Death Toll Rising

“We cannot be held responsible for what we do with our cars if one of you happens to fly out in front of them.” Charlie fiercely defended the human race. He knew where at least one of the two missing creatures had gone, and that was onto his driveway – after he had scrubbed it off of his windshield. But, what they didn’t know about the person that was negotiating with them, couldn’t hurt them.

“Well then our dragon friends cannot be held responsible if they accidentally step on someone who wasn’t supposed to be in their ways.” The gnome sitting on the table in front of him said haughtily. “Nor can I be held responsible for the vegetables that I eat out of every resident’s garden, or the lawns I tear up.”

“What do you want from us?” Another negotiator next to Charlie asked. “Do you want to be treated like humans?”

“We want the decency and respect handed to us that humans hand out to all other living creatures on this earth.” The gnome said, coloring a deep red when Charlie snorted at him.

“Have you seen the state that this earth is in? We’re constantly destroying habitats. Creatures. Species. What makes you think that you – all of you – won’t be next on our list?”

“If we get destroyed, you’ll upset the balance.” The gnome said cryptically. “Without us behind the veil or here – with us, gone completely – the entire world will delve into a chaos that you could not even imagine.”

“Pretty arrogant thing to say for a glorified lawn ornament.”

“Excuse me?” The gnome looked up at him, a pick axe suited for a gnome twice the little guy’s size appearing in his dominant hand. “I may be small, but I will have you know that I have killed men for less.”

“I’m sure you have.” Charlie’s negotiating partner, Arnold Herfunmeyer said encouragingly. Charlie’s patience was making him cross, and the fact that he had caused the only death which may cause a major war in the course of human history, was making him extremely nervous. “But we’re not here to kill.” Arnold continued, urging the topic back to the subject at hand and glancing at Charlie.

“I think that I need a little more coffee. If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen.” Charlie said, taking the cue to leave. At this point, he was doing more harm than he was good for the human race. He would be better at what he was doing, but he hadn’t slept in a long time, and was beginning to worry about his wife. He had not heard from her – when he had called from the pay phone, she had not picked up. All of their cell phones had been confiscated near immediately after the situation had erupted, and there was really no way to get an uncensored message through. He really just wanted to hear her voice again.

Charlie knew that if war did erupt, he would be the first casualty. Well, one of the first. The creatures were looking for privileges that the human race had to grant them, not a small community in the middle of the United States, whose only accomplishments so far in the year had been tearing a portal into the world and releasing monkeys good at throwing poop into the general population.

“Now, if there was to be war, some conventions would have to be agreed on.” The gnome agreed on. “We value life a lot more than any of you,” The gnome glanced at Charlie, grimly, and Charlie wondered if the glorified lawn ornament knew his secret, after all, “And it would be unfair of us to kill you, nonetheless.”

“Now then, good sir gnome, if you could have killed us all, after being trapped for so many years in what you claim was hell, why haven’t you already?”

“We value life and respect the balance. Even if your race is upsetting that balance as much as it can, we must always work to restore. Consider our time in the Grayness as a meditative state, in which we learned to value life and all of its experiences much more than you ever could.” The gnome spoke from experience, and even the most skeptical human could feel the tremor of power in its voice at the memory of those years.

“Right.” Arnold agreed. “So you can kill us all, but you don’t want to. Got it. So what do you want?”

“We want freedom to live where we want, when we want.”

“And when your race – I apologize if this is offensive – starts eating our famers’ crops, what are we supposed to do?” Charlie sat back down from getting his coffee, a little calmer and a lot more sane.

“We – the creatures of the veil – in our years of being trapped set up our own judicial system. If any single creature of our collective races is found to be violating the privacy or personal space of another species beyond reason, we take steps to eliminate the issue.”

“And if they don’t pay attention to you?”

“They always pay attention when a council speaks. We, unlike yourselves, have respect for rules and functions thereof.”

“I’m offended.” Charlie stood up. “Some of us try our best to live by the standards required of a decent human being. Bashing our entire race, while we attempt to respect not only your race, but all races released from the veil – which was not our fault in the first place – is unreasonable, and is getting us nowhere.”

“Not your fault that you imprisoned us? Or not your fault that the janitor released the monkeys?”

“What are you talking about?” Charlie sat back down. “The monkeys escaped.” Charlie was dumbfounded that the little, glorified lawn ornament – he knew the term was getting old, but it had such a great feel to using it – would accuse one of the Green Tech staff of deliberately compromising the integrity of an experiment.

