Menagerie

But if monsters could look like humans, and humans could look like monsters, how could anyone ever really be sure that the right people stood on the outside of all those cages?

A wolf will growl to warn you that it's angry and a bull will paw the ground before charging. Rattlesnakes rattle, cats moan and hiss, and hyenas grunt and cackle. But a man will smile right in your face as he drives a knife into your heart.

What have you eaten today?" "Humble pie, my own words, and a little crow. All three taste like shit.

An hour ago, I would have sworn that a man's body wouldn't fit in a standard trash bag, and that even if it did, it'd be too heavy to lift." "Pieces always fit better than the whole," he said. "And a corpse weighs less after you drain the blood." "Spoken like a true psychopath.

Drea, why don't you turn a circle and give us a good look?" the talker said, his chest all puffed out, as if he'd had something to do with making me perform. "Fuck you," I said, nice and clear, in spite of my fuller voice, so everyone could hear. A couple of teens near the back of the crowd laughed, but the mothers scowled and covered their children's ears. "Sorry about that, ladies and gentlemen," the talker called with an amiable chuckle. "Most of our exhibits were born and raised in the carnival, and they hear a lot of rough language." "Most of our handlers are full of shit," I added, drawing more laughter from the back of the crowd. "I learned to cuss the same place all of your kids did. In middle school.

His rage fed my reckless euphoria. He couldn't stand having his authority challenged, and that made him easy to manipulate. I was in chains, but he was losing control.

If you cut off my hands, I'll write with my feet, and if you cut off my feet, I'll write with my nose, and if you cut that off, you may as well cut my whole head off, because no matter how you slice and dice me, you can't control what I think, or what I feel. You can keep me locked up for the rest of my life, however brief that may be. But you will never, ever own me.

But wanting something didn't give one the right to have it.

I don't believe every cryptid should be allowed to roam free, just like I don't believe every human should be allowed to roam free. We have psychos, too. People kill their coworkers. Kids kill their classmates. Parents kill their own children. Those people are every bit as monstrous as the worst cryptid predator you can ever point to, yet they're human, just like we are.

Welcome to the menagerie, where beauty and grace shine from every cage and peek from every shadow. You’ve never seen anything like the exotic wonders within, so keep your eyes open, ladies and gentlemen, because in our world of spectacle and illusion, what you see isn’t always what you get.

People weren't just angry about it. They were still afraid. Fear is a powerful, often irrational emotion, and mass fear... has the power to shake any society to its core. As long as the world remembered, they would live in fear of all cryptids-- regardless of whether or not any individual among us was truly dangerous. Of course, not everyone supported stripping cryptids of all right. But dissenters were few among a dangerous and violent many, and most ignored the problem. Submission was the only solution they could conceive of to fix my problem. But with the imprint of Clyde's fist still throbbing in my stomach I was less interested in fixing a problem than in becoming one.

She won't serve her dish cold," the oracle mumbled, almost with giddy joy as chill bumps rose all over her skin. "And two graves won't be near enough...