeah!” Nate called out the passenger side window as he saw his friend swell and change.

With a howl of rage, Deacon charged up the stairs, finding his steps quicker and heavier at the same time as the change continued within him. By the time he hit the front doors he thrust his arms out to batter them open but smashed them from the hinges sending them spiraling inward instead. Te JamaiWithThe Jamaicans had left an undead guard near the door, which dutifully and without fear, moved to grab the black furred nightmare. With a fist of pure rage, he bashed the undead guard’s head in.

“What the hell was that?” Ava asked while looking out the rear window at the now beastly figure charging inside the building. She was rightfully terrified.

“That’s what’s going to save that fox Zoe Waters from the evil aliens.”

“Aliens? What aliens?” Ava frowned at the long-haired metalhead in the front passenger seat, banging his head to the loud music playing from the car speakers. “What the fuck are you even talking about?”

“Weren’t they aliens? Fuck, man I dunno. I’m so stoned right now…” Nate laughed a high-pitched stoner laugh before finishing the joint.

* * * *

Zoe was pushed forwards and nearly tripped. The dozen or so Jamaicans surrounding her had assault rifles out and ready to shoot. Their leader, a deeply unsettling and tall man led them inside the building, where they had met with Butch, who she instantly recognized as Ava’s no-good boyfriend. As soon as she saw him, she lost control of her temper.

“Butch? Where’s Ava you rotten, good for nothing asshole?”

The good looking, athletic preppie laughed at her.

“Shut up bitch. You went and hired some goons to try to stop me? You deserve whatever these guys are going to do with you.”

The Jamaicans had taken over the lightly staffed building and had rounded up the few employees that were present on the Sunday evening into a single conference room. Butch had been waiting for them already, and chances are that he had something to do with letting the dangerous criminalcriminals inside and past whatever security measures were in place for the building. He turned to the impossibly tall Jamaican leader.

“So, when do we start? I can’t wait any…”

“Patience.” Mr. Saturday growled. “I be needin’ both dem girls for de ritual.”

One of his men, who had taken over the security room, both to erase any recorded evidence that they had been there but also to monitor for any inbound threats, called to his boss from the walkie talkie they had employed.

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“Boss. Something’s coming.”

“Dat dem now.” Mr. Saturday smiled the creepiest smile imaginable. “Okay what you see?” He asked back into the walkie talkie.

“It’s some sort of animal…I think. It just broke in.”

“Butch why are you doing this?” Zoe pleaded with the young man. He had certainly been an asshole, but what had turned him into a kidnapper?

“That’s easy.” He looked over at her with his own creepy smile, only where the tall voodoo man’s smile was full of mystery and intrigue, there was no mystery in his slimy gaze. “Mr. Saturday here grants wishes. And it was my wish that my ungrateful father would die so I could finally take my rightful place as head of this company! I’m tired of being broke and in debt. Aon is worth millions! Tens of millions, maybe even hundreds of millions. And I’m just supposed to live off scraps while my father runs this place into the ground? No, see that’s not gonna happen! It’s time for me to step up, where I belong.”

Butch looked at the tall and slender Voodoo mage next to him for some sort of agreement or reassurance. He received nothing of the sort.

“So, you didn’t have the balls to take care of it yourself…you hired goons of your own.” Zoe’s critical tone was biting, and Butch scowled at her angrily.

“Someone shut her up.”

There was a loud crashing noise just then from somewhere outside the door to the conference room. Zoe’s crystal blue eyes bored holes into the young man.

“Looks like my goons are here. Let’s see who’s hired goons are better…” One of the Jamaican gangsters halted her sentence by wrapping a bandanna gag around her mouth.

At the same time, another one of the armed Jamaicans grabbed Butch by the arm roughly, and Mr. Saturday nodded to his associate knowingly. Butch felt the cold steel barrel of the rifle press against his head, and he looked to the tall Jamaican leader with wounded betrayal behind his eyes.

“What is this?”

“Now is de time you’re plan be ovah white boi. Now is de time for mi plan.”

The goon with the rifle leaned over Butch and ripped the Aon access card from the lanyard around his neck. It was the thing that had helped grant them access into the building and it was the thing that could open any door within it.

“You just a pawn in mi plan little guppy. Now we open de doors to de R and D room.” He smiled at the other gangsters with him, who smiled back. “Now we have our own beasties.”

