Here Be Monsters - an Anthology of Monster Tales (9 page)

“NO!” her voice grew into a howl that ripped through his mind. He fell to his knees, useless hands cupping useless ears.

Up was down and unbearable pressure choked them before an implosion released the emptiness.

It was white. Not a white room. Just white.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“A blank page.”

“I don’t like this,” he took her hand. “Let’s go back to mine. I haven’t shown you everything yet. And I can make so much, whatever you want.”

She pulled at the edge of his bandage. The finger underneath was pink and healthy.

“I have to go now.”

His hands were shaking in hers.

“And me?”

“You live here.”

He looked up for a moment, confusion, then horror spreading through his features.

“I can’t. I can’t make anything…I can’t leave,” he turned to her, “please….please, not this.”

“It’s the only way.”

“Plea—”

A nurse picked up the comic that had fallen from her lap. Lux blinked in the half light of predawn and smiled at her.

*****

She found the answer in his old books, the ones yellowing in the attic. Cryptozoology was just something to keep herself entertained until she noticed the little annotations scattered throughout the text.

Dates and places, nothing more. The dates spanned the years before he began experimenting, and the locations were random towns, sometimes addresses, all over the world.

Lux knew that he had travelled; the house was full of mementoes. Now, it seemed his wanderings had been a quest. The Doctor had brought something home, something he could use.

It was all around her. The machine was missing a heart.

The blood had to go through a delicate process of temperatures and speeds, while being enriched with minerals and metals, to a perfect balance, until the immortal heart could beat again. Then the heart would pulse this blood into the subject strapped to the table. It burned, it screamed inside the soft human veins, and it came with terrifying images and wild feelings.

When it was over, the heart would turn to cold hard marble once more.

Lux used to admire the detailed work, where the arteries were broken in irregular patterns. She knew now it wasn’t the product of tiny chisels, but of tearing it from someone’s chest. An immortal that could turn to stone.

*****

Just as with the books and files, he had left her alone at the computer for too long. It was easy, her fingers knew how. The Complex had an Emergency Clean-Up program in place. It only required a few minor adjustments.

As she walked out, resetting every door, the system went into lockdown, irreversible until the procedure had been completed. The robots began as soon as she left. Computer hard drives were wiped clean, every surface disinfected, every machine turned off in an orderly sequence. The Doctor could hear it all, step by step, from his plastic cell. Just for insurance, in case he had devised secret escape routes, she took his biometrics. Eyes, vocal cords, fingerprints. Easy to burn.

Locked cell, knots and straps to keep him in the chair, broken fingers. Magic that out, Houdini.

He wouldn’t die of these injuries, and hunger and thirst took longer than three days. After three days, the robots would fire up the furnace and incinerate every piece of organic matter, dead, alive or frozen.

*****

Lux had flown many times, but this was the first plane she had wanted to take.

The marble heart was a cold reassuring weight in her handbag. It knew her; she could feel it coursing through her veins at inhuman speed. There were several creatures of legend that came from stone, but all her evidence pointed in one direction.

And
Paris
seemed like the right place to start.

Lux dozed happily in her first class seat and wondered how hard it would be to climb the façade of Notre Dame in the dark.

Jeremy C. Shipp

© 2011

All rights reserved.

The black ink on the bathroom wall tells me,
There is hope in God
. And below that,
God is a lie.
And below that,
Your mom is a lie and a whore.
Then, a drawing of a cross-eyed stick woman having sex with an anthropomorphic teacup. I search the stall and find the word
whore
four times.
Fag
, nine times, and eventually, I hear a woman screaming. I can’t paint over the graffiti, so I do the next best thing. I take the Nikon out of my backpack, and take a picture.

At this point, the woman calms down, and I finally feel comfortable enough to take a dump.

After leaving Sierra Library, I wander around and end up in Cruikshank’s Orchard, sitting on a fern-patterned bench next to the girl of my dreams. She’s wearing a T-shirt that says,
Vegetarian Zombie
. Below that, the zombie says,
Graaaaaaains
.

“You don’t mind me sitting here?” she says.

“No, not at all,” I say.

“It’s just, this is my favorite bench. I love the smell of the figs.”

I turn my head toward the old
Mission
fig tree, and sniff the air as loud as I can.

“Do you have a cold?” She opens her brown leather stash bag. “I think I have some Airborne.”

“No. No thanks. I’m good. Thanks.”

She retrieves a tin of Altoids from her bag and drops a few mints into her mouth. “So, are you a photography major?”

I look down at notice that I’m still gripping my Nikon in both hands. “I used to be. What about you?”

She shrugs, and stands. She approaches the fig tree. Then she picks up a moldy fig and holds the rotten fruit close to her thin red lips.

Time freezes.

No, I can feel the wind on my face. I can hear a boy laughing behind me. She’s the only thing in the world that isn’t moving.

 
“What are you doing?” I say.

“Posing,” she says, without moving her mouth.

“Um. I can’t take your picture with this camera.”

She drops the fig, which lands on her white tennis shoes. “And why not?”

I could tell her that the camera’s out of batteries, but the thought of lying to her makes me feel a little nauseous. “It’s hard to explain. It’s weird.”