“No.” The gnome said. “One of our dryad friends was watching through the eyes of the potted Aloe in the room where you kept the monkeys. She watched the janitor come in and unlock the cage door for the monkeys.”

“But the security tapes show the monkeys getting out. There was no janitor anywhere.” Charlie argued. Another member of Green Tech spoke up from the crowd that had assembled in the rear of the room.

“No, I watched the tapes myself.” The head of security said, a note of wonder and “it’s all making sense now” in his voice. “The tapes show the monkeys, and then they show them pushing open the cage door and walking out.”

“And no one ever thought to mention this before now?” Charlie turned.

“I didn’t even realize. I assumed that the trainer had left the door unlocked when he went to relieve himself. He was back not five minutes later, and they were all gone.”

“If you don’t mind…” The gnome interrupted hastily. “Can you discuss the inadequacies of your janitorial staff at a later date? We kind of have pressing matters to attend to, if you know what I mean.”

“Fine. Can he at least call someone to let them know what happened?”

“Graciel-al-loh, would you please escort that man to the telephone?” The gnome in charge of negotiation nodded towards the young dragon that served as both captor and guard of the humans in the building. One of three small dragons, he was intimidating, yes, but when he got bored, he would make smoke rings with his breath, which was at least amusing to the population not otherwise involved in hostage activities. The dragon nodded in agreement, leading the head of security out of the room. The dragon could somehow fit through the door – but no one really knew how.

“Now.” The gnome continued, happy that the interruptions would cease, at least momentarily. “We want, in the very least, habitat appropriate settings for ourselves, or the freedom to find some.”

“Which means what, to us, exactly?”

“The dragons need a mountain or a range of them to dwell on. The centaurs and the dryads need a forest. My species can dwell in either. The griffins and fairies can live anywhere with ample air space.”

“Well, I’m not sure if you’ve taken a look around…” Charlie explained hesitantly, “But we’re kind of in a very, very flat place. As in, the closest mountain range is a six hour drive away.”

“That’s why we’re negotiating.” The gnome said, and Charlie sighed.

“No. You don’t quite get it. We don’t own the mountain ranges that are a six hour drive away.”

“But your Secretary of Defense – he is a top leader.” The gnome argued. “He better get it done, or you will find Graciel and his father, Jaer-al-loh, atop your sky scrapers in New York City.”

“How do you know all of these pop culture references?” Charlie grumbled. It wasn’t fair – they didn’t have anything to hold against these creatures, who had done no wrong as of yet, and weren’t even completely ignorant.

“Television. The dryads loved to watch the world through potted plants. In the Grayness, we could see and hear outside of it, to a level, albeit muted, but we couldn’t really interact unless there was a small tear in the veil.”

“Right.” Charlie said, his head spinning. These creatures were like the voyeurs from hell who wanted compensation for their time spent viewing, and not interacting with the rest of the world. Ordinarily, Charlie was a reasonable man. But they wanted what Charlie, what Rich, and what Arnold could not possibly promise them: freedom and respect.

“Look…” Rich jumped in. He had been silent the entire time, even when they referenced him in the conversation. It was almost as if he had been sleeping with his eyes open. Charlie had ignored it, because it was slightly creepy to see a head of the state like that just sitting zombie like at a conference table. “We can try to work these things out. We can provide certain habitats, but we can’t guarantee your safety – that will vary.””

“We understand that it would be too hard for a small group of humans to determine the actions of a bigger population. However, we need to know that our safety will be prominent.”

“Do you want guards or something?”

“We can defend ourselves.” The gnome was grating on Charlie’s nerves again. He wasn’t sure what was doing it.

“Sir, we have a problem.” One of the outer guards walked into the conference room a second later. He had come in during the moment of silence between the gnome’s arrogant outburst and Charlie’s to-be rant on the inconsistencies in the small creature’s argument.

“Yes?” The gnome, Charlie and Rich all answered the reference at the same time. The gargoyle looked in all three directions, then rolled his stony eyes in an interesting display of indifference, amusement and otherwise unreadable emotion.

“There seem to be protestors, outside the town hall.”

“Protestors of what, exactly?” Rich asked, being the first to speak. The gnome, to say the least, was on unsteady ground. It seemed to be a human matter.

“I know that answer.” Charlie muttered. He had been informed by Betty when he had rose for coffee a few minutes earlier. He had not expected the response from the vampires so soon.

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