The entire crew left the room then, locking the door behind them.

* * * *

Deacon came running into the open lobby area, not entirely sure where to go next. That was answered for him as a gigantic grey mountain of flesh entered the room. The creature looked stitched together like Frankenstein, and regarded the raging wild animal across the way with cold, unfeeling dead eyes. He remembered his friends giving a similar description of some sort of monster they had encountered inside the school, and it had terrified them. Deacon was not scared. Not now.

The Tasmanian Devil came charging ahead with a wild squeal, and the two creatures collided violently. Deacon managed to shred deep claw wounds across the undead creature’s body and chest, but it barely registered any pain whatsoever. The two behemoths battered at each other for a time, neither seeming to make much headway. While the Frankenstein monster was lumbering and slow, it managed to get a grip on Deacon’s leather jacket, and before he knew what was happening, felt himself lifted from his feet and tossed across the room with ease.

Deacon crashed into the reception desk, which splintered and shattered under the force of his weight. He was not down long though, and scooped up the desk chair as he rolled back to his feet, launching it across the room at his attacker, which was methodically stalking over to him. The chair staggered the creature, but did not stop it.

Deacon charged once more, this time he closed his fists tightly and tried to just pummel the monster. His claws had made little effect against the undead flesh the first time, he decided to see how it would dead with blunt force trauma. His fists connected with wet thumps that again, did little to stop his opponent for long. When the undead monster reached out to grab him this time, he grabbed its arms, and the two began to wrestle. He had found his strength to completely dwarf a regular human’s in this new form of his, but apparently that did not extend to magically reanimated undead monsters.

The Southsider found himself sliding backwards as the two strained against each other’s might, slowly giving ground against what felt like a force of nature. He became angrier and tried to get a better position against his assailant, but for all his own animal strength in this form, it was like trying to wrestle a mudslide. He pulled deep from his street roots and tried to soccer kick the thing in the groin, but it did not stop the thing.

“Dude!” Came a familiar voice from the entryway to the building. Deacon chanced a glimpse and saw Nate standing there. “It’s a zombie. You gotta hit it in the head!”

“Yeah?” Deacon replied in the deep animal voice he now possessed.

Deacon stopped trying to push against the overwhelming strength of the creature and instead, fell down onto his back. The undead monster’s momentum fell ahead and would have fallen on top of him, but the quick Southsider got his foot up to kick the creature up over his head.

“Get that motherfucker!” Nate shouted encouragement.

Deacon was the first to his feet out of the two combatants. He hadn’t noticed her at first, but Ava was standing behind Nate, and screamed at the sight of the two monsters fighting in the reception area of the Aon building.

Deacon gathered power into his legs and leaped high into the air, crossing the distance between him and the other monster. He came down with thunderous fury and stomped hard onto the undead dome of the bald-headed grotesque figure. He came down with thunderous fury, and stomped hard onto the undead dome of the bald-headed grotesque figure. This staggered it. Deacon smelled blood and went in for the kill.

A series of vicious blows and kicks rained down on the dazed creature until finally, the skull of the monster broke open and a disgusting ooze of brains and green slime spilled out across the floor. Ava screamed and began to swoon, but Nate was there to catch her.

“You okay?” He asked while trying to keep her upright.

“Get off me you hooligan!” Ava pushed the blond -haired rocker away.

“You’re welcome bitch.” He returned with a shrug.

The large black werecreature nodded to his friend, still standing over the ruined body of the Frankenstein creature. The body continued to leak out a ridiculous amount of gore onto the tile floor. It would be a hell of a clean-up job for some poor janitor.

“I thought you two were staying in the car?”

“Dude! I couldn’t let you go in alone.”

“I’m a monster!” Deacon returned breathlessly. “What are you gonna do? It’s too dangerous here!”

A woman’s scream carried through the large open lobby, from deeper within the building at that point and Deacon recognized it just as Ava did. It was Zoe.

“Zoe!” Ava called back.

The sharp ears of his new were form heard the sounds of movement coming their direction, from roughly the direction of the scream. Deacon knew this had to be the bad guys coming at them.

“Hide!” Deacon growled, his voice deep and intimidating in this form. “They got guns.”

Nate grabbed the arm of the young blonde girl and yanked her back towards the entrance of the building but froze. There were several vehicles pulling up out front and a number of Mexicans got out with their own guns.