“What’s a little weirdness between friends?”

When she says the word
friends
, I can’t help but grin. “With this camera, I only take pictures of…well, bad things.”
         
“And you’re assuming I’m not a bad thing?”

“Yeah.”

Then she runs at me, and wraps her hands around my neck. She squeezes, gently. Then she laughs.

I laugh.

And then she kisses me.

Her mouth tastes a lot like cinnamon and little like manure, but I don’t care.

On the way to my apartment, Teresa freezes on the sidewalk and points. At first I can’t see what she’s seeing, but then I spot what looks like a dead baby bird caught on a low branch.

“The fall broke her neck,” Teresa says.

“Must have,” I say.

The woman in my head whimpers.

I take a picture.

In my apartment, Teresa kneels beside my DVD collection. She runs a finger down the tower.

“You’re a geek,” she says. “You know that, right?”

“Right,” I say.

We spend the next hour and a half watching Bio Zombie and making out. And then I sit on the bed, reading my textbook for the psych test tomorrow, while Teresa rummages through my drawers and cabinets.

“Are you looking for something specific?” I say, smiling.

She shrugs.

After a while, Teresa joins me on the bed and massages my shoulders. Sometimes she squeezes me a little too hard, but I don’t tell her that.

“Take off your shirt,” she says.

I obey.

“Give me my gourd,” she says.

“What?”

“From my bag.”

I open her stash bag, and inside I find five tins of cinnamon Altoids, an egg timer, a simple wooden box, and a small decorative gourd. I hold the gourd close to my face, but even then, the carvings are too small and intricate for me to make out.

Teresa lifts the top off the gourd, and sticks a finger inside the hole. Her finger returns, covered with a dark yellow substance.

“Massage oil,” she says.

“Oh,” I say.

Teresa rubs the oil into my chest.

The oil smells a lot like cinnamon and a little like manure, but I don’t care.

“Don’t wash this off until tomorrow morning,” Teresa says.

“Alright,” I say, and she kisses me goodnight.

After Teresa starts snoring, I get out of bed and kiss her forehead. I get the feeling that I’ve known this girl longer than a day. Much longer. Of course, that’s probably just the love talking.

In the living room, I sit at my desk and turn on my Nikon. I stare at today’s photographs until the woman in my head weeps.

As my hands tremble, the graffiti and the dead bird swirl together in a whirlpool of ink and blood. The woman shrieks, and I caress the body of the camera.

I say, “I’m sorry.”

I can’t save her from all this hatred and bigotry and death, so I do the next best thing.

I delete the pictures.

After heaving my Del Taco into the sink, I search my mind, and I can’t remember what was on those photographs anymore.

And I finally feel comfortable enough to sleep.

In the morning, I find a pyramid of cardboard boxes beside the bed, on Teresa’s side.

“What’s all this?” I say.

“I’m moving in,” she says.

Things are moving so fast, I know I should freak out. But when I think about living with Teresa, my heart jumps into my throat. Then my heart crawls up toward my head like a snail, and I can’t stop it, and I don’t want to try.

My psych test starts in thirty minutes, but Teresa wants
Denver
omelets. Then she wants to watch Dead Alive. Then she wants me to sit still and look into her eyes. Finally, she wants me to take her to Cruikshank’s Orchard for a picnic.

We sit near the old
Mission
fig tree, and the smell of the rotting fruit makes me feel nauseous.

“I’m really excited about the Joining,” Teresa says, and touches my cheek. “You are too, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Of course.”

I try hard to convince myself that when Teresa says
Joining
, she’s talking about sex. But I know that’s not true. Teresa’s been talking about the Joining all day, and every time she mentions it, her eyes narrow and she starts panting. Whatever this Joining is, it’s more intense than sex. More important.

“Take off your shirt,” Teresa says.

“I can’t,” I say. “Not in front of everyone.”

“There’s no one here. It’s almost midnight.”

I look around, and realize that she’s right. Outside of our nest of candlelight, we’re surrounded by darkness. I remove my Cthulhu T-shirt.

While I eat my tuna salad sandwich, Teresa opens a simple wooden box, and sticks two fingers inside. Her fingers returns, covered with a luminous purple substance.

“Massage oil,” she says.

“Oh,” I say.

Teresa rubs the oil into my chest.

The oil smells a lot like rotten eggs and a little like ant poison, but I don’t care.

“Don’t wash this off,” Teresa says, and sets the egg timer beside her. “You’ll fully absorb the oil in about ten minutes.”

“Alright,” I say.

Teresa lies down with her head on my lap.
 
I caress her hair. Sweat pours from my face.

“Do you love me?” Teresa says.

“Of course,” I say.

“How much?”

“So much it hurts. The oil you put on me feels like a thousand angry fire ants.”

“You’re sweet.”

After Teresa’s egg timer goes off, she stops kissing me and says, “Happy anniversary.”

I laugh. “What?”

Her smile withers. “You really don’t remember, do you? You don’t recognize me at all. I mean, from before.”

“Um.”

Teresa stands and holds out her hands. I take them. I gaze into her eyes, and they’re like tiny planets, full of life and death and power.