Excerpt:

Victoria led the prisoner out of his cell with the barrel of the inspector’s Smith & Wesson held flush, right up against the back of his head. Despite this threat and very clear indication of who was in charge, Specimen Zero walked out grinning. His teeth were bared in a wild and animalistic expression of absolutely hideous glee. Elias reached for his own gone by paranoid reflex, and only then remembered that the one Special Agent Bennet was holding in her hand belonged to him.

“Are … you … mad?” Elias proclaimed. He jumped right on up off the console he had been half sitting on and got right back on his feet.

“No, Inspector,” Victoria said to him coldly, levelly. “I’m doing my job.”

“But he’s a man-eater! A cannibal!” protested Elias. He easily let the jab at his ex-profession slide way in favor of reasonable terror. “You can not trust him!” He pointed firmly at the yellow-eyed monster wearing a frumpy bio suit. The animal had hardly bothered to zip it all the way up.

“No, Mr. Montero, he is an employee of the National Government of the United States of America.”

Elias gaped; it was all he could do. He very nearly floundered.

As if this were a perfectly ordinary day, and he had absolutely no reason to be concerned about a gun being held flush to the back of his head, Specimen Zero said, “I’m hungry.”

Suddenly on the defensive, within good reason, Elias snatched up the closest object to use as a weapon. The item of blind luck choice just so happened to be the observation room’s microphone. He ripped the chord right out of the wall and held it up in front of him like a club, or a crucifix to ward off evil.

Victoria cocked the hammer back on the gun as a warning, but Elias realized Specimen Zero wasn’t even looking at him anymore. The monster had turned his yellow eyes and was focused on something to the ex-inspector’s immediate left. He very slowly turned his head a marginal inch to the side to see what the prisoner was looking at, and much to his dismayed disgust, there he saw Dr. Hemshaw trembling in the corner. The doctor looked as if he were trying to crawl backward into the now black monitor; they had turned it off when it became apparent the static problem wasn’t going to clear up any time soon. On top of it all, Dr. Hemshaw’s pants were soiled and soaking wet in a nice warm spot around his groin. Perfect. The man had pissed himself.

Looking quickly back at Specimen Zero, thinking that perhaps the animal might consider the doctor his first choice in a meal, he realized that the yellow-eyed man was sneering equally in disgust.

Victoria cleared her throat as politely as possible, taking her attention off the terrified and piss-stained Dr. Hemshaw, and said, “Yes. Well. I suppose we could get you something to eat.”

“Eggs would be nice.”

“And some clothes,” she went on, completely ignoring him. Victoria looked from Elias to Dr. Hemshaw in turn. “Does he have any clothes?”

“An omelet,” said Specimen Zero.

Everyone continued to ignore him. At least they all agreed on something. Dr. Hemshaw coughed a couple of times and squeaked. “N-no. Um. No, Agent Bennet.”

“Vicky. Please,” she sighed.

“V-vicky. Yes. Right, of course, but um… No. See. Wh-when we… That is, when Inspector Montero here brought him in, he was, um, more or less, naked.” The doctor flushed at this confession. Elias wasn’t sure whether he was embarrassed on behalf of the monster or because he had emptied his bladder in his shorts just a few seconds ago.

“Naked?” asked Vicky incredulously.

“Naked,” confirmed Specimen Zero. He had a sharp edged and wildly satisfied grin on his face. After all, he had been entirely nude when Special Agent Bennet had first encountered him.

Ignoring him, Victoria looked to the ex-inspector. Elias felt strangely more uncomfortable under her blue gaze than he did Specimen Zero’s yellow one. “He was, ah, also dead, señora.” He reached back with his free hand to rub down the hairs on the back of his neck that were standing up.

“Dead?” said Vicky, even more incredulously.

“Oh right,” said Specimen Zero, still so very pleased with himself. “I was dead, wasn’t I.” While the rest of them took a somber moment to soak in that absurd bit of information, even though two out of the three had confirmed it without a doubt, the monster interjected their pause by saying, “So about those eggs.”

“Shut up,” Elias growled at him. This of course only succeeded in making the animal smile at him. The smile was even more alarming than his usual smug and deadly grin. Elias found himself shrinking a bit back against the console.

Victoria remained level-headed throughout all this, and shook off the idea of Specimen Zero having been dead as a horse might a fly buzzing annoyingly around its ear. “None of that matters now,” she said. “We’ve got work to do.”

“Uh,” said Specimen Zero.

“Right. Yes, Sal. We’ll get you something to eat first.” She sniffed, adding, “And a shower. You could really use a shower